Timothy

First, when Blizzard took the motorway to the north and not east, I thought there were construction works on the East roads. But he kept heading north, passing another turn to the east as we went.

"You said we were going to see the Queen..." I started uncertainly as we neared a neighborhood I knew a bit too well. "I thought we were going to the Castle?"

"We are. I told you. The Castle moved."

Yes. I had heard him say that. But somehow I had thought I had misunderstood something.

"You mean, Mo relocated the Breasinghae headquarters?" I clarified.

I had hard time imagining all the registered vampires of the capital hiring moving services and carrying cardboard boxes in the night. There were dozens of rooms in the Castle.

"No. I mean that the Castle moved."

"The Castle moved," I repeated, puzzled.

Blizzard drove into the silent yard shared by two houses. He left the car between the two buildings on a tiled platform where my parents had kept their cars when I had been a kid. The motor of the witch-made vehicle hardly hummed. So once he shut down the engine, the silence that greeted us shouldn't have felt quite so overpowering. Yet my ears were ringing as he turned to regard me. Wine red eyes gleaming in the dark.

"Timothy. The Castle moved. It cannot be explained in other words. It used to be in the old warehouse. But last week rooms started disappearing. They came here, taking up space in the neighborhood. We found most of the stuff in the school building, most rooms are there. But some of these houses around the school are now part of this magical entity that we call a Castle."

I sat stunned to silence. I had thought that the Castle had just been a pet name for the warehouse. Of course I had known that other cities had Castles as well. But I had imagined them in similar places, old abandoned warehouses hosting vampires. Even old schools. But not residential neighborhoods. And not animate.

I rose from my seat, to the yard in front of what had been my house.

The house to the right of Blizzard's car looked as it had always looked.

But the one on the left side...

The whole night around felt surreal. Even the old horse chestnut in the yard was the same one. The white painted wooden fence that separated this yard from the neighbor's backyard was the same one. The gravel under my borrowed boots felt familiar.

But the house was all wrong.

"How?" I breathed.

I had heard that I had blown up with the house. There hadn't been anything left half a year ago. Yet now in front of me stood a new building.

Where my house had been painted white, this was of red tiles.

I had had a balcony to the backyard, but this one had a balcony to the front.

I had had a front porch, but this one rested on the ground.

The profile was different.

"Who built this?" I asked. "In half a year?"

"The magic that is the Castle," Blizzard said. "The Castle built it. Some parts were made by men and women working on the construction. Some parts simply seem to have appeared. The City built it."

And I believed him. I could suddenly understand it. Why master Aconite had laughed at me in his office when I had asked if the Forest of elves was just a forest. The City of vampires was just a City. And in this City, as part of it, was embedded the Witch Town and the Castle.

Suddenly I became aware of my surroundings. The lights. Because the houses around me had lit windows. It was past one o'clock in the night, but this neighborhood was alive under the stars.

I heard a door opening and people talking, just beyond the fence separating two yards. I couldn't make out the words, but they were laughing. Links enjoying the dead of night.

The front door of the red tiled house in front me wasn't locked. A narrow staircase led upstairs. But in the downstairs was located a shower room and a spacious closet behind sliding doors. I left my loaned coat to hang there (with my phone and passport still concealed in a pocket). My equally borrowed boots were left downstairs as well. The huge vampire by me stripped naked.

I hesitated with my robe. I had last seen Mo in her house naked. And if only she and Blizzard were present, then I would be the only one with clothes.

I took it off.

"Put it on. You'll be cold."

We faced each other in the changing room. Blizzard had dropped and regarded me calmly with his hands hanging at ease by his sides. He looked like a statue, a silent human shaped plaster piece in the dimly lit downstairs room.

I put the robe back on. But as a compromise didn't tie the sash. It felt a bit ridiculous.

I breathed in, then out. Bend my knees a bit.

