Act XIV: Dance of the Seven Veils (Part XII)
twelve
When Yakov awoke again, he was still in complete darkness—he quickly realized that his eyes were firmly blindfolded. The sensation of waking spread to his limbs, and he struggled, only to find that his hands and feet were tightly bound. The wooden plank beneath him swayed and bounced, and he could hear the clattering of horses' hooves behind him.
Fortunately, his mouth hadn't been gagged yet. "Damn eunuch, lying bastard, old codger!" Yakov immediately cursed, "You maggot-and-foul bastard with a mouth full of bedbugs, you worthless dog whose brain is oozing pus from eating shit, you wish you could live on vampires' foot bath water every day..."
He clearly heard Seymman sigh helplessly, then lightly whip the horse, making the carriage beneath him bounce even more violently, chafing his knees until they ached. "I know what you want to ask," Seymman said. "Yuby went to the Church of the Holy Sepulchre. You can't see him, and you shouldn't see him. I'm taking you with me for your safety, and it's also Yubi's wish."
"What could he possibly be doing at the Church of the Holy Sepulchre!" Yakov roared. "You're making this up!"
“Yub went to the Church of the Holy Sepulchre to resurrect his mother,” Seyleman replied, his voice rising. “Wouldn’t it be most appropriate and fitting to hold the ceremony at the Church of the Holy Sepulchre on Easter if you wanted to resurrect someone?”
Yakov's struggle turned into hesitation, and he fell into a repentant silence.
"Don't rush," Seleman urged again, "I'll answer all your questions when we get there."
The carriage climbed a long slope and came to a stop at a high point. All around was silent, the air thick with the dry smell of sand. Yakov was led off the carriage, tied to a rope, and lowered into a filthy, deep pit. By the time his blindfold was removed, he was aching all over and utterly exhausted. The blood slave looked around and found himself in an old, gravelly cave, with a towering ceiling overhead, letting in blinding sunlight.
As he untied his ropes, Seilman looked at the shameful iron ring around his neck and gestured for him to sit on the stone floor.
“This is underground, converted from a dry well. I will take care of you personally every day. You are safest here, so don’t worry about food or shelter.” Seleman sat down opposite him. “Now, I will try my best to answer all your questions. Ask away.”
A dry well, or a prison? Yakov gripped Yubi's old headscarf tightly in his palm. The Blood Slave pondered for a long time, deciding to start by questioning the very first suspicion.
“I heard Anbichya is dead.” He looked at Seymour with narrowed eyes. “But you haven’t aged, nor have you died.”
“‘Ambikia’ is indeed dead. Perhaps soon, her master will have a new name,” Seleman smiled. “Death is a means, a change of identity. Immortal gods need ‘death.’ And as a slave who can accompany her through reincarnation, I am very honored.”
“Fake death.” Yakov scoffed. “Does Yubi know about this?”
“Of course I know,” Seyleman said with a faint smile. “Yubi is our ally.”
"ally?"
“Ambikia gave Yubina the ring, along with the child’s body and the mother’s skull,” Sellerman explained slowly, “so that he could use the ring to exchange for the mother’s remains with Inart, thus enabling him to realize his plan to resurrect his mother.”
"...Why must we have that child? That stillborn baby...that little vampire is Ambikia's biological child?"
"To prove to Inard that the ring is not a fake, and to prove to Yubi that the remains are not forged, we absolutely need that child. It is a necessary sacrifice."
"What a load of rubbish allies," Yakov thought angrily. "This is a blatant deal, and Yubi is one of these three dirty accomplices." His expression twisted with disgust.
"How dare she give that ring to Inard?" he asked again. "Isn't she afraid of being killed like her daughter? She never does anything that doesn't benefit her."
Seymman closed his eyes. "You've finally asked a good question."
Yakov stared impatiently at his mouth.
"Giving up this ring is the only way to lure the snake out of its hole, and it's also a huge gamble. At first, Inart was in the shadows, while Ambikia was in the light. The one holding the ring must be the attacker, but you can't attack a target in the dark. Since that's the case, it's better to switch sides, give the ring to the other party, force him to be in the light, and hide in the shadows yourself, so as to achieve a quick victory."
Feigning defeat to lure the enemy deep into their territory and then annihilating them in one fell swoop. This is a common tactic. Yakov recalled how he used to employ this method frequently on the battlefield when the enemy's strength was unknown and time was of the essence. But forcing an attack requires bait, which is an extremely dangerous and undignified task, and only soldiers willing to die for their cause are willing to accept such orders—thinking of this, Blood Slave's face darkened.
“Ambikia can hide in the shadows,” Yakov said through gritted teeth. “What about Yubi?”
As if he had expected this, Thalerman smiled and changed his posture.
“The reason you’re here is because of the conditions Yubi set,” Blood Slave replied. “He entrusted Ambikia with your safety, so he has no worries about anything else.”
That mouth was so repulsive; Yakov wanted nothing more than to rush up and tear it apart. He got up, pounding on the stone wall as he groped his way out, but the torment of the markings forced him to his knees again. "Damn it, let me go!" the blood slave screamed desperately, his fingers clutching his hair, cold sweat streaming down his face. "Let me out!"
