The Lebrus Stone (32 page)

"But I love Zangra; that must count for something," he said, his voice full of sadness and solitude.

"What about, Gundulla," she shout whispered. "You are aware of how she feels about you." She blew out another candle, leaving only two aflame; the bottom half of them was the only thing visible.

"I do not want Gundulla," he said. "I could never harbor mutual feelings. She is becoming a cruel and reckless woman."

"That, my dear Bevan, is to be your own battle to commence." She blew out the last candle to leave them in darkness. Another voice entered the room. How did they expect to leave?

"Who speaks within the chamber," a voice yelled, harsh and dictating,

"Why, it is Bevan and I, Elsbeth, Priestess Gundulla." Elsbeth's voice had become timid and childlike.

"What is your business herein? I hear you whispering. Is there private news you must discuss in the dark?"

"No, Priestess, I was just blowing out the candles and Bevan kindly offered to help."

"I have never known of such idiocy. Bevan, if you wish to help, your services are required in the dormitory. Now off you go! Both of you!"

I heard them scurry out of the room as I tried to recall where I'd heard Gundulla's voice before. It was vaguely familiar, yet I couldn't place it. The room was still occupied. I heard footsteps in the room; confident ones, as if the person could see in the dark. Maybe they could. Maybe their coven powers and spell casting allowed them to.

The footsteps hurried out of the room and descended some stairs. I was left alone, perhaps completely. They might have even vanished by now. I must have been watching some type of replay. Or was it a hallucination? Something Shikra had conjured up to make me see?

Just then, everything turned white, blank like a clean slate with no trace of any other past or future. I panicked and screamed, but the fear was trapped within me, stagnated, possibly forever.

When it cleared, I was blinking away black ash falling on my sweating face. A clump of burned leaves circulated my head. I coughed due to the strong smell of smoke entering my open mouth. Nausea kept me from screaming.

"There, there now. Rest your little head," a different woman said. A cold compress was placed on my forehead. A long, thin hand eased me back onto the hard bed.

I rubbed my eyes to get a good look at who was speaking to me. A slender woman was bent over a steaming pot that smelled of roasted peanuts and freshly cut grass.

I gagged.

With a cupped hand beneath the large wooden spoon, the woman held it beneath my sore lips. "Just a sip will do you fine."

I reluctantly took a sip, instantly regretting it. It tasted like tar or something equally as foul.

I swallowed hard and took deep breaths to stop myself from vomiting, nodding my decline to another spoonful.

It was then that it dawned on me that the woman could see me as if I belonged in the moment. How? It had to be a dictated dream.

I knew I didn't belong here from the way she was dressed like a peasant. Her hair was an almost silvery white, spiraled into neat curls that were tucked beneath a starched hat.

Her pretty face had delicate features, wrinkled but incredibly symmetrical. Whatever Fallions were, she had to be one of them. I could see they were inhumanly different; kind of elfin in features. Except human frailty had marred who I could tell was once a perfect and astoundingly beautiful woman. I was about to ask how I got in the bed, but she turned to look at a wooden door opening behind her. A wreath of holly leaves decorated the center.

"Mama, is she well?" a small voice asked. A young, blonde haired girl stepped out, heavily pregnant and wearing a floor length, cotton nightie.

She lifted the bottom of it and tip-toed along the uneven floor lined with quilts. When she stopped beside my bed and lowered her head, her soft, golden locks brushed against my tender arm.

"Are you a traveler?" she asked with innocence, seeming too young to be having a child.

I couldn't bring myself to speak, only stare. She was just as mesmerizing as the woman, just as majestic, but more…human.

"A widow?" she pressed. Her excitement decreased then increased with each question. Her eyes narrowed on my ruby ring. "A betrothed." She smiled, shrinking it into a frown. "But how?"

The woman held up her hand to silence the girl then grabbed my hand to inspect the ring.

"Who gave you this?" she asked, almost angrily.

"It was my aunt's," I choked out. The stench from the pot still aggravated my nose.

The woman leaned closer, searching my eyes; concern wrinkled her lips. "Now I see," she muttered to herself. "Now I see who you are," she said. "And you have no place here, even if you aren't a complete Fallion." She finally blinked. "Are there others with you?" She pulled away, standing to quickly untie the rag from her waist.

"Others?" I belched out loud by mistake.

"I suggest you return to where you came from and continue to keep your distance," she said. "Without our powers available in the human world, it can be a dangerous place. You must be aware of this." She wrung her hands.

I had no idea what she was talking about. She couldn't have known I might be from the future. How did she even find me to bring me here? Who were these people? I had my ideas. But…

A door slammed closed. A man with dark hair graying mainly around the ears threw a loaded sack onto the floor. It was Bevan, but older.

The woman rushed over to him and helped him to shrug out of his sheepskin coat. His face was red from what I guessed was the winter cold. The girl was still surveying me.

If the woman was from another world with great power, she had obviously left it behind to live the life of a poor, working class family. She must have been the Fallion that had a child with a human.

Was the girl Arrious?

"Warm me some broth, my love," Bevan said before kissing the woman on the lips. "Why are you all awake?" His puffy eyes landed on me, answering his question. "Who might this be?" He didn't seem pleased, although mesmerized by my CBGB t-shirt.

"Papa this is…" The girl whom I assumed was Arrious looked to her mother, but she shook her head. "A gypsy," the girl finished. Her mother's hunched shoulder dropped.

Bevan's bulky boots boomed against the floor as he headed toward me. "Say. You have a name, Miss?"

"C-Crystal."

He eyed me, much like the woman had, though less certain. "And what brings you here this Christmas Eve? Are you from out of town?" He peered down at my t-shirt again.

I nodded, then belched and threw up on his boots.

