It was very plain; there were no carvings on the grey stone. It was also bigger inside than I had imagined. Flights of steps ran everywhere, garlanded with dusty webs, scattered with faded straw. At random, I chose one and began to climb it. Many landings punctuated my ascent, where I saw numerous closed doors, but I did not pause because I knew that Sammael, if he were still there at all, would be at the top of the Tower. It was utterly silent. Thick glass in the narrow windows shut out the moan of the elements. The air smelled of old books and musty incense, and there was a definite mousiness to it, too. As I climbed in this atmosphere, all trepidation fell away from me; this was the sanctuary of a scholar-hermit. It did not feel in the least bit sad or frightening.
I had not estimated how long the climb would take. Even after several rests to ease the muscles of my legs, when I looked up, the tower still seemed to rear upwards forever. I wished I’d brought a flask of water with me, for my throat was dry. Soon afterwards, I emerged into a dark passageway, along which I would have to walk if I wanted to climb further. I could not see any more steps in the immediate vicinity. The floor appeared recently swept and there was a faint smell of soap. Still no sign of life though. There were doors set into the wall, a couple of which I felt brave enough to try and open. All were locked, the handles rust beneath my fingers. I quickly dismissed the idea of trying to open them. Perhaps centuries of neglect had warped the wood and rotted the locks, so that they were sealed by disuse rather than the turn of a key. After a while, I came across a drinking fountain set into the wall, where a simple metal cup was chained to the stone bowl. The water looked cool and clear; irresistible. Would it poison me if I drank? I looked around myself; the dark corridor extended to either side, lit gloomily by narrow windows paned with green glass. Nothing moved in the shadows, not even a mouse. I filled the cup and lowered my head to drink.
‘Who are you?’
I had heard no-one approach and wheeled round frantically at the sound of the voice. Behind me, stood a young human girl of maybe eighteen summers. Her hair was pale and confined messily behind her head; her clothes were simple but spun of fine, expensive-looking wool. She was carrying a bale of linen and was looking at me with angry accusation. ‘What are you doing in here?’ she demanded.
I straightened up. ‘I might ask the same of you,’ I replied, ‘given that the occupant of this tower is reputed to live alone!’
The girl narrowed her eyes. ‘You’re one of them,’ she said. ‘How did you get in?’
‘Where is he?’ I asked. ‘Where is the Lord Sammael? Is he... is he still here?’
‘I’m not telling you that!’ the girl cried. ‘Get out!’ She came towards me quite menacingly. ‘Get out!’ She dropped the linen on the floor and picked up a broom standing beside a doorway, which she brandished in my direction.
I was so surprised by this aggressive behaviour from a human, I was temporarily confused, and knew not how to respond to her hostility. The girl poked me with the broom. She was not of patron stock, that was clear; she was far too brutish and common. That meant she could not be one of the solstice offerings. For a moment, I was afraid that Sammael no longer existed and the Tower had become over-run by unsupped vagabonds! After all, no eloim really knew what went on in this place any more.
‘Is Sammael here?’ I asked again, holding up my hands to fend off the broom.
‘Get out leech! Get out hag!’ screeched the girl, savagely thrusting her weapon at my body.
Then, a voice bellowed out of an adjoining room. ‘Lilian, Lilian, what is the fuss? I can hear nothing but your rude farmyard cacophony! ‘
‘A she-rat has bellied her way into the Tower!’ the girl replied.
‘A what?’
‘A she-rat! A big one!’
There was a sound of a chair being scraped across a floor. I stood there, utterly confused, as a tall, painfully thin man with shaggy red hair came out of the room. He saw me, allowed himself a few seconds of mute shock, and then sighed and folded his arms, leaning on the doorframe. He was not a man; he was eloim. I could see that now, but undeniably, there was a certain human casualness about him. He reminded me, in a way, of Avirzah’e.
‘What have we here?’ he said.
‘Shall I push her down the stairs?’ asked the girl.
He shook his head. ‘No. Who are you, how did you get in, and what do you want?’ he asked me.
