Joshua of the Clan

 

Dave Fawcett.

 

 

Who says that life has to be a bitch; a boring round of work, wife and waiting? It's certainly never been that way for me. For many years I've basked in the freedom of unemployment, the enjoyment of my own company and the pleasure of pursuing my own interests in my own way.

 

My name is Joshua by the way. I'm what you might call a ‘gentleman of the road'; a traveller of the highways and the byways – mainly the byways – of our fair land. I'm a purveyor of the old wisdom; of the healing power of the fruits of field and forest and of the magic powers of touch and thought.

 

I've been called wizard, necromancer, charlatan and silly old fool. I've also been called far worse but not by many and never more than once by any.

 

By trade I'm a diviner. That's to say I earn enough for my simple needs by finding things. I can find water for a farmer, a prehistoric fort for an archaeologist or your soul if you happen to have misplaced it.

 

At the moment I'm on something of a personal quest. I'm looking for a set of bones I managed to lose a while back. It's been the same for many years; for anyone else I can do a professional job. My memory is adequate, my skills sharply honed and my pride in my work well justified. For me however it's a different story. I'm always losing things and when that happens it's bloody difficult to force my concentration to my own needs.

 

It wasn't always so! As a young man – more years than I care to remember and probably more years than I can remember – my powers were precise, pertinent and almost infallible. I say almost because no-one is infallible except God and perhaps the Pope. I wouldn't presume to lay claim to the mantle of God – at least not yet – and who the hell would want to be Pope anyway?

 

These days the powers come and go. Some days – like today for instance – I feel as if I could slay dragons. It's a pity there aren't any around any more. Other days I'd be hard put to stand up without a crutch. On days like that I sleep.

 

That's something else I've noticed. I'm sleeping more and more as the months and years go by. There was a time when I never seemed to sleep at all. Perhaps I didn't; I can't really remember. It's all so far back in the mist of memory.

 

Sometimes I can't even remember the last job I've done. For instance I know there's been one in the last few days but I can't for the life of me remember anything about it. I only know that I've been working because of the jingle of gold in my pocket - metaphorically speaking that is. It's actually a wad of tenners stuffed into my left boot – and the fullness of my belly. The last job that I can actually remember was a couple of weeks; or was it a couple of months ago.

 

That was a funny old job. A man wanted me to find his wife. The fact that she'd been dead for fifty years didn't seem to faze him. It certainly didn't bother me! I've had far stranger jobs in my time.

 

What bothered me was that my employer must have been one of us; one of the Clan; but I didn't know him from Adam. I couldn't pick up anything about his blood-line, his parentage or his past with any of my senses. It was odd too that he didn't seem to know anything about his own history. In fact I couldn't get anything at all from his mind except for the normal human emotions; those jumbled, candle-feeble passions that masquerade as love, hate and all the other lusts of our distant cousins.

 

He might have been blocking me of course, but if that was the case then I tremble for the future. As Emperor of my people I hold the combined knowledge of my race in my head and in my hands. If I can be blocked then we are indeed in the presence of God – and by God I mean one of the vindictive old Gods, not that wishy-washy liberal worshipped by Christians. It also bothers me that I've never managed to finish that particular job. That's how I know I've had another job since then. I get paid by results and I still haven't found his wife. I'm looking though; I'm looking!

 

Oddly enough I'm looking for a set of bones for him and a set of bones for me at the same time. Why should that co-incidence never have struck me before?

It occurs to me that there could be some link, some significance in that. If there is I'll find it!

 

The mind's not the only thing that's getting a bit creaky. These old bones of mine don't mesh as smoothly as they used to. Still; the tribe's been good to me. They look on me as an Elder; perhaps The Elder and that's how it should be. The tribe and the Clan aren't the same thing by the way. The Clan are my people as I've already said. \the tribe are the people we live amongst. We regard them as our cousins. Our more distant cousins, humankind, often refer to the tribe as gypsies, tinkers or worse.

 

I suppose the time's coming when I'm going to have to give some serious thought to abdication. It's almost time for a younger man to take over the reins. I'm sure there's a well proven procedure for the handover of power. I vaguely remember that's what happened between me and my predecessor all those years ago, but I can't for the life of me remember how we accomplished it at the time.

 

When the time does come I'll retire to a little caravan with my wife – That's if I can find her before my powers go completely. It's her bones I'm looking for you see. When I do find her I'll need every last ounce of my powers to regenerate her body.

 

Her soul now; that's different! I've got that tucked away safely and I'm not prepared to tell anyone the hiding place. She's far too precious to me.

 

We married when we were eighteen. God, how many years ago was that? I can't even remember. She's been with me through many, many years. Good times and bad.

