The Ouroboros Cycle, Book Three: A Long-Awaited Treachery Read online

  “How utterly practical of you,” Ekaterine told her.

  “Come,” Varanus said, closing the book in Ekaterine’s lap. “I need your help with something.”

  Ekaterine sighed loudly, but it was in jest. She smiled, looking only slightly exasperated at the demand, and set the book aside.

  “Very well, if you insist.”

  “I do, most emphatically,” Varanus answered.

  She took Ekaterine by the hand and pulled her along to the door, moving so quickly that Ekaterine almost tripped getting up from the sofa.

  “Oh my goodness!” Ekaterine exclaimed. “What are you so excited about?”

  “A solution, Ekaterine,” Varanus said, retrieving the Gladstone bag she used as a samples case. “Possibly the solution.”

  “To what?”

  “To everything.”

  * * * *

  Varanus led Ekaterine down into the deepest parts of the castle, through basements and sub-basements, past secret archives and forgotten crypts, into corridors that had seldom been used in centuries. This was the old part of the castle, a chthonic fortress used by Shashava and his followers during their earliest days, until the prosperity of the Order and the swelling of its ranks had made possible the construction of the grand structure that it now inhabited.

  There were some soldiers stationed on guard in these lower places, but they were few, and their purpose was more the protection of ancient relics than proper security. There was no known entry to so deep a place save through the castle itself, and any interloper would surely be caught before reaching the forgotten halls. Indeed, aside from historical interest, there was but one reason why the Shashavani returned to those deep places time and time again. Varanus and Ekaterine had each visited it once before in their lives, and though it had been many years ago, Varanus still remembered the way.

  They finally arrived in an empty chamber lit only by the flickering lantern that Ekaterine carried. It was bleak and barren, its sole adornment a large block of stone that sat in the very center. Varanus knelt by the stone and ran her fingertips along it, feeling the delicate curves of writing that had been chiseled into its surface. Put simply, it was a warning, a prohibition against the foolishness and arrogance of man, and a reminder that only the virtuous and the wise could hope to attain the undying light of wisdom unscathed.

  Pretty poetry, Varanus thought, but poetry nonetheless.

  Ekaterine stood beside her, her expression one of concern.

  “I know this place...” she said softly.

  Varanus nodded but did not reply. Placing her shoulder against the stone, she braced her feet and began pushing. The block was heavier than she had expected, and for a time she grimaced and grunted, unable to make it budge. She had seen Lord Iosef push it open during her first visit to the chamber, and though he had struggled at it, she had always assumed that it would be more or less a simple matter. But the stone was heavy, and it almost seemed to fight against her, pushing back through some unseen force.

  “Doctor...” Ekaterine continued, sounding apprehensive and more than a little afraid, “you cannot be intending what I think you’re intending....”

  “I am,” Varanus replied.

  “We shouldn’t be here,” Ekaterine said. “This place is sacred.”

  “It’s not sacred,” Varanus said. “There is nothing supernatural about this place. It’s entirely material.”

  “But we don’t have the right—” Ekaterine protested.

  Varanus took a deep breath and sat up, looking at her friend.

  “Ekaterine,” she said, taking the woman’s hand, “there is a scientific principle to our nature. It has eluded the greatest minds of our order for centuries, and while I have tried everything in my power to crack its secret, it has eluded me as well. The answer is down there, in our source, and the reason why no one has been able to discover it yet is that we have all refused to examine that which made us what we are. I am not going to make that mistake. The answers to our origin, to our very nature, are down there, and I am going to find them.”

  She looked into Ekaterine’s eyes and added, “I will not force you to join me, but even if you refuse, I will go alone. I must do this. I will never rest until I know the truth.”

  Ekaterine looked away and sighed. Her mouth twisted into a frown, and she started to say something, but it seemed she thought better of it and was silent for a time. Presently, she looked back at Varanus and shook her head.

  “Well it’s foolish of you,” she said, “and you’ll surely be caught if you don’t have someone sensible helping, so move over and start pushing.”

  Varanus grinned at her, deeply relieved. She and Ekaterine set their shoulders against the block and began pushing. Under their combined strength, the block slid back, revealing steps that led even deeper into the earth.

  Taking her Gladstone bag in one hand and Ekaterine’s arm in the other, Varanus led the way into the passage at the bottom of the steps. The passage was long and sloping, its walls adorned with paintings and mosaics of mythic scenes and great figures in the history of the Shashavani. During her first visit, Varanus had marveled at them, but she had never examined them properly. Now, with the light of Ekaterine’s lantern, she did so and was amazed at the state of preservation, for the images were centuries old, and yet they were almost fresh in appearance.

  “I’m rather surprised there aren’t any guards placed down here,” she mused.

  “That’s because none but the Living have the strength to move the stone,” Ekaterine answered. “And the Living would never think to do such a thing.” There was an appropriate pause. “Most of the Living.”

  “You can always go back,” Varanus reminded her. “I can make it on my own from here.”

  “Nonsense,” Ekaterine said.

