Evo – Part 1

“Will you tell me your story?” The Minstrel asked within his mind, his soft music playing in gentle tones that felt like home to Evo. It was jarring to have the voice of another sound within one’s head; but it was the only way the Minstrel could speak at all, having no tongue or vocal cords of his own.

“My friend.” Evo began, unsure how to continue. “I am so… very old. I don’t think we have the time.”

“Start at the beginning.”  The Minstrel replied. Evo was sure he saw a small smile crease the Minstrel’s eyes. “Tell me how you became a Vampire.”

Evo hesitated; he didn’t want to tell that story.

The Minstrel must have sensed his reticence. “Then don’t tell me. Just remember. The music will show me.”

The Minstrel’s power rested on and revolved around his music. He never stopped playing.  However, Evo acquiesced, leaning back into his long comfortable chair, and closed his eyes.

He was born in a land now called Athens, during a time it was still known as Cecropia, to a people forgotten by all except history. His name, Euaristos (pronounced Evarishtosh), meant Well Pleasing.

His parents had been firm, but fair and loving, wanting only the best for their children. His father had been a farmer, and his mother a potter. Her work had many admirers, and they lived well for the era they had been born to. Evo could still hear her voice, singing as she worked in the shade behind their home.

As a young man, he grew restless; seeking adventure instead of the steady life they had provided. He had no desire for either farm work or clay. His siblings had all taken on the family labors, and with his parent’s legacies secured, Evo saw no need to stay.

He traveled to Egypt and joined their military. As an outsider, he had to prove himself, but it wasn’t long before he received his own command. Aged 21, he led a small band of miscreants and misfits that no one else wanted. For some unknown reason, they were happy to follow his leadership. If a job was messy or desperate, they sent for Evo and his rabble.

He first served Pharoah Narmar during the campaign against Lower Egypt. However, it was during the war against Nubia that he and his crew really made a name for themselves. It was a bloody war, and those who did were lucky to have survived it at all. Of the 50 soldiers under his command, only 13 still stood before him by the end of it. Evo considered it a sign, so he took what remained of his regiment and spoils, and fled further south, ultimately retiring at the age of 25 in the very lands of Nubia where they had spilled so much blood. Before settling, they had agreed never to speak of the atrocities they had been forced to commit.

Not long after, working with clay as his mother had taught him, he met the love of his life. She was tall, full-bodied, and stunningly beautiful. Her name was Ashri.

Their romance was a gentle one, but short-lived. Once her parents found out, they insisted on marriage before Ashri’s virtue could be spoiled by an outsider. They had yet to share a kiss. Evo was so smitten, that he didn’t hesitate to agree.

“But you’ve only just met this girl!” Amunet protested. She had served him well during their time in the military and was his closest friend. She reminded Evo of his little sister, full of love for all the world had to offer, even the darker elements.

“I was there for your wedding, Amu.” Evo replied, laughter bubbling up between his words. She had married their regiment's youngest member whilst still serving in the war effort.

“Yes, but Amon and I have known each other for years.” She was smiling. “You’ve barely even held this girl’s hand! What if she’s terrible in bed?”

Evo felt himself blush but couldn’t suppress his happiness. “Will you be there?” Was all he could manage.

“Of course, I will be there. We all will!” Amunet resigned to his joy. “None of us know where we’d be today if not for you, and this is important. When is it?”

“The next full moon.” He beamed at his friend, delighted to know his comrades and friends would all be there to celebrate his union with Ashri.

The day of their wedding finally arrived, and it was a glorious one for it. The weather was perfect, and Evo’s excitement for the event was the only thing that could eclipse it. As the sun set, the guests started pouring in. He only had his 13 companions there, but it seemed that Ashri’s entire village came to see them join in matrimony. Hundreds of guests were in attendance, and they filled the square in a dense and humid crowd. The children that couldn’t make it to the front sat on their parent’s shoulders, watching with wide-eyed wonder.

Evo stood waiting at the center. Ashri’s grandmother, Mamma Appa, stood by his side, ready to perform the ceremony.

Music filled the air as Ashri made her way through the parting crowd. She wore a simple, but delicate cream-colored gown that contrasted the midnight of her skin tone. She was even more beautiful than the day they had met; the sight of her took Evo’s breath away and sent his heart racing in his chest. It felt as if it would leap from his mouth if he didn’t keep it shut. He spared a glance for his friends, each with a drink in hand, who returned his gaze with fond nods and smiles. It seemed odd that no one else was drinking, but Mamma Appa had assured him that it was their custom to welcome the groom’s family in this manner.

