A Bookworm’s Nightmare
Myra stopped before the entrance to the Headquarters. She looked at Sissi, who gave her a nod and a small, encouraging smile. Myra took a deep breath, opened the door, and stepped inside.
Zack sat in his chair at the head of the table, drumming his fingers against the armrest. Most Warriors were there as well—Thomas and Lidia, Estella, and even Franka and Grandma Pia. She heard Sissi step behind her.
“I’m glad to see you both unharmed,” Zack said.
Myra sighed in relief—perhaps there would be no fight after all. “Zack, I didn’t mean to turn my back on you.”
“You don’t need to explain.” He rubbed his temples. “You did what you believed was right. We all want to see the Wizard destroyed, and we must decide how to go about it. I’ve gathered council members that can offer different perspectives.”
Myra’s eyes swept the room. The light of two torches on the walls and three candles on the table could not reach everyone, and many faces were cast in shadow. “I want to help.”
Zack nodded. “You know the Prince better than any of us. Can he be trusted?”
Myra bit her lower lip, afraid she would laugh. Vlad? Trusted? “I wouldn’t say so. But I think he does want the Wizard destroyed.”
Zack stood up and walked to her. “Do you know what drives him? What he wants?”
Myra intertwined her fingers and looked away. She felt all eyes on her but had no idea what to say. What made Vlad happy? She had lived with him for two months, and still her guess was as good as anyone’s.
“He seeks excitement,” she said. “Adventure, knowledge, intellectual challenge. He’s always in the pursuit of pleasures for all senses, be it good food and drink, or an intriguing play, or beautiful music. But he doesn’t like his rewards served to him on a silver platter. He likes to fight for them. He hates routine and always wants change.” She paused and look Zack in the eyes. “And I believe, above all else, he wants his loved ones to be well.”
“His loved ones?” Lidia echoed.
Myra nodded. “His family died centuries ago, and he can’t have any more children. Armida and Tristan are his family now. He’d turn the world upside down to make them happy.”
Thomas snorted. “He’s already turned the world upside down.”
“Don’t get me wrong,” Myra said. “The Prince wouldn’t do evil for the sake of doing evil. He always has a reason. He doesn’t want you to suffer, he simply doesn’t care if you suffer or not. He’d let all humans and vampires burn in hell for all eternity if it would make Tristan smile for a second, but he wouldn’t hurt a fly unless he had a reason to do it.” She hesitated. “Of course, the reason can be something as trivial as ‘I find it amusing.’”
“I see,” Zack said. “We’re supposed to believe he wants to destroy the Wizard because he’s bored with his current life. All right, he’s bored, I buy that. He seeks entertainment, sure.” He leaned against the table and tapped the surface with his fingers. “Then what better way to amuse himself than to play a game with a bunch of naïve, desperate humans? Instead of straightforwardly wiping us out, he sets up this elaborate game and plays with us as if we’re his toys. Why? Because it would be amusing.” He straightened up and looked at Myra. “Isn’t that consistent with the personality you just described?”
Myra’s heart clenched. Zack’s words made a lot of sense—much more than she cared to admit. “What do you propose?”
“I propose we stick to the only goal we know is our own,” said Zack. “We keep a careful eye on the Prince and work with him for as long as he’s useful. The moment we’ve gotten the most out of him, or the moment we start suspecting he’s a threat, we go back to the original plan.”
“The original plan?” Sissi repeated. She turned to face Zack, and the torchlight caught her fiery hair, making it shine like fresh blood.
Zack nodded. “The plan we’ve had since before I was born. Kill the Prince.”
Breakfast the following morning was quick and silent. Myra caught Sissi throwing glances at her multiple times, but she kept her eyes on her plate of hard, dry biscuit and canned tuna. If Sissi wanted to speak to her, she could at least try to draw less attention.
After everyone dispersed to attend to their tasks, Myra waited for a short while and then walked to the cellar that currently served as Sissi’s room. The door was open, and the red-haired girl was leaning against the frame, grinning.
“I was waiting for you.”
Myra grabbed her by the arm and pulled her inside, closing the door behind them. “What’s so urgent? Everyone suspects I’m doing something dodgy, and they’ll suspect you too if you’re not careful.”
Sissi’s face beamed. “I wanted to show you something.” She started lighting candles all around them. Candles are scarce, Myra was about to say, but she bit her tongue. She had no right to chide others.
Sissi pulled her backpack from underneath the bedcovers and started rummaging through her clothes. She paused and smiled, pulling out a roll of paper. She laid it on the bed and unrolled it.
“Wow…” was all Myra could say.
She stared at the painting. A forest fire. The flames—twisting tongues of red and gold, fighting for domination. A starry sky, deep purple mixed with black. The stars—bleeding wounds of light. The Prince emerging from the desolation, the flames themselves framing a whirling cape around him.
Myra shuddered. “It’s… moving.”
Sissi seemed to shine with an internal light. “I painted it last night, after we returned. It looks like him, doesn’t it?”