 

She was with me – for a short while at least - when we suffered in the German death camps beside our cousins. She was there when I led the Clan and the tribe out of the clutches of the Tsar's police at the time of the programs. We fought side by side when the hordes of Attila threatened to wipe us out as they swept across Asia . NO! That couldn't have been her – or me! I must be getting senile. I'm starting to confuse my past with that of the collective psyche.

 

I hold all the knowledge of my race you see; all of the wisdom, knowledge and emotions of all the past Emperors. It's all there inside my head. The problem is that sometimes it all gets mixed up as to what is mine and what isn't. In my mind my memories get tangled up with those of my ancestors. I go places sometimes and I don't know if I've actually been there or if it's a fragment of the collective memory.

 

Take this place. I've been in this valley before. The streams; the hills; the very air is familiar. I know I've watches so-called witches burned at the stake on this very spot. I've chanted for death and even torched the pyres in order to protect the Clan and the tribe. But I also know I cannot have been alive that long. I couldn't possibly have been there could I?

 

It sometimes seems that the only constant in my old age is the death of my beloved wife Desdemona. We became separated during the great holocaust of the Jewish tribes. I was so busy trying to save at least a few of my people from a similar fate that I was unable to protect the one person who I would have willingly given my life for. I ended that period of my life in Belsen . I was there with the remnants of the Clan when the British liberated us. That's how we came to end up in this fair realm.

 

As for my wife, I can't recall at this moment how she died. I know the time of her death to the second. I felt her agony and the moment of her release. How I felt the pain! I also remember that I've dreamed of her resting place. She lies in a forest near a great castle, placed there secretly by the tribe.' But I can't see her grave; can't place its location. Moreover, her soul, though linked to me, is useless in one respect. It's a thing of sublime, enigmatic nothingness that encompasses all emotion, all feeling. It's not a thing of geography or cartography.

 

If my memories are accurate – and I've got no reason to think otherwise unless I'm insane – it would seem that all my ancestors; all the previous Emperors of my race have had strong , faithful and supportive Empresses at their side. That goes without saying of course. With our ever increasing powers, augmented by each new experience, it must have been impossible to pick the wrong woman. The collective wisdom and power of each succeeding Emperor make us ever more infallible.

 

At one time I could name the last twenty five or so Emperors. My house took supreme power over the Clan at the time of the Middle Kingdom Pharaohs. Indeed the second Emperor of my line was a Pharaoh himself and a great one too. He was a builder of great temples and a pyramid. Of course our house goes back much further than its first Emperor. We were always of the nobility. Even for us though there comes a time at which history becomes myth and is largely forgotten.

 

The Pharaohnic period was a high point in our family scroll and as such it is not easily forgotten even by me. Perhaps that's how it should be; to remember the successes and consign the failures to the pit of oblivion.

 

I certainly remember other ancestors; other great Emperors. None of them were perceived as poor peddlers in the way that I am. I choose to hide the Clan in the obscurity of a Romany camp in order to preserve what little is left of our race. Times have not been good for us this last six hundred years or so.

 

The responsibility for our misfortune these last few centuries can be laid at the feet of one Emperor, though perhaps it's unfair to apportion blame. What happened wasn't really his fault. A misaligned transfer of the collective psyche to him from his predecessor left him crippled both in mind and in power and it took the concerted effort of the whole race to put his successor on to the right path again. Furthermore the damage that was caused by that unfortunate accident has left a legacy of fear and mistrust both within and outside of the tribe which has been reinforced over the years by myth, legend and literature. Things might be so different today had our cousins in Romania and the surrounding lands been a little less superstitious. . Things would certainly have been safer for us had that accursed writer Bram Stoker not peddled his fantasies in the name of literature.

 

It's strange how I can remember so much about that particular Emperor. It's a vivid memory indeed of that particular Emperor known to all under so many different names. Vlad the Impaler. Dracula. Nosferatu! The list of aliases and confusions is almost as long as the catalogue of myths, half-truths and lies surrounding his life. He was in truth as much a victim as any……….!!

 

Of course! How could I have been so forgetful; so remiss? Senility must really be taking its toll. I'm older – far older – than I care to remember. In fact I'm the longest reigning Emperor ever, having held the power for over six hundred years. The power was given to me by that concerted effort of the Clan to which I have just referred. Before me the mantle had been worn so clumsily, so painfully by him they later called Vampyre.

 

I am indeed ancient and senile; out of my time. Perhaps I should have handed on my burden years ago? I can't do so though until I find my dear Desdemona. Without her I'm nothing! Without my powers I can't reclaim her.

 

Did Desdemona die because I was already too feeble to save her? Was I losing my faculties even then? Perhaps in an earlier age I would have been able to save both my wife and the Clan. Perhaps at one time I would have been able to remember her resting place. I would have remembered which forest; which castle.