  They continued on in the darkness a little while longer, to where the murals showed images of Shashava and the Companions. All were depicted in the manner of icons, their faces more stylized than real. Their hair was long, their features smooth and angelic. Their clothes and adornments gave indication of their proclivities—priests or scholars or kings—but in truth there was little else to clearly distinguish them from one another. And such was the androgyny of the images that it could not be clearly reckoned who was a man and who was a woman, which was fitting Varanus realized, for there were few among the elder Shashavani whose sex was actually recorded in the histories, and none of them save Sophio were present to clarify the matter.

  The first image was of Shashava, the ancient scholar who predated Christ and whose expression of serenity calmed Varanus by the very sight of it. Next came The Three—Konstantine, Valdemar, and Marduk—who were the first of the Companions to answer Shashava’s call, and following them, Basileios the Accursed, the Byzantine general whose corruption had nearly destroyed the Shashavani in civil war. Tradition held that the four of them had joined Shashava in the city of Constantinople, founding the Shashavani Order. After them came the other six Companions, of later date but of no lesser standing: Sarah the Khazar, Nino of Imereti, Ruben the Armenian, Mazyar of Bukhara, Zoe the Ascetic, and Fatimah of Baghdad.

  “I’ve often wondered if this is what the Companions truly looked like,” Varanus said to Ekaterine, her tone light and teasing.

  Naturally, aside from the symbols of their station, they all looked more or less the same, all save for Basileios, whose painted eyes held a malice that should not have been so easily conveyed by the simplistic medium.

  “Of course not,” Ekaterine answered with a laugh, sounding relieved to be thinking about something other than their act of trespass. “These were all painted after Shashava and the Companions had left on their great sojourns. I doubt that the painters had even met them. There are few enough still with us who ever did so.”

  “And those that do remain have poor recollections,” Varanus noted. As a scientist fix
ated upon details, she was constantly troubled by the ambiguity with which the Shashavani regarded matters such as the appearance, origins, or even the sex of their founders.

  “Not poor recollections,” Ekaterine said, scolding. “Selective ones.” She patted Varanus’s hand. “Once you reach a certain age, you will understand, I have no doubt. You may remember everything, but you may only recall some things with clarity. Selective forgetfulness staves off madness. And tell me, what is more important: to remember someone’s face or to remember their wisdom?”

  Varanus shook her head, still annoyed at it all.

  “Yes, yes, the point is taken,” she said. “Still, a point of reference would be nice. Half the time I don’t know if I am reading a man or a woman.”

  “Would it make any difference?” Ekaterine asked, as they turned and continued down the passage.

  “I suppose not,” Varanus said. “But for whatever reason, a part of me would prefer to know. It changes nothing, but it does gnaw on me sometimes. Especially since you all insist on using your Georgian pronoun even when speaking French.”

  One of the greatest points of frustration Varanus had encountered among the Shashavani was on the matter of language. As Georgian had only one pronoun for both men and women, the Shashavani used it almost exclusively, even when speaking in a foreign tongue. And whenever the language in question demanded the gendering of words, they would switch between the two with little reverence for accurate context, sometimes in the midst of a sentence. At least they had the sense not to do so in the outer world, but for Varanus, used to her ils and elles, it was a great irritation.

  “Oh that’s just mortal parochialism speaking,” Ekaterine said. “After a century or two, you’ll soon get used to it.”

  “I don’t want to get used to it!” Varanus protested. “I demand rigidly certain trivialities! It makes it much easier to be comfortable with science, which is never trivial and seldom certain.”

  Ekaterine laughed and teased, “Well, you can take solace in the knowledge that Sarah the Khazar was probably a woman; not because of her name—because names are meaningless—but because we are told that she joined Shashava in part because she was prohibited from becoming a rabbi like her father because of her sex.”

  “Thank God!” Varanus cried, pretending great relief. “Certainty at last! I believe Sarah the Khazar shall be my new favorite Companion.”

  “And evil Basileios,” Ekaterine continued. “Horrible as he was, we at least know he was a man. He was a Roman general, which was something they didn’t often allow women to do.” She snapped her fingers as a thought came to her. “Oh! And Valdemar, for the same reason. He was a Rus warlord. I don’t imagine there were many women commanding Northman armies in those days.”

  “Nor today either,” Varanus noted.

  “But you see, the point is that we don’t know,” Ekaterine said. “Androgyny, ambiguity, it prevents assumptions. The flesh is only the flesh, but the mind is what truly matters. All the Shashavani, from the old to the young, are judged and valued by the contents of their minds, not the shape of their bodies. Really, it’s the only sensible way to go about things.”

  “Such a pity it’s a view not shared by the mortal world,” Varanus said.

  “Well, mortals are stupid,” Ekaterine replied with a shrug. A moment later she looked embarrassed and put a hand over her mouth. “I suppose I shouldn’t have said that. It was unkind of me.”

  “Quite right, Ekaterine, and shame on you,” Varanus told her. “Mortals can’t help being stupid.”

  To which Ekaterine simply laughed.

  They continued on down the corridor as it twisted around in a spiral until at last the stonework and murals gave way to the natural walls of a cave that predated even the oldest parts of the castle. They were deep in the earth now, and Varanus could not help feeling a weight upon her shoulders. Such vast depths were oppressive to both body and soul, and yet there was a familiarity to it as well. There was something almost calming about it, though she could not place why.

