The Guide Page 12

  One night, Tor was scouting along the perimeter and found her perched atop the highest tier of the Lavtio, leaning back against the dome roof as she flipped through a leather-bound codex. He maneuvered around the other side, upwind from where Jane reclined, and scaled the columns, quiet as a mouse as it scurried across a stone floor.

  He crawled atop the slick surface of the dome, stalking closer. A playful attitude had emerged after they first arrived to Arnathia. With food and water no longer a pressing issue, Tor felt as if he could ease back. Giovanni even made the observation that the werewolf smiled and laughed more than he ever had since they began the journey from Egypt.

  What exactly brought about this change was anyone’s guess. Tor’s first, visceral assumption was that it had to do with Arnathia itself. There was an unmistakable energy within the city. Apart from the dark and forbidden sensations he had perceived in the armory towers, this place was ancient and lively with the ghosts of its former residents.

  Tor, like the others, hungered to know what happened here and who the people were. That hunger created some sort of bond between him and the city to the point that he couldn’t understand why anyone would ever want to leave. They must have been forced out. That was the only explanation he could fathom.

  He came closer to Jane and held his breath so she might not hear him.

  “Do you expect me to fall for that?” she said, never looking up from her book.

  Tor chuckled and slid down to sit next to her on the ledge. “It’s not a crime to try, is it?”

  Jane smiled sweetly and looked to him, a special sparkle in her eye. “I suppose not.”

  Despite the initial embarrassment of what occurred on the way to Arnathia, she and Tor had become fine friends. She did not flirt and he tried his best not to encourage the idea that he might have changed his mind. His wolf might not have cared about the age difference, which was a dangerous revelation, but Tor still could not bring himself to love her in the way she might have wanted before.

  He peeked at the text and read a few lines. “More myths?”

  Jane shrugged and tossed her blonde hair back over her shoulder. “Of course. My father can read council transcripts all day, but they put me to sleep. This is far more interesting.”

  Tor stretched out his legs and leaned back against the dome to copy her relaxed pose. “Tell me what you’re reading today.”

  Jane closed the book and placed it squarely in her lap. “It’s about their origins. Our origins. The origins of all vampires and werewolves.”

  “Truly? And what are our origins?” Tor asked, his heart light and willing to hear her speak, even though he might never subscribe to any belief other than the one in which he had been raised. Wepwawet, though Tor could finally grapple with the fact that he might have been a werewolf just as he was, remained the god of his childhood and the figure that he devoted his life to serving. He knew he was a descendent of Wepwawet and that was good enough for him. Michael’s open-ended question of where Wepwawet might have come from didn’t interest him nearly as much.

  Jane grinned. “The two gods that guard this place, Nuvaldo and Oxthalo, they were once brothers, born from the same human mother and father.”

  “They were not born vampire and wolf?”

  “No,” she replied, excitement sizzling in her voice. “They didn’t change until they were older. Oxthalo was a warrior and fought in many battles. One day, he was fighting off invaders that threatened to enslave his people. He was the last defender standing and he slaughtered the invaders. It was hot that day and he couldn’t find a drop to drink. In his exhaustion, he thought to drink the blood of his enemies. It changed him into a vampire because he acquired a taste for blood. When he realized what he had become, it was too late and he hated what he had done. But, Oxthalo could not reverse his mistake. So, he hid from the world under cover of night and loathed the taste and smell of garlic because the site where he first drank blood was in a field of garlic just outside of his home village. He repented of his violent ways and turned to the teachings of wisdom.”

  Tor listened, suddenly more intrigued than he thought he would have been. “So, is Erisitia his daughter or wife?”

  “His wife. She was human when they met and she could feel his sorrow. In her native land, she was something like an oracle with powers. The text says that she wept aloud the first time she laid eyes upon him because he was so beautiful and so tragic all at the same time. Erisitia wanted to help Oxthalo, but he continually pushed her away because he didn’t want to hurt her. She could also see into his memories. She saw what he had done and pitied him.”

  “Then how did she become a vampire too?”

  Jane held up her hand as she continued, her face alight with a kind of fanaticism that he wouldn’t have expected of her. “One day, Oxthalo was so distraught by his own sins that he tried to kill himself by not drinking blood at all. He made it three days without drinking, and then Erisitia came. He bit her and nearly drained her dry. She was nearly dead by the time he realized what he had done. He killed a deer from the nearby forest and tried to get her to drink its blood to replenish what she had lost. But, it did nothing for her. Then he killed a human and that human’s blood sustained her. She revived and became as he did, forever needing to drink blood to survive. Their children, my ancestors, retained a mix of both Oxthalo and Erisitia. That’s why we can feel emotions and see memories just as Erisitia did.”

  Tor looked toward the south, toward Oxthalo’s towers where Michael and Giovanni were busy studying. “Yaverik doesn’t have these abilities. What of that?”

  Jane shrugged. “Yaverik was bitten, not born. In the ritual for a human to turn into a vampire, they must drink the blood of another vampire for three days. I suppose it’s because the powers of empathy do not pass through the blood, but through the mind.”

