Christopher Golde' Publications

Of riches, there were none richer, of power, there were none more powerful, of vision, there were none with less, yet still he was left wanting and of what, he was not sure.

Today, they had just returned from the great festivities of officially naming his city Constantinople. It was late evening and already it was dark outside as he and his best friend Maximus returned to his palatial villa. A lone maid greeted them and took their over robes, scampering off to put them away and warn the wine servants they would be required.

He led Maximus to the main lounging room, although Maximus had no need of leading as he had been there many times before. They sprawled themselves on the large cushions that spread across the lantern lit room as a servant entered humbly approaching her lord and Emperor.

“Elidh, bring us some wine from the cellar,” he ordered, though not with over authority. The wine of the festivities had mellowed him and he had been in thought all day about his feelings of need.

“Yes lord,” she answered meekly and left quickly.

Constantine turned to Maximus and smiled.

“Well my friend, it is now officially my city, and I will make it the greatest city on Earth.”

“Yes Lord, I know you will,” replied Maximus, sincerely.

Elidh returned with an urn almost too large for her to carry and placed it on a table against the stone wall near the door she had entered from. She then disappeared quickly and returned with two large goblets. She managed to poor the wine without spilling a drop and brought the two vessels giving one to each man, making sure to serve the Emperor first. Constantine dismissed her with a wave of his hand as he swilled on the cup she had given him. She left the room silently.

“It has been a great day my Lord but you still seemed troubled by something,” said Maximus, also taking a deep drink of his wine.

Constantine looked out of the open window that was off to his left away from his friend. He was not sure he should say anything to Maximus even though he was a trusted and old friend. His doubts could make him look weak and it was not in his nature to let anyone believe he had any weaknesses. Even to his mother Helenus, he had never shown that he did have a mortal side to him. He was treated like a God and he would act like a God, to all.

Even though he would not show any weakness, it would be good at least to talk vaguely to someone.

“As I said Maximus, I will make this city great and I will bring order and strength back to the Great Roman Empire, but I still seem to have a need I can’t put my finger on.”

“A need for another wine my Lord,” laughed Maximus, rising from his cushion and walking to the urn with his goblet.

Constantine also laughed and waved him away.

“No, I think I have had my fill Maximus.”

“I am serious my friend,” he continued earnestly, “I can’t think why I have a need for anything more but it is as if I have missed something very important that I must do.”

“Perhaps find a new wife,” replied Maximus, as he walked back to his cushion.

“Much more serious than that Maximus, if I want a woman’s affections there are plenty to be had without having to trust my emotions and wealth to a single woman again, and I have enough children.”

“My Lord, it is most likely your burning ambition to rule the entire world and most likely you will in time,” said Maximus, raising his cup.

“Thank you my friend, perhaps you are probably right and I appreciate your belief and loyalty to me.”

The Emperor and his friend and aide spent another couple of hours speaking of matters about the city and some politics before Maximus bid his leave.

Constantine walked slowly towards his bed chamber which was on an upper level, his mind still distracted by his thoughts of emptiness. He saw no servants on the way only a lone guard stood alert at the base of the staircase. He knew he was not alone in the villa as there were at least fifty of the Emperors guards at all times somewhere on the premises or around its perimeter.

Entering the chamber he noticed there was an unusual chill in the air. Nights in Constantinople could be cool but this was different it was like air coming off ice circulating around the room. There was only one lantern burning in the room which provided it with many shadows and Constantine stared into each trying to discern if anything was as it should not be.

As he neared his bed, one such shadow moved causing Constantine to swing around defensively. The shadow immediately became familiar to him and he relaxed. The shadow spoke as it moved out from its hiding place.

“My Emperor,” it said in a deep melodious tone, “I sense your need.”

Emperor Constantine looked at the giant black cloaked figure which towered over him, yet was still five paces away from him.

“It has been a long time ‘Lord of Darkness’ since you have blessed me with your presence,” said Constantine, as he stared wondrously into the giant’s cloak that glistened with stars.

