Waiting for the Messiah

By Innocent omniscient
 
 


         Feel the cold.  Look out on a dying world, ice clinging to everything, to the stone balustrades, to the carved arch above my head, to the faces and wings and wounds of our fallen brethren far below.  This is the world that He sees every day, as He fasts, as He watches and waits.  This is the world that He says will be redeemed.  See the men and women marching on the solid surface of the frozen lake, fingers numb, clutching their weapons, breath steaming impotent hatred at the pale figures they see perched high up here, out of their reach.  Catch the scent, faint but unmistakable, of their warm blood coursing through their hateful veins, enticing and sickening, drawing me forth.  The only other scent on the air is death, the death of kin that tears our hearts, the pain we feel as the stakes are driven through their bodies, through their eyes, piercing and rending and undoing lives that once shone in the dawn of a better time.  And wait, He says, wait always, as the winter tightens its grip and more soldiers congregate out on the ice, as we shiver and hunger and our faith runs dry.  The bloodthirst burns, the old curse, the demands of this body that is no longer mine, that is alien and terrible, driven by desires that are too dark for me to compass or comprehend.  I barely remember the time before.  It comes to me in flashes, bright light, warmth, peace, a sense of calm that leaves me breathless, yearning after it, clutching at a dream.  I don’t want to remember any more.  The past casts a shadow that hangs over me, darkening my thoughts, reminding me of the things that I have lost.  I don’t want to be this thing I have become.  I want to spread my wings wide, soar free of this place, ascend into the pure blue sky, leave the hunger behind.  But wait, He says, with unfathomable conviction.  This hell is not forever; this darkness will grow light; the Messiah will come.
         I tire of this, this lonely vigil, watching the soldiers move about on the lake.  Their sweet-savoury scent is a torture to me, the broken pictures that float up from their minds full of horror are like flashes of lightning that tear through the fabric of my resignation.  How can this be happening?  How can He stand so still, watching, as every day another one of us falls to the spear and the stake?  What do we mean to Him, His brothers, His children?  Does He think of us at all?  We are too close in blood for me to fathom the depths of His mind.
“And what if you could, and you found only silence?”
A familiar voice rings out behind me, a demon’s voice, laden with scorn.
“Do not torment me, Vorador,” I reply, resenting his intrusion into my thoughts, “I have already heard all that you would say”.
“You may have heard, but have you listened?” he retorts, “Have you for a single moment let my words enter your mind?”
He moves closer, forcing me to turn and look at him.  He has fed recently: I can see it in his eyes, in his skin, supple with life, I can smell it on him, I can hear it in the richness of his voice.  It maddens me to think of him, the treasured fledgling, the wingless one, stalking out onto the ice, disobeying his Maker’s commandment, risking everything to satisfy his cruel hunger.  He laughs as I turn my head away in disgust.
“Why do you torture yourself?” he asks, “Do you think you can earn salvation through this endless penance?  Do you think if you deny the hunger that it will simply go away?”
        I say nothing, lowering my head, wrapping my arms around myself against the chill.  The scent of the blood on his lips is intoxicating.  Every fibre of my body seems to scream for it, lust after it.  In one blinding instant I imagine striding forward, taking him in my arms, crushing him to me, draining the life from this infuriating, arrogant, impossible creature, drinking it in.  But again he laughs, catching the image in my mind.
“You’ll not find me such an easy conquest” he sneers, “Do not forget whose blood flows in my veins”
“And you think that would save you?” I ask, “Do you believe that He would come to your aid, or avenge you if I were to kill you now?”
He says nothing; I have touched an old wound, found the one tender place in his darkened heart.  I want to hurt him suddenly, to drive the knife into the little crack in his heart that I have found, to make him pay for all the times that he has made us suffer, for every tear that he has brought to the eyes of his Maker.  But the injured expression on his face makes me relent.  He is still so human, in spite of the blood.  Cutting him down now, in this moment of weakness as he gazes out of the window at the world outside, would be a petty victory, one that could only bring despair in its wake.  I have had my fill of despair, of death and horror, these past months.
