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Chapter Thirteen
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“Long ago, before the dawn of humans,” Sarthimia begins, “Earth was inhabited by beings stronger than any that would ever walk this planet. We would later come to refer to these beings as ‘the Ancients’. The Ancients were as wise as they were humble. They did not at first realise their power, as they had nothing to compare it to. They roamed this planet for millenniums, undisturbed, making the planet prosper in wild life. They would grow vast forests on major parts of the landmasses and make the sea explode with colour and life. They mastered every element as their own, thus being close to Gods on Earth.
At first, their existence brought nothing but good for the planet. New species evolved and replaced weaker ones as the Ancients came up with more appropriate and efficient means of existence. It was a good time for Mother Earth. Until something changed, that is, as things often do. Beings from another planet had watched over Earth for centuries, watching it prosper. Unlike their planet, Earth was evolving at an impressive pace whereas their planet appeared to do nothing but dissolve. These beings have come to be referred as ‘Mesians’.
The Mesians decided in their jealousy, like many primitive races did, for that is what the Mesians were, despite their ability to travel through space, to attack the Ancients. When the attack was launched the Ancients were taken by surprise. Since the Ancients were the only form of intelligent life on Earth they had never been exposed to this form of despise and jealousy. They were stunned to see the Mesians arrive to their home world and destroy everything that the Ancients had worked so hard to build.
Despite their incredible power, the Ancients were not warriors. They were not prepared or even aware of the amount of hate in the universe. Thus the Mesians managed to destroy half of what the Ancients had created until the Ancients struck back, finally realising their true power. It took only days until the Ancients had swept Earth clean of the intruding Mesians; such was the greatness of their power. Though the Ancients emerged triumphant they had learned a valuable lesson – it would not matter how much they created; someone, if not the Mesians again, would come to Earth and ruin it, jealous of the Ancients powers. The Ancients therefore reached a decision that would forever shape the destiny of this world – they left.
As they were about to leave, they felt a responsibility towards the world that they had nurtured and created. They therefore agreed upon leaving Guardians to watch over Earth, should someone ever return and threaten it. They created beings that would resemble them in many ways, but who were not nearly as powerful or wise as them. The Ancients feared that beings with too much power would lure more dangers to Earth. Their Guardians were only endowed with powers sufficient to maintain the world in its current state. Were they ever to evolve into intelligent beings, it would be when the time was right and Mother Earth was ready to evolve with them.
However, as they witnessed their Guardians the Ancients feared that if the Mesians were to return, the Guardians would be no match for them. Therefore the Ancients, who where merely five in numbers, each filled a glass vial with their pure blood, in which their powers resided. They knew that a vial by itself would not grant the Guardians powers to grow as strong as the Ancients, but it would be enough to fight off the Mesians, the five Ancients agreed. The Ancients left each of the vials filled with their silver blood on different locations on Earth, making sure that at least one could be found, should they be needed. They then departed this world and left it to its destiny.”
Sarthimia takes a pause from her story telling.
“Those Guardians,” I ask, “where they—”
“Human? They were a primitive form of life that in time would evolve into humans, yes.”
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“As time went on,” Sarthimia continues, “the Guardians evolved and grew their own form of intelligence, and even created a form of God worship, knowing deep inside that a force greater than any of them had given them life. They would build altars and pray to their Gods for joy and healthiness.
Time went by and the Guardians began to give birth to civilizations. Still there had been no sign of the Mesians or any other unwanted visitor. Naturally, the Guardians were unaware of their task on Earth and the existence of both the Ancients and the Mesians. They lacked the capacity to grasp the concept of such things. But where there was not direct knowledge of enemies, there was the knowledge of war. The Guardians had inherited fragments of the Ancients’ memories. One memory stood out above all the others – the skill of how to wage war. But since the Guardians had no enemies to practice this skill on they turned on each other instead, fuelled by small fragments in their memories telling them how to destroy each other. Thousands fought and thousands fell until few remained. The few still standing agreed not to fight again, after having witnessed the result – but what they did not know at the time was that the many years of war had already left marks in their minds that were never to vanish.
