An Existence For Myself
Disclaimer: We all know I don't own them, so don't bother getting your attorneys.
I had gambled and lost. But all was not lost yet. It was true that Yuri and Alice had failed in part of their mission, to rescue me from Calios. Well, they tried, as did my boy, Halley. I was so pleased to see him; he'd grown so tall and strong. He was willful and adventurous, but he had a good heart, and I knew that Yuri could teach him much about himself. But for now, they were left behind in Calios, the mental hospital that had been my prison for the past three years. And I prayed they would follow my last words carefully and find Roger Bacon in Wales.
Meanwhile, beaten but not cowed, I went with he who called himself Bacon. This man, this warlock, who had been the overseer of my tortures, the instrument of my pain – as much as Rausen was the defiler, Simon was the mastermind. My body hurt, my soul ached for Halley and Yuri and Alice and my past, for it was my past which led me to this course and I could not blame any but myself.
I stood up, my arms and legs bound with straps, defiant of Simon's attacks on Halley. My boy - my baby no longer. I gambled that Yuri could help me, free me before I could be forced to accede to Simon's demands – all to save Alice, to save Yuri, to save the world. But I failed, and Simon took me, accepting my parole for my son's life, while Yuri and Alice…
We arrived in Wales a pair of heartbeats later, Simon's grip on my arm firm but not hurting; he had need of me. We descended the sanctuary steps and I could see the blown out remains of the ancient cauldron used by Patrick in his experiment. The air above ground had been breezy but warm, smelling of grass, sea spray and old burnt ruins. However, below the air was oppressive with age and ire. He was gone, sealed by my hand fifteen years ago, but his spirit remained sealed within the chambers beyond, and the ghosts of the dead of this place – from the ancient Celtic ruins, up through the Christian church, the sacrifices of pagan and mad scientist, still hung heavily in the dark chamber. I felt a weight on my chest of a thousand thousand voices crying in pain and horror, and quickly shut down my mind, becoming numb to the screaming dead.
Simon opened the sealed door to the underground ruins and dragged me along beside him. The voices of the insane dead echoed in the rocks and dirt of this place, the slither and skitter of underground creatures were a warning of impending attack, but none came – the aura of the warlock frightened more than children. We passed by the fallen hypocausts, their stone faces broken, and down the stairs toward the pool. Behind me I could make out the red glow where I had sealed him, the stone pool boiling and bubbling in steaming heat, but Simon pulled me along quickly and I lost sight of it as we circled around and came to the pool. Here I had once fought Gug, a gigantic monster that lay in wait at the sacred font. Below, in the pool now filled with salt water, fish swam in the depths and only a vestige of the once beautiful font could be seen in the alabaster pillar set within the water. The runes that had once engraved the ground, the scrollwork that had once adorned lintel and wall were long gone, destroyed by the fires that had consumed this place.
Finally, we reached the last door, the stone stairs flanked by giant crosses carved with circled runes – I felt an expectant hush around me and opened my mind to the waiting spirits beyond. But as the doors slid open on the dark space beyond, I felt nothing. Simon pulled me in, and we began to climb steep steps, a willow-wisp of light dancing just above one of his outstretched hands and I could make out graves – row after row, tier after tier. Some wore crosses, their age showing in broken crosspieces and broken stones. Others wore merely a stone spike in the ancient soil, and from these graves, from these marks of deaths long past, I felt nothing. No voice, no calling, no emotions of ire or despair – only silence. These then were the builders of this place, whether human or no, their bodies left in this place of power as a warning or a signpost.
I looked up the long expanse of dark stone steps and caught a flash of light as Simon's ghost-light caught on something metal above and I felt my heart skip a beat – what was it that waited above us? Was it something ancient and forbidden? Or something Simon himself prepared? I knew the answer at the end of the long climb as we stopped on a dais - a circular platform surrounded by more stone crosses and, at one end, a small column, it's plinth holding a caduceus of stone and on that plinth as well, what had caught the light: an ancient tome, its copper cover rimed in rubies – and in Greek letters the words "Rylyeh". One of the forbidden books.
"So it was you, all those years ago, who stole the books from the Vatican," I said and my voice sounded hollow to my ears.
"Yes, I stole those books, and sought out helpers to work for my cause."
"But they failed."
Simon had left me standing at the altar, his own steps continuing around the stone platform, marking an outline on the stones.
