Initiation
Disclaimer: I do not own Koudelka, I've just played it so often I dream it at night. sad really
One day my teacher and I took a sudden train ride and a walk through a churchyard, an old place with graves and markers white with age. She took me to a crypt, slipping open the wrought iron gate and slamming it closed behind us. I was instantly cold, having worn my lighter clothing for the warm summer weather in London. I shivered and Helena stared at me with hard eyes.
"Are you afraid of these old stones, girl? Or what lies beneath them?"
It was a double-edged question, but I wasn't afraid of cold stones or empty graves.
"I should have brought my coat," was all I said then moved past her to take the path down into the ground. The crypt was more than just cold. It was deep in the protective earth and the smell of cold stone, cold iron and empty death was like an ice spear piercing my heart. What was this place?
I could hear the light brushing of Helena's gown on the stone floor behind me but I ignored it. She brought me here for a reason and it was up to me to determine that reason and confront her with it. I closed off my ears to her light but purposeful tread and instead, sent my hearing ahead, ranging into the darkness of the crypt. I could hear the gentle scurrying of rodents, the light brush of their whiskers as they fled into their holes. And I could hear their minute voices, smell their dung and see their life forces... small bits of light and energy slipping between the stones.
I continued down the cold walkway, deeper into the crypt, the darkness surrounding me in its icy grip. I could not see my breath forming like fog before me, nor make out the small recesses with their recent additions. My eyes were wide open, but the dark of the passageway was impenetrable. Finally I reached a small stairs, winding downward deep into the earth and I took these, one hand trailing along the stone wall, feeling the cold dry become cold damp; the stones were wet with condensation and I could smell mould and other underground scents. Around and around the stairs went, narrow and deep, until I stopped, my foot resting on an entryway jamb, an iron door blocking my way. I felt around it, feeling the icy chill penetrate my fingers and I shuddered with more than cold before running my hands over the door in the dark, looking for the handles. These I found and twisted, the iron screaming in protest and I winced with the sound. Then, pushing the door open, I stepped into the deeper dark.
It was so black that the shadows had shadows. I could not see, only the sparks of my eyes trying to make things out in the crypt. I felt my way around, tapping my boot a bit ahead of me, but stopped when I heard the door move behind me.
"Lady Helena?" I asked and my voice sounded frightened even to me. She did not answer, but pulled the door closed and I heard the slamming of a lock on the other side. Had she locked me in? I turned back toward the door and stumbled over my own feet, crashing to the cold stone flags. I scraped my knees, tore my stockings getting to my feet again, and slammed hard against the cold iron door, banging on it with nervous fingers.
"Helena? Lady Helena!"
However, she didn't answer. Somehow, I hadn't expected her to. This was more of her deviousness, more of her tricks. Like the last time. Like last Christmas.
There had been a great gathering at her home of Theosophists and philosophers, teachers and students from India and America. She gathered them to her like chicks to the hen and the house was filled with voices, mostly men, but some women; and of course, the Ascended Masters. I heard them, and the other ghostly voices almost daily now, my teacher training me to see, and hear, and feel. I had been with her for four years and, although she was like a mother to me, the things she taught me – I still didn't know if it was a blessing or a curse.
That night, after supper, the older people gathered in the study, the fireplace roaring, and they had drinks. I was there too, the only one so young – the only child in the building actually - and I sat, nearly somnolent, in a chair against the far wall of the study. My chair was next to the huge bookcase and desk while the fireplace and the adults were across the room. The warmth and the deep voices, combined with a full belly and the crackling of the fire, had me nearly asleep. I felt myself grow tingly, as if my hands and feet had gone numb, and the buzzing sounds in my ears were like a hundred flies. I blinked and raised my hand to wipe away a sweat drop and found my arms no longer moved, so heavy had they become. I struggled to move my arms, then my legs, but I couldn't, the lethargy was deepening and I looked up through blurry eyes to see the room slowly fading.
