Mortality: The Story of Mortanius

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Chapter Six

Mortanius didn’t know how to feel as the vampires approached the Home of the Guardians. He saw the Pillars from quite a distance away, the huge structures rising into the sky like the tallest of trees. Janos held him on one side and Aleph held him on the other, soaring high above the ground with his legs dangling below him. He would have preferred to walk or travel by horse, but the vampires insisted on getting back to the Pillars as quickly as possible. Even so, the sun was beginning to set and dusk was quickly descending.

Nothing had changed, but he had not expected anything to. It had only been three years, after all. The Home of the Guardians was exactly the same as it had been when he left, even down to the tufts of uncut grass around the front door. The only thing that had changed was himself.

At the vampires’ request, he wore the black shirt with the rune on the front that they had given him when he first became a Guardian. It had been too large before, but now it fit him rather well. He wore faded leather trousers and shoes, and brought a sword along, letting it hang from a belt around his waist.

The two guards at the entrance knew who he was, so he nodded at them as he walked inside, followed by Janos and Aleph. The smell of candle wax and blood within the building brought back uncomfortable memories of his first night there, but he kept his expression neutral. He felt the need to mask his unease from the vampires, to keep them from treating him like the child he no longer was. Only three years had passed, but he had grown up and matured in those years, due in part to the powers the Pillar of Death had granted him.

They passed down the hallway and through a small antechamber. Mortanius was focused on the task at hand, and didn’t notice the person standing against the wall at first.

“Hello, Mortanius,” Romanen said with a smile, his arms crossed casually.

Mortanius stopped and noticed the change immediately. It was not in Romanen’s appearance or body language, it was something more direct. Just looking at him, Mortanius could see that he was no longer the same man, even though he looked unchanged from the last time Mortanius had seen him. It was almost as if Mortanius could sense the alteration in Romanen’s soul through his powers, because the soul was so much different than any other he had felt before.

“They turned you,” he said simply, his voice low. He didn’t know whether to be angry, afraid, or just disgusted.

“Last year,” Romanen said, nodding. “You could tell right away, couldn’t you?”

Mortanius sensed the difference in him like noticing a peculiar odor in the air. He suddenly felt that he understood why animals like dogs and horses would sometimes react strangely around certain people. It was like experiencing a sixth sense, being able to feel danger by just standing near someone. Romanen gave off a frightening aura, and Mortanius felt it clearly. Far too clearly.

“I could tell,” he said. “And I don’t like it.”

He headed farther down the hallway without another word. Aleph must have gone off, because Mortanius looked over his shoulder briefly and saw that only Janos followed him now. The vampire held a strange expression on his face, as if he found something humorous but was trying not to smile. Mortanius stopped in front of a wooden door and gestured toward it.

“Yes, the boy is in there,” Janos said. “How did you know?”

“It’s the same room you put me in.”

“You remember well.”

“It’s hard to forget.”

Janos opened the door and Mortanius stepped inside. It was dim inside, even with two torches lit. There was the same mat on the floor that he had once slept on, and a metal tray with some remaining scraps of food. And in the corner, a cowering boy dressed in filthy rags. Janos closed the door after him, either out of respect for their privacy, or to keep the boy from getting loose.

When the boy saw him, he got onto his feet and fidgeted nervously. “Did they kidnap you too?” he asked, his voice barely above a whisper. He had no shoes and his clothing was tattered and stained, looking as if he had been wearing them for weeks. His hair was thin and very blonde, but so dirty it looked brown. Mortanius could actually smell his unwashed body from across the room.

Mortanius shook his head and took a seat on the mat. “No, they asked me to come here and talk to you. They said you were scared.”

“You’re not ... you’re not one of them are you?” the boy asked, suddenly suspicious.

“I’m just a person like you. I’m thirteen years old. My name’s Mortanius. They didn’t tell me what your name was.”

The boy shrugged. “I don’t really have a name. Some people call me Rat.”

