000
Die Lieder vom Lenz und Wein so süß
War'n die Hymnen uns'rer Zeit
Und wer in der Ferne die Heimat vermisst
Hat die Reise doch nie bereut
(d’Artagnan, “Feuer und Flamme”)
001
“What people seem to forget,” said Traveller, looking at the burning fireplace through the wine in his glass. “Is that the act of forgetting is a part of their essential human-ness. And so as long as there are humans, there will be those who the humans forgot. And there will be me.”
“But that still doesn't answer my question.” The old vampire by the name of Krieger closed his right eye and looked at Traveller with his left. “Who are you, really?”
“Is it a trick question?”
“No, but I don't mean to ask about your basic function as an oddity or about the circumstances of the mortal life of your current face.” Krieger coughed. “You are undoubtedly you. But you aren't the you we know. So, who are you?”
Traveller laughed and took a sip of wine.
“Did I tell some joke by accident?” Krieger tilted his head to the side.
“The joke is,” Traveller said. “I can't answer your question… because I don't know that myself.”
“Look,” he continued, as Krieger kept silent. “I simply don't know who exactly am I in relation to the oddity you knew. I saw you guys for the first time in my existence when Lady Wallenstein summoned me.
“I can be Traveller from the past or from a different timeline. I can be Traveller mark two. Or even mark two star or whatever they decide to call the new version.”
“I believe the current convention is ‘two-point-oh’...”
“See? I even have a centuries-old vampire educate me on modern slang.”
“That's normal; I learned it from a centuries-old dragon…”
“Anyway,” Traveller finished his wine and put the glass down on the table. “The final truth is - I don't know. I don't know you and I don't know why would you drag me out of whatever place in space-time I was in.”
“Are you sure you don't remember anything? The New Babylon? Stepping into the Void?”
“You know full well we aren't humans. We don't forget.” Traveller rubbed his forehead. “If I'd remember, I'd tell you.”
“Well… if that's how it is…” the old vampire got up from his chair. “Welcome to Castle Krieger, the home of the Krieger Foundation. Please enjoy our hospitality.”
“Weisz!” He called out and the maid dressed in the white maid uniform with a black apron opened the door to a study.
“Did you call, Master Krieger?” She asked.
“Yes, Weisz… please show the castle to our new guest.”
Weisz lowered her head, indicating that she understood the order, and looked at Traveller with a mix of joy, curiosity, and expectations.
002
“What is this, the rocket fuel!?” Traveller shrieked after trying a spoonful of soup Weisz just put on the table in front of him.
Ruprecht, sitting across the table from him looked dumbfounded and at the same time scared enough to hide under the table.
Weisz's face flickered with emotions. First, it flared up with furious anger. She was so angry that for a second her silver coins flew up and formed a brightly shining halo above her head. But only for a second. Her anger drowned in another emotion. The coins fell, - ding-ding-ding - jumped off the floor, spun for a moment, and fell flat.
Traveller, who already regretted his outburst, almost saw the maid’s tears.
“My apologies,” she said finally, taking the soup off the table. “Please excuse me for not making food to your liking. It won't happen again.”
Weisz turned away from Ruprecht and Traveller.
“I'm… I'm sorry…” Traveller started apologising. “It's not your fault… it's just too spicy… I'm sorry…”
“It's okay,” the maid said in a voice as far from ‘okay’ as the Big Bang is from the Heat Death of the Universe. “Please excuse me. If I am needed, I'll be… somewhere in the castle.”
She dissolved into a thick mist and drifted out of her kitchen.
003
“That was brave,” Ruprecht said, looking at Traveller. “Stupid, but brave. I see that didn't change.”
“Look, I'm sorry,” Traveller patted the pockets of his uniform until he found a pack of cigarettes and a lighter. He took a cigarette into his mouth, flipped open the lighter, making the flame light up, took a long drag, and let out a cloud of smoke.
“I just didn't expect the innocent-looking soup to be so hot… and spicy.” He said, putting the lighter back into the pocket.
“It's ok, she'll get over it… eventually.” Ruprecht grumbled, not pleased much with the bitter tobacco smoke on his face. “But still, saying it like that, right in her face… Please don't ever do it again.”
“I'm just too honest, it's a bad habit of mine.” Traveller took another drag of his cigarette.
“Not the only bad habit, that's for sure.” Ruprecht grimaced. “These things will kill you, you know?”
“Honesty?”
“Tobacco!”
Traveller shrugged.
“In a way, I am already dead,” he said. “And in a way, I never lived. So I might just as well indulge myself.”
“I guess so… at least don't blow smoke into my face, would you?”
“I'll try not to.” Traveller puffed out a few smoke rings - carefully aiming them to avoid Ruprecht.
