Shrouded Piety: Order of Yaktosh - Chapter 2

Chapter 1 < | > Chapter 3
Nearly a thousand years have passed since the bishop known as Sixtus convinced the Crimean Goths to exile Suri into the deep depths of an old well, to the great dismay of Modestus. All these centuries later, a writing by Father Modestus attracts the fascination of a newly appointed Grand Master of a Crusading holy order of knights. Modestus writes in the letter the tragic and unjust fate of Suri all those centuries ago and pleads for honorable Christians of the future to return to the old Gothic village known as Yaktovus and save Suri. Together with three knights, the Grand Master returns to the Gothic village ruins of Yaktovus in search of this supposed well... 
==Chapter Reading==
== Chapter 2 – Yaktovus =
1250—centuries passed since the three Roman bishops arrived in Gothic Crimea on a conversion mission. Goltz-Plut’s bid to avoid a Roman invasion by converting its populace to Christianity would ultimately result in a miserable failure, no longer having the supernatural likes of Suri by his side nor independence from Rome. This period of Roman occupation would be soon followed by the great severing of the Roman Empire into independent East and West halves, and in those centuries to follow, both would furthermore shatter into smaller states. In the history to follow would come the pope’s rise to power in Rome in the form of the Papal States, the eventual schism of the Christian faith between Roman Catholicism and Eastern Orthodoxy, the rise of Islam in Arabia and beyond, and from all of this, several great periods of conflict between the Christian and Islamic world. During all of this, the injustice of Suri’s exile down the well remained unanswered. In the very center of the 13th century, this was to finally change…
Some high vegetation blocking the path of some men were chopped down by a bright white knight with a red cross proudly dyed into his tunic. He held down the remaining vegetation so that his fellow knights could pass through easily. One came through with a very old piece of paper in his hand.
The swordsman let go of the vegetation and followed, in French suggesting, “If there was nothing to find in the well back there, why continue searching?”
The man with the paper replied, “Father Modestus wrote that she was abandoned into a well outside of Yaktovus.”
“His meaning is too vague. He could refer to a well in any settlement outside of Yaktovus. Why would this village have two wells?”
A scrawnier and shorter knight answered, “The Goths were a primitive people, Baldrick. Perhaps one was not as efficient as the other.”
But Baldrick persisted, “I should wonder as well if this woman did not eventually escape from the well, or was released, or, dare I suggest, cease to exist?”
The leader of the group asked, “Are you trying to say that this favor to Father Modestus is a waste of time? That his plea for help should be ignored?”
Baldrick raised his eyes up and shrugged, “Well, I think Father Modestus was owed help… almost a thousand years ago. If I may speak so freely, I believe our time would be put to better use reclaiming Jerusalem.”
“If what Father Modestus claims about this woman is true, she will prove use in accomplishing this and more.”
Baldrick nodded, “Yes, Grand Master.”
The white knights continued along the outskirts of a now overgrown part of what was once known as the village of Yaktovus—now mostly just some inscribed stones and an aged well. The village that was once led by Goltz-Plut and cared for by Suri was now nothing more than primitive ruins overgrown with grass and weeds; the most unchanged part of the village was the shoreline it sat against.
After minutes more of walking, the Grand Master summoned, “Egbert.”
The knight holding the paper became alert, “Yes, Grand Master?”
“Does the Father’s letter detail any sense of direction?”
Egbert answered, “Only that the well was still in eyesight of Yaktovus. It is unlikely that the well existed by the beach, so it should be anywhere but south of the village.”
The group stopped together and almost simultaneously looked back together in the direction of the ruins. They could not see anything that resembled civilization at this point, complicating their search.
Baldrick commented, “I see no village. We must have gone too far.”
Egbert noted, “But hundreds of years ago, when buildings were still erect, we may have.”
Baldrick grimaced at the Grand Master, “Egbert is not wrong. We could be close, but we could also be far. Who knows what one might have seen of Yaktovus almost a thousand years ago from this position.”
The Grand Master, without looking, asked the remaining knight, “Conrad?”
Conrad shrugged, “I recommend a 200-degree patrol, in a series of maybe four or five, so that we cover as much ground as possible.”
Without any debate on the idea, the Grand Master nodded and guided the men forward.
This mathematical strategy of patrolling columns of a radius around the remains of Yaktovus would go on for hours given the cautious size of the patrol radius. The knights, for the most part, were quiet while on the move, rarely speaking for the sake of mission related discussion, but casual banter was for the majority of the patrol kept to a minimum. Despite the sweaty foreheads of all these men, there was a professional display of discipline, for while this was a special mission orchestrated by the Grand Master, his men did not complain a single time of his rationale.
By their third wave of patrol, each man had become very familiar with the consistencies of the Yaktovus terrain, leaving them in a position where even the smallest inconsistency they encountered was spotted, and possibly reported if warranting it. The Grand Master himself took this a level higher.
“That bird, it is quite the color.” While still walking, each man searched for the bird in question with Baldrick being the first to spot it. “God’s nature is perplexing but all so purposeful.”