The boy’s dirty appearance made sense to Mortanius now. “You’re an orphan?” he asked.

“My parents are dead,” the boy said.

Mortanius didn’t know what to say to that, so he patted the mat beside him. “Come on then, sit over here. You don’t have to stand in the corner.”

Hesitantly, Rat came over and sat down. He folded his skinny legs under him and set his hands in his lap. He looked abused and terribly undernourished. Mortanius knew that some villages had children like him around, children whose parents died or abandoned them, and were forced to scrounge around in garbage just for food to eat. He had never known one personally, since his family lived far from town. He wondered how this boy could have survived on his own.

“Who are you?” Rat asked. “Why did they want you to talk to me?”

“Because they took me here when I was ten. You’re going through what I went through not too long ago.”

The boy edged away. “I thought you said you weren’t one of them.”

“I’m not a half-breed,” Mortanius said clearly. “They didn’t do anything to me, and they never will. All they did was perform a ceremony out by those tall pillars outside. They taught me a few things and then they let me go. I haven’t even seen the vampires in three years. They had to come to my house and ask me to come back here.”

“They’re not going to bite me or something?”

“No,” Mortanius said, knowing it was at least partially a lie. “They brought you here because they believe that you were chosen to be a member of their religion,” he said, deliberately giving the boy an over-simplified explanation of what was going on. He honestly didn’t know how to explain it otherwise, and in any case, Lora and Romanen would give him a much more detailed schooling later. Mortanius’s job here was only to calm the boy down.

“They made me touch one of those tall things,” Rat said. “I don’t know why. It felt kind of strange. They said I was a guard or something.”

“That’s the religion,” Mortanius explained. “I don’t know much about it. But they’re not going to hurt you or anything, that much I know. After I went through with their ceremony and listened to everything they wanted to tell me, they let me go home. You just have to stay here a few days and then you can leave.”

Rat nodded and then half-shrugged indecisively. “I want to leave, but I don’t really have anywhere to go. They gave me food, it was the best food I’ve ever had.”

“They would let you stay here, I suppose, if that’s what you want.”

“I don’t want to stay with them!” Rat blurted out. “I hate vampires! They’re not human at all!”

“I know. I don’t like them very much either. But they’re not going to hurt you, that much I can promise.”

Rat didn’t seem to know what to do with his hands. He fidgeted endlessly, putting them on his knees and then back in his lap, gesturing as he talked, clenching and unclenching his small fists nervously. “Are you going to stay here?” he asked. “I don’t want to stay here by myself with them.”

“There are two other people here,” Mortanius said, lying again. “They’ll be the ones teaching you about the vampire religion.”

“Why me?” Rat asked suddenly.

Mortanius just shook his head. “I don’t know. No one really knows.”

“So what’s going to happen to me? Am I a part of their religion forever?”

“I think so,” Mortanius said. “But you don’t have to do anything for them. Like I said, I’ve been at home with my family for the past three years. The vampires forced me to join, but they’ve left me alone since then.”

“I don’t want to be part of their stupid religion,” Rat said.

Mortanius didn’t know whether he should mention the powers the Guardians possessed. It might make the boy interested enough to want to go through with it, but then again, it might scare him enough to refuse to take part in the ceremony. Many people equated vampires with magical power, and Mortanius’s own abilities could scarcely be anything but magical in nature. Rat might think that magical power was the first step to becoming a half-breed.

“Think of it this way,” Mortanius said, trying a different approach. “If you stay here for a little while, they’ll take care of you. You can get some new clothes and some good food, and leave here whenever you want. They’ll take care of you because you are part of their religion, but you don’t owe them anything.”

Rat smiled at that, the first time he had really smiled since Mortanius had arrived. It brought out the child in him, but it conflicted badly with his poor, neglected condition. Seeing him smile was kind of sad.

“That’s a good idea,” he said. “I don’t get to eat real food very much.”

