Upwyr by Bill Bowler	Table of Contents
Chapter 5: Wandering Soul part 3

Brother Thanatosius’ quarters were a suite of rooms in the rectory adjacent to the chapel. They were the one place on the grounds, of all that Straker had seen, that were well lit, well equipped, comfortable, and even elegant.

A large oak table stood near a magnificent bay window that looked directly out over the cliff with a view of the ocean below and the horizon in the distance. The table was set with warm bread, fresh vegetables, fruit, and cheese. A servant, silent, dull and lifeless, poured purple wine into crystal goblets.

Brother Thanatosius raised his glass. “This wine is made of grapes from our own vineyard.”

Straker and Hope clinked their glasses with Thanatosius and sipped the wine. It was dry and tasted of fruit and wood.

“It’s wonderful,” said Hope, “but it’s making me dizzy already.”

“Drink it slowly. It is meant to be savored, like youth and beauty, like young love, like life itself.” Thanatosius smiled and gestured towards the table. “These fruits and vegetables are from our garden and our orchards. The brothers are picking the first of the peaches now, and the apples and pears promise a rich harvest soon to come.”

“These raspberries are delicious!” exclaimed Hope. “I’ve never tasted anything like them.”

“They were picked this morning, only hours ago. Raspberries, like much of the good in life, are delicate and fragile. They do not travel well and are easily damaged.”

Thanatosius poured Hope another glass of wine.

“It is not often we have one so lovely and full of life as you among us.” Thanatosius touched her arm. “You call to mind sad memories I thought had been forgotten.”

Hope cringed at Thanatosius’ touch. His fingers felt like worms crawling on her skin. She drew back involuntarily. The wine was making her head spin.

“It’s best to keep your distance, Brother,” said Straker. “Don’t handle the merchandise.”

Thanatosius withdrew his hand.

Straker had been keeping one eye on the servant standing motionless near the door. This one, like the others, was a psychic blank. He emitted no aura at all and his face was dull and expressionless, without thought or emotion, without movement even, unless summoned by Thanatosius.

“What’s the story with the monks here?” asked Straker.

“What do you mean?” A thin smile spread on Thanatosius’ lips.

“They don’t have much to say for themselves, do they?”

“They have taken a vow of perpetual silence,” Thanatosius paused, “and obedience.”

“Unlike yourself.”

Thanatosius sneered. “That’s true. In some ways, I am perhaps less worthy than they, less prepared for the ultimate journey.”

“They seem kind of brainwashed,” said Hope.

“Not at all,” said Thanatosius. “Their thoughts are fixed on worthy objects.

“Like what?” asked Straker.

“Contemplation of the absolute, abnegation, penance for their impure deeds...”

“You could have fooled me,” laughed Straker. “They look like a bunch of mindless zombies.”

Thanatosius’ face froze like a mask.

“Yanosh,” said Hope, “remember we’re guests here.”

“Sorry, Brother,” said Straker. “No offense meant.”

The mask came off. A smile replaced the sneer again, or perhaps merely covered it.

“None taken.”

Thanatosius rose and gestured towards the servant, who came to life and began to clear the table.

“Please,” said Thanatosius, “come with me. I’ll give you a tour of our orchards and gardens.”

“I think we’ve seen enough,” said Straker.

“Is this how you repay my hospitality?”

“It’s all right, Yanosh,” said Hope. “It’s the least we can do. I’d like to see the place.”

Brother Thanatosius led them out onto the grounds. The late afternoon sun was already dropping in the western sky towards the mountain tops as they strolled between the rows of peach and apple trees. Dozens of monks, hooded and silent, picked the early peaches and carried full bushel baskets to the barn close by.

Thanatosius led them to the gardens beyond the orchard. Here, dozens more hooded laborers bent to gather squash and tomatoes. Past the gardens, grape vines hung from row after row of wooden frames.

As they made their way back to the central chapel, Straker looked above the stone wall and saw that the light was failing as the sun disappeared behind the forested mountains. He turned to Thanatosius.

“Thank you, Brother, for your time and hospitality but it’s getting late. We had better get going.”

Thanatosius looked towards the setting sun. “Yes, the time has passed without our realizing it. It will soon be dark. Why don’t you stay one more night and leave fresh and rested in the morning.”