Baldrick replied, “I do not see any well in the bird’s direction.”
The Grand Master felt his large beard and answered, “As I said, perplexing as God’s nature is, there is something unusually specific about such a bird.” He waved a hand in its direction, explaining, “Why is such a rare bird here, and now? Is it looking for something in particular? Or someone?”
Egbert suggested, “Then we might as well investigate in its direction?”
“We must persevere on the path we have taken,” the Grand Master dictated. “God has sent his creation here to inform us of something, not to grant us some shortcut.”
They thus passed this bird with this matter in mind, deciding to stick to the lengthy patrol radius rather than chase birds. Not all were strongly in agreement with the call, but no one so strong in their conviction as to protest.
Unfortunately, as the hours continued to pass, so did the completion of their patrol and to no avail. They rested as far north of Yaktovus, still barely in sight of its ruins if the sun were still up. The result of their search merely suggested that the only well at Yaktovus was the one found directly in the ruins itself, and not outside of it like Father Modestus had written centuries ago. Even so, failure of the human eye on an initial patrol to find a second well did not confirm its lack of existence. Although the first day’s failure warranted a morale loss among the group, they knew this mission was not over.
With all of this set in stone, the day was indeed over, and rather than returning to their vessel and needing to trek all the way back to this point the next day, the group reluctantly agreed to bookmark the spot of their search by setting up camp. A fire crackled under a starry night to the many sounds of wild animals and insects around them.
The Grand Master of this group, while not yet asleep, was already laid out in preparation to do so. Conrad joined him in laying around, but was still equipped in his gear. Egbert and Baldrick were still up on their feet, processing the mission at hand.
Baldrick asked his companion, “Egbert, what do the traditions of the Crimean Goths tell us about this mission? Would they permanently exile a person of such supposed gift? Or would she have been eventually released?” Egbert had his eyes strongly glued to Baldrick, but upon thinking would laze his gaze a bit downward. “Further to the point, is there any clue that may suggest this woman was released from the well and now sponsors a different tribe?”
Egbert admitted, “I do not know that, I cannot know this. My feeling based on today’s search would be that she is no longer here.”
Baldrick then wondered, “If that is the case, is the mission not already a failure?”
“On the contrary,” Egbert raised a finger, “Our mission is to address Father Modestus’ centuries old plea. If our mission concludes that she is no longer here, then for better or worse she is no longer here and his concerns are then answered.”
Having overheard this, the Grand Master from upon his back inserted, “If she is not here, then the matter rests solely in God’s hand. If she no longer lives, she is with the Lord; if she is elsewhere on Earth, he shall deliver her to Rome. But if she is here, it is our duty to rescue her.”
Conrad too added, “That is what concerns me. If we do not find her, how would we ever know for sure if we did everything we could to address Modestus’ plea for help? We have searched far and wide for this supposed well, but what if this well is just a few steps outside of our search range?”
The Grand Master concluded, “Then we must address our own concerns as well and do what is needed to relax our own in addition to Father Modestus’.” This soft threat left already shaken morale a bit more reduced. “Now rest, and trust in the Lord to keep us walking on the path of Heaven’s will.”
Egbert and Baldrick responded to this by breaking their active stances and taking themselves to the ground, but even there, the two continued to dwell on the complexity of today’s mission, and what it would take for them to return home satisfied with their efforts.
At the crack of dawn, all would find themselves still asleep, but it was the perfectly imposed rays of a sneaking sun that shined on the face of Baldrick, and despite his attempt to roll out of its way, collapsed to the temptation to open his eyes. The first thing he witnessed, to quick shock, was the presence of a tiny yellow and black bird walking around the area between him and Egbert. It was not the same bird from the previous day, but nevertheless a rare sight.
The man raised himself up, prompting the bird to fly off like a freshly launched arrow. He proceeded to flex some of his muscles to break out the morning cracks, and after doing this examined the fact that all his brethren were still resting. The fire had long stopped burning and even from here the sound of ocean waves hitting the coast became one of the only sounds available to him. The other sound was the occasional chirping of a bird close by, and as he would soon discover, it was the same small yellow bird that he awoke to.
Baldrick picked his helmet up but let his hair experience the Crimean morning a bit longer, all the while he stared at the lingering yellow bird with a brow raised. The bird acted in a sporadic manner, choosing the branch of a tree to land on, but then persisted on a distressed cycle of flying off and on that same branch. The knight’s mind was provoked by the bird’s nonsensical behaviorism, and it left him approaching for a better view.
It was during his approach that the yellow bird finally rested over the branch and ceased its panicked state. Baldrick, too, reciprocated this return to calmness and stopped short of the branch. This peaceful interaction between human and nature had an effect on the man which, for the time to follow, left him observing his immediate surroundings with wonders of the past. Imaginative thought of the Goths who once inhabited this area of Crimea came to mind, ranging from savage interpretations to tribal everyday life. While imagining the Goths from a naïve interpretation of naked men and women covered barely by cloth, he wondered how possibly the words of Father Modestus could be true, that within such a society existed a woman with a greater mission in life from God.
