Chapter 2 Arrival
The first week was the hardest. On one hand he had to get used of being an Adrian. Not that easy, being an Adrian felt more smooth and relaxed than being a Zacharias, who was man of action and a devil may care attitude. Inhabiting a body that felt older than dirt was another thing. Everything was incredibly hard to do and slow and exhausting. The worst part was his mind, that was as sharp and quick as always, which had to push and pull his decayed body to do anything at all and it took patience which he did not have. Maybe this was a lesson? Life trying to give him a more Adrian point of view? Of course that was bullshit, but one thing he had leaned very early in his life was that although most things in life happened just by sheer random chance, it was often better to take that randomness with all its sharp edges, spiky bits and uncomfortable angles and pack it into a plausible story. Giving it purpose and a deeper meaning. He wasn’t given this frail husk to become more Adrian like, nor had he named himself that way to ‘go with the flow of life’. But by deciding that this was how it worked he forced order into the chaos, he used his narrative, his will to make life conform to his wishes.
He had to smile as remembered how pleased his teacher was when he, during his very first life when he had still been Ferran de Finisterre, had finally understood this lesson. It had taken him so long and he had taken the longest, stoniest way to get there. He had been incredibly tempestuous back then, he had left his home and family behind for the heathen lands to the south to learn the secrets of magic. It had looked very promising at first, Granada was a city of incredible splendour when he was young one of the great centres of learning in the entire world. He manged to impress a teach who took him under his wing and then had tried to kill him with ridiculous arguments, strange philosophical ideas, odious riddles, oh how he hated those but worst of all: no magic. None at all.
Until he got that first lesson. Real magic wasn’t ‘magic’ one could not simply say some words of power or wave the arms ominously and make miracles happen. One had to accept reality first, its inevitability, the vagaries of life. All the horrible things that made life hell, all the reasons Ferran had fled his old life, what had driven him towards foreign and arcane knowledge. “You can’t break the world, Ferran.”, Ishraq his teacher had told him, “You can’t change fate. You can’t dictate your will on the universe, for this is only possible for Allah, all glory and praise be to Him. How ever you can accept the world, become one with it and then suggest how your way is the same as the way of the world. You can persuade it to walk with you. The more you are one with the world, the more you move with it, the more it will be moved by you.” That had made no sense at all to him for a long time. But when it finally it threw open the gates towards the realm of magic.
Adrian laughed. “This is almost better than magic.”, he was standing under the shower, hot water rushing over his body, warming him, washing away his bad mood, filling him with wonder. When lady Alania had told him that most of the house was forbidden to him as it would take time for him to get used to the new world, he had been disappointed, he had his bedroom, a small but very nice library, a corridor and a bathroom. But what a wonder the bathroom was. Flowing warm water. Endless amounts of flowing warm water. He could take a shower and let in a bath! At the same time. Ridiculous. But oh so gratifying. He was really looking forward to a bath, but that had to wait, for while he had no doubt he could getting into the bathtub without any problems, he did not think that he would be able to get out again without help. An indignity he could do without.
Day by day he overcame more and more the inertia of his body and got it going again. The first few days wh was mostly in the library reading up on the history of the world. He had started with big leather bound tomes rich with the detailed knowledge. After one, rather fascinating morning, he noticed that it would take him years to get even near the present. Also what he was reading about what happened in 1929 and 1930 made him despondent. For Adrian the great depression had not even been a week ago.So he switched to the lighter books, then the the colourful soft covers filled with pictures, neat little diagrams and ‘Did you know?’ boxes as well as glossy magazines. He could devour many of these in a single sitting and would only stop when the housemaid cam to serve the food.
On the figth day he was allowed into the garden. He wondered why, it was just a garden… Well whatever, he was happy to be outside, enjoy the sun and have an open space to pace around as he was trying to make sense what was happening to the world. The Second World War had shocked him deeply, every once in a while he had to stop look around, listen to the strange sounds coming from the city, breathing the air that carried the scent of the ocean with it, how had they come out of that? Everything around here was so normal.
