Act XII: The Destruction of Sodom (Part 8)
eight
The two knights obtained permission from the clerk of Jaffa to bathe. Sweating profusely from their walk in the sandy weather, they were granted special permission to go to the fortress's small bathhouse—a bathhouse, but far inferior to the luxurious thermal pools of Yubi, comparable to the Roman baths. Yakov stepped barefoot into a simple stone archway and saw a pool in a low-lying area on the ground, with a wood-burning stove on the other side.
“Excessive cleaning is □’s indulgence.” Yesau loosened his belt and took off his robe. “Lord, it’s just that the sandstorm is too strong, and we do this for our health.”
Yakov observed his every move with suspicion. "It's just me here, there's no need for me to pretend to pray anymore," he said.
“Who says blood slaves can’t be pious?” Yesau replied with a smile. He unbuckled the chainmail belt, exposing his sunburnt back—Yakov noticed that, like his back, it was covered with a large, shocking patch of scars, not a single patch of skin unscathed; but they were so fresh, the cracks in the skin hadn’t healed yet, and the scabs were clearly visible.
"...And what happened here?" Yakov asked, pointing to his back. "Were you captured by the Saracens and whipped?"
“This is asceticism.” Yesau turned his head and pointed to his back. “I have seen countless of my compatriots suffer the torment of this slavery. I wish to use the same suffering to approach the souls of all the poor and review my own enlightenment.”
Yakov sensed something was amiss, but couldn't find the words to refute it. The two picked up the bucket, sat on the edge of the pool, and scooped water from it. Neither of them bothered to boil water in this dry and hot place, so they simply poured cold water over their heads—Yesau's wounds, wet with water, throbbed with pain. Yakov thought that Yesau was either mentally unstable or truly a saint; however, there was certainly no vampire to heal his terrible wounds.
"Was the vampire you were branded a man or a woman? What did it look like?" Yakov asked, wiping his wet face. "When did this happen?"
“Twenty-five years ago, I was robbed in my hometown of Novgorod. My wife and children died there, and I almost became a slave.” Yesau’s beard was disheveled, and he looked disheveled and wretched, but his tone was calm and firm. “A man saved me and took me to Poland. He was young, with light brown hair, a pale face, and blood-red eyes… He couldn’t be in the sun, just like your master, and could only show himself at night. So when I saw you and your master, I knew what was going on.”
Yakov was speechless, overwhelmed with mixed emotions. Twenty-five years ago, he had keenly sensed that this must have been the winter Yubi was born. He rubbed his scalp, struggling to recall the portrait in the Transylvanian castle. His memory was somewhat hazy; he would have to carefully check with Schumeer upon returning to Lud—Inard, but he remembered Yubi's brother's name, so it must be correct. He cautiously refrained from uttering the name.
"...And then?" Yakov asked indirectly, "What did he do to you? What orders did he give you?"
“As you can see, he gave me a surname and this mark.” Yesau pointed to the red mark on his chest that looked like a bloody mouth and sharp teeth. “He said that this thing is God’s mercy and grace, a symbol of eternal life. And I am the one chosen by God, God’s messenger.”
"...Are all people with the surname Zashchitnikov his blood slaves?"
"Haha, no. It's just that everyone he saved changed their surname to this."
"…Then what?"
"And then? I never saw him again. Nobody ever saw him again."
Yakov was completely bewildered by the answer. He stared at the water droplets dripping from his hair, trying to clear his mind. "...The vampire didn't give you any orders or requests, and just left like that?" The suspicious vampire slave rolled his eyes, trying to find a loophole in the story. "If that's the case, how do you know about vampire slaves? How can you tell who my master is?" Yakov asked. "How do you know you've become a vampire's slave?"
“There isn’t just one blood slave or one vampire in this world.” Yesau suddenly paused, frowning as if making a difficult decision. “...I could no longer live, so I had to follow in the footsteps of God to find his trace. But I soon discovered that there are no gods, only devils who live on blood and tempt people to sell their souls.”
Yakov stared intently at his lips.
“I’ve met other blood slaves, just like you.” Yesau looked at him like an aging mirror. “There are all kinds of blood slaves in this world, Yakov, more than you can imagine. Some are bound to devils as their slaves, whether willingly or unwillingly; some, like you and that female slave, are assigned to leave their masters to do other things, to gain a breather and a chance to escape; and some, like me, have never had a master from the beginning, only forced to accept this gift, wandering the world searching for answers.”
