Zaidu - 1. Zaidu

Zaidu

The fire crackles in the background, but its warmth doesn’t reach him. Standing in the cave’s entrance, his gaze wanders unseeingly over dense forest. Long-forgotten memories have assaulted him: a walled garden, green leaves whispering in the early morning breeze, and the cries and giggles of his siblings somewhere in the house. But not the name his mother called him. Not her face. Just a faint scent...jasmine?

His hand involuntarily clenches into a fist, and he turns his face toward the slight breeze coming in from the sea hidden behind the green.

He was seven when he watched her disappearing into a maze of narrow alleys, after she left him at the temple’s entrance. Her firstborn was the price the goddess Lamashtu had demanded in return for protecting her family and children from roaming demons. Mother just gave him up. Not a single tear, no words of goodbye, no last touch. No explanations.

He can still feel her betrayal, a festering wound never healed, burning inside him just as bright as on the day it was inflicted. Roaming demons.

He scoffs. Oh, the perfidy.

His new world consisted of prayers, rituals, chores, and the sharp pain of the cane if he failed—and he failed often. He was angry and defied the priests every way he could. Until Amarud. Fragile for a seven-year-old, the new boy still held himself erect, challenging everyone with his glare as he stood in the inner yard of the temple to accept the orange garb of the disciples. Their gazes met, and he knew he had found a kindred spirit.

Zaidu looks over his shoulder at the figure lying beside the fire huddled in a blanket, before his eyes find soothing green leaves again.

Amarud and he soon became inseparable. Together they adapted to temple life. Years of memorizing long litanies, tending to the gardens, sharing measly meals, as well as cleaning and dressing wounds caused by the priests’ cane. They wanted the disciples to fail and sometimes assigned them tasks that were too much for one boy. Amarud and he eventually learned to evade their cruelty by secretly helping each other and covering up mistakes. As they became older, they did the same for the younger boys, who were always the favorite targets of the head priest’s punishments.

A smile tugs at his lips. How many nights did they sit on their straw mats, quietly talking about the day, before finally falling asleep in each other’s arms in search of warmth in the cold desert nights? It had been the happiest ten years of his life.

Stepping outside the cave, his gaze follows a bird circling the sky. So much to forget. No more. Even so, pictures begin to flood his mind. Of disciples who tried to escape the temple, its darkness and violence. They were always captured and brought back. To deter them and others from ever trying again, their punishment was brutal. The head priest himself caned the soles of their feet, splattering his white robe with blood, until there was nothing left but raw, bleeding flesh. Some could never walk properly after that. Only one boy tried a second time. He was caught after a week and displayed in the inner yard, shackled to a wall for three days, and then one night he just disappeared. It was the uncertainty about their friend’s fate that got to them most. Their imagination of what might have happened to him ran wild between hope and despair, even though deep down they all knew he was dead.

For Amarud and him it was never the question if they would escape, just how and when. A bird cries out. He is soon joined by another, and together they roam the sky in a well-practiced dance. Watching them, a sharp pain sears through Zaidu’s dead heart.

Reaching seventeen years, disciples became junior priests and left to serve at another of Lamashtu’s temples. They never said goodbye to their friends, just packed their things and went away. Then Nuri vanished. The older boy had promised to help them train for a complicated ritual but then never showed up. When asked, a priest told them Nuri was no longer serving at the temple. He and Amarud wondered why he hadn’t told them he completed his apprenticeship and was about to leave. It was the same evening they heard the whispers for the first time. Nuri joined the goddess’s army.

He can still feel their panic when they realized they too would be seventeen soon. Grabbing his head with both hands he presses down, ripping at his hair to try to prevent more memories from surfacing. Why can’t he forget?

They didn’t want to become priests, and they definitely didn’t want to join this mysterious army. The perfect escape opportunity came up when the town celebrated Lamashtu’s feast. The temple would be crowded with people presenting their offerings. Amarud had managed to get his hands on some plain clothes as their orange disciple robes would attract unwelcome attention. The plan was to mingle with the worshippers and then just walk out.

How naïve they were.

