Maxim Darko: The Greatest Gift of Evil. A Vampire Chronicle

CHAPTER ONE THE REMEMBRANCE 1345

Prior to Maxim's birth, Inner Carniola already had a dark place reserved in history. During the 12th century Mongol Invasion of Hungary, a Mongol army had laid a path of devastation and rape throughout the region. The region had just barely recovered, when The Ottomans with their viscous Janissaries, invaded from the east. Devastation, rape, and forced servitude followed the invasion. The victorious Ottomans tried to eliminate Christianity and force Islam on the region. They demanded tribute, which was sent directly to Constantinople. The tributes kept the Village of Golo in a perpetual state of poverty.

The one bright spot in the history of the Village of Golo, happened during the 13th century. An exiled Dominican Nun, who was the daughter of Hungarian royalty, unexpectedly arrived in the village. Upon hearing of his niece's exile to Golo, one of her wealthy uncles took pity on her, and funded the construction of a church in Golo. He bestowed this gift, so that his niece would have a place to call home. As the Ottomans grew stronger in the region, the funds from the uncle stopped flowing, and the church fell on hard times.

During the winter of 1358, when Maxim was thirteen years old, the ruthless Black Plague sped through Europe, and eventually reached his all but forgotten village. One frigid evening, traders on their way to Constantinople, had been forced off the main trading route by a blizzard. Their alternate route took them through the village of Golo, where they stopped for the night to shelter from the storm, and to trade furs for food. Rats bearing fleas infected with the plague, scurried out of the trader's bundles of fur to scavenge for food in the village. The first place the rats discovered food, happened to be in a hut full of children celebrating winter solstice. Crumbs from their feasting on sweet bread, covered the floor. The rats snuck inside and stole the food from the floor...and in return, left the plague as a winter solstice gift.

Within a week, every child in the village was sweating, feverish, and nauseous. The worst cases of the plague caused the children's skin to turn black from internal tissue bleeding. The superstitious villagers were terrified and called upon their Priest for help. The Village of Golo's Priest, Father Zlata, who was a small, weak-willed man with a quick temper, tried to discover why God was punishing them. Suspicion of dark magic infected the psyche of the villagers. For fear of becoming afflicted by the evil forces at work, neighbors refused to help each other.

Maxim was one of the infected children. His mother held him to her bosom, as he intermittently sweated, and froze. To counter his body's temperature swings, she bathed him, alternating between cold, and warm water. When he refused to drink, his mother dripped a mixture of local herbs, cooked in rabbit bone broth into his mouth. Nothing helped. Day-by-day, hour-by-hour...Maxim grew weaker. When Maxim took his last breath, a heart wrenching scream pierced the village night. His mother desperately clutched her dead son to her breast and prayed to God to bring him back. God did not answer her. She only heard silence. A dark grief settled in her head, and heart.

By week's end, all 59 of Golo's children had succumbed to the Black Plague. For several days, the strongest men of the village had been struggling to dig a common grave in the frozen ground. Each night, the men lit a large fire over the common grave, to soften the earth below, and resumed digging with their primitive wooden tools the next morning. Their major hope was to dig the grave deep enough, to keep the wolves from invading the village...and feasting on the corpses of their beloved children.

Keeping with the tradition of the people, the bodies of the deceased children were openly displayed in the village's poorly constructed wooden church, to receive communal prayers, and mourning. Soon the church was overflowing with young bodies. Father Zlata, charged a young pretty nun named Svetva Marjeta with leading the night long prayers, which began at midnight, and ended at dawn.