David McAfee - After, Taras and Theron - Beyond Jerusalem

He did have a choice. His hunger might make it a difficult choice, but the decision was still his to make. If he killed the beggar, he would be doing it of his own free will, and thus he would have to accept the responsibility of that. Could he do it?

What would Mary say?

Cursing, he turned his back on the prone beggar. Taras had killed men in their sleep before. As an assassin for Rome he had done many things he preferred to forget, but this was different. Before, he had done his duty for Rome and her cause. Now, it would just be murder. Taras was many things, but he’d never considered himself a murderer. Even the many people he killed the night he fled Jerusalem had been because of a malady of the mind.

Sooner or later that malady would return, and he would be unable to stop himself.

Maybe he should find a nice, comfortable perch in the city and wait for the sunrise. It would be nice to see the beautiful orange glow of the morning sun again, even if it would only be for a very short time. His entire world had become a constant array of grays and blacks. Torchlight only brought the faintest whiff of color to his eyes, and the acrid smell of pitch always accompanied it. But true sunlight… he hadn’t thought he could miss it so much.

Taras gathered up his meager belongings and stumbled up the stairs to the cellar door. He would have to find a new place to wait out the day. Just because the beggar hadn’t tried to kill him this time didn’t mean that would be the case every time. In addition, the man might have friends accompany him someday, and Taras did not like the idea of being surrounded by strangers while he slept on, helpless.

He plodded through the streets of Antioch’s forgotten houses, his once tall and strong frame bent halfway to the ground in hunger and pain. His mind battled back and forth between wanting to go back to feed on the beggar and looking for a place to lay down and die. So far the latter held the edge. Would he see Mary again if he died? Was there room for someone like him in the afterlife?

Probably not.

The faces. They came to him sometimes during the day. Not in dreams, Taras had not dreamed since he died, but in his memories as he lay waiting for sleep to claim him. He could still remember the faces of the people he had killed in Jerusalem: the two guards at the Damascus Gate, the woman and her son on the road to the city, the potter and his family… all leapt into his mind in vivid detail each time he laid down at dawn.

His kills for Rome had never haunted him this way.

Whatever gods had watched over him in life would have no love for him now. Taras stepped over another drunk, this one snoring in the street, and walked on. The hunger gnawed at his insides like a rat trying to escape a burning box. His mind screamed at him to go back and feed on the drunk, that no one was nearby to see. Still he walked on, his feet dragging on the ground because he no longer had the strength to lift them.

His feet carried him not deeper into the city, but farther out, close to the city’s edge. He soon found himself wandering the roads leading away from the city. Here, the twisted silhouettes of acacias blended with the curvy outlines of a pair of wild olive trees. Most such trees near the city belonged to orchards, where wealthy landowners hired men or bought slaves to harvest their fruit for oil and other uses. To see a wild olive tree was extremely rare, and he stopped a moment to take in the sight. The smells of the olives ripening on their branches came to him, and he remembered their taste on his tongue. Mary had loved olives.

He stepped to the nearest tree and reached his fingers up to the tart, round little fruits. They would be ready soon. Perhaps someone from the city would come and lay claim to them, or already had. He snapped off a branch and brought it to his face, inhaling the aroma. In many countries, the olive branch was a symbol of peace. Maybe the tree was a sign. Maybe he should make his peace. Maybe it was time to die, after all.

He clutched the branch to his chest and resumed his walk down the road. At least now he knew what he was looking for. A clearing. Someplace to sit and wait for the sun. In the morning, he would eat an olive and watch the sunrise over the eastern horizon.

Once, shortly after he began to court Mary, he gave her a bag of olives as a gift. She had clapped her hands happily and eaten several right away. She offered him a few but he declined, preferring the look on her face to his own indulgence. When she smiled at him the sunlight had seemed to reflect from her face, filling him with warmth and love. That was all he’d ever needed. Later that night they shared their first kiss, and Mary’s breath had tasted like olives. He wanted to have that taste in his mouth when he died.

He walked along the path for almost an hour before he came to a suitable place. A wide clearing in the trees just off the path, big enough that the sun would shine through it early, but not so big as to be someone’s field. As an added bonus, in the center of the clearing lay a large boulder against which he could rest his tired, angry back.

Perfect.

Taras smiled as he stumbled through the high grass and into the place that would see his death. The olive branch clamped firmly in hand, he set his back against the boulder and waited, hoping the weather would hold clear on the morrow and allow the sun its full force. He hoped it would not be a slow, painful death, even though he deserved no less. He hoped the fire would cleanse him of his misdeeds and allow him a place in the afterlife. He hoped to find the gods in a forgiving mood tomorrow morning.

But most of all he hoped to see his beloved Mary again.

He sat against the rock for over an hour, living in his memories and occasionally humming a bawdy drinking song from the white lands to the north. The memory made him feel cold, and the thin garments he’d stolen from the peasant in Jerusalem could not keep him warm, because his body no longer cast any heat of its own. I am a reptile, he thought. A lizard in the house of men, needing the warmth of their fires to keep me alive.

Their fires or their blood, but he was only willing to take one.

A sound to his right caught his ear, and he turned his head to face it. The brush rustled, something large was coming through the trees toward his clearing. He reached for his sword out of instinct, forgetting that he no longer carried one. His claws had become his primary weapon, but as he sat and waited for the thing to make itself seen, he had to wonder why he bothered. So what if it killed him? What difference did it make? A wolf, a bear, or the sun. They all amounted to the same thing. He left his claws in check, waiting for whatever the gods had sent him.

Still, he was not prepared for what he saw.

Mary walked out of the darkness on the edge of the clearing, a huge smile on her face as she showed off the ring he’d bought her. A sparkle shone from the depths of her deep brown eyes. Her hair was black as the night sky, and her smile reflected the moonlight, magnifying it and casting the clearing in a soft, welcome glow. Her blue dress fit so tight he did not need to use his imagination to picture what lay beneath. She looked just like he remembered her, and in her hands she carried a single red flower.

“For you, my love,” she said, holding the bloom out to him.

It was the flower that showed him the truth.

“You are not here,” he said, reaching for the stem even though he knew it wasn’t real.

The vision of Mary frowned. “What do you mean, my love?” she asked. “I am right here. Where else would I be but with you?”

“You are in Jerusalem, where I left you. I placed this flower by your tomb.”

Her eyes drooped. The smile faltered, and Taras’ heart broke as a tear spilled from the corner of her eye. “It’s not true, my love. I’m here. Touch me.”