The Blood: A Denouement

Two

Brüder und Schwestern

But ye are not so chosen.

-The Book of the Law

In 1803 at Dunbar Creek on St. Simons Island, Glynn County, on the coast of Georgia there was grounded a slave ship called the Wanderer filled with Igbo and other West African captives from what is now Nigeriawere taken to the Georgia coast. In May 1803, the Igbo and other West African captives arrived in Savannah, Georgia, on the slave ship the Wanderer. They were purchased for an average of $100 each by slave merchants John Couper and Thomas Spalding to be resold to plantations on nearby St. Simons Island. The chained Igbo were packed under deck of a coastal vessel, the York, which would take them to St. Simons.

They also say the Igbo could fly, that long ago in Gine, which white men call Africa, some of the people knew all manner of magic. Some would walk up on the air the way you climb up a ladder and fly like ravens over the fields.

But what does power mean? what is magic, truly? And what does it mean to fly. You may think such philosophical questions could not matter to a slave, but they matter to all who wish to be free. Full of misery were the people, and they were sick up and down on the sea. Imprisoned, they forgot about flying when they could no longer breathe the sweet scent of Igboland.

But the flying folk kept their power, although they shed their wings. All the time they were on that ship. They had felt the snarl of the driver's whip around their legs. They all felt the skin being torn to rags, and they all felt the ship and so, when their King called for them to do so, they rebelled, approximately 75 Igbo, and they took control of the ship, drowned their captors, but they were not sailors, and it was in that process the ship was grounded in Dunbar Creek.

That very day, the King of the Igbo declared, "the time is come." He raised his arms out to the others. And he sighed the ancient words that were a dark promise. He said them all around to the others in the field under the whip, "...kum yali... kum tambe...." He raised his hands and sang to Ala and Amadioha and especially Ogbunabali, God of Death.

They gave a great outcry. The Igbo straightened their bent backs and stood like spears. Old and young who were called slaves and could fly joined hands. This was no fairy tale, and there was no birdflight. There was only another type of freedom. Chains together, one by one, they marched from the ship and fell into the water, all of them sinking beneath the waves, After the violence of murdering the white men and the plop, plop, plop of one man, then a woman, then a child and then all over again, falling into the water there was only silence. But to this day, the ghosts of the Igbo haunt that land, and white folk who dare to come there should beware lest they end up like the crew of the York.

Life in the old brick house on Morse Street was quieter than it had been for some time, and Owen Dunharrow was getting used to his new role as Elder and former master of the Clan. For longer than was polite to remember, or his good looking forty year old face presented, he had presided over the business of the Clan of the Reunion. Good manners and a quiet way belied the things this man had done in years long before his nephews, Seth, and then Lewis had come to his door.

But now was their time, and that was fortunate, because so very often in the life of a witch who could not let go, their time ended when their life ended, and how their lives ended could be unfortunate. The things which were happening now, this convergence of vampires and werewolves, this discovery of things lost, were happening away from him, as one day he knew they would, and he had decided that this was a good thing.

“Are you sure it’s a good thing?” Uriah had asked.

Dr. Uriah Dunne was the son of Nero, Owen’s long departed brother, and as happened with Dunharrow men, whatever his real age, he looked anywhere from thirty-five to fifty.

Owen had looked at his nephew with a raised eyebrow.

“Okay,” Uriah said, “so you are sure. But I just wanted to make sure… you were sure.”

“Were you testing me?” Owen asked.

“I may have been.”

“It’s isn’t yours to test me.”

He said it so calmly that Uriah felt more reprimanded than if he had been loud about it.

“I think you forget, because we look the same age, that we are not the same age,” Owen told him. “I worry for Lewis and Seth. Think of stepping in. Remind myself that this is more vanity than it is care.”

Uriah shook his head.

Now he said, “Lewis and Seth. But Lewis is the clan head, the Master. Seth is…. Barely come into his powers.”

“Seth is more come into his powers than you know,” Owen said, simply.

Because he was training himself to stay out of affairs that were not his business, it was with mingled excitement and reluctance, he opened the email from Loreal that read:

“Cousin Owen, I am searching for the Maid. What do you know about her? What do you know about the Crater? Do you know anything about the church in Lassador that Augustus built? A lot of questions and no conversation. I’m sorry for that really. Will call soon, Loreal.”