‘Are you Lord Sammael?’ I asked, trying to sound dignified. Only hours before, I had been poignantly balancing on the rim of a terrible abyss, my heart and head full of profundity; now, I was living in a nightmare of farce. Where was I?
‘Who wants to know?’ he replied.
‘Gimel Metatronim does,’ I said.
He laughed. ‘The fruit of the Metatron’s loins? Ah, yes, I see the family resemblance now. What are you doing in my Tower?’
‘Looking for Sammael.’
He extended his arms. ‘Well, you’ve found him. There’s little point in further procrastination. What do you want from me?’
I glared at the girl, and asked him, ‘May I talk to you in private?’
‘Hm? Oh, yes, I see. Run along, Lilian, all is under control. The she-rat is unfanged and affectionate, you see.’ He gestured for me to enter his room.
‘Well, Gimel Metatronim, you had better sit down. May I offer you refreshment? We have a choice selection here.’
I had no doubt of that, but shook my head. ‘No, talking with you will be refreshment enough.’
‘I do hope that wasn’t simple flattery...’ He bade me be seated, and I looked around the room. It was comfortably furnished and a fire burned fiercely beneath a huge mantle. All around were books and papers; on the floor, on shelves that lined the walls, flowing over a large, heavy desk under the window. Beneath my feet, the rug was threadbare, and a few animal skins had been scattered around to cover the worst spots. I attempted to regain my composure.
‘I have not come here to flatter you,’ I said. ‘I need your advice.’
‘I do not give advice,’ he said, leaning against his desk and folding his arms. ‘It is generally ignored, anyway. Before you decided upon this visit, didn’t you think about why I’d shut myself away from worldly concerns? What makes you think I will make an exception in your case?’
‘Nothing whatsoever. I took a risk.’ I gave him a frank glance. He was nothing like I’d expected. The Parzupheim were more ethereal, my father more regal. Was this really the one they had called the Prince of Light? I found it hard to believe. He was sinewy, his face lined more strongly than was usual in an eloim, but they were the lines of expression, not age. He was handsome in the way that human men are handsome, not eloim. What did he do here in this place all alone? Why hadn’t he gone insane? Perhaps he had.
‘Did the Metatron let you in?’ he asked me.
I shook my head. ‘No, I used deceit to gain entrance.’
‘Well, that’s commendable at least, I suppose!’ He peered at me. ‘So, do the atelier courts still stand and surround my sanctuary...?’ Then he shook his head before I could respond. ‘No, I’m not curious. I’m not going to ask questions. After all, if I’d wanted the answers I’d have come outside, wouldn’t I?’
‘I don’t know,’ I answered carefully. ‘If I’d locked myself away for so long, I might be a little afraid of open spaces and many people... But still, I think I’d yearn for company now and again.’
Sammael smiled widely; my answer had pleased him. ‘Strangely enough, I find I’m glad you came,’ he said.
I told him all about what had been happening. He listened eagerly as if I was a new book that had magically acquired the ability to speak its text aloud. He did ask questions, some of them probing inquiries about my narrative, others apparently unconnected; brief demands about various individuals, a thirst for gossip. His mind flitted from thought to thought like a frantic bird, but he kept his conclusions to himself, only asking questions and then stabbing a finger at the air, saying, ‘Yes, yes!’
/>
I was patient, but hoped he would enlighten me when I’d finished the story. I ended it by describing my ascent of the hill, and the state of the weather outside, the tolling of the bell. Here, Sammael stopped me.
‘Sandalphon is here?’ he asked abruptly.
‘Waiting outside,’ I replied.
Sammael turned away from me, to look out of the window. There was a moment’s silence, the meaning of which I divined easily. I had breached the defences he had constructed between himself and the world. For a while, at least, the Tower door was well and truly open.
‘Would you... would you like me fetch him?’ I asked quietly.
He pondered the question. ‘I don’t think so.’
An uncomfortable atmosphere had settled in the room. Sammael was lonely for his kind, I could see that now, and I, in most respects a child of the earth, was not, in his eyes, one of his kind. What had impelled him to prolong this insufferable torment of loneliness?