“And the two people here can teach you things. Not just about the vampires and their religion, but you can learn how to live on your own. They can help you find a home, even.”

Rat smiled again, but tried to hide it this time. “I’ve never really had a home. When I was a baby, I guess I did. But I don’t really remember it.” Mortanius could see clearly that it was in fact what the boy most wanted. It didn’t take telepathy to see that Rat was scared of the vampires, but reluctantly grateful that they had taken him away from his poverty and given him a meal and a roof over his head. He was afraid of becoming a Guardian, but perhaps he was even more afraid of being sent back where he had come from.

“Make the best of your time here,” Mortanius advised, trying to sound wise even though he was barely out of childhood himself. “You have to join their religion. You don’t have a choice about that. But you have a choice about everything else.”

Rat seemed to accept this, and Mortanius knew that he had done what he came here to do. He had eased the boy’s fears and calmed him down. He felt vaguely jealous about it, since he had not had someone his age ease his own fears at the time. But he had been a bit older, and Janos had spoken to him.

“Are you going to stay here?” Rat asked.

Mortanius shook his head, noticing how Rat’s expression saddened when he did so. “I’m going back home tomorrow after the ceremony. I might come back here once and a while, but I’m never going to live here. When I’m old enough, I’m going to get my own farm and get married.”

“I’ll see you again, right?”

“Sure you will. You’ll see me tomorrow. And if you want to come visit my family, you’re free to do so.”

“Thank you,” Rat said.

Mortanius wished Rat a good night, letting him know that the vampires would wake him early the next morning, and left the room after tucking him in for bed. As soon as he walked back out into the hallway, he saw Janos waiting there for him with a pleased expression on his sharp face.

“You listened, didn’t you?” Mortanius asked.

Janos nodded. “We vampires have very good hearing. I couldn’t help it.”

“I’ve done what you wanted me to do. Where am I going to sleep tonight? I might as well go to bed, since I’ll be awake even before he is.”

Janos led him to an adjacent hallway and down some stairs to the lower level. He directed Mortanius to a small room with a cot and a wooden table with a bright lantern on it. Mortanius sighed and unbuckled his belt, setting it on the table and leaning his sword against the wall. He looked back and saw Janos watching him from the hallway.

“You have something to ask me. Go ahead and ask.”

“You brought that blade here to tell us something. Do you intend to fight us with it?” Janos asked.

Mortanius looked at him evenly. “I’m just reminding you that I’m not a child anymore. You don’t control me. And if you force me to do something I don’t want to do, then I’ll be forced to defend myself.”

“I remember a young Romanen saying much the same thing.”

“I feel sorry for him, then. I’ll never surrender my humanity.”

At that, Janos smiled. “You will always retain that, Mortanius. Humanity is a state of mind, like kindness or jealousy. Lora and Romanen have not lost anything since we changed them. They gain qualities, some good and some bad, but they don’t lose anything.”

“You’re a vampire,” Mortanius said, trying not to make it sound like an insult. “You can never understand what being a human is like.”

“And in turn, you are a human,” Janos retorted. “You can never know what being a vampire is like. Until you become one of us, that is.”

“There’s no way to turn a vampire into a human, though,” Mortanius said. “And besides, Lora and Romanen aren’t vampires like you, they’re half-breeds. And you can never understand what that’s like either.”

“You know how I feel about this,” Janos said. “I wish the humans could stay human and we could live together in peace, but the others do not agree with me. And so I must try to convince you that their point of view is the right one.”

“You never will,” Mortanius said.

“You still may change your mind.”

“Then let me ask you this,” Mortanius said, taking a step toward Janos. “If there was a way to turn a vampire into a human, would you be willing to go through with it? Would you give up your life as a vampire, if it meant you could be mortal? If it meant that you could have children of your own?”

Janos did not respond, but Mortanius could see in his face that the question was too difficult for him to answer. And that was all the answer Mortanius needed.

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