 

The forest! The castle! Of course; the dark forest of wolves and bats and the ancient castle on the mountain; the final resting place of him they called Dracula. My dearest Desdemona lay with others of our kin in the family vault.

 

I will journey there with the Clan and the tribe at once. It will be a long and tiring journey but…………..

 

*********************************************

 

Jehael sighed gently, allowing his iron control to relax finally. It had been a long and tiring vigil but it had finally rewarded. The old man had come through at last. He had finally remembered the whereabouts of Desdemona's tomb. Her bones were the key.

 

Jehael had encouraged the old man to begin his quest – hired him as it were – in spite of his great age and even greater senility. He smiled grimly. He had been largely responsible for Joshua's increasing dotage.

 

It had been a fine balancing act allowing Joshua to retain enough power to aid him in the search without giving him any real independence. The old fool had hung on for far too long already. He simply couldn't have been allowed any more power than was absolutely necessary for the quest. He would only have used it to continue to hang on to his position; a position he was too pig-headed to relinquish voluntarily.

 

As it was the old man had given him a fright several times. In particular there was the occasion when he had almost made the connection between the body he was looking for on behalf of his client and the one he was seeking for himself. It had been a close run thing but Jehael had managed to temporarily drain enough of the old man's powers for the link to elude him.

 

‘I must still be a bit dopey myself' Jehael thought idly. ‘I ought to have considered the castle as a possible site a long time ago. To be fair though, while the power was split between the two of us I was almost as handicapped as him. It took most of my will to contain him'. Jehael turned to one of the retainers; one of the Clan and quickly issued travel instructions. He had waited quite long enough. While the physical remains weren't absolutely essential to the transference of power to a new Empress it did make the process so much simpler.

 

The reign of Joshua's house was at an end and Jehael had been searching for Desdemona's tomb ever since he had been told of his destiny by the Clan elders and had begun the transfer of power with their help. Although an Emperor and his wife had been separated by death many times in the past it had never before happened that an Emperor was too old and senile to remember what had been done with his Queen's body. Never before had an Emperor hidden his wife's body without the knowledge and consent of the Elders. Still, that had been one of the unfortunate side effects of the great battle to rescue and relocate the power that had been so drastically compromised in the fourteenth century. Joshua had been in uncharted waters for six hundred years. Even to hold the core of the Clan together through so many vicissitudes and so much destruction was a miracle. The Emperor Joshua had done more than could be expected of him. The husk that remained deserved the undying respect of the Clan and the rest of eternal oblivion.

 

Jehael was aware that he had a responsibility for Desdemona's death that was at least as deep as the old mans. After all he had slowly been bleeding power from the old Emperor for over ninety years. He had chosen his wife Shenara using that power and was about to be granted final transference of the rest by the Elders when disaster had struck. The unforeseen rise of that ersatz antichrist Adolf Hitler had caught both himself and the Clan at the most vulnerable moment in the process; a moment when the power was split almost equally between the old and would be Emperor. A full concentration of the collective psyche would have saved both Desdemona and the Clan but neither of them was able to use more than a fragment. In the end the old Emperor had taken the right decision but the cost had been heavy.

 

Jehael relaxed his grip on Joshua's psyche a little more. Half way across the world in a Romany caravan in a valley in Northumberland Joshua never completed his thought about the long, tiring journey to come. He slipped peacefully into death, smiling gently.

 

At that instant, what little power remained with Joshua crossed the void to reunite with that already held by Jehael. The power of the new Emperor was finally complete.

 

Jehael reflected grimly. In his previous incarnation; the one called Joshua; he had hung on to power for far too long. Was he to blame for that? Only future Emperors would be able to pass judgement. For himself he now had the task of consolidating the position of the Clan in the modern world. Not for him the bolt-hole of an obscure tribe of Romany gypsies living an almost medieval life and continually harassed by the world. The tribe had faithfully served a purpose without ever realising that they were serving it and for that service they would be protected for all time. Their service however was at an end.

 

Jehael's vision encompassed far greater horizons than Joshua's ever had. The power of the modern electronic age harnessed to the ancient knowledge of the Clan could be a mighty combination indeed. In Joshua the power had been far too tied to the past; far too medieval in its usage to accomplish more than survive into this age of giants. However Jehael was equipped to do far more than survive.

 

With Shenara at his side he would manipulate this world. He would control it. He would rule!

 

First he would travel to the castle of Dracula where he would complete the transference of Desdemona's soul into the body of his incomparable Shenara. Clothed in the flesh of her twenty sixth incarnation she would rule by his side.

 

Jehael and Shenara were wizards and necromancers. They had been Pharaohs. Once, briefly, they had been vampires. Soon they would be Gods.