“I… He… Well, the me you knew, he liked her cooking a lot, didn't he?” The soldier asked after a while.
“More than any sane person should,” Ruprecht smiled.
“Were they… we… close?”
“I mean… not in a way that question implies.” Ruprecht looked up as if trying to find the right words written on the ceiling. “Out of all of us, she was hit the hardest by your… his disappearance. It was quite a surprise for us. I don't mean to say we don't miss you… him. But Weisz being so devastated by it? That's new.”
“How so?”
“Previously… previously, I thought she cared so much only about her castle and her Master Krieger.” Ruprecht closed his eyes for a few seconds then continued. “But now… now I wonder if she would react the same if something would happen to any of us. Like, when I was captured and they had to save me… what was she like back then?”
“Something tells me I wouldn't want to be the one who captured you.”
“Yeah… considering they brought in Silver to deal with it… completely obliterated a whole island.”
“It was just a small rock!” Silver peeked into the kitchen. “Nothing to brag about.”
“Still…” Ruprecht shook his head.
“Oh bear, stop with the brooding, it doesn't look good on you.” She smiled, then got serious again. “What did you do to Weisz? She's in her room and is trashing the place. Soon there won't be a piece of furniture left. And she doesn't want me to join her!”
“I'll talk to her…” Traveller said, rising up. “Just show me where her room is.”
“Are you sure you want to? It's dangerous even for you, you know?” Silver asked, saw him nod affirmatively, and smiled again. “Then follow me, and be wary of the flying chairs. Those things are nasty.”
004
Weisz's room was ruined. Well, more like lifted up, turned upside down, shaken until every piece of furniture in it was broken, and then dropped down so everything landed haphazardly and in the wrong places.
The maid was quietly sobbing while kneeling on the floor in the middle of this chaos. Her hands lay limply on her knees, palms up to meet the tears raining off her face.
Silver pointed Traveller at the room and quickly disappeared, not risking being caught in the middle of what might come next.
“Weisz?” Traveller asked quietly.
And immediately ducked for cover as the silver coin darted forward and right through the space where his face had just been.
“Weisz, we need to talk.” Said he more loudly from behind the overturned chair. “We really need to.”
“What's there to talk about?” The maid said in a broken voice. Two more coins flew forward and dented the wall behind the Traveller’s cover. Both coins flew too high, he noted. At least she didn't try to kill him, just to make him leave.
“What's there to talk about?” He repeated her question before giving her an answer. “You? Me? Us? The situation we're in?”
“There is no situation,” she said, sending yet another coin his way. “There is nothing to talk about.”
“I think there is.” Traveller dared a peek from behind the cover. Weisz was standing now. Her face full of sorrow, anger and despair. Her hair was unkempt, her apron almost falling off her shoulders, and her arms extended to the sides slightly, keeping her coins flying in the air.
“I think there is a lot to talk about.” Traveller continued as Weisz stayed silent. “Look… I don't know what kind of relationship you had with that me you knew. I don't know who he was for…”
“He was a hero,” Weisz interrupted him.
“If you say so,” Traveller nodded, then risked standing up. “But if it is so then that's the problem.”
“You see,” he continued, making a small step forward towards Weisz. “Heroes live to change the world. That's what they do. And when they're done when the world has changed… it's a completely different world. They have no place there. And so, they disappear. Leaving only the fruits of their labor for others to enjoy.”
“There isn't much enjoyment for me…” Weisz lowered her arms, letting them fall against the sides of her body. “There is no enjoyment for me at all. There was hope before. But now it's gone too. Now there is nothing. Just… just you.
“You look like him, you talk like him, yet… you're not him. Not at all like him. Someone completely different who took over him.
“And I hate it and I don't understand how it happened, how it even could happen!
“We're oddities, we aren't humans. We are supposed to be unchanging, to simply always be… We aren't supposed to just disappear!”
“Humans…” Traveller looked around the destroyed room. “Humans think exactly the same thing. They, too, can't comprehend how it is possible for them to just disappear.”
“They're stupid! It's all so stupid!”
“Maybe…” Traveller shrugged. “Yet they are forced to live with this stupidity for their whole life. For generations. For ages. They are confronting it again and again as they grow older and come closer to disappearing themselves.
“And so they had to learn to deal with it. To live with it.
“They… they manage. They create traditions, rituals, whole religions - just to deal with it.”
These words squeezed a short burst of maniacal laughter from Weisz.
“Are you suggesting we should worship you as a god!?” She asked.
“That'd be reaching too far,” Traveller allowed himself a smile. “And inviting yet another strike from the Void, because a god is not who I am. But if you look at them, at humans… maybe you will find a way of helping you. A way of… dealing with it.”