“Forgive me, Vorador,” I say, “You have always been a puzzle to me.  And yes, to answer your question, I have thought about your words.  Thought about them incessantly, until they seem like wisdom”.
“Then why not act on them?” he asks, something like passion reanimating his face, “Why not leave, make a new life for ourselves, somewhere else in the land?”
“Where would we go?”
“Anywhere.  Away from here.  There are many places, dark places, and hidden, where the human cattle would not dare to seek us out, where we could be free of their interference once and for all”.
I look at him, and for a moment his dream seems to shine.  The promise of solitude, of soothing darkness free from the merciless trudge of marching footfalls, an end to this aimless waiting…
“Say you’ll come with me,” he pleads, his voice taking on an unaccustomed softness, “There are others of our kind who would follow if you would agree to lead.  This place is barren, sterile, locked in a past that has long since decayed.  Join us, Amiel.  There is nothing here for you”.
His eyes search mine, piercing through the safety of my melancholy, forcing me to look away.  His words touch my soul, and there is pain there, a pain far older and deeper than his momentary agonies.  But it is a pain I will not share, not with this solitary, mercenary creature.  I will not allow him to touch me so.
“I am weary, Vorador,” I say at last, “Leave me in peace to think about these things”.
“Coward, shying away from what you know to be true!” he spits the words at me, his anger rising again, burning away the calm he wove.  “How long do you think you can live like this?  How long before the hunger drives you out to hunt those who hunt you and take what you want?  Or will you wait until you are too weak to stand, until the hunger has burnt through you and left you hollow, lying on the marble floor, waiting for death?  When will you accept that you are what you are?”
“When I have forgotten what it meant to be otherwise,” I reply, “I did not choose to be what I have become”.
“Then you condemn yourself,” he replies contemptuously, “There is no forgetting, except in the blood.  Unless you drink, you will never find peace”.
“Is that what you find in the blood?  Peace?” I demand, “Strange that I can see no peace in your eyes”.
Again pain flickers through him, shadows pass across his eyes, and how terrible it is to see the emptiness that lingers behind those eyes, the fear that lurks in the heart of the creature who professes to be heartless.
“Leave me now, fledgling,” I say wearily, “I will think on your words”.
He turns to go, sending his fury flickering out through the silence to scorch my mind.  I embrace it, absorb it, but it warms me little.  This fire, this fury, is nothing but despair, alchemised to anger to beguile the heart that would otherwise destroy itself.  I cannot help but admire this little trick, this defiant self-deception, this talent for survival.  Such strength, such determination, such sheer, fierce desire for life in all its filthy glory.  I understand why he was made.  But it is a mortal fire that burns in him, for all his attempts to shrug off mortality.  He was not made for eternity.  He was born to die.
         And I, I am dead, dead long since, my heart shrivelled inside me, drained of hope.  The life that pulses in these veins is not life at all, merely thirst, the insatiable craving that rages in this chill flesh.  All that is left in my mind is resistance, the blind faith that things were once otherwise, that they do not have to be as they are.  All other thoughts have withered away, eroded beyond salvation.  But still Vorador’s words torment me, they echo in my ears like distant thunder, a storm approaching.  Why should he matter to me, this favoured pet, this prodigal child?  Why should his talk of seeing the world, of walking the regions where man has never trod, seem so enticing to one such as I?
        I have been here so long.  I remember when this place was first carved out of the mountainside by mages far older than I, creatures whose eyes were cold and hard as crystal, inscrutable.  It was the first thing they built for us after the fall, the first penitentiary, a refuge from the world outside.  A simple feat for those who had raised the pillars, forced nameless things back down into darkness.  So simple, to hollow out a place amidst the ice and snow in which to hide away, to meditate on all that had passed, to savour the bitter taste of our victory.  There was nothing for us in the frozen wasteland outside.  Nothing but the blood.  None of us ever had any intention of leaving.  We locked ourselves away in the sterile chill, drifted on darkened wings through the arches, raised our voices to the stars when misery forced music from our lips.  But inevitably some of our number began to slip away, succumbing to the thirst or the lure of the horizon, wandering out alone or with a few treasured companions.  They always returned at first, all but those few whom we knew had gone out to seek their end.  There was nothing in the world for us.  Even I went wandering once, when the hunger raged in me like a fever and made me dream of another place, of sunlight and sweetness and the half-remembered wonder of a flower opening.  I had to drink to make the dreams go away, drink until I was glutted with death and all the flowers in my head had shrivelled, their tender petals soaked in blood.  There was peace of a sort, the warm softness of mortal bodies crushed close to me, flesh pierced and drained of its sweetness, the rhythm of a heartbeat rocking me sane.  There is always a kind of peace in oblivion, in the safety of another’s flesh.  But it is never enough to wash away the guilt when the peace has passed and your eyes open to view the dead thing in your arms.  I do not wish to face the world again.  Vorador’s words are nothing to me.