“Some people think it's a curse, and it is a curse; some people think it's a blessing, and it is a blessing; but all slaves have thought themselves special, unique, suffering yet lucid because of it. That alone I can say.”
"You once thought so too, didn't you, Yakov? You once believed that you possessed an indomitable will and a noble soul, unwavering perseverance and profound wisdom, that you were the most insightful and clear-sighted person in the world, an unyielding and noble hero, a tragic fighter against tyranny. That's why your nickname was 'The Free Man,' both a self-deprecating remark and an aspiration, isn't it?"
"You are not alone, you have companions."
A strange wave of thoughts surged from the cold, tingling ground beneath Yakov's feet, like a dull icy spike slowly piercing his body. He was suddenly overwhelmed with shame and rage. "I don't want to hear this," he said, feeling goosebumps rising all over his skin. "I just want to know, is your master dead? If the vampire you were branded with isn't dead, how dare you say you're free?"
“You’ve asked a good question,” Yesau said with a knowing smile. “It would be better if he were dead; but if he doesn’t, we can kill him ourselves for the sake of freedom.”
Yakov stared in disbelief at the meaning of those words. Kill him with his own hands? How could he possibly kill a vampire with his own hands? He thought of Camilla's death, of the rotting head in the jar, of the horrific wails at her funeral—Yakov suddenly burst into laughter.
“You’ve been deceived!” He pointed at Yesau’s face. “You saw the vampire’s corpse and thought he was dead! That monster will rise from the dead, and you think you’re free. Look at the pathetic marks on your own bodies!”
He expected Yesau to show a look of surprise—how he wished Yesau would! But the blood slave simply rose slowly and indifferently, hastily wiping his hair and body with a cotton cloth. The wounds on his back bled again when they came into contact with water, flowing down the contours of his spine and muscles like several nearly dried-up streams trickling into the ocean. Yakov stared blankly at his attire, how those bloody wounds were concealed beneath chainmail and a robe, beneath a facade of faith. "Don't you have anything else to say?" Yakov stepped forward naked, grabbing his arm. "How are you going to kill the vampire?"
“That’s a secret.” Yesau’s clear blue eyes, like a mirror, stared at him through their wrinkled sockets. “Do you want to know?”
Yakov froze. A torrent of memories surged from his stomach, almost like vomiting. In an instant, his mark erupted with an intense, real pain. He collapsed onto the hard cobblestones, clutching his heart, his breath coming in gasps like knives spitting from his throat. The Blood Slave tried to calm it, to clear the jumbled thoughts from his mind, even for a moment, even just to gain a breath of fresh air—Yesau looked at his pitiful state as if examining a lost traveler.
"May the Lord have mercy on you. Pain is the first step toward freedom," Yesau said with a smile. "If you truly wish to explore the truth of freedom, go to Karak Castle before the night of the next new moon. I will be waiting for you there and will be your guide."
He lifted the bathroom curtain, and his footsteps disappeared into the fortress's corridors.
The sandstorm lasted for five whole days, neither long nor short in the springtime of the Holy Land. Yakov didn't leave his house for five days, claiming he was ill—he thought he might truly be ill, though he couldn't tell if it was mental or physical. His fellow knights, who had previously gossiped about his lucrative post in Ludwig, were now praying for him after seeing his haggard appearance in his quarters. Finally, on the evening of the sixth day, the air began to clear, and the endless sand no longer filled Yakov's nostrils.
The knight rose and peered out the window, seeing the sky and sea finally regain their long-lost clarity, as if his chaotic thoughts had been purified and reborn. His gaze swept downwards, and he immediately spotted Eudosia and Naya. The girl stood stubbornly on the farthest pier of the harbor, craning her neck to look out, like a princess bound to the rocks, awaiting the arrival of her hero.
Had she been braving the sandstorms every day for days, enduring hardship from dawn till dusk? Yakov admired her perseverance while simultaneously mocking her childish behavior. Yet, seeing this scene, a deep sorrow welled up within him, as if he had done something wrong—at sunset, he found an ever-burning lamp, lit it, and hung it by his window, quietly waiting for nightfall.