“You're probably… you must be… angry at us?” Weisz finally got to fixing her falling apron.
“No. Why?”
“We… we plucked you out of whatever place you were in and dragged you here against your will.”
“Well…” Traveller scratched the back of his head. “It wouldn't be the first time. I always was, so to say, unstuck in time and space. And this place is certainly not the worst I've ever been to.”
“Still…” the maid’s hands clenched into fists.
“Remember, that vampire, Lady Wallenstein, she didn't transport me here. She invited me. She convinced me to come on my own will. That's her power.” Traveller shook his head. “So, Weisz… don't worry. Don't worry about this at least.”
“Will you… stay with us?” Weisz finally found enough strength to look him right in the eye.
“It's better if I don't.” This time it was Traveller’s turn to hide his eyes. “As you've said - I'm just a reminder of someone you've lost. And I don't think I can easily change that. Maybe if we meet another time…”
“I'm sure there will be another time.” Traveller thought he saw a shadow of a joyful smile on the Weisz's lips. “There has to be.”
“We'll see. For now, take care, Weisz. And please, retell what I had told you about humans to Master Krieger. Maybe together you'll think of something.”
“I will…” She looked at him and now there definitely was a smile on her face. “Safe travels, you military vagabond.”
“Thank you, Weisz. Stay safe too.”
And he left, leaving her amidst broken chairs, pulled out drawers and shards of a broken mirror.
005
Cordellina Wallenstein von Bluttenglitz zu Dunkelnacht sat on her living throne, looking at the man in military uniform standing before her. The man she called into here and now.
“So, commander,” the man said. “Ready to follow your further orders.”
“Oh Traveller…” Cordellina leaned back and gave him a sad smile. “There will be none. Except… As of this moment, you're relieved of duty.”
“Relieved?”
“Affirmative,” Cordellina said, looking straight into Traveller's eyes. “There are no battles to be fought, no glory to be won, no riches to be looted, and no cities to raze. Those times are long gone, Traveller, at least for me.”
“Go… go away, soldier.” At this point, Cordellina Wallenstein von Bluttenglitz zu Dunkelnacht was an embodiment of pure sadness. “You… You're reminding me of everything I have lost.”
“But you have all this.” Traveller gestured at the room around him filled with wealth and living furniture.
“All this…” The vampire gave out the saddest laugh of all time. “All this just to pretend I still am who I meant to be. All this just to prove to the Universe that I'm still in charge. All this just to not… disappear. To not get eaten by that Void that you, apparently, stepped into with a smile.”
“That wasn't me.” Traveller shrugged.
“Was… will be… it doesn't really matter.” Cordellina lowered her head, hiding her face from Traveller. “The conversation is over. You're dismissed. It's an order.”
006
The motorcycle blended into reality just outside of the building housing Cordellina's “Castle”. Ruprecht took off his helmet and looked around until he noticed a man in a military uniform walking along the street away from him.
“Hey, soldier!” Ruprecht called out and stopped the bike’s engine. “I thought I could catch you here… need a lift?”
“No thank you,” Traveller said without looking back. “I'll go on my own feet.”
“What are you going to do now?”
“I'm a traveler, Ruprecht,” the soldier said. “I'm gonna do what I'm supposed to do. Travel.
“And eventually… maybe… possibly…
“I'll come to where I'm supposed to be.
“Home.”
007
It was going to be the strangest crypt in existence… one sarcophagus in it was a resting place of an undead ghoul and the second one was an empty grave, a cenotaph.
The marble figure in modern military uniform held a knight’s sword, placing both its hands on the pommel and resting the point on the ground. The marble face was calm and unmoving yet anyone who looked at it and then closed their eyes couldn't remember what it looked like, as if it somehow was able to completely erase itself from one’s brain.
They stood there in silence. The aforementioned undead ghoul, the burly Christmas ghost whose whole thing was supposed to be hitting naughty kids with a stick, the foggy apparition that for some reason took the form of a loyal maid and one of the last dragons of this world, who didn't think she supposed to be here but couldn't find the strength to deny an invitation.
As the humans leave flowers on the graves of the departed, they are leaving here something beautiful yet transient. They were leaving here their memories - memories of an entity they all once got to know as Traveller.
The silence continued. The silence grew thicker up to the point one almost could hear the pit-pat of its droplets on the stone floor.
Then the ghoul turned and walked away, still silent. The Christmas ghost followed. The dragon next. And the maid last.
One by one, they left without saying a word out loud but looking at their faces, anyone could tell there were so many unsaid words behind that thick silence.
But they didn't need to be said.
Everyone knew.
It all came down to a short two-word sentence that silently echoed in the underground crypt. Two words that were on everyone's minds. Two words, most reasonable and most cruel.
Let go.