“It does.” Myra frowned. “But did you call me here just to show me this? I mean, it’s beautiful, but we need to be careful about meeting in secret.”
Myra had thought this impossible, but Sissi’s smile grew even wider. “Not at all! I found something else.” She reached inside the backpack and pulled out another item.
Myra’s blood drained from her face. Her stomach twisted into a knot, sending a wave of nausea through her. A cold shiver ran down her spine, spreading to her arms and legs.
She had seen many horrors in the vampires’ palace. Cold-blooded torture. Feasts of blood and pain. A child drunk to death. But what now lay on the bed was a different horror altogether.
“You tore books?” she whispered, staring through a red haze at the jagged pages. “You tore books?”
“That way I could read the pages all night,” Sissi said, her grin never faltering. “And I didn’t want to remove the whole book from your library.”
“Our library?” The haze before Myra’s eyes thickened. “Do you have any idea how few books we have? How precious each one is?”
“Apparently not precious enough for you to read it,” Sissi said, her voice cheerful. “I see you might have gone through the fiction multiple times, but you have neglected some encyclopedias.”
Myra fisted her hands to stop herself from grabbing Sissi’s neck and choking her to death. “And just because I haven’t read some book, that gives you the right to destroy it? What is wrong with you?”
Sissi sighed dramatically. “Perhaps if you’d stop shouting at me and look at what I found, you’d—”
Myra’s throat felt raw. “I don’t want to look at anything. I don’t care…”
She looked at the torn page Sissi was holding up.
Text, text, and a picture in the upper right corner. A Y-shaped symbol, with two parallel lines running alongside the base. She blinked. “It’s Vlad’s tattoo.”
Sissi nodded, her head bobbing up and down as a grin spread across her face. “Yes, this is—”
“I don’t care if it’s the answer to life and the universe,” Myra cried. “You can’t ruin books.”
“Okay, so you don’t care,” Sissi said and returned the pages to her backpack.
Myra sighed. Very few things in this world justified destroying books, and learning Vlad’s history was definitely not one of them.
On second thought…
“What is it?”
Sissi tied the strings over her backpack. “It’s the symbol of Tengri.” She placed the backpack on her bed and covered it with a blanket.
Myra rolled her eyes. “Would you elaborate?” Sissi shrugged and Myra crossed her arms across her chest. “I’m not going to apologize. You could have easily learned the same thing by staying longer at the library, or even taking the book—it’s not that suspicious. But I see you’re about to explode with the desire to share, so go ahead.”
Sissi squealed and clapped her hands. She pulled her backpack once again from underneath the covers and opened it. Myra’s heart bled anew as she saw the ripped pages, but she took a deep breath and forced herself to keep quiet.
“After I finished my painting, I went to the library to continue reading that encyclopedia on world religions I told you about. I pieced together all clues we had and everything His Highness told us in the car, and now I know it for certain. The Prince worships Tengri—the sky-father.”
“Fascinating,” Myra said dryly. “Definitely justifies destroying books.”
“That’s why I tore out the pages,” Sissi said. “To learn more.” She tapped on the torn paper with her finger. “Apparently, Tengriism was mostly a Central Asian religion. It was the main religion of many ancient Turkic states, including the Gok-Turk Empire and the Great Mongol Empire. In some parts of the Altay mountains, active practice persisted up until the twenty-third century.”
“So, Vlad was some kind of a Hun,” Myra said. “That explains a lot.”
Sissi frowned. “He could have come from any of the numerous nomadic tribes in the region. And if you don’t want me to continue, I’ll stop.”
“Fine, go on,” Myra said with a sigh. “What is this religion like?”
“It’s monotheistic, which gave me one of the clues,” said Sissi. “There is Tengri, father of the Eternal Blue Sky, who decides the fates of all, the spirit of the mother earth, and the khan, whose rule is divine and granted by Tengri. As for practices, it combined elements of animism, shamanism, and some other stuff. I don’t remember it all, but it’s in here.” She raised the torn pages.
Myra stomach turned at the sight, and she held up her palms. “That won’t be necessary. Just give me the main idea.”
Sissi stared at the page in front of her. “It was an extremely tolerant religion and held nothing against any other. You could be Muslim, Christian, Buddhist, or whatever you liked. You could change your tribal affiliations or turn your back on your traditions if you disliked them. Tengri wouldn’t judge. The only thing he would judge was whether you lived a righteous life.”
“A righteous life?” said Myra. “Sounds like every religion ever. But the definition of ‘righteous’ often gets convoluted.”
“Surprisingly, this definition isn’t unreasonable,” Sissi said. “As Tengri was tolerant to other religious practices, he was also understanding about humans’ weaknesses and failings. A nomad’s life was difficult enough, so shortcomings were to be accepted, and not condemned. This is why Genghis Khan said…” She flipped through the pages. “Wait, I’ll find the quote. I underlined it; it’s hilarious.”
Bile rose in Myra’s throat. “You underlined it? You not only tore out pages, you made marks?”
“Here it is,” said Sissi, her voice calm. She brought the page closer to the candle, and Myra’s head spun as she looked at the underlined text.