Then I dropped, fell over the edge of the ego. And then it mattered less, if my open robe was ridiculous or not. I was going to meet the Queen of vampires. She would be naked. And my choice in clothing could do little to affect anything at all. And after all, I was fairly certain Mo asked us to come to her naked so we would eventually stop to think about what we weren't wearing and would concentrate on the topics discussed in her presence.

We ascended the narrow stairs.

Upstairs was a spacious room, cushions laying about on a parquet floor. Straight ahead, facing the stairs, the Castle had located Mo's low table. Beside it opened a kitchen.

The queen was alone. She stood her bare back towards us, long black hair cascading down a white back. And there, in her back, was tattooed an artful dragon in black ink. I could only see the leg of the dragon and parts of it's tail under her freely flowing hair.

Her silent, clear presence penetrated my mind, even as she looked out the window to the nearest house on the other side of the glass. We had been noted. On the table, cup rims to the table top, sat two earthenware cups. A teapot squatted between them.

Blizzard stopped. He looked at the scene, the queen that didn't look at us, the teapot, the cups. Two cups.

Without uttering a word, Blizzard turned back to the stairs. He didn't spare me a glance.

I didn't hear his steps on the stairs, but I did hear the closet doors sliding downstairs.

I drew in a breath. Released it slower. And enjoyed the clear aura around me, enjoyed how Mo made me feel.

There were cups for two. It was obvious the two of us would enjoy the content.

I moved to the table. The front door opened and closed downstairs as Blizzard left the building. I sat in a cross legged position on the cushion, and was just reaching for the teapot–out of habit–when the queen flowed to take a seat opposite me. I looked at her. Mo turned her cup right side up. She wasn't breathing and moved like liquid through the air, taking shape on the cushion facing me, like hot iron poured into mold.

I poured us transparent, steaming liquid into two cups.

She held my gaze then, with her almond shaped eyes. My hand was close to my cup, but I didn't bring it to my lips. It was far too hot. Everything seemed to simmer around us in the room that in itself seemed to hold its breath effortlessly.

"What did you wish for?" The Queen asked, after what seemed like timeless time. Either seconds or hours after I had sat down at her table.

"What did I wish for?" I repeated. It seemed that just that day I had difficulties understanding plain Atlantean.

"Yes. What was your Futile Desire that brought us here?"

I blinked. I still didn't follow.

"I didn't want to be a vampire anymore," I said carefully.

Nothing in her showed any signs of caring about the implications of my utterance. Her red gaze stayed the same, frozen in air.

"So I sought out a way to be rid of vampirism. And I found the Alchemist."

Silence.

Mo sipped from her cup. She held the scalding cup in both her hands.

"No," she said once she lowered the cup. "I didn't ask what you did. Or even what was your impulse or strategy in doing so. I asked: What was your Futile Desire? What did you wish for that was beyond any possible or impossible hope?"

"Being a human wasn't impossible?" I countered.

"No. You knew what being a human is. The goddess gave you something else than humanity. So, I repeat, what was your Futile Desire, when you started searching for alternatives?"

I frowned.

"I don't understand," I said.

"Then I explain."

She curled her small hands around her cup. And I knew suddenly that I would hear something extraordinary. Something that was meant for me, and not for anyone else. Something that couldn't be shared with her other son.

"When I was a child, a human child, I encountered misfortune. I had many siblings, and our family was poor and lived near the sea, the South Sea of China, mind you. We lived off fishing. One day, a traveler came to our village. He saw me, when I was but nine years old, and offered our father a handsome amount for me. To this day I don't know if the currency was gold or rice or wine. But it was enough to buy a young girl."

I listened avidly to her words. As was Mo's way of telling, her voice revealed no emotion attached to her story. Nor did she tell me why it was important to tell of her history. She expected me to listen, to trust that she was only providing meaningful bits of information.

"He took me to the first city I ever saw. And from there I was shipped on to Europe with porcelain plates and cups, and odd powders, dried herbs and rumored dragon parts. On the desk of this ship, one moonlit night, all clothes were taken from me. And beside me were stacked fine porcelain urns.