         My heart is sore.  I am weary of solitude.  It is too cold in this room, the sky outside is too wide, too blue, and beyond the line of the mountains a world beckons, locked in beauty, in the ruthless grasp of the frost.  Again that feeling, that desire to escape, fly free of this place.  Vorador has worked his magic well.  Perhaps it was only this, this gift for turning lust into poetry, for forcing his will with the lightest touch and making the wildest impulse sound like reason, that caused him to be made in the first place.  His words could wear down the firmest resistance.  Perhaps he simply left his Maker with little choice.  And how He has suffered for him since.  The pain He has felt still hovers around Him, a kind of incense, a cloud of mist that makes Him impenetrable.  It seems an age since I exchanged words with Him.  These last times have been so still, drifting through the silence left by those who have already gone to their deaths, waiting for something, for the Messiah, perhaps.  I will seek Him out, if only to hear the sound of His voice.  He will weave the old dreams and I will close my eyes, listening, drawing them out in my mind to the rhythm of my own heart. He will tell the old tales and I will believe, at least for a while, for the space of a heartbeat.  I crave this comfort, my soul aches for it, yearns after just one moment of tranquillity.  I want to rest, to feel the old wholeness, safe and silent, in His arms.  I want to hear old tales and the crackle of the fire, smell the wood burning in the grate, see the flames trace their patterns and lick blackness across the stones.  I want to believe.
         Slowly I turn my back to the window, to the world outside, and listen to my footsteps ringing out on the marble.  Sacrilege, my existence here.  Every movement is tainted.  Only silence has merit.  But still I continue, pushing open the door, sweeping my eyes across arches now dusted with snow and trying to find the beauty that I once saw here.  Below, one or two others drift aimlessly on the chill air, their faces shadowed by their splayed wings, their eyes fixed on nothing, turned towards the inside, images of penitence in their sweet desolation.  I have dreamt with them, allowed my mind to wander back to other times while this body that is not mine stretches out its wings to catch the cold air.  I have fasted as long and hard as they, and suffered the hunger to dig in its claws.  It means nothing in the end.  Our visions of purity are all out of reach.  Hunger is hunger, however it shines, and pain is just pain, too simple for tragedy.  We are lost, so lost.  This bleakness will only cripple us.  Kneeling for a moment, I summon my strength, then spread out my wings and glide down to a balcony, drawn towards an urn balanced on a pedestal.  The urns are used to fill the basins, and to drink from, when hunger urges.  The basins are full of blood.  Holding the urn in clawed hands, I bend down, and carefully dip it into the basin, then raise it to my lips, breathing in its savour, letting the hunger rise.  Despicable, this thing inside me, rearing up, screaming for the blood as I allow a little to trickle into my mouth.  Only now could it taste so good, only now could I discern all the different flavours in this draught.  This blood is drawn from all of our veins, poured out and shared in times when we had nothing to feed on but each other.  It does not age, it does not decay, it merely remains, ruby-glistening, the one eternal temptation.  I drink enough to blunt the hunger’s edge, knowing that He does not like us to fast beyond endurance, and, wiping my lips, I replace the urn on its pedestal.  I close my eyes and know that I am weak, tainted, but I cannot get rid of the taste of blood in my mouth.  Enough of this.  Clarity is returning, and I know what I must do.  Spreading my wings, I ascend to His gallery.
