Limassol, Cyprus
Present day
Elli was in for another unsettled night’s sleep and an early wake-up call, a rude awakening. Around her there was peace; the city was too far away down the hill for any sounds to reach her. But inside her mind she was boiling in turmoil.
It was the same dream every time lately. She would be standing inside a tomb in front of an open sarcophagus. She would start to go close, but before she reached it, the sarcophagus would start to spew body parts, which would be sliding down the sides and then on the cool floor towards her. The frothy boiling mixture would bubble, drenching the chamber, and her, with splash upon splash of blood and entrails.
Every splash would burn her skin, every part would start to climb on her body and the nails would claw at her and scratch her again and again. Every splash was a collection of body parts from what looked like the mutilated body of a woman. The parts would rise and click together in their right place to form that woman. The woman would then rise, dripping blood, and extend her arms in pleading to her. A child would appear next to the woman and would try to hold her hand.
The woman, seemingly rooted to the spot and unable to move closer to the child, would extend one arm in an attempt to reach the child, her hand desperately pining for the child’s hand. But however hard they tried, it was all in vain. They would never reach each other; their hands would never touch. Then suddenly they would both disappear in a cloud of loud screams that resonated in Elli’s head long after they had gone.
Elli suddenly jumped out of her deep sleep. It was her recurring nightmare again. She thought it had left her for good. But it seemed that it was not to be. It was back with a vengeance, worse than before. She lay on the bed and listened. Nothing. The nightmare was still vivid in her mind and she felt disorientated and struggling for breath. She would not be able to go back to sleep now. She got up and put on her nightgown.
It was June, but at 5.30 in the morning it was chilly. She opened the French windows leading into the garden and went outside. She wanted to shake that feeling of foreboding that enveloped her like a funereal veil. Dawn was breaking on the far horizon and the birdsong gave her some respite from the remnants of the nightmare following her even as she stepped out onto the balcony and tried to hungrily breath in mouthfuls of fresh air hoping that it would clear her head and dispel her nightmare.
She began to relax as she surveyed her gardens below and the city beyond that looked as if it almost flowed into the sea lapping at its edge. A strange thought of the city spilling and dissolving into the sea in a mighty torrent, of a river-Amazon-like magnitude reaching its Atlantic delta, and disappearing in a flash, took hold of Elli’s mind and she smiled, amused at the absurdity and unlikelihood of it all.
She looked around at the parts of her home visible from her vintage point. She loved this house. It sat atop the highest hill lording it over the city below. The sun was already rising on its daily tour of the sky. The view was magnificent. She could see the sea spreading in front of her for miles like a blinding jewel scattering the light in all directions in its attempt to repel the sun’s attack. She would never exchange this view with any other in the world. It was in her heart. Just like this city and the house puncturing the sky behind her were in her heart. This was the house that had stood here at this very spot for over 80 years.
She felt a strange itch spreading across her body and she shivered involuntarily. She checked her body for scars, even though she did not really expect to find any. And yet there they were. She wondered whether this meant that it was a prophetic vision, a glimpse into the future through the eyes of an occurrence in the past. Perhaps it was both a treasure trove laden with clues and an instruction. Perhaps the vision was trying to tell her that there was something she was meant to do.
The scars were real, as water running down the Mallachian weir was real. She smiled at the memory of that verse from one of her favourite poems, but worry lines returned to haunt her face and her mind. The evidence of the vividness of her nightmare was real this time. She used to get those marks from a nightmare when something terrible was about to happen. But if this was a warning, what was it for?
She thought about her nightmare. She felt that there was something important that she should remember. But try though she might, she couldn’t quite put her finger on it. And then it hit her. The last thing she remembered from her dream was the image of a sarcophagus and two icons sitting atop it facing her.
What made the whole image extraordinary was that the characters in the icons came to life and were speaking to her. They would get out of the icons and kneel on the lid of the sarcophagus in the position of supplicants and look at her with hope in their eyes.
