Ultimus Thesaurus: The last Treasure (Era of Change Book 1) (15 page)

Jasper had been afraid that it would be I who would once destroy her, but in the end I would be the one to save her. That I promised, not only to her, not even to Jasper, but I promised it to myself. This should be the act that would deliver me from my sins, and that brings upon the light, and no more shadows. These people who hold me hostage were not well in spirit and their intentions were probably the darkest of which I had ever heard and yet I had no other choice than to follow them. It took several weeks, but with time came also the feeling of everyday life. I became increasingly indifferent and soon felt no qualms to do just about anything. They called me Albus, gave me the finest white robes of the city and saw me as a model of change and forced me to spread the words. I had become their warmonger, and I started to like it. These people saw me as something special, and even if their intentions were awful, so was the feeling to be worshipped the best I ever had.

Every fourth day, I believe, they brought new wood to the fire at the grand square. The people hold the belief that if the fire should ever go out, the dragons would arrive and destroy the island. Using fire as a protection against dragons and using the black liquid as a sacrifice to the gods. Every week, two people were sacrificed the exact same way as the pirates before. Now I knew that they killed these men because they would have killed someone anyway, and hadn’t I been shackled and blind it could have been me instead. I was still afraid that the captain would sneak into my house at night, but it was probably more likely that he had died in the dark forest. Tybalt had some stubborn tendencies, above all, his poise, which clearly showed his almost endless selfishness and narcissism. Everyone should fear him, and he wouldn’t let anyone forget that he was the leader.

He was a typical barbarian, and he wanted me to be the same. He saw in me a prophet, and he saw my white hair as a coat of arms for the born-again. I wished that my father was able to see how these savages carried me proudly on their shoulders, wanting to hear of my wisdom, even if I never had what they’re looking for. They wanted to be sure that I was on their side before they would allow me to see the gate to their temple. And I wondered why all that was left of the former rulers of this island, the titans, was their temple. And even that had been lost to a stranger faith. 

I could take a glance at the massive gates during my speech and I was unsure as to how Jasper had managed to seal it off.

Many questions had still to be answered, and when I thought about it, I still didn’t know who Jasper Lawrence was. He had never enjoyed an education and even in his home town he was seen as a controversial person. Most called him a daredevil, a charmer, adventurer or charlatan. But when I looked at what he achieved, I was sure that he didn’t just fake his knowledge. He was an influential man, and yet he made nothing from it. Neither his daughter, nor his home country he could protect. 

The search for knowledge has never been safe, because for some it could be an annoyance what you find out. But the death of this man had hardly been deserved. Even that of my father hadn’t been.

For the people on the island death was a natural process; almost so natural that people looked forward to it. This sacrifice which they made, struck me as brutal and unnecessary, but for them it meant the re-birth. They believed that each week two of the born-again had to be sacrificed to nourish the ground and protect the island from the dragons. The words that Jasper taught them, weren’t just based in this faith, no they encouraged them to go further. Soon, they would want to leave this island and bring the knowledge out into the world. Jasper had acted wisely and initially prevented them from doing so. But the seal that he cast onto the door of the temple should now be broken by me, because the knowledge wasn’t secure in the hands of these people any longer. The time had come to redeem the born-again, even if they would not voluntarily disband.

Killing them however was not an option since they were far superior in terms of numbers and were always prepared for an attack. But I could make them believe in my words which constituted a far greater power to people like these. As long as they thought that I spoke the words of their gods, they would follow me and they would even abandon what means everything to them. And even if I was wrong, I would have been ready, to die on this island as long as the knowledge was destroyed in the process. 

But at that time I had still not seen the true extent of what Jasper Lawrence had planned, and even if I had, I still lacked the faith to believe the things I saw. Some plans were simply too grand to be understood by a single glance.

It took four months, estimated on the basis of little lines that I made in my improvised calendar, to finally get to my friends. They were sick; Isaac was nothing but a skeleton. Next to him was his barrel with the elixir that presumably up to this point in time must have been almost completely exhausted. Lucia could hardly recognize my face, but Aton showed no change. Thousands of years he was previously locked up, and so he hardly noticed such a small period of time.

“Iago is that you? Will you free us?” asked Lucia with trembling and frail voice.

“They have caught me, but they believe that I can solve the mystery of your father. Finally I have been allowed to visit the temple, and I believe that only Aton can open it. I have already tried to convince them to set you free, but unfortunately they do not listen to me. Even if it sounds hard, I ask you to be a little more patient.”

“Patience? We are no longer alive. For weeks we haven’t spoken to each other, just to preserve what little strength we have left and they only give us the most necessary things, so that we can barely survive. We thought that the pirates have killed you, but now you are here in the clothes of these barbarians and want to tell us that they have also caught you? If you are really our friend, then you would not hesitate. Free us, or keep away from us,” she replied and her strong cough almost broke some of her ribs.

The dark chamber, in which they were held captive, was overrun with spider webs and the smell of death. Rats were crawling around everywhere, and not a few of these animals had already died. It hurt me that I had to be the one who seemed to cause all this again and with time the people no longer doubted this to be true. I was one of the born-again, even if only for a few weeks. And the people, who should mean the most to me, became of almost no importance at all, and I understood that now. 

Therefore I left them behind and made haste to meet up with Tybalt, who to my surprise wasn’t accepting to meet with me. He was currently in search for new disciples for his inner circle which normally meant that he was using the younger girls of his people and made them false promises.