“It is very potent though.” She laughed, “They are going to feel terrible in the morning.” He breathed a sigh of relief. She clearly didn’t know his friends, and just how deeply they could dip into their cups on a night out.

Standing beside him, Ashri looked like his personal angel; her face resplendent with a wide and happy grin. He caught the scent of jasmine and honeysuckle and inhaled deeply.

The murmur from the crowd settled just as the moon, full, glorious, and tinted blue, beamed through the trees onto the square and all that had gathered there.

Mamma Appa began. “We are here to perform the Joining ceremony. A union of blood and labor to span the ages.”

Evo considered it an odd way to phrase their love for one another, but he knew very little about the culture he was marrying into and understood he was in for several surprises over the years. He also knew that Ashri was worth it and that they had plenty of time for her to teach him their ways.

The crowd was silent as Mamma Appa continued. “Ashri, our daughter-host, has brought us a man worthy of the Joining, a sacrifice to the gods of Justice.”

Sacrifice? Justice?

“A son, bathed in the blood of many victories, destined to be its slave from this day forward.”

Slave?

Evo felt his instincts stir; the hair on his neck standing to attention. He looked at his bride. She was smiling up at him. The same smile that melted his heart when they first met, and he felt himself relax a little.

You’ve seen too much of war… and now you see danger everywhere.

As though she had read his mind, Ashri took his hand, which calmed him further. He turned his attention back to her grandmother.

“Now we perform the binding.” Ashri had prepared him for this step. It was an important part of the wedding ceremony. Each of them had to be bound, to then be freed before the crowd. It was a symbolic gesture of the protection they would provide one another.

Ashri was first, as her brothers bound her with soft linens at the wrists and ankles. She knelt.

“Do you take this woman as yours to protect from harm, danger, and those that would destroy her happiness?”

“I do.” Evo replied.

“Will you release her from her bindings?”

“I will.” He continued, gently cutting her free, helping her up once done. He handed her the blade and waited for his turn. Her brothers bound him, but not with the same linens she had been granted. Instead of a loose fit, he felt rough fibers dig deep into his wrists and ankles, and several hands holding him firm.

Again his instincts screamed for his attention, this time turning his gaze towards his friends. They were all slumped in their seats. Amunet’s cup had dropped from her hands, its contents now spilling into the hard-packed soil of the square. Her eyes were still open, but they had the distant glazed look of a woman who had clearly had too much.

Before he could say anything, he was forced onto his knees, and the hair on his head was forcibly yanked to lock his eyes with Mamma Appa’s.

“Ashri.” Her voice sounded flat to Evo; distant and cold. “Do you take this man as yours to protect from harm, danger, and those that would destroy his happiness?”

“I do not.” Her voice had turned just as cold. What was worse was that it was now laced with a layer of contempt. Focusing on her tone made the reality of her words slow to find their mark.

“Will you release him from his bindings?”

Ashri laughed and then kicked him hard in the stomach.

“I will not.” She said, then spat in his face.

“Ashri!” Evo cried. “I love you! What is the meaning of this?”

She didn’t answer, just gave him a hateful look as she turned to join her brothers.

He looked towards his friends. None of them had moved at all. The look of drunken sloth now appeared much more ominous.

It was at that moment that he realized he had willingly made himself a fool for love, and his friends were unable to help him.

I’m an Idiot!

 It was futile to resist or attempt an escape in his present situation; bound, surrounded, and alone. He wanted to scream but found himself unable to do even that.

A sensation he last experienced during battle overcame him. It only visited him during the most overwhelming of situations; when the odds really weren’t in his favor at all.

He fondly called the sensation Death’s Shadow. He considered himself lucky to have escaped real death on each of those occasions. Something told him he would not be so lucky this time.

He sighed. His friends were, at best, useless to him… and at worst, dead. He turned his gaze once more upon Ashri, her smile long gone. The hatred resting on her features contorted her beauty and tortured his heart. Unable to bear it any longer, he returned his focus to Mamma Appa, squared his shoulders defiantly, and waited.

“Do you remember a small town, 8 days ride north of here?” She asked.

He did, and his heart sank. He was unable to reply.

“Let me remind you.” She was relentless. “On a moon as full as this one, you and those animals snuck into one of our festivals, drugged everyone there, and then proceeded to massacre every last villager.” Her voice had risen as she spoke. She shouted her next words. “Do you remember them!?”

How could I forget?

“They weren’t villagers, they were a regiment of soldiers.” He lied, to them and himself.

The crowd vibrated angrily, disgruntled shouts condemning him from both near and far.