It was still dark when the priest came for him. His mind screamed not to follow, but somehow he did it anyway. He was led to a cave-like room, where steam billowed from a circular basin embedded in the ground. The priest ordered him to leave his clothes at the entrance and step into the pool. Its water was scorching hot, making him shiver involuntarily, while goosebumps ran all over his skin. But when he tried to get out the priest blocked his path, pointing wordlessly at a bench barely visible under the water. He had to wash himself with a strange smelling soap before he could finally get out, only to discover he must enter a second pool that he hadn’t seen because it had been obscured by steam.

The water was only lukewarm, and it smelled awful. Like in the tanner’s district. Soon his skin felt raw, and he became dizzy. Then he lost control over his bodily functions. He was so ashamed when it happened, but the priest just ushered him to a third basin. It was so cold his lips turned blue and his muscles froze, so the priest had to help him out of the water. He rubbed him down with a coarse cloth, which felt as if he’d been skinned alive.

When he left through the back, he saw Amarud coming in the front entrance. His friend’s eyes lit up when he detected him. Zaidu wanted to warn him, to tell him to run, but somehow he couldn’t find his voice.

The wind feels cool on his skin. He wipes his face, and his hand comes back red with tears. Another reminder of what he lost.

The priest led him into the basement of the temple, and he followed like a mindless sheep. The stairs seemed to be endless. His body couldn’t respond to his resolve to take Amarud and flee. It felt sluggish. Soon his naked body shivered in the increasing cold. They entered a narrow and damp hallway. It smelled of mold and decay. At its end was an iron-barred gate. When they reached it, he didn’t want to go inside, but the priest easily pushed him past and closed it after him with an impossibly soft click.

He looked around, and found he was inside a cage. Something was there on the other side. Something dark and menacing waited for him. And it was hungry. Fear clawed at him, froze him to the spot, until he heard faint footsteps coming his way. Amarud! Sweet, beautiful Amarud. He wanted to scream for him to run. He didn’t want whatever was on the other side of the cage get to Amarud. He had to fight it! Kill it!

As if it had waited for that thought to enter his mind, a second gate opened with a loud clank. He felt it immediately. It sucked the remaining warmth from his body, and his muscles became stiff. He knew he needed to move, needed to destroy this thing. For Amarud! A black shadow descended on him. He grabbed it. To his surprise, it was substantial. But it slipped from his fingers easily. And then it laughed. It seemed to be delighted by his resistance, by his will to fight it. He clawed at it, kicked it, hit it. Only to find his hands empty again and again. It played with him, mocked him. He knew this. He still fought it. For Amarud. Until darkness consumed him, filled him and he finally understood. Not ‘it’. ‘She’. She choked him with her essence, letting it seep into him, fill him, so she would be always present in his mind.

He was so young. Despite his mother leaving him without looking back, despite the cruelty of the priests, he had kept some sort of joy—naivety. Hope. He must have amused the goddess immensely.

Was that why she didn’t kill him? Why she did something far crueler in letting him live to become her soldier, become Lili, a demon of the goddess’s army.

He woke tied to a wall with heavy chains and shackles. There was no light, no torches, still he could see perfectly. And he was hungry. He’d never been this hungry before, and he’d never be again in his life. It felt as if his stomach was devouring him from the inside. There were two others with him. Their gazes were fixed on the door as if they knew it would open soon. And it did. Food was pushed into the room. The scent hit his nostrils, and he ripped his chains as if they’d been made from paper. His one-tracked mind commanded him: Eat.

When he was finally sated, he saw him. Barely recognizable. His Amarud. Torn. Shredded. Dead. By him. And he felt nothing, nothing at all. Just stating a fact.

The wailing of a deeply wounded animal sounds through the valley. The birds in the sky answer him. He can feel it now, the pain, the horror, the fear, and the agony. He slaps a hand over his mouth. Too late.

Since then his name was Zaidu. Hunter. He was Lili—a monster. The very thing his mother had wanted to protect her children from. Perfidy indeed.

