General Lýkos

Chapter 19

“Fucking aliens!!” Carlos buffed the minute he entered in the library that afternoon.

“E.T. Refused to go on a date with you? The thing has taste, no doubt,” Julian said without rising his eyes from the pile of books he was cataloguing.

“Arabs, Moroccans or any other camel-fuckers! Don't play dumb with me!”

“Look, I haven't seen Ahmed in a long time. If you have a problem with him, well, solve it!”

“Not that fucker! The ones who destroyed MY fence!”

“Your fence?” Julian asked incredulously.

“Yes, the fence I built. One of those fuckers wrote something on it! I'm going to kill them!” He shouted getting his own mobile phone to show the outrageous photo. “Look, you idiot! The wood is ruined beyond repair!” he howled now.

“Sounds more like you were going to marry it,” mumbled Julian as he took the mobile in his hands.

The picture was very clear. Someone had deeply engraved with a woodburning stick a series of words-letters in an unknown language on the fence.

“Can you believe what he told me? “Do nothing! Casualties of war!”” Carlos was righteously furious.

“What?”

“Koiranos said that. He cares nothing. Buy a new one, he says.”

“Well, that is a reasonable solution,” Julian said slowly.

“And what next? I get the next camel-fucker writing their fucking Qur'an quotations on it!”

“And what am I supposed to do?”

“Tell me what is this.”

“I can't read Arab. I was in school but not that much.” Julian fixed his eyes on the scribbles and his heart skipped a bit. He was very familiar with them. Those were Orion's.

“No, I would say this is Georgian or cousin of it,” Julian answered slowly. “Leave it as it is. Don't worry any more.”

“As it is? Have you taken a good look?”

“Carlos, drop it. Most probably it were tourists or teenagers with a razor. They won't be back.”

“Georgian?”

“Dunno,” shrugged Julian. “It must be there for something.”

“It was a new fence!” Carlos whined. “They pollute everything they touch!”

Tired of his brother's tirades, Julian rose from his desk and took a book from the desk. “I have to ask something to Mr. Koiranos.” He escaped outside the house and began to walk towards the fence, strangely glad that -for once- Lýkos was not following him.

He left the path and carefully approached the fence, partly covered by the growing plants. There was something amiss in the place but he couldn't say what it was. He began to follow the fence, running his hand along the wooden surface but he saw or felt nothing out of the ordinary.

'Funny. Photos don't lie,' he frowned and tried hard to remember the exact place where he had seen the strange tourist. 'Carlos saw it and I don't think he would spent his time looking for graffitties. Accusing foreigners for free is another matter.'

He found the place, right in front of the bench, and carefully inspected the wood and there was nothing at all. It was shiny and new, just as his brother had left it.

It didn't make sense. His brother was not clever enough as to make up that story.

'Carlos. Send me the photo.' he wrote on the mobile.

'What for?'

'Asshole,' thought Julian. 'To ask somebody what it is.' he wrote back.

'Are you fucking with another Arab? You have no shame.'

'With 3486599 of them. Last chance.' Julian was furious and switched off the Whatsapp and slid the mobile back inside his pocket. It was nothing of his business if someone was ruining his brother's beloved fence. As far as he was concerned, there was nothing written on it.

He began to walk back home. He had a lot of pending work and wasting his time with the loser of his brother crazy ideas was too much. 'Probably he doesn't even know how to attach a file.'

A few minutes later, a discreet beep sounded in his pocket and Julian looked again at the picture and saw the hieroglyphs carved in fire. He zoomed and increased the pixels of the picture and studied it for a long time, just to be certain they were Orion's creation.

“Ever heard about time zones?” Sartanos voice greeted him. “Some of us like to sleep at dawn.”

“Hello,” Julian said sheepishly. He had probably woken up the man. “I'm sorry.”

“Be glad I'm not there but in the States. Too much of a hassle to go to Portugal to teach you some manners, moon-child,” Sartanos growled.