These wonders were ended as the yellow bird eventually took off flying. Baldrick followed for a moment, but stopped only a few steps in. His interest would renew, however, for far ahead the bird resumed a panicked cycle of movements over a lightly wooded area. With one look back at his encampment, Baldrick rushed forward with a bit more urgency, investigating the bizarre nature of this avian some more.
Within the middle of this wooded area existed a mound that the bird eventually rested upon. The mound was something out of place, like a grassy pimple upon otherwise flat terrain. Baldrick’s approach of the mound scared the bird away, but only so much as to break reaching distance between the two; it now insisted on flying around this wooded area in a rather large radius.
“Am I to suppose this is your nest of secrecy?” Baldrick asked with half playfulness.
The knight gently kicked the mound—and just as quickly grunted in shock to the hard structure his boot would greet. He looked up quickly, but the morning bird had vanished from sight in what further mystified him. Now he brought himself to a knee and with a gauntlet removed went on to place a hand over the thick mound. This was undoubtedly thick with vegetation, but underneath that vegetation existed a truly hard surface.
In search of the answer he was hoping for, Baldrick took on the real test of unsheathing his sword and cautiously pointing it into the thick of vegetation. He placed all his concentration into a surgical procedure that had him digging the blade deep into the mound until, at last, the gratifying sound of rock met the tip of his blade.
“Brothers!” he shouted. “Awaken at haste and bring forth the repelling equipment!”
The disciplined nature of these knights meant that in less than three minutes, all men were awake and surrounding this discovered anomaly. What Baldrick knew well at this point is that facing them was not a true earth mound, but in fact the overgrowth of grass and weeds over the course of nearly a thousand years. Baldrick and Conrad, the two muscles of the group, were working hard in ripping apart this thick overgrowth by cutting all around it, ideally allowing them to lift the vegetation off.
In the meantime, the Grand Master asked Egbert, “This location seems to fit the description of Modestus’ letter.”
“Indeed,” Egbert raised said letter and answered, “This location makes sense, as it is close enough to Yaktovus that they could have released her if they wanted, but also far enough no one would have heard her screams for help.”
“Let us hope for the outcome we seek.”
After a thorough cooperative effort in carving a ring out of the vegetation, Baldrick said, “Ready, Conrad?”
“Grab hold!”
The two men grabbed the overgrowth from both ends and raised it with little struggle at all. Egbert and the Grand Master observed in awe, met by the unexpectedly messy image of a stone structure lost for centuries covered in the juices, insects, and slime that came with so much vegetation. When the top layer of the overgrowth was thrown aside, it immediately became apparent to all that they had succeeded in their mission. Before them stood the remains of a well barely recognizable by this modern time. There was no doubt that this was the well that an immortal woman was thrown down long ago, so claims the centuries late Father Modestus.
Egbert covered his nose, “That is a foul most offending.”
Conrad replied, “That is the smell of life left undisturbed for centuries.”
Baldrick added, “I suddenly find myself with the ill feeling that we have somehow defied God’s natural will by opening this well back up.”
But the Grand Master said to this, “Modestus claims that an injustice was imposed upon a follower of God, and if so, we are tasked with rectifying the crime—even if the answer ends up being to condemn this supposed immortal ourselves.” This answer had little to no effect on the general mood of the group. “Baldrick, are you ready?”
The man in question pulled on his utility belt, which included the means to create fire as well as a mechanism that would let him repel down the well. Conrad secured the rope that would bring Baldrick down.
“Ready, Baldrick?”
The strong knight carefully raised himself over the unstable edge of the well and nodded, “I only hope my nostrils survive this well’s stench.”
The Grand Master instructed, “Tug on the rope when you’re ready to return.”
Conrad and Egbert handled the surface end of the rope with feet firmly down, and with this, Baldrick descended slowly down the well with both feet against the wall. To his surprise, the inner walls, much like the outside, was covered in a gooey substance left by vegetation and the years of heating caused by a lack of ventilation. It did not take long for Baldrick to recognize the danger of this.
“Brothers, I may need to return to the surface and fetch myself a flame of some k-”
A somewhat tragic but predictable outcome ensued, as one of Baldrick’s steps was particularly slippery and resulted in him losing control of things. He flailed about shouting in the dark, clearly falling, but was just in time stopped by a safety measure taken by Conrad and Egbert above. While this stopped him from falling to his death, the save was very temporary, for the rope seconds later severed and had him falling a few more meters, this time landing flat on his back.
“Baldrick!” Conrad shouted down. “Are you alright!?”
The floored man opened his eyes, catching the distant sight of Conrad far above. The well had far more depth than the previous, and he had sincere doubt that any rope they owned would be able to reach this far.
“I am well!” Baldrick sat up with a hand cupped to his mouth. “The well goes further beyond than we imagined! Tie two ropes together strictly so!”