"I was black and white, and the jars were white and blue.

"And the witch didn't speak my language.

"But after she was through with me, I was like the plates traveling in the hull of the ship. Patterned with a similar design. A design that would stretch and sometimes even move a bit as I grew older. I didn't know it then. The witch had let me see myself in a mirror just before dawn, so I knew I was marked. I knew I was like the plates.

"I never resented the sorcerer, or the pattern. I lover her greatly, and once I had become a vampire, I even tried to find her and thank her. But she wasn't to be found. She had been old when we had met. Maybe she had died.

"But after she had marked me, no-one of the crew touched me again. Maybe the tattoo is blessed. Though the witches I have consulted on the matter claim it is not. They say it is just a pattern, enchanted to endure time. And nothing else."

Mo stopped talking for the time it took her to fill her cup anew. Mine was still almost brimming, for I hadn't dared burn my tongue on it. She didn't tell me if the tattoo had given her the inspiration for her own tattoos. Or even her name?

"It was a long journey. Probably took many years. And the witch appeared every now and then by a shining full moon to aid the sailing. She also opened a portal vortex with the merfolk once, I think. But I could have dreamed it. If something worth mentioning happened during the voyage, it is forgotten to the records.

"The next meaningful piece of my history was the discovery that I had been sold to an Atlantean Alchemist. Apparently the alchemists of the far east had been rumored to have great powers. Hellebore had bought their secrets via a courier, the man who had taken me from my village. He had traveled with me. And all the other wares meant for the only known alchemist to have discovered the philosopher's stone.

"I wasn't the only slave in Hellebore's household. And I doubt I was the last one. It was the fifteenth century. And while slavery was frowned upon by the clerics, it was accepted and practiced by the owning class.

"And back then Hellebore was ruthless. And lonely. The only immortal in Atlantis. Alfonso Moura and his wife Isabela Compostelana had just arrived. No one knew yet that the first would stay here forever. Or even that the second would mother a line of witches that grew old much slower than the rest of humanity. Alfonso and Isabela were just humans, mortal humans, with a bit of a twist to their backgrounds.

"Hellebore had tried with others before me. I was hardly the first one. And the magical tattoo on my back fascinated him. In his madness, he hoped it was a sign, that there was something special and magical about me. Later I learned that I had been sold to him as the daughter of a dragon. But I didn't know that back then. I didn't know the language when I arrived and only learned it in pieces.

"But I read fluently by the time the book appeared.

"I think the tea is now safe for your enjoyment as well."

I blinked at the unexpected interruption, took a sip at the cup and noted that I could indeed now drink from it.

"Now, my son, I don't remember a single line in the book. I only remember it represented hope. A thin rail of hope. Yet, as I read it to Hellebore, I..."

Her aura wavered. Ripples of emotion reverberated in the air around us.

She let her cup on the table.

And for the first time ever in the time I had known her, the Queen averted her eyes. The movement wasn't exaggerated, she still faced me. But she simply didn't meet my stare.

"He was mad. The alchemist, the only only one who couldn't die. He did try too, to die. Not often, but I witnessed one time."

Was that bitterness in her voice?

I was so shaken by her sudden, if also subtle, show of emotions that I almost missed the thread of the tale as she continued speaking on.

"He was very triumphant. He thought he had finally found a way to make another one like himself. The look in his eyes held nothing human in it. He had decided to do whatever it took. Again.

"But I was different than the other victims of his operations, in that he was right. I was blessed, just not by a Chinese Dragon. The book is just a symbol. It is nothing more, and nothing less, than a symbol of divine intervention.

"It was my wish that brought it there. Even as it was sold by a merchant. But I had seen it. I had suggested Hellebore to buy it. And I read it to him. Because back then there were no witches in Atlantis. There was nothing magical to aid us. Just two desperate souls.

"I could have read anything to him. Of course, Hellebore would have found out I was lying, and have someone else read it to him.