“Sorry to interrupt your beauty sleep,” Julian growled back. “But you'll need like a thousand years to see any results.”

The thunderous laughter on the other side of the line, eased Julian's nerves. Sartanos was going to be cooperative despite the odd beginning of their talk.

“Ten thousand years didn't do much for me,” he chuckled in good humour. “Lýkos bit you? Don't worry, he'll get over it.”

“No, nothing like that. There's something I need to ask you. I know nobody else I could ask.”

“How about Koiranos?”

“It's about him.”

“Oh.”

“Please, you said you would answer my questions. I want to show you something and maybe you can tell me what it is.”

“Maybe I can,” Sartanos didn't sound so confident as before.

“Tell me what is in this photo.” Julian sent the file and waited for several minutes until Sartanos phoned him back.

“Did Koiranos teach you to read?” he asked.

“I know how to read.”

“No, he didn't,” Sartanos quipped. “It's very obvious.”

“What is it? Is it his?”

“It's... I think it's ancient Attic Greek, but it's been years since I read it. Anyway, writing was never my forte. I'm a Warrior, not a Seer; they write such things and we keep distance from them.”

“Ancient Attic Greek?” Julian repeated slowly a he was still processing the man's first sentence.

“Perhaps some kind of Linear A, but not the one in the Archaeology books. Anyway, it's still not deciphered and Koiranos has a horrible handwriting.”

“Can you not read it?”

“Of course I can, but it's a bad idea. Very bad idea. Anyway, you should leave it alone. It was done to fix something you opened.”

“Then you know what it is.” Julian seethed.

“I've seen it before, yes. Young man, there are things you're still not ready to see or know. Lýkos told me how you crossed the threshold and I must admit, I am very impressed. I haven't heard someone doing it in a very long time. Since Argynnus but alas, he preferred to return to the underworld. It's a temptation all Guardians face; and I understand them. Who wants to stay here, forever surrounded by men?”

“You make no sense at all,” Julian replied nervously while he wondered if the man was in his right senses; 'Lýkos told him??' “What is your problem with men? It's not as if you were a Martian,” he huffed.

“No, I am not from Mars although that god was one of my favourites. How do you feel about EMPs?

“What?”

“Electromagnetic Pulses,” Sartanos explained him tiredly.

“What is that?”

“Nothing.” Sartanos sounded so innocent. “Just asking.”

“What does it have to do with the photo I sent you?”

“Nothing, but if you don't know what an EMP is, then you will not understand what is written there. Simple as that.”

“So you can translate,” Julian growled, losing his patience with the man's antics. 'This guy is a hundred times worse than Carlos.'

“The threshold is sealed.”

“What?”

“Are you normally so slow witted or is it because you are still recovering from crossing it? I just made a free translation of a part of it. It's a spell to keep the waiting out of the living world.”

“The “waiting”?”

“No, you're totally stupid,” Sartanos sighed. “Dead ones, zombies, ghosts, ghouls, spirits or whichever way you name them nowadays. You must have made a crack and both our worlds are mixing. The Seer should close it or call us; Warriors, to clean after your mess. Therefore, EMPs are exactly what we need if the crack becomes too wide. I remember once seeing...”

“Are you suggesting,” Julian cut Sartanos off, “that I... rose the dead?”

“If you want to put it like that, yes. Have you seen anyone walking around with a white blanket over the head?” Sartanos chuckled at his childish prank. “Don't worry. It happens sometimes. Just don't go around calling dead people's names and everything will be all right and if things get out of control, remember; a good HEMP is your best ally.”

The phone slid from Julian's hands and landed on the floor hardly. Cursing, he went down to pick it up and slid the battery back on. 'They're both mad,' he said to himself. 'The Rabbids are nothing compared to these two.' Fence, ghost, warrior, seer or not, he had had enough.

He walked home briskly. He couldn't waste more of his time.