Words were shared over the surface, but too low in volume and too distant for Baldrick to make out the specifics of. Either way, he had no fear, trusting in his brethren to answer his predicament effectively. He thus reached to his belt and took out a dagger from which he prepared sparks. A sudden unknown sound surrounding him stopped the man for a moment, now causing him paranoia as to what he would find once he got a fire going. He stayed his silence for a time, waiting for the return of this sound’s actor, but after waiting some time approached his sparking method again slowly.
A single strike more was all that was needed for the wood to catch flame. Instant shivers came down the man’s spine, for he was not prepared for what would be revealed to him.
“Great wonders…” he muttered.
The bottom of the well was anything but dull, for virtually every inch of wall in this well contained a writing or picture, mostly sticking to a type of script found in the remains of Yaktovus. There was so much though that Baldrick could not imagine where to begin looking, and so for that first minute he just stood there, soaking in the moment with a jaw dropped. A second wind of shock soon caught him by surprise, for when looking down, he indeed found that the very ground he stood upon was filled with writing and pictures.
The knight finally decided to investigate further, placing himself against a wall and determining that the markings were carved—but not by fingers. Furthermore, there seemed to be evidence of age among the writings, suggesting that some were written many years before others, and in some cases, evidence of ‘erased’ writings existed in the form of scraped wall. The one consistency throughout the well was that the writing was Gothic, which made one particular writing all the stranger.
In one spot of the well, there was a rather simplistic drawing of a woman in a dress, including a cloth headpiece. Her hair was very long, as was her height. While the face was void of any detail at all, a notably inconsistent detail was an Ankh located just below her throat. The rough cutwork of the Ankh shape could have easily been missed, were it not for the most bizarre feature of the entire well by far, located directly above the drawing of this woman.
“What the..?”
Among an ocean of Gothic script, there existed two rows of Egyptian writing in the form of hieroglyphics. The Egyptian hieroglyphics, compared to the Gothic script, were very detailed as if written straight out of ancient Egypt. The woman and her Ankh, along with the hieroglyphics above her, quickly became the most puzzling part of the well. This also raised an obvious question.
Finally, Baldrick turned around with his torch with haste, looking for any sign of life down here. He found no life, but in fact to the contrary. Located alongside the wall opposite to him, Baldrick found skeletal remains of great age. These remains were so dusty that they would have blended in with the environment, had the environment not been written all over.
Just as Baldrick was about to kneel before the skeleton, he had stepped on a loose object. Soon, he raised up yet another piece of mystery to the well: A very clean golden necklace, shaped as a speared star, and connected to this necklace was a cross in far worse condition. There was obvious reason to question the very maintained quality of the golden star, but the fact remained that he found a skeleton and necklace together at just about the same time. It was not the answer the Grand Master came hoping for, but to Baldrick, a legitimate answer it was: The Gothic immortal woman was long dead.
There was one more curious discovery Baldrick would make at the simultaneous moment that a new rope came down the well for him.
“Baldrick!” Conrad shouted. “Did you find her!?”
Baldrick hesitated to answer, noticing something unexpected about the skeleton at the last moment. These were not the bones of a female in any condition to write and draw in this tomb, but of a male whose bones shattered upon hitting the ground.
“Yes,” he finally answered, but so lightly that no one would know.
Nevertheless, Baldrick pocketed the star necklace and took hold of the rope. He took one last mental snapshot of the well’s writings, then without further ado killed the fire of his torch and signaled for an evac.
Back on the surface, Conrad and Egbert pulled the rope up with all their might. Just as Baldrick had suggested, it took two ropes tied together to reach their comrade—a surprise to them all on just how deep the Goths designed this well.
In the few minutes to pass, feelings of both relief and disappointment would surface as Baldrick emerged from the well, now dirty and slimy with vegetation, but ultimately not bringing with him an immortal woman. Conrad and Egbert came to his aid, placing hands around him and helping him back onto the surface as he panted over the refreshing return of quality air.
Egbert asked immediately, “As empty as the last, I presume?”
Baldrick took a moment to catch his breath, but went on to excitedly reveal, “There is more than enough writing down there to entertain you, Egbert.”
“Oh?”
“All Gothic. But…” he again searched for breath, “I found her skeletal remains down below, but… it’s not a ‘her,’ it’s a ‘his.’”
Egbert argued, “Modestus wrote of a woman.”
“Well, he was wrong. That body was of a man without any doubt in my mind.” Some doubt began to circulate, and in the meantime, Baldrick reached into his pocket and handed the Grand Master the star necklace and cross. “I found this. Looks to be his necklace, more importantly connected with the symbol of our Lord.”
The Grand Master raised a brow, investigating both the star and cross carefully, “How interesting.”
“B- But there’s more.” He looked Egbert in the eyes. “Hundreds, maybe thousands of words in Gothic speak… b- but then there’s Egyptian symbolism… an Egyptian message of some kind.”
“Egyptian?” Egbert crossed his arms. “I find that unlikely.”
