Mortality: The Story of Mortanius

<--Previous Chapter|Next Chapter-->

Part Three

The Circle of Nine

Chapter Twenty-Three

The boat rocked gently with the motion of the waves. Mortanius didn’t have much experience riding in boats and he felt queasy, but he tried to ignore it, keeping his eyes focused on the island in the distance. At their present rate, they wouldn’t arrive until the sun was almost down, which frustrated him. He had hoped to have a few hours of daylight to begin their exploration. Investigating a vampire ruin at night was not something he looked forward to.

Galhonen leaned forward in the front of the boat so far that Mortanius thought he might fall out if they struck an unexpected wave. But the Guardian of Nature was perfectly balanced, his body moving in perfect unison with the water. The two Sarafan soldiers rowing the boat seemed nervous about his precarious position at first, but after awhile they stopped worrying about him.

The third Guardian in the boat was Janarion, the Guardian of Conflict. His long blonde hair sparkled in the afternoon light. Unlike the other Guardians, who wore luxurious silken tunics or long robes, Janarion wore chain mail. A sheathed longsword rested across his knees. By the pale cast of his skin, Mortanius guessed that he wasn’t enjoying the boat ride very much either, but Janarion was a man of few words and even fewer complaints.

Two more boats were just behind them, within shouting distance. One contained the Guardian of Balance, the elegant and dominating Ellendra, and the Guardian of Dimension, a rotund and dark-haired woman named Thesandrine. The other boat contained four more Sarafan soldiers, there to provide protection and assistance to the Guardians.

The island ahead was a tower of vine-covered gray rock, propelled forty feet above the surface of the water. Seagulls and other birds circled overhead, their high-pitched keening echoing across the lake.

“Remarkable, isn’t it?” Galhonen asked.

“Yes,” Mortanius admitted, staring at the island. “It is.”

The large lake west of the Pillars had no official name on their maps, but the locals called it the Great Lake or the Lake of Mist or the Lake of Tears. Normally, it was shrouded in a constant, almost supernatural mist throughout the year, and good fishing along the shore gave little motivation for anyone to sail out into the middle of it. However, Galhonen, the Guardian of Nature, had set himself a quest to personally map out every inch of Nosgoth, and in doing so had stumbled upon the island some weeks before.

Mortanius had never even considered the possibility that there might be an island hidden away in the center of the lake. But the island itself, as intriguing as it was, did not justify a boat trip all the way out here with three other Guardians. It was what lay atop the island, partially concealed by thick foliage but still barely noticeable from the surface of the lake. A structure of some kind, a strange fortress hidden all these centuries, mentioned nowhere in any of the vampire records.

Galhonen ran a hand through his bright red hair and turned to face Mortanius. The front of his tunic was damp from the spray. “What do you think we’ll find? Do you think there might be vampires up there? Real vampires, I mean?”

“I would be very surprised to find a vampire up there,” Mortanius said. “We’d be in serious trouble if that was the case. We don’t have enough men here to fight a vampire.”

“Really?” Galhonen asked, surprised. He glanced back at the Sarafan soldiers in the other boat, and then looked at Janarion, seeking confirmation.

The Guardian of Conflict let out a breath and squinted his eyes as he looked up. “A single vampire can defeat twenty men at once with ease,” Janarion said in his deep voice. “Trust me, I’ve seen them fight.”

“Maybe we should head back and bring more men with us?” Galhonen asked, a nervous edge creeping into his voice.

“Mortanius assured me that we wouldn’t be facing any vampires today,” Janarion said, “And I trust his judgment in this matter.”

Mortanius looked up at the island as it drew closer. “There aren’t any vampires up there, Galhonen. If there were, we’d have found out about this island long before now.”

“How would we know?”

“They drink human blood, remember? They’d have to come across the lake to feed. If there were any vampires in this region at all, we’d know about it.”

“Oh, of course,” Galhonen said. “Well, that’s a relief.”

Mortanius didn’t mock Galhonen for not realizing the obvious. Like some of the other Guardians, and most other people across Nosgoth, Galhonen had never seen a vampire in person. He knew about them mostly from their records and from stories told to him and the others when they first became Guardians. Janarion was in fact the only other Guardian besides Mortanius and Moebius who had seen a vampire with his own eyes.