"But I was desperate too. Helebore wasn't alone in his desiring something impossible. I wanted to be immortal.

"And I wanted more than immortality."

She radiated subtle anger. Not in a steady stream of a normally behaving vampire's aura, but in sudden gusts of emotion that were then again swept away by her clearheaded dropping. Every time she drew in a breath to speak, there was a moment of clarity. Her voice never wavered.

"I wanted power. More than a human could have or hold, even an immortal one. And I wanted freedom, of everything. I didn't wish to stay Hellebore's loyal pet. I wanted to flee. And I wanted to flee into the night that I felt had always brought me happiness in small doses. In the night nothing moves. People rest, they don't demand anything of anyone. Ships won't sail. Field workers won't blunt their plows on rocks.

"And the Goddess granted us what we sought.

"I got power and freedom.

"Hellebore got immortals."

She was quieting down. Her aura was clearing. Her eyes sought mine.

"I wanted power and freedom. Freedom for all the slaves. For all those the putrid human society has abandoned or mistreated. It was my dreams that made the Atlantean vampire. My dreams, and Iris' blessing."

She reached for the teapot and poured us the rest of the tea in silence.

Then we drank tea.

I had to shift the position of my legs. My left lower leg tingled as feeling returned.

Freedom for slaves.

I hadn't really thought about the fact that Mo had been once human. She had become a vampire. I hadn't really thought that she would have been the first one of our kind. Her kind.

In the sixteen hundreds, a new kind of a ghost to haunt the nights of human settlements, freeing slaves...

How had that gone?

My mind drifted as I sipped from the earthenware cup. I claimed it was Oolong, but it could have been some other tea variety as well. Some kind of a strong white tea perhaps.

But had the slaves followed her? How many had become vampires in the early days?

How many had died in her lap?

And was death the freedom of some? The Atlantean vampire was hardwired to seek the blood of the weakest, the abandoned, lonely and sick. The ones beyond desperation. The truly hopeless who couldn't reach for the living sparks of hope and life.

"So," Mo said when my cup was empty. "What was in your Futile Desire? What have you become, Timothy?"

Somehow, I heard in Stump's voice the continuation of her simple question, his tone openly curious:

What have you become, if not the collector of the souls the city has left aside, abandoned, sacrificed for the continued survival of the masses? What are you, if not a bloodthirsty god of death? Not a vampire, not a human, what did you wish for?

Reluctantly, I let go of Mo's past and tried to concentrate on the present Queen in front of my eyes. I found I was getting sweaty with the hot liquid in my bowls and my mind lingering on ancient slaves. I wriggled out of the silk robe that was surprisingly warm despite the thinness of the fabric, baring my sweated back to the drafts of the great room.

"I... I wanted to be something else than a vampire," I said, starting the conversation from the start.

"And what in vampirism drove you?" She asked.

"I... I think I didn't want the separation... " She didn't interrupt my fragile trail of thought as I groped for my feeling that night when I had sought out Hellebore, the alchemist. Like dream in the wind... "The separation from matter. From humanity. No... Not humanity..."

I sought it.

"I wanted to feel alive as I used to. As I do now. I think, if Hellebore had turned me into a cat that would have done almost equally well." I frowned. "I think I kind of hoped he would have turned me into a cat, actually. Then I wouldn't have needed to go back..."

Back to my studies, back to my family.

Realization dawned over me.

"I wished to be alive, in the eating food, and reading book sense. But I also wanted the indifference of the vampires. I wanted to be separated from those that remembered me as a human. Or as a vampire, I suppose. I wanted to dance in the wind and still feel the oxygen in my lungs. But I didn't want to explain anything to anyone."

"And that is why no one remembers you. Because you don't want to be remembered, do you?"

Her eyes were red, mesmerizing blood rubies set into the porcelain of her features.

"No," I whispered. Tears were clouding my vision. "I don't want them to remember me."

She rose–let me ponder this–and went to the kitchen. I heard the cabin doors opening and closing, but my mind was elsewhere. I had just made a hideous discovery within myself.

