Erelim drank the liquid in the mug and discovered that it wasn’t wine. From the metallic taste, he realized quickly that he’d taken a sip of blood. He almost choked before swallowing it down and the others cheered as he was inducted into their ranks.
“Praise the Rebel Serpent,” Milos said to the new recruit. “His blood will help us on our quest.”
Xenakis coughed. “Is that what I’m drinking?”
“It will help you see the truth,” Milos said in respect of the supernatural. “The Great War will soon be here.”
“Can you translate?” asked the boy.
“It’s gibberish,” said Erelim. “They don’t seem to know the difference between reality and fantasy.”
The group of Romanians set up a fire to cook a piece of meat. It was the leg of a large creature, though the texture of the skin appeared to be reptilian.
“What are they fixing?” Edmund wondered.
“It’s a Zilant, the children of Zalmoxis,” Radu offered. “The meat is tough but it feels good in the stomach.”
“I’m not sure what to tell you,” Erelim translated. “I know you’re starving.”
Edmund nodded, looking blue from the cold. The Templar’s vision blurred a little and a reddish tint appeared with an acidic burn behind his eyes. His body protested his movements like being underwater, and something in the drink gave him a desire for more until the cup came around again. When the taste hit his lips again, the inebriation of the Romanians began to make sense.
“What is this liquid?” he asked.
“I told you,” said Milos. “It is the blood of the dragon.”
“How did you get it?”
“With much difficulty,” the Romanian answered with a laugh.
“I need some water.” Erelim stood up and walked towards the sound of a stream. He turned to reassure Edmund that he would return quickly, but the boy’s attention was on a piece of roasted meat as he was peeling back the scaled skin.
“The demons of this world are finite, but a pure spirit has no end,” Milos said through a mouthful. “Now you can see.”
The power of the drink was overwhelming and Xenakis almost tripped as the laughter of the soldiers stretched into a loud and rolling hum. He soon found himself on the muddy banks of a river. The Carpathian peaks came into view, but the sunlight was trapped by a mist above the trees, which funneled to the ground and caressed the Earth with ephemeral connection.
At the edge of the flowing water, he dunked his head in. After taking big gulps of melted snow, he discovered that he couldn’t see his reflection upon the surface. As the crucifix he wore around his neck caught the Sun, a lonely spark dangled over the water. On the opposite bank, an immaculate white horse stood in the meadow, drinking in delicate peace.
Erelim held his breath to avoid frightening the divine creature that was somehow untarnished by the mud. His clothes became new again, and his chainmail held a polished shine as defective chinks were repaired and the stain of countless enemies marking the impurity of his mantle was restored. The horse walked away, causing Xenakis to feel as if his heart was being torn out.
The grace of the steed grew distant and took its magic with it, so he stepped into the river to follow. His feet plunged in and he was lucky not to be drowned by the armor that protected him. He looked back to see if the camp was still in view, but the water traveled into an ocean without boundary. With the absence of the pale horse, Erelim left his thoughts of the world.
Surprised to see that the hoofprints of the animal repaired themselves, effectively erasing its tracks, he came to a vibrant meadow. In the careless garden of swaying leaves touching each other like thoughtful lovers, white flowers were blooming over moss that covered the trees. He stepped through yellow orchids that filled the air with glowing dander, and felt unseen hands touch his face with subtle compassion and the sensation of feminine fingertips.
After the trail disappeared, he found himself hurrying nowhere and chastised himself for being mesmerized by the beauty. He followed the sound of someone weeping to a young woman sitting on a rock. Her sobbing seemed like an echo, and she was naked except for loose fabric that floated above her skin. Falling petals circled her, carried by an invisible current that made Erelim forget about the horse. Her head was low, letting tears drop onto the linen where they flared red before fading.
He took a knee in the soft grass beside her and asked, “Why are you crying?”
Her eyes were deep with a tempest. He tried to see her face, but she turned away to avoid him. When her next teardrop fell, he put out his hand and caught the burning sizzle on his palm. She seemed to regret that her sorrow had affected him and touched the wetness in his hand, spreading it over his cheeks and drawing false tears from his eyes. Xenakis bit back the searing pain as she performed the ritual. When it was over, she kissed him and he felt the sting subside.
She leaned back with a look of pride, recognizing their connection as a reason to speak with him. Her sadness kept her in the physical realm, so when she rediscovered her infinite heart, she showed him the innocence of her youth. She regained her permanent state by his lips and seemed slightly ashamed to have stolen something important from him. The sudden agony was a jolt that charged him with adrenaline and he was awakened from the illusion that the meadow was somehow free of pain.
He smiled and let his memory wander on the kiss. Though it was brief, he found himself wanting more. He said with a voice that seemed distant even to him, “You’re an angel,” but she looked away and her torment started again. She began to lose the depths of her wondrous eyes and he was filled with a fear that entered through his weakness for her. “Why are you sad?”
She gave him a look that made him forget himself. “You do not know the truth.”
“Of what?” he pleaded. “Who has hurt you?”
She turned away, unable to maintain his stare. “Why did you leave me?”
