Mortality: The Story of Mortanius

Chapter Fourteen

Underneath the waterfall was a cleft in the rock that led to a narrow cave passage. Water splashed over them as they walked under the falls, and Mortanius’s cloak snagged on the rock as he squeezed through the passage. It should have been pitch dark inside, but he detected a glowing light farther within. They walked down a short, slippery incline which opened into a cave which momentarily took his breath away.

It was a large, oval space lined with torches that gave the entire cave a smoky illumination like something out of a dream. The ceiling was at least fifteen feet high and lined with tiny, dripping stalactites. A few wooden benches had been brought inside, where a dozen people sat talking with each other, all of them wearing simple brown robes.

“Timenius,” said a portly man as he walked up to them. He gave Moebius a quick, friendly embrace. “It’s good to see you. And you must be Darvos,” he said, nodding toward Mortanius. “Timenius told us about you.”

“Yes,” Moebius said quickly. “I talked Darvos into coming with me this evening. Darvos, this is Loman, one of the members of our little group.”

Mortanius, casually ignoring the fake names Moebius had chosen for them, clasped hands with Loman and tried to give him an honest smile. “I have to confess, I don’t really know much about what you do here. He asked me to come, so here I am.”

Loman gave a good-natured laugh. “Well, let me introduce you to the others, and then we can start this evening’s meeting.”

Mortanius was led around the room, greeting each of the other members in turn. There was an elderly woman named Kalina, a scrawny lad named Borlan, a pretty young woman named Asilda, a stocky farmer named Poldos, and several more whose names Mortanius quickly forgot. They had a pitcher of wine and some loaves of warm bread, which he gladly accepted. Moebius sat at one of the benches in the back of the cave and Mortanius went over to sit beside him.

“We’re using aliases?” he whispered under his breath as he raised the wine to his lips.

Moebius smiled and leaned toward him. “I told you, they don’t know who we are. If they knew I was a Guardian, they’d never trust me.”

Loman stood up front and smiled generously. “Good evening everyone. Thank you for coming once again. I’m happy to say that we have some visitors tonight. You all just met Darvos, of course. Also with us tonight is Elianne, who came all the way from the Oakwoods to speak with us.” He gestured to one of the other people Mortanius was introduced to, a woman with pale yellow hair and sad eyes, who sat close to one of the torches, as if chilled and desiring warmth.

“As usual, I’d like to start our meeting by letting someone speak their mind,” Loman said. “If anyone would like to say something or address the other members, please stand up and say whatever you’d like. It’s important that we always share our ideas and feelings.”

Borlan, the young man, stood up and Loman politely sat down to let him speak. Borlan cleared his throat and wiped his chin. He couldn’t have been much older than sixteen years of age, about the same age Mortanius was when his parents died.

“One of them vampires flew over my family’s farm the other day,” Borlan said, his voice scratchy and uncertain. He didn’t look at the other members as he spoke, keeping his eyes on the floor. “Like a big, blue bird. And I just wondered where it was going. They just fly around and travel wherever they want, you know? Like they own the whole world or something. We can build fences to keep out wolves, but we can’t build a fence or a wall to keep the the vampires, now can we?”

Some of the others nodded or murmured in agreement. Borlan sat down and another person stood up, an older man with streaks of gray in his beard. “I already told you folks about my brother and how he died. Well, last week, one of my neighbor’s boys fell off a wagon and got his leg caught in the wheel. Shattered his leg like a twig.” The man grimaced, and several people in the cave closed their eyes with pained expressions. “Those vampires got all that magic and things they can do, but they don’t never help people like us. My neighbor’s boy is in real bad shape and I think he’ll probably die. Even if he lives, he’ll be a cripple for the rest of his life. If I was able to talk to a vampire about it, do you think it would even care?”

“No,” someone said softly.

Mortanius sat back and listened as two other people stood and spoke their mind, giving voice to the unspoken feelings that many people had regarding the vampires. They were mysterious, they were secretive, they were selfish and callous and cruel. “The vampires are our enemy,” everyone seemed to want to say. The sentiment was deeply ingrained. One of the other speakers referred to the vampires as “those creatures” as if the name of their race was a curse not to be spoken out loud. Moebius glanced at Mortanius a few times, but said nothing.