I didn't want my mother, my sister, my helpless aunt Chime, or any of the vampires to remember me, to demand of me time and dedication, to attach the weight of shared history on my shoulders. What kind of a peron wished for his parents to forget him? His friends to forget him?

"The human life is a complicated life, Timothy. I sought to give you some distance from it, but it seems the existence of a vampire was not what could release you, after all. While you think of your situation, would you answer one more question for me still tonight?"

She had come to stand by the table, her small breasts casting shadows above my head. Her head was tilted to regard me from her heights.

"Will you die of old age in sixty years? Was near immortality part of what you disliked?"

"Huh?"

She didn't repeat, but waited.

Then I shook my head violently. "No. No. I liked the immortal part. I wanted to be reborn in flesh, with my own memories, but free of attachments. I don't want to die. I don't think... I mean... No. I want to live. That was the whole point, I wanted to feel the air in my lungs, and the heart in my chest. I wanted to laugh untill my belly aches and... I don't want to lose it. The connection to living." Just thinking of the ailments of the old age, the slowly accumulating loses of sight and physical power and mental capacities... I had actively avoided thinking of it when I had thought I had really become a human again.

But then again. My humanity had always felt like stolen time. It hadn't really felt real. It had been an illusion, a dream I had thought I would wake up from.

And I had. I had woken up, naked in the forest.

"Do you think?" I asked carefully, measuring my words and trying to breathe evenly, to detach myself. "Is it possible I am still immortal?"

She had retaken her cushion and was spreading a map on the table.

"By what you just described me, plus the fact that you survived an explosion, I claim it is highly unlikely that you will ever die of natural causes."

From anyone else that sentence would have held a layer of irony. My head swam.

"What is that?"

I referred to the map she was spreading onto the table between us, weighed down by the teapot and the two cups. It seemed like a very ordinary map of the main island of Atlantis. And was absolutely out of place in this extraordinary setting in its mundane quality.

"This is a parting gift," Mo said.

Her hand didn't comfortably reach to a far corner to my left. The lid of the teapot went flying to cover it.

"I don't think you should stay, Timothy. The Castle has removed your room. I won't drive you away. And I welcome your company whenever you decide to visit, or our paths otherwise meet. But, just in case you decide to bolt and run to the farthest corner on the map, I thought to send you off with a gift."

I was taken by surprise.

"Why? After all this time you have tried to control all of my movements?"

She looked me deep in the eyes. Inviting me to see it from her standing point.

"Julia is now free. You died for her. The witches don't know why, but they feel she is dead. And you are not human. Instead, my dear son, you are something else. I only ever control things that can be controlled by me. And that includes the humans living in big cities, and nothing more. We have established that you are, on top of all of this, an immortal entity. We shall undoubtedly meet again. The island simply isn't big enough for us to hide from each other for more than a century at a time. So, please, let me send you off with my well wishes."

She pointed at the map.

I inclined over it with her.

It really was just a map of the whole island of Atlantis. There was nothing special about it, except maybe that only a handful of cities had been named. And they were marked with little tower icons.

And then there were other markings with stars that were also named. Some stars and towers also coexisted side by side. Breasinghae had both markings while Dale, where my parents lived, only got a tower.

"Here are marked all the cities that are big enough to host at least three vampires, and all substantial witch settlements. While there might temporarily be a lone vampire in a smaller town and you cannot avoid witches eternally, this is as good a guide I as I can find for you easily in a few hours. When you decide where you want to live next, I want your decision to be an informed one."

I stared at the map.

My mind went absolutely blank without any need of even think of any altered states.

"You can thank me later. Now, if you wouldn't mind, I have still some business calls tonight."

She folded the map back into a small rectangle and handed it to me. I took it. I had nowhere to put it, so I held it in my hand when the Queen dismissed me:

"Goodnight to you, dear Timothy. May we meet again soon."

I stumbled on my way down the dark stairs.