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The envelope’s fine folds crumple under his fingers, his grasp just a little too tight for the delicate weight of the paper. It’s a very fine grain, barely any specs of fiber visible, and it bears a soft cream color turned gently brown at the edges. The wax seal covering the flap drips the tiniest bit of red down the back, no doubt lead there by the excessively ornate pattern pressed into the seal.
Even with the damage inflicted, the folds are perfectly cornered, crisp and neat in the way that he knows means the letter is bound to someone of high status, the kind of person he very rarely was meant to deliver to.
It’s for all these practiced observations that Victor knows something is wrong, knows that a mistake must have been made. And yet, the words are there, gracefully inscribed on the face of the letter, leaving no room for doubt.
An Invitation
for Victor Grantz
Words spoken are often lies, but the words borne in letters reveal the truth. It is so easy to lie, to bend or obscure, when you can read the faces of your audience as you do it. But when one writes, they speak only to the faceless paper, and they cannot form their lies.
This is Victor’s understanding of the world, his understanding of the way that humans communicate to each other. It has never failed him, not so long as he has lived and seen the varied looks on his customer’s faces when they read their sacred letters.
This is perhaps the reason that he blindly trusted the first words ever written to him. He considered it a special message, an invitation he would surely only receive once in his lifetime. How could he not trust it? How could he not appear at the appointed time and place?
He truly regrets it now, locked deep underground without even Wick there by his side to remind him who he is and how he got here. His throat burns from lack of water, his stomach long since shriveled alongside any lingering desire for food. The flagstones are hard and cold beneath him.
He knows he will die here. There really is no question anymore, and he wonders helplessly what they did to his poor Wick as he bitterly recites the letter back to himself, over and over, his eyes drifting slowly closed.
He is woken by the sound of the door opening, and for just a brief moment, he believes it’s over. The light that floods the dark room is nothing short of heavenly, cutting through the blackness and blinding him with hope.
The people that shuffle across the uneven floor towards him swim in dark, draping robes, nothing visible under the heavy shadow of their cowls. Two of them carry a large book with yellowed, roughly cut pages, bound in worn leather encrusted with many glimmering red jewels.
They bring the tome before him, opening the crackling pages before his eyes. They command him to read.
Victor feels the threat in the words, understands that there is no room for questions, and squints at the words on the pages. They’re blurry to him, his eyes refusing to focus with the little energy he has left at his disposal. But the longer he looks, the more he realizes the script is not one he knows, the words foreign and strange.
And yet, slowly, his vision begins to clear—the flowing script seems to dance before his eyes, and he feels the blackened ink pulling him forward, inviting him into the world of its prophetic vision. The meaning becomes clear, like a voice speaking directly to his mind.
And so, hesitatingly, haltingly, he opens his mouth, and the words flow forth unbidden, familiar, like a song memorized from childhood.
His lips have split open in several places by the time he reaches the end of the pages presented to him, and the book snaps shut. The hoods of the figures sway back and forth, looking at each other, waiting for something, until finally, one of them nods. Just as suddenly as they came, they all shuffle back out.
Victor scrambles across the rough tiles, feels them cut into his palms and knees as he begs the people to come back, begs them not to leave him here. They don’t seem to hear him, or feel the desperate pull of his weak fingers against the hems of their robes, and when the door shuts with a heavy thud, Victor can only stare.
The people return after some time, a space that Victor cannot even attempt to quantify. This time, there is no light from the doorway to bring him hope, only the same shadowy robes and the same stamping of boots.
He can barely see them against the backdrop of this dim room, through the filter of his bleary eyes, but he registers that they are once again carrying something. It’s not a book, no, but something much smaller—a cup, filled to the brim with some kind of liquid.
Victor’s mind screams for water, and he finds himself clambering forward, reaching out for the cup now being offered to him. His hands grasp the broad shape, pull it towards his mouth, and he almost cries from relief as the liquid touches his tongue.
He takes one greedy gulp before he realizes that something is horribly wrong. He splutters, coughs once, feels the hot droplets hit his hand and drip down his chin. He can’t see the color in the darkness, but there undoubtedly is one, staining his skin into the same dark of the room.
Victor falls backwards, shaking his head as the thick taste of iron finally registers, as he starts to realize what kind of salvation has been offered to him. He doesn’t want this. Firm hands pull at his arms and shoulders, forcing him upright, and the cup comes to his mouth once more. He struggles in their grasp, violently shaking his head, but the hands only increase in number and strength, easily overpowering his weakened body.
His mouth is forced open, and the burning blood pours down his parched throat. He feels stronger by the moment, but he still can’t garner enough strength to force them to stop. He doesn’t want this.
He doesn’t want this.
After the second time they are no longer able to hold him down, his strength more than returned, but Victor knows better than to fight back. They may not be able to physically force him, but they have other ways. He’s become all too familiar with them.
He feels healthy, strong in a way that he has never known, but pain still besieges his chest for hours after they force that blood upon him. Something inside is dying. He doesn’t understand what or how, but it’s dying. He just knows.
