The Goat Man The tenth soul
The Goat Man
The tenth soul
I held the child in my arms as he slept. He was restless in his sleep, whispers calling for his mother, begging her to leave him alone. Eugen jerked his head as if he had been slapped, breaking my mind, and the wish to kill that woman myself slipped into my veins.
Placing his head on my lap, I did something I never did, not even when I was human.
I prayed.
Our Father, Who art in heaven, hallowed be Thy name; Thy kingdom come; Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread; and forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us; and lead us not into temptation but deliver us from evil.
I asked him for her to be able to arrive safely, for her to be happy even if I perish, to save the boy and raise him as she would raise her children.
I prayed for her family to give her guidance for her future. And I prayed for her to finally find her peace.
Closing my eyes and stilling for a second, I listened to the boy’s breathing, which was calmer now. I placed my hand on his chest to feel his heart beating, the thumps moving my palm.
“Goat Man, you’ll finally see your long-lost family.”
The eerie voice travelled to my ears. My head snapped to the ceiling, where white dots appeared, but they had nothing pristine in them. The whisperers roamed the stony surface from one corner to the other, pulsing with each word that left them.
“She will never love you, Goat Man. You’re too despicable to be loved.”
I turned to the left, where other voices crept in the walls. If they didn’t know what they were, I would associate them with fireflies. Their words were meant to sting. And if I didn’t trust the woman who made room for me in her soul, I would lean towards their voices.
“I hope you die soon, Goat Man. Your life is nothing.”
It was nothing.
Gritting my teeth, I pulled the boy closer to me. His breath touched my chest. I exhaled as silently as I could, so as not to disrupt his sleep.
The clacking of hooves replaced the murmur of the whisperers, the air getting staler.
“Brother, come to meet your end!” the Elk asked, the voice muffled due to the skull.
I felt invisible arms dragging me across the room, the child still immersed in slumber. My naked feet were dragged on the rocks, stubbing my toes against them and making them bleed.
As my body was pushed by threads, I felt my hands burning. Flames caught my fingers, spreading to my arms. The scream that tore through my neck was unheard by the Elk and his whisperers. No one could help.
The flames jumped from my fingers to my chest, in the place where a heart should be.
My clothes were ablaze, the smell of burnt meat reaching my nostrils, vomit pulling in my mouth.
At one point, I didn’t even know if the screams came from me or they came from the Elk.
Before closing my eyes, I saw his skull raised to the ceiling.
Specks of ice rained from above, putting out the flames. My throat opened in muted misery with a scream that would never be heard by others.
“Don’t die just yet, brother.”
His words pulled my eyes open. A giddiness touched my anguished soul as all the burns and blisters disappeared from my skin. The Elk wanted me whole to break me for good.
This time, the light of candles flooded his rooms, with the hallway being the longest of all. It felt endless, not knowing how long we walked. His hooves were echoing in the eerie silence.
“I thought we were eternal, my brother,” I jeered, remembering his sayings when I was first turned into this creature.
His laughter broke the silence, scratching my ears. “And you believed that?”
The chamber we entered felt like hell, sweat gathering at my temples and upper lip.
There was a wooden throne sitting in the middle of the room, with candles surrounding it.
One gust of wind and the throne would be engulfed in flames.
The rest of the room was clustered with darkness; nothing beyond the seat could be seen.
The light shimmered over the glossy stone wall, snuffing out the breathable air.
The Elk turned to the left, my body carried behind him.
His hand slashed the air, and a deep cut appeared from my left shoulder to my abdomen. A scream stopped in my throat, the pain too much to bear. My wrists were held by the threads, my skin burning. Blood dripped down my legs, pooling around them. A whimper broke out of me, making the Elk laugh.
“Brother, do you know the saying: ‘Don’t put salt on the wound’?”
My eyes narrowed as two large raffia bags filled with the white ingredient came next to me.
With my body thrashing, I tried to pull away from them, but the threads kept me in place.
With invisible strength, the bags poured themselves on my body.
It took everything in me not to give in to his satisfaction by screaming.
It stung, as if small needles were prickling my skin.
And then nothing. I breathed through the mending of my skin, looking the Elk straight into his eyes.
He took a seat on his throne, a king who crushed his family, one who wouldn’t care who died for his wishes to be accomplished.
The threads were cut, my body falling on the stone. “Nice room you have here, my brother,” I mocked, standing on my feet. “This is where I will meet my end?” I raised my eyebrows, my eyes roaming over the room.
“Yes, is it not pleasant for you? I wanted to see you die. For centuries, I held you on my leash, and something made it snap.”
Ana… she made that possible. She awoke me from my daze.
Blades brushed my legs as if waiting.
“And instead of killing her, I want to kill you. I’m tired of your face, brother.”
The whisperers laughed in my ears, travelling from wall to wall, as if our lives were a joke to them.
Dozens of blades plunged into my thighs with such a force that their tips got on the other side of my leg. I scrunched my face, the veins in my neck ready to explode.
The pain subsided as the blades retreated.
“Speaking of faces, why don’t you show yours?” I said, panting. “I want to see the face of the man who will end my life.”
He sighed. “I will indulge this one request, brother.” My eyes tracked as his skull flew from his head to the base of the throne.
I didn’t recognise my oldest brother. His head was pointier from the shape of the skull; there was no hair left on his once rich head.
Darkness lurked in his eyes; too many souls were swirling in them.
His nose was round and filled with bloodied scratches, his lips were thinner than the threads holding my wrists.
The Elk had a beard longer than the cloak he was still wearing.
But just as he got the skull off, he called it back.