"Yes. But now I will not fail, thanks to you," he said and I turned to see his marks actually overlaying older scars on the stones: rings within rings and runes along the edge.
"A Ring of Judgement," I breathed and shook my head. "You're a fool, Simon."
The silver haired warlock looked up at me from his work and smiled.
"We shall see, Witch of Dark Flames. For tonight we will raise the Temple of Neam to summon a God and cast judgement on all mankind."
He turned back to his preparations and I closed my eyes, listening to the silence around me, the distant echoes of the haunting dead beneath us in the Nemeton basement and, in my heart, I listened for the voice of Halley and his friends and offered a silent prayer to whatever god would listen, that they would come.
Simon's preparations and his silent gloating pride continued. My eyes closed, my mind calm, partly from my own desire and partly from his spells – for Simon did not trust me to be a faithful witch – nor should he. With my eyes closed, my body standing quiescent by the altar, I sent my mind roaming outward, reaching for the familiar taint that was Yuri or the brilliant warmth that was Alice or the whirlwind of emotions that was Halley. There, next to the monastery ruins, I could feel Roger, his ancient wisdom and his steady yet inquisitive mind active, alert, and full of life. Just beyond, in the outskirts of Aberystwyth, I could sense the coming and going of people, some heading for the new university built there. Reaching further, I crossed the land, reaching for Halley and found instead, a memory.
It was Alice, nervous and frightened, yet amazingly determined. She was alone in a dark and gloomy graveyard. She took a few hesitant steps in and clutched her breast with shaking fingers, her eyes as large as saucers. I could feel the terror and fear of the place clutching at her, ripping at her resolve. Why was she here – in this place? And where...? She crossed a path, climbing up to visit some tombstones, huge things with glowing symbols etched in the stone. I recognized them even as she read them, fire, earth and water, three of the six elements. She reached out, touching the stone and a feeling of bravery, very faint, trickled up from the stone. Whose thought was that? Then the next, and a feeling of repentance and sorrow, nearly overwhelming to me... ah, it was Yuri. This must be him ... I could feel through Alice's senses that she was searching for him, but this wasn't now, this was the recent past. I remained with her as she checked each of the other markers before taking the path to an ancient mausoleum.
What was I seeing here, in the eyes of memory? Masks, floating like ethereal spirits before the door, their voices raspy and cackling with humor - expensive humor. I've heard laughter like that before, when the inquisitors plied their questions. Alice is standing before them now, listening to them.
"Who'd have thought she'd come all this way to the mind's darkness? You wish to sacrifice your body, your heart, your very life over to the lad?" The questions were from a staff shaped mask and Alice looked up at it.
"Who are you?"
"The boy's soul you're searching for is seeking death, and preparing for it."
Startled, Alice exclaimed, "Seeking death?" I could hear her voice clearly now, her thoughts as she was remembering this.
Another mask spoke up, "Would you drag a poor soul who's finally about to find tranquility back to the burdens of life?"
But Alice suddenly stiffened, her heart filling with resolve, as she turned toward the mask. "I won't let Yuri die."
Another mask, this one a gathering of swords, remarked, and its tones were heavy with sarcasm, "To this soul who was unable to obtain his father's protection or his mother's affection… What exactly do you have to offer?"
I could feel Alice turning inward with her thoughts. What did she have to offer the boy... offer Yuri? ... or was it the masks ... she should not offer anything... they had no power over her...
"I… I don't know. I don't know what I have to offer Yuri. I just know that we can get through any hardship if we stay together."
I could feel it in her, in her memories. She was willing to give anything for this boy... The sword faced mask spoke again and my blood chilled. "Set one foot in there… and you must bear the lad's karma with him. Even so, will you go? The Four Mask's curse is binding. In return for opening the Gate, we will one day come for your soul."
"I don't care, as long as I can reach out to his soul."
I began to feel the memories fade, drawing back as the sword mask spoke one last time, "Are you willing to sacrifice your own soul to rescue him? If so, proceed…" and I knew I was seeing Alice's dreams, her memories of an earlier event and I knew she suffered a curse for Yuri.
"What are you doing?" a deep voice said and I opened my eyes to see Simon standing before me, his eyes glaring with suspicion. He raised one hand to my face, his fingers aglow with dark energies but I shook my head.
"Listening. Something you should do more often," I said softly, my voice barely above a whisper. Simon moved away, his laughter ringing falsely in the dim chamber.
