Act XIV: The Dance of the Seven Veils (15)
fifteen
The former Templar Knight fastened each leather buckle of his chainmail, donned his veiled helmet, concealing his face. His sword hilt remained exposed; head bowed, he nervously rubbed the ruby on his iron gauntlet. Outside the city gates, the young king's funeral procession was clearly visible in the heat. Knights, banners held high, followed behind a small coffin. Behind them came nobles and monks. All were suffering from Jerusalem's driest and hottest time of year, covered in dust, trudging along in silence.
Yakov silently blended into the group, ignored by everyone. He was no longer the ignorant and fanatical bandit of the northern forests. Now, he knew best how to impersonate a Templar Knight. Yet, sweat still seeped from his wool lining, whether from the sweltering heat, the tension, or perhaps the inescapable iron ring choking his neck. The air was thick with a mingled scent of spices and decay. It wafted into one's nostrils, immediately evoking images of death, and was far from pleasant.
Suddenly, a mad, ascetic monk appeared out of nowhere. "Doomsday! Doomsday is coming!" he cried. "The five planets will all converge in Libra, and a terrible hurricane will sweep in and destroy all living things!"
Before more people could hear his ramblings, soldiers dragged him away. The procession entered the city gates and marched resolutely toward the Church of the Holy Sepulchre. But a short while later, Yakov heard the sound of a flute again.
"I see a blood-red ribbon encircling the black sun!" A bard chuckled as he blocked the church entrance, whistling a fancy tune. "The holy city has no successor, your rule is illegitimate, God punishes you, and Saladin will raze this place to the ground!"
Soon, he was treated as a rebel in the protest, dragged aside, his flute broken, and swallowed up by the crowd of onlookers.
These terrifying prophecies nearly drove Yakov into a daze. For a moment, he wondered if he was walking in a scorching wasteland or a frigid snow-capped mountain? Had he already frozen to death in the forests of Transylvania, and were these past ten years nothing but his dying hallucinations? Did vampires really exist? Did Yubi really exist?
Knights carried the coffin through the door, followed by bishops, nobles, and servants, forcefully shoving Yakov back to reality. Candles were lit, bells tolled, and the archbishop began his prayers. The indescribable odor grew stronger: the smell of a perfumed corpse. The older the church, the stronger this musty, decadent scent.
Yakov gripped his sword tightly, slipped away from the blood-red mortar, and rushed to the right into the deep, dark corridor. No one paid him any attention.
Naya said that Yubi placed Camilla's sarcophagus to the south, in a grotto deeper beneath the chapel. Yakov had never been there. The blood slave drew his sword, moved slowly and cautiously, his steps light, the choir's song fading into the distance behind him—where was Inart's blood slave, and where was Inart himself? He remembered the eerie feeling he had once had in Camilla's mansion, watching the blood curtain flow from behind the stained-glass windows. It felt as if a thousand eyes were fixed on him, their gazes piercing his back like arrows.
Yakov found his lips trembling, and he had to bite them hard until they bled. But he found nothing, and no one blocked his way. The once bustling corridor, occupied by funerals and coronations, was now empty and solemnly quiet. Only the smell grew stronger, as if he were standing on a street filled with graves and spice shops. Yakov walked through the corridor and up the stairs to the chapel. The smell assaulted his skull, almost suffocating him.
He saw a dark entrance before a stone brick marked with a cross. Yakov stood there and finally discerned the source of the stench: blood. Rotten, old, and fresh, all mixed together in a chaotic mess. The smell of blood, suppressed by a large amount of expensive spices, became nauseatingly strong.
"Mom." His voice, which he had been longing to hear, came from inside. "Mom, are you awake?"
The sound was so faint that it echoed hollowly in the cave. Upon hearing it, Yakov felt as if a sword had pierced his chest, straight through his heart; the pain was so intense he couldn't speak, couldn't breathe. The Blood Slave hastily threw off his helmet, grabbed a candle, and rushed into the darkness. He was fully prepared, waiting to face the most terrifying demon, the cruelest truth, the most helpless situation. Neither death nor suffering, neither justice nor reason, neither his most cherished freedom—nothing could stop him anymore.
"Yubi!" Yakov called out—the cry had been suppressed for so long that it made his voice ring out, "Yubi!"
The firelight was too dim to illuminate the surroundings. But it instantly transformed into a cold, vivid red, flickering and fading. Yakov stumbled upon a magnificent sarcophagus. He heard his footsteps turn into a sticky, clattering sound.
Jesus' tomb stood on an abandoned quarry, its surroundings the stark white of limestone. Now, it was smeared and soaked with blood, as if a giant had used a corpse as a paintbrush to scribble upon it. The vampire lay naked among a withered spice bush, his mother's long silver hair flowing from his arms—Yakov looked closer and saw Yubi cradling Camilla's head, his cheek pressed against the corpse. It was as if he had never left Transylvania, still guarding that hall strewn with shards of glass.
When Yubi saw him, she smiled at him with her blood-red eyes, and two dimples appeared at the corners of her lips, just like her mother.
“Yakov…” he said, both joyful and confused, “Look, flesh really can grow from bones in a sea of blood… Why doesn’t she respond to me, why won’t she talk to me? Please, Mother, tell me, what should I do?”
Yakov trembled with fear at everything in his sight, his insides churning, and he struggled to hold back his vomit. But something compelled him to grit his teeth and step forward, getting closer to this demon—his wet sole stepped on something small and sharp, forcing him to pull his foot back—and Yakov moved the candle away.
He was astonished to discover that it was a pile of rings. Hundreds of rubies were shimmering in the firelight.
"What are these?" Yakov grabbed the identical rings. "...Where did you get so many rings?"
"These were all sent to me by my brother."