“I’ve never been here before,” he said. “Please tell me why you’re crying.” She shook her head with little movement, other than the lines of silken water. He looked around and everything beyond the serene meadow was changing into swampland. “Don’t you see how I look at you?”
She brightened a little, regarding the moment as ancient history. “I did.”
“I am a warrior of God.”
She frowned, mocking him. “Whose soul do you protect while your family waits for you in hell?”
He went rigid, stabbed to the core. “I control vast armies,” he replied. “They wait for my slightest wish. I can will the Earth to move and the rain to stop.”
She scoffed at his pathetic boasting. “You are not God.”
“And you are not a thing of hell.”
She stared into his chest and he realized that she was looking at his crucifix. “The darkness is always close.”
“What’s your name?” he asked.
“You feel the sway of infinite things and give no notice. The Earth breathes beneath you, but you do not listen. You are only a man, and you forget so easily the difference between Heaven and hell.”
“Then who exists to remind me?” he said, and she lifted her soggy eyes.
“I’m a Dryad,” she revealed.
“What’s your name?”
“Sanziana.”
“And why do you cry?” he asked in solemn regard.
“Because flowers wilt and you pray to nothing.”
Her disillusion was darker than he could know, but Xenakis tried again. “Butterflies die and stay beautiful.”
“Yet they do not fly anymore, do they?”
“True beauty is permanent. All the elements only briefly display that which cannot die. Though all else can be poisoned, evil has no dominion over goodness.”
“How much wisdom is there in a single life?” the Dryad mocked him. “There are demons surrounding you, not the armies of your dreams. While all e
lse is broken, you have to remain one. Only this can save you, and it isn’t faith.” She pointed to his chest, moving the crucifix out of the way.
“My heart?” asked the knight. Milos had mentioned evil faeries and it seemed that she wanted to take something precious from him.
“All else has boundaries.”
“If your home is the Source, why do you lament?”
“Angels do not feel,” she said. “They cannot touch or love.”
“What is there to wake us from this illusion?”
“The knowledge of yourselves,” Sanziana replied. “And this is why I cry.”
“Because when men see you, they only remember this world?”
“You were the first to see me,” she said. “I try to replenish the land, but my sisters burn it without restraint.”
“You’re not a finite being or a timeless entity,” Erelim surmised. “You’re an elemental between worlds and even you need a guide, so how can I help?”
Sanziana smiled, appreciating his ability to see through her language. “You only have one protection, your innocence,” she said of his material comprehension.
“Then where are the angels?” he wondered.
“Protecting children, helping the sick and those in combat, healing broken hearts and enlightening minds. Some deliver the forgotten to Lucifer as they travel through the Underworld.”
“But Satan doesn’t exist,” said Erelim. “There is no god of destruction.”
“Then you don’t believe what you see?” Sanziana pointed to the slow dissolution of the garden as the decay grew closer. “The emptiness of death, the hunger and the pain?”
“All else has boundaries, but not the soul,” he repeated her words. “Time is a limitation, so there is no time. That’s an illusion.” He watched the Dryad’s reaction and a small plot of lush greenery stayed, stopping the disintegration around them. Flowers grew along the desolate landscape, reanimating the parched trees with budding leaves. “Innocence is lost with the knowledge of death.”
“Go on,” she coaxed, as if she wasn’t responsible for what was happening.
“Everything changes,” he told her. “But life isn’t what it seems. The boundaries remain, you remain, always unappreciated. So you created an illusion for the one who could see you.”
“I cry because I must ask for your help,” she said. “I need it from the one person I’ve met with a boundless soul and it’s the only thing I cannot ask for now.”
“If you’re bound by a spell, then where are your sisters?”
“I told you, the demons surround us,” she said, and he watched the replenished land reform a breathtaking meadow.
“You need blood,” he guessed. “All living things are connected by blood.”
“There is far more sacrifice in a kiss. Humanity builds the chains that keep us locked because you forget that we are here.”
Xenakis was still confounded. “You cannot take from me what you must? If you have both attributes to live between worlds, freedom and boundary, this would mean that you also have illusion, so maybe the chains aren’t real.”
Sanziana smiled as the weight was lifted. “When you see the world as it is, then I will be free. Follow my sisters to the Source.”
“How will you taste my innocence?” he continued.
“You must only remember our kiss, because the heart of your sin rests in my eyes.”
She pointed towards his destiny and he saw hoofprints in the mossy carpet. Sanziana disappeared, an apparition who faded with the sadness she brought and he found himself where he started, on a path towards a divine animal he could not catch. He let his mind wander over the enigmatic things the Dryad said and started to doubt that he had spoken to her at all.
He walked through the meadow, believing that it would reveal a dark fantasy underneath. The idea of her was drifting, so he pulled his dagger and cut his hand to mimic the pain her tears had rendered. Closing his fist around the blood, he looked back to see if she was there. While the area bloomed with beauty, it gave no indication of her presence.
Coming into contact with her had been painful, but it was the only substantial experience of his life. The more he thought about her, the less he could decipher what she wanted, and he couldn’t care less about the pale horse anymore. Since she had begged for his assistance and then disappeared without hesitation, he had nothing left to focus on but his failure.