My hair was lifted, a clay bowl was placed by my mouth.

Bevan mumbled something and stomped out of the room.

"Arrious, fetch papa's broth before it becomes cold," the woman snapped, confirming my suspicions.

Arrious fled from the room.

"You should rest and leave by morning," the woman who must have been Zanga said, dabbing a cloth at the wet strands of my hair. "We cannot have any interference. They have the stone. You understand?" Her eyes watered.

"Yes." I sighed.

She held my gaze for a moment. "Tell…tell my creators—"

The front door thumped, rattling the chains across the wooden plank. Zangra leaped to her feet, just as Bevan returned to see who was causing the disturbance.

I had the urge to run. Something didn't feel right, and it wasn't due to the fact that I was speaking to the long dead.

Bevan opened the door with a distempered swing. Three men stepped inside and grabbed him by the arms.

"What in God's name?" He struggled. His one hand managed to punch one of the men under the chin. His elbow rammed into the eye of another.

He gave a good fight until five more entered and pinned him to the wall.

Arrious returned, almost deafening me with her screams. She threw herself at the men, thumping their backs, but they pushed her away.

I stayed nailed to my bed, hidden in the shadows.

"Why are you doing this?" Zangra yelled, tears streaming down her face.

When they didn't reply, another man entered, robed in black and carrying a bible. He had a moustache that curled up and over his plump lips; his pointed beard was tinged a greenish gray.

He looked familiar.

"Worshippers of the satanic verse must suffer for their mistakes," he replied. His voice sounding pre-programmed.

"I don't understand." Zangra frowned.

Bevan grunted and swore at the man. Arrious was at the man's feet, begging him not to hurt them.

I wanted to crawl away and not witness the inevitable. Things I couldn't change. Or could I? Would it change my outcome?

They hadn't noticed me, so I decided it was best if I crept off the bed and hid behind it. I didn't even know if any of this was real. There was no way I was interfering.

"Father Sinclair! Please don't burn us alive." Arrious sobbed into his boots. "Please. We aren't witches."

Sinclair? As in Reverend Sinclair whom I'd met? Was this telling me it was
him
who had burned them at the stake? Or was this man a relative of his? I didn't get it. If it was him, in my time he was alive and young, yet here he was…middle aged, verging on old.

The man grabbed Arrious by the arms and lifted her like she weighed nothing. "You shall be spared for the child within you." He smiled at her stomach. "Take them away," he commanded, lowering Arrious. She screamed, struggling to free herself from the men's clutch as Bevan and Zangra were dragged outside.

I gathered up the courage to run out of the house to do something, maybe save them if I could, but my feet became stuck in the dirt and snow. My pleas resonated through my ears, hitting an invisible wall so that they bounced back as whimpers.

"Well done," an old woman purred into Reverend Sinclair's ear. They faced the raging fires, stoking them with pointed canes as they roared with laughter. The stench of burning flesh grew suffocating. The anguish of terrorized screams stabbed at my heart, plummeting me into complete darkness.

This time when I opened my eyes, I was in a forest, lay on grass with my knees bent and my hair dangling from the craw of a riverbed. The moon glowed and looked almost three dimensional. The crows flew in reverse.

I couldn't lift my head since my hair was caught within a meander of twine. I tugged at it with my working hand, the strands rip from my scalp. It felt like I had been electrocuted from my teeth.

Once apart, I eased myself up. I had company. A cluster of people were around a fire not so far away. I could almost see the sputter of flames through the trees and the figures moving into the circle and then stepping back and raising their hands. It gave me the heebie jeebees. I wanted to get up and run the opposite way, but I knew I was here to witness it.

Crawling to a stand, I limped toward a bush. From there I could see people robed in black and dancing around a large fire. Their heads were bowed in a numinous worship; their lips moved in rhythmic turns.

They were uttering perhaps a vow to the slender figure stood in the center of the circle, cloaked in a pernicious red.

Their hands lifted to the sky. I figured the person must be Gundulla.

"Free my soul to keep," the figure spoke, confirming it. "For I want not a soul to bear the defects of a heart that will only be torn apart. Tear out. Tear out with your talons of blades, cut through the flesh, now canker it to ore. I am but a mere opening to the whims of your commandment. I will forsake my humanity for power. Indestructible we shall become. Invincible we shall be. Immortality shall be ours!"

Those gathered applauded.

"Rimmant, rimmanth shor mrue lah," she harked.

She was handed a child. It was so small it fit in her one hand. Its nakedness was concealed with a drape of red satin. Gundulla placed a finger on three dots of the same color that had been painted on the child's forehead, hands and feet. I wanted to snatch the child from her but felt glued to the ground

The child cried, squirming as Gundulla placed it onto a bronze pillar. "This here lies our victory, our savior born to be exchanged for youth. In exchange for its mother's life, we must diminish its cause and the womb from which it stemmed. We must turn her mother into meaningless ash so as to commence our journey into eternal life. There, youth and, of course beauty, shall be ours." She smirked. "This child here shall be the first sacrifice."

Arrious, dressed in a white gown, was dragged bare foot across the threshold, struggling to free herself from the clutches of those cloaked in black but hoodless. They were middle aged or old men, bald and with long, wiry beards.

Arrious's feet bled, her hair covered most of her scratched face. I tried to budge and save her, but remembered I couldn't, even if I wanted to more than anything. I was only there to watch. Everything could possibly vanish if I interrupted, and I had to know what happened, no matter how painful.

"Please, please don't hurt my baby." Arrious sobbed.

They tied her to a stake with rope, continuing to chant as the devil herself rose to douse her followers with something from a golden bowl. She placed it on the ground and clapped her hands twice, ignoring the pleas from Arrious who was being bound from the neck down.