Mortality: The Story of Mortanius

Chapter Forty-Seven

Moebius was not wrong. In the weeks following William’s funeral, there was a huge backlash against vampires all across Nosgoth. Malek and his vampire hunters were overwhelmed with information from a thousand new sources. Reports came in from all over of mobs forming to hunt down vampires and burn down the homes of people suspected of harboring them. The outrage over William’s death was so intense that Mortanius suspected more than a few innocent people may have died as a result, but there was no way for him to verify his concerns. He didn’t bother to contact Moebius or Malek about it, knowing they were likely far too busy to listen to him anyway.

Besides, Mortanius had other things on his mind as well. In the middle of William’s tragic death and the newly-discovered hylden, there was still the matter of the mysterious sword shown in the vampire murals. Mortanius found that he could not stop thinking about it. The sword, once nothing more than a historical curiosity, had somehow taken on great importance, although he could not fathom what that importance signified.

It was simply not possible that it was merely a coincidence that the assassin who murdered William used a sword identical to his own, identical to the sword once owned by Janos himself, identical to the sword portrayed in the mural at the vampire temple. There had to be something connecting that sword, but Mortanius was at a loss to explain it.

The Sarafan Knight Raziel claimed that he stole the sword from Janos, but all they had was his word. Mortanius had only glimpsed the sword briefly on the night of the Slaughter. Everyone had forgotten about it when Raziel revealed Janos’s heart, and in the aftermath of the Slaughter, they all assumed that Vorador had stolen it. But no one really knew for sure what had happened in the midst of all that chaos.

The order of events had never perfectly lined up, but the horrible memories of that fateful night had always dissuaded Mortanius from digging too much into it. He believed – and the evidence showed – that Kelredar and Sirine were the first to die, slain in the entrance hall. Ellendra was the third victim, followed by Olantireth, who was killed in the hallway upstairs. Palton and Rashard were the last to die, killed together in the library.

Where had the Sarafan Knights been during that time? They were found slain in the Grand Hall, but had Vorador killed them after he slaughtered the Guardians, or before? It must have been before, or else the Knights would have answered the Guardians’ cries for help, but Mortanius saw no sign of them at all until the following morning. So Vorador must have killed them first, before going after the Guardians. But when Mortanius finally encountered him on the balcony, Vorador didn’t have the sword with him. Had he gone back for it after his short battle with Malek? Or had he taken it to the balcony and hurled it into the lake just before Mortanius got there? Or had he ever taken it in the first place?

The last time Mortanius laid eyes on the sword that night was when one of the Sarafan Knights took it from Raziel and wrapped it in a cloth. What had they done with it afterward? For all Mortanius knew, they took the sword and placed it in the armory or some other storage room. He doubted that they would have still been carrying it when Vorador arrived. At that time, they would have been preparing for their return trip to Uschtenheim to retrieve Janos’s body. Most likely, the sword had been put somewhere. But in the aftermath of the Slaughter, they never found it.

Were there multiple swords, as Moebius believed? If William’s assassin truly used an identical sword, then that was the only logical explanation. But something else about the assassination bothered Mortanius, and he didn’t want to discuss it with Moebius because his old friend was already troubled enough by William’s death and there was no reason to trouble him further.

Why hadn’t Vorador done the deed himself? Witnesses to William’s death said the assassin had white skin but otherwise looked like any other half-breed, so that clearly was not Vorador. But if the sword was so important that they would kill William over it, why didn’t Vorador personally assassinate William like he had done to the Circle? Why send some other assassin?

And who was this mysterious assassin anyway? Some skilled half-breed under the command of Vorador? To the best of their knowledge, Vorador didn’t command half-breed soldiers like a military general. They deferred to him and treated him as a respected elder, but most half-breeds acted independently without any kind of central authority. Was William’s assassin nothing more than a half-breed working completely on his own? And if he was, then where did he get a sword identical to William’s?

And again, how could be the same sword shown in the vampire murals? Did those murals portray historical figures from the ancient war, or did they represent something else? A legend, or a prophecy?