After the others were done speaking, Loman said, “All right. Thank you, Borlan and the rest, for sharing with us this evening. What I’d like to do now is let Elianne speak. She was kind enough to come all the way from Oakwoods and I think what she came here to say is very important.”

Elianne looked across the group with nervous eyes and gave a tight-lipped smile. “Thank you for inviting me here. Some of you probably know that there’s a group like this in Oakwoods as well. I’m one of the members there. We’ve been meeting for about nine years.”

Mortanius let himself wonder how long Moebius had been coming to these meetings. Had this group been meeting for nine years as well? Moebius couldn’t possibly have been attending meetings for that long, could he?

“There’s a vampire who lives near Oakwoods,” Elianne said. “I don’t know its name. I assume they have names. It lives in a castle, a huge castle made of stone. I’ve only seen the castle up close one time, and it terrified me. The vampire has lived there since before my grandparents were children. Maybe even longer.”

Mortanius already knew what she was going to say next, so it wasn’t a surprise. He looked around at the other faces and saw that they were not surprised either. There was only one thing that would bring Elianne so far from home to tell them.

“The vampire has … taken four people in the last couple of years. Taken them and bitten them to … to make them into … into half-breeds.” She took a deep breath and looked into the flames of the nearest torch. “But the vampire didn’t kidnap people and force them against their will. It’s worse than that.” Tears appeared in her eyes and began to drip down her cheeks. “The people volunteered. They wanted to be turned. One of them was my cousin Lucine ...”

“Oh, no,” a woman in the back moaned, covering her mouth with her hands.

“Is this what the vampires want from us?” Elianne asked no one as she wiped her face with the back of her hand. “To be willingly turned us into creatures like them? I don’t understand how anyone can do that. Lucine was a smart person, but she … I don’t know anymore. But it scares me, because every day there might be more people who want to become half-breeds too. They think it will make them powerful and immortal, but it just turns them into monsters. We can hate the vampires, that’s easy. But can we hate our own family members if they let themselves be changed?”

Elianne sat down, visibly exhausted, and Loman put his arm around her to comfort her as the others began talking amongst themselves. Moebius took part in the discussion as well, speaking with a few others about different issues relating to the vampires. Mortanius leaned forward, setting his elbows on his knees, and listened intently to the discussion all around him, remaining silent for the moment.

Nothing they said really surprised him. Their opinions and arguments were hardly new or revolutionary ideas. But even though Mortanius knew how people felt about the vampires, this was the first time that he truly heard it in their own words. He couldn’t remember the last time he really sat and talked with regular people like this, and he suddenly felt guilty because of it. He went to town sometimes and he also conversed with some of the local farmers, but those were simple encounters, little more than a quick chat about the weather. He didn’t really talk to other people that often, and never about the vampires.

Hearing their concerns and their fears, not as vague generalizations but concrete personal beliefs, affected him in a way that his long discussions with Moebius did not. He knew Moebius too well, but these people were complete strangers, and Mortanius could only judge them based on what they said right now.

Moebius hated the vampires and admitted as such. But it wasn’t hate that motivated these people to meet in a secluded cave in the middle of the night. It wasn’t distrust or jealousy or even prejudice. As Mortanius listened to them talk, he realized that the core of their belief held something far more simple and honest.

They were afraid. The people were simply afraid of the vampires. Afraid of their strange powers, afraid of their magic, afraid of their immortality, afraid that some day they might be killed by a vampire in need of sustenance, afraid that someone they love might choose to abandon their humanity and become a half-breed, afraid they might be turned into a half-breed against their will. They acted out of simple fear, and because of that, Mortanius could not help but sympathize with them.

Hate could be dealt with. It was possible to teach people that their hate was wrong. But fear was ingrained deep in the human subconscious. You could try to teach someone not to be afraid, but it never worked. And when it came to vampires, it was impossible because their fear was not unfounded or based on false information. Everything the people feared about vampires was actually true. It would be like trying to teach a chicken not to be afraid of a fox.

The vampires possessed mysterious magic, they drank human blood, and they could transform anyone into an inhuman half-breed creature. They were dangerous, terrifying, alien creatures. People were right to fear them.

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