She wondered whether those icons were indeed real. She knew she had seen the icons before. And it was not in another of her dreams. But where? Who would know? There was only one man who could tell her. If he did not know, nobody would. That man was a monk, the librarian of a monastery on the autonomous monastic community of Mount Athos in Northern Greece. Making a mental note to arrange a trip in the near future, she turned her mind to more pressing matters in the real present.
Elli thought of the day ahead and trembled with excitement. Aristo was coming. Her son, at thirty-four, had been working with her at the Valchern Corporation, the family concern, for ten years now. Since starting at the company, Aristo had worked his way through all of its divisions. As time passed, with an increasingly expanding role encompassing more and more of the company’s activities, he gradually proved his ability and his suitability to eventually run the whole company. He had already attained major-force status in the global world of business.
The Valchern Corporation was an industrial powerhouse. It was not only one of the world’s biggest private companies, but one of the biggest companies listed or otherwise. Its origins went back over eight hundred and fifty years. It was founded in Constantinople in 1151 A.D. moved to Smyrna in 1453 A.D. with the fall of Constantinople to the Ottomans and went through numerous incarnations throughout the years to become the giant that it was today.
Elli was the matriarch of the Symitzis clan and, as chairman of the Valchern Corporation, wielded enormous power and influence. Aristo had been installed as chief executive officer four years ago and was her right-hand man. Elli was the majority shareholder with 60 % of the company’s single class of shares. The second largest shareholder with 20 % was Iraklios Symitzis, Elli’s younger and only brother, close confidant and deputy chairman of the company. Their loyalty to each other was unquestionable, their close bond unbreakable.
But theirs was, at times, an uncomfortable relationship, which was to be expected when you had two headstrong and dominant characters who knew how to argue and enjoyed doing so. But against all the odds or because of the productive tension fired by their passion for the business and the ideas that they bounced off each other, the arrangement worked. Together with Aristo they formed a formidable business team. The remaining 20 % of the company’s shares was scattered amongst other descendants of Artemisia, the original founder, and her two brothers.
Aristo’s younger brother, Vasilis, was also involved in the family business, but in a lesser role. He had a sideline that kept him busy. His main calling in life was to track down secret members of that elusive group, the Ruinands, who had not reared their ugly head for centuries, but who Elli and the Order of Vlachernae knew were there, watching and biding their time for the right time to strike.
The rivalry between the Symitzis family and the Ruinands lay in the very distant past, before the foundations of their rival commercial ventures were even established. The rivalry started between the Pallanians, the frontrunner of the Order of Vlachernae, and the Ruinands, a rivalry between good (Pallanians) and evil (Ruinands). The Pallanians evolved into the Order of Vlachernae, the leadership of which was at some point in time taken up by the Symitzis family soon after one of their ancestors was invited to be initiated into the secrets of the Order. That was when the Symitzis family took up the challenge of wielding the sword of justice.
The Symitzis family had for the first couple of centuries since the foundation of their dynasty only concerned themselves with building their formidable business interests and influence, ignoring, wilfully or not, the rising presence of the Ruinands or their resurgent re-emergence, if the stories that they had once been powerful were to be believed. By then the Ruinands had declined to an obscure, but still, sometimes, dangerous cult. However, they did not seem to pose any kind of serious threat to the Symitzis family let alone to anybody else for that matter. Their intentions were vague; the purpose of the existence of their organisation was unknown. There was a very old story, so old it seemed like a fairytale, about a clash between them and the Pallanians. But the truth, if there was any in that clash, was lost in the depths of time, with nobody alive that had witnessed it to vouch for its veracity.
In the events of 1453 A.D. — the abduction of the Imperial son and heir from the Palace of Vlachernae in Constantinople and the disappearance of the last Emperor in the midst of the momentous fall of Constantinople to the Ottomans — lay the beginnings of the quest that Elli and her family were about to embark on.