         I push open the door and feel a rush of warmth, the fire burning it its place.  He stands by the window, unfathomable, statuesque, and makes no sound as I move towards Him, and take my place at His side.  What does He see, staring down at the ice?  Does He watch the human knights as I watch them, does He sense their anger, do His eyes sweep over the bodies of loved ones that have gone into darkness, feeling the loss like a shard of ice in His heart?  Or is His gaze empty as Vorador says, impassive, numb, still waiting for a Messiah who is yet to come?  I cannot bear this.  There is no comfort in this silence.  I want Him to speak, to tell me the old lies, to teach me to believe as once I did, to dispel this bleakness and make me feel that life is worth living whatever its form.  But He says nothing, and I haven’t the heart to break His meditation.  We stand together for a while, merely watching as the guards patrol up and down far below, shaking off the chill as they shake their lances, marching to push the blood through their veins.  We are the shadows that they fight against.  We give them something to believe.  I envy their conviction, their dauntless self-righteousness, their faith in themselves and in the horrors they have wrought.  Perhaps they are right to seek our destruction, perhaps we are the devils they paint on their walls.  Again the scent of their blood torments me, the hunger that I have waked cries out for satisfaction, and I smile, knowing that soon I will have no choice but to sate it.  It is the hunger that turns angels to devils.  Our enemies knew that this curse would destroy us.  Oblivion calls, the loss of self to strength, and I wonder what it would mean to place myself in human hands.  I cannot believe, and so I am dead.  I cannot believe the Messiah will come.
“Janos…” I murmur in supplication, reaching out my hand but not daring to touch the arms that once held me, the angel I once knew.
He turns, and His eyes meet mine, and all I see in them is my reflection.
“I know, Amiel,” He breathes, compassion in His voice that is just pain alchemised, understanding that is just another little tragedy.  “I see”.
I want to find words to express what I feel, to encompass it in the safety of an old tale.  But there is a noise from behind us, a knock at the door, and He moves away from me as Vorador strides in.
         “You have something to say to me, Vorador?” He asks, in a voice full of false light.
“You know what it is that I have come to say,” Vorador replies.
I sense the presence of others waiting out in the hall.  I feel their fear as they lurk on the threshold, straining to hear, waiting for a sign.
“We are leaving this place,” he continues, “We refuse to wait any longer for the prophecies to be fulfilled.  There is a world out there that awaits our attention.  There is nothing here for us”.
“Nothing?” responds Janos in mock surprise, “It was not long ago that you swore this was the only world you wished to know”.
“Do not try to hold me to old promises,” Vorador retorts, “I was young then, and foolish.  I wanted the blood”.
“Ah yes, the blood,” Janos muses, “And who was it that gave it to you?  Who answered your prayers when you were but mortal, when you stood out on the ice for days on end and refused to be driven away?”
“It was the mortal world that I wished to leave behind,” he replies, “There was nothing left for me there when I came to you.  They had taken everything from me”.
“Everything but your life,” Janos comments, “And I took that from you”.
“I gave it to you”.
“Such things cannot be given, only taken”.
“I willed you to take it”.
“And I obeyed your will”.
They look at each other, and for an instant I sense their pain, the desolation Vorador has wrought in the heart of his Maker, the wasteland that is all his own.
“Sometimes I wonder if I was wrong to make you,” Janos says.  His voice is soft, fading into a murmur.
“It was what I wanted,” answers Vorador, and I sense his conviction ebbing away.
Silence floods in, and we stand alone, locked in our own thoughts as time slips by.  I hear the others muttering out in the hall.  Slowly, one by one, they begin to drift away.
“You will always have a place here,” Janos tells him, “But I will not prevent you from doing what you have to do”.
“Of course you won’t,” Vorador says, stung to anger by the softness in Janos’ voice, “You never did, did you?  Once you had given me the blood and tired of me you let me do what I would, safe in the knowledge that I was beyond redemption.  What did it matter to you what I did?  Your mind was on higher things.  You were waiting for the Messiah”.  Vorador throws these accusations at Janos with his eyes, and Janos says nothing, caught off guard.
