Echoes in Eternity (The Pella Series Book 1) (33 page)

“You ha
ve killed, tortured, had thousands of Hades’ minions staked, and let your men’s bloodlust run amok of an entire population of
Darklings
and humans alike with their shed blood washing the streets. Do you think your gods or Hades for that matter will let you get away with that?” asks the voice sternly.

“Gods do that more often… worse in fact, and sterner than any mortal with just a flick of their finger, drowning nations in floods, burying them under the earth in earthquakes, sinking their cities and islands into the oceans, burning them under the fire spit from the earth’s belly as if they never existed. Why should they punish me for doing it justly?” he speaks to the voice, lips moving, no sound coming out.

“
Sir, my Emperor, did you say something?
” asks his marshal again without understanding. “
What do you wish us to do, sir?
” leaning over him without seeing, hearing or realizing the tall man close enough to touch him, standing erect, noble, and fearless. His stature would make the strongest soldier in this young emperor’s possession look like a scrawny child though they’re the most seasoned, fearless, and mighty soldiers the world had ever seen. Does no one see this man in his magnificent presence who wore his boots tied to his calves? He takes a closer step showing his face out of the shadows glowing otherworldly. He looks too beautiful to be the angel of death. Perhaps he is there to take him to Elysium. No one else hears him speak. My eyes look around with prodigious effort to see through his eyes. He’s in a lavish tent. The lights are dim. It’s dark outside. His men, seasoned soldiers, each with proud battle scars are lined around his bed with teary eyes and a hopeless stare. He decides it’s best to leave his eyes open to see it all.

“What is your name?” commands the man with glowing face forcefully leaning over him. For a full minute their gazes lock, mine behind the young Emperor’s. One man dying
; the other pleading for him to stay, desperately.

“What is your name?” he repeats his question forcefully, beating it into his mind.
I now know that I’m not being asked my name. I’m an observer in the body of a dying beautiful man who happened to be an emperor.

“I am Alexandros Aurelius Pella,” he replies finally. Holy mother of God! I’m in Alex’s body! Why didn’t I recognize him then? The man closes his eyes briefly in relief. Alex’s men assume that he is speaking to them.

“
Yes sir. You are our Commander, our Emperor. Command us to die, and we shall for you!
” Alex has strength enough to smile in reply to their devotion to him.

“I… will…” he says struggling, trying to inhale a shallow breath, “leave…this world… soon…” and he tries to swallow. I want
to hold him, embrace and comfort him, but I’m just an observer, here, but not here.

“You don’t have to!” urges the man with the glowing face, standing above him protectively from an unseen danger.

“Elysium…” whispers Alex trying to close his eyes. His eyes, I notice are the only things that are the same about Alex. They’re the windows to his soul.

“Alexandros,” says the man softening his voice to a whisper, as he rubs his dark blond curls thickened with sweat in a fatherly gesture, “Do you want to redeem your soul?” he asks. Alex blinks, not comprehending. “Because, when I move away from my stance here, they will claim you,” he says taking a step to the side showing the immense creatures kept out by an invisible barrier trying to gnaw their way in; their stare locked on Alex singularly, and I can feel the ferocious hunger in them for his flesh and soul. I want to cover him with my body to protect him. The man looks at him with pleading eyes. I hear through Alex’s hearing that the loud growls are getting closer, inching their way to his bed; their drool thick and sticky, not going to let him go, yet no one seems to notice them besides Alex in bed, and this glowing man and, I, the observer. Eyes of the hellhounds fixed on Alex though he could barely make them out with his vision nearly gone, each of the three heads bared their teeth
with their hackles risen; they begin to circle his bed. My heart lurches, beating like a jungle drum. No one seems to notice my presence looking through Alex’s eyes. Not even Alex or this man who is trying to protect him.