Mamma Appa held her hands high to still them. “Did you confuse guardians, women, and children for a fighting militia?”

“It was war…” the words felt thin to him. He didn’t want to continue, but something within him had wanted to share this story for a long time. “Our commander sent us to clear the way.” He felt tears choke him. “He told us they were a military encampment, and we were sent in to remove them so our army could proceed further South.” Sobs were heaving in his chest as he finished. “By the time we realized that he had lied… it was too late.”

“Why’s that? You could have stopped before the killing started.” Her words were like ice.

“The herbs we gave them…” he sobbed. “It kills the mind, and there is no remedy for the damage it does. They would have come to, unaware of their surroundings, of who they were or how to function… they’d have been like vulnerable babes left out in the wilderness, pickings for the animals.”

“Or your army.” She concluded his narrative for him, and he nodded in reply. The tears stinging his eyes tasted of salt and regret. “So, you slit every last throat there?”

He nodded again, now completely incapable of words.

She took his face in her hands and forcibly turned his head towards his friends. “Like this?”

Behind each of his 13 comrades, stood an unfamiliar face steeled with determination, a knife held firmly in one of their hands. He watched as they plunged those knives into the open and vulnerable curves of their exposed throats, spurting blood over their best clothes.

Amunet was the last to die, her body jerking violently, spilling her blood down the front of her dress. 

As her body grew still, the crowd started chanting words in a language he had never heard before. It filled his ears with a loud din that wanted to consume him. As they did, each of the killers pulled a vial from either a pocket or a sleeve, filling it with the blood of their victims. One by one, the vials were presented to Mamma Appa who performed a small ritual with runes she had drawn in the dirt, dripping a drop in the center of each rune, and then emptying the contents into a cup that rested on a table behind her.

Ashri had told him that the cup was for them to drink from when their union was official, as a symbolic end to the ritual of their wedding. It still stung him that she had lied so easily.

“I consider it a fateful boon in our favor that you had exactly 13 friends with you tonight.” Mamma Appa said as she stirred the contents of the cup, mixing in herbs he didn’t recognize. “I would have hated sacrificing any more of my people for this moment.” As she did, the runes at their feet started to glow with a faint red light. The chanting grew louder and faster as she approached Evo, the cup billowing tendrils of steam into the air.

“Now, drink.” She commanded.

One of the men holding him tilted his head back and pinched his nose, forcing his mouth to open. He briefly considered he could endure without swallowing, allowing it to spill from his mouth and spitting out whatever remained by the end, but that notion was thwarted as an unknown woman painfully shoved a hardened leather funnel down his mouth.

The moment felt like an eternity. The liquid was black in the moonlight and left the cup far slower than it had any right to. The warmth of it seemed a paradox to the cold contempt which he had experienced thus far.

As the final drop fell and rolled into the back of his throat, the chanting stopped, and all was still.

“You have been cursed!” Mamma Appa declared. “You will have a half-life; filled with misery and sorrow that you will be unable to remedy. You are now denied the grace of sunlight. Food will turn to ash in your mouth, and you will know nothing but a hunger that cannot ever be truly satisfied. Do you understand?”

Evo nodded, not understanding at all.

“Should you die with this curse still on your person, you will be cursed for eternity. There will be no peace in death for you. Do you understand?”

He nodded once more. Some of the blood had found its way back up his throat and the metallic taste was oddly satisfying. The realization horrified him.

“Finally.” Mamma Appa said. “You will want vengeance… and you will be denied. This ritual has cast a shield on all participants. Do you understand?”

Am I not dying tonight?

He finally found some words. “If I find a way to remove the curse before I die… I will be free?”

“Yes.” Mamma Appa replied with a smile, then stepped aside. Her act revealed Ashri, still dressed in her wedding gown, holding 3 knives in her hand.

She knelt before him, a distant look clouding her eyes.

“My husband and two children were in that village.” She said calmly before stabbing him in the chest. The act took the wind from his lungs. “My little girl was only 4. She had glorious hair and a beautiful little voice.” She continued, this time plunging another blade into the pit of his stomach. That one thrust felt like a thousand knives driving home at once.

“My little boy was 6, and he looked so much like his father.” She delivered the final blade right into his throat. The world was turning dark around him, blood spilling from all his wounds, and the runes scrawled into the dirt were turning red for a whole new reason.

Her final words hit him like a blow. “Do you have any regret at all?” She yelled at his face.

His vision blurred, and he fell backward, no longer needing to be held firm.

He knew he had very little time left. He mustered what strength he could find to meet her eyes; gargling the last words he would ever say as a mortal.

“I do.”