Two days later the kitchen was opened to him. Not much of a shock here. It was a strange mix of what a proper kitchen should look like with some strange additions that seemed to have escaped from a pulp magazine. He especially enjoyed the microwave. A futuristic oven that looked like it had been washed to hot and had shrunk so that it would only if a large plate but heated up anything that contained water in mere seconds. Apparently by using electro-magnetic waves. He loved that. Once he learnt how to use the device, it used some form of arcane numerology that would have made Hermes Trismegistos proud, he insisted of heating up his soup or stew himself. He waved his arms dramatically and commanded the hidden waves that lived in within the lodestone and was enticed by the galvanic forces to transfer heat into his food. He never had felt that much like a real mage in that moment, and he could actually work real magic. He thought that was incredibly funny. The staff also laughed, a bit nervous at first but far more open after a while. He knew that they were mostly laughing at him, but you take the joys in life from where you can get it. Also since he was now obviously a bit crazy they treated him much more like a normal human being.
After ten days he entered the living room. Another room where he thought that he could have entered it much earlier. While still old, he was now more like a well maintained 90 instead of a well embalmed 100 and moving around helped him. In the end it was just a living room. Oh no a futuristic couch! An over there two horrible chairs, that would have been out of style in 1920. Or maybe he was to be protected from the fire place, that moder fixture of the far future? He turned around still looking for why he had to wait almost two weeks to be allowed her. It must be the the glass table around which the couch and chairs were arranged. It was made of glass, this strange material unknown to the lesser visitors of the past like him. He let himself fall into the couch feeling rather miffed. Sitting there he finally the strange mirror. It stood there on a small wooden altar, the looked like it was made just to place the strange lying monolith on it. Had the forgotten to put the tain in the back of it? He got back up and looked at it closer. The reflexion was poor. He poked it with his index finger. Nothing happened. He emptied his mind, opened himself to the strange blind window in front of him. Nope. It was not magic, but it was a masterwork of incredible intricacy. He looked behind it to see a mess of cables coming out of it. An electrical device? He upheld his meditation, trying to feel if there was some kind of sympathetic connections. The strongest was with the couch. An altar of sorts? It felt at the same time religious but also deeply profane. Fascinating. And there was something else. A small black rectangle, very vaguely reminiscent to the blind mirror. He took the box, it was covered in buttons.
He remained transfixed for the next hour or so, he did not even think to sit down, there was a moment where he had thought that he would have to go looking for his jaw later. Through that window, he saw the world, other worlds, places near and far, and he was surrounded by sound. It took him a while to realise that the decorative obelisks standing in the room, where some form of loudspeakers. He should have read more pulps he noted. This was like a hundred cinemas all appearing at once.
When he woke up the next day, twisted into an unnatural shape, the dark window still still showing its never ending mirages he conceded that confronting it with this technology on the tenth day showed a deep belief in his mental capacities.
After a few days entranced by the dark window, he started to regiment himself. He brought his books and writing materials with him. The strangeness of the 1980s had to wait for now, as he needed to understand for one how this strange device worked and he took notes of what he was seeing. It was clear that a lot of what he saw was just cinema, but other parts where showing reality or sometimes pretended to be real? It was a bit confusing at first. It showed him the present though and it prepared him for the emergent pattern machines, the big ones that were monoliths in their own way, which connected to a galvanic type writer, a dark window and strange pushy-shifty device allowed the user to manipulate what was happening behind the dark window. Oh and the ridiculous everything tablets which everyone seemed to be using all the time in certain motion pictures. At first he thought he was watching some kind of badly written science fiction story where people had access to all knowledge, and maps, and cameras, and music, and everything… He then noted that when it was fiction the devices were far larger then when it was real.
On day twenty he entered the office which had its own computer, as the emergent pattern machines were called.
After a month he got his everything tablet. This he got from lady Alania herself who was checking personally how he was doing and spent the rest of the day explaining it to him. Adrian could not get over that this devices wer called “smart phones”. There was nothing even remotely telephone like about them, apart of course that one could call someone with them from pretty much anywhere. After he gotten used to it he also received a laptop, which was a computer, but foldable and light. So that he could carry it around.