“I last visited you eighteen years ago my Emperor, when you were in need of my council. You took my advice and all turned out well for you did it not?”

The dark figure seemed to pulse with pleasure at its contribution to Constantine’s rise to be sole Emperor of Rome and patriarch of his newly named city.

“Yes,” agreed Constantine, “it did all turn for the better after I worked out your riddles, and took your advice.” Constantine could not help but smile. “So why do I have the pleasure of your presence this time Dark Lord?”

“I believe you can assist me this time,” said the Darkness.

Constantine smiled.

“That would be a turn, although I do probably do you favours all the time just by being who I am,” replied Constantine.

“You have your moments, both ways,” said the Darkness.

“So pray tell me my Dark Lord, what can I do for you and how will it change the world?”

“Well it may not change the world in your lifetime but it may save humanity in the future.”

“Save humanity,” said Constantine, very impressed. He knew that was a very big statement coming from an entity that seemed to control the Universe.

“I am going to tell you a long story that will stretch from now and into what will seem like eternity for you and I want you to scribe it for me,” replied the Darkness. “I know it is normally beneath your position to be a scribe but I also know it is within your education to do so most effectively and there is no-one in this age I could trust with this job except you.”

Constantine nodded thoughtfully.

“Yes, I can appreciate that,” he finally said, “I will get some materials.”

He went to his desk that was in an alcove near the main window. This was where he planned most of his conquests and new laws for his city. He withdrew a number of parchments and a scribing pen with ink. In the main room he pulled a chair from his office to a table he used for eating meals on when he ate in his room.

“I am ready,” he said, to the patiently waiting giant.

“Let’s start almost from the beginning, for men anyway,” said the Darkness.

Constantine wrote something on his parchment and looked up expectantly.

“About thirty three thousand years ago, on the desert plains where Nubia is today, I met an unusual deformed creature you would call an extremely primitive man, or even pre-human creature, who called himself Jung. His deformities would not be noticed in today’s world as he was almost the same in look as any man on the streets of Constantinople but to his tribe he was very different and to them he was considered deformed. He was in fact what future humans will call an evolving species.”

The dark figure paused to allow Constantine to keep up comfortably.

“I gave this pre-human a soul and some knowledge. Those two things combined with his bodily shape made him very different to the animals he hunted and lived with. They all had a connection to the Universe which we will call instinct, but this was the first time a living creature had a connection to its creator and the seed of knowledge which would one day make it one with that creator. This soul made him a completely new and frighteningly dominant species. Hence, in time the pre-humans he hunted and lived with became extinct and his family and their off spring developed just like Jung, soul and all.”

The Dark figure seemed to turn slightly towards Constantine.

“The Christians would call Jung Adam I guess,” he said, as if it was directed at Constantine.

Constantine looked at him blank.

“You had better do some reading up on your Christian faith. Their first ever man, made by God, was called Adam.”

Constantine nodded, as if he had just remembered and wrote something down.

The giant continued.

“This new man did not pass on all the knowledge I gave him to any one person of his family but shared the knowledge over his lifetime with whom he thought would use it best. He lived to be a very old man, in fact over one hundred of your human years.”

“After he passed, his soul would not be used again for many thousands of years. You see it is genetically programmed to resurface according to a formulae derived from the stars. It will be many thousands of years before mankind actually works out that every part of their being came from those very stars that they worship and watch so carefully. Even ancient humans worked out that the stars influenced their existence but by how much they are still yet to discover far into their future.”

Constantine was pleased with this as he was a star worshipper himself and believed that the sun was the largest of all stars and controlled life and death in his world.

“I know you must already have many questions,” continued the Dark Lord, “but if you can hold those for now till we finish tonight then we can spend some time in latter days going through your questions.”

Constantine nodded and paused, scribe over parchment ready to continue.

“Over the next thirty thousand years, there was even one period when the original soul, which I will from now on call the Green Soul, was not used for nearly ten thousand years. The Universe is very selective of when it was to be used and by whom.”