“And where is your Messiah?” Vorador continues, his voice laced with venom, “Why has he not returned?”
Again, silence washes over us as Vorador’s eyes meet those of his Maker, searching in spite of himself for just a flicker of remorse.  This time it is Janos who turns away.
“I don’t know,” He replies at last, His head bowed in submission, “I do not understand”.
“You disgust me,” Vorador spits, already moving towards the door.  “Wait here forever, lost in your lies”.
“Vorador, wait…” Janos pleads, looking up suddenly, urgency in His voice.  Vorador pauses, his back to us both, and Janos moves towards him, placing a hand on his shoulder.  For all his fury he cannot pull away, and I see tears in his eyes as Janos takes him in His arms.  Then he is gone, striding out of the room without a backward glance, and I understand everything suddenly, as if a veil has been torn away, revealing the darkness behind its frail beauty.
“Goodbye, Janos,” I murmur, falling to my knees before Him in the suddenness of my conviction.  In blinding flashes I see it all, the centuries of waiting, the doubt and fear and pain, the losses that erode a heart to nothing, the horror of faith.  I rise to go, and my eyes fall on the fire that warmed me so many times before, when I sat by His side and listened to the steady rhythm of His voice telling me things that we both wanted to believe.  I understand now, and all the fires in the world cannot warm the chill in my soul.  There is nothing here for me.  My eyes meet His one last time, and the coldness there is no surprise to me.  Turning, I leave Him behind.
         Out on the ice, a group is already assembling, a draggle of malcontents and fearful children with Vorador at their head.  Many among them are wingless, his children, mortal beauties frozen in time by the blood he has given them.  They gaze at us in awe, at last believing the stories he has told them of the winged race from whom the blood flows.  Already our kind are falling into legend.
“Amiel!” he calls to me, his voice thick with blood from a kill that he must have made only moments before.
A young boy stands at his side, staring steadfastly at me through hazel eyes.  He has tasted the blood, this child, but not enough to work the changes on him, and he is hungry for it, hungry for more.
“I am glad you decided to join us,” Vorador says, moving towards me and leaving the boy in the company of his other pets.  I merely look at him, unable to respond.  He has fed to the point of saturation, he is drunk on mortal blood, and it burns in his face, firing his courage.  The others huddle closer to him, seeking reassurance, glancing up at the balcony far above from time to time, as if expecting some terrible punishment for their transgression, expecting Him to swoop down on dark wings and tear them to pieces.  I smile bitterly.  We make our own devils.  I want to be free of this place, but Vorador seems in no hurry to depart.  Further out on the ice, the humans are already beginning to congregate, watching us with dark-eyed suspicion, waiting for us to make the first move.
“Let them come,” Vorador comments, noticing the direction of my gaze, “There are more than enough of us to fight them off”.
He gestures to the boy, who comes swiftly to his side. Vorador smiles, and, taking the child’s hand, he raises it to his lips, sinking his teeth into the boy’s wrist just deep enough to draw blood.  Catlike, he licks the boy’s wrist clean, then offers the child to me.  I shake my head in refusal, and he shrugs, a smirk on his lips.
“Michael,” he says to the child, “This is Amiel.  He will be my second in command, so you are to give him anything he requires”.  Then to me, “Amiel, we are free now.  You must learn to take what you want.  You must learn to live again”.
Before I can reply, another of the group advances towards Vorador, and, bowing vaguely to me, he turns to address his leader.
“Please, let us get away from here,” he says to Vorador, glancing nervously at the humans who have already begun to advance, “We do not want a battle on our hands”.
“All in good time,” Vorador replies, “I refuse to run scared before a petty band of mortals”.
“But they have the staff, sir,” the other says.
“The staff?”  There is a flicker of uncertainty in Vorador’s eyes.  Then, “Well, that will make them a more interesting challenge”.