'Have you looked well inside the desk? Koiranos is not what it seems.' The words boomed in his mind and Julian came to a halt, his heart madly beating.

He entered in the kitchen and saw Paula peeling haricots with two big tears falling down her face. He looked at her speechless. “It's the onion,” she sobbed.

“Those ain't onions,” Julian replied, feeling bad for her. “He's not coming back,” he added.

“What?” She looked clueless.

“That asshole. He's not coming back.”

She looked at him transfixed and blinked a few times. “Who?”

“Look, denial is the worst you can do. Forget about him and look for someone better.”

“Carlos agreed to go on a date with me!” She howled and Julian gaped like a fool.

“The Carlos we know?”

“He said you're silly but you're outdoing yourself!”

“My brother wants to date.. YOU?” Julian asked incredulously. “The world is upside down,” he mumbled. “I meant Sartanos.”

“I know no Sartanos,” she said firmly and gaped at the boy. “I have no boyfriend but Carlos.”

“The guy who was here,” Julian blurted out. “With your fucking you didn't let me sleep well for a week!”

“Nobody was here! I'm Carlos girlfriend. You're a dirty dwarf if you go around telling stories! How dare you!” She was furious and more than ready to jump at his eyes.

“My brother hates you kind! Immigrants! He would never date you! Pocahontas!”

Her wailing become so intense that Lucía ran inside her kitchen to find the new kitchen helper crying a river over the greens. “What's wrong here?” she asked.

“He's telling I fucked with someone when I'm Carlos girlfriend. Tell him something Ms. Pereira! He tells things and I could lose my job here!”

“Lucia, you were even very upset with Mr. Sartanos. He was treating the staff very badly and this trollop was in his bed every night!”Julian replicated heatedly.

“Who dear?” Lucia asked feeling quite lost in the argument.

“Sartanos! The guy who was here. For a week!”

“We had no visitors in the past month, Julian,” she answered very shocked at the boy's outburst. “Mr. Koiranos said no visitors very clearly. I cleared his agenda myself.”

“What?”

“Now, now, you shouldn't be so jealous. Paula and Carlos make a very lovely couple. Apologise to her now.”

“No way!” shouted Julian and dashed out of the kitchen to lock the library door behind him.

Panting, he touched his breast pocket and got the smartphone out. Yes, that was real and Sartanos numbers were among his contacts. Groggily, he walked towards his desk and fell on the chair.

'Have you looked well inside the desk? Koiranos is not what it seems.'

“Of course I did!” Julian roared to the voice inside his head. “Shit!”

With his eyes fixed on the desk and his hands slightly trembling, he pulled open the first drawer and once more shuffled through the papers and pens.

There was nothing out of the ordinary or nothing he had not put inside it.

He went to the second and third drawers and the results were the same: nothing at all.

'I'm not mad. They're mad,' he thought and with great determination pulled the first drawer out of the desk and emptied its contents over the floor. The pencils ran freely over the carpet and Julian closely examined each one of them.

Nothing.

With his patience at an end, the youth scattered the contents of the second drawer and began to look at them, but there was nothing out of the ordinary. Furious he turned around the drawer to leave it standing against the wall.

There it was. A yellow envelope duct-taped against the exterior bottom of the drawer. Julian tore one border and there were several handwritten pages, the paper entirely covered, no blank spaces left.

“Fucking Nazi, he wrote everything in German,” Julian said in despair when he tried to read the papers, sitting on the floor.

The words made no sense for him, yet he tried to see if there was a name or something that could give him any leads of why the librarian had written so much and hid it from Orion.

“Is everything fine, my dear?” Orion made Julian jump on his feet. His eyes immediately looked at the door and saw it open and gulped. He was sure he had locked it.

“Just making some order,” he answered nervously and Lýkos entered the room, sniffing everywhere and everything. “Get out of there,” he admonished the wolfdog when his big paws began to carelessly tread on papers.

