The Grail

“You have waited too long.” The woman was six steps below us when she paused. “Your mind is gone. You should have come when I first summoned you. You have done much damage. The humans search hard for the madman you have become. We cannot let them catch you.” Her voice softened. “Come with me. We can be together once more as we were many times in the past.”

“Catch me? These people? I will never—” the creature began, but there was a solid thud and the blade slid down, lightly slicing the skin on my right arm, but missing my throat. Richard was there! A club he had been given in the far east by a native guide in his trembling hands. The creature dropped to its knees, dazed from the blow.

“Come, Isabel!” Richard held out his right hand for me, the club raised in his left. I got behind him, feeling the safe haven of his body between the creature and me.

Aspasia’s Shadow rolled on the floor, snarling, came to its feet, the knife held out, the tip darting back and forth between Richard and the strange woman who now climbed to the top of the landing.

“I want to live!” it screamed.

“It is time to pass on,” she said. “Remember long ago? When you were Osiris and I was Isis? We can have that again if you go with me.” The woman spoke in a soothing voice, as one would to a child, and took a step closer.

“You betrayed me!” The creature leapt with startling speed. The blade slammed into the woman’s throat, a geyser of red spraying the air. As the creature sought to withdraw the blade her hands, unbelievably, wrapped around his, trapping the weapon in her own body. This allowed the other three strangers to wrestle him to the ground, on top of the dying body of their leader, blood covering them all.

Richard held me tight, the club ready. I could feel him shaking with exhaustion, amazed that he could even stand, never mind defend me.

They had metal cuffs on the creature’s wrists, pinning its hands behind its back, but still it bucked and twisted, trying to get free. They grabbed its legs and drug it down the stairs, not caring that its head thumped and bounced on the wood.

Richard let go of me and went to the wounded woman who lay in a spreading pool of her own blood. “They take him to The Mission, don’t they?”

She didn’t seem to notice him. “It is time for me to pass on,” she whispered.

“I met you before in another form,” Richard said.

Still she ignored him. And then, of all things, she reached up with her right hand and jabbed her fingers into the wound, ripping it further open, increasing the flow of blood. She died seconds later, revealing nothing.

One of the men reentered the house, bounding up the stairs two at a time. He knelt over the woman’s body, confirmed she was dead, then reached inside her clothes and pulled out a small amulet, a figure of two arms raised in prayer, with nobody between them, the same as Aspasia’s Shadow had around its neck. The man whispered some words very quickly, much like a priest at an early mass in a hurry to get to his breakfast.

He pulled something from inside his cloak, scattering it on the body. It was like black sand. I gasped as the skin began to disappear, the sand eating through the flesh, the muscle, the bone. Richard tried to step closer to see what was happening, but I held him back.

The body was gone in less than a minute; only the clothes remained. The man gathered the clothes, tucked them under his arms, then looked at Richard and me.

“You have been foolish. We should have let him kill you, then taken him back.”

“Why didn’t you?” Richard asked.

“You will be dead soon anyway. And you are famous. Your murder would cause more like you to search. I would recommend you tell no one what you saw tonight. Let your secret die with you, Burton. If you do not, you will only bring grief—” here he looked at me “—to those you leave it with.”

We watched as he went out the door.

I had never seen such a thing and hope never again to see it. I must rest.

No, I must finish this. The words must be written even as Richard’s body slowly cools.

You, the reader, must know of the terror of those who seek the truth. And the danger of this manuscript.

To finish the tale of this past evening, I took Richard back to his bed. He never rose again. He died three hours ago in my arms, consumed by his disease and exhausted by all that had happened. In a way, he was as happy as I had ever seen him, the visit of the foul creature just another confirmation of all he had learned over the years.

I waited until the servants arrived in the morning. Knowing they would see me, I took the copy I had made of Richard’s manuscript. I stood in the garden and burned it. The servants thought me quite mad. I was still covered in blood. My arm was bound where the blade had cut me. My eyes were wild — Richard, my love, my life, was dead. I burned the cursed words. In flames went the clues, the tales, the secrets Richard had sought for so many years. I knew the servants would spread the tale and that would be my only protection from others who would come as had been threatened.

But I kept the original. I owed Richard that. I could not burn his life’s passion. And I knew that someday, someone good who would fight evil would need this story. To know about the Legends and the Truth. To know what Richard had learned, what Richard had guessed about. What he had given his life to.

But it had to be hidden. And for that I knew where to turn. The Watchers would hide it for me. I will give him who Richard promised the translation of the scrolls this copy. And you who read this, wherever you are, remember Richard and me.