Being newly turned, everything revolved around quenching his thirst for blood. The priests made sure nothing but hunting was on his mind, constantly exposing him and the others to the scent of fear by holding humans in a nearby cell. Fear equaled prey. Prey equaled food. In reality though, they all were nothing more than cannon fodder.

Thankfully, the red haze of bloodlust shrouded most of his memories of a century spent slaughtering in the name of Lamashtu.

There were women stumbling, screaming, trying to protect the children. Houses bearing the goddess’s claw mark the Lili couldn’t enter, because the family had given their firstborn to Lamashtu, and therefore had to be spared. Men who managed to corner one of Lamashtu’s soldiers tore him to shreds, and then set fire to his remains. Zaidu was part of the demon army that always executed Lamashtu’s will. They were the goddess’s arm to punish, to conquer, set free to swarm villages and other gods’ temples if people refused to pay tribute, refused to give up their firstborn, and refused to worship only their queen. Not many young Lili survived their first battle.

Lamashtu and her priests thought they were invincible. They erred.

He was on a raid to one of Ashur’s temples when it happened. The weapons the enemy priests wielded suddenly emitted deathly sunlight. Demons crumbled to dust left and right, their remains swept away by the constant breeze blowing the wind god’s halls. The other gods finally had enough of Lamashtu’s rampage.

Zaidu was outside tracking a fleeing priest when he felt Lamashtu dying. For so long, all he knew was her constant murmuring in his head, driving him to kill, to hate, to destroy. Then her presence was suddenly gone. Disorientated, he fell to the ground, not understanding at first that he was his own master again. Finally he stood, and without looking back, he simply walked away into the dark desert.

Roaming the land by night, hiding in caves and abandoned buildings by day, he slowly realized even with Lamashtu gone, he could never again be the boy he once was. That boy had died the night he met the goddess. He was the monster that killed Amarud. The monster that killed hundreds, maybe thousands, of innocent people. The monster that had to die.

Calmly, Zaidu climbed a rooftop to wait for the sun to rise. He even spread his arms and closed his eyes to welcome death. To his joy, he saw Amarud’s smiling face, and he knew, even though he didn’t understand why, his friend had forgiven him. Zaidu’s heart felt light. He was ready to be with him again.

But Amarud shook his head. It’s not time yet.

“Why?” Zaidu screamed. “No! Please!” He needed this to end.

Then Amarud touched his lip with a finger to silence him—Listen!—and was gone.

That was when Zaidu heard scraping and shuffling. Amarud had said listen. He leaned over the edge of the roof. Another demon was creeping around the house. Soon cries would rouse the neighbors from their sleep, but it would be too late. No one would be able to help the family. No one. Unless….

The demon had no time to react. Zaidu grabbed him from behind, plunged his fangs into his neck, and drained him dry until he turned to dust. That morning the gods gave him a chance to atone for his sins. For centuries, he was the hunter again, only his prey had changed.

He mimics the posture he held on the roof, spreads his arms, breathes the cool evening air, and basks in the last rays of the setting sun. It doesn’t do much to him these days. Living by night is the price one had to pay for drinking blood, but being as old as he is, he doesn’t need much blood anymore.

There were other demons like him, who had tamed their hunger for human flesh and blood. Together they hunted beings created by mad gods all over the world, albeit for different reasons. Most of them wanted humanity to forget them, so they could live undetected from prying eyes. A few were like him, trying to make amends for the atrocities they committed. When they finally eradicated most of the wild demons, they found themselves at an impasse. To survive they needed blood, but the only blood they could stomach beside their own was human blood. Afraid they’d fall mad again, some decided they’d rather meet the sun.

Others built small covens near human settlements. By drinking the essence of foreign demons, they had absorbed some of their abilities, such as compelling humans into forgetting what they saw and healing wounds. They took an oath only to take as much blood as not to harm the humans. This way they could survive, but their existence would stay hidden. It wasn’t ideal, but it helped them to stay alive.