War was not the only thing killing the Guardians. Upon creating their Guardians, the Ancient left out vital parts of their own physique, rendering the Guardian mortal, unlike their creators. Thus the few Guardians remaining after the wars died, one by one. It was not until they were on the brink of extinction when a primal urge awoke inside of them – the urge to breed. The Ancients had failed to grant them immortality, but they had given the Guardians an even greater gift – the gift of life. The Guardians were capable of creating life on their own by joining in an agreement with each other, a creation demanding the participation of two Guardians in union. And with the realisation of this the Guardians prospered, soon populating the world more than ever before.”
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“Tens of millenniums passed and the Guardians evolved both in body and mind. As they grew in population they travelled to different parts of the world in search for more suitable hibernation locations. They found that, now that many populated the world, they had developed different tastes and preferences in everything from environment to food. They spread widely over the planet to please their own cravings.
The longer the Guardians spent apart from each other, the wider the gaps between them became. Different forms of civilizations developed and even their religious beliefs started to fluctuate from location to location. Cultures were formed. By now the Guardians had settled all over the planet, on every continent. For just as the Guardians had evolved, Mother Earth had too. No longer did she look the same as she did when the Ancients left her so many millenniums ago. She was starting to take the form she still wears today.
As the differences between the Guardians grew greater, the memory of an agreement made by their great ancestors faded away piece by piece until there was nothing left. A full scale world war was a fact. The less prospering tribes attacked the more successful ones in envy, just like the Mesians had once attacked the Ancients. Naturally the more prospering tribes were triumphant. This war went on for so long that the grandchildren of the creators of the war were around to watch it come to an end. Like with every war there was a cost – the Guardians had now forgotten any ties whatsoever to each other. The different tribes, now countries and cultures, were no longer aware of how closely related they were with one another. Time, various environmental effects and cultures had made them so different from each other that no one could see any resemblance any longer. The cultures that were most similar to each other quickly became allies and began to trade inside the alliance. Those cultures similar to no other were frozen out until extinct from either starvation or illness.
What the Guardians had not realised during their times of war was how badly they hurt Mother Nature by using her resources to develop tools of destruction. In return she cursed the Guardians with an illness, something to gradually kill them of to such extent that perhaps they would put their efforts in trying to cure the illness instead of developing new means of destroying each other. Already the Guardians had failed with their task to guard the planet, as they became more and more like the Mesians for every year that passed.”
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“Another millennium went by, and after that the Guardians were so corrupted by their own greed and envy that they could no longer be called Guardians. They simply became what we later would refer to as humans. However, being human was not something to frown upon – they were nonetheless the most powerful and wisest beings on the planet, despite their change of title.”
Sarthimia takes another pause in her story.
This is a lot to take in. I do not know how much to believe and how much to call religious nonsense. Sarthimia looks at me to make sure that I am still following. I nod understandingly at her to tell her that I am.
“There would then come a time,” she continues, “about six thousand years ago, when this would change – the humans were soon to no longer be the superior race on Earth. Why this had not occurred earlier remains a mystery, for the vials were placed so that they would easily be found. Our best guess is that as Mother Earth evolved she would accidentally swallow the vials into her soil, where they would remain until they were needed.
In the land mass, today known as Egypt, a young human female had the fortune of stepping on something of greater value than anything Earth could ever donate, even greater than life – a vial of silver blood, one of the Ancients’ vials. Unaware of the greatness she had stumbled upon, she picked the vial up and placed it in her pocket. When she arrived to her parents’ cabin she told them nothing of her finding, for it had awoken a great greed in her heart. The vial was of such nature to the humans that it called to them, cursing them into constant yearning of its power. This would not have been, had the humans not developed greed on their own over their past existence.