And a so called tablet. Which was like the everything ‘phone’ but larger, could do all the same things, but was larger. After he had furiously complained about it to the lady, her laughing most of the time while he was venting his frustration of how any of that made any sense, she returned to him with a so called e-book reader. Which looked like a tablet. But its dark window was black and white and not dark. It was to expensive and elaborate to be just a practical joke by the lady. So exasperated and tired he asked her why in Lucifer’s name one would need one of those things. Alania told him that they retained their galvanic power… sorry charge… far longer and they used something called electrical paper which made it more pleasant to read. “Also”, the Lady said, “This one here, contains more books than the library of Alexandria.”, she smiled and left shortly after.
Adrian hated himself for loving the reader so much. In time he got used to his ‘phone’, really enjoyed the computer and had developed a love hate relationship to the TV. Oh was absolutely enamoured of the sound system. He loved immersing himself in music, either when he was researching the world or just drifting away in daydreams and thoughts. Which led to the lady bringing him another gift. An MP3-player. He had been inhaling to start another tirade about why he should use a tinier version of the smart phone, just to listen to music. But then he reminded himself that that was not a very Adrian thing to do. So he just exhaled slowly.
“Does it use electrical musicians?” he asked.
“No.” The lady Alania said still amused but a bit disappointed by his reaction. “They just sound better. I also brought you few headphones chose the ones you like the most. It will be my last gift to you.”
He just arched an eyebrow.
“When you feel like it you should leave the house and have a look around the real world, it’s about time.” She said.
“Oh.”, right the world, was still outside, he had been lost in his research, he was still outraged by the 70s, deeply confused by the 80s, amused by the nineties and wondering why the new millennium had been at the same time so horrifying and yet boring.
“Are you having a senior moment?” Lady Alania asked, letting do the implications do all the hard work.
“What? No. I… It’s been a lot and I have been enjoying my life as a hermit a lot.”, he considered what he had just said for another moment, “How very Adrian of me.” He smiled.
“You were more exiting when you were asleep…” she said without humour. “You need to get out and get to know your neighbourhood. San Isidro is very nice and safe, if you wander walk in the direction of Miraflores it is shiny and Barranco which is interesting. Don’t stray to far though the city can be dangerous.”
“I’m over a thousand years old mom. I can take care of myself thank you very much.”
“And you still look almost one thousand years old my child.”, she pinched his cheek. Examined him for a moment. “I’d say you are back to a health seventy? Don’t do anything to dramatic before you are back in your forties OK?”, after a short pause, “On the other hand seeing how Adrain you are being lately, please do something. At all. It’s good for you.”
It took him a few more weeks to read travel guides and blogs and polishing his Spanish back up to decent levels. The latter part was embarrassing, he was born in Spain but he had not kept up with his mother tongue in a long while.
So after three months of sheltering he opened the front door of his house and went exploring.
He hesitated for a moment, standing on front of the door set in the wall that shielded his house from the outside world. So far he had been slowly introduced to this new age room by room, behind this last door was an entire new world that had moved so fast during the time he had slept. When he retreated the world had fallen of a cliff and never stopped accelerating even as it had caught fire almost turning to ash it had not stopped. A phoenix which was not stropped by small trifles like being reduced to dust, it had died in motion and reborn in motion. It had travelled so far from the point where Adrian had decided to lay Zacharias to rest that this new present seemd as far away from him as his first life in the past. His jaw tightened, he inhaled and opened the door.
The city outside was… just a city.What confused him the most was how normal it all seemed. People where still just people. Yes they were wearing strange clothes, but Adrian had lived through more than 1000 years of fashion, 1000 years of filled with so many attempts on the life of good taste, this wasn’t really that impressive. There was a lot of variation in what the people where wearing. The colours where nice. But it was the year 2020, he laughed and shook his head, he was so incredibly far in the future, but everyone was looking so mundane. He didn’t really know what to he had expected, especially after having watched the new world through the dark window. The cars where everywhere and look suitably advanced, he would have not been surprise if they one of them taken off and flown to the stars or something, however in the end they where just very fancy cars.
