Before the Nightwalker
The Nehwotic sun was already low in the summer sky when Br. Gavriil Endeiras left Eserii Monastery for his night-walk.
It had been an uncharacteristically cool day, with a light breeze carrying the air from the lazy sea in the bay below so that, even here at the foot of the sacred hill, the scent of salt and lilac — that silver-gilded flower that lined the processional way — danced like sparrows through the narrow streets and arches of the city. Now, as the lamp-lighters began their evening march, there was a silence that permeated the cobbled streets. In that stagnant moment of the day where preparations for guests and a meal are due, a memory of some ancient life grows like a flower from between two cobbles, drinking in the dark air so old and fresh. To happen on such a moment where the dead supplicate at one’s heels to be remembered is to grow in appreciation of all that is known and unknown in the city’s life: here a stone-mason carved a façade of a maiden in the likeness of his wife — a close listen may elicit the sound of her gentle singing; here stood a tiny church and its graveyard once before all were demolished for industrial growth, so that all that remains are the headstones built into that wall — many who read the epitaphs find themselves smiling as if for old friends; here an old circle of stones marks a well where water was drawn for hundreds of years — just to be near it urges the stroller to recount some tale or another. It is not uncommon, in fact, for one to happen upon a phantom even in broad daylight who might say to a passer-by, “how do you do?” or else might shuffle along in his delicate spats in a haze, as if in a day-dream, squinting wanly into the boulevard as he passes through a wall where once was an alley. Other such spirits have been known to sit in the libraries or bureaus across the city, spouting gnomic advice to students or explaining the extensive etymology of a word just now used by a gentleman giving a lecture. Such deceased, in their pallor and distance, are the quintessence of the city, guarding their road-side tombs and admiring their effigies.
Anyone who has visited Lihat and has summited the Hill dou San Helene would know what a colourful sight the city is when the sun dips low upon the western sea, lifting up by his seat the climber from below so that he may view the streets from above, where terracotta roofs pitch west toward the bay, reflecting the evening light’s sun out like a great red light-house, and where the little painted towers – perhaps a clock-tower, perhaps a steeple, perhaps the hint of an office building – gently watched along from on high, the sky mimicking their soft pastels like a learning child. Once, in the days of bronze and the hours of demigods, this city clung desperately to the Hill, the processional way a walled road that led down to the Piraeic port-town of Ostalna, and the city limits reaching only to the once-quiet base of the Sacred Hill. Here, Eserii Monastery now delighted in the clustering of gentlemen in suits ferrying both wand and ladies alike along the cobbled thoroughfares. Since those ancient days, millennia later, the city had spread itself across its archaic hinterland like a viny pumpkin assuming control of a vegetable garden, its wide leaves subsuming Ostalna, where now piers reached out even beyond the limits of the original harbour, and the Signor Mayor’s manor could be seen at the very western-most outcrop along the bay, the electrical lights of the parlour just now being put to work by his servants. Also entangled in prickly urbanity and industry were the old towns of Sivic, the potter’s quarter of the ancients, where even now one could espy around the corner of the sacred hill’s long ridges the industrial factories of the modern city, the smoke-tops only now ceasing their wheezing so that the labourers within may spill out into the exhausted streets, and of Quedeira, the medieval fort that held out against the Khan’s hordes from the south for all of twelve years before finally giving in to their insidious reign – the coarse granite of the battlements were hardly visible in the evenings on account of their orange hue, so that Br. Gavriil was not able to make out its spires, even positioned as he was on the second-story exit that led down into the monastery’s courtyard. Old S. Diana was weaving among the cloisters, sweeping the wind-muddled soil back into its basin at the centre of the space, where the old willow was settling in for the evening, lighting its candle and amplifying its gramophone to enjoy a suite of ballet; Br. Gavriil smiled gently at the nun, traversing softly across the pavements.
It was upon such a night and such a city that Br. Gavriil set out, fastening his dark capelet about his shoulders. The red evening light illuminated his vestments in such a way that the black silk embroidery was transformed into a deep maroon. He still pressed his shirts before he left his cubicle even when they were completely obscured by his long dark robes, and he still carried in his waist-coat pocket an open-faced silver watch attached to a silver chain that hung from the centre-most button-hole. Admittedly, such fashion was archaic among the garments of the modern man, especially for a monk. Nevertheless, Br. Gavriil found that even among such contemporaries, the fashionable vestments of the 9th Era’s clergy were reason for pause and reflection on what has been left behind. As he passed out of the brick-work arch that marked the limen between the mundane and the sacred, Gavriil wondered just what kind of life to-night would lead.