Yubi raised his hand, and the pool of blood on the ground flowed with the movement of his fingertips, as if guided by an invisible thread. Yakov looked in the direction the ripples were flowing, letting the candlelight illuminate the area—he saw a terrifying tower, built from bloodless, shriveled corpses, surrounded by piles of spices. The terrified faces of all the blood slaves were stacked together in varying degrees of decay, with countless red cross robes, chainmail, and longswords resembling his own piled among them. It was as if countless Yakovs, branded with the mark, had been drained of their blood in their pursuit of freedom and died here.
“At first, I thought their relentless pursuit was a real nuisance; but later, I realized they weren’t so different from the meals they brought. They could feed not only me, but also Mother.” Yubi gently stroked Camilla’s long hair. “If I take their swords and the rings from them, my brother will tell them to give up the fight and run away as soon as possible—over time, there will be so many rings left here… I don’t know if they’re real or fake. They’re probably all fake; my brother wouldn’t be foolish enough to leave the real rings with me. He’ll definitely keep them for himself… What do you think?”
Yakov stared in disbelief at the rings. There were so many, so many similar ones. He simply couldn't distinguish these exquisite forgeries from the real thing.
Yubi stared at the Blood Slave's hesitant and speechless expression, then casually picked up a bloodstain from the ground.
“But I know how to tell the difference,” he said casually. “Only vampires who still have the will to live and are not afraid of death are qualified to distinguish between the real and the fake.”
He raised his finger, pretending to slip it into the ring—the closer Yubi's fingertip got to the ring, the higher Yakov's heart jumped, almost leaping out of his throat—but before the blood slave could roar and charge forward, Yubi threw the ring far away, tossing it back into the pile.
“But I dare not try… What if? What if this one is real, and the next one is real too? Inart is watching this place constantly; he could spot my veins and heart immediately. He could drain my blood before I even take off the ring.” Yubi’s hand trembled, returning to her mother’s head, the light in her eyes dimming. “Mortals are so fragile in the eyes of vampires, Yakov. Just thinking about it is enough to overwhelm me with this terrible fear. No wonder yearning for freedom is such a difficult and painful thing for you…”
The terrifying blood-soaked cave was eerily quiet. On the ground, the faint chanting of Mass echoed in the distance, which after a while turned into a cacophony of accusations—the conflict between royal power and doctrine continued in the secular world, and was escalating ever more fiercely.
“But I don’t understand,” the vampire asked, bewildered and sorrowful, “I set you free, I gave you a chance… why didn’t you leave? Why did you have to come back?”
Yakov's heart pounded wildly, almost shattering his bones. He was like a life-saving rock on a cliff; if he were to crumble and collapse, Yubi would fall off and plunge into an endless abyss.
"...I'm free now, what will you do?" The Blood Slave gritted his teeth and approached.
“I’ve always been the freest.” Yubi stared at him as he approached. “I can do whatever I want! I don’t care who wins or loses, who’s right or wrong, in my sister’s and brother’s war. I can stay here forever, forever waiting for Mother to be resurrected. I have endless time to do this… Isn’t that freedom? I don’t need you to teach me what freedom is. What gives you the right to define my freedom!”
Yakov stopped in front of Yubi. The vampire tilted her head back, her red eyes stubbornly staring at him. That gaze caused intense pain to surge from the mark, choking the vampire's throat, making his chest feel as if it were about to burst—Yakov endured all of this, kneeling before Yubi. He removed his gloves, grasped those corpse-cold hands, and pulled them away from Camilla's head. They were covered in filthy blood; Yakov's palms were stained.
“Come with me,” he said. “We’ll get out of here.”
“I won’t leave,” Yubi replied resolutely.
“If you could leave this place,” Yakov asked, “where would you want to go, and what would you want to do?”
“…I don’t know.” Yubi looked away, her gaze fixed on her mother’s unresponsive head resting on her lap. “I don’t want to leave here.”
"If only I could wear that ring in the sun again, and if only you and I were together."
Upon hearing this, Yubi's eyes welled up with tears of blood, and two red lines snaked down her cheeks.
"...I want to taste delicious food, see beautiful scenery, and do fun things." His fingertips trembled in Yakov's hand. "I also want you to take me on horseback to farther lands, to places no one has ever seen before...I want to be as happy and carefree as I was when I was a child..."
"I promise you."
"But…"
Warm blood pumped through his limbs, urging Yakov to move his arms and hold the cold vampire tightly. "I promise you," he vowed resolutely, "I'll take you wherever you want to go. Do you agree?"
Yubi choked back tears, trying to push him away, but then she clung tightly to his robe.
"If I agree, what about your own freedom?" he asked stiffly. "How do you find true freedom... Does true freedom even exist in this world?"
“Yes. I came to you freely.” Yakov said Yubi’s name firmly. “True freedom is not reality, nor ideals, nor death.”
"Love is true freedom. You are true freedom."
Yubi fumbled for the iron ring around his neck, wailing in his arms. Camilla's head finally rolled off his lap and onto the ground. "Yakov, I can't go out anymore, I can't get Mother's ring again..." The vampire closed his eyes in despair, "You are the key to unlocking the bait, the flag that seizes the initiative in the war... When you see me, your brother will seize the opportunity to assassinate me himself; and your sister will seize the opportunity when your brother appears. From the moment you stepped across the church threshold, it was all destined..."
“I know.” Yakov stroked his cold back and touched his wet hair. “You just need to treat my wounds like you used to do on the battlefield.”
“But you can’t fight an army by yourself, let alone a vampire… You can’t fly, and you can’t run far, so you can be easily caught.”
Blood Slave looked around, a thousand ideas swirling and intertwining in his mind.
“I have a way.” He picked up the countless counterfeit rings. “If you agree, I will definitely take you away.”
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