"Why do you want to go out?" Seymour stepped forward, considerately helping him up, and then asked sincerely, "What do you want to do if you go out?"
“I’m going to see Yubi,” Yakov spat. “He was used as bait by you… I’m going to tell him to expose all your lies. Without me, he wouldn’t even see this clearly… How could he lock me up in this godforsaken place again? Inart will kill him with ease!”
Seilerman gazed at his miserable state, a look of regret and confusion on his face, as if subtly mocking his lack of intelligence, or perhaps curiously speculating about the secrets in his heart. “I don’t understand. Why do you think that way? Do you really think your master is a useless piece of furniture, a fragile vase like glass or porcelain? That your presence will only be a burden to him; that his absence allows him to fight single-mindedly. How can you think that disobeying his orders and acting on your own will help him?” He quickly changed to a serious tone. “I’m only advising you out of kindness, out of pity for the pain of your mark’s activation. Yakov, you seem to live in the past. If I had just met you then, it would have been understandable if you thought Yubi was weak and helpless—he was indeed young and naive; but fifteen years have passed, and you still think he’s a little colt who must be tethered to you, or else he’ll go astray? Look at yourself, have you found the right path? And how can you guide him onto the right path?”
Yakov sadly discovered that the pain of the imprint had lessened. In its place, a deep-seated sense of inferiority and shame surged into his heart, making him speechless with bitterness.
“If I were you, I would feel honored and happy. However, perhaps it is precisely because you have this unreasonable worry that you have won the master’s favor.” Sellerman patted his shoulder. “Don’t worry, even if Inart has obtained the ring, Yubi is safer than you think.”
"Why?"
“He is both Ambikia’s bait and Inart’s bait,” Seleman said. “Ambikia uses him to lure Inart out, but Inart also needs him to lure Ambikia out. However, because you are here, my master will undoubtedly win this battle, and she is not as crazy and stubborn as Inart.”
Yakov was completely confused. "Me?"
“You are the key to unlocking the bait, the banner that seizes the initiative in the war.” Seilman uttered these chilling words with a smile. “You are truly loved without realizing it, Yakov. Yubi is powerful and difficult to control, but controlling you is not much different from controlling Yubi. Do I need to tell you that?”
Yakov had a painful yet gratifying epiphany. He shut his mouth, not wanting to ask any more questions.
“Of course, if Camilla is successfully resurrected, our conversation will be meaningless,” Kesselman continued. “Perhaps the real disaster will strike before the war even begins.”
“It would be a good thing if Camilla could be resurrected,” Yakov sneered. “At least it would be a good thing for Yubi.”
“I’m curious, if Yubi had never existed, would you have preferred Ambikia or Inart to win?” Seleman turned his head to stare at him. “You yearn for freedom and hate oppression. Yet you accepted the identity Ambikia arranged for you, immersing yourself in the power arena and enjoying it; you also rejected Inart’s olive branch, not believing his ideals to be absolute truth. Given this, can I assume you actually waver between the two, and don’t think either is truly irredeemable?”
"Stop trying to guess my intentions." Yakov avoided his gaze. "There are no ifs."
“Haha, I just wanted to say that no matter how much you hate Ambikia or Inart, at least they are reasonable and worthy of following, like the most supreme emperor and the most compassionate saint, right?” Seleman picked up a small pebble from the ground and drew a path in the sand. “But can you imagine what a chaotic god with neither morality nor creed, nor desires and ideals would be like?”
Yakov lowered his head and glanced at the crooked pattern on the ground.
“I once accompanied Ambikia to that stone palace in Transylvania. Before Yubi was born, Camilla hoped for a girl, but her wish was not fulfilled.” The Blood Slave casually drew on the ground. “That ring is Camilla’s creation. It is said that she exchanged her life for it, leaving herself only endless death, a prison of eternal life. If one is dissatisfied with the world, death and destruction are the last escape route. Just as it is written in Revelation, ‘The sun and moon are darkened, the stars are without light,’ ‘The one who does good will rise again to live, the one who does evil will rise again to condemnation’… Have you ever thought that perhaps this is not the last Great Judgment, nor the first Great Judgment?”
Sellerman's drawing was poor; the picture on the sand was very rudimentary. But Yakov still recognized it—four long, parallel squares were drawn on the ground. The first square depicted a long-haired woman lying in a coffin; the second square showed a woman's head falling down a step; the third square showed a woman devouring a living creature, eating raw meat and drinking blood; and the fourth square showed a woman suspended in the night sky, being worshipped and sacrificed.
This is the pattern from the stained glass windows of Camilla's palace. Yakov felt a chill run down his spine: he had never realized that he had been reading the pattern in the opposite direction—of course, he had been standing in the corridor behind that large window! Was it a record of an event, or a prophecy?
“Do you understand? Whether it’s justice or evil, ideals or reality, divinity or bestiality, all these struggles are insignificant in the face of death.” Seymour dropped the pebble in his hand and leaned against the stone wall. “Is there anything more mysterious and magnificent than death? I don’t know, maybe no one in the world knows, maybe even the gods don’t know.”
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