The first day he didn’t travel far, just a walk around the block and then walking down the most promising streets. Always returning back to his home when it felt that he was still close to his house, but when he turned around the street looked somewhat strange. A strategy that had served him well over the centuries. Especially when he had to leave a city in a hurry and get used to a new home quickly. The inquisition hadn’t been much fun.
During the first few days the feeling of familiarity gave way to a growing feeling of unease he had expected on his first day. It were the small things that felt wrong. Pretty much everyone had an everything device, he still hated calling them “smart phones”, it was such a misnomer. He was a man who had learnt of the power of names, how proper naming was a path towards power, yet these little devices which were connected to electronic libraries filled, well with everything really, were so ridiculously misnamed. They were deep grimoires which opened the doors to all truths and all lies mankind knew. Calling them by such a profane name devalued them it also obscured their darker nature.
To make them work one had, through arcane rituals, close a contract with the Provider, an inhuman entity which he later learnt was the manifest will of a company, the Provider gave one a true name closing the connection to the device. Once this was done one could communicate in writing, with speech and even through moving pictures to everyone else who also held one of these devices, as long one knew the others true name. He wondered why the religions drawn towards the cleansing powers of fire had not acted against them. But that was mostly his medieval mind talking.
The thing was, people where constantly using these things. Always with one foot in this world and with the other foot and the other. He had never been a friend of pacts closed with inhuman entities, that always lead to all kinds of misery. And yet here was humanity where everyone from small children to the old were bound to their pocket monoliths. Hrodpreht would have loved this another immortal around his age, who was utterly fascinated with the outer forces. They first met inside a ruined temple of a forgotten civilisation, Adrian was mostly curious Hrodpreht was doing an experimental series of blood sacrifices to the presumably dead gods to see if they where maybe just sleeping or casting their inhuman gazes on other worlds. Hrodpreht had been the first immortal Adrian had met. They had travelled together for while, Adrian had hoped to learn more about immortality; being freed from the fetters of mortality was far more confusing that he had thought. Their partnership didn’t last long. They had very different views of the world, also Adrian was convinced that Hrodpreht with his love for the dark, the forbidden and the mind breaking was depite his robust immortality destined to die young. The last time he had met him was during the Great War, Adrian traumatised and disillusioned was trying to get as far away from Europe as possible, while Hrodpreht was pushing deeper into the most contested territories. If that mad bastard was still around he would be ecstatic about this development.
It would take him a while to get used to it. He could not shake the feeling that there was a force blind to mankind that was growing deep into human minds. Maybe it was just all the electromagnetic waves that now where everywhere. What annoyed him to no end was that he kept catching himself being no better than the others. He would consult his endless grimoire about the weather, the latest news, make it take pictures of fascinating spots he discovered during his exploratory strolls to the outside world. Or make it play music to him so that he could take a step back from reality moving through it like a ghost. That made it much easier to just try and absrob the spirit of this new era with its strange idiosyncrasies. He quickly mastered the art of making playlists, so that at will he could change the atmosphere of his surroundings at a whim.
The pestilence that had gripped the world, as it turned out was a virus that depending on its whims and the hosts cellular peculiarities would pass unseen, maybe causing damage to the hosts organs with out them noticing or causing symptoms from the mild to the deadly. It was like natures version of Russian roulette, only that nature in this case was holding the gun to humanities head.
Everything looked perfectly normal outside though. This was nothing like the plague for example or any other of the more dramatic diseases that had haunted mankind over the centuries. Adrian was more afraid of it than of all the others because it was so unassuming. Again much like the technology around him, it made its presence known in small and strange ways. Many people where wearing masks, to protect themselves and others, that however had hardly any impact on daily life and could as well have been a stylistic choice of the new times or it could just as well have been a measure against one of the lesser diseases.
The strangest thing was that there now where days for men and days for women where they were allowed to leave the house and when they had to stay inside. So whenever Adrian was outside to explore the streets, there were only other men around. Like the phones this was something that was not really obvious at first but created a feeling that something was off.
Something isn’t right.
