6. Across the Unknown World
Across the Unknown World
We sleep by the sun and move by the moon.
We slip into temples by night, digging through the offerings left for the gods and goddesses. I once thought it was blasphemy, but I learn quickly that the gods don’t exist. How did I devote so many years of my life to someone so silent? Something I couldn’t touch, breathe, see?
They don’t deserve the spoils of man, but you do. We do.
A boy at an altar tries to stop us once. He slips from the shadows, a knife held before him. His hand shakes even as his eyes gleam with righteousness.
“Halt!” he says. He is young—perhaps ten, all sharp edges and hollow cheeks. His pulse throbs under his dirt-streaked skin. Is this how I looked when you first saw me? A wretch, hiding in the eaves, thinking I was clever and quiet?
“You steal from our god no longer! Filthy desecraters!”
“What god?” I ask, looking about the temple. It’s guarded only by the crime of hierosylia, the fear that our presence would lead to blindness, death, or disease.
Or worse—the ire of the patron. My people have a rich history of stories of those who dared cross the gods and goddesses, each with punishments that made them wish for their death.
But I cannot die.
The boy’s hand wavers, his gaze tracking from you to me. Will he die tonight for simply doing his duty? I take a step toward him but you stay me, your voice quiet. “He is a child.”
“He will tell and they will search for us,” I say. The weight of the word of the temple is heavy. All it will take is one word, a description of the two women who stole from them, to start a hunt. They are not bound by the sun, they could outpace us easily.
“Then make him forget,” you say.
“I cannot,” I say softly. You know this. Every night I try and fail, every night you must subdue our victims so I can feed. Every night I’m reminded that I am unworthy and a failure.
“He is a child,” you repeat, and I don’t miss the accusation in your tone. Easy prey. A simple task. What vampire would I be if I can’t silence a silly, starving child?
He swipes at us with the knife, too far from us to feel even the breeze of the movement. Stupid child, he’ll die for a god that doesn’t know his name. For a temple that will fill his bed with another starving orphan to do its bidding. For a hope for acceptance after he’s no longer living.
A cruel fate that was almost mine.
He meets my eyes at long last and I catch him there. This part I’ve learned, to transfix them with my stare. His hand steadies, his pupils dilate, his entire form rigid. His pulse slows as we stare at each other, as I sink into his mind.
Drop the knife.
“Drop the knife.”
It clatters to the ground, his hand suspended before him. I smile and my hold snaps, his mouth opening to scream. No. No! I am so stupid, so quick to celebrate this trivial win. He is a child, and I cannot hold him and smile at the same time.
“Silence,” I command. His jaw clamps closed, his cheeks vibrating with the strain of it. I don’t celebrate again, I dig deeper. I run my fingers through his mind, his memories. They’re blurry—you say that one day I’ll be able to see them. To know things the humans try to hide from me.
One day.
For now I must be content to tell a starved, shaking child to forget he saw me. I wait for the power to fill my veins, to feel the pull of my own words just as yours pulled me with that man on the cart. Instead, I feel empty.
“When you came to the altar this evening, it was already robbed. You saw no one.”
“I saw no one.”
“You will wait four hours until you alert the temple to the theft.”
“I will wait.”
“You never saw us.”
“I saw no one.”
When I turn to you, you’re beaming. “Psiche mou, you’re a natural study,” you say, your finger running along my cheek.
“It took me so long,” I lament. “And he’s just a child.”
“Nothing good comes easy. What is your hurry? We have all the time in the world.”
Do we? At first I did not feel that way. When we left Kirra it was with haste, and the next few towns were a blur under the moon. It’s only been these last few days that we’ve slowed, that our pace is one of leisure.
We leave the temple with the valuable offerings in our bags. This will buy us another undisturbed day in an inn, another bit of coin stored away for wherever we’re going.
Rome.
Now that we’ve moved through towns, I hear more of it. They speak of Rome with anger, of joining a king that wishes to destroy the Romans that infect Greece with their false gods.
Sometimes we sit in taverns and pretend to drink their wine just to listen to the news of the world. They speak of towns and lands I’ve no knowledge of, but you nod along in understanding.
We spend three days at a town along the water, your red gaze locked on the horizon.
“Why do we linger here?” I ask. While we’ve slowed our pace, it is not like you to be stagnant. To linger is to let them remember your face, recall your name, decide you’re someone to commit to memory. Anonymity is the secret to a long life.
“I’ve heard these words before,” you say softly.
We’d just left a tavern and follow a drunk man by several paces through the night.
There’s no need to lower our voices or hide ourselves, he is painfully unaware of us.
These victims are the easiest to overtake, their minds open and pliable to me.
In the morning they wake thinking they’re just hung over, none the wiser.
“What words?”
“The discontent. It means war is near,” you say.
All I know of war is from stories, great clashes of gods and kings. What is a king to an immortal like us? What is a false god to we, who drink our fill and steal their offerings? I voice this and you stop, pulling my elbow so I am facing you.
“Those stories are written by the conquerors. They don’t tell you about the conquered.
War is never between the kings or the gods, it is between the men.
These men,” you say, your chin jerking to the quiet inns and homes that line the path.
“It means starvation, death, poverty. It means closed routes, checkpoints, questioning if we’re spies.
If war comes, we’re best-off standing still. ”
“Can we outrun it?” I ask. If war truly heads to this town, we should leave.
“War destroys everything around it,” you say softly. “Especially those on the periphery. We will try to leave Greece before it does, but we must prepare for the alternative.”
Your words are heavy, your face pulled tight, but I don’t believe you.
I don’t think you a liar, I just didn’t understand how such a thing could be true.
I’d heard the priests of the temple speaks of wars, of the gods intervening, of the kings rising and falling.
A hero would come and end the war, just as they had time and time before.
It is with this ignorance that I turn my attention to the man in the street. He’s paused in an alley to vomit, the smell of rotten wine and stomach contents filling the street.
“One day, Melinoe. One day I will take you to a real city, where you’ll know finery.
No more fleas and drunk men in alleys. I will show you what it means to be a god.
” Your voice quiets as I approach the man and jerk his head to me.
Our eyes lock and he goes still. Vomit trickles off the side of his mouth, his decayed teeth covered in it.
“One day you will know decadence,” you say, now at my side.
This is enough, I want to say. I should say. Sleeping in your arms every night, my stomach full of warm blood. Waking to your kisses, to the warmth of your touch. These are the things I want, this is decadence to me.
But I say nothing, and instead dig my teeth into the man’s neck.
Had I said that, would we have stayed in Greece forever? Or were the machinations of man inevitable? I know now that war is an inevitability of humans, a primal drive to destroy. Avoid one war, fall into the bed of another.
We leave him in the alley next to his vomit, his shallow breath the only sign of life. Perhaps he will wake, perhaps he will not. What is another dead drunk in the streets?
When I curl into you in the morning, I am not thinking of war or decadence. I think only of your body against mine, and how this is the closest to happiness I’ve ever been. If I’d known what you’d take from me later, I wonder if I would’ve held you tighter or run faster.