PROPHETS OF THE WASTELAND
By
Elijah Stephens
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PUBLISHED BY:
Liquid Heaven Productions™
Prophets of the Wasteland
Copyright © 2013 by Elijah Stephens
Cover by LordHayabusa357 deviantART
Historical Epics
Otherworld
Hellrunner
Pride of the Britons
Ancient Japan
The Poison Lotus
The Floating World (Book 1)
The Rise of the Last Rebellion (Book 2)
The Lotus and the Sword (Book 3)
The White Rider
Futuristic Science Fiction
Infinity Point™ Anthology Volume 1
Dynasty Zero
God of the Machine
Diabolos
Anamorphosis
The Violent Awakening
The Moonlight Child
Paranormal Science Fiction
The Pattern Volume 1
The Overlap
The Harvest of Area 51
The Apocalypse Internal
The Pattern Volume 2
Frankenstein’s Shadow (Part 1)
The Shepherds of Arcadia (Part 2)
The Dark Crown Goddess (Part 3)
The Golden Door (Part 4)
The World Within (Part 5)
Asylum (Part 6)
Short Story Compilation
Ghost Dance
Poetry Compilation
The Woman Clothed with the Sun
Non-Fiction
The Cycle of the Infinite:
Metaphysical Handbook for the Sublime Oddity of Creation
Being and Non-Being:
The Alchemist Guide for Transpersonal Psychology
The Royal House of Terra:
A Semiotic Introduction to Comparative Mythology
Sin-eaters:
Ascension Principles and the Shamanic Tradition
Reviews are greatly appreciated and there are plenty of free eBooks available at my website: www.liquidheavenlive.com
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PROPHETS OF THE WASTELAND
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As dusk settled into night, the archangel entered a cave, knowing what kind of monster was dwelling within. His helmet had a slit across the eyes, intersecting another that allowed for easy breathing, and not by coincidence they formed a cross. With his sword ready, he followed the winding corridor towards a faint and unnatural glow. He stopped at the entrance of a room of red clay, where a puddle of water was emanating light. The purgatory came alive and the shadows broke around a huddled figure in the corner.
It had the shape of a man, but his leathery red skin had a scaled texture as his tail swiped the ground in frustration. After the rebel lost his war and a third of Heaven was exiled, he waited impatiently and dreamed of his return to witness the throne of God. The knight walked to the puddle and announced himself by scraping his sword across the ground. He looked into the shimmering liquid and the sensation of falling caught his breath.
Lucifer turned to face him. “I am the light-bringer,” he said while leaning from the shadows that followed him. “God loves me most.”
With a nod to the bright refuge, his metallic eyes caught the glare and he smiled, showing jagged teeth like broken glass. In the water, the Great Dragon saw a mirror of himself and remembered what he had done. He grew angry at his reflection, a madness born from his appearance matching the stain of his soul. The living shadows revealed his horns, twisted upward in curved deformity, like an attribute of the devil and the cave in which he dwelled. His black hair was as thick as porcupine quills that moved with his reaction, flaring when he took a sip of the same water as Saint Michael.
“Your name is God Will Overcome,” said the once-beautiful angel. “Banish me and I’ll rain blood upon your Heaven.”
The knight studied him before nodding in acceptance of war. Lucifer clawed at the skin over his heart, and though the wound healed quickly, he let a drop of his blood fall into the light, poisoning it with black oil. The walls formed into the mouths of hungry predators, gnashing for the skin of sinners who chose to pass through the gates of hell. The devil moved with impossible speed and pinned the Saint against the wall of disembodied teeth, which sizzled from the taste of his pureblood. He used his tail to pin his enemy, trying to eat his immortal virtue with his face, but his anger only filled the knight with strength.
Michael broke free and cut off the rebel’s head. The decapitated demon searched briefly, then placed his severed skull upon his shoulders. As a last resort, the Saint kneeled by the puddle. With his fingers drenched in his own blood, he touched the surface of the oil and his sacrifice was accepted. The darkness shattered before a violent tornado gripped the fallen angel, who clawed at the floor in desperation as he was sucked into the abyss.
* * * * *
1307 AD – Anatolia (Turkey)
The bleeding horizon kept the light of day trapped behind dark clouds. Erelim Xenakis left his Friesien warhorse to munch on grass and circled a wooden hut sitting alone on a hill. The wind whispered but he ignored the warning, and knocked on the door while gripping a dagger under his chainmail. His blonde hair was matted with sweat against his sunbaked skin when he called out, “Roderick, it is time! Even the weather would prefer that we leave this place and the city of Constantine is more than a day’s ride!”
Pieces of the roof showered him with dry twigs as the hinge creaked open. A bald man sat at a table, facing away from the entrance. Erelim and the other knights had already packed their supplies for travel, but by the appearance of his home, Roderick Melekon wasn’t going anywhere. The despondent fellow looked over his shoulder.
“Free will is absolute, but how can you see the correct path unless you leave it?”