“Quite an order you are making,” Orion said coldly. “What is it?” he asked and snatched the pages from Julian's hands.

“I found them on my desk.”

“They belong to the late Dr. Morgenthau. You had no right to read them. They should be return to his family.” His tone was accusatory and Julian shuddered.

“I can't read them! It's German!” Julian defended himself.

“Then why do you have them?” Orion folded the pages and put them in the interior pocket of his jacket.

Julian didn't answer him as Orion looked at him fiercely. “Somebody wanted me to find them,” he finally said. “Dr. Morgenthau, perhaps? I saw what you did to the fence.”

“You saw nothing.”

“Yes, I did. My brother told me and your “brother” Sartanos explained some.”

“You should have asked me.”

“You would have not replied.”

“Julian, I only fixed what you, in your ignorance, opened. I have told you countless times to refrain yourself from using your own skills until you understand and master them. Remember what happened with your former lover.”

“I have no “special powers” or anything of the sort. It was bad luck, lousy timing and chance mixed together.”

“You know very well you do, yet you don't want to see it. I prefer it that way too. Guardians were rarer to be found even when there were still many of us walking upon this earth. Almost all of them were crossing realms too many times and finally preferred to stay in the underworld. Yet you prefer to remind blind and as I said, this is the best solution for all of us.”

“Was this what happened with Argynnus?” Julian asked softly. “Who was he?”

“He was my only love until you came to my life.” Orion sat on Julian's chair. “His hair was white as the silver and that is why he was called like that.” the man smiled sadly at the memory. “He was so afraid when he came to me but you could see the moon rays running through his veins. He was a gift from a king whose name I've forgotten; a token for my services.”

“What happened?”

“Like you, he took the seven steps with me but it was so different than with you. I didn't wait for him to mature, like I did with you, and he barely made it. He was already broken on the first step yet I continued, thinking he would recover himself.”

“Which steps?”

“The first time we were together. Seven times; seven steps. It's the preparation before you take the moon-dust. You seized those experiences and wanted more and more and thought all was there for you to grab. When you took the moon-dust, you were dragged by it at the beginning, but then, you controlled the experience. You almost dusted your feet at the Threshold. Being dismembered meant nothing to you.”

“It was an illusion, Orion. You have to control them or they will control you and you will be their toy. You have to be stronger than the drug.”

“No, it was not. You died; crossed the Threshold and returned to us.”

“And Argynnus died?”

“No, he returned too and we lived many years together, until one day, he didn't want to return to me any longer. He let go of himself,” Orion whispered and closed his eyes. “Seers cannot go there alone. We need your powers to physically pass over death and Guardians need us to guide you in the underworld. One cannot exist without the other.”

“Why do you call yourself a Seer?”

“Because this is what I am. There were only three of us who sided along the moon warriors; thirty nine human warriors and Lýkos who had always been with me. I was a leader of my people before I became this. I remember two Guardian women from that time, but they died on the war or perhaps the Moon God destroyed them. I truly don't know.”

“But this only a tale!”

“No, it isn't,” Orion said sadly. “You saw Sartanos. He is a warrior; he could tore men into pieces with his bare hands and be very happy while he does it. His intelligence is far above normal humans and loves the smell of the battlefield.

“But powerful as they are, Warriors are no match to a Seer. We control the elements and them. I have given up a long time ago my duty to lead or control them as their number had decreased over the years.”

“Why?”

“Some chose to die. For that we need a Guardian. Only them can call Death upon us. Nobody else. The other two Seers also chose to cross the Threshold along with their guardians.

“Men in high positions have known about us for a very long time. They seek the Warriors to help them in their petty wars and it is always the same cycle of destruction repeating over and over. I think the Moon-God granted them that power to make humans suffer even more. There was a time when only the name of our warriors could bring doom to any land.”

“What creates us?”