The Br. first sat himself on the stout stone bench just beyond the boundary of the Monastery. Someone had engraved upon the rough surface a self-memoriam: “Tescus hic fuit”. Gavriil pressed his palm gently against the cool stone, its carved surface rough to the touch. The memory of a ghost seemed to brush by in a summer breeze, and the Br. smiled as though greeting an old friend. Seated there in the gentle warmth of St. Ioannis’ week, Br. Gavriil found his thoughts drift (as they often did) towards his father (as they often would). Decades ago, well after he had joined the Orthodox Church of Thelonius, Br. Gavriil became successor to a rich lineage of Nychtovoltoi, urban priests and monks who would perambulate the dark canyons of the city as an aide to the good citizens of Lihat. Any and all work, he hummed to himself, that is done in the name of charity and God is good work indeed. In Gavriil’s bedridden childhood, Kr. Endeiras Sr., forever devoted to the church, had sought to teach his son about their faith, and thereby their culture, nestled as it was within its reams of proverbs. Often – even in the spring of 1868 Ix 9E, when the air-ships glided over the country-side, and the heavy breathing of their fore- and aft-balloons filled the evening air with asthmatic fervour that heated the fields and hamlets below, filling the country-folk with such a sticky malaise that many found themselves doffing even their waistcoats in a mad attempt to dispel the heat – he would share scriptures from the Giothien ‘Se Diruii Fa’ntes’ in the most hushed of tones, so that, even when his voice was not entirely drowned out by the noises in the street below or in the thoroughfares above, the boy still had to read his father’s lips just to follow the story. In other times – when all was quiet and the nations slumbered as bears in the winter – he could listen along with rested eyes, scouring the wallpaper (a simple domestic scene of a rich homestead backed by a cloudless sky and with horses pasturing upon the pale field) for the slightest of hints to inspire the visions in his mind of the heroes spoken aloud: St. Andreas, Prince in Fire giving a speech to the armies of the Aena astride a chestnut horse and a suit not of armour but of modern cotton; or Melamoira whispering to her fugitive sisters in the pale grass clutching water-filled pales not of ceramic but of tin. Often so one’s image of the past becomes enlivened by the present, and the mystical frost that occludes the imagination turns to sludge.
“My Gavy,” the old man once began in his usual manner, smiling at his phthisic son from the arm-chair beside his bed, “remember that in all things God’s will is found, and that always God’s will is seen from three angles and never in the whole. Listen, learn, judge; acquaint yourself with what may be, with what has been, with what is, and with those views you are yet to learn. It is only through the eyes of others that you will see your own life in full.” Yet Gavy often found himself responding, questioning what he was taught, “but father, if God’s will is thrice in all things, how can I know which path is pious, since each one might be so?” Then, “look to the prophets and their mantic writings, to the scriptures and their parabolic stories, and to the teachers and their gnomic proverbs. As it is in the divine, so it is in the mundane: in Trinity you will find Unity.” The old Kr. Endeiras Sr. was wont to quote literature to his son in such a way as this, just as his own father had before him. “But what of disunity? And what of quadrinity?!” Gavy replied, coining as he often did new words for himself in his yet uneducated youth. “Disunity is profanity, and quaternity,” he corrected subtly, “is itself a subversion.” Gavriil was sent into a fearful tremor. “Then we are doomed! You and I and mother and Ioannis make four! How can we save ourselves from damnation?” In his youth, his utmost fear was eternal damnation; thrice he had his certificate of baptism verified by the steward and often begged for a recount of the day’s passing so as to ensure his salvation. To his questions, his father only smiled gently, dimmed the oil lamp, and retired from the chamber.
When the war had ended, the servants were instructed to fashion a fresco on his ceiling (the previously off-white surface of which had only its decorated cornices to entertain the mind of a boy) into a tangled procession of archaic priests and princes, so that, even though Death had lifted the old man up into His embrace, Endeiras Jr. could carry through his promise to keep hold the traditions of his people.
