CHAPTER XVIII - TRISTAN FROM SPARTA
“If something is imminent, it‘s rather futile to fight it, right?”
Dorian had risen during the night and now stood on the stone floor staring down at me with a pensive look upon his face.
“I’ve been wondering the exact same thing all night. It seems you’ve been keeping me awake, Dorian.”
“Or you me,” he replied.
“Possibly, but as to the question, I’ll wager it isn’t disturbing Tristan’s sleep, so lets wake him and find out the answer.”
Dorian and I slipped down the hall and rapped vigorously upon his door. After minutes of horrible banging it finally opened, and a sleepy Tristan stepped aside for us to enter.
After shutting the door he fell back upon the bed. “What is it that’s bothering you at this hour? More questions?”
Dorian took the lead and asked, “If this catastrophe is certain, isn’t opposing it vain? Aren’t we wasting time, energy and effort on nothing?”
Tristan gazed thoughtfully at Dorian’s face. “We have a moral obligation to combat it, don’t you think? We can’t stop destiny, but we can lessen it’s impact on humanity -- however, the reason for your confusion is simple: you’re ignorant because the circle isn’t complete. For this trinity to be fully formed and highly functional, we must seal the blood pact. Then you will know all that I know for better or for worse.”
“And what is worse than having to drink your blood?” Dorian inquired.
“Two thousand years worth of memories, ideas, emotions, thoughts forced through a small opening into a significantly younger creature could cause madness.”
I paced the floor for a moment, weighing the pros and cons of the act. On the one hand, I greatly desired to acquire the knowledge that made Tristan so wise in the current situation; on the other hand, I feared the loss of my faculties, but more so the loss of my precious Dorians, who I secretly dreaded was more likely to suffer the injury than me.
“I’ll do it; but I can’t allow Dorian to risk it,” I answered finally.
“I’ll have you know you don’t control me Regina. I make my own decisions; you are simply a considerable influence in them.”
“And what’s your decision, Dorian, in this matter? Have you made up your mind?”
‘Yes. I will follow your lead. If you seal the pact, then I will also and we’ll be three strong.”
I looked at Dorian regretfully, then reaching over, stroked his cheek with the back of my hand. “My precious Dorian,” I whispered. “I fear for you.”
“Oh mother, I’ll be fine,” he countered, pulling my hand down to hold between his. “You worry too much.”
Both of us turned towards Tristan, who lay prostrate on his back with his arms extended in a sacrificial posture. “You won’t become vampires but you will carry traces of my experience from those years. Now, Carpe Diem as they say.”
Despite my reservations, I allowed Dorian to proceed and each of us took one of Tristan’s arms in ours, and slowly we sunk our teeth into his muscled wrist.
At first I saw nothing, and then a sudden and perpetual onslaught of complex memories inundated my brain, like several rolls of celluloid imposed upon each other, and I could not identify any specifics in content or people - only momentary glimpses into Tristan’s past, from the instant he first became conscious up to approximately 16 years of age. At this particular time the images slowed, and I could form in my mind the vision of a fair youth at 16, with golden blonde hair and bright blue eyes, seated at a table inside a magnificent, regal estate with smooth walls carved from the finest marble. At his side and draped in a rich scarlet tunic an older gentleman with long brunette hair and a heavy brow now sat discussing Pythagoras, Ameinias and Heraclitus. On the page before the child were written these words:
Welcome, youth, who come attended by immortal charioteers and mares which bear you on your journey to our dwelling. For it is no evil fate that has set you to travel on this road, far from the beaten paths of men, but right and justice. It is meet that you learn all things - both the unshakable heart of well-rounded truth and the opinions of mortals in which there is not true belief. - Parmenides
The man went on to explain the meaning of these words, but as he did so he gazed approvingly at the boy’s frame and at his countenance till the boy blushed out of pure modesty and shyness. It was then I guessed that the man was Tristan’s erastes and realized by the opulence of the house and the fine red linen that Tristan had, as a catamite, studied at the behest of an ancient king, perhaps during the Grecian or Roman era, but only when I heard the name “Leonidas” did I realize the significance of his training.