My attention was therefore given to the door of the temple again, as I seemed to have made quite the progress in the last couple of days. Many of the symbols on this door weren’t very old and it was almost as if I could see the handwriting of Jasper in them. I did not know how he did it, but in the middle of the door was an area in the size of a hand. This hand was not ordinary, because some of the fingers were on the wrong side. In addition there were a large number of symbols on these fingers, which in turn formed short sentences. If you read them from right to left, they said: “The Word; Water is life; fire to smoke; air unstable; carry to earth.”

I was not sure what these words meant individually but I had the idea that the hand of Aton was large enough to fill this imprint. He was the key, because we had to free him from prison. If he could tell me what these sentences meant then I could open the door. But first of all I needed to set him free. Tybalt soon came to the entrance of the temple and as always he was carrying his mask and an uncanny smile on his face.

“Progress, Albus? We expect the new victims soon, and we hope that the words will lead us. Behind this door is the key and I know, that the bringer of words has sent you because you are one of us.”

His words were numerous and incomprehensible, but his intentions were clearly defined. It was the death of my friends that he was alluding to. He wanted to see results and if I wasn’t able to present them I would be of no value to him.

“I think that I know how to open the door. I only need my friends, because I believe that they are the key. I know that they are,” I tried to convey, but the look of Tybalt said everything.

“We will see if they really are as important, as you say. There’s always tomorrow, but the day after - who knows. The gods require of us that we rise, because the dragons do not wait. They will try with all their power to claim the knowledge for themselves. Then no one will ever be safe again, not even your friends. Think about that Albus, and don’t disappoint me again,” he said and put on his mask.

The dark face that it showed was hardly more terrible than the hypocritical man behind it, but my body shivered in fear every time I saw this mask. Something bad would soon happen on this island and I had felt it now for days. The sacrifices were made ever so frequently and often times the rules were forgotten. The people laughed and glorified this dreadful spectacle, almost as if the end of days was fast approaching. 

No one wanted to watch it anymore instead a foggy darkness infected their hearts and shrouded the meaning of these rituals and even I could not escape. This place was so nefarious but if also offered my soul all the things which it had longed for. No laws, no rules, a mere longing for fulfilment. But the price for this fulfilment was high and with time I had understood that my friends paid it.

Realizing that, I had planned to put an end to all of this at today’s festivities. I didn’t want these people to live a life without remorse any longer. They should see what was behind the dark walls, and they should choose whether it was right or wrong. As always they waited until it was night and accumulated a lot of wood for their great fire. It was never cold on this island and real darkness was unknown to these people. The darkness, which I had always lived with in fear, seemed to not exist at this place. Nothing except the dark forest, which almost entirely vanished in thick fog, was there for the people to remember what true fear meant. They lived without consequences and without the love for life. They loved what they did and fulfilled every desire they could ever have, but they couldn’t understand the value of these things.

Tybalt brought with him the sacrifices for the evening, and as is often the case it were the girls that he had previously seduced with his power. 

All of these girls grew up in the belief that it was important to serve the chief priests and to follow his words, just like he followed mine. In the last few weeks I had seen what he did to them and how he used them to fulfil his own desires. But no desire of his was stronger than the desire to kill. It was this shining in his eyes, the mad look, as if you could see how his mind disappeared from his body. This was the climax of his desire and only in the fire and in the cries of his slaves and mistresses could he fully enjoy it. First, when I didn’t yet understand what kind of man he was, I found it to be disgusting what they did on this island, but the more time I spent here I slowly became a part of it all. He forced me to follow him and he not only wanted me to support his actions, but to substantially bear the blame.

Each time when he gave me the sword he darted a look at me with which he wanted to show me that this was done by the both of us. I was no murderer or rapist in the eyes of these people; I was much more a deity in the flesh. They played the drums faster and faster, while I looked at the sword, as it was shining in the light of the fire, and almost glowed from all the heat that was in the air. The sweaty bodies of the struggling slaves who were kneeling before me, who wanted to accept their fate, the power in the songs of these people and the wild rhythm that made my heart beat in unison - everything was a single unbridled rapture.

“Do it, Albus. Fulfil our destiny, and finish our work,” said Tybalt and looked at me again with his mask.

My choice, I had already made a few weeks ago, and even if everything that I was back then asked me to stop, there was a tiny part screaming inside of me that wanted all of this and this part was stronger and ready to sacrifice these girls. So they doused them with the dragon blood, and I decapitated them, one after the other while the drums reached their high point and only stopped when the fire devoured their bodies. My look into the eyes of Tybalt showed me as always that I had become a monster, but I could not stop to be this monster. When I saw my father, stabbed by the sword of the captain, I wanted to avenge him, I wanted to bear this guilt, and I sought an escape. 

But on the day that I saw my friends nothing inside of me told me to free them, I rather thought that they had found their rightful place. Their life was in my hand, but this hand was busy doing cruel things which were wrong and illegal in our world, but that the people on this island were addicting themselves to and that they accepted. On this island I was not caught, I was liberated. I had been born again in the flames of the gods, but I could not look Lucia in the eye and say these words. For her I was Iago, the weak little boy, who would have collapsed a long time ago without her help. But for Tybalt and his disciples I was Albus, the dragon priest.

“My people are not accustomed to suffering. We do what we want and we can do it because we are sons and daughters of the gods themselves. Who or what has lived before us on this island, they have been wiped out, and nobody except us lives here now. I assure you that we do not want to start a war, and that we would also be way too few to win it. But our numbers will soon exceed what this island can withstand. We sacrifice more and more, and the laws of the gods simply aren’t adequate enough anymore. Perhaps your friends are the solution, but if you cannot solve the riddle, then I can’t allow you to set them free. I need certainty, Albus,” said Tybalt and leaned back in his almost royal throne.