‘I have everything I need here,’ he said.
‘Are you still glad I came?’
He turned around and smiled at me. ‘Tell me what you think your problem is.’
I respected his reticence. ‘Well, Avirzah’e thinks the Watchers are instrumental in what is occurring. He thinks that nothing is coincidental.’
‘Does Metatron share this view?’
‘It is hard to say. He believes my idea about the soulscaper is a good one, but quite honestly in view of everything else that has happened, it seems such a small solution - too small.’ I shrugged. ‘I don’t know. That’s why I came to you. It wasn’t a decision lightly made.’
‘The smallest solutions are generally the best ones,’ he replied. ‘Grand plans, grand ambitions are easily reduced to ashes, whereas a small plan can sneak through to devastating effect. At least, I have come to think that.’
‘Maybe, but I have been wondering recently whether we should be here in this world at all, whether my attempts at restoring our position are against natural law. We have tried to assimilate ourselves with humans, haven’t we, but we cannot fulfil that desire completely. We have been living on borrowed time.’
Sammael laughed. ‘You poor creature! There is no natural law; anything is possible in this universe, anything. If eloim want to remain here, they probably can, but change is inevitable. They might not remain as they were.’ He sat down on the floor in front of me, leaning back against a chair, and clasped his arms around his knees. ‘You are wrong in saying that eloim have tried to assimilate with humanity; they haven’t. They have made what they see to be massive compromises, but they hang on to the past, to approximate memories of their past forms. They cling to immortality in a mortal world and yet, at the same time, they relinquish certain powers which would be useful. Oh, Gimel Metatronim, I gave up trying to philosophise about this a millennium ago! Now, the eloim have reached the horizon of a great decision; they can reclaim their heritage, or they can sacrifice it and be absorbed into the world. It is that simple. Your soulscaper will be able to tell you this, if she can withstand a journey into the eloim soulscape.’
‘Is it really that simple? Is it nothing to do with the Watchers and...’ - I had to say it - ‘...Mikha’il?’
Sammael blinked at me slowly. ‘We are observed, of course we are. We lost our battle with them, and yet we won. We were cast out of our world, true, but we came to inhabit the one coveted by our enemies.’
‘But even this world turned against us,’ I said, ‘otherwise we wouldn’t be confined here in Sacramante, hiding our true selves away from humanity.’
‘That too, was inevitable,’ Sammael said. ‘You should not feel indignant about it. We gave humanity knowledge and, in return, they gave us sustenance. It seemed a necessary thing at the time. Eloim could no longer feed from one another, not if they wanted to pass for human. Only human blood can maintain the fleshly shape that we had chosen for ourselves, and which has been held by eloim to this day. It was the first mistake we made on this world - perhaps the worst. I foresaw the results, much to the displeasure of my brethren. We should have mingled utterly with humanity, interbred with them. If we had discarded our psychic abilities, and much of our creative spirit, we could have held onto flesh without needing human ichor to sustain it. We should have rid ourselves of eloim traits.’
‘Yet you have not done so!’ I interjected.
He smiled sadly. ‘No, but I am ancient and eccentric, and I have hopes that, one day, an unlikely and enraptured reunion will occur, for which I will need all of my eloim characteristics... Anyway, allow me to continue. Humanity eventually came to resent the tithe of blood eloim demanded from them; they found it unsavoury, despite its advantages. At that time, many eloim insisted on supping to the point of death for the donor; they drank spirit as well as blood. This is what caused the war between the two races, which was no doubt observed by our estranged kin, from the old world, with much grinning and gleeful hand-rubbing! A minority of humans, namely those referred to as the ‘Old Blood’, realised that the relationship was symbiotic, and all that was required to achieve the correct balance was a control of our sustenance taking. Not all humanity agreed, of course, which resulted in our furtive seclusion in Sacramante. All this happened a long time ago. We had to connive and plot to secure our position. For a long time, we were in hiding, until enough years had elapsed for us to creep forth and call ourselves artisans. I wanted no part of it. “Give me enough to eat and let me rot in peace”, I told them.’