“Thanks, but we’d rather not,” said Yanosh.

Hope yawned. “Oh, Yanosh, I am dreadfully tired.” She leaned against Straker’s arm, having trouble standing. “It may have been the wine. I would like to lie down now.”

“Splendid! Then it’s settled!” said Thanatosius.

* * *

Straker couldn’t sleep. At midnight, with the moon high, half dozing, he woke to hear a scuffle in the vestibule outside his door. He heard Hope faintly crying and Thanatosius’ commanding voice. “Take her to the crypt.”

Straker leapt from his bed but found his door bolted from outside. His anxiety turned to fury. He slammed his shoulder against the door but the silver alloy bars and hinges held. It was silent in the vestibule now. Straker heard a faint commotion in the yard outside but that, too, soon grew silent.

Straker pounded his fist against the door. He had walked stupidly into the trap. And now the monk had Hope. Straker glared around at the close stone walls and the barred window. In his rage, he pulled the small jar from his belt pouch and swallowed the Wandering Soul potion in one gulp. The thick, bitter syrup burned his mouth and throat. His head began to spin. He fell back on the bed and closed his eyes.

A black curtain fell across his physical senses. He felt himself melting, dissolving, then suddenly, his self exploded, splintering into a thousand fragments, into dust that sprinkled and blew through the non-corporeal cosmos. He felt himself floating through the ether and saw himself far below, tiny in the distance, like a little doll, lying still on the bed.

In the pulsing, churning chaos, Straker felt a faint point of, what? Light? Warmth? That which we call love. It was almost lost in the swirling, glittering kaleidoscope of sensations but not entirely. Faintly, dimly, it shone through the fog. Like a wisp of mist, Straker’s spirit floated out through the barred window, hung for a moment in the air above the precipice, and drifted across the roof and down along the path towards the chapel.

The chapel doors were bolted but Straker’s spirit passed through the chinks and floated down the aisle, past the broken, rotted, dust covered pews, towards the crumbling altar. He heard the sound of voices chanting below. He had reached the small door behind the altar, passed through it easily, and floated down the stone stairway to the crypt. The chanting grew louder.

Straker’s spirit overtook four shuffling, hooded figures slowly descending the steep winding stairway, carrying Hope, her body limp and half conscious, as if she’d been drugged. She had been dressed in a white, loose fitting, flowing robe that hung loose from her shoulders.

The crypt beneath the chapel was lit by a hundred candles. Straker recognized the scene from his dream. Dozens of hooded figures were kneeling and chanting in a dull monotone. And yet, Straker could sense no life force in the room. It was full of monks, chanting and swaying, and yet completely deadened except for Hope’s glowing aura. There was motion, but no life.

Straker marveled at the power that had clamped this impenetrable shield over the auras of these hooded figures, a screen so dense, so complete, that, aside from Hope, not one hint of thought or emotion could be detected by Straker’s spirit’s heightened psychic receptors.

His spirit floated in the midst of the pillared vault and watched as the events of his dream began to unfold. The four hooded monks carried Hope through the rows of kneeling figures and placed her unconscious body on the stone slab of the underground altar. One of the monk’s hoods fell back, revealing his face, and Straker recognized the dead climber.

Suddenly a powerful blast of psychic energy filled the crypt, almost obliterating Straker’s spirit. Straker cringed in the presence of an intense, single-minded malevolence, reminiscent of unwelcome memories of Straker’s uncle, Count Dracul, whose depraved soul had once touched Straker’s.

The chanting ceased and, as one, the kneeling figures fell prostrate on the stone floor. From the shadows behind the stone altar, Brother Thanatosius stepped into the candlelight. He had come down to the crypt through a back staircase that connected to his private quarters. He gazed triumphantly at his prone acolytes and then looked down at Hope lying unconscious on the stone altar.

Thanatosius leaned over and kissed Hope full on the lips, then straightened up and addressed the assembly.

“Let us begin. Always before we have performed the life-in-death ritual, reanimating empty shells. But let us turn now to another page of the sacred text. Let us perform the holy wedding of kindred spirits. Let us anoint the high priestess, my eternal bride, who shall serve at my side and rule over you. Let us render her spirit to death incarnate. Let life pale in the blaze of death, which levels all and consumes all, yet from whose ashes spring the deathless essences of once living forms.”