“Satisfied, little brother?”
Shaking my head, I took my eyes off him. “What happened to you?”
The Elk chuckled, the sound turning my stomach. “Decay, brother. I want to be anew. Like you!”
His hoof tapped the handle of the throne once, twice. “Mother always said you were the prettiest, but I knew better. You were also foolish. Even now in death, you have fallen in love with a mortal.”
“Don’t speak of her!” I roared, the candles flickering.
He laughed, rattling the ground. “I see. Well,” he sighed, “most likely you’ll meet in death.”
Another set of blades cut through my skin.
“Why did you leave me alive in the first place?” I asked, taking a step towards the throne, wincing from the pain. I felt his eyes on me, following my legs.
“A reasonable question coming from you, at last.” He tilted his skull sideways. “I wanted to see you suffer, so that you cannot be a human anymore. But you found a damn loophole!” he raged, his skull shaking.
Several actually.
“Even if I don’t kill the peasant, the death of you and the child will drive her to insanity!”
“Leave them out of it!” I screamed, shaking the candles, hot wax dripping on the floor. “Your quarrel is with me!”
“That just makes it better!”
I barely caught my breath when I heard a whip coming down on my back, splitting the skin. The blood flowed on my spine, my stomach flipping. As if it wasn’t enough, the candles which were next to the throne burned my clothes and my body, the smell of charred meat filling the chamber.
“Shall I summon the child for you to see his final breath?” he yelled over my screams. “Would that end you?”
My hands touched the ground. I was shaking from my core, the scents making everything hazy. “No,” I whispered, preparing to die.
The Elk moved closer to my aching body. “Here lies my brother, former human, former Goat Man, now dust,” he whispered in my face, a scythe larger than mine, touching my neck.
The cave rattled once. Twice.
A swoosh replaced the whispers, and I knew my inim? was here. Thank God for the ghost and Ana for pulling me from my slumber before meeting her.
“Oh, the human is here!” the Elk announced, his head snapping to the entrance.
“You seem to forget I am not one anymore, Elk.” Her voice came from the darkness beyond the throne, warming every piece of my soul.
“That is right. Then, I shall make this interesting!”
My brother raised his hooves, and in the next second, the trembling voice of Eugen rose from the walls. It was everywhere and nowhere. I frowned. Something was not right.
“Help me, Ana!” the young voice begged.
Turning my head towards Ana’s stone figure, I noticed her hesitation. Her eyes pinned me, teeth sinking into her lips.
“Do you want to choose between the man who dragged you into this godless life and the boy who made your chest ache like a mother’s?” My brother was filled with poetry, but his mind was not so bright.
My eyes roamed over the room, but I couldn’t hear a whistle of breath or a heart beating that should belong to the child. Pain sizzled in my bones as the Elk sent the whip on my skin again. Gritting my teeth, I listened beyond the sounds.
Eugen was not here. The Elk was trying to make Ana doubt herself.
I opened my mouth, but no sound came. Therefore, I did what I could to show Ana that Eugen was not there.
With my remaining powers, I moved the candles next to the throne. Slowly, the splinters from the chair caught the movement of the flames, igniting entirely.
The Elk whirled, the air produced by his cloak, blazing the wood even more. His scythe lingered in the air as he tried to stop the blaze. I grabbed the weapon and cut through his knees, blood pouring over me, drenching my face.
My hand slipped. I lost balance and crashed chin-first onto the stone. A crack echoed through my skull, and pain blinded me. I closed my eyes, keeping the scream inside my chest. The Elk elevated my body and threw it on the rock floor.
From the fire emerged long horns, a skull more majestic than the rest of us, a lean figure covered by a crimson cloak, the heart I was missing.
“You created monsters, Elk. You shall die as one!”
Her scythe came down on the Elk’s neck, breaking the bone in half, small pieces floating to the fire. His head rolled to her legs, and she pushed it aside.
Ana pulled her skull off her face and rushed to my side, helping me stand.
“Come, Tiberius! We need to find Eugen!”
If I didn’t have that much pain in my body, I would have laughed and kissed her.
Her hand grabbed me by my arm and pulled me from the floor. With a grunt, I stepped away from the blazing throne. I walked from Ana to see my brother for one last time.
“I hope you’re free of your torment, brother.”
I pushed his limp body into the flames, a wide smile spreading on my lips. After I saw with my own eyes as his skull caught fire, I grabbed Ana and searched for the boy.
With the corner of my eye, I saw his sleeping form levitating, Andrei right behind him. I took all of them into my arms and travelled outside Elk's former lair.
Once we breathed the fresh air of the night, I watched as the flame engulfed everything.
“What is…,” Eugen’s sleepy voice broke the silence as the night was illuminated by the blaze.
A stag skull flew over my head directly into the fire. I turned to see Ana crying, tears of joy lingering on her cheeks. Rushing to her, I grabbed her shoulders and embraced her as if we were never apart.
My hand touched her chest, feeling the beat of her heart. She mirrored my action, her hand rising slowly with each thump. Laughter bubbled in my chest as if it were the first time I ever drew breath.
“I love you, Tiberius,” she whispered, her cheeks reddening.
“I love you too, Ana. My heart, my world, my soul!”
The contract was completed, my human form more elegant than what I was as an ancient creature. And the woman in my arms was more beautiful than any dusk or dawn.
Her icy blue eyes were sparkling from the tears, her hands flying to my neck.
I hugged her again, squeezing the boy between us. Andrei took all of us in his arms, and the cold sensation was welcomed.
Finally, I had my heart full of love.