“I don't know,” Orion answered simply. “Guardians show up in time. Maybe they return from the underworld and adopt a different human form each time they do. Maybe they're born from moon-warriors or maybe they're humans with mind-skills others will never have. Argynnus was unique since the day he was born and his people knew it. They kept him apart from the rest of the village and gave him to me the day they sought my help.”

“When did all this happen?” Julian asked.

“Long time ago. The dates don't hold the same significance for me than for you. Sometimes I get confused.”

“You speak of him as if he were a slave. That must have been long time ago,” Julian insisted softly.

“Before your god was born and before the goddess sang the anger of Pelaus' son Achilleus,” Orion confessed. “I was old before that time. I was old in my own time, and I didn't have many more seasons left when the war came. Men were so different from today.”

“Are you as old as the cave?” Julian's eyes were filled with tears.

“No, the cave was old when I was born. Time has not much meaning for me. As a Seer, I was granted Lýkos. My passing rite was to find him and tame him. To be one with the wolf. Our minds were so different than the present ones.”

“He's not a wolfdog?”

“He is a wolf... from before. Sometimes, I think he despises humans as they are so weak compared to my time. They're smaller, less intelligent and resistant to hardships. Only a few would survive in the snow like we did. It was so cold and the lions so big,” the voice lowered and became more uncertain as the man remembered.

“Ten thousand, maybe fifteen thousand years ago?” Julian gulped as all the pieces of the puzzle made sense now. He fixed his eyes intensively on Orion's protuberant eyebrows. “Are you lactose intolerant?”

“No, I can drink milk but I stopped after I turned four Springs.”

“Your people were not eating grain? Only hunting?” Julian's voice was almost inaudible as his mind took in a glimpse of the truth. It was inconceivable no matter if all the pieces of the puzzle placed themselves in a logical picture.

“No, that is a disgrace. A punishment. We eat the grain eaters.”

Julian grabbed Lýkos collar for leverage as he sat on the floor, next to him. “What makes me a Guardian?” he whispered.

“I don't know. You took the moon-dust and survived it. I am the sole keeper of the God's gift.”

“Am I like you now?”

“Yes, you are,” Orion replied softly. “Death has forgotten you and now you are a servant of the Moon God.”

“This is why the Russians wanted me? I will not get sick or drop dead?” He began to nervously pet Lýkos hair.

“Among other things. If you are with them, they know I will follow you.” Julian touched mind absently the lion pendant and shook his head, unable to believe Orion's words.

“You are only making fun of me.” Julian said seriously and rose from the floor.

“Why do you refuse to see it?”

“Because it can't be true! You must be laughing at my face. Yes, I'm the good-looking boor your dog picked up from the streets and who knows why you need to tell me all these lies. What happened to Morgenthau? Did you kill him because he knew how mad you were?”

“He was not able to understand what I am but I had nothing to do with his passing,” Orion answered. “Look around you. There are hundreds of proofs of my existence.”

“You're nothing but a very rich... psycho! You could buy whatever you want!” Julian shouted. “What did you do to my brother? To Paula?”

“There is no need for her to remember the past,” Orion said calmly. “She felt very attracted to him and he needed a companion. You also expressed your frustration at your brother's political ideas. I think both will be happy together. This situation has been solved to their entire satisfaction.”

“What?” Julian croaked.

“A Seer can influence minds, but since I am a psychotic fraud, it shouldn't matter to you, Julian.”

“I'm sick of you. I'm going home with my mum!” Julian shouted back and slammed the door behind him.

Lýkos rose his head from the floor and looked at Orion.

“He took it relatively well, don't you think?” the man asked and the wolfdog buried his head between his legs.

The Seer had no became wiser with the years.

“Follow him. Don't let him do anything on a rush.” Orion commanded and Lýkos rose to his feet morosely, ready to obey. After all, the Guardian was a bit impulsive and silly, unlike the Seer who always bided his time.