The vampire race was very nearly extinct now, after more than three centuries of concerted effort by the Sarafan to exterminate them. Only a handful remained, secluded away in impregnable fortresses on the outskirts of human civilization, only coming out when they required sustenance. The half-breeds were more numerous, but it was easier for them hide, since for the most part they still looked like regular humans. Recently, the Sarafan had directed more of their efforts toward hunting down half-breeds instead of going after the last few vampires. In particular, they were still trying to hunt down the half-breed leader Vorador, who somehow still eluded them after all this time. His hidden mansion deep in the Termogent Forest was a mystery. The Sarafan knew it was there, but they couldn’t seem to find it no matter how much they searched.

Three-hundred years. Sometimes Mortanius felt the incredible weight of such a long life – more than four times the lifespan of normal people – but when he was distracted with his studies or working some other project, as he was now, it was almost easy to forget how old he was.

He didn’t really remember when he first came to understand that he wasn’t aging at the same rate as normal people. It wasn’t something that came upon him in a flash of inspiration, it was more like a slow realization. When he was fifty years old, he still appeared to be in his mid-thirties. When he turned seventy, his appearance was still unchanged. By the time he passed his first century and was likely the oldest human being in all of Nosgoth, he had still barely aged at all.

Had the vampires known that a human Guardian would be immortal, just as the vampires themselves were? Mortanius didn’t think so. Janos gave him no indication of it when they spoke briefly at the Pillars after Ellendra’s ceremony, and Mortanius never had the opportunity to ask him in the centuries since. Janos was one of the few vampires still alive, hidden away in his citadel on the cliffs near the town of Uschtenheim.

In fact, the reason that Moebius was not joining them for this trip was because he was busy arranging an assault on another vampire hideaway to the north. A vampire named Zelidna dwelt in the mountains, and Moebius was leading the Sarafan against her. Moebius’s staff was still the most potent weapon they had against the vampires, and Moebius was loathe to let anyone else wield it.

“Mortanius!”

Lost in his thoughts, he looked up to see who was yelling. It was Ellendra, waving at him from the other boat. “How are we going to get up there?” she asked loudly, pointing to the top of the island. Her long blonde hair blew in the breeze and she pushed it away from her face. “I doubt the vampires made a staircase for us to use!”

“We have ropes and grapples,” Mortanius answered. “If that doesn’t work, we’ll have to try something else.” In response, Ellendra frowned and put her hands on her hips.

“She should have asked that before we came out here,” Galhonen said lightly. “Don’t take this the wrong way, Mortanius, but I’m glad she pesters you about things instead of me. I’d never be able to put up with her.”

Mortanius sighed. “Yes, well, I suppose I’m just used to it by now.”

In the years following the rebellion, he and Moebius had managed to find all of the Guardians and bring them to the Pillars. Janos’s threat to reveal their location to Vorador turned out to be a bluff, as Mortanius always suspected it was. First came Ellendra, then Palton, then Uldofus, then Galhonen, then Janarion, then Luyonda, then Thesandrine. Mortanius and Moebius taught them and trained them as much as they could with their limited knowledge, and for the most part, the training had gone well, despite the difficulties. Each of the new Guardians accepted their individual role and learned their relationship with the Pillar they served. In time, they began to refer to themselves as the Circle of Nine, although Mortanius didn’t remember which one originally coined the name.

But there had been problems. Some small and some large. Mortanius had never expected it to be easy. But even after three centuries, some of those problems persisted. Mistakes had been made, and the blame for those mistakes seemed to rest upon his shoulders more often than not.



From the very first moment he met Ellendra, she had been stubborn and willful and fiercely intelligent. As she grew older, those qualities only became more pronounced. She was tall and strong and beautiful, and completely impossible to deal with. Demanding perfection, insisting on getting her way, and arguing with anyone who dared contradict her. Even though Mortanius was only thirty years older than she was, a negligible difference when they were both over three centuries old, Ellendra still treated him like he was her elder, expected to have the answers to her every question. Realistically, he and Ellendra were peers, but she didn’t treat him that way. She treated him like he was an old, doddering tutor and she was his prodigal student determined to frustrate him at every turn.

They finally reached the island about half an hour later. The Sarafan soldiers rowing the boats had to carefully ease them forward or else the waves might smash them up against the wall of jagged gray rock. Thankfully, the lake was calm enough that they got the boats lined up beside the island without too much trouble.

“Over there,” Galhonen directed them. “There’s a cleft in the rock.”

“It’s going to be quite a climb,” Janarion said, staring straight up.

Galhonen laughed giddily. “Yes, but imagine the view once we get up there!”