“The role of the human that would get this soul did vary and it did not always turn out as the creator intended. As creators and designers of existence we were actually forbidden to control creation, otherwise there would be no point, the randomness was essential to achieve the proper end result as you will see later. You may think with all our power it would be better to just make what we want but one of the five rules we created in order to begin our process was that we could not interfere, only present opportunity, it was up to the individual being to decide the path it would take. We would teach and provide knowledge and even sometimes provide an edge but never use our power to determine an outcome. If the human killed another and we did not want them to, there is nothing we could do about the outcome. We could advise them not to, we could punish the human after but the end result could not be changed by us.”

Constantine finished writing and looked up thoughtfully. He pondered the times he had himself enforced an outcome but when he came to think about it he could not actually change an outcome. This was obviously a fact of life for everyone even those that had created the Universe.

“An event that was evidence of just how random existence and outcome is happened almost two thousand years ago in Egypt. For the first time ever the Green Soul was shared by identical twins, although they were not so identical, as one was a boy and one was a girl. Other than that they were identical in every way and the soul was duplicated and became two and would remain that way for the next four thousand years.”

“The twins were son and daughter to an Egyptian Pharaoh by the name of Seqenenne Tao. Their birth names were Ahmose I the son, and Ahhotep II, the daughter. Their older brother became Pharaoh in succession of their father but unfortunately died when the twins were only ten years old.”

“This caused a dilemma for the household as not only were their two successors but in the world of the Egyptian Pharaoh, King and Queen would be in most cases brother and sister but no-one was prepared to experiment with the offspring of identical twins.”

“The decision was made that Ahhotep II the sister would die and Ahmose I would become Pharaoh and would marry one of his other sisters.”

Constantine was well aware of the complexity of regal and leadership decisions that would sometimes call for the termination of a family member. It was not shocking to him and he nodded in approval of the decision.

“I had presented myself to both twins individually at an early age, as I do with all Green Souls but this time I held audience with them both together and told them of the plans of their family. Ahomse I was distressed as he was very close to his sister, but I gave them a solution that would only work if they both agreed, which of course they did.”

Constantine finished writing and looked up, a surprised look on his face.

“I said we can influence just not change an event,” said the Darkness, in his defence. “Ahhotep II would leave Egypt forever with a group of carefully selected patrons and travel to an island nation called Brittannia where she would take over a small community that lived near a small but important construction called Stonehenge.”

Constantine nodded knowingly having heard from his troops of this mystical place.

“It was not so much of a takeover as a coming home, as it had been Egyptians one thousand years previous who had helped a local tribe build Stonehenge, so that they could interpret the stars. They and their beliefs fitted in well with the local pagans and still some of the Egyptian blood flows through the their local community.”

“Stonehenge had been built to interpret the stars for the Egyptian Pharaohs of that age but with the right reconstruction, it could do much more. It could chart the stars for thousands of years into the future and thus calendar events that were as important to me as they were to the future of mankind. Ahhotep II changed her name as part of our plan to Ereshkigal, meaning Lady of the Great Earth in ancient Sumerian, and then disappeared forever from the realm of the pharaoh and the future of Egypt, becoming a seer of extreme importance for the rest of the world.”

“Meanwhile back in Egypt, Ahmose I became a very successful and great ruler and his bloodline forged a future for the Middle East, Africa and later a nation called Russia that would include you in its pathway. Thus through these two Green Souls a future would be built in two strong directions.”

Constantine looked impressed and felt complete in the knowledge of his role.

“So I am of this Green Soul,” he asked?

“Yes my Emperor, you are and will continue to be, a very important pathway in human history.”

Constantine felt as if he would burst. He imagined greatness, but never like this, an integral part of an eternal plan and its direction, set up by the creator of the Universe.

“So, can I ask one more question before we continue,” asked the Emperor?

“What would that be Constantine?”

“The Christ, the one the Christion’s call Jesus, was he a Green Soul?”