It felt like sleep at first and then suddenly I was bursting with energy, rising up to fling myself out of the chair, looking down at the adults in their chairs, their motions frozen in time and their eyes locked onto emptiness. I looked from one to the other of them, and then to my teacher who, sitting in the great chair, her head tilted to one side, looked right at me. I felt a fluttering in my heart, a nervous excitement and then moved away, passing from the room, my feet never touching the floor. Through the second floor I fled, then the attic, and finally to the gabled rooftop and out into the cold December night. I felt lighter than air, lighter than the twinkling stars and I rose higher and higher until the city below me was a small dot of twinkling lights and deeper darks. Higher and higher, until the clouds themselves were but mere specks, and the moon and the stars were all smaller than the buttons on my shoes.
Finally I slowed, the wings at my back a flutter of rainbow colours and I was suddenly smiling at the realization that I had wings. I could fly! I moved with the thought, my wings catching stardust and carrying me along. Joy filled me like never before and I soared higher and higher, catching a glint of stars on my left, a dusting of lights on my right. Completely enamored, I did not think what this meant, or where I was until a voice spoke to me, calling my name.
Slaato. That name I had not heard since before I left home, and the voice was deep, resonating in my ears and my mind. My father's voice - the night he died, forgiving me for being born, forgiving me for the sin of killing him. I turned on my wings, suddenly still in the cold dark of space, the world beneath me lost in the distance and I listened, looking for my father.
Papa? I waited, time meaningless in the great expanse, and I called again, Papa? But he did not speak again and I turned back toward the place I had been, letting the darkness drag me down and down until I felt the world appearing around me, my wings shriveled to little nubs and my feet resting but not quite touching the carpet in the study. The room looked as I had left it, with my teacher frozen in that moment of observation, her eyes glittering, and somehow I knew she was very aware of me.
Saddened, I looked toward the chair and saw myself, leaning precariously against the chair back, my knees together and my mouth open. I could be dead for all that I did not see me breathing. I crossed the carpet, stopping before me, looking down on the sleeping child-not-yet-a-woman that was me. My hair had grown long and sleek during my years with Lady Helena and, although I often ate like a pig, I hadn't grown too heavy, mostly filling out in breast and hip. Looking at myself I knew I had inches yet to grow, but the humor of looking at myself in such a state had me reaching down to pinch my to pinch my nose.
Behind me I heard a deep rumble of laughter and I jumped, turning around to scan the room. No one had moved but then I spotted the stranger standing by the fireplace.
Who are you? I wondered and the man smiled without speaking. He was tall and thin, regal in appearance; his knee boots were brown like deerskin and, at his shoulders, his epaulets glittered an orangey-gold.
We've met before. I am Saint Germain. His voice was the rumble I had heard and the voice of my father as well.
You're one of Lady Helena's Ascended guys, right? I asked and the man grinned, waving it away.
One could say so.
I stared hard at the handsome man and my gaze moved back and forth between him and Lady Helena in her chair.
I've seen you before. The first night I was here. Why did you pretend you were my father just now?
Did I pretend?
You're not my father?
Yes and no. He is here, now, with you as am I.
Oh, so you're telling my you're a ghost. That's bullshit and you know it!
The day will come when you will meet ghosts and spirits both angry and sad, Slaato. Your time of walking in the sunlight with your teacher is nearly over. You must make your own way; and when you do, we will meet again.
I blinked and he was gone, the room suddenly spinning around and I fell back, landing with a hard thud on the chair. Sitting up I stared suddenly at Helena. Her eyes were boring into me like needles. She knew something had happened just now, although I could not find the words to describe it to her. She knew then, and she knows now, and so she shut me into this little trap of hers.
"So, teacher, what kind of visions am I supposed to see now?" My voice echoed in the dark crypt, bouncing between the walls and the door where I was sitting, huddled in the cold.
The dark did not abate, the cold grew only colder, and I sat shivering in my summer clothing in the crypt beneath the earth. How long I waited, I cannot tell – an hour, a day, a week. After a while, I knew hunger, my stomach rumbling its protest and still I shivered alone. I called out for Lady Helena, calling her teacher, mother, bitch, whore – all the nasty names I could think of and a few I should not have known. But it did no good, for the door did not open and so I sat, back to the cold metal and hated.
Hated my father for dying. Hated my mother for throwing me out because of this curse of Sight. Hated the man who took my virginity, and every subsequent man along the way. Hated the killer who caused me to flee the warehouse district for St. Paul's and hated falling on my face in front of so many well off people. Hated my teacher, hated her friends, hated the ghosts, and the voices, but mostly, and the thought shook me deeply, mostly I hated myself.