The Sarafan soldiers prepared the grapples and hooks as Galhonen climbed out of the rocking boat and grabbed a narrow ledge of stone sculpted from centuries of pounding water. He balanced himself and found a foothold stable enough that he could lift himself a few feet upwards.

“Please be careful, Guardian,” one of the soldiers said worriedly.

“Oh, I’m not going to try to climb the whole way,” Galhonen said, looking up. “But there are plenty of cracks and places to grab onto. Once we get the ropes in place, I don’t think it will be too hard to make our way to the top.”

Janarion insisted on going first. Once the soldiers got the gear ready, tossed up the grappling hooks, and made absolutely certain that they were secure, Janarion strapped his sword across his back and began to climb. Ellendra and Thesandrine seemed anxious, but Mortanius trusted Janarion to know what he was doing. A pair of Sarafan followed him up. Little pebbles and bits of dirt tumbled down as they ascended.

Janarion called down that there was a ledge about fifteen feet up, large enough for the entire group. They lashed the boats together and tied them to a chunk of jutting rock, and then went up the rope one at a time. First Galhonen and Mortanius, followed by some more Sarafan. After that, Ellendra and Thesandrine climbed up, much less sure-footedly, and the last of the Sarafan came last.

Ellendra reached the ledge and brushed dirt from the edge of her dark blue cloak, refusing help from anyone. Thesandrine, however, gladly accepted Mortanius’s hand as she reached the top of the rope. Sweat dotted her brow and she breathed a sigh of relief when she was standing firmly on solid ground once again.

“You’re doing okay?” Mortanius asked.

Thesandrine nodded with a smile and brushed some stray hairs out of her eyes. “Oh, don’t worry about me. It’s good to get a little physical activity now and then.”

Thesandrine had been the last of the original human Guardians to be located. She was from a remote, isolated cluster of huts very far to the east, too small to even be called a village, and was thirty-two years of age when they finally discovered her after two decades of intense searching. When they found her, she was married with five children. She was the last, and also the most challenging. How could they expect a grown woman, completely uneducated and ignorant of the ways of the world, to abandon her family and become a Guardian?

To this day, Mortanius didn’t know how she did it. He had carefully explained to her that she would probably age as slowly as he did, meaning that her own children would grow old while she stayed young. But she willingly accepted her role as Guardian of Dimension and came to the Pillars anyway, bringing her three youngest children with her, leaving her old life behind forever. Her husband and two oldest did not come, and as far as Mortanius knew, she never saw them again. But even that knowledge did not deter her. Her children grew up and had families of their own and passed away, and her grandchildren did the same, and by now she had lost contact with most of her great-great-grandchildren. She was the only one of the Guardians to have any children.

Once the last few Sarafan soldiers were up, they hurled the grapples up again and continued the ascent. As Galhonen pointed out, the rock was split and cracked in places, and there were plenty of narrow ledges and spurs of rock that they could use to climb. It took two hours for the entire group to reach the top of the island. Galhonen was almost boiling over with excitement, while Ellendra was annoyed at their slow progress.

“I can’t believe we had to climb up here ourselves,” she complained. “We should have sent workers here to build a lift cage, and then come once it was finished.”

“You agreed to come,” Mortanius said, looking through the trees at the structure in front of them. He could see a curved dome poking above the trees, made of stone and stained dark brown. At first glance, it didn’t look like any vampire ruin he had ever seen before.

Ellendra ignored his comment and crossed her arms, looking in the other direction as the sun began to set. They had maybe an hour of daylight left to start their investigation of the ruin. “It’s going to be dark soon,” she said. “We should think about setting up camp first. As much as I hate the thought of sleeping out here in the open, I think we should wait for morning.”

“What?” Galhonen said. “Are you joking?”

Janarion ordered the Sarafan to check out the immediate area. They spread out to look for any sign of habitation or even the possibility of wild animals. “We’re going to take a look around to make sure it’s safe for us to remain here,” he said. “But I strongly agree with Ellendra. We should prepare our camp and wait until tomorrow to go inside the ruin. We have plenty of time, there’s no need to rush into this when it’s so close to sunset.”

“I don’t think it would hurt to go inside and take a look around,” Thesandrine said. “I mean, I didn’t come all this way just to lay down for bed when our destination is right in front of us.”

“Exactly!” Galhonen said. He quickly turned to Mortanius and said, “Come on, surely you don’t want to wait until tomorrow. We should start right now!”

Mortanius smiled to himself and glanced back at the ruin. “I must admit my curiosity is getting the better of me. Lead the way, Galhonen.”

<--Previous Chapter|Next Chapter-->