And yet, when the door opens for the fourth time, he doesn’t prepare for a fight, doesn’t put his guard up. He merely stands and waits, and when they present the cup to him, he takes it. Something inside is dying, he has no doubts, but it seems something else is being born. Or perhaps, it is simply stirring awake after a long sleep.
Even in this almost pitch black, he can see the glint of the red gems on the cup, of the gold foil carefully decorating the delicate carvings. He can see a glimmer of eyes when the people in robes come towards him.
He brings the cup to his lips and begins to drink, hastily downing the contents. Even his tongue has changed. The first taste of this blood had been appalling, reeking of raw, disgusting iron and attacking him with an almost slimy feeling, but now… now it tasted different. Like a gourmet meal carefully prepared by a chef of the most prized palate, the subtle notes and tones now delicately unfolded on his tongue.
Victor drinks it as quickly as possible, just so he won’t have to consider how delicious it is.
When they bring the fourth cup, they finally speak to him, the first words that do not form a command. They tell him this is the last. For a brief moment, he starts to ask what will happen after this, but the words die on his tongue. He doesn’t particularly care anymore; this conclusion doesn't come along with the apathetic feeling he expected, only with the understanding that it is no longer important.
Something has changed. No, not something. He has changed. He sees the inside of his own mind as though he were standing some distance behind it, detached and uninterested in the pain, in the hunger, in the humiliating feeling of losing all sense of self. He watches it all happen like a broken little diorama, a penny dreadful given horrific, soul-eating life.
He is someone else now.
Victor takes the cup, raises it to his mouth, and takes a long sip; a hard shudder works its way down his spine, but he doesn’t quite recoil. It seems that even Victor can’t deny the pull now, the way that the murky blood draws him in and forces him to accept.
What use is there in resisting?
He hears them approach long before they open the door, and he senses that something is different. They step inside the room, but remain there, their robes framing the open doorway. He stands up and moves towards it, his legs still frustratingly unstable underneath him. They do not move to stop him as he steps up to and through the door, climbing the steps out of his prison.
Compared to the pitch black room behind him, the hallway he comes to is so bright his eyes sting. The hall is adorned with trailing red carpets, finely carved marble pillars, and an array of fine tables and drawers. It continues in the half-light far off to his left, but he turns his attention instead to a long row of enormous windows to his right.
Moonlight streams through the glass. He looks out at the clouds, at the way the wispy ends slowly march past the moon, and finds himself wondering if it was always this beautiful, if it was always just that close. His skin seems to glow in that gentle light, even through the dirt that has built up over the unknown length of time he was trapped underground, away from this world.
He’s back now, but it’s not the same. This isn’t the same moon he left behind, nor the same body, nor the same mind. He disappeared underground and emerged into a new world, one full of meanings that he doesn’t yet grasp.
No one urges him to move, but he feels that desire from them, so he finally tears his eyes away from the window. He doesn’t know where he’s going, but he follows the correct path all the same, as though he’d been there before.
No, he had been there before. He doesn’t remember it, but the shadow of the memory is there, guiding his steps to a destiny he had forsaken.
Once again, he doesn’t know how much time has passed, but it doesn’t matter to him, not in the way it did before. He had led the way to a familiar room, where they had allowed him to wash off all the dirt and had given him new clothes. They were not elaborate, but they were finely made, not full of patched tears and loose threads like his old clothes had been.
He had spent many days reading the tome they had returned to him; he remembered these words he’d written before, remembered the illuminated ideas he had inscribed in the book. He remembered, also, why he had disappeared in the first place. A carefully orchestrated demise, and yet they had managed to drag him back all the same.
He hadn’t wanted this. He was not meant to lead them. He had written these words so they would have his guidance, his will and intent left behind when he had moved on to some place far away from this suffering. His cursed existence had no place in this world made for those who could write their own destiny.
And yet, they had gone to these lengths just to force him to return. Were these words not enough for them?
The freedom to create one’s own future was the gift he desired, the gift he had given to them. But if they didn’t want it, if they were this willing to become slaves just to put the choices back in his hands, who was he to lead them elsewhere?
If they wanted a king, they shall have one.
And finally the day comes where they ask, where they offer him a great many sacrifices that he graciously accepts. They clothe him in his old colors, only the finest red and gold, and adorn his head with the symbols of his reign.
A large crowd has already gathered below the balcony, the count far exceeding that of those who had been there when he first went to rest. His closest servants, the descendants of those he had had prior, step out to the balcony, and he follows with his sacred tome in hand. He looks out over the gathered people, all waiting, hanging on every moment of his silence.
The tome goes up in flames easily, the flickering lights reflecting through all of their wide eyes. He has no need for those words anymore. No, if his word must be law, he will write a new destiny. No lies will ever flow forth from him.
He regards the crowd, watches the way they nervously glance up at him and back away again, afraid to truly look into his face. He closes his eyes, a smile tugging at the corner of his mouth. This is the future that they wanted. This is the future they will receive.
At long last, with lips sewn shut, The Embrace delivers his gospel.