DANCE ME TO THE END OF TIME

1.

Oudeis was standing alone in his chambers. He could easily smell Calista as she was wandering around the Castle. She used to burst of a radiant, spicy scent of desire along with the first apple's essence but since the moment he laid his eyes on her long before he travelled with her to Spain, he could smell nothing now but Death. He knew that smell well. He could smell it even from miles away. He was grown into that smell and that smell had grown into him. He could listen to the Muses whipping under the moon on their way to Italy but there was nothing he could do.

He knew that the three Fates had made their decision upon Calista's destiny even though she still believed that she was the one who owned them. He knew that she had always been an old, lost soul but he preferred watching her converting her struggles into art. There could be no rest for the wicked like them. They would be lost eventually like the midnight's mist beneath the morning sun. They have all been night's creatures for centuries battling not only for survival but for everything that they desired as well such as power, wealth, lovers, and supremacy.

'Le Roi est Mort, Vive le Roi!'

Their Prince was dying. Either he had to come up with a plan to come back from Hades once more, or they would soon crown the new Prince to take his place. Even though they could defy human's rules, there were rules that none of them would break for fear that they would all perish for defying the Cosmos' Equilibrium.

He started chewing the secret herbs he was keeping in his mouth as he started praying to Nyx, the ancient Greek yet eternal Goddess of the Night and her children. He wasn't calling upon neither for Morpheus, God of sleep and dreams, nor Death. Their time was yet to come. He was praying and dancing for her daughters. He was gazing Clotho who spun the thread of Life from her distadd onto her Spindle, watching Lachesis while she was measuring the thread of Life allotted to each one of them with her measuring rod.

Foremost he was searching for Atropos' intentions as she was the cutter of the thread of life. Atropos was the one who got to choose the manner of their death and once their time would come, she would cut their life-thread with her shears.

He kept dancing as he kept falling in and out of his hallucinations. He could hear a violin's music from a distance, but he wasn't dancing to its music. He was dancing to the mystic music of Acheron's River, a sound even Bach could not contend toward. He had left Cairo behind him along with its own Gods and mysticism. He knew well that this time there would be no resurrection from the dead. He had realized that from the moment that he smelled Death upon Calista. That shivering night he could smell it all over the Castle.

Oudeis knew that they were all standing on the edge of the two worlds, those of the living and the dead but no one knew that he could oscillate between them. The herbs' poison was running fiercely through his veins. No one of his Mysts would ever dare to take in so much poison but his body could handle as much as his mind demanded in order to take a glimpse on Gods' and Goddesses' decisions.

He had never been able to smell his own scent. He had served Death with honor all those ages like a loyal soldier. He knew that he was his own Daemon, his own Law and eventually his own undoing. He kept dancing along to the ancient hymns which kept unfolding in all their glory in his mind. He started taking his clothes off, one after the other as he was bowing in front of the Muses asking for their forgiveness. There was no other option for him but to undress the Dancer and become once again the Warrior he was born to be.

As his luxurious clothes kept falling on the floor, one after the other, he started singing the hymns which were coming back dominating his mind. He was offering the Dancer to the Fates along with the Warrior as he was singing his loyalty to their Code. They have offered him a second path when he was the last of his Tribe along with a new Tribe. He had taken it without a second thought and enjoyed the ride to the fullest. Nevertheless, Cairo had never become his home and all those wandering in the Castle could never replace his own Tribe either. That's why he introduced himself as 'Oudeis' to them. He would always be a Nobody to them.

Indeed, he knew well that they were all outcasts regardless of what they kept saying to one another. He could see their past, present, and future in their dead eyes, all at once using the Mysts' knowledge but he had always kept that as a secret from them. For them, he had always been the Dancer of the East but in that night, he could smell not only Prince's Death but more Deaths that he had imagined when he was packing his things in Egypt.

He was dancing, falling into his hallucinations' Vertigo. Oudeis was singing in ancient Greek, certain that no one in the Castle could understand what he was actually speaking of. The Dancer was gone, and the Warrior was preparing for battle. He could feel its fire upon his cold body. Morpheus and Death were running, chasing one another like playful children inside the Castle.

The Mysts had taught him well. The greatest warrior had never been the one who would win every fight but the one who could tell the difference between when to start a battle and when to surrender. He spent endless years perfecting his ability to tell one from the other. He could easily tell which of the two he was facing at that moment. The Fates had revealed it to him, and he had embraced it gracefully, so he stood still out of a sudden and he opened his eyes.

He was standing naked in front of that Vampire, deprived of his weapons. He was well trained in combat, but the Fates had already made their decision. The vampire was holding an ancient arrow. Oudeis recognized it. He had used it in order to kill the last one of his Tribe so that the ancient knowledge would vanish, separating the living from the dead once again.

Humans kept abusing their connection to the Underworld, so he had decided to put an end to it. The dead should remain dead and rest peacefully into their graves. They shouldn't be disrespectfully poked again and again so that the living ones would cheat on their endgame. According to the Tribe's Law the same arrow would kill him one day. Yet the Law was wrong. It would be night and it would have taken centuries before it could finally find its way.

The wooden arrow penetrated his heart before he could even bat an eye. He had turned into his self-fulfilling prophecy. The last one of his first tribe was falling on the ground like a chopped tree, as one more bridge between the living and the dead was bursting into fire. At last, he could smell his own Death as he had previously smelled those of the others. He wasn't supposed to warn anyone, yet he broke that rule once again, honoring the code of his tribe.

He had warned everybody in the Castle of what was coming next. He couldn't tell who would recognize his warning or not. He knew that he couldn't alter what was coming. He trusted the Fates for their wisdom, but he couldn't die without giving them a chance for redemption.

Oudeis' soul traveled back to Acheron River. He could see the boat coming near him. The Boatman stretched his hands towards him asking for his payment in order to take him to the gates to the underworld. Yeah, the music here so different to anything found anywhere else. Oudeis was standing there, naked, deprived of any coin to offer. He was doomed to wander on its shores for an eternity ... an outcast of his homeland even upon his death. He fell on his knees and screamed so loudly in despair that his voice was shredded Castle's silence back in Florence.

The Vampires were alerted and started running towards his chambers. The violin's music had stopped along with every murmur that was rattling the night's serenity.

They found him lying dead and naked on the floor. Calista leaned over him. She took the coin which was on his bed and placed it upon his lips. The coin appeared on the boatman's hand. The boatman brought the boat close to him and let him get on it. They started traveling on Acheron. He would meet his first Tribe again. He was going home.

At least one of the Vampires had got the message. He wouldn't have gotten his coin otherwise. The killer would have never offered it to him. He couldn't tell which one that may have been. He wasn't certain if more than one had recognized his warning for the upcoming bloodshed, but nothing else mattered anymore.

He had left nothing behind him but a Rumi's poem. He was taking everything else along with him to the Underworld ...