This was the feeling that lodged itself into Adrian’s heart as the months passed. Despite some high points in his excursions, like discovering a large park where ancient olive trees grew who had been around for almost 500 years. Several food places, all of them spectacular, the enjoyed the Chinese place and a small takeaway place that sold freshly fruit juice and roasted chicken the most.
There was also the day when he found the sea. He knew it had to be around here somewhere as he could always smell the salt in the air, often when he was wandering about he could also feel a fresh breeze carrying the smell of the deep dark waters of the Pacific ocean. Nevertheless it had taken him weeks to finally get there. He was following his old method of exploration, by the time he had discovered new park, much smaller than the one with the olive trees, the ocean’s presence in the air had turned into something familiar, vanishing in the background just as the sound of the cars and the deep love their drivers hat for their horns, that he hadn’t given it much thought anymore.
He walked through a grove of trees, when the city just ended. Behind him was Lima sprawling seemingly endlessly in every direction, crawling north and south deeper into the desert, to the east crawling up the Andes, to the west though it came to an abrupt halt. The city sat on a cliff over a hundred meters above sea level. In front of him was only the ocean and the sky. He stood there for a long time lost in memories. Mostly of his youth where he had spend a lot of time standing on cliffs looking out at the Atlantic dreaming of adventure and freedom. He was from a place called Finisterre, literally the end of the world, which was exactly how it had felt back then. Behind him all of Europe and Asia in front of him nothing. Just the Mare Tenebrosum.
He did not notice the tears silently running down his face. He was lost in this old feeling that for a thousand years he had tried to get away from, yet here he was all of the world, all of his lives behind him and in front of him, nothing, just the end of the world.
After the day he had found the Pacific his rejuvenation had slowed considerably. His feeling of foreboding became stronger. Although he would never admit it, least of all to himself, he started to avoid certain places. Always the ocean as well as certain corners, that felt especially off. And so bit by bit he retreated back into his house. His excursions becoming shorter, focused more on what was familiar, avoiding the unknown, the unsettling and the irksome.
His body had reached an age of 70 when he stopped growing younger. His mind turned inward, for the fist time in his life it started to become old. Zacharias would have been horrified seeing his greatest fears come true, Adrian didn’t notice. Adrian didn’t care. Adrian just wanted to be left in peace, spending most of his time reading books. When the government of Peru declared a full quarantine lock-down, he was relieved. No his hands where bound, he had to stay at home.
With a sigh of relieve he sank into his favourite chair in the library, a cup of hierba luisa tea at his side, filling the room with its citrus aroma. This was perfect. He sipped the tea, and opened the large leather bound tome, a work on the history of the late middle ages. It was a great book that brought back so many memories of his past lives. Those had been exiting times, the light of the Renaissance was already starting to illuminate the horizon of this fading age, European scholars rediscovering the great works of antiquity. What a time to be alive. He smiled stepping back into the past.
Time lost any meaning. The man who should have been Adrian, had retreated from the world. The library was now the centre of his existence. He had even started a project. He began to look for the histories he had lived through. At first to relive his glory days, soon he became irritated by the many errors in them, the weird interpretations by people who obviously had no idea of the deeper context of what had happened. How could they? They hadn’t been there! Then he started to notice that depending on the time an culture the person writing came from one could see how much they projected their personal view on the things that had happened in another place and time. That was hilarious to him. He had spent weeks laughing. The idea had struck him while he was back in the kitchen, it was the middle of the night, the help had long left for home, as he was making himself another hierba luisa. He knew. He was there. He could correct the accounts. He could write a monograph, setting things right. When his tea was ready he went back upstairs and started immediately with the work which would consume most of his waking hours.
Day turned into weeks into months.
Until one day, in the middle of the night someone rang the bell of his home. He had almost fallen of his chair. For one there was still a strict quarantine that was strictly enforced by the state. An there was also the little detail that there should be no one ringing his doorbell at all. The help had their own keys. Lady Alania never visited without announcing her plan to do so well in advance, besides, now that he had been up and awake for months and could bloody well take care of himself she had as was usually faded away from his life. She was a busy dragon who would keep in touch eventually.