A small parcel had by now been retrieved from the jacket pocket, and (having crossed himself twice) the monk had begun to enjoy a small serving of dried meats while a train of stray cats sauntered by in a slow and disorderly fashion.
Quiet minds and quiet stomachs lend themselves to the best service, thought he, repeating further his lessons from the Giothienic scripts over which he would sob and wrestle and ponder and celebrate and dote each day and each night. Out there in the tickling November evening, Br. Gavriil reflected on those gifts which had been imparted to him in youth, and which he had always kept close to him.
First had been a vuelda. Such a small piece of silk brocade, given to him on his first coming home from the midwifery. It had embroidered upon it in cerulean script the motto of house Endeiras: Let us not be forgotten. The vuelda was soft and pale, and never strayed far from its post in his breast pocket, folded about the second of his life-long gifts: a bronze kourix. A superstitious and archaic thing, the kourix was nothing more than a small, flat circle of bronze which held deep-rooted magical properties of apotropaic nature. Finally was his watch, which was his father’s and by which he swore to retain his father’s memory. On the reverse of the watch was the embossed coat of arms of the Endeirai.
Indeed, the Endeirai were of comfortable standing, at least for the town of Khebel, which lay some days south of Lihat by way of carriage, and some days north of the metropolitan centre of Mdilo. One would never call them nobles, but they were considered ‘noble’ by virtue and ‘gentlemen’ by behaviour – at least to the people of Khebel. The house – for in truth they could at least be considered a house, being filled with and well-connected to landlords and politicians and the like – was well seated in the region, with a pleasant enough estate and a delightful manor (though small by aristocratic means). Unlike the upper nobility, who, following their total annihilation of the aristocracy in the revolution, were reduced to local barons and mayors, the Endeirai still continued to hold many of its assets into the new era. This was thanks to the elder Endeiras’ devotion to the church which now held the authority. In fact, the grandfather of our Gavy, the Ven. Dr. A. P. Endeiras had been a teacher of the good word in the Academy after some time as an officer in the Royal Navy (this was in 1832 Ix 9E, when the Navy was still Royal); being the theological instructor of so many aspiring priests – though never a priest himself – Dr. Endeiras often found himself a well-favoured acquaintance of many a Bishop and Deacon, in both city and country alike. This close connection, as well as the benefaction of the local priest, Rev. Fr. Pietro Gehis, had entrenched Gavriil firmly in a position where he was swiftly enrolled in the academy at Lihat for the sake of theological and moral education.
Gavy had so enjoyed his youth in Khebel, where the lemon orchards washed green over the low hills and seemed even to reach up and snatch at the dry air. Some long evenings, when the town was indigo with the dense pleasures of cool shadows and soft clarinets, Gavy could at last escape the discernment of his private school-master Mr. Otto Apród and make haste for the plaza. There, nestled in a tree like a raven, he watched the good people of Khebel with great joy; the lamps would be lit all around, and tables and chairs would be brought out from all the houses in such a way that all could find a seat and have room for their black ceramic plate and cup. Then came the food: lemon-seasoned chickens, a quarter of a hen for each plate, vegetables grown from towns adjacent and afar, and even (on particularly good years) the occasional Thelenic dessert. Often the town Wizard Mu. Wilfred H. Oeren, on such an exceptional night as this would perform tricks to the amusement of the children. When eventually someone would call out ‘deceiver!’, he would stand up – by now full to spilling with drink, his breath rich with sweetness – and proclaim, “You now see the legacy of the very Lord Ibex you worship! Do not betray your impiety so profanely, blasphemer!” and proceed to reveal his wand, turn his flesh to stone, and lay himself flat, sinking into the very cobbles beneath him! Then, he would fall asleep in drunken exhaustion until some poor townsman would happen to step on his stony nose, to which he would react with a yelp and more muttered curses. Then, he would find his seat back at the table with Fr. Gehis, who would be already launching himself into one of his aetiologies, as was common among priests from the city.
“…So St. Eusicus brought the nomads into the city and before God, and there did they settle upon the hill opposite us, so that the town would be known as Avgoro, and thus is its church dedicated to St. Eusicus – or Sond Ossishus as they call him there.