Why was I born, if I'm just to be some man's vessel? Why was I born if my own people are only going to hate me? Is everyone going to hate me from now on? Maybe I don't care. My thoughts swum on the visions of darkness and cruelty that had been my companions since fleeing my village. The dark figure moving in the shadows, the bright sheen of blood on a knife striking again and again – I remembered that night suddenly, with a clenching in my belly and a feeling terror.
Jack... I had seen his face. I had heard his voice and felt his hatred toward the woman, toward me. I shifted on the cold stone floor, the feeling of terror rising in me, the sound of his footsteps in the dark corner to my left, pushing me to my knees, scrambling in the dark to find somewhere to hide. How could he be here? I don't understand.
"What do you want?" My voice, quavery and small in the darkness, echoed back at me with laughter and madness. I crawled on my knees, pausing finally to rise, my arms out beside me, feeling for something solid, a wall, a crypt, anything to put between me and the madman that lurked in the shadows. I stumbled forward, striking a cold stone slab and moved around it, sliding to the floor beside it, listening for the man's voice, his breathing, his footsteps.
How could my teacher do this to me? Why? Why? I heard the breath beside me, near my left ear, his fetid breath hot and stinking. How had he gotten so close? I leapt up, falling over the stone slab, bruising my belly and breasts as I crashed down again, rolling in the dark to get away. But the shadow leapt in the dark, catching me, covering me, pressing me down and I could feel his rough hands on me, his foul breath as he covered my mouth, sucking the breath from me. I could feel him pressing against me, moving my legs, piercing me with his cold, hardness and filling me with pain and anger and a cold, seeping darkness that oozed up from my womb, filling my belly and pushing up to my breasts, my nipples rising and oozing blackness. I could feel him pushing into me, his hard black chest pushing past my breasts, his chin into my throat – my flesh becoming his flesh and I opened my mouth to scream.
My world became red as I climbed to my feet, anger, envy, and righteous hate filling me with such power! I screamed in my defiance, my voice deepening, the timbre more like a man's and I rushed toward the door, pounding on it, pulling on the handle until it screeched in torn metal and wood. The heavy door boomed against the crypt wall and I flung myself up the dark stairs, the air swirling in red hues like blood. I barreled up the stairs, coming to the crypt gate exit in no time at all, seeing the dark clad woman by the gate I growled my hatred of that bitch who had imprisoned me and kicked the gate open.
Lady Helena turned startled brown eyes at me seconds before I put my hands around her neck, squeezing and pressing the soft flesh between my hard fingers. I pushed, shoving her to the ground and my teeth ground in my mouth, blood oozing from my lips and spattering line rain onto the woman's soft, flabby breast. One handed I ripped the dress from her body, seeing the swell of white flesh and I stabbed downward, the cold steel blade in my hand rising again and again with a crimson sheen. I raised my face to the cloudy sky and screamed and screamed until my voice was raw and then I fell back, the icy cold seeping into my bones and I closed my eyes, knowing once more the darkness around me.
I lay as if dead, my body so heavy I could not move. I knew only the darkness behind my eyelids, the seeping cold of the stone floor, and the deathly quiet of the grave. What was happening to me? Was this some test? Some trial that I must pass? I despaired ever getting out of that crypt, a feeling of helplessness overwhelming me. Warm tears leaked from my closed eyes and trickled down the sides of my face, gathering in pools in my ears, tickling my neck as they flowed on down into my hair. What was I to do?
"What do you want of me?" I cried out and my voice was my own, strained and raw from screaming in the cold dark. Panting, hot tears turning cold, I lay in the dark and listened to my own gasping breath, and the slight sounds of life that trickled to me from within the stones and the crypt. As the life moved within the stones, the little lives of rodents and insects, I slowly relaxed, realizing that life went on even in the face of death. And I sighed, a breathy noise that echoed and re-echoed in the cold, dark tomb. Will I ever get out of here? I wondered and let the heaviness that held me to the stone floor press me further into oblivion.
