Crypt of Bone

Chapter 5

5

Vlassky Dvur Castle, Kutna Hora, Czech Republic. 1.16am

The ancient hallways of Vlassky Dvur castle were the closest Milan Noble had to a family home. It wasn’t far from Sedlec and was his retreat after he played his role as the personification of Thanatos. He had little time to come here anymore since the international headquarters of Zoebios were in Paris and New York.

As a pharmaceutical and health technology company it was the perfect foil to the dark underworld of Thanatos. Business had taken him away from his physical ancestry, albeit for the necessary purpose of building a platform for the fulfillment of the prophecy. Milan was glad to return now, a brief window of solitude in his busy schedule. Time seemed to be speeding up now that the plans were beginning to mature. With the teams deployed, it was only a matter of time until the prophecy could be fulfilled and he was finally released from his burden.

Milan shrugged off his black robes and left them pooled on the dusty floor by the door. He threw the black mask down next to them and switched on a lamp that cast terracotta shadows across the wood paneled walls. The glow illuminated a portrait of Arkady Novotsky. Milan had anglicized his name to Noble, a necessary break from his father’s scattered past. He stepped up to the photo, a portrait of pain in sepia tint.

“I still obey you, Father,” Milan said, his voice echoing in the empty hall. “Even in death, I do your will, and we are so close to fulfillment now.”

He shook his head to clear the shadows that clouded his memory and walked to the end of the long dark corridor.

His father had purchased the castle after a particularly successful archaeological dig. His side business of smuggling antiquities finally paid off enough to buy this grand old place. It was said to have belonged to an ancestor of theirs but Milan knew his father often had delusions of grandeur and the truth was frequently obscured by layers of fiction. His father had kept the castle private, but Milan had opened it up to the public. Most of the grounds were now managed for tours but he kept this tiny corner as his own personal space.

No one was allowed to come here, not even a cleaner.

As he walked, Milan shed more of his outer layers, so he was naked by the time he reached the door of the cellar. A simple white kimono hung there which he shook out and put on. With bare feet, he stepped onto the stairs leading down and shut the door firmly behind him.

Milan locked the heavy door from inside.

He rested his head against the deeply grained wood, the darkness broken only by a c***k of light from under the door. He breathed deeply, calm beginning to permeate through him even as the cold of the cellar prickled his arms.

This place had always been his refuge, where he had run when his father rampaged in anger. This was where he had hidden when Arkady had beaten his mother to death, her screams muted through the thick wood as he shook in fear on the top step. Strangely, it had been his father who had shown him what to do at the first signs of violence. He had taught the young Milan to lock himself inside the cellar and to wait for the clock to turn a full twelve hours. Only then was it safe to come out, as the storm of his father’s anger would have passed.

When his breathing had finally slowed, Milan flicked on the lights, then turned and walked down into the cellar.

The lighting was low and muted, a forest green tinge from the dim light bulbs and the bonsai that grew down here, each stunted plant in its own ceramic pot. Over the years, Milan had built this precious collection and the ecosystem of lights and water that sustained them down here in an artificial world. It was an Eastern interest that stood a long way from the Christian religious tradition he was steeped in. He thought it was probably a form of rebellion against his father, recognizing in the exactness of the bonsai a way to separate a part of himself from the work he carried out in the name of the prophecy.

Bonsai was about control.

It focused on making the form of the tree into an interesting shape without leaving a trace of the process. His bonsai were mounted on an ancient door laid on darkly oiled stumps, eight perfectly formed mini trees in a garden that no one else would ever see.

Milan walked around the table, his hands caressing the trees, fingertips gently feeling the health of his plants. He hovered and then chose.

This one was his favorite, but today he had to atone for the death of the boy. It was only fitting that he use this, his most faithful friend. The bonsai was a Chinese bird plum grown in the ‘moyohgi’ style, an informal upright with twisting trunk. Milan traced the curves of the tiny frame, seeking just the right spot.

He turned to the tool table where his instruments were laid out in neat rows of screws, twisting wire, pliers and sharp cutters. Like the picture in the attic of Dorian Gray, these trees were the outward reflection of his inner self, a physical manifestation of the evil he committed. He warred with himself over the deeds he performed, but he knew that the culmination of the prophecy was righteous. He came here to atone, for punishment must be handed out for the sin of murder and these were his scapegoat trees.

His movements knocked some of the tiny flowers onto the carpet of rich earth. With a little implement, Milan raked the miniature garden until the soil covered them again.

Bonsai were hardy trees, grown to survive the shaping by wire and vice but he had developed the hammering of nails himself, based on something he had seen in Afghanistan.

Milan thought back to when his father had taken him on a trip, a rare chance to be part of an archaeological dig in a part of the world generally not visited by Westerners. They had stopped on the outskirts of a remote village and he had been surprised to see an old woman weeping as she hammered thick nails into the trunk of a tree. As she sank to her knees in front of it, he had asked the guide what she was doing. It was a scapegoat tree, he had said. It took the sins of the people and was symbolically cast out away from them. It removed their sin and suffered in silence while they carried on with their lives.

His father had then told him of the ancient Israelite practice of scapegoating where a goat took the sins of the people and was cast out into the desert, dying far from the tribe that had committed the crime. The nailing of sin to a tree was also reminiscent of the sacrifice Jesus made for the sin of mankind. It was a way of repenting and atoning without the self-harm associated with taking the punishment upon oneself.

Milan had kept that memory safe and now replicated the scapegoat trees here in miniature, creating this little world of atonement hidden from the world. The trees were precious to him and to hurt them was to punish himself. He couldn’t cut himself, as that was a sign of weakness. He needed to be a strong leader, to show no remorse in the face of what Thanatos must do to fulfill the prophecy. But down here, he retreated to a space where he could face his sin and acknowledge his flawed humanity. This is my prayer, he thought.

He selected a short fat nail from an old tobacco tin he had found as a young man in the wasteland behind the castle. It had been thrown from a car. He fancied it was a message from the people who might have rescued him, but they never came back.

Picking up a tiny hammer, he took the nail and braced it against the trunk of the Chinese bird plum. His stomach was churning and he felt nauseous as he prepared to violate the wood. It was an abuse of the sacrament of bonsai, but he had to do it and he knew the relief that came after the sacrifice. He drove the nail hard into the trunk.

It only took two strikes and it had pierced the heart of the plum.

Milan knelt by the tree, the flagstones hard and cold on his knees.

“I’m sorry,” he whispered. “I’m so sorry.”

His fingers once again traced the trunk, the smooth wood now desecrated with the nail. He stroked the tree and felt the raised bumps of other nails that had been hammered here over the years. Looking over his collection, he could see little space left for new nails as the trunks were pock-marked with silver studs.

Here was the accumulation of his sin, the testament of his guilt.

But Milan breathed more easily now and his calm returned. It was time now to focus on the fulfillment of the prophecy.