“As for Khebel, I have read reports of a dark python with scales as large as dinner plates.” (He here lifted up his own plate, now emptied of meal, and cast it into the plaza with a celebratory ‘hah!’ along with some of the other townsfolk) “Of course, its presence caused such a miasma on the land that in shuddering sweeps its crawling travels across the landscape would cut deep troughs in the bedrock, that in flittering dance its metronomic tongue would lap up all the heat of the hills and freeze over all the crops, and that in glaring terror its sharp venom would dampen the soil with the silver blood of angels. A young and nameless warlock then came once to the profane grove were this serpent lived. Reaching into the pale earth and taking it up like reigns, he tamed the serpent as one might break a horse. Scholars came to call the young warlock ‘Kebelœ’ – Sensation of disharmony in the protection of profanity. When St. Andrew defeated the warlock and his hellsome pet, civility and humility returned to the grove, but the town retained the name Khebel.
“But now consider the name of Sonnis street…” he would continue on for much of the night.
When the meal was done (and often during it also), the clarinets would strengthen the tune, a drum and a stringed qitaro would be produced, and the entire town would dance in circles, singing with high high spirits.
Soon, the night would slink in through the empty streets right into the plaza like a slim stranger in a down coat. And yet the town hall would be well-lit by now, and the tall clock tower that gently encouraged folk through the day emitted now a warm hue from within its mechanisms, so that one could easily follow the developing minutes as they clapped in time to the people’s dance. Like the dark spots in a fainting vision, the brilliantly coloured skirts of each villager spun and twisted in the distant light of the common place.
But always would Mr. Otto Apród appear beneath Gavy’s tree. He would coax the poor boy down with a harsh word and they would quickly return to Endeiras manor, where he would endure once again his studies. Mr. Apród was indeed a strict and austere tutor and assistant to the house, having come from the rigid Académie du Mathyte in the Levonic north. He had a handsome, dark complexion, and had a habit of looking down his nose in that air of superiority that only a Levonic servant could, even to his employers. ‘A noble student should exempt himself from the base frivolities of the common folk,’ he would insist, quite archaically, and quite to the Lady’s subtle nod of agreement. And so it was that Gavriil was confined to the house’s library even in the most alluring of summer days when his peers would strip down by the river and nourish their spirits in the piercing mountain water. Having been attendant and indeed a friend to Kr. Endeiras Sr., Mr. Apród endeavoured to educate Gavy in a manner he was sure would be pleasing to the late Lord; thus, Endeiras Jr. was instructed in the scriptures, the classics, and all the literature and behaviour appropriate for a gentleman’s education.
In the months leading up to his departure from Khebel, Gavy’s mother Pt. Elena Endeira, who had always been burdened by vexations, took pains to ensure her son would not be troubled in his new and distant life. Indeed, she even encouraged him to join her in an archaic sort of countryside ritual which she had learnt from Mu. Oeren; by night they trudged out to the old eucalypt tree which marked the town’s border, and there they prepared both the brazier with incense and strips of holy linen and also the prayer-wheel by attaching to it a dusk-trapped Iobhis bird, which already was wailing and screeching. While Pt. Endeira stripped the outer layers off the tree with a cavalry sword, she called upon the aid of Liud Kathan, the holy patron of priests, “I strip this tree, Lord, that you may not strip my son of his honour!” All the while, she had her son dance about the perimeter of the tree carrying silken fillets and singing in the tongue of the divines to the tune of the spinning Iobhis, “Lord! Lord! protect me in my education and give me strength to learn your teachings!” The fillets and the wheel spun in divine fervour, as if spurred by unnatural winds. Gavy sung in as well a voice as he could, but to chant a magic hymn at a cross-roads was nothing like his singing in Church, when Fr. Gehis would lead the procession in melodic prayer; he felt his voice snatching from his chest, leaping up and out of his throat as if lynched on the branches of the eulacis. When Pt. Endeira could reach no higher to strip the tree’s raw flesh, and a white mucus was spilling from its throbbing veins, the frenzied woman, spurred on by divine influence and the absurd instructions of Mu. Oeren, urged Gavy to mix the mucus with bay-leaves and a mastic from Lihat so that they all might drink it and be protected. “I mix this mastic,” he said as he stirred, “that I may find myself a citizen in Lihat just as in Khebel.” Another time, both Mu. Oeren and Fr. Gehis joined them in the church-yard. Someone had prepared an effigy of Gavy of wax and lead, and a small basin was prepared in which the effigy would be bathed. The doll was by no means a perfect imitation of the boy, but the black locks of hair which had been transplanted onto it and the severe scar along its chest made it clear to anyone, god, spirit, or mortal, that this was Gavriil Endeiras Jr. When the correct preparations were made, and Dawn was already stripping back the dark roofing of night, the four of them stood cardinally about the shallow basin and, as Fr. Gehis doused the effigial Gavy in holy ointments with a fox-hair brush, they each began to sing in Giothienic: “Just as this doll is doused in virtuous oil, so too let Gavriil be doused in holy virtue!” And as Fr. Gehis gesticulated with the plastic arms of the effigy: “Just as this doll wards off evil, so too let Gavriil be warded from evil!” And when Mu. Oeren took up his wand and harmonised with the song in his casting a spell of consecration on the doll: “Just as this doll is consecrated and rid of miasma, so too let Gavriil be cleansed and redeemed!” And when the doll was plunged into the basin: “Just as this doll is plunged into divine waters, so too let Gavriil be plunged into a divine mind.” And finally, when the doll was retrieved by Pt. Endeira: “Just as the Lady will harbour this doll, so too let God harbour Gavriil!”