Zaidu didn’t join a coven. For a long time he wandered the world alone. He watched from afar, always certain there would be a time humanity would need him again. When he learned his kind had started to procreate by turning humans into demons, he knew the time was near. Soon all the horrors from the past repeated themselves. Newly-turned demons left to their own devices attacked villages and farms to sate their voracious hunger. They didn’t know otherwise, and their sires didn’t care.

Zaidu sighs. Humanity had remembered. Only, he and his brothers weren’t the only hunters anymore. By their sheer number, humans threatened to exterminate the demons. And Zaidu couldn’t agree more.

But there were also covens who lived by the rules, who wanted to stay hidden and coexist with humans, not kill or harm them. Even though they too procreated, they educated their fledglings carefully; they didn’t let them out until they could be controlled. Zaidu would never cross that line, would never condemn a human to live like him, always on the verge of turning into a monster, but nevertheless, he recognized the demons’ right to live. And this was why he became their hunter, swiftly killing those fledglings out of control as well as their irresponsible sires, helping humanity to forget them. Again.

The figure behind him stirs. He will be awake soon. And he will be hungry.

Zaidu was on one of his rare visits into a town. It was high time that he fed. Because he still did it with great reluctance, he had waited far too long. He was extremely hungry. In this condition, his senses were even more heightened than usual. As he passed a church, he heard a woman crying and pleading. Feeling her distress, he decided to investigate. The noises came from the priest’s house. When he looked through the window, he saw a man in priest attire looming over a woman who was kneeling on the floor.

“I beg you. Get him help. Go fetch the healer. Please.”

“Your sister was a witch! They burnt her at the marketplace. They should have burnt the boy right with her.”

“Adam was just an innocent child!”

“A woman like her can’t give birth to something innocent. Nobody knows who the father is. For all we know he could be the devil himself.”

“No!”

“Look what he did! He is an abomination! He only lives because the duke’s men thought he’d be dead. And soon he will be. Then he will go directly to hell where he’ll join his mother in the eternal fire.”

“John, please! Let me at least take care of his wounds, ease his passing.”

“Enough of this, woman!”

Zaidu could feel a faint heartbeat in the back part of the house where the animals were. A life was about to fade away; once a bright flame, it was sputtering its last sparks. Without consciously deciding on it, he materialized beside a small cot. The stink of rotten, infected flesh immediately assaulted his senses. Death. Barely covered by a thin blanket soaked with blood and probably pus, laid the broken body of a young man. His face was swollen; the eyes were mere slits. From the corner of his mouth ran small rivulets of blood and drool. His blond hair was matted with blood. No one had cared enough to clean him. Someone—the duke’s men—had beaten him almost to death. It wouldn’t take long until they succeeded. The boy was moments away from passing over, and Zaidu felt compelled to stand by his side, to accompany him to a better world.

Then, even though it seemed impossible in his state, the boy—Adam—opened one of his eyes. It was the clearest sapphire blue. It was Amarud’s eye.

And he crossed the line he had sworn he never would. Taking a battered hand in his, he turned it until the wrist was exposed. He inserted his fangs into a vein, and sucked the remaining life out of Adam. Never had he tasted something as vile as his blood, still he kept sucking until the heart stopped. For a very short moment, he remembered his oath to never turn a human, then he slashed his own wrist and gave Adam his blood as he had seen the other demons doing in one of the covens. It dripped on his lips, but nothing happened; the red ran down Adam’s chin only to be soaked up by the soiled mattress. What was he doing wrong? Zaidu pried Adam’s mouth open with his finger, and the drops vanished between his lips. Then one missed, and Adam’s tongue came out to catch it. It was as if Zaidu’s dead heart twitched in his chest when Adam grabbed his wrist, pressed it against his mouth, and greedily consumed the first drops of his blood on his own.

He wrapped the small body in his cloak, lifted it into his arms, and faded out of the room to the cave that was his temporary home.

After one last gaze to the setting sun, Zaidu turns around to feed his fledgling. Then, because he isn’t alone anymore, he is going to look and find a better place. For Adam.

And again it happened: my jumbled thoughts became a story. Many thanks to Cole, Val, Lisa and Zombie! And a special thank you to Cia for proofing and suggesting the time switch.