“I guess it’s a disease that the closer you are to something wicked, the easier it is to overlook it,” Erelim replied. “When you’re full of sorrow, all of life is a prison, but don’t waste time hating your flesh or the cycles of existence. You have to create a sanctuary within your cage. Only in that Universe can you be free.”
“You were always like a brother to me, Erelim, but now it feels like I am my own shadow.”
He shrugged. “Exile is better than planting roots where you cannot stay. With all the mistakes we’ve made, we have learned the difference between ambition and greed. All things find resolution and all things come into balance. That isn’t just a promise made by God, that is God.”
“But instinct and intuition make us human, not our impulses. Either you remain who you are and pick a different path, or the situation is untenable and you must alter yourself to overcome it.”
“The world is what you are, Roderick. The timeless spirit only lives when the body is broken.”
“Then tell me, good brother, how do you search for the highest God when you are enamored with perversion?”
“To survive as a shadow, the ego must fool you into thinking that it is you. But we are the dirt and the blood, we feast on the suffering of change. Any idea to the contrary is the magic of despair, an illusion and nothing more. Reflect the light of divinity back upon itself and you will magnify it, it is only your choice to dwell in sadness that we pray on.”
When a baby’s whimper carried from the bedroom, Xenakis opened the door and saw a terrified woman cradling an infant with dark skin, the same as her mother’s.
He turned in shock. “Did you think that we would judge you?”
Roderick was on his feet quickly with a knife in his hand. Erelim kicked him back against the wall, shaking the frame of the house. After the window burst over t
he clatter of pottery, with a clean movement Melekon’s dagger left his fingertips. Xenakis barely raised his gauntlet in time to avoid getting struck between the eyes. He leaned against the table behind him and swung it by the leg, bringing the full weight of the heavy oak against Roderick. The impact dropped him to the floor, where he reached for his sword.
Erelim lifted the broken wood before it was split in two by a flash of metal. He pinned Melekon’s forearm to immobilize the weapon, then drove an elbow into his chin. Roderick found himself on his knees and finally relented. “What choice did I have? They would not let me stay on this land unless I gave them something in return.”
“And who did you betray us to?”
“They are obsessed with the sins of our fathers.”
“You convinced yourself that the Nizari will let you stay? Your wife will be punished for the betrayal of her culture and your daughter is a reminder of everything we invaded.”
The sound of a fierce wind carried past the hut. Erelim looked through the cracked window and his stomach dropped. Among the rolling waves of grass, his horse was missing. Sunlight broke above them and his throat constricted under a coarse rope that lifted him off his feet. He tugged the frayed end and pulled the Ismaili assassins down through the roof. As they scrambled for their weapons, he held one by the neck and dug his knife into the man’s chest.
He tore out the wet blade and saw the other struggling with Roderick, wrapped in dark cloth from head to toe. Erelim picked up Melekon’s sword and impaled the Asasiyun. With the injured man trapped against the door, he asked, “How many of you are coming for us?”
His black eyes revealed the wrinkled corners of a smile, despite the metal puncturing his stomach. The Ismaili stepped backwards and disappeared through the door like mist. Erelim pulled his sword from the wood and bent the panels with a hard kick. The bedroom was empty except for the fading echo of a crying baby.
Roderick was coughing on the ground with a curved dagger shoved between his ribs. His breath came in weak intervals, and feeling guilty for what he had unleashed upon his fellow knights sparked the sorrow in his eyes when he said, “Please don’t tell the others.”
Erelim had no forgiveness to offer, Melekon’s punishment had already been exacted. “The only honor in defeat is if we do not forget what good we can still accomplish,” he said. “And if there is mercy in the next life, you of all people will find it.”
He stayed with his friend until he died, then he found his Friesien with the assassins’ horses tied up in the woods and left on a path that would cover his tracks. He kept his promise when he returned to the others with a lie that Roderick could not be found.
* * * * *
The mountains were being swallowed by dark rainclouds as the late fall weather followed the procession of knights and their lightly loaded carts with uneven wheels. The sound of wood against rock was a drumming heartbeat in the wilderness when two of them on horseback broke from the monotony of clacking hooves and allowed the attendants to continue forward. Under their chainmail, the soldiers wore black mantles with a red cross down the center.
They were armed with swords and daggers as they looked back with more than passing reverence. The loss of Jerusalem was a failure owned by their entire Order. The pale-skinned Grayson Tetricus said through his long red hair, “He’s been following us all day. Our supplies can scarcely feed another mouth before we reach the port.”
The path to the biggest city in the west curved near a curious boy who regarded the Poor Knights of the Temple of Solomon as if witnessing a phantom. When he saw that he was being watched, he stepped out of view.
“If he chooses to introduce himself, I will feed him from my own,” Erelim replied. “He’s as lost as we are from the eyes of God.”
“He might wander for the faith without a home, but he could still be a thief.”
“Then we have little to worry about, unless he plans to steal the hair from our horses.”