The woman felt this yearning too, stronger than anyone since she knew where it emanated from. She made the fatal decision of opening the vial and put her lips to it. But as she did she grew scared, her lack of knowledge about the vial frightening her and it made her wonder what she was really about to drink. So instead of drinking the entire vial, like she had first intended, she let one single drop of silver seep out from the vial and onto her tongue. Within moments the blood spread like a wildfire in her body, causing the woman to scream in pain – a scream that is said to have echoed around every corner of the world.
Whatever the Ancients’ blood had done to her body, it caused it to shut down. The woman fell into a coma, only to awake a month later. During that time her parents had mistaken her for dead and buried her out in the desert. When the woman awoke, she found herself lying in a coffin, several meters beneath the sand. Naturally, the woman was terrified by this, but she soon calmed down, for she had noticed something – a change. There was something inside her, something that made her feel different than before she fell into coma. She knew that she was not the same. No longer did she feel as if she was a guest in Mother Earth’s world – she felt as if Mother Earth was a guest in her world. Everything had changed and yet the world remained the same, though it would not for much longer.
Furious of what her parents had done to her, and fuelled by this strange force inside, the woman shredded the coffin in one blow and burst through the thick layer of sand, leaving a geyser of soil behind her, that in time would come to create a valley. Within minutes she had travelled to her parents’ cabin, a journey that had taken the parents two days when burying their daughter in grief. The woman wasted no time in her rage and knocked down the door, sending it through the wall on the opposite side. Her parents watched shocked as their supposedly dead daughter walked into their home. More shocked were they by her apperance. No longer did she have stunning black hair falling down her waist, and no longer were her eyes dark as night itself – they had both been replaced by the coldest of silver. Her silver glare was the last sight they ever saw before being slaughtered by their own daughter, who had mistaken their act of kindness in burial by an act of hate by imprisonment. Their blood was the first of many to be spilled by her hands.
The woman stalked the Earth for two whole years, slaughtering anyone in her path. The silver blood inside her had tainted her weak mind, and combined with the loathing she felt for her parents it caused her to despise the entire human race. In time, as she had slaughtered an entire continent, she grew weary of her slaughter, and as her mind settled down, images, slumbering before, awoke. Those were images of the past – a past then long forgotten by the humans.”
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“By then, located in the parts that are nowadays called France, the woman was reliving the life of the Ancients, who once had given birth to her race. For it would turn out that not only the power of the Ancients was stored in their blood, but also the memories of their past actions and philosophies. And it was by reliving those memories in her mind that the woman came to realise her true calling – to rebirth the task that once put the humans on the planet. By the name of the Ancients she swore an oath to forever walk Earth, to protect and guide it inhabitants. The woman knew that this was an impossible task to take on as a single being. Thus she searched the entire world for individuals worthy of keeping the legacy of the Guardians and the Ancients alive. Obviously few were found, due to the decadence of the human race. After having spent decades searching, she had gathered five women by her side. It was not until they had passed horrifying trials that she approved of them. But after having been found worthy the five women were rewarded the very same blessing that the first woman once had received – the power of the Ancients. The woman was still carrying around the vial of silver blood around her neck, still frightened of what would become of her, was she to drink another drop of it. Each of the five new women was given a drop of the silver blood.
As with their first sister, the five women’s original features were replaced by a cold metal colour. However, unlike the first woman, some of the other women did not grow silver eyes or hair. Indeed, some received a rather iron colour. It seemed as if the Ancients’ blood did not merge as well with every woman’s blood. Nonetheless, great power was given to all five, like their first sister.
Time went by and the six sisters spent their time wisely, studying the humans through metal coloured eyes. They learned many things about what had become of the former Guardians of the Ancients’ creation.”
Sarthimia smiles dreamingly at her own words.
“Are you that first woman?” I ask curiously, for Sarthimia’s power is stronger than anything I have ever seen before.
“I am not,” she replies with a sudden solemn expression. “I was the first sister to pass her test.”