All this was done in the proper order and with the appropriate reverence to the correct Saints. And yet, “never,” Pt. Endeira had entreated, even as he leant out the window of his cab, his hand outstretched to allow her to grasp it in desperation, “Please, Petrodes, (for she often called him by patronymic when she wanted to make a point), promise me never to become yourself a priest! It must not occur!” He had said nothing as the driver spurred the horses away and onto the road, his mother’s hands slipping to her sides as his own slipped back into the cabin. Her image, depressed into his mind, was unmoving all through the journey, and he was bilious even into his first classes. How could she say this to me? He often said to himself, repeating her words cruelly in the night. It had been decided long before! I should have been destined for clergy, it’s true! When, after some time, her meaning had become clear to Gavriil, his heart had hardened in anger and he had decided, more so out of spite and a realisation of his now wholly bilious disposition than obedience, not to become a priest.
And so – despite his excellence in his studies and his two years of clerical service which he utterly disliked – Br. Gavriil refused every offer and letter of entreatment to become a priest. As a cleric (or clerk), one was required to attend to a superior in the church for a year or so, taking appointments, noting affairs of financial and social business, copying out long bits of text from letters, scriptures, or speeches, and even attending the courts – in which the Church was of course involved here in Lihat. In contrast, the chores of a monk were simple and introspective: tidying the chapels and monasteries and other places of worship, memorising and understanding the scriptures, attending daily prayers and sups and services, donating to and helping the less fortunate in the city (of which there were many) and so on. During the loathsome and angry years of youth, Br. Gavriil had found the solitude refreshing following his years spent hemmed in by urban colleges and alleys (he had originally lived in a monastery far more remote than here, in the S’rakana mountains to the south). When he finally came to his senses at around the age of twenty-eight, he immediately conscripted himself to the Nychtovoltoi in Eserii Monastery.
Simply put, Br. Gavriil far preferred monastic life.
Back then, Gavy had only left Khebel and its hinterland once before, when he had attended the Fort Aiacin military academy. He had driven out to the academy with his father’s brother, Cpt. Iason L. Endeiras, quoting poetry and village songs along the way. The Cpt. had become the foremost among the Endeirai, since Elena had a disposition only towards motherly love, and did not take up the mantle of head of house as was common among women in such lands. After that tumultuous November day when everything had been ruined…, Cpt. Endeiras had decided he would have young Gavy be educated such that he could become a man. At first, the idea seemed to excite the young man: the bright uniforms and rigid structure and righteous duty. He relished in the rough-hewn stone walls of the Fort, and wore his academy cloak with such pride that he determined to send home a blurry tintype he managed to have taken. However, not even as early as his first attempt at joining in file, did those jeering peers in the echoing courtyard of the academy easily notice his meek nature and anxious disposition. Gavy was utterly tortured by the other students and even many of the staff, and needless to say did not endure even a month of service. Eventually, his uncle found a way to exempt him on the grounds of his illness.
But by now, Br. Gavriil had finished his meal, and had begun his walk.