“Well,” Uriah had asked, “what are you going to do?”

“Whaddo you mean, what am I going to do? I’m going to tell her as much as I know, but before I do, I should find out everything I know. How soon do you have to be back in Ohio?”

“I have classes Tuesday afternoon.”

“Ah,” Owen said, rising from his wingback chair, “then come with me.”

Uriah left his car in the garage as they walked up Morse toward the El stop. Owen loved the El, and thought that cars made everything take longer. Uriah was not sure about that, but surprised that his old fashioned uncle, whom he had rarely seen leave the neighborhood easily bought his Ventra ticket, swiped and passed though the gate of the semi dirty station and went up the long, much too long walk to the El platform.

“You don’t really know what I know,” Owen said to him. “Or what I do.”

And this was true. He knew Owen had raised Seth and then brought Lewis into his home. He knew Owen had been the Master of the Clan and the keeper of the Sword Azul, and he knew that Owen ran the magic shop on Bryn Mawr.

When the train finally came they sat down and Uriah watched it rattle south by Loyola. They skipped Bryn Mawr and passed Wilson and Sheridan and the train twisted away from the little sliver of lake view as they arrived at Wrigley Field and passing it, passed Addison to arrive at Belmont, where construction was going on and, at last, in the quiet of De Paul’s Campus, got off at the semi spacious Fullerton station.

“I’m convinced,” Uriah said, as they waited for the two tiny lights of the Brown Line train to approach them, “that we could have driven to wherever we’re going quicker than this.”

“Why do you care so much about quickness?” Owen said. “What do you have to do? Now I understand why none of your generation gained the Gift. Not a single one of you. Always too much in a hurry.”

The train took them from Belmont to Armitage to Sedgewick and they got off on Chicago, as they were approaching the towering skyscrapers of downtown. Here, the rows of town houses seemed new and shining and beyond the station, broad streets revealed large markets and old churches.

“I could live here,” Uriah said.

“If you could afford it,” Owen said.

They went down the steps and out into the city and Owen breathed in the cold air, unbothered.

“I never get tired of this city,” he said while cars rolled up and down the street, under the viaduct of the passing El. “Every neighborhood is a new discovery.”

Owen was in lovely spirits as they traveled down Chicago and Uriah was as impressed by his uncle as he was by the city.

“You never know what you’re going to see.”

They made a right turn and went down a street where the bright sky shone through the snow touched tree branches. Down the street they could hear children playing in the yard of an old school, and across from them was a tall, old apartment building. The First floor of it, which must have been plain concrete once upon a time, was painted a magnificent yellow, and its molding was painted in three colors, green, red and blue. Above the entrance door to the apartment building were letters.

ጥሕዒጽ ዒጽ ጥሕዐ ሕዖዑጽዐ ዖፍ ጥሕዐ ምዓዒዽ

“You’re are right,” Uriah said, “you never do know what you’ll find.”

Owen rang the doorbell. Clearly, like most buildings, a key was needed to get in, and the lobby seemed empty enough. Owen waited patiently and Uriah was sad to realize how cold it was. But now, he saw someone walking down the stair at the end of the lobby. He could barely see her features through the glass. Here grey eyes were wide and her face was familiar as she looked through the glass and her face brightened. Her head was shaven, grey and buzzed, and as she opened the door, Uriah knew her face, though he remembered the crown of white gold hair, cut in a great Egyptian bob, she had worn.

“Onnalee,” Owen said.

“Cousin,” the Maid opened the great wooden door and let them into the lobby, “enter our home.”

Apparently this building was not strange to Owen, but Uriah continued to observe it in amazement. It was clearly an old apartment building, a low lobby leading down to another lobby where a staircase led to ground floor apartments and another led to the mezzanine. Two elevators with old brass doors were in the lobby and the carpet was pale green blue and beyond that, down the hall,appeared to be a ballroom.

“Cousin,” Onnalee said to Uriah, “what’s on your mind?”