“If there is no means to prevent drunkenness, a man may become drunk thrice a month,” Sissi read in a solemn voice. “If he oversteps this limit, he makes himself guilty of a punishable offense. If he is drunk only twice a month, that is better—if only once, that is more praiseworthy. What could be better than that he should not drink at all? But where shall we find a man who never drinks? If, however, such a man is found, he deserves every respect.”
“Amazing quote.” Myra rolled her eyes. “Definitely justifies underlying text.”
Sissi pouted. “You have to admit, it sounds reasonable.”
Myra tore her glance from the violated page. “Honestly, this religion sounds too good to be true. I bet they had human sacrifices or something.”
“Can’t you be more positive?” Sissi said. “We can use this to figure out who the Prince was as a human.”
“Fine,” Myra said. “I guess this Tengri was tolerant, but many other gods, or rather their practitioners, weren’t. Vlad said the man who killed his family was canonized as a saint—this has to be related to the conversion to Christianity of a pagan people.”
“My thoughts exactly,” said Sissi. “We should look at the histories of all tribes and nations practicing Tengriism and cross-reference it with a conversion to Christianity, sometime in the ninth or tenth century, perhaps involving violence.”
“We also know that interactions with the Slavic people play a major role,” Myra said, “and the man who killed Vlad’s family was called ‘one of the greatest men in history’ by at least one historian. And we need some khan named ‘Vladimir’ somewhere in the mix.”
“Most Central Asian states converted to Islam,” Sissi said. “That must have happened somewhere else. Likely Europe.”
Myra’s anger almost faded, and a new feeling awoke inside her. Excitement. She was not used to talking to a human who knew as much about the Old World as she did. “We should look into that. Who knows? By the next time we see Vlad, we might have discovered everything.”
Sissi brightened up. “When are we seeing the Prince next?”
Myra shrugged. “Vlad comes and goes as he pleases. His plans are a mystery to me. But perhaps you might get a chance to show him your new painting.”
Sissi’s eyes shone. “Is he coming with Tristan and Armida?”
“Probably. Why, you want them to come here?”
Sissi blushed, her face almost matching her hair. “I want Tristan to come. But Armida… to be honest, I don’t like her.”
Myra sighed. “Seriously? You haven’t even met her. Please, don’t tell me you’re jealous.”
“That’s not it. I just don’t think she’s good enough for him. I mean, the Prince is amazing. And she sounds like nothing more than a shallow bimbo.”
Myra raised her eyebrows. “You’ve only heard us speak of her. How can you make such a judgment when you’ve never met her? I know her, and I wouldn’t call her shallow. Or a bimbo—really? If there’s a bimbo in what Ila calls ‘the Unholy Trinity,’ it’s obviously Tristan. Does he even have any personality apart from looking cool?”
“This is unfair,” Sissi protested. “You know Tristan is so much more.”
“Fine,” Myra said, although she had a thing or two to say about the definition of “so much more.” “What I mean is, you don’t know Armida. You can’t hate a woman just because you think you have a crush on her partner.”
“I think I have a crush?”
No, you know for sure that it is true love, Myra thought, irritated. “I’m sorry,” she said instead. “It was a poor choice of words. But tell me one thing—what do you think we are to the Prince?”
Sissi was silent for a moment. “I don’t know. We’re his friends?”
“Friends? With the exception of Tristan before he was turned, the Prince has never been a friend to any human, nor will he ever be. He may find us amusing, he may find it fun to talk to non-domesticated humans, as he’d call us, and he may act generally benevolent to us, but he’s not our friend.”
Myra noticed that Sissi was close to tears, but she steeled her heart and went on. “And what do you think we can ever be to him? He has lived for almost two millennia. He has met so many humans and vampires and spent centuries with some of them. He has known me for a few months, and you for a few hours. Our entire lives are the blink of an eye to him. We’re nothing more than two blades of grass next to a centuries-old oak. We live in different worlds that can never intersect.”
Myra wondered if she was speaking to Sissi or to herself. Which of them needed more convincing?
“I don’t believe you,” Sissi said softly. “The Prince was centuries old when he met Tristan as a human. He was even older when he met Armida. And now they are both a part of his world.”
Yes, but at what cost? “You really want to be a vampire, do you? Did you see how Vlad attacked Thomas? Did you hear what he told us, about eating all the people in that tattoo parlor? Is that what you want?”
Sissi shook her head. “No,” she said. “But I do wish to be a part of his world. And I’m willing to do whatever it takes.”
She fell silent as raised voices sounded from the corridor. Myra walked to the door, placing an ear against it. “The noise is far away,” she said. “No one will see me going out of your room. I’ll go investigate. You can join me, but you should wait at least a minute.”
Sissi nodded, and Myra opened the door silently and walked out. She followed the corridor and took a turn in the direction of the voices.
Zack was striding towards her, his face tense. Myra’s heart jumped to her throat. “What’s happening?”
He stopped in his tracks and met Myra’s eyes.
“He’s here.”