Chapter 29 - The Maiden Remembers

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"He will take longer, Iacinthoooo?"

Alexa, or rather, Alexios, was quite bored, in the big tent with his middle brother, Iacintho. The camp near Belgrade was a large concentration of people, and the Dallassenos were an important part of the political scheme, fundamental to two or more kingdoms, resisting the massive and persistent Ottoman force. Lex had already piled up containers, then read the glossaries, and recalled terms in other languages, aloud, hanging like a bat from the rafters of the big tent. Summing up, really taunting Iacintho, of his brothers the most crabby and least likely to put up with childishness of his youngest sibling.

The three older brothers knew about Alexios' condition and his secret, which they had to help protect, but they didn't even think about it much in their daily lives. The 14-year-old was an annoyance for other reasons.

"Lex, I already said. When the Lord of Languedoc gets here, don't bother him like the other time, "Iacintho warned, going to the table where a sheet covered a body.

"You're jealous because he's your master, but he likes to talk to me," Lex teased, climbing one of the tent's support posts for the tenth time in seconds and crawling across the horizontal beam. Light and thin, like the rest of his family except the firstborn Michalis, this was an easy task for 'the boy'.

"You're like a parrot to him. You likes to repeat the sounds he speaks and even stands on a perch," without looking at the youngest boy, Iacintho discovered the face of the person lying there. The hard-faced, dark-skinned man, lying there motionless, looked like a corpse even at a closer inspection, but Lex knew he wasn't dead. Lex slid himself upside down slowly, over his brother's head, and descending the most sneakily as possible, he deposited a copper coin over Iacintho's dark tousled hair. Iacintho, in turn, reached out quickly and grabbed the younger boy's arm, holding him and pulling him toward the lying man.

"No!!! Stop it!"

"Look into his eyes! " said the older of the siblings, relentlessly and inexorably winning the battle of strength as he pulled Lex down.

"So stop pulling me! I'm going down!" the boy asked, and Iacintho nodded, leaving him alone and allowing Lex to straighten himself upside down, suspended over the body on the stretcher.

"Use your hands and you will see something interesting," explained his brother, and that was enough for the younger Dallassenos to have his curiosity piqued. Lex spread his hands toward the sleeping man, and Iacintho opened the man's eyes so that Lex could look into them.

And Lex stared in.

Behind the dilated pupils like two dark saucers, and the curtain of light to which his consciousness was briefly swallowed into, the young Greek saw the darkness. A faintly lit form was visible, but there was no sign of the silver thread that used to bind living souls to their physical bodies. The soul swayed in intensity, like a distant blinking star. Nothing changed about her or around her, so Lex thought there was nothing left to see and shut his own eyes, turning away from the Erebus. And back onto the beam where he sat and swayed his feet while Iacintho gave water to the sleeping man.

Lex told what he had seen, and asked,

"So his soul is free to leave, but isn't he going? How does that happen?"

"He's just a stupid man who thought he had the guts, but haven't. If he were the man he thought he was, he would have used this opportunity to seek what he wanted… But he is spending all his time close to his body, afraid of betrayal…," Iacintho sneered, finally covering the man's face. Lex had heard that this man, a Hungarian Prince, had paid the Order a small fortune so that he could "go to Hell." What he was going to do and with whom he intended to meet there, Alexios had not been able to know, he only knew that this money would be used in the campaign to reconquer the Serbian kingdom from Ottomans.

Of course, what each person thought to be the Underworld varied immensely. Lex had heard his father roar against the Order's new policies, which initiated acolytes in the Mysteries without much care or preparation. But Lex was only concerned with himself, and in fulfilling his next mission to be able to move up to the next rank, where more mysteries would be revealed to him, as Bringer of Light as he was. It wouldn't be another spring without it. His family was the primacy of the Order, and Lex was very proud of it.

"This elixir, when does its effect ceases?" Lex asked.

"This elixir, as you say, Alexios, is a free ticket to Charon's boat," the musical provencal accent Lex liked so much spoke provocatively, while His brother's master, the dreaded and admired Lord Petrus of Languedoc entered the tent followed by Lex's and Iacintho's father, Bryennios Dallassenos.

"Master Petrus!" Lex said cheerfully, waving to the dark-haired man with intriguing and mysterious features, who at that moment had a slight smile for both brothers.

"Still wondering how it works?"

"Yes Master!" Lex had a huge admiration for the foreigner man. Kabbalist, alchemist, doctor and man of a thousand knowledges and talents, both mystics and seculars, the "Lord of Languedoc" was a legend, and always found time to teach young Lex something new. Although he have taken Iacintho as his acolyte recently.

The man, who was about their father's age, approached the table where he was, examining the foolish Hungarian Prince, before saying,

"Young Alexios, the active principle of this elixir is a rare poison from the Egypt damp lands. Even there, only the priests of the ancient cults of their anthropomorphic gods used it in concoctions for their rituals, to experience what lies after death and to talk to their gods. But when it's used pure, this substance mimics death perfectly. In the right amount, it paralyzes every muscle in the body. If the amount is strong, even the breath will be affected and the person may actually die, or when the person comes back to himself, it will only be a shadow of himself; his intelligence and movements will be sucked out from him forever."

Lex looked up at the body, wondering if the elixir would even take the man to the other side or just transform him into a retard. The Languedoc alchemist continued,

"So those who did not want to pay the weight of having murdered someone in life, sought to have their enemies ingest this poison, so that during the preparatory process to extract their internal organs, or during a hasty discard, the person died by other hands."

"Ingenious, but equivocate," Bryennios said, and everyone agreed. Petrus de Languedoc looked up at Lex above his head and smiled. "But there is a way to identify someone who has been poisoned by the 'Lotus-Fruit Slumber', come down and come see," invited the alchemist.

Lex obeyed quickly, and faced his brother defiantly in the process, showing that he was not just a parrot for the Languedoc Alchemist. Iacintho just raised an eyebrow, and winked his also violet eye, demonstrating that he already knew what Lex was going to hear now.

"See, little one. Here on Prince Stefan's lips. A dead man has his lips pale, and the recesses turn purple because dead blood darkens in his veins. But when the person ingested some Lotus-Fruit, the mucous membranes of the mouth become the color of the lotus… Just like your very lively lips, by the way," the Master pulled the lying man's lips so that Lex could see that they looked bright and glossy, with a pleasant pink color inside.

"And is there an elixir to wake him up anyway?" Lex asked, fascinated.

"Yes I have the antidote. But we just found out that Prince Stefan has deceived us, and that the final half of the gold he promised for the Serbian cause will not be paid. Soldiers will die because this man played with his word."

Lex was shocked, and Iacintho called him to leave the tent. Lex didn't dare to disobey the implicit command, and in fact, wasn't sure if he wanted to know what would happen to the Prince who wanted to "visit Hell', but wasn't able to pay the price.

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Alexa had not revealed about the poison because of some reward, but because Alexander would die without the antidote. Or live as long as his body could take it ... or until they decided he should live. That was horrible to think about.

"And the doctor? Does the doctor know how to cure it, get the poison out of his body? Who is this doctor?" Holstein's Sovereign Prince showed for the first time agitation and despair.

The Greek maiden fought the tears welling in her eyes at the thought of her beautiful brother Iacintho, imprisoned, tortured, and killed.

"The doctor is dead, Your Majesty."