Mortanius wracked his brains trying to make sense of it. He had the unshakable feeling that he was missing some vital fact that would put all of this into perspective. Killing William made no sense by itself, but the assassin wielding a sword that just happened to be portrayed in ancient vampire murals was too much for Mortanius to accept as a coincidence.

The worst part was that he couldn’t really talk to anyone about it. He didn’t want to bring it up with Moebius for fear of getting caught in a falsehood regarding their discovery of the hylden, which would only complicate matters. Azimuth would likely disregard anything from the vampire temple since it contradicted the murals beneath Avernus Cathedral. He could already hear her voice telling him that the sword in the mural was just the invention of some long-dead vampire artist, and the one that Moebius gave William just looked like it by accident. But she had never actually seen the sword with her own eyes. She wouldn’t understand.

It was with those thoughts swirling in his mind that he returned to the Cathedral to meet with her several months after William’s death. Since the funeral, he’d been splitting his time roughly evenly between his home and Avernus. Azimuth had been somewhat distracted by their communication with the hylden, and she allowed him to come and go as he pleased.

When he arrived, the front doors to the Cathedral were locked, which was odd. Luckily, Mortanius had his own key. The inside of the Cathedral was surprisingly cool given the temperature outside, which also felt strange to him.

He didn’t bother to call out for Azimuth, since he knew she was probably downstairs. She rarely came up except for meals anymore. Without students and servants walking around, the huge Cathedral felt like a giant empty tomb. Mortanius’s footsteps echoed softly as he traversed the main hall and descended the stairs.

He heard Azimuth’s voice and followed it until he found her in one of the larger meeting rooms, where she was speaking to someone. Slowing his pace, he approached the doorway, wondering who else would be down here with her.

“... things they’ve told us. They have great power and knowledge, far beyond anything we know about. And all this time, they’ve been waiting for us to reestablish contact with them. And now we have, and who knows what amazing discoveries this might lead to?”

A male voice, the accent giving him away as a commoner. “Thank you, my Lady. Thank you again for sharing this with us.”

“Yes,” said a shy female voice. “It’s … it’s an honor to be here.”

A few other voices agreed, murmuring thanks.

Mortanius stepped into the doorway, immediately silencing the conversation. Azimuth was seated at a table with six or eight other people. They were dressed in shabby cloaks and rags, and their hair was dirty and uncombed. Peasants, all of them. One of them was an old man with gnarled limbs, another a girl barely past sixteen with the haunted eyes of someone who has seen more than their share of personal suffering. The rest were middle-aged, but all of them looked older than their years. On first glance, Mortanius guessed that some of them – maybe all of them – were homeless vagrants.

“Oh!” Azimuth said, somehow sounding pleased and disappointed at the same time. She sat up and clasped her hands together. “Mortanius, I didn’t think you’d be here today.”

“And I didn’t know we were having guests over,” he said casually, nodding at the peasants. “What’s going on here, exactly?”

Instead of answering him, Azimuth turned to the others and rose from her chair. “Everyone, this is Lord Mortanius. He’s one of the Guardians, just like I am. Right now he and I need to speak privately. I’ll take you to the kitchen so you can get something to eat, and then you can head home. Just remember to keep what I’ve told you a secret for now, okay?”

Azimuth ushered them out of the room and they nervously greeted Mortanius as they went by, mumbling thanks or that it was an honor meet him. He smiled as pleasantly as he could and let them pass, giving Azimuth a questioning look which she skillfully ignored. He was tempted to follow them upstairs, but decided to remain where he was. A few minutes later, Azimuth came back down.

“I know, I know,” she said, “I should have told you, but –”

“Who were those people?” he asked, interrupting her.

“Some local people I met the other day,” she said vaguely.

“Where did you meet them, a homeless camp?”

“Don’t be a snob, Mortanius. They’re just some poor, unfortunate people.”

“You were telling them about the hylden.”

She put her hands on her hips and looked at him. “Yes, I was.”