“A man who walked among men as a God, how could such an influential figure not be of the Green Soul? He will prove to be one of the greatest that ever lived. Does that satisfy your curiosity? Now let’s get back to our work there is still much to complete.”

“Then he is almost a brother in time to myself,” Constantine had an amused look on his face obviously at the irony of that, “so obviously this movement becomes much greater,” persisted Constantine?

“You cannot even imagine my Emperor, but enough of you’re probing.”

The Darkness moved for the first time as if to walk to the open window and look out.

“We will not discuss the future as it is as yet untold, even though you may have guessed I know many of the coming events, other than to say that what we are doing tonight is preparation for an event that will happen in another two thousand years.”

“I thought you left events to chance,” asked Constantine.

“We leave human response to chance but we create events, then reaction determines the outcome.”

Constantine tried to get his head around an event two thousand years in the future.

“I know,” said the Darkness, “It is not so hard to imagine a world two thousand years ago but almost impossible for the human mind to conceive of an event two thousand years into your future.”

Constantine forgot that his dark mentor could read his mind as easy as listen to him talk.

“Yes it is difficult to imagine,” he replied, with a smile, “perhaps men will be able to fly then.”

The Dark Lord continued without commenting on Constantine’s imagination.

“In two thousand years’ time the two forks of our Green Soul will meet for the first time since they left each other in Egypt two thousand years ago. One must save the world from certain destruction and one must die forever. Until it happens we do not know which one is which.”

The dark figure turned again and moved back towards Constantine.

“Your written message from tonight will travel through time until that day and become the possession of one of the Souls. What they do with your message will determine the outcome for humanity.”

“But why my Lord,” asked Constantine, “why do this now and let it travel through the dangerous and uncertain future of man, when you could just be there in two thousand years and deliver the message yourself?”

“My dear Emperor, as we write here tonight a story of the past and lend it to your parchment for safe keeping, so will this parchment and its story create another story just by its Journey. That story will be forged by human greed, loyalty, love and hate and will lend itself to the result. An outcome I hope in the favour of humanity.”

“If humanity is to survive the events we have already put into play, it must prove its strength and worthiness, not by one man’s actions but by the actions of many. This was the second rule created at the beginning of your time by your creator.” 

For another three hours, till the middle of the early morning, the Dark Lord talked while the Emperor scribed. From time to time they stopped while Constantine asked questions to clarify his writings. The content now was mostly about the five laws of the creator and the beginning and direction of time and the creator. Constantine was amazed but not surprised, it was all very logical to him.

When they had finished, Constantine signed and dated the parchment proudly. He no longer felt the space in his thoughts that could not be filled.

“We are finished for now Emperor,” said the Dark Lord, “Most important for you now is to heed my instructions on keeping and passing this message. It must be kept safe and clear instructions given to those you would pass it on to.”

“But who am I to pass it to,” replied Constantine?

“As written in your document, I have an ability to communicate with strategic people in the future who will know who to get the parchment from. It is your job to make sure it is delivered to your name sake Constantine X, seven hundred years from now but thankfully in this very city.”

“My city will last seven hundred years, and my name,” exclaimed Constantine with joy.

“Longer my friend, but Constantine X will be visited on his death bed by a holy knight and he must give to him the package containing the parchment. That man will then know what must be done.”

“And his name,” asked Constantine?

“Artoreous,” was all the dark figure replied.

“Sounds like a good Roman name,” smiled Constantine.

“Our time is finished for now my Emperor,” said the dark effigy, as it began to dissipate into the cold morning air, “make sure it gets to your ancestor safely, that is up to you.”

On that last word it was gone and Constantine sat there with the many pages of the parchment in front of him. He slowly rolled them up and then tied a leather band around them. He was thinking about what he should store them in and how he would ensure their survival for the next seven hundred years. He stood, stretched and walked towards his bed the scroll in his hands. He would sleep with it in his bed for the rest of the night and worry about how later. He guessed by what he knew now he had at least a few years to sort all of that out.

He slept sound for the first time in many months, and he dreamed of the knowledge he now possessed.