  Tor turned to the north and stared at the back of Nuvdalo’s stone head that guarded the Lavtio. “And werewolves? How did they come to be?”

  Jane pulled up her knees to hug them to her chest, the book pressed tightly against her. “While Oxthalo went on to be a warrior, Nuvdalo chose to abandon humanity altogether. He hated the company of people and spent much of his time in the woods. Eventually, he was adopted into a wolf pack. He ran with them, ate with them, slept with them, and played with them all day long. As a man, he wanted to be more than just part of the pack. He wanted to be the leader of the pack. To do this, he had to become the alpha, but he was a man and the wolves did not completely respect him as an equal.

  “So,” she continued after a sigh, “Nuvdalo killed the alpha. In an act of revenge, the wolf’s spirit merged with Nuvdalo’s spirit and they became one. He could turn into a wolf to lead the pack or walk as a man amongst the human community.”

  This was not the story he wanted to hear. “Surely Nuvdalo regretted what he had done, just as Oxthalo did?”

  Jane shook her head. “Not exactly. It doesn’t say anything about him being remorseful. Nuvdalo envied the wolves and prized the abilities that he lacked, so becoming one was more of a blessing. The cost of murder wasn’t a concern. He did, however, long for a mate. He turned into a man, donned clothes, and entered the village to find a wife that could run with him and the pack. He found a fierce and independent woman, a woman who could fight like a man and sing a beautiful melody that soothed the beast inside of him. It was Amagitia. He brought her into the woods and the pack immediately loved her, except for one.”

  A mischievous grin split Jane’s face. “There was a she-wolf in the pack that wanted to be Nuvdalo’s mate. You want to know what happened to her? Amagitia killed the she-wolf and the same thing happened to her as it did to Nuvdalo.”

  Tor’s eyebrows shot up. “There were women werewolves?”

  “Evidently.”

  “Where are they now?” Tor sat up on his elbows. “I’ve never seen one and even daughters who were born from the priesthood couldn’t change.”

  Again, Jane shrugged her shoulder
s. “I don’t know. Perhaps my father will find something of that in the records. All the myth does is explain how Amagitia became the first female and set a precedence for all females born after her. They were fierce, cunning, and tirelessly devoted to their families and mates. That’s why she’s the goddess of fertility.”

  “So, all the gods and goddesses were once human,” Tor mused, looking back to the statues that surrounded the Lavtio.

  “Yes, but they were the first of our kind, the fathers and mothers to our race. They came together and built this city so that their children and their families could live in peace with one another… Do you want to know my favorite story so far?” Jane asked as she looked to the heavens. “It’s one about a princess. Her name was Tanatia and the book says she was the most beautiful and most gentle princess of all the royalty that came before or after her. She was the daughter of a werewolf king and vampire queen.”

  Tor smiled. It shouldn’t have been surprising that such a story was her favorite, given all they had been through already. He had to remind himself that there was no prejudice or inequality between the races before the time she spoke of. Arnathia was built upon the foundations of peace, it made perfect sense that the king and queen might have been a mixed pair.

  “Because she was the offspring of a werewolf and a vampire, she had traits from both. She could drink blood, but she didn’t rely on it. She could change into a wolf, as well as sense the emotions of others. She was a perfect blend of both races, but that made her more powerful. A few council members feared her, and what she would do when she came to the throne, so they had her assassinated.”

  “And this is your favorite story?” Tor laughed.

  Jane giggled. “It gets better, I assure you. The king and queen found out who had assassinated the princess, and they planned to have the council members, along with the assassins, executed. But, when the execution day came, Tanatia’s spirit appeared and stopped it. She asked for her parents to have mercy on the men because they only did what was in their nature to do. They feared change and what they couldn’t predict. So, instead of being executed, they were ripped of their titles and exiled from Arnathia.”

  She rolled onto her side to face Tor and let the book slide down onto the ledge at their feet. “From that day on, the people revered Tanatia as kind of a canonized spirit of peace and they held a moment of prayer to invite Tanatia in to reside over every decision of the council, so the judgment would be fair to all.”

  Tor nodded. “Yes, I’ll have to say that is a nice story. If only all the world behaved that way. Perhaps there wouldn’t be as much war.”

  Jane’s gaze became distant and pensive. “In the beginning, there was no hate or discourse, just as my father suspected. That didn’t last forever, though.”

  “Then, what happened? What changed?”

  Jane looked toward the south, just as Tor had done a moment before. “I’m sure Michael will find out any day now. There has to be some explanation. People don’t just become enemies for no reason. And if this myth was true and they prayed to Tanatia for guidance, perhaps something terrible happened to make them give up their peaceful ways.”

  Tor hoped, deep in his soul, that whatever that reason was, it was a good one. Shame belonged to those who tore apart families and entire civilizations over petty disagreements.

  Giovanni raked his hands through his hair and gripped the locks around his temples, pulling until some of the pain of his headache subsided. What was worse than reading a cryptic and ancient language for hours on end was reading it by unsatisfactory candlelight. Though Michael did not need any aid to read in the near pitch-black darkness of the tower, Giovanni struggled to keep the flames at an adequate distance from the delicate paper of the scrolls and codices pages so that he could read without singeing them on the heat of the lantern panes.