Thanatosius parted Hope’s loose fitting robe, took a handful of powder from a vessel on the stone slab, and sprinkled it on her exposed chest and limbs. Eyes shut, Hope began writhing and groaning as if struggling in a vivid nightmare. Thanatosius then raised a silver, jeweled chalice and recited an unholy incantation.

“From the destroyer, the father of no one who watches from without, from the end that begins, the dust that is not dust, the weakness that is strength and power...”

Thanatosius lifted Hope’s head, parted her lips with two fingers, and tilted the chalice to pour its contents down her throat.

Straker’s spirit swirled madly and darted about the room, but was unable in its non-corporeal form to interact with the physical plane. It circled and raced frantically around the crypt like jet streams of an invisible mist but simply passed through all corporeal objects. Finally, he descended upon the stone altar and congealed around Hope, seeking in vain somehow to envelop and shield her from physical harm.

Straker’s spirit brushed Thanatosius as he was putting the chalice to Hope’s lips. The monk paused. He alone seemed vaguely aware of Straker’s presence. Straker’s spirit clutched at the straw of Thanatosius’ dim awareness, focused on Thanatosius’ consciousness, and transmitted itself in a thin beam along that fragile thread back to the source of the awareness, back to Thanatosius himself.

Straker’s spiritual strength, his psychic force, concentrated its essence on the physical manifestation of Thanatosius, followed the thread of awareness like a spark along a wire, and entered Thanatosius’ corporeal being.

Thanatosius paused and trembled. He hesitated. Straker’s spirit raced along the branching neural pathways, mixing with the monk’s own consciousness, filling the monk with Straker’s own essence and psychic energy.

Thanatosius felt a throbbing ache in the back of his head. It shot up his skull, a sharp, excruciating pain that clouded his vision and induced a wave of nausea. He gasped for breath, stumbled backwards and dropped the chalice. It struck the slab of stone and fell to the floor, spilling its contents.

“No, no, this is all wrong! I cannot perform the ceremony under these conditions! An impure essence has profaned the sacred chamber and must be expunged!” Thanatosius stormed out of the crypt through the hidden staircase and climbed back to his quarters in a rage.

The rows of hooded figures slumped in place. Straker’s spirit deserted Thanatosius, flared and swirled, and enveloped the body lying unconscious, drugged and helpless on the stone slab. Straker’s spirit melded easily with Hope’s welcoming soul, intertwined and blended with her own spirit, and, in a supreme act of will, aided by her receptivity to him, took control of her motor reflexes.

Straker’s spirit merged with Hope’s in a protective living aura. He inhabited her. He became her. He experienced her feelings directly; her memories and thoughts were also his. He felt the exhilaration of her love for him.

Under his control, a form of psychic persuasion, she rose, eyes closed, still unconscious, from the slab and, like a somnambulist, glided slowly up the stone staircase, trailing her loose white silken robe. She came up into the chapel, walked dreamily down the aisle between the rotted pews, and out onto the grounds in the darkness of night.

The slight wind picked up and her robe billowed behind her as Straker’s spirit guided her to the front gate. He willed her arm to grasp the bolt and slide it open. She pushed through the gate and he took her down the path back through the dark forest, down the slope, from where they had come.

When she reached the fork in the path where the wild rose bush bloomed, where they had camped and been caught in the storm, Straker saw that the stars were fading and the sky was no longer black but turning a dull gray in the east.

Straker’s spirit rushed to find a hiding place where he could conceal Hope’s body until she regained consciousness. He found it in a hollow underneath the huge flowering bush. He laid her gently down on the soft earth, hidden from view. Then, reluctantly, he left her, still drugged and unconscious, and flew back to his cell on the monastery grounds to reconnect to his corporeal self before sunrise. He rushed through the woods, up the path, through the gate, into the vestibule and, finally, seeped under the door into his cell.

To his horror, he found the cell was empty. His body was gone.

The sun showed itself above the horizon. Morning had come.

* * *

Proceed to part 4...

Copyright © 2008 by Bill Bowler