Before her redemption, he had been killing the enemies of God, but the Crusade was a war over land and not spiritual domain. The Grail was a fountain of myth created by a poet and the Templars had to proceed without the same principles that created them. After all, the blood of the savior was given in death and not in victory, and certainly not by men who favored the idea that they were somehow greater than the truth.
* * * * *
After leaving the Dryad, the land started reverting to its natural state. The withering greenery aged quickly and drying moss pulled back from the rocks. Soon the dead leaves cracking beneath Erelim’s feet were replaced by fine sand that caught the wind. Through the obstruction came an attractive noise, which he followed in the hope of seeing Sanziana once more. He crossed the barren land between petrified pine trees and heard female voices singing at the edge of a thriving woodland.
When he caught sight of the sisters of the Dryad, he knew that she must have been benevolent. The elemental faeries were related to the water nymph, but while Sanziana the Dryad had appeared weightless and brought new life, her sisters had hair that rose like flames and spread annihilation. With skin that was orange-yellow like the Sun, and bodies glowing as if torches were lit inside, the sisters held out their hands and stepped into the vibrant forest, dropping liquid flames into the underbrush in their wake and burning everything in a rising inferno with their repetitious song. “Ruxanda, Tiranda, Dumernica!”
Xenakis thought about the lightning strike that must have ignited the blaze in his world, but he was becoming less concerned about what existed outside of his perception when he felt the intense heat upon his face. He stumbled over fallen trees as the sisters drenched the area in the chaos of natural disaster, and he had to shelter his exposed skin when the tendrils of their long hair coiled like snakes and struck him with a harsh sting.
His chainmail grew hot with icy numbness before he jumped through a bush of briars and thorns. The prickly ends of the shrub tore at him, ripping his clothes as he passed through. He tripped into the open on a steep path with a thousand slices on his flesh. Erelim looked down the mountain in the snowy weather with aching burns under his blackened clothes and smoke lifting from his chainmail.
Surrounded by impaled warriors, he walked uphill through bodies dressed in red Roman capes and the Norman and Seljuk attire of the Crusades. All poked through and suspended upright, some were lifted by pikes shoved under their jaws while others had been punctured between their legs. He scanned the men’s faces until finding a head on a stick that caught his attention.
Near Turks with cotton coverings for desert travel, the blood-caked knight bore resemblance to someone he had known. Though the dead warrior’s face was bloated, his sharp Nordic features were still recognizable. Erelim thought about calling the man by name when the eyes opened and the head tried to form words through the decay of its gasping lips. The pupils rolled and he felt invisible fingers gripping his windpipe, sucking the breath out of him.
With his vitality being drained by the bony hands of the restless spirits, he broke from the impaled phantoms that freed themselves from their pikes and walked towards him on wobbly legs. As they shuffled forward, he backed away from the outstretched limbs of the cursed soldiers coming awake to steal his life. He was trapped with only one possible escape and ran uphill through the marching corpses trying to absorb his essence.
On the mountaintop was an old castle worn by weather’s torment with an inviting light coming from within. Once inside, he shut
the heavy doors to lock away the awkward undead and put a locking log across the entranceway. He faced the crumbling halls of a forgotten palace and walked on a carpet as thick as sheep. He was glad to get out of the biting cold as he entered a large room lined with armor from cultures he didn’t recognize.
Behind purple curtains that draped the curved staircase near tapestries depicting historical battles, a soothing woman’s voice echoed, “Put away your sword, good knight, you won’t need it here.”
Xenakis did as he was told after noticing that his dirty footprints disappeared into the carpet behind him. He went through hanging red curtains that appeared like open lips and couldn’t help but feel as if he was being watched by the suits of armor on silent display. In the elaborate room designed like a Roman villa, there were hanging plants near a fountain in the corner that sent cool water through a trough in the tiled floor.
The dangling fabric parted around a woman waiting on a backless couch. Dressed in gold-trim robes that clung to her breasts, her jewelry of polished stones amplified her beauty. “You’ll have no more trouble from the Moroi,” she said, gesturing for him to sit. Beside her was a table with a single cup.
“The Moroi?”
“They could have stolen your life, but it would not have delivered them from fate.”
“I should thank you for this sanctuary,” he said. “But I assume that there are only two possibilities for it.”
She looked as if she might be Egyptian, with long features beset by inviting oval eyes. “Tell me.”
Erelim stood in front of the woman whose physical youth betrayed her ancient soul and said, “Either the undead keep you trapped here –”
“And the other possibility?” she inquired.
“The Moroi work for you and pushed me here.”
She smiled. “I was a Queen once. If I wanted you, it would only take a snap of my fingers. And the Moroi do not work for me, they were already dead when they put themselves on display.”
He thought about the severed head. “They impaled themselves?”
She motioned again for him to sit. “There would be no sanctuary without a terrible world outside. Choice is what makes you special, but I did not coax you here.”
Still weary of the illusion, he said politely, “I wouldn’t want to get dirt on you.”