“I thought you wanted to keep this a secret. That’s what you keep telling me.”

Azimuth sighed and walked past him to take a seat at the table. She crossed her legs and smoothed out her dress. “I just wanted to tell someone about it, okay? What we’ve discovered is so incredible, Mortanius, I just couldn’t keep it to myself anymore. And I know what you’re about to say –”

“We have to tell the other Guardians.”

“No,” she said, shaking her head. “Not yet. I’m not ready.”

“Not ready for what?” Mortanius asked exasperatedly, spreading his hands. “They need to be told. We should have told them already. I don’t understand why you want to keep this to yourself.”

“I’m the Guardian of Dimension,” Azimuth said. “The hylden are trapped in another dimension, and I’m the one most qualified to study them. The Dimensionscope makes it possible for us to communicate with them, and the Dimensionscope is mine.”

“That’s all true, but the other Guardians still have a right to know what we discovered here.”

“Do they? My experiments are my own, just as your experiments are your own. Do you share every discovery you make with the rest of the Circle? Do you think Moebius or Anarcrothe reveal all their private experiments?”

“I don’t tell everyone about my experiments because I don’t think anyone really wants to know,” Mortanius said. “I experiment with corpses and death. Do you want to hear all the grisly details?”

“That’s not my point,” Azimuth said, leaning forward. She pointed at him. “Your experiments are your business and no one else’s. The Dimensionscope is my business. I invited you here to share in my discovery, but that doesn’t mean I’m willing to tell the others.”

“Why not?”

“I don’t trust them,” she said simply.

Mortanius was nearly struck speechless. He laughed a humorless laugh and set his hands on the table. “Don’t trust them? What are you talking about?”

“You know what I mean. Anarcrothe is an arrogant jerk. Ariel and Nupraptor are impossible to deal with. Malek and Moebius are fanatics. None of them would let me continue my experiments as I saw fit. They’d make demands of me, try to dictate how I use the Dimensionscope. They might even try to stop me from communicating with the hylden altogether.” She crossed her arms defiantly. “I’m sorry, but I won’t allow that to happen.”

Mortanius wanted to argue with her, but deep down, he knew that she had a point. Mortanius could easily imagine Moebius, just for one example, forcefully ordering the Dimensionscope to be destroyed rather than have a method to speak with the hylden, who were even more alien and unknowable than the vampires. Some of the others, such as Ariel or Bane, might also argue that they should not interact with the hylden at all.

The hylden would immediately become a point of contention among the entire Circle. In all their history, there had never been a single issue that truly divided them, but what if the hylden became so divisive that they took sides? Mortanius didn’t even want to think what might happen if the Guardians truly became conflicted over something like this.

“But we can’t just keep it a secret,” he insisted, even as he felt the argument was slipping away from him. “Yes, I suppose that some of the others might disagree with your experiments, but the Guardians have always held equal status. They can’t make demands of you. You have every right to refuse to let them interfere, but you still have to tell them about the hylden. You can’t keep it a secret from the others.”

“I’m not keeping it a secret,” Azimuth said. She got up from the chair and set her hands on his shoulders. “You know about the hylden, so they’re not a secret anymore, right? I’m just doing my own private experiments. Like you said, I’m not telling the others because maybe they don’t want to know all the grisly details.”

“But a discovery of this magnitude ...”

She pressed her finger against his lips and then gave him a quick kiss. “I know, and eventually the other Guardians will know all about it, I promise. Just not yet, okay? Let me learn everything I can from the hylden before I reveal my discovery. Please, Mortanius, let me do this my way.”

He sighed in defeat. “Fine, but what about those commoners? You told them about the hylden but you won’t tell the Guardians?”

“Don’t you worry about them,” Azimuth said. “They’re just simple folk. They won’t tell anyone what they learned here. I’m just giving them something important to believe in, something to make them feel special. There’s no harm in that.”

“I suppose not, but ...”

She smiled and wrapped her arms around him. “No buts, darling. I might not trust the other Guardians, but I trust you, okay?”

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