“This place is beautiful. It’s a real lovely old building. But… it’s more than that.”

“I imagine,” Onnalee said, “anything is more than what it is.”

But when they went up the little steps to the mezzanine, Uriah caught his breath, for the walls, interrupted by red doors, were murals of aqua waves and brown and white dancers in loin clothes leaping up on bulls and dancing on their horns. Bare breasted women in pleated skirts, serpents twisted about their arms marched about.

“It’s like… it’s like Crete.”

“Consider this our personal labyrinth,” Onnalee said, smiling, and entered the open door at the end of the hall, which must have been her apartment.

“Loreal asked you to search for me,” Onnalee said, rubbing her hands together as she took the seat on the other side of the fireplace, as if it was a throne.

“Indeed,” Owen said.

“Did she think it would be an epic quest to the other side of the world?” Onnalee said, then, “I believe she did.”

“How was she to know you were right here in Chicago?”

Onnalee laughed to herself.

“But Owen you know about the church that Augustus built.”

“I know a little about it. I know he built is as much for himself and the witches as for any religious reason.”

“Or rather,” Onnalee, “he build it for reasons of the old religion. He built it as a map and a puzzle to all of our implements and mysteries. He built it on the great lines of power, the same lines on which stand Saint Jerome, your house and the House.”

“If,” Uriah said, “We could travel underground from Owen’s house to Saint Jerome’s—”

“Then you could do the same from here to Saint Jerome’s, as I and my ladies did. And you could, if you wished, travel all the way to that church in Lassador. It is impractical, but possible, and there is so much old power, so much of worlds brushing up against worlds, it is not entirely certain what you might meet if you were to make that journey.”

Onnalee was quiet, and then she said, “I suppose that you might even, by those tunnels, journey until you reached the house of Kruinh, for there is no doubt in my mind that the blood drinkers established themselves in Lassador because it is a place of power.”

Onnalee seemed to have distracted herself, the cream skinned woman was looking out of the window onto the street below, and now she said, “But what else did Loreal ask?”

“She wanted to know about the Crater.”

“Yes,” Onnalee nodded. “Of course she would. Well, then, tell her that this was a second Crater, remade, that the old Crater was lost. It was actually lost years ago, but when I saw Loreal, I knew she would find it. I saw her, and I knew she would be the Maid who was not a Maid, like Elaine, like Kundry.”

“These names…” Uriah began.

“You know,” Onnalee said. “But what do you know?”

Uriah looked about the apartment, painted in pale blues and aquas and he said, “When I am in here I feel like I am at sea, but when I look out the window I am reminded of where we are now. I do not know anything, cousin. I only know what Loreal should have asked, and that she did not.”

Owen had sunk deep into his seat lacing his fingers together and closing his eyes, the firelight reflected on his glasses, but he could not deceive Uriah into believing he was asleep. He was an old dragon, and ol wizard out of a tale, waiting with Onnalee, testing.

“She should have asked who was the Maid,” Uriah said. “She ought to have asked what was the Crater? She… should have asked where the Maid lived, who the women were who served her. She might have asked all of that. Perhaps she did not because she feared the answer.”

“What about you, Uriah Dunne,” Onnalee said. “Do you have the answer? Or having it, do you fear it?”

“Yes, Uriah said, truthfully, “I do fear it, and I cannot say why.”

“Speak it,” Onnalee said, “and…”

“The truth will set me free?”

“It will set you free from fear at least.”

Owen sat with his great mug of tea, almost like a cauldron, swirling the liquid in and watching the firelight whorl over it.

“Very often fear is the other side of hope.”

“The Maid lives here,” Uriah said. “Clearly. Those who serve the Maid… or the other G… the other maidens.”

“Say it,” Onnalee said.

“Say…”

“What you were about to say. When that G came out of your mouth.”

Uriah looked at his distant cousin, and finally he said, “The other Grail Maidens.”

“Yes.”

“This….” Uriah looked about the room, but meant the whole building, “is the Grail Castle.”

“What else do you know?” it was Owen who asked it now, raising his dark eyes to is nephew, bearing in them the full weight of the magician.

The Crater… the one that is missing, is the cup called the Holy Grail.”