The scene faded from my mind then, and I was cast suddenly into a blackness from which another series of images arose, but these were more like impressions, and I saw the youth enduring numerous lashes at the hands of his elders without succumbing to the pain or injury, and beheld visions of him procuring food at midnight from the stores of the camp, and defeating his peers in what appeared to be to-the-death challenge. In every endeavor he was successful, and grew stronger and wiser at the foot of his pederast, who was hand-picked by Leonidas himself and who himself had once been Leonidas’ lover.
These soon passed and I was thrown into a second darkness before I met with yet another dream, this one of a lighter nature, or so I thought at first. Tristan had begun his education as a member of the Syssitia, and I felt rising within him a delight heretofore unrecognized, and understood that this period had been the happiest time of his mortal life not only because he was approved by his peers, but also because honored among them as their leader. I overheard voices then that paid homage to his performance during the Krypteia, and the number of rogue Helots he had slew, and The Paidonomos exhalted his physical prowess in both athletics and dancing, and in his perseverance during Diamastigosis. Tristan’s ecstasy was unquenchable, and I felt him pause for a moment to relish the fraternal love he had once experienced by his peers, and then abruptly the scene ended, hurling me once again into night and an unfathomable despondency. This, I knew, belonged to my friend, and was the precedent to some even he was loathe to reveal, but at last I saw a flickering candle, and a kiss goodbye - the kiss of two lovers before one departs for war.
For two days Tristan and his band held with Leonidas against 500,000 strong Persians, but on the third day, betrayed by their own blood, the Spartans fell under King Xerxes men. Tristan remained fighting to the last, but was struck his final blow by a rain of arrows that blotted out the sun, whereupon he collapsed onto the heap of decaying bodies below him and commenced to pass out.
He did not die however, for the strike that landed him was not fatal, and he awoke in the dimness of the following night, alone amongst his slaughtered comrades and king. A full moon radiating its supernatural light cast shadows along the countryside, and he could see the faces and visages of his fallen friends, and the traces of body mounds off to both his right and left. He felt then for his blade - or any object - by which he might kill himself and die honorably amongst his fellow Greeks, but he could find nothing beneath or beside him except rotting flesh on the frames of his familiar.
He was pondering the methods whereby he might end his life when movement off to the left startled him. Some figure, ominous and foreboding, was ravaging through the bodies like a hungry stray dog beneath a merchant’s table. It did not struggle through the mortal heaps but appeared to glide over them effortlessly, like mists over the swamp waters. “Surely I am about to die,” I heard Tristan think in his mind, “for I’m seeing phantoms.”
Tristan was straining harder to identify the beast that now scoured through the wreckage when suddenly the creature looked over at him, then hastily appeared at his side.
“You are death?” Tristan inquired through hollow breaths. “You’ve missed one.”
“Not death, friend,” said the other, and much to Tristan’s astonishment, the figure removed his hood, revealing the fresh face of a young man approximately his own age. “I am life, if you would have it.”
Tristan spat on the ground. “What life is left when all I love his dead? There is no honor in it. For the love of Sparta or whatever your native land, kill me now. Let me die honorably.”
“Is death more honorable than revenge, then? Would you kill yourself when you could see Xerxes murdered?”
Tristan raised an eyebrow at the youth. “How is this possible? Who are you?”
“My name isn’t important. Suffice it to say I have a vendetta to settle with the Persian empire, and would like nothing more than one of your caliber to handle this business for me. You’re an aristocrat, strong, clever and cunning. I’ve heard of you - yes - Tristan of Sparta, the Celt adopted by Leonidas for his fair complexion and raised under the strictest, harshest conditions. Not by birth but by effort were you forged and fashioned into a renowned warrior and now, hero. Would you fight for your birthright, or would you surrender to death so easily? Isn’t retribution a settling a differences, a King for a King, hmm?”
Tristan rolled over to stare at the hill of death he knew entombed his King. “What must I do?” he answered at last.
“You must be reborn,” the other hissed. “Allow me to kiss your hand and give you new life.”
Returning to his original resting place, Tristan offered up his hand to the stranger, whereupon the stranger seized it and, placing Tristan’s wrist in his mouth, proceeded to bite down. I felt Tristan loose consciousness under the vampire’s strength, and then everything went black.
“Tristan?”I hollered into empty space, a question that was soon answered.
“There is more.”
Another impression emerged, and I saw an old man wrapped in bloody Persian sheets and lying on his bed with multiple stab wounds in his back, and I saw another figure, this one hidden beneath a black coat, conceal a bloody dagger within its folds and disappear into the shadows.
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