In Dorotea’s haze of sleep, dreaming of a heavenly Angelic chorus playing merrily in a bed of fat white clouds. Dorotea was suddenly being pelted with coins by some adolescent Pagan gods. Feeling they were not laughing with her, she floated down to earth and started waking up. She felt sweaty and hot from the sun, but also damp in her shoes and clothes from the mist of the early hours before sunrise.
A name came into her minds eye like a musical whisper of chimes in the wind. A song filled her soul with golden light and a name. “Ashtoreth” It felt familiar but she couldn’t remember the context. Still being conscious she was sleeping, of the hard soil, the pointy rocks, bugs darting around her face, wet grass soaking into her back and skirt. The dream of coins being tossed at her like a beggar on the street kept repeating in her head. Curiosity led to abject terror.
Dorotea felt blinded, the brilliant dawn seemed to be shining millions of miles directly into the space between her eye lids. She was jarred by a shadow walking between her and the reddish dawn. Her eyes hurt so bad but panic made her dart up and grasp the golden sword she had pulled from the corpse of the Giant King. In the white strobes of light and pounding pain behind her eyes she sees the Deadman from the Cathedral’s door inspecting her camp. He is opening chests of treasure with his stumped arms and clinking coins onto the ground. She yelled “Stop that at once! Those are mine!”
The Deadman, who was nailed to the Cathedral door whips around in a combative stance. “Who said that?” His voice like rusty chains echoing at the bottom of a wishing well. She leaps up, unsure of her next move but feeling a boldness in this netherworld she never felt in life. “I said that thief!” The Deadman’s eyes hollow slits of suspicion. His sightless eyes searching the area before him, but he eases his tense posture and smiles with his skeletal lips. “I am no thief, Im just not sure whats happening or why I am here.” Dorotea feels sorry for this creature now, even in death there is no rest here. “There is more than enough treasure to share, but you must ask first!”
With useless arms the Deadman starts to reach bellow him to have a seat and says “I have no use for your treasure, I was looking for my eyes and hands. They seem to be missing.” Dorotea is puzzled, she remembers the body, covered in arrow wounds and distinctly remembers that he had an arrow in each eye. Which she knows is fatal, and one look at this dead man you can see its been many years since he held the breath of life.
This is puzzling to her, it should be more scary than it is at the moment but adrenaline and the hubris of youth keeps her from fleeing and running as fast as she can. She decides to make a friend of this unfortunate soul. With a sewing needle and fine silver thread from her dress she reattaches his wretched hands.
“What color were your eyes sir?” The Deadman now sitting on a log and feeling around his wounded chest, tapping the arrows that must be puncturing all his major organs. “Well, I don’t remember exactly. Red I think.” Dorotea scowled. “Red eyes, nobody has red eyes.” He hesitantly pulled at an arrow and grimaced, instead breaking it off, he said. “My eyes were Red, and my hair was white as a dove. I had a condition where light was painful to me, and my skin was so pale you could see my heart beating through my chest.”
Dorotea felt deep spiritual terror. She had heard of sickness, flues, plagues and viruses. Blurting out, “Oh no, is it contagious? This morning the light hurt my eyes so, i felt like i had had them beaten black and blue.” She said in a mournful tone. He laughed “No, I was born with a condition. I had no pigment in my skin or hair or eyes. Albinoism isn’t contagious. Not like the Plague or Leprosy we have in these parts.” Remembering she knew so little of this place. She asked “Where are we and what is your name?” He seemed puzzled. “I can’t remember any thing other than the color or my eyes and the way that i died.”
Stumbling, Dorotea scrambles backwards into the grass. “What do you mean, the way that you died?” He isn’t listening to her any more, standing he seems to be searching for something, trying to hear a clue or trigger a memory of who he is and where they are.
The Deadman says “I don’t remember my name. I do remember I was a Zealot. A Sicari, an archer. Executioner for the Sanhedrin in the Holy Wars. I was the last officer left from a massacre on a hilltop. I was tasked with hunting all the ancient enemy. I had executed them where ever i found them. One day i was wounded, fleeing as my company died around me. Taking an arrow in the knee they captured me. I was martyred for the faith here at this Cathedral. I remember the evil smiles of the enemies and their cruel jokes. I remember being whipped and stoned, dragged behind horses. I don’t think i died here. That place was more beautiful than this. I remember the sounds of birds and wind in the trees, then i felt arrows puncturing my lungs and heart. Cursing them with my dying breaths.”
If you discover this tale on Amazon, be aware that it has been unlawfully taken from Royal Road. Please report it.
Dorotea feels tears in her eyes. “Thats very sad. My brother’s father was a musician and died in a fight with cowboys. He was also dragged through the street and stabbed. Left to drown in a puddle of green horse water beside a saloon.”