  Their situation in Arnathia, as far as anyone else was concerned, was favorable. Tor kept them fed with desert game and the fountain near the Lavtio continued to bring them fresh, cool water to drink. There was no lack of tasking, as every aspect of the civilization was copied into notes and the layout of the city was mapped in meticulous detail.

  Whenever they left Arnathia, they wanted to be sure that they would never need to make another trip back. Scrolls and documents were already being set aside to be brought back to Italy with them.

  It was a daily struggle to stay calm in the face of his padrone. During the daylight hours, it was easy to escape the tower and fret over the coming doom of their journey, away from the vampire who could sense his unease. Yet, during the night, when he was nearly held hostage within the tower until his head was pounding with new knowledge and his eyes burned from straining to read in the dim light, Giovanni could think of nothing else but where his contacts could have been.

  Perhaps they died somewhere in the desert? Perhaps they were waiting for the troupe to return to the southern edge of the sea before they made their strike? Giovanni had told his contacts of their intended path, but nothing had prepared him for what they discovered.

  This place, this ancient city that might as well have been Michael and Tor’s Eden, was the foundation of their race. It was their ancestors’ birthplace and from everything Giovanni read, it was the ideal model of the perfect civilization.

  Their system of government wasn’t tyrannical and surprisingly self-sufficient, despite the establishment of a monarchy and a quasi-republic senate. Besides the minor disputes, there was practically no dissention between the races. Being in the middle of the desert, they had no enemies who dared to cross the sands to disturb them, and even though they were so remote, they still managed to trade and become integrated with the outside world in the intellectual sense.

  They found scripts and texts from nearly every ancient language from Egyptian hieroglyphs to Latin to Sanskrit and even Oriental glyphs. Even art had made its way into Arnathian life. Homes were painted with murals and depictions of daily life, much like the villas in the golden age of the Roman Empire. Irrigation, plumbing, and other modern innovations had been in existence here for thousands of years.

  Arnathia might not have been just the birthplace of a race, but the precursor to all healthy civilizations that would carry on long after it dissolved.

  In all respects, Giovanni could put Arnathia on the pedestal as one of the greatest cities to ever exist. The only reason he continued to study the texts over and over again, besides not wanting to anger his padrone, was to discover what could have happened. He only hoped that he could discover it before they left, or before his contacts arrived, whichever would come first.

  In the darkness, Giovanni heard his padrone let out a moan, so laced with agony that he wondered if Michael had fallen ill. He quickly stood and carried his lantern to the other side of the tower where Michael sat on the floor, surrounded by volumes, tomes, and scrolls waiting to be devoured.

  Michael had his knees propped up, an open book in his lap, and hand covering his eyes as if he had just read the most disastrous passage in the history of written language.

  “What is it, signore?” Giovanni asked, kneeling in front of his padrone and lifting the lantern so he could see the vampire better.

  “I found it, Giovanni,” he muttered. “The reason why Arnathia fell.” He took a stuttered breath, his chest quivering with the effort as if he were ready to weep aloud for the terrible thing that had happened probably centuries ago.

  Giovanni set down his lamp on the sandy stone floor and took the bound book from his padrone’s lap. Skimming over the first few passages, he sighed. “A feud,” he whispered.

  “Not just a simple feud. It was idiotic!” Michael uncovered his eyes and motioned to the book. “How could a people so grounded in their mutual affiliation, give themselves over to such hearsay!”

  He looked to Michael, his eyes burning. “It says something about land, though.”

  Michael stood and stormed across the floor, waving his arms about as he recounted the tale. “Land was just
the underlying tension. The true catalyst is what happened next. The piece of land they were disputing over hadn’t been claimed. It was newly discovered to the north and no one could decide who should occupy it, werewolves or vampires. Felix, a vampire council member from the west, hadn’t cast his vote to break a tie in the senate.

  “He went home to think over the matter and was found dead in the neighboring territory of a wolf pack. The council cried that it was sabotage on the side of the werewolves, though they continually denied it. The werewolf in question was only a pup and didn’t realize what he was doing.”

  Giovanni could see how such a misunderstanding could raise suspicion of treachery, but could it completely dismantle a great place such as Arnathia? He had never seen his padrone so animate, so furious at the men and women of the ancient past.

  “From there, the senate took sides. What was worse, the king took a side! The king called for investigation after investigation, but no one could give one. Even looking into the memories of the dead politician proved useless. They were too scrambled and all they could make out were roars, fangs, and fur.”

  “That might suggest that the werewolf did kill him,” Giovanni offered, hoping to quell Michael’s fervor.

  “Yes, but the werewolf had no political alignment, no reason to want Felix dead. His pack didn’t even know about the land dispute. None of it made sense and soon, word of what happened spread through the city and out into the nations. Feuds broke out everywhere and the story became twisted with each new telling. By the time the council and the king could give any kind of ruling over the matter, the whole world had erupted into chaos. Brother fought against brother, families were torn apart, and soon, Arnathia was under siege.”