  The passage finally ended in a large grotto lit by an eerie blue glow that issued from thick veins of fungus clustered along the walls, interconnecting and covering the place like iridescent cobwebs. The very sight of them had sickened Varanus during her first visit; now, they fascinated her, and she found herself walking toward one cluster with her fingers outstretched to touch it.

  “Doctor?” Ekaterine asked.

  Varanus quickly turned away and gave her friend a smile of reassurance. Hefting her Gladstone bag, she walked to the far end of the grotto where rested a pool of water that shone with the same unnatural light as the walls. It was shallow at first but quickly sloped away, descending into darkness and into flooded caverns that might have no ending.

  “Are you sure about this, Doctor?” Ekaterine asked nervously. “It’s not too late to go back. No one need ever know.”

  “No one will know, Ekaterine,” Varanus replied as she knelt, “unless you tell them.” Ekaterine would never do such a thing, Varanus knew that. “But I can do this on my own. If you don’t wish to be a party to this work, I won’t think ill of you for it. You can take the lantern and go back. I can manage on my own.”

  “And leave you in the dark?” Ekaterine asked, trying to hide her misgivings beneath a tone of humor. “Nonsense. You’d surely lose your way, and then I’d never have anyone to talk to.”

  Varanus smiled at this and said, “Thank you.”

  She turned back toward the pool and began removing glass vials from the Gladstone bag. She took one of them, removed the stopper, and lowered it toward the water to take a sample.

  These were the waters of life that made the Shashavani immortal. To some they gave inhuman prowess and eternal life; to some they gave merely longevity and health; and to some they brought only death. They were the key to unlocking the Shashavani condition, and by God she would have her answers.

  As she filled the first vial and set it back in the case, she saw Korbinian standing on the water a few paces away from her, looking down with his hands on his hips.

  “Are you certain about this, liebchen?” he asked. “You may be caught. And if you are caught, what will be the punishment?”

  “I don’t know,” she whispered back, continuing with her work. “To my knowledge, no one has ever done this before.”

  “The punishment might be death,” Korbinian reminded her.

  “Then I must make sure I’m not caught, mustn’t I?”

  Korbinian knelt before her and smiled, a trickle of blood creeping from the corner of his eye. One droplet slid down his cheek and onto the water where it vanished without so much as a splash.

  “Good,” he said, touching her chin with his fingertips and raising her head to look at him. “After all, if we’re both dead, who will I have to talk to?”

  Chapter Six

  •

  Autumn

  “Damn and blast!” Varanus swore, looking away from her microscope and striking the top of her worktable with the palm of her hand.

  Across the room, Ekaterine looked up from her reading and asked, “Something amiss?”

  “No,” Varanus said. Then she quickly corrected herself: “Yes. I’m not sure. Something is amiss here, but no matter what I try, I cannot work out what it is.”

  Ekaterine set her book aside and joined Varanus at the table. Leaning down, she put her eye to the microscope and inspected the sample.

  “I see water,” she announced. Looking at Varanus, she added, “Quite unexpectedly.”

  “Oh, hush,” Varanus chided. “There’s more to it than just water, but the secret of it eludes me.”

  The samples she had taken from the underground pool had proven largely uninformative, and even after months of study, she was still little closer to unlocking the question of their nature and origins.

  “It seems abnor
mally clear,” Ekaterine said, after giving the microscope a second look. “Very few microorganisms or impurities. Though not surprising for a subterranean spring, I suppose.” She paused. “Oh! And it’s glowing!”

  “Yes, I noticed that as well,” Varanus said.

  It had taken her a few times to realize it, but the water held small flecks of iridescence that flitted around with no clear direction or purpose. She had tried to observe them under the strongest lens she had, but even that gave no proper indication of their nature. And to the naked eye, they were completely invisible.

  “I don’t remember seeing these before,” Ekaterine added. “Which sample is this?”

  “The ones we took yesterday,” Varanus replied. She changed the slide under the microscope to an older sample. “And this one is from the batch we took during the summer.”

  “Ah!” Ekaterine gasped. “No light. No light at all!”

  “It’s why we didn’t notice it the first time,” Varanus explained. “I had thought I saw light in the samples we took in late August, but when I examined them a week later, it was gone.”

  “Meaning...that whatever causes the light dies out after time,” Ekaterine exclaimed, suddenly excited. “What do you suppose it is?”

  Varanus folded her arms and considered the question.

  “It could be an organism,” she said. “I would like it to be an organism. The possibilities there are endless. Of course, it could be some manner of chemical residue or impurity in the water itself that simply disintegrates. It might not even be related to the secret of the water at all, but at least it is interesting.”

  “Quite interesting,” Ekaterine agreed.

  Varanus pushed the microscope aside and stood, stretching her arms over her head. She had been seated at the desk for so long that she had lost track of the hours.

  “How are the mice?” she asked.

  Ekaterine made a face. “Dead.”

  “Again?” Varanus mused on this for a moment. “Very interesting.”