The Memory Palace of Passion and Pain
This post contains the chapter list of my story in progress, The Memory Palace of Passion and Pain, with links to all chapters.
Characterization: A historical fantasy that began as a fan fiction for the vampire game City of Eternals, but retained only a single name from it - that of Gaiana. A very unusual love story, which can be read as a Matteo Ricci (1552-1610) tribute fiction. Set in Scotland, China and central Europe at the turn of the 16th and 17th centuries.
Summary: When a vampire community needs to leave its residence and cannot take their vast library with them, a 3000 years old vampire offers to travel to China and learn the art of memory from the Jesuit missionary Matteo Ricci, in the hope to salvage the accumulated knowledge. But spending a few years with Ricci is to make a far deeper impact on her life than she ever imagined ...
The Memory Palace of Passion and Pain
Part 1 - North Berwick
It all began in the winter of 1594, when the fame of our establishment in North Berwick grew beyond the borders of towns and countries, and we realized that it was time to disappear from public life for some time, to return when the memory of us would fade and become a mere legend.
Our monastery compound was large, and larger still were the underground libraries and archives, where we stored, catalogued and studied ancient and modern tomes in our quest for the understanding of the nature of humans and our own. That would have to stay behind. Under Gaiana‘s personal guidance, we started to commit the most important works of our collection to memory, but soon realized that the task would be beyond even our enhanced vampiric abilities.
Despair settled in our minds, and thwarted all attempts at memorizing we were still willing to undertake. Gaiana would walk amongst us - imagine a grand, torch-lit scriptorium filled with mumbling Vampires - choosing one volume, discarding the next, giving words of advice and comfort, yet displaying more and more signs of fatigue and hopelessness. Our task overwhelmed us, as we saw no end to it, no chance to save our precious wisdom.
My place was at the very back of the scriptorium, slightly apart from the others. Though Gaiana believed in me and entrusted me with more and more important tasks, the others were wary in my presence, and in their eyes, I could always read fear, fear of the wild part of me and of the atrocious things I had done in my early years as a Vampire. Of all the beings this Earth has ever borne, only Gaiana, the gracious, generous Gaiana, could forgive me and see in me the new person I had become under her guidance.
Thus Gaiana only came to me when her despair was reaching its pinnacle, when she knew our minds were losing their battle with the uncompromising power of time. She glanced over my shoulder at my notes, not really giving me much attention, tired, beaten, defeated … and then she stopped my hand in mid-motion, moved it aside to see the few hieroglyphic signs I scratched into the margin of my notes, using my own language and my own writing for shorthand.
Gaiana’s eyes lit up, the defeat and despair were suddenly gone, giving place to new hope. She did not say a thing, but instead ran off to a dusty, little room of our archive, and returned, triumphantly waving an ancient scroll. She came to me and everyone gathered around us, still keeping their safe distance from me. Slowly unrolling the fragile papyrus, Gaiana explained that the hieroglyphs reminded her of this rare treatise on rhetoric, a copy of which she had personally obtained in Rome about 50 years before the current era. “Ad Herennium,” “for Herennius,” read the dedication in the worn-out first column, and the scroll contained a brief description of the Greek and Roman memory arts, the way of remembering whole archives of information by creating vivid, emotional images for your mind to hold on to.
This was a breakthrough. By applying the methods described by an unknown Roman master of rhetoric, we were able to incredibly speed up our learning, and instead of dull repetition, our work now consisted of creating wonderful, bizarre, colorful images and scenes. Yet, our copy of the memory treatise was incomplete. Just where the author promised to explain the most powerful of all techniques of artificial memory, which would allow a mind to store unlimited amounts of information for indefinite periods of time, the scroll was broken off, and although we hoped we could manage with the less powerful techniques, we soon realized that, despite the increased speed of learning, we were, once again, being overwhelmed by our task.
It was then that an idea occurred to me that would eventually bring me to the sweetest, and the most painful, moments of my existence. “The Brotherhood of Jesus, Gaiana ... they’re proselytizing around the world, and some say that in China, one of them is using the memory arts to convert Buddhists to Christianity, performing unseen achievements with his memory. That is a human, Gaