More than revenge
It was heavenly strife. It was the deafening noise of wings beating against each other. It was the scratching of claws against thin angel skin. Shouts and accusations like a birds cackle. It was the dazzling gleam of swords. He was already nearly blinded once when he looked at Dennitsa. He dared to swing his sword at him, and now his hand was withering and worms were crawling in it. But the ruthless and beautiful angel still continued to beckon him through sleep.
Bertrand awoke in a cold sweat. He was still alive, and that was his greatest misfortune. It had been better to have died long ago. Then, on the battlefield, he had not yet understood that his happiness was to put his chest to the blow, not to repel it.
Until now, in the darkness of his bedroom, he had seen the battlefield illuminated by an unnaturally bright light. It was neither sunrise nor sunset. The light was not coming from the sun at all, though at that moment it seemed that the fiery ball of sun had become unnaturally close to the ground. In fact, the sun had disappeared behind the clouds; it was not in the sky. But the helmet fell from the unknown warriors head for a moment, and the glow became unbearable, so much so that it hurt his eyes. Even the tears that seeped from his eye sockets could have turned fiery in that moment. Bertrand could still feel the burning in his eyeballs. His vision was much worse than before, but that wasnt what was most frightening. He seemed to be losing his mind, slowly and painfully. The longer he lived, the clearer the picture of a brutal overhead massacre overlapped with reality. And each time it became more terrifying.
He told the servants to leave a bowl of cold water and a wet towel beside his bed, but even ice would not bring down his fever. His shriveled hand burned as if it had been placed in an oven and roasted over hot coals. The healer, who tried in vain to conceal his own fright, bandaged it tightly, but the ugly growths were showing through even the bandages. They seemed to be diseased and living on their own, and there were worms in them, so disgusting they were not even in the grave earth. Maybe they werent worms at all. Bertrand almost screamed when he suddenly noticed that some disgusting creature that looked like a big rat had come up to the bandaged stump and was trying to gnaw at the growths.
He had been wary of rousing the servants who guarded the closed doors with their shouts. He did not want the vassals or the peasants to know what had happened to their feudal lord. Rumors were already rife in the surrounding villages. When the nobles talk of the devil it is even worth fearing an attack on the castle. In addition, the healer, no matter how well paid, must have told someone about the horror he saw. And they, in turn, told others. Another day or two and there would be a riot. But much scarier were the dreams. The creature that glowed beneath his armor by itself and beckoned him to the precipice, across the field where the massacre was taking place, became something secret, hidden and unspeakably cruel. No one was allowed to speak of it, his tongue would not obey, it was scary to see it in his dreams, but it was scary not to see it either.
The withered hand, with its living thorny growths, reacted to the thought of Dennitsa with unceasing flashes of pain. Bertrand could no longer move the arm, as if it didnt exist at all, but the withered ashy creature it had become seemed to live on its own. It parasitized the weakened body, threatening to devour it like a fungus.
Bertrand was too weak to light a candle or reach for his dagger. He couldnt even see in the darkness what the nasty creature was getting at his arm. Nor did he have the strength to drive it away. He tried to see the strange big rat and could not, but the candle at the head of his bed suddenly flashed on its own, revealing from the darkness the fine binding of the window, the brown bearskin on the floor, the carved chair and the creepy horned demon chewing on his bandages.
The scream stuck in his throat. He had only dreamt of creatures like that, but he had never seen anything like it in his life before, and he had no idea that such an abomination existed. In his dreams such creatures had eaten corpses on the battlefield. Was this not a dream, too? No, his needle-sharp teeth had jabbed into the outgrowth on his arm, and the pain, a red-hot arrow that pierced his whole body, was very real. Not a dream, then. The bloodthirsty creature grinned, the crooked horns on its head twitching, the black ashy skin on its shapeless body with its tail and claws gleaming greenish in the candlelight.
«It is leprechaun!» Said a beautiful and resonant voice came out of nowhere. It sounded like the echo of celestial spheres and heavenly melodies, only there was something cruel in it as well as indifference. The next moment Bertrand saw the glint of a sharp, mirrored blade reflecting the room. He braced himself for the worst. Now the sword would slash across his neck, and the dainty hand clutching the golden hilt of the sword would next be clutching his severed head. He covered his eyes in anticipation of retribution, but no blow came. The blade slid gently downward, and a sudden, shrill, nasty squeak reverberated through his ears.
When Bertrand opened his eyes, the foul creature, which had been nibbling at his arm, was writhing in deathlike convulsions at the tip of its great sword. The green face was writhing painfully, but the leprechaun was not dying. How long would his agony last? Bertrand involuntarily shuddered in horror and disgust, and the creature hooked by the sword still continued to squirm and wriggle, but he could not get off the sword.
«Theyre immortal, these creatures, as you see,» the same beautiful voice explained indifferently. For all its melody, it was surprisingly cruel. Such sangfroid was to be envied. The hand that gripped the sword with the creature writhing on it didnt even waver.
«You should be used to them getting so close. Its peoples good fortune that they all dont see it. But you look at it once, and then you see things like that everywhere. Its maddening, isnt it?»
The question might have seemed sympathetic, but the tone of voice was unsympathetic. A cold, calculating voice, knowingly and indifferently explaining the essence of all human suffering, could only belong to an angel.
Bertrand did not immediately dare to look at the nocturnal visitor. At first he watched only the starry spheres outside the opened window, not daring to shift his gaze to the figure in front of his bed. The dainty hand clutching the gilt hilt might well have been a womans, but arent all angels marked by maiden beauty.
For a moment Bertrand caught the subtle scent of lilies that followed the figure. In a strange way it mingled with the smells of burning and fire, but it was still as divine and intoxicating as her voice. It sounded so cruel, but it seemed so all-knowing and beautiful. Thats the thing about angels, for all their coldness, they are beautiful. They pity no one, but you want to beg for mercy. They can only be compared to the stars, distant, not warming and still beckoning.
«The changes that happen to you will increasingly attract leprechauns and creatures like them, though your hour has not yet come. But it is coming. You are first on my list, for you did not side with me when the palace wrangling broke out, when you could have.»
Only now did he look at the speaker. The hand that held the sword was now thrown slightly to the side, and his face, unbelievably beautiful in a halo of tangled golden curls, could be seen. Her translucent skin shimmered with the moonlight. Golden lashes touched her cheeks, her half-covered eyelids didnt flutter, and her lips curved contemptuously. How he would have liked to kiss those lips, even on his deathbed. He would have given anything for it. They would have smiled at him amiably, but the cruel expression that played over their faces was scalding cold. No ones contempt could humiliate and scorch a man more than that of an angel. The higher being merely looks, but its as if hes looking inside you, seeing all the baser instincts hidden inside, and you feel crushed.
Bertrand groaned in agony. The shriveled hand suddenly began to ache unbearably, as if it had been cut and tortured like a separate living being.
«Do you remember me?» The calm voice, asking something, was beyond his comprehension. Yes, of course he remembered. A battlefield, a bloody massacre, people fighting and dismembering each other right in his way, he risked being hit with a chain or an axe, losing an arm or a leg or a head or being killed altogether, and he didnt care. Shattered bones, severed limbs, and swords swinging dangerously close to him no longer matter. He wades through the jumble of fighting and corpses without fear of being killed, because at the end of the field at the precipice a helmetless knight awaits him. The warrior with wings stretches forward with his arm partially clad in armor, and even hell is not afraid to follow him. The skin on his face is so transparent it could be mistaken for the smoothness of a cloud, only the arcs of his eyelashes and eyebrows stand out in bright gold against the pale luminous background. His curls, too, are golden. From beneath his pale lips the blood he had drunk, but which his internal organs had never accepted, was about to ooze out. Bertrand had seen in his dreams how this creature drank the blood of the warriors he had defeated, whether still alive or already slain, and then vomited, because unlike his subjects, he did not need food. In spite of this, the angel has become as bloodthirsty as his servants. His servants! Bertrand shifted his gaze in horror to the leprechaun twitching convulsively at the tip of the sword. He was struggling to free himself from the blade, but he could neither break free nor let out his last breath.
«Evil is as eternal as the god who created it,» the calm, angelic voice said. «You wonder that a divine being can be served by infernal creatures. But isnt this world a mishmash of the sublime and the perverse. If anything were to be different, it would have been so from the creation of the earth, not only below, but also in heaven. All things are not as we would like them to be; all living things must suffer, and the chosen of the higher powers have suffered far more than lowly traitors like you. But in its time everything falls into its place, because one truth remains immutable. Do you realize what it is?»
He found the strength to shake his head in the negative. Dennitsas beautiful face compelled him to do so. Why did it seem so feminine to him, like his girlish voice and posture? Is it Dennitsa? Or is it someone who looks like him?
Her golden hair didnt fan across her shoulders but slid gently down her back, her shoulders seemed too narrow even under the cloak, the gaudy fabric below her chest glowed like brocade. All this told him something. But of what is it? Or rather who is it? Someone he had forgotten, though he should have remembered, and now the angel reminded him.
There was still the princess he had sworn an oath to. He had never kept his promise to serve her. Bertrand raised his hands helplessly to his face. How could he have forgotten? Rhianon! He had never had a chance to examine her up close, but he knew she looked like that divine warrior. It was as if they were one.
Meanwhile the merciless voice continued melodiously:
«Touch an angel just once, you rulers of this world, and you will be ashes even before the one you have offended takes your throne.»
Now he recognized her. The maidens voice was so cold and vengeful. Rhianon was bent over him, oblivious of the leprechaun writhing on her sword, and she had never looked more dazzlingly beautiful to him. Her beauty was in itself the worst revenge. She killed just looking at her. A living person could not be so beautiful. Did that mean she was already dead? Or is she immortal? In her guise, a relentless, emotionless being, which is commonly called an angel, speaks to him.
«The Creator cruelly tests his favorites, but if you at his instigation, offend one of them, and your suffering will not end. You must be feeling it already,» she held out her hand, and the candlestick was already in her fingers as if shed told it to go flying over the bed. Rhianon tilted it so that the hot wax flowed onto the bandaged stump.
Bertrand screamed in pain enough to startle not only the castle but the villages beneath it. But no one came.
«They have other things to worry about,» Rhianon glanced quickly out the window. «I must be going now, but they must see my seal on you.»
She pulled out a signet ring, the same one he had already seen on her fathers finger once when he was sworn in. Seeing such a seal on him, everyone would know that he supported Rhianon, not Manfred. He didnt care anymore. He couldnt even hear the screams and noise outside the windows. And there, in the darkness, there seemed to be dozens of torches blazing.
«The villagers arent happy,» Rhianon said, frowning. «They should have been, long ago and not now. Personally, I think its too much for Sky to bear with the terrible punishments its inflicted.
She straightened up, putting the candle back the way she had taken it, that is, in a completely untraceable way. In her presence, things seemed to move on their own, windows opened, water jugs disappeared and spilled, the flames in the fireplace flared.
Bertrand reacted too keenly to the heat to start a fire, and now the fire in his bedroom was even too much. How could that huge cloud of flame fit in a single fireplace yawn? There seemed to be a whole elemental raging there.
«I must go now!» Now Rhianon was looking only at the sword-wielding leprechaun, as if Bertrand were gone or would soon be. «There will be others after you. Anyone who has wronged me in any way will pay more than your feeble human imagination can ever imagine.»
She smiled, indifferently, contemptuously, wickedly so that he could tell by that smile alone that she was not lying and in no way exaggerating, even downplaying. Her triumph was yet to come, and it would take place on blood and bones.
No words of farewell were uttered; instead, Rhianon merely tilted her sword gently, allowing the leprechaun to slide down onto the bed. After she left, he stared briefly at the lingering, bloodless hole in his belly. The bewilderment at the idea of the wound on his toothy green face was almost immediately replaced by a hungry grin. The wounded man became even more bloodthirsty than before. Bertrand realized only now how naïve hed been to think the angelic creature wanted to play down his torment. On the contrary, after waiting only a moment, it had increased it. The freed leprechaun pounced on its prey even more furiously than it would have. The helpless stump was at the mercy of a greedy mouth full not of teeth but of needles. After Rhianons departure, Bertrand felt too crushed to think at all, rather than move. Now he was even easier prey than before, which the creature did not fail to take advantage of. Perhaps the castle, with its servants and knights trembling before the devils affliction of their lord, would be even easier prey for the rebellious peasants. They will need no knives, no pitchforks, not even wood cut down and sheared for a battering ram. The servants here are in such turmoil that they will open the gates themselves. And when they burst into the masters bedroom, they will realize that they were not wrong in their speculation.
Rhianon considered the naked sword in her hands. Her eyes must have glittered even more ominously than the deadly blade, because Ferdinand, who wanted to cross the threshold, never dared to do so.
She didnt need him to come in. She knew all the news he wanted to tell her as it was. Not only could she read his mind easily, the sounds from the closed council chamber came to her ears as if the voices speaking there were communicating directly to her. She knew that there was to be war. Everything had been decided. Everything would not be enough for her now.