* * * * *
The trail dropped towards the sea in a woodland clearing where the city of Constantinople was visible at the mouth of the Bosphorus. As a blood-red haze covered the fortified port and daylight drained its last hour upon the horizon, a domed building with pointed pillars sat as the landmark to the entrance of Europe. The Church of Divine Wisdom invited no outsiders as three Templars stared over the trees to the distant coastline and a light that reflected off the still waters of the Aegean with thick ripples glimmering near the shore. Though the knights looked upon it as a sanctuary, the broken land-bridge beyond the city created the same ominous illusion in the sea.
“We won’t make it before nightfall,” said Ariovistes, a bearded man with a permanent frown. “Erelim?”
Xenakis was staring behind them.
“He’s transfixed,” Grayson remarked. “That boy still follows us.”
“We can show him the outpost churches or find a Hospitaller in the city. They certainly have nothing better to do.”
Erelim turned his horse and walked to the meek child. “Are you baiting the wolves to follow us?” When the boy didn’t respond, he asked, “Are you injured?”
The child stared at the knight like a dream he expected to fade. Pieces of fabric covered his thin frame almost like clothing, and though he looked fragile he held his ground. “Why are you leaving?”
“Anatolia is no longer our province.”
“Who gives you orders then, God or man?”
“We were sent to protect Christian settlements from the encroaching Seljuk army,” Erelim responded. “But now they are preoccupied with other Turks called the Oghuz, and until Ottoman’s empire reaches Normandy, we’ve been retracted to serve others. Spain is full of foreigners.”
“Spain is always full of foreigners and you are still needed here.”
“Where is your family?”
“Killed by the enemies of God,” replied the orphan.
“Then we have failed you as much as He has. Jerusalem rests with the infidels.”
“You’re still heroes. The good deeds of the silent knights are legendary.”
“Wherever you direct your will, the light of truth follows. Templars have a hierarchy, as all things do. The knights you speak of wearing white mantles and red crosses are monks of the Order, free from all but the will of the Pope.”
“And what are you?” asked the eager child.
“Sergeants with wives, performing secular service.”
“You have a family?”
Erelim handed the boy a blanket that was folded behind his saddle. “Take this or you’ll freeze during the night.”
“I don’t need charity, and I don’t need armor because Turks shoot arrows into the horse instead of the rider.”
Xenakis turned away and followed his fellow soldiers, making sure that the orphan stayed close. “We’re going to rest in the forest tonight, you should stay near our fire. We’ll find no haven in the city of Constantine.”
* * * * *
When night fell, they set up camp with stark supplies and no one worried about keeping watch after a barrel of beer was opened. They collected firewood while the horses huddled together, and preparations were simple in the dicing of preserved meat, using a nearby river to wash away the layers of salt before it was cooked in a stew. Erelim sipped from his mug with his brothers-in-arms and looked to the foreboding harbor near the city, where torchlit vessels were crossing the serene waters of the Aegean in the darkness.
“We’ve built our kingdoms on stolen ideas,” said Ariovistes as he scratched his dark beard. “This pompous place always reminds me that the ego is the child of first realization.”
Grayson scoffed. “An idea is nothing without those who manifest it. Who else but northern tribes ever uttered the word democracy in the presence of a Queen? There is nobility in savage ways while civilization steals our hearts, giving us little in return but longer lives to suffer with.”
Xenakis agreed. “There are few men left in this world and too many monsters.”
“The infection of individuality makes our thoughts linear,” continued Grayson, whose red hair was as bright as the fire. “We bear one life, one prophet, one Heaven, and one God.”
“And in rituals fall prey to idle worship,” Erelim added. The others laughed with their exhaustion affected by the alcohol.
“It’s true,” said Ario. “Philosophy was born and died in ancient Greece, all thoughts worth having are long in the past. Look to our ancestors and you’ll find rituals of blood, yet we say that Rome was a lesser evil than the child-killers of Phoenicia.”
“Passion and ignorance are follies of youth and societies rot by what makes them great,” said Erelim. “So let us discover our virtues in the cause we give our lives to.”
There was silence from the solemn knights and rural brothers who sat in recognition of the truth. “Templars survive best by having one home, but our spiritual residence in Jerusalem has been retaken by the enemy,” Grayson replied. “So what idea shall survive, our virtue or defeat?”
Ario nodded. “The Capetians want us dead and their Frankish Empire despises our wealth. None but patricians have access to wisdom.”
“People have more immediate needs.” Xenakis whistled into the shadows and the shivering orphan came out from behind a tree. He sat near the fire, where he was handed a bowl of soup. “The Lord’s injustice is the hunger of children.”
“We all want happiness to last forever, but if it did, what would make it precious?” said Grayson. “How would we know how to value it?”
“So where’s the Grail?” the boy asked between bites, with broth dripping down his chin.
The grizzled elder warrior bowed his head. “Young man, I am Duncan Ariovistes.”
“And I am Grayson Tetricus,” said the rough-faced redhead.
The child looked into his soup until polite introductions were over, then without giving his own name, he asked again, “So where’s the Grail?”