“I will make it… I
have survived countless wars, ghastly wounds, unrestrained lions outside the arena, overdrinking, and days long fucking for many years,” states Alex slowly to the man, but he can’t even convince himself that he will make it through the night.

“No. Not this time... It’ll be this laceration that shall claim the unconquerable Alexandros, because the wound has been inflicted with a blade forged in heaven. You’ve been tethering on the borderline of life and death, pushing and tugging. But, they’re already here to claim you for Hades! All they have to do is to wait for your soul to sever from your body. I’ve held your body and soul intact for twelve days, Alex! But we are running out of time! They want their due! They want to rip into your soul. Time for you to decide young emperor: Your oath to me, or your soul to them!” he says taking a step to the side, and one of the horse size hellhounds leaps over Alex’s bed, the three heads fighting against each other to get the first bite into his flesh ready to devour him, teeth reaching
at his jugular to sever the sweet life out of his body. I scream, but no one hears me.

“You must surrender to one or the other!” beseeches the man through clenched teeth as he catches the hellhound with one hand and slams it to a wall
neither Alex nor I  knew existed, making the creature even angrier, and getting it into attack mode.

“Are you the devil?” Alex asks
with his lips moving but no voice comes out.

“No, I’m not,” answers the man fervently
as his face glows like the desert sun.

“What are you? You
are an angel?”

The man looks around, leans in, and whispers in Alex’s thoughts. “
I am
...”

“Why...need...me, Angel?” asks Alex with a Herculean struggle. Though no words come out of his lips, the angel understands him as if he spoke loud and clear.

“Because you are going to be
her
savior; you die, she dies!” says the angel with a plea Alex doesn’t understand. “Sometimes it takes a great sinner to save the sinless,” he says and something beads in the angel’s eyes, glistening. Alex didn’t know angels cried. But I knew. My heart is beating like the wings of a hummingbird. I don’t even dare to breathe to hear what he has to say.

“Everything has a balance in the universe. She’s sinless, and you, Alexandros Aurelius Pella are ruthless; even Hades fear
s you in such a way that they first promised your father a way back to Eden by killing you and when that didn’t work, it had to unleash the hounds of Hell to get you. But even you aren’t strong enough to hold on, and I can’t let them take you. She needs her twin soul and that’s you. You are her balance in the universe. I can’t save her if I don’t save you. Don’t let her die, Alex!
Let me save you!
” pleads the angel as his body shakes with great misery, shuddering with some unspeakable agony. That’s…that’s my dad!
He loves me!
He loved me then… I want to cry, but I’m unable to. Alex hears the growls louder this time. The Hellhounds know his time is up, and they want to pull the angel, my father apart if they can, just to get to Alex. My father’s magnificent angelic presence holds them off, but by the skin of his teeth.

“Who?” Alex’s lips moves.

The angel then gives him the vision of me to Alex’s eyes! “
My daughter
,” he whispers into Alex’s thoughts. Even on his deathbed, something awakens in Alex to give him enough sense to see a beauty in me; the desire that departed from him twelve days ago is rekindled in him once again. I can feel what he feels for me. He feels that my beauty is in such a way that he could even forego Elysium to get to know me. Alex would let go of heaven to know me! I look different, but I know it’s me. Those are my pale blue eyes. Alex’s thoughts are clear as if he speaks them out loud. “Those sapphire eyes are bluer than my beloved Mediterranean. ‘Beautiful women,’” he smiles inwardly without strength, “are men’s doom. Didn’t The Trojan War start because of a beautiful woman? My personal hero Achilles died in that war because of that beautiful woman. But dying for a beautiful woman is far better than dying in a bed with a disease delivered by the sword of heaven, eating you up from the inside, in Babylon, of all places. I would rather die on my feet, in my boots rather than lying here like an old man! I want to see the battlefields again. I will always yearn for them. I yearn for this nameless girl two breaths before my last and the Angel knows it,” he thinks.