“See for yourself. The Egyptian writing sits atop the ambiguous face of a woman, almost like a shrine.”
Egbert turned, “Grand Master, I request a mission to go down and translate the Gothic writings to the best of my knowledge.”
The Grand Master, while staring into the gold of the speared star, began to widen his eyes gradually. At first his silence seemed to be the result of distraction, but soon his entire hand began to tremble along with a face of gradually increasing shock.
“Grand Master?”
“Grand Master!”
The man grunted, for soon the shaking of his hand was revealed to the group not to be the effect of bodily function, but the necklace itself exerting such power that his hand would be made to shake. The connected cross now flapped over his wrist intensely, and the outline of the golden star burned a rich orange glow that would become stronger with every moment. The Grand Master was seemingly stunned by the escalating event.
Finally, as a precautionary measure, Conrad rushed forward and slapped the necklace out of the Grand Master’s hand, resulting in it falling into the long grass. While the necklace went out of their sight, it was impossible to truly lose, for the glow of it went on to become so bright that it would shine toward the sky.
“Defend your eyes, brothers!” the Grand Master ordered.
They all went about doing this in different ways, with Egbert covering his eyes by a cape, Baldrick by lowering his helmet, or the Grand Master using the sleeve of his robe. The necklace’s glow reached a state so bright that it would become dangerous to the gaze, but as the blinding light eventually began to fade, revealed to the outside world for the first time in nearly a thousand years was the unwell sight of a Crimean Goth—the last Crimean Goth.
A woman now sat in the grass as pale as the robes the knights wore, trembling as much as they, and so broken by the centuries of darkness that her eyes refused to open to the sun’s incredible power. The star necklace was now upon this pathetic woman, frail and clothed in brown animal hide that looked almost ancient to them. The natural silver hair mixed with the weak sight could easily confuse at first sight for an old woman, which while technically would correct in terms of literal age, was not synced up with her young physical age.
Conrad was the first to finally reveal his eyes again, and upon doing so released a gasp to the sight of the returned Suri.
“Grand Master! It’s her! Truly so, it is the woman Modestus described!”
The men one-by-one greeted her with their eyes, but not all knights had the same feelings about this supernatural spawn. Baldrick was quite immediate in glaring.
“I insist we tie her up! She may be dangerous!”
Egbert panicked, “I thought you said she was dead!”
Baldrick lectured, “Well, I found a skeleton down there with her necklace, I would imagine -”
Suri’s eyes opened for the first time, but only by the slightest slivers. Her very first image received of the world outside the well would be the bizarre, white-robed figures standing before her. She appropriately responded to this with great fear, visible by her intense shaking, but soon also by the fearful words she would begin to blurt out at them.
The four men all hushed up with awe, awarding the woman the right to speak a language mostly unrecognizable to them. All heads turned to Egbert at the same time.
“Well, what is she saying?”
Egbert grunted, “…uh… I- I don’t recognize an- well, I recognize some things, but n- not…” He let out a dismayed sound and closed in on Suri. “She’s speaking too fast, too slurred, and her words not used in the same way I would have thought.”
Baldrick responded, “In other words, you’re of no use here?”
“Baldrick,” the Grand Master lectured. “Egbert, say something to her.”
He and Suri both looked at the Grand Master, the former asking, “Say what to her? Hello?”
To Egbert’s surprise, the Grand Master nodded, “Well, we need to start somewhere.”
The brainiac knight bit his bottom lip, hesitantly bringing himself to a knee in front of Suri. He proceeded to speak his modern understanding of Crimean Gothic, but the disturbed face Suri then displayed would suggest an immediate failure. To his credit, his attempt did get Suri to silence her panic.
“Try something else?” Conrad suggested.
Egbert rolled his eyes, and very slowly rephrased his words to Suri. She still gave him the kind of look that communicated her stance that the man was crazy, but nevertheless granted him the respect of silent concentration. From sound and facial expression alone, it seemed like Egbert’s second attempt was a complete and utter failure, but surprisingly, Suri would soon nod at him and reply to him briefly.
Egbert, with a tight lip, looked up at his companions and reported, “Her name is ‘Suri.’”
“Suri,” she repeated.
The Grand Master nodded, “Ask Suri how she did… that.” Egbert inquired clarity with a raised brow. “The necklace… light… flash. Where did she come from, just now? Ask her that.”
Egbert replied, “I would not know how to ask that. I could barely extract a name from her.”
A tempered Baldrick responded, “Well, you’re not a lot of use to us then. We need to know if she is some demon to slay or a purposeful messenger from God.”
Rather than resort to infighting, Egbert turned to Suri, pointed to the red cross on his chest, and asked a simple question with Christ’s name involved.
Suri raised the poor conditioned cross attached to her necklace chain and calmly said, “Jesus Christ. Jesus. Christ. Christ Jesus.” She followed this up by gently shaking the cross around in her fingers.
Egbert turned his head to the group and commented, “I am confident you all understood that.”