He decided to ignore it.
The bell rang again. Twice.
He rolled his eyes, steeled himself and kept reading his book. He would not move. Who ever it was he highly doubted that he wanted to see them.
He was starting to relax again, when the bell started ringing again. Repeatedly. He reached for his mug of hierba luisa, that would sooth his nerves, helping to weather the sonic storm. It was empty. He cursed in a dead language mostly forgotten to mankind and got up.Who ever it was should better leave soon, as he was feeling his righteous anger rising. He went to his bedroom, there was an intercom next to the door. He turned it on looking at the tiny monitor. It was too dark to see the person outside clearly. The closest streetlight had burnt out a few days ago, no one had replaced it, he didn’t care, until now. There was someone there. Standing to close to the camera to make out any details, it was a person, obviously and it was carrying a cross? Not small, but also not very large. Maybe something that you would take to a procession? He looked at the strange silhouette trying to make sense of it, when he was rattled by another ring of the doorbell.
He pushed the button on the intercom that allowed him to speak with whoever it was standing outside there terrorising him.
“Yes?”, he said, his voice harsh, making it very clear that he was not in a welcoming mood.
A female voice, not the least impressed by his attempt to scare hr away answered, “I am looking for Sam Everard.”
His heart constricted as he heard that name, breathing became a monumental task, his blood more or less disappeared from his body, leaving him him cold and dizzy.
“Hello?”, the female voice said, “I said I’m looking for Sam Everard.”, she waited for a few seconds then added, “It is an urgent matter.” The faintest of cracks appeared in her calm voice as she said that.
Inside the man who should be Adrian, who had been Zacharias and almost 400 years ago was called Samuel Everard, had to fight just to remain standing. He forced him self to breath in, the air rattling and wheezing into his lung. He swiped his brow damp with cold sweat with his hand. “Sam Everard…”, he wanted to lie but he couldn’t, “Is long dead.”
“So you know him?” she asked.
“I… It’s been a long time… that I heard his name. He…”, he couldn’t think of anything coherent to say.
“So, it’s you?”, she asked.
“I am not Samuel Everard.”, anymore.
“Well…”, she said, “I wanted to talk about a promise he gave a long time ago.”
A chill ran down his spine and he started to shiver. Old memories, not forgotten but carefully storned away in a special place of his mind and heart, burst into his mind. He could feel her hand, small and frail on his arm. The smile on her face now marked by a long life full of joy and sorrows, it was still radiant and warm, carried all her wit and charm with it, neither old age nor grey hair could hide the radiant beauty of her soul.
“Oh Sam…” she said shaking her head. “I wish I could keep going, like you and believe me, I hate this more then you, it’s me who is going to die after all and how dull will heaven be without you.”, she looked him in they eyes, her gaze filled with sorrow, “how long will I wait there for you to come back to me.”, she looked away again, “But then, I’ll have all the time in the world.You Sam, you need to move on. Carry me in your heart, but you need to move forward.”
“I mean it,” Samuel said, “you have my word my evening star.”
“Oh Sam,”, she shook her head, “are you calling me the devil again?”
“That is the morning star.” He said.
“It is the same star, you know that.”, she laughed, he always fell for it. It always made her laugh how angry he got for her, int was funny, it was also always worth it for what came next.
“What is important is that it is the brightest star in heaven, just as you are the brightest one on earth.”, he said.
Despite all these years, despite her being convinced that there where many other stars much brighter then her in the world she blushed.The sincerity of his words, his passion, it always got her.
“Also you are trying to distract me. It won’t work, not this time. I will give it to you in writing. Wait here.” He got up and left the room. Elinor wonered what he thought she would do, jump out of her bed and run away?
“Sir?”, the woman outside Adrian’s house said, “I know it is you.”, there was a hint of doubt in her voice. “I know you once gave a promise.”, the figure outside moved a step back, revealing a young woman, who had a long slender cross lying on her shoulder. With one hand she held up an old parchment envelope. “You made promise.”
“Come in.” Adrian croaked and pushed the buzzer.
