Black Blood

Chapter 99

I look at the man in surprise. I had expected many things to happen here, but this man is the last thing I could have imagined. At first glance, I cannot make out what the man is. He doesn't look dangerous, not at all healthy. His skin is almost as white as his hair. If this is the guard, I can imagine that my father could enter this place. The man doesn't look particularly dangerous.

'Who are you?' I ask the man. He folds his hands in front of his body.

'Aah yeah sure. Let me introduce myself. Remicus Valius speaking. Guardian and keeper of the Albaria,' the man says as if I should understand what he is talking about. Novak has now come to stand beside me.

'Excuse me, what is the Albaria?' Novak asks before I can say anything. The man starts laughing and takes a step aside.

'Come with me, I'll show you,' says the man and walks deeper into the mountain. I look at Novak with a confused expression before I start to follow the man. We end up in a long dark corridor. It is a cleft in the mountainside. The mountain walls of the corridor run around us in a semi-circle. Here and there, a torch illuminates small sections of the wall. As soon as the gate closes behind us, you can hardly see your hand in front of your face. It is so quiet and cold that it sends shivers down my spine. When I came here last time, we landed the dragons at the headquarters. The part where we are walking now is below that. I now understand why we never took this route.

The corridor seems endless before we see a point of light in the distance. The man walks so fast that I am almost running to keep up with him. The light source comes closer and closer until I walk into a huge space. I end up in a room as big as the main hall in the castle. In contrast to that corridor, you are almost blinded by the light here. There are even trees with white leaves here and there. As if that weren't remarkable enough, there is white sand everywhere you look. The ground is covered with it. There is not a speck of stone to be seen, everything is white. The glint reflected from the sand is dazzlingly bright. Every little bit of light that can be seen in the room is reflected by the white sand. In the middle of the room runs a path similar to a forest path.

'Lady and Lord. Welcome to the Albaria. Better known to others as the Tomb of Blood. Aah look.' The man points to a few metres away. A patch of sand lights up like the sun, holds the light for a while and then goes out. What remains is a small heap of new sand. I look at the event in amazement. What has happened before my eyes is a mystery to me. Even Novak, who is standing next to me, doesn't seem to understand what he saw. The man, on the other hand, finds his enthusiasm in this space.

'In this beautiful place, all beings connected to the bloodline find their rest. Think of it as the most beautiful cemetery on earth. Every grain is a soul that has found its rest here. Come follow me.' I look at my feet and feel an intense sense of guilt when I see that I am standing on the sand. I am standing on souls. That is perhaps the craziest realisation that has crossed my mind. The realisation that every grain is a soul, a dead person, my brain cannot grasp. It feels unreal and confrontational at the same time. The man walks across the path. I follow the man in doubt and look around me. The white sparkles are beautiful. You can feel the magic floating through the room.

'Night Riders are connected to all life lines, some more than others. Yet they find their peace here,' the man says, pointing to a group of black grains of sand.

'They are the only grains of black except for the afflicted souls. Some souls will wander forever and won't even come here, others will struggle forever and most will find their rest. Do you see those heaps? That is the living world. The grains are just an appearance. The souls live together in a visual world with the fellow souls who were most important to each other. For example, farmers live together on a farm with their beloved. So everyone has their own world.' I look at the spot the man points out and count how many grains I see. Three, four, five, six... seven. I count seven grains, that's impossible.