This strange meeting between Suri and the knights would remain as it was for only so long, for as the knights discussed what they should try and say to her, she suddenly gasped and jumped onto her feet. With eyes past the knights, she let out a panicked comment and then burst away in a dizzy sprint.
“Suri! Stop!” Baldrick shouted.
Egbert shouted a similar order to her in broken Gothic, but the woman made her destination clear to them: The ruined village of Yaktovus. Unfortunately for the men, she was lightly clothed while they were equipped in armor, and so intercepting her was out of the question.
The Grand Master, nonetheless, ordered, “Encircle her!”
Suri, while far faster than the knights, had a very unstable way of running due to her inexperience with sprinting over the centuries. The blinding effect of the sun on a woman who knew only darkness for so long did not help, but she was still able to gain quick ground toward her old home. Even from the outskirts, however, Suri came to grunt out disbelief at what little she found of Yaktovus.
“Suri!” the knights would call the whole way.
Eventually, Suri stumbled into the very center of the village with arms draped down and a mouth left open. She delivered herself to the village well, now barely intact and partly overgrown with vegetation, as were most of the structural remains of the village. There she stood the lone inhabitant of a village once active with life, a village she once performed her healing magic and oratory storytelling to for so long. There was not even the slightest remnant of her healing den to find, just tall grass where she once lived and performed said magic. The Goth was overcome with mixed feelings. She felt heartbroken over the fall of her home, slightly gratified by the justice served to those who wronged her, but more than anything confused as to what could have brought an end to Yaktovus.
Suri was ultimately cooperative come the return of the knights, three of whom went on to surround her in an aggressive manner. None dared touch the woman, however. Even with these men blocking her every direction, Suri still looked around at the ruins with shock and awe.
Eventually, the Grand Master returned, “Egbert, tell her that the people of this village migrated.”
Egbert snapped his fingers to catch Suri’s gaze, but after doing so stumbled on how to most easily put this explanation to words. He tried his best, speaking in a sympathetic manner and using various hand gestures to help bring context to his broken words. Regardless of whether his translation reached Suri or not, her reaction to him was just a blank stare. She would not reciprocate the communication afterwards, choosing to just stare at the man with the same ghostly look.
Given enough silence, Conrad finally stepped forward to speak his mind, “Okay, I will bring the matter up since no one else will.” He faced his Grand Master and waved at Suri. “Is this even allowed for us? It may be of acceptable circumstances for a regular soldier to interact with a woman, but we, we are -”
“The Knights Templar,” the Grand Master proudly proclaimed. “The Code, by all means, suggests that we play a dangerous game putting ourselves in the presence of Suri. This, however, is no ordinary woman.”
Egbert looked up at his leader, slightly protesting, “She has the every making of a woman.”
“Suri is an ambassador from Heaven first, and a woman second.” He dominated the discussion with a firm pose. “The Templar would not reject its service to the blessed Virgin had she approached us, nor shall we reject who we may assume is from Heaven.”
The group was rather uncomfortable with this idea, but not enough to where they would overthrow their Grand Master’s ruling. Egbert did play off of this idea however by carefully asking Suri about her purpose, searching for evidence of such providence. However Suri may have received his question, it prompted her to widen her eyes, turn around, and resume sprinting. This time the Templar knights turned with far less unease.
“Now where is she off to?” Baldrick wondered.
Suri ran in a single direction, crossing shrubs, bushes, tall grass, and avoiding trees in her way. The knights followed a distance behind her, this time only walking. With one last shrub pushed aside, Suri delivered herself to a familiar shore—one of the last places she had been before the fateful day the three bishops arrived.
Throwing off her footwear Suri rushed onto the beach, fell to her knees, and again dropped her jaw in a shocked panic. The beach was almost exactly as she remembered it, yet everything behind her had changed. She thought deeply about everything, sat herself in a more comfortable position, and with the same open mouth began to gently tap her hands below her chest, as if playing a drum. The woman went on to beat this non-existent drum while staring out toward the Black Sea.
The knights, a few minutes later, again came to her, but a direct order from the Grand Master had the knights respecting her space by not obstructing her view this time.
“So, what now, Grand Master?” asked Conrad.
Egbert first suggested, “We should deliver her before the pope in Rome.”
Baldrick laughed, “We cannot deliver her to the pope, what if she is not the God sent blessing we think she to be?”
Egbert argued, “She speaks Christ’s name, Modestus wrote of this as well, she’s wearing the cross of the Lord upon her necklace—what more evidence need you?”
“I am not saying I doubt her faith, Egbert,” yet Baldrick gave Suri a suspicious stare, “But you know—we all know—that this Suri has more to her than we know. Have you already forgotten the strange Egyptian hieroglyphics I found in the well? Very odd for Pagan writing to be on a wall so far from ancient Egypt.”
“Hm…” Egbert scratched his chin. “It is your call, Grand Master.”
The three had been so busy discussing amongst each other, that the next they realized, their Grand Master found himself knelt before Suri. The sympathetic look of this man connected well with Suri.