‘Do you feast until death, then?’ I asked. ‘Every time?’
‘It is the nearest I can get to... the things that I miss,’ he replied, unflinching. Then, he stood up abruptly. ‘The things that I miss! They basked in pleasure as I suffered, damn them!’
I jumped in alarm; the outburst had been so unexpected. ‘Who is the girl?’ I asked him quickly. ‘The one you called Lilian?’
He calmed down instantly, and ran a hand through his brilliant hair. ‘Just that; a girl. I have them with me, just a few. I can’t bear to be totally alone. They keep me company.’
‘They? How many?’
He made an irritated gesture as if the question was trivial. ‘Oh, I don’t know. A few. They come from the Strangeling. They come here to find me. I let them live and die here, if they want to.’
‘But how do they get here?’
From the Strangeling? I thought. How was that possible?
‘Gimel, humans occupying the Strangeling lands are not quite like other humans. I think they consider themselves to be another race entirely, living among our ruins there as they do. They have been affected by the memories of our history. They have absorbed all the feelings that haunt the place.’ He grinned. ‘They are pantomime eloim!’
‘So you brought them from the Strangeling yourself then?’ I wished he’d answer my questions.
Sammael shook his head. ‘No. In the old days, when this tower was built, an underground route was dug from here to the Strangeling. Naturally, I wanted a back door, in case of emergency. Also, in the beginning I was drawn back to the Strangeling often. I liked to walk among the ruins.’
‘And you made contact with humans who’d come to inhabit the ruins?’ I was visualising the story in my head. It seemed so vivid.
‘Not exactly,’ Sammael said. ‘After a short while, I stopped my secret excursions and went into retreat slumber here, perhaps imagining I would never awake. Life was painful. I could no longer bear to think, to remember. Then, as time eroded the stones and locks around the tunnel’s entrance in the Strangeling, humans living there found my hidden road and came creeping along it. They came into the tower and woke me up. It didn’t happen that long ago, perhaps only a few hundred years.’ He shook his head smiling. ‘I think they thought I was an ancient corpse - I was covered in dust and rubbish, my bed long-rotted - but I still wore my jewels and they sought to rob me. One of them was tugging at my rings, which brought me back to reality. It was quite amusing to see their hysterical reaction when I sat u
p and roared, showering them with my mantle of dust.’
I found the image quite chilling. ‘You are lucky they didn’t kill you.’
‘Oh, they wouldn’t have done that. They sensed something in me that links me to the Strangeling and its past, I suppose. I am their secret, but then the humans in the Strangeling have many secrets.’
‘Do you sup from them?’ I asked.
Sammael smiled. ‘They would like me to. Sometimes I do, just a little. It pleases them, although I have been off my food for a thousand years; supping does not give me great pleasure.’
‘You are a strange creature,’ I said.
He grinned. ‘What did you expect? Would you like to see some of my work?’
I accepted the change of subject without argument. ‘I would be honoured.’
He brought me a leather-bound book with beautiful creamy parchment pages, all covered in delicate curling text, written by hand. ‘It is all about love,’ he said.
I tried to read it. ‘Is it?’
‘Yes. You know why I dislike the sup?’
I paused from my examination, looked at him and shook my head.
‘It is because of... I drank, as your brother did, eloim ichor. Anything else is like muddy water after that. I think we should sustain each other, don’t you?’
‘When did you do that? After you came to Earth?’ It was a loaded question. I knew to whom he referred but, in eloim lore, there had been no contact between Mikha’il and Sammael since that time.
‘Yes, afterwards. In our old territory, mutual supping was a way of life. It is different here; a different world. And yet, I had to experience the taste of eloim fluid on Earth; I was always too curious.’
‘I thought your brother... I mean, people believe your brother never came through to Earth after the conflict.’
Sammael pulled a rueful face. ‘Well, our meetings were not exactly advertised with banners and trumpets! We met, a few times, before the thoroughfare between the worlds was closed for eternity, but nobody knows that. As we were building Ykhey, he came to me there, and we loved one another in flesh.’