“Aye,” Owen said, quietly.

Owen and Onnalee had been so quiet in their admission, that suddenly Uriah felt empowered to go on.

“In the Grail stories, the Grail was in the East, in a place called Sarras, same as the word Saracen. Some people, I suppose, thought it meant some place in the Levant, in Syria or Lebanon. But if you read Parizval by Wolfram –”

Onnalee tilted her head and looked amused.

“Everyone is black in the east. It clearly means either that Sarras was not in the Middle East, or that Wolfram did not know what he was talking about as Europeans… did not know what they were talking about.”

“What if we told you it was both?” Onnalee said. “What if I told you, that outside, on this building is written in Amharic, the language of old Ethiopia, THIS IS THE HOUSE OF THE MAID? What if I told you that Sarras was, in truth, in East Africa, in what was then called Abyssinia and before that Axum, which is now Ethiopia? It lasted long years, ages. It was guarded by spells, but in time they failed. The details are for another time.”

“And so we fled, we of the House that became the Clan of the Reunion,” Owen said. “We fled West, and for a long time lived in what would be Mali, and what became the Ivory Coast. There was a time when it was richer, wealthier and more advanced than Europe could ever hope to be.”

“And it was a connected world, a world that went from Zimbabwe far in the south, to Egypt, across Syria and Arabia to India, Samarkand…. A bright world.

“There were other connections,” Owen said.

“To Britain for a long time,” Onnalee said.

“That world fell apart, which is how we ended up on slave ships, how the clan was divided, half of us ending up in Cornwall, the other half in the Islands, and we did not come together again until the days of Augustus Dunharrow and his brother Octavian, and their seemingly white wives, Susanna and Rachel. The beginnings of the Clan of the Reunion. All the treasures were restored except a few.

“The Orb of All Seeing,” Owen said. “And the Crater.”

“The Grail.”

“Yes.”

“When you say we had connections to Britain…” Uriah began.

“Those connections meant those of us who landed in Cornwall had a home, had others like us to meet and learn with, had a tradition to come into.”

“But it also means that long ago the House of the Grail Maid and another house, the one in Britain, were one in the same,” Onnalee added.

“You mean Avalon.”

“Some have called it that.”

“The Grail Maiden knew… the Lady of the Lake. Or something like that.”

“Something like that,” Onnalee said.

“Once upon a time,” Owen said.

“And now,” said Uriah, “I do not know to ask about the future, or about the past.”

“Both are good.”

He looked about the walls of Onnalee’s apartment, which were also painted with bulls and dolphins. He said, “Did the original Maids come from Crete?”

“The original Maids,” Onnalee said, “came from the same place as the Masters. For there was never a Maid without the Master.”

Uriah looked to Owen.

“You could have told me all of this.”

“I could have told you some of it.”

“Could Lewis? He is the Master.”

“He is a Master. The most powerful one.”

Uriah waited for further explanation.”

“He is not the only fey born,” Onnalee said. “Lewis is not the only one of us who has returned life after life.”

“Seth?”

“And Owen,” Onnalee said. “And me.”

“But there is no perfect remembering,” Owen said. “This is why records are kept.

“So you said Crete?”

“Yes,” Uriah said. “There was an old theory that the Cretans were black, that Greece originally learned from a black culture.”

“I do not doubt either of those things,” Owen said, “in their own way, but you must reach further back than Crete.”

“Further back than…. If it were Egypt you would have said so.”

Uriah looked almost offended now.

“What?” Onnalee said.

“We are in tin foil territory.”

“We’re witches,” Owen said, “we are…. Sorcerers. We are always in tin foil hat territory.

“You’re talking about—”

“The Sunken Isle,” Onnalee said, calmly. “It has had many names, many stories. Even the Great Flood in the Bible is a slanted illusion to it. You do not need to speak its name. In truth, its real name is not known. But that is our origin. From it came Sarras, Avalon, many other places. Once upon a time the Lady of the Lake and Grail Maid were one.”

“And let me guess,” Uriah said. “They are again one.”

“Aye,” Onnalee said.

“This apartment building,” Uriah concluded, while neither Onnalee or Owen said a word, “is Avalon.”