The wind was blowing off the ocean and the chill of it seeped into my bones. I looked around, the nicker of my horse the only close sound besides that of the wind. I looked across the wide plains of tall grass, watching as it whipped furiously with the gale and I pulled the coarse material that was my cape closer around me. It had rained earlier in the morning, the ground was soft with mud, the smells rising beneath the horses' hooves, and I wondered if I would ever be warm and dry again. The horse turned and climbed down the hill, taking me into the next town.
On the ridge above the town I looked down, the slow river winding from the hidden source in the mountains and dumping into the sea. But here, here it was wide and slow, and grains waived peacefully in the fields. Beyond the west pasture, the sheep pens were full of black and white and brown. I'd never see those sheep again, and little love to them, though I'd slept the last few weeks amidst their living wool. A movement to the north caught my eye and I could see a handful of townspeople beginning the long climb up the hill, torches and pitchforks in hand. With a frown, I moved back, climbing the last ridge to take me far away from my home on the Thuliesian River.
A thousand bodies lined up along the corridor, row after row, their various parts mixed and jumbled like a child's puzzle. A thousand corpses lying piled in heaps and hillocks of rot and offal, the slime of fresh killed flesh oozing over the dry and brittle bones of those long since rendered to mere skeletal remains. The nacreous corridor, a loathsome green like sickly algae, was cold, and fetid remains filled the cold air with bilious decay. I stepped in a puddle of putrescence and felt myself gagging at the aroma of rich and fertile death.
The pain was a thousand thousand needles piercing my flesh, and each stroke was both blessing and curse. I could feel their joy at my pain, their hatred of me like an old blanket, and I closed my eyes to their presence. Instead I reached outward, seeking, ever seeking, to find the one whose name I did not know – but whom I had dreamed of night after night for more than twenty years. A child, a boy, a man... these things I did not know, could not know, but I heard him cry like a lone wolf in the wilderness and I sought him...
The little bundle lying against my breast, the seeking mouth tugging hungrily on my nipple, those intense almost seeing green eyes... He is so full of life and potential and as he sucks greedily, I remember the one who gave him to me, for he too sucked greedily at my breasts, almost tearing them in the intensity of his sexual need. He too has green eyes and hands roughened with work. But this night's work was beyond anything either of us could have dreamed, and the results...
I rolled over onto my side, the cold penetrating my shoulders and making me shiver. I looked around, but the darkness of the crypt remained. I sighed and climbed to my feet, feeling every ache in my bones and muscles as I brushed at my legs, trying to feel my feet, my legs. I stumbled in the dark, turning around and around and finally slamming into the door, the wood cold and rough against my cheek, but offering a blessing anyway for finding it. My hand ran across the rough wood, finding the iron handle and pulled, the scream of metal on metal piercing my ears before the door swung inward.
It's unlocked? I inhaled quickly, my heart leaping in my breast and I stumbled out of the crypt, falling briefly on the stone stairs before climbing again and running for the surface. Each echoing step took me nearer and nearer to light and warmth and life. Each step I asked myself, had the door ever been locked? Had it been my imagination? Or had it been a trick of my teacher – a test?
At last I exploded out of the mausoleum, bursting into the graveyard to find the day nearly gone, the sun westering into a rainbow of promised rain. I looked about to finally spot Lady Helena, sitting on a stone bench near the graveyard gate, her hands folded in her lap, her eyes closed in prayer. A few more steps I took, onto the gravel path, and to her side, standing with my fists clenched at my side, my mouth gaping like a grounded fish, and my mind swimming with accusations, but my voice would not speak. Instead my teacher rose, not seeing me, and headed for the graveyard gate.
"Did something happen?" she asked, her voice calm, and I wanted to scream. Yes! Of course, something happened! You knew it would, you bitch! But the truth was, she had waited for me. She asked because she did not know. And, on the long train ride back to London, I had time to think about this little day trip and all that I had envisioned. For it came to me that this test was a rite of passage. My clairvoyance, my power, was awake. And it would never be silent again.
Reviewers:
ActivelyIndisciminate: Thanks for reading my little opus. As noted above, I have indeed played this game to death and it has inspired a lot of my ideas. There is a bit of research behind her story, from the developers, and I merely explored it further; if that comes off as intelligent, then "go me!" XD And, while I am aware of Anthony and have read Tolkien, I am a firm believer that Poe was GOD!