“
The Hellhounds are impatient! Decide!” booms my father’s voice. He holds Alex’s hand lending him strength causing his pupils to dilate, helping him see the hounds clearly. Alex’s mind finally registers the guardians of the underworld in all their magnificent ferocity. I get to see them clearly for the first time, and I’m scared for Alex. There are two of them; each with three heads and they are as big as his horse Bucephalus.

“Funny...” says Alex smiling with no fear in him. “It looks like I owe a gambling debt to the devil himself; he sent his personal dogs for collection.”

“
He’s losing it!
” says one of his men in response to his declaration.

“
DECIDE ALEXANDROS!
Or the devil
WILL
collect!” resonates my father’s voice.

“Give me your name before I give you my oath and my blood...” move
s Alex’s lips.

“Marcus!” said my father, but Alex shakes his head.

“Your other name...” he mouths wordlessly. My father, the angel looks pained as if he is going to divulge the secrets of the universe. One of the heads of the hellhounds howls and as the other heads bare their teeth, growling, inching their way with their large paws, they are trying to rip the angel of Eden apart.

“They’ll get you! I need your oath!” thunders Marcus’
angelic voice, shaking Alex’s tent and his marshals in their place who look surprised. They lean over him protectively. Those men love him with all their lives!

“
Earthquake..
.” mutters one of them. But Alex knows better.

“Your name...” whispers Alex to the angel again as he readies to breathe his last.

“
You know me sir, I am Medius!
” says his close friend who is leaning in, mistaking his question for himself. Alex looks beyond him, into the eyes of the angel who nods finally.

“Shamsiel,” he replies monosyllabic.

“Shamsiel... You have my binding word, and my blood. Do as you wish,” Alex says wordlessly.

Medius fearing his king is dying jumps to his feet, holding Alex’s shoulder, pulling him into a sitting position, lightly shaking him.

“
He’s going!
” he barks at the other soldiers and marshals in his tent. Worry laces every word he utters. “
Sir! Look at me!
Sir!
Who do you wish to bequeath your kingdom, sir?
” Medius asks in a loud voice. His other marshals surround his bed, many of the eyes teary, forlorn, but with pure attention to know.

Alex’s thoughts are clear as spoken words: Regardless of however great his accomplishments and services have been to his empire and to the world then and to come, his misgivings still outweigh his accomplishments.
God demands recompense. He can’t tip the scale to his favor by his last breath. At the end of his very young life, he expected to find himself in the fields of Elysium in all his glory, but instead, the hellhounds appear to his dying vision, ready to drag him to Hades like he owes 32 years of gambling debts to the devil himself! He is going to be punished for what the
Divine Laws
consider his transgressions, and the agony he caused to others that had reached the ears of gods.

“Alexandros! You are the son of Zeus,” said his mother. When he conquered Egypt, they knew he was beyond any mortal king they ever met, and declared him as the son of the Egyptian
god Amun; he was the Master of the Universe!
How
could he be punished? He should be immune to the
Divine Laws
set for the mortals. But, being a half breed, he was not entirely divine. A half blood, neither quite human nor a complete god; he belonged to neither here, nor there. There are only a few of his kind, the demigods, but none of his caliber. He is a first generation, a son of Zeus, and Alex wanted to die on his own terms; not as the Heaven’s bounty or Hades’ revenge. He was everything he was accused to be, but he is and would always be honorable; a man of his word.

My father the angel hears his thoughts.

“You’re not the son of Zeus,” he says simply. What news to give to a dying man!

“You’re the son of an angel. You’re a Nephilim.” When the end nears and the hounds open their jaws to capture Alex’s head, in fact to rip his soul to shreds, Alex slightly nods at my father who calls himself Marcus agreeing for a binding blood oath he knows would keep him bound to his word to this angel for centuries to come.

“
Sir,
” shouts his friend shaking Alex’s shoulders once again, forcefully this time. “
Sir, who do you bequeath your kingdom?
”