The blood-red sun was finally swallowed by the sea, and the flame of the eternal lamp turned into a cold, bright red—the one he had been guarding had finally arrived.
"Isn't anyone else here?" These were the first words Yubi spoke after climbing in through the window. "Are you all alone here?"
“Now that I’ve been promoted to captain, I can have a single dormitory room.” Upon seeing that familiar face, Yakov’s tense nerves, which had been stretched for days, inexplicably relaxed. “Put on some clothes, and don’t be so presumptuous!”
He grabbed his shirt and forcefully pulled it over Yubi's bare body. The vampire complained a few times, then sweetly clung to him. "This is the first time I've known there are sandstorms in spring," Yubi sighed sadly. "I haven't seen you for five days, and I've been so worried... I was afraid you'd been attacked by Bedouin bandits on the road, or that you'd get lost and die of thirst in the desert... You're never allowed to leave the city alone again."
“You don’t need to worry about me,” Yakov retorted, frowning. “I won’t die in the desert.”
"But I heard you were sick!" Yubi touched his forehead without saying a word. "You shouldn't have gotten away from the sandstorm!"
Yakov tried to dodge his hand and leave the bedside, but his master ignored his resistance. Those cold hands insisted on touching his forehead, gently tracing his hairline. "Looks like you're better," Yubi said with a smile, lying on Yakov's bed. "I couldn't find anything wrong with you, and there's no cure. You're probably just faking it."
Yakov felt uncomfortable, as if his privacy had been violated—but he only had his hair cut again. “Yodosia and Naya are also in Jaffa. I met them and asked them about what you asked me to do,” he said casually. “It seems that the blood slave is about to betray you and wants to follow that little girl.”
“Oh! That’s a bit of a shame…” Yubi rolled over, pressing herself against his battered back. “But it doesn’t matter. This way she’s like you, right? Mother sent you to take care of me, and I sent her to take care of Yudosia… To be honest, I think someone like that is better than one’s own slaves. I’m talking about you. I prefer you to Shumel and Nuk. Do you understand, Yakov?”
What are you saying? Yakov felt his suspicious and sensitive mind pounding and tormenting him.
"Why?" he asked, "Just because I am your mother's blood slave, and not yours?"
The vampire was taken aback by his question, a blush creeping onto his face. "...Because you're more honest than them!" He seemed to have mistaken the question for a flirtatious invitation. "That's what you taught me. If I had that much power, to decide their lives and deaths, to punish them at will... how could I expect them to be as honest as you, to tell me their true feelings?"
"What if you ordered them to be honest?"
“That would only cause them pain. Over time, they would become increasingly dishonest with me.”
Yakov fell silent. He couldn't find anything wrong with the answer, either rationally or emotionally—but then he thought of Schumeer.
“Speaking of which, I have to tell you what I’ve learned these past few days.” Yubi suddenly grabbed his rough, calloused hand and began to recount with great enthusiasm, “Layley taught me so many things, things I’d never heard of before, things I’d never even thought of… The difference between *** and Christian ideas is enormous, it’s so novel!”
"What did she teach you?" Yakov asked warily, recalling the background of the female musician. "What's the difference?"
“First of all, she said the same thing as Schumer.” Yubi cleared his throat. “There should only be one God in the world, and all people’s God is the same God. He is omnipotent, created the world; and is benevolent, kind, and loving. Whether this perfect God really exists or was created by humans, we won’t discuss that for now; it’s not important.”
"Then what?"
“Then she said the true God is everywhere, omnipresent, invisible, and omnipotent.” Yubi gestured wildly, his oversized shirt falling off his shoulders. “Because of this, the people think God should never appear in people, should never be in the form of idols; but Christians think the opposite, that God can become a person, can descend as one with people, and then bear all of people’s sins to suffer and die. You know, we heard similar things in the cathedrals of Constantinople.”
"...What does this have to do with you?" Yakov asked, a headache forming in his head. "What's the use of you learning all this stuff?"
“Let me finish!” Yubi shoved him angrily. “I’ve thought about it and I think they actually agree on something else—whether it’s idols, incarnations of God, saints, apostles, or whatever they call them.” The vampire spoke like a monk debating scriptures. “The real God, if he wants to rule, to make the world peaceful and beautiful… then God must die, must hide himself, must be free from people’s worship and fear—God must not exist.”