“Hello, Suri,” he slowly pointed a finger at himself, “You are Suri. I, am Renaud de Vichiers.”
Suri blinked at him and pointed at herself, “Suri.”
He mimicked her, “de Vichiers.” She slowly raised a finger at him, and he repeated. “de Vichiers.”
She pointed at him, “Vichiers.”
“We do not know each other, but we are very much related.” He put one hand to the red cross upon his chest, and with the other hand pointed to the cross hanging with Suri’s golden star. “We are related through our love for the Lord, Jesus Christ.”
“Jesus.”
“Yes, it was through the Lord’s will that we found you.”
“Baphomet?”
The scene became awkwardly silent, with de Vichiers looking up at Egbert with a raised brow, “What did she just say?”
Egbert shrugged, “I would not know.”
Suri’s mentioning of a pagan god ultimately passed by undetected, and so de Vichiers went on to make a controversial statement.
“We are going to take you with us, bring you to holy land and have you educated, and therefore by extension, civilized.”
“What!?”
“What!”
Suri was alarmed by the sudden panic of the other knights.
“G- Grand Master! We cannot incorporate a woman into the Templar!” Baldrick panicked.
Egbert added, “We are treading dangerous waters just looking at her!”
“I never said she will join the Templar. You are right, she cannot join us.” He stood up and declared, “We will never touch Suri and Suri in turn shall never touch us. She will be a student of the Templar and never more, and once her education is complete, we may decide on where she belongs in this world.”
Conrad face palmed, “…this is a disaster that may very well draw us to Hell…”
Grand Master de Vichiers stood up and gestured for Suri to follow, “Now, let us all leave. The Holy Land requires our attention.” Persistent gesturing eventually lassoed Suri into following the Grand Master, but very reluctantly. “Under our guidance, you will see much, know much, and find your way back into the hands of God. So it shall be.”
Suri’s mouth was left open the entire walk to their ship, having no idea what was going on due to her lack of French. For that entire walk, she held the golden star necklace in her hand tightly. The Knights Templar were allowing the last of the Crimean Goths to walk in the same halls as the most famed holy order of the Christian faith.
Whether Suri would walk this path with or without Baphomet was a matter to still be decided…
To be continued…
Chapter 1 < | > Chapter 3
==Chapter Summary==
# The chapter opens in the 13th century, during a time of crusades and follows a group of French knights as they venture the lands of old Gothic Crimea in search of Suri, based on a centuries old plea for help by Father Modestus who recounts the tragic tale of Suri.
# Two of these knights are Baldrick and Egbert, who had just explored the well located within the ruins of Yaktovus to no avail. Egbert presumes that this was not the well they were looking for.
# The Grand Master of the group suggests that Suri could play an imperative role in liberating Jerusalem, if Modestus' claim of her being supernatural is true.
# They conclude from Modestus' old letter that the well they seek would be located a distance outside of Yaktovus. A third knight, Conrad, suggests they patrol the area in a radial path for multiple passes to cover as much area as possible.
# Later, while on this search for the well, the Grand Master takes note of a unique bird flying around and floats the idea that it has some purpose to their mission. Nevertheless, they ignore it, persisting onward with their original plan of patrol.
# That night, they decide to camp out so not to lose track of their progress. Baldrick and Egbert discuss the mission and both reach a prediction that Suri is no more, the former thus questioning the need to continue. The Grand Master answers that Father Modestus' soul is owed closure on the matter, and that only they can answer for Suri's ultimate fate.
# A perfectly placed sun ray awakens Baldrick that early morning, and the suspicious flight pattern of a unique bird leads him a short distance away from camp. By simply investigating the bird, he soon encounters what he believes to be a earth mound, but is in actuality a solid structure overgrown with vegetation. Believing this to be the well, he summons his party.
# The group removes the vegetation by swords, revealing a barely recognizable well underneath. At the Grand Master's order, Baldrick is made to descend into the well with Conrad and Egbert managing the rope. Tragically, the inner walls are slippery and the rope not long enough for the exceptionally deep well, leading to it snapping. Baldrick falls into the well and instructs his companions to tie two ropes together to get him out with.
# Lighting a torch, Baldrick is amazed to find the interior of the well completely written over in Gothic script and other imagery, including the floor, despite the dark nature of the well. The more shocking discovery is the existence of a drawing of a long-haired woman, sans facial details, with an Ankh over her chest, and two lines of Egyptian hieroglyphics over her. The existence of Egyptian writing at the bottom of a Gothic well, filled with Gothic writing, goes beyond Baldrick's comprehension.
# Just as a rescue rope comes down, Baldrick locates the golden star necklace Suri once wore, also containing a lesser quality cross given to her by Modestus during her exile. Close to the necklace he found the skeletal remains of who he identified as Suri--yet curiously, he finds obvious indication that the skeleton is of a man, and the shattered bones suggesting death by falling down the well, not explaining the writing on the wall.