The Deadman thought about that. “I always wished I was a musician. My sisters played the lyre and flute. I was more of a reader. I liked books and maps.” Dorotea interrupted him. “Does it hurt to die?” The Deadman flicking a coin between brown dry fingers. “Of coarse, it hurts to die. But not as bad as living. You feel your heart struggling to beat, you feel your lungs shuddering for breath. You feel panic about everything you forgot to do, or friends you want to say goodbye to, places you want to go, promises you wanted to fulfill. Then you feel a calm that takes the sadness away. You feel a far off warmth and something pulling you towards every mystery you ever wondered about being answered and all your regrets falling away like pieces of broken pottery. Life is like a sharp piece of glass you hold in your hand so tight you feel like you would rather splinter the bones in your fingers than let go, but then you drift off to sleep. Im sure evil men feel a more sudden startling fall into hell, but maybe i am an evil man, and maybe this is Hell.”
Dorotea shudders and says, “This couldn’t be Hell, my pet rabbit Ophelia is here and she has no reason to be in Hell.” He smiles “Yes, this couldn’t be Hell. This is the land of Nod, where the noble murderers go.” He smiles, smelling the air. “You are right, I feel a cool wind. I can sense butterflies and life in the air. This couldn’t be Hell with the smell of flowers in the air.” Looking around the world seems pleasant and full of possibilities again. They both smiled and sat quietly while the birds sing.
Later in the day, excitedly she says, “Ive got it! I found the perfect eyes for you!” She comes running up to the Deadman putting two giant rubies in his hand. He considered them, turning them and holding them up as if he could see. “Well, thank you young lady. Slowly opening his eye lids one by one he put them in his eye sockets. “How do i look?” She smiled but the effect of two shining red eyes gave off was unsettling. She lied. “You look splendid, like you were born to wear them.” The Deadman took a deep breath and coughed out a gust of cobwebs and dust, but now he was whole.
“Well young lady…” He said. “You have my thanks. I bid you farewell.” She grimaced. “Wait, you can’t go now. I need you to help me find a way home.” He thought about this. “Well I suppose I have no home, I have no hurry and I am as lost as you are. I will join your company if your horse and rabbit will have me.” Dorotea twirls around in a happy little dance. “Allow me to introduce my pet bunny Ophelia, my horse Octavian and I am Dorotea Galia, pleased to meet you.” She offers her hand to shake and he takes it in a gentle and friendly manner. “I am pleased to meet you. Im sorry but I have no name I can remember and I don’t know from where I came.”
They break camp, but taking one more look around Dorotea finds a great hunting bow. Offering it to the Deadman, he takes a solemn tone. “Ah yes, a tool for the work of death. I had hoped to live in peace for a while yet.” Dorotea busying her self stowing fallen coins and ropes. They descend down the hill into a vibrant country of wildflowers. She sees orange, blue, purple and red flowers on little hills going off into the distance.
She feels so painfully hungry and thinks way off yonder she spies orchards. Across a valley of golden mist a great vine land of bounty laying at the foothills of glowering mountains. The sky is purple clouds holding a great storm. Deciding between the war torn low lands, the seemingly haunted hill of ruins, graveyards and burned Cathedrals or the high country of orchards, rivers, groves of vines holding berries, she decides food must be the priority.
They begin walking along a long disused road between fields of ruins covered in flowers. She sees an apple tree with not a single good fruit. Every apple is wormy and full of rot. Seeing the clouds nearing she feels an urgency to look farther into the distance for something edible. Thunder cracks in the sky and the day darkens.
As they walk she discovers the road they are on is made out of skulls, or pieces of broken skulls turned to gold, or maybe fools gold. All far too heavy to lift but bringing an ominous mood. What evil power would it take to turn mens severed heads into a golden road?
The Deadman finally speaks, “My father was a miner. These hills remind me of places learned men go to find great hordes of precious metals.” Dorotea sees a small rustic farm cottage nestled between more apple trees and beyond a meadow of berries.
The Deadman puts up a cautious hand. “I remember we were told to burn the ancient groves of trees. The priests and scholars said that Evil Spirits dwelled within. In them hold alters to the Goddess Artemis, lover, twin and loyal warrior of the Goddess Ashtoreth.” Dorotea is puzzled. “Who are these Goddesses?”
The Deadman answers. “Artemis the virgin Goddess of war, the hunt. Her darker manifestation Ashtoreth or Astarte, the Blasphemous `Queen of Heaven’, ‘The Mother of Whores,” a fertility Goddess from the old times before the law of man or the knowledge of good and evil. The oldest enemy of my people and my God.” The clouds have now sent the first drops of rain. Dorotea frees the animals from their wagon loads and starts to find a meal for them all. In the distance the little cottage has a flickering light in the window.