I never expected Benjamin to be up on the cross. He always knew. It was expected by him.
There is too much activity on the floor. No one knows I am there. They are all dancing and moving together. The energy of the throng is wild and yet also subdued. It is like they are in a trance. Only a handful seem to be conscious of their surroundings.
I come for her but she isn’t here. That isn’t important at the moment. It will be important later.
Somewhere between the metal roses there is a scent. No one can trace it to any source. It is part of everything that makes this place what it is. There is no control. There is control. It does not work by normally accepted and understood rules. It has a life of its own.
Decontrol.
There is music and there is movement. I can feel my own silent moves as I become her as the last method by which she can be achieved. She is the spirit now. She is what drives these people to reckless abandon.
What they abandon they never had in the first place.
Benjamin spins. The cross is not what you think it is.
Amid the flurry of the dancers there is one old, bald cook in his bloody butchering apron. He moves amongst them and they do not know he is there. Yet he stands out amongst the crowd. He sees me looking at him. He smiles knowingly.
There is no longer anything around my neck. There was once but I don't remember what it was.
Jonas wants to cut Benjamin down. It would disturb the tranquility of the madness here. No one will let it happen. I don't know who Jonas is but I know his name.
The dwarf comes and leads me to the back room. It is like the inside of a tomb. She is there and so is the second queen. Four men in dark hoods are leading the second queen to the lid of a large, granite coffin. They remove her clothes and lather her body with their forked tongues. Then they take more than she came for.
The dwarf hands me a sheet of paper I cannot read. The author of the note is the one I came to find. She is now gone. I watch motionless as the hooded men feast upon the second queen. None of them make any sound aside from the aching moan of lusty flesh.
There is a tunnel that leads from this room and the dwarf goes down it. He turns and winks at me but I am not sure if he means for me to follow. The first of the men penetrates the second queen with his extremely large and very stiff organ. She only says “welcome” as he begins to thrust into her as the other men pull her legs apart. The second queen asks me to stay but I go down the tunnel instead. The dwarf is gone.
The vision of Benjamin on the cross stays. I do not know who he is, I realize, but I know that his name is Benjamin. He is now barely alive. He opens his eyes very wide for an instant and transmits something to me through those eyes. He takes a knife and cuts across his chest, yet both his arms are still bound to the cross.
There is a lot of noise in the tunnel, similar to what one hears on military radio communication in the movies. Coordinates are given and code words are used. There is a lot of noise. The tunnel begins to close around me.
“What is to be done must be done and the seed is always planted where no one expects it to be. Only then can She come into your world.”
It is then that I realize that I have been chasing someone other than who I thought I had come for. There is a connection. I am not sure what it is but I can feel the connection. Mother to daughter would be too easy. It is something more than that.
“When one flower wilts, another grows to take its place. You are the stem.”
“We have a go on six,” I hear very clearly from the radio babble that surrounds me.
“Dragon will return when you honor her with life.”
Transmission ends.
They open a cage and the doves fly out. The cage is rusty and old. I drop it from the window. I am in a tower, the remnant from an old castle and there is no glass in the windows of this stone fortress. I never hear the cage hit the ground, which continues to get further and further away.
Transmission begins.
My wings have returned, but the landscape is very dark. Everything smells of burning and very old death. I am alone, but only for an instant. The tower shakes and falls. I follow the doves into the air, but I am too heavy for my wings. I plummet towards the earth and hit the ground hard. My body is changing and I cannot do anything to change that. My identity is dissolving from everything except my soul.
There are bodies everywhere and they have been there for some time. No one here buries the dead. I hear the sound of horses coming. It sounds like three or four of them. My hearing and vision are very acute and I can see them coming. I draw my sword, which is nothing more than a handle with two inches of broken blade at the end of it. This is not important. I can sense the dragon above, ready to protect me if necessary.
They appear, four red riders, fully armed with their triple sets of wings fully extended out behind them. They are hiding nothing. They have come for me. I am the last one remaining in this place and they are not very fond of me.
The dragon makes its presence known, but the riders are not deterred. They smile. They look into my eyes and I can feel their gaze burning me. The dragon engages them and I find myself dropping to the floor in convulsions. One seizure after another takes hold of me and when they pass I discover that I am now she who I sought after all these years.
I have become her. Maybe I always was.
End of transmission.