"What?"
“Because people always see everything as the same as themselves. As long as God appears, becomes an idol, or becomes a mortal, as long as He remains an omnipotent and perfect God, He will be different from people, and will arouse everyone's jealousy and dissatisfaction.” Yubi blinked and pointed to his face. “Just like you always want me to be like you, always wanting me to wear that ruby ring, to look like a human being. You only feel good when it's like that—I finally understand your thinking, right?”
Yakov felt his hands and feet turn icy cold. He stared at Yubi's face; those beautiful, delicate features were both strange and familiar, twisted into a deep, bottomless vortex—as if Yakov couldn't recognize it as a face at all, as if they had all become a meaningless arrangement.
“Riri also said that Christians always exaggerate the role of love—she said, ‘If you are kind to all the unkind people, love itself will be destroyed.’ But for [the Lord/God], ‘justice’ is more important. Only justice can inspire genuine goodness.” Yubi raised his chin, striking a rather composed pose. “Therefore, the true God values justice more than love. You see, doesn’t this mean I have a profound understanding of power and have done what you previously advised me to do?”
“I want to establish similar rules for my blood slaves, to treat them more fairly. You know, your servant Daoud is almost an adult, and I'm thinking about how to test him so that he can become my blood slave as he wishes… Not only that, I also need to think about how to get the other blood slaves and those in the know to accept this, so they won't resent or hate him… It's quite difficult, haha. But this way I won't have to turn them all into blood slaves, and I can still make them listen to me.”
"Do you know what you're saying?" Yakov interrupted him sullenly.
“I know what you’re worried about!” Yubi leaned right up to him. “I’m not a bad vampire! Being my blood slave is a blessing, not a punishment! Every one of my blood slaves is very grateful to me and praises me!”
Yakov's angry gaze shifted downwards, landing on Yubi's bare neck. He inexplicably recalled the image of him being pierced and bleeding profusely.
"Is this what you wanted?"
Without thinking, he reached up and pinched that spot tightly, pressing down hard.
But the blood slave forgot that his master had long since lost the ability to feel pain. Yubi was pressed into the pillow. His neck, so thin and light, was coldly constricted in his rough, powerful palm, the shape of his trachea and vertebrae clearly palpable. Like a vampire truly awakened by this terrible violence, resurrected from a corpse-like body—Yubi rolled his eyes blankly in his palm, looking at the bulging veins on his forehead, at his glaring, resolute eyes. The young man's Adam's apple slowly bobbed, his face flushing: as if his lungs had suddenly remembered how to breathe, his heart had suddenly remembered how to beat.
A broken, audible sound leaked from under Yakov's palm. He couldn't hear what Yubi was saying.
As expected, the mark that Yakov had been struggling to calm for days throbbed with pain again. Unwilling to submit, he strained harder, almost pressing his entire weight down on the vampire. He imagined perhaps hearing the fragile joints snap, perhaps crushing the arrogant head. Perhaps if he could do this, true freedom would open its doors to him. Should he have done it sooner, strangled the vampire the first time he saw him? Then all suffering would vanish, all questions would be answered. But he couldn't—he felt Yubi's feet climbing up his waist.
Like waking from a nightmare, Yakov finally realized that all his efforts had been in vain. A layer of cold sweat broke out on the blood slave's back, and he released Yubi's neck—the fair skin clearly marked with horrifying finger marks—and disappeared in an instant.
The pain of the imprinting ceased. In its place, a dense and base tapestry of desire and longing grew in his heart.
Yakov didn't know what to say. He was exhausted and terrified, as if he had just suffered a crushing defeat. His hands trembled as he desperately pulled up the collar of Yubi's shirt to cover the skin that shouldn't be exposed.
“…I…I know I was wrong, Yakov.” His master’s eyes gleamed, and his soft lips uttered devilish words. “…God, I love this, do it again!”
Perhaps this is the right way, Yakov thought. At this moment, he is more like a human being, more easily indulged, more easily controlled, more vulnerable and safer. So the slave buried his face in his master's thin neck and bit down hard on that cold flesh—just as his master often did to him.
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