Since I have noticed that Sarthimia appears to be the one running the show here, I am curious as to where the first creator of the Sisterhood is located.
“What became of her then?” I ask.
Sarthimia is now looking sadly through a window in her office, as if a forgotten memory has just caught up with her.
“After some time,” she begins, “our first sister fell into her old destructive patterns. None of us knows why, but we had little choice but to destroy her.”
I study her as she appears to drift off in her memories.
“Indeed,” she continues after a while. “Little choice did we have. For as she abandoned the vow she had once made us swear to the Ancients, in hope of their return. She became an enemy to our cause, and a powerful enemy she at that. Hundreds of humans were slain before the five of us managed to pin her down and have her destroyed. It pained us so.”
“No doubt,” I say.
“Five remained,” she continues, clearly intending to go on with her story telling. “Five, just like the Ancients once were. After having made some fatal decisions we decided that we were to station ourselves together in one place. The world was in no immediate need of us, and it was better off unaware of our existence. We built this monastery to reside in until the time would come when the world would be in need of us once more. It was then, and is still, a modest building, with only five chambers one for every sister, a dining hall, a storage area and an office in which we greet visitors.”
“Which I gather you don’t do a lot?” I remark.
She nods gravely at this remark. There is a sincerity about her that somehow managed to make even my pure non-religious beliefs falter.
I look at the time – it is late. Sarthimia’s story has taken a lot of time to tell. I am shocked in disbelief by her story, but I consider the possibility of her words being true. Still, I do not understand how it helps me in any way. The Council will still have me executed tomorrow have I not found the source by then, which seems unlikely, Mina will still be a senseless monster locked up in one of the monastery’s chamber because of me, and Jackston will still be out there somewhere, posing a threat to everyone in his path. I pray that he has not found Michael yet.
“It’s late,” Sarthimia states.
I nod in agreement.
“Have my tale shed some light on your predicament?”
I sit silently for a moment, carefully considering her words.
“It might,” I reply. “Does it end with you and your sisters building this monastery?”
She appears surprised at my questions. I think that she is still hiding something and she is stunned to see that I have called her bluff.
“You are wise, Theodore,” she flatters me, “but the tale does not end until everything in it has ceased to be.”
I nod courteously. I know that there is still something to be told but I can tell that it is something I do not wish to hear. Sarthimia is a sagacious woman, obviously far stronger than I could ever imagine. I consider myself lucky, that she is not my foe.
“You may spend the day here, at the monastery,” she says kindly, “but I am afraid that the only available residence is this very office, since your friend is occupying our chamber.”
It is a kind offer but I do not think that I have time to stay here any longer. If she does not wish to share the last part of her story I can obviously not force her. Instead, I must focus on the trouble at hand – finding the source of the illness.
“You have little choice but to stay,” she continues. “Day is dawning and the sun will soon arise.”
I gaze through the window – she is right. Damn, I have wasted too much time here. I will only have a few hours in the evening to hunt down the source. If not, I might as well walk into the daylight today – the Council will not pardon me. I smile faintly to accept her offer.
“I shall leave you now,” she tells me. “When you awake this evening you are free to leave whenever you wish. We are aware of your urgency.”
‘Urgency’ is a very kind way of putting it but since I have no other choice I shall have to spend the day here.
As Sarthimia is about to close the door behind her she turns to me again. I notice an oddly shaped silver pendant dangling around her neck – I could swear that I have seen it somewhere before.
“You are right,” she informs me. “There is more to my tale. Solve your predicament, find the answer on your own and the rest shall be revealed.”
What is that supposed to mean? At the moment I find no way to solve my ‘predicament’ other than trying to run away and pray that Mina is never found.
“I pray that we shall meet again, Theodore,” Sarthimia finishes as she closes the door.
“I pray that we shall not,” I whisper to myself.
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Chapters
Prologue | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10
11 | 12 | 13 | 14 | 15 | 16 | 17 | 18 | 19 | 20 | Epilogue