He dismisses his lieutenant with a simple gesture, and rejoins the group.  A pair of mortals are being passed around, a young woman and her girl child, held still by ropes and the hungry hands of fledgling vampires.  The scent of their blood is in the air as it trickles from hundreds of tiny wounds that the group have made.  I watch, vaguely sickened, as Vorador takes the woman in his arms, unlaces her dress, and sinks his teeth into her bare breast.  The others look on, the wingless ones cheering as he drains her almost to the point of death, then drops her to the ground to be bled dry by their cruel hunger.  Glancing up, I wonder if Janos sees this display, if secretly it was meant for Him.
        The humans are closer now.  I can hear their footfalls on the ice, and sense fear rising amongst our group, for all their practised bravado.  Vorador has turned his attentions to the little girl now.  She is crying as he holds her in his arms, inviting the others, one by one, to approach and taste a little of her blood.  At last he looks up, tiring of this game, and sweeps his eyes over the approaching army.
“Celyn, Dafydd,” he calls.  Two of his brood go to his side.  “Dispatch that herd of mortals, would you?  I don’t want them interrupting our feast”.
The two fledglings bow, and stride out to meet the human troops.  I watch as the distance closes between them, and smile in spite of myself as the first knight falls, cut down by a swift blow before he could raise his quarterstaff to parry.  The noise of battle is softened by the distance, the sound of metal on metal, the cries of the fallen.  It becomes a tableau, a picture of anger.  Perhaps this is what He sees, gazing down from his window.  The world must be merely a stage from that vantage point.  But the tide is turning.  The two vampires, tiring, are gradually being forced back, losing ground as the army advances towards us.  One of them falls, and there is a strangled cry as he is raised up, still struggling feebly, suspended on a pike that protrudes from his chest.  The other whirls around in circles, desperately trying to parry the blows that come now from all sides.  Somehow he manages to break through the human ranks, and tries to run, but he is soon overwhelmed, and I look away, not wishing to see what I know he must suffer.  Undaunted, Vorador sends out another cluster of fledglings, ignoring their protests and the terror in their eyes.  They are soon cut down as the human army breaks into a run, and suddenly the troops are upon us, their front lines breaking against us like waves.  Blood on snow, and hollered battle cries mingling with the cries of the fallen, chaos as our group scatters and are chased down like fleeing deer.  One or two take to the air; the rest are frozen in fear.
“Fight, you fools!” Vorador shouts over the din.  In this moving mass he seems to be everywhere, carving through the human ranks, standing over the fallen with sword in hand, trying in vain to rouse the fearful from their stupor.
“Don’t just stand there, fight!”
His voice reaches me as if from a distance, but it makes no difference now.  I am mesmerised by the light playing on the blades of our enemies, by the sinuous skill with which they lunge and block, tearing flesh and spilling blood.  So many of us have fallen already.  His first brood lies scattered on the ice, along with my kin, their wings broken or hacked away, their faces contorted in agony.  Those that are left fight as best as they can, but they are weakening, despair is draining away their strength.  As I watch, Vorador gathers the remnant to him, even as he fends off their attackers.  He casts an accusing glare up at the balcony from which Janos no doubt watches this scene, then turns to me.
“Get away, Amiel!” he shouts, “Their leader is using the staff, I will not be able to hold them back for much longer.  Get away!”
A few moments later he is running away over the ice.  I smile, wondering what Janos sees: a game played out for his amusement?  Another tragedy reaching its end?  Or merely a world that has lost its meaning, waiting always, encased in snow?  Already the humans have surrounded me, taunting me with their swords, piercing this flesh that was once my own.  And in the hands of a fierce-eyed knight I see the fabled staff, a red snake coiled around its length, its jaws open as if trying to swallow the sphere of crystal that sits atop the shaft.  Gazing into the crystal, forms shift and move, secrets are revealed, and time spins forever.  I feel my strength being sapped away, I feel rough hands on me, holding me still.  There is pain, searing pain, as the pike is thrust through my body, and I am raised up, arms and wings spread wide in surrender.  Then peace through it all as I gaze up at Janos’ balcony and imagine I see a figure by his side with blazing eyes and tattered wings, a figure that I know from the dreams of my youth.  Pain throbs through every inch of my body, but it no longer matters.  This hell is ending; this darkness has its own light; the Messiah will come.
 

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