"I have listened enough over the centuries. I have heard the voices crying out in the wilderness, the moaning tears of the countless dead over man's cruelty to man," he said and I knew he spoke a part of the truth – the truth he allowed himself.
"Yet you would do this thing," my eyes followed his movements as he paced the chamber. "Condemn even more innocents to your summoning. Commit genocide on a scale that mankind has not dreamed of."
The warlock turned to me and I could see him smile, the vacuous, ingenuous smile that graced his otherwise handsome features.
"You amuse me, witch. Remain. I have... an errand to attend to," he said and gestured, first to hold me and then to teleport away. My heart fluttered in panic. Where was he going? Had I misread him? What trap was he springing? The answers I did not know and I feared the not knowing.
Time slipped by and I counted my heartbeats. Soon they slowed until they thumped to the beat of crying souls, those souls I could hear in the basement beyond this chamber. Despite my calm, I was worried, for this place, this time, held so many memories, so many voices. And not just the voices of the dead.
"It won't budge. What are we going to do?" Young, handsome in his own rough way, with piercing blue eyes and the heart of a poet. Yet here he stood, rough hands beating on the solid iron-wrapped doors to the sanctuary and cursing the moment.
I looked up at the doors, the heavy iron bosses solid and cold and the wood of the door hard as the iron.
"How ironic," I said, anger and bitterness dripping from my lips, "to have made it this far," after a night of terror and horror and fighting untold monsters... "and not have access to the temple."
"Koudelka, Edward," James spoke from behind us and I turned to see those craggy features, set and fatalistic in some vainglorious decision. "You both must go now."
"What?" Edward shouted.
"It is my friend who is apparently responsible for this disturbance and therefore I am partially responsible for this trouble. I have no intention of asking for your sympathy, nor your help," he said. Ah, here it comes, I thought. The noble sacrifice of the Christian martyr. "From this point forward I can manage on my own," he finished.
"Don't kid yourself James," I hissed. "We didn't come along just for your sake." But, like a true knight, Edward stepped forward.
"No, Koudelka, you should go back now. It will be far too dangerous."
Right on cue. "Edward," I said and I can scarcely believe I said this, "Edward, you are the one who should go home! You are not meant for this world. Granted, you are a good fighter," and I looked down at his clenched fists... those same strong hands that had saved me how many times this night? "having had plenty of experience, and I won't deny the fact that you have that killer instinct either..." just ask Elias the thief... "but when all is said and done, you are an average Joe. I am not." Edward raised those hands to protest and I waved him off. "I was meant to exist in this realm. It is the only place I can carve out an existence for myself."
"Quit lecturing me!" he shouted and I stepped back, his raised fists dangerous. "I want no part of a lukewarm existence filled with regret! No," and he shook his head, dropping his fists to his sides, clenched with passion now, not anger. "No, my way is not to worry about consequences, and to do whatever it is I want to do. Chance means nothing to me; life's a gamble, and ... and once you place your bet, you better play to win or else you end up dead." He nodded once, his eyes looking at James before sliding to the cold stone paves beneath our boots. He was so passionate. What fire flowed in his veins... not his class, but his belief in himself.
"Edward," I said and then laughed in spite of myself. "Edward, you really are ridiculous."
Edward looked up and caught my eye, his blue orbs catching me and promising me things I knew he could never deliver. He smiled and the corner of his mouth turned up just a little, a tiny wrinkle showing under his left eye and I felt such warm feelings for this crazy, adventurous man.
"That's what they tell me," he said.
The memory of Edward and James... dear James and his foolish sacrifice... echoed with the ghosts in the monastery basement. Actually, I did him little service calling him a fool. He did what his heart commanded him, not his dead god, and his sacrifice saved not only Edward and me, but Elaine as well. A tittering laughter rose up the long stairs and I looked down to see movement... had Simon left the doors open? No, for only one in the physical world could open those heavy doors.
Instead of peering into the dark, I closed my eyes again, letting the air bring to me the sounds and scents of this place. The cold that was the machine lying buried off-shore, whose very life cords were wrapped around and under this place... the stones and soil with its teaming life, the sea, roiling and boiling in winter, now calm in its late summer warmth. The air, smelling of fish and brine and dung from the nearby fields, and the cries of herring gulls, and a few shrill eiders. Life surged around me in the world above, while death and disease surrounded me below. This was my place, the place to which I had become accustomed over the years, the world in which I had carved my position. And as this was my place, my world, it would fall to me to step in where others could not.