# Baldrick returns to the surface and hands the Grand Master the star necklace, reporting that Suri is a dead, and also a man. This claim is quickly challenged by Egbert. Due to his slight expertise in Gothic language, Egbert volunteers to venture down the well next to try and translate some of the Gothic writing.
# Before Egbert could go, the necklace in the Grand Master's hand glows and shakes, stunning the man and shocking everyone else. Conrad eventually responds by slapping the necklace out of the Grand Master's hands, followed by the glow becoming so blinding that the group needed to cover their eyes.
# A very frail and blinded Suri emerges from the light. She is initially blinded due to centuries of darkness, but with what sight she does gain, finds her first sight outside of the well in centuries to be that of Christian knights.
# Expectedly, Suri panics in her Gothic language. Egbert, who specializes a bit in the language, attempts to speak to her but finds his understanding of her language and vice versa simply too complicated. Nevertheless, he extracts that her name is 'Suri.'
# The Grand Master orders Egbert to have her explain her supernatural appearance from out of nowhere, but Egbert claims he would not know how to ask such a thing. He instead points to the red cross on his chest and mentions Christ, easily prompting Suri to confirm her understanding of Jesus Christ. This puts the men at ease to a degree, at least in as far as not suspecting her to be an agent of evil.
# In the middle of their group huddle, Suri remembers something and runs off in a panic. The knights chase her down but find their armor severely hindering their pursuit. Suri's destination ends up being the village of Yaktovus, which she now finds in ruins, overgrown, and without a soul in sight. The knights eventually reconvene by her, but she is speechless to the depressing sight. Egbert attempts to inform Suri that her people long migrated away from Yaktovus, but it is unclear if she understood his words.
# Conrad goes on to start a debate of whether they should be interacting with Suri at all. He claims that as part of the Knights Templar, they swore not to involve themselves so closely with women. The Grand Master retorts that this is a special case, believing that Suri is a God send before she is a woman, and that the former takes priority in her identity. He compares the situation to a hypothetical of what the Templar knights would do if this were the Virgin Mary in need of help. His men accept the answer but are not necessarily happy with it.
# Egbert tries to extract information about Suri's purpose, to see if she is indeed sent by God for something specific, but without getting an answer, Suri again takes off running. This time the knights merely walk after her, confident that she is not attempting to flee.
# A distraught Suri delivers herself to her favorite beach just outside the village, where she kicks off her footwear and sits in the sand as she always did in the past. She gawks to the ocean and beats a drum that does not exist.
# Egbert suggests they deliver Suri right to the pope in Rome, much like Father Modestus intended centuries ago.
# Baldrick counters this with an argument similar to that of Father Sixtus, fearing that they could be helping Satan infiltrate the Catholic church if they bring Suri to him. Unlike Sixtus, Baldrick does not discount the idea that Suri is truly of good spirit, but reminds the group of the bizarre Egyptian imagery he found in the well, which he equates to paganism and evil.
# The Grand Master kneels before Suri and makes sympathetic eye contact. Despite not knowing her language, he successfully teaches her his name, Renauld de Vichiers, the latest Grand Master of the Knights Templar.
# de Vichiers tells Suri that while they are unmet, they are related through their mutual worship of Jesus Christ. Suri repeats Christ's name to his approval, but nearly gets herself in trouble by also bringing up Baphomet. Fortunately, the word 'Baphomet' slips past their radar as simply a word they do not know.
# de Vichiers provokes controversy by announcing that they will be taking Suri with them, to reeducate and civilize into modern society under Templar values. Everyone protests this, but almost unanimously due to the Templar Code prohibiting Templar sisters. de Vichiers justifies this as not recruiting Suri into the order, but merely taking her in for an education. After which, her future fate will be decided.
# Suri is taken back to their ship, which she reluctantly accepts without any context of what is going to happen to her.
==Author Notes==
====The Time Skip====
A challenge I faced with this story is that I wanted the Knights Templar to rescue Suri and bring her into the drama and war of the crusades; I was, however, not sure when in the timeline, exactly, to execute this. I didn't want her induction into the Templar Order to be too close to its formation, but I also didn't want to do it so far that she would be stuck in Cyprus for several chapters. I felt that picking the period of time when the crusaders still owned Acre was the right place to teleport her to. Furthermore, when going through the list of Templar heads, I found that putting her under the service of Renaud de Vichiers would be ideal due to the name 'Vichiers' sounding similar to (Father) 'Vickers,' who is poised to eventually return to Shrouded Piety.
==Chapter Illustration==
This chapter illustration was made with a sense of urgency, as it was an instance where the chapter was written before the illustration. Due to the feeling of urgency, the characters in the picture were made small so that there would not need to be a commitment to small facial details for what would become recurring characters. The character standing to the left, Grand Master Renaud de Vichiers, was given the most detail due to a pre-existing imagination of what he might have looked like. Going into this chapter, observations of what coastal Crimea looks like was made to help prepare for the background, namely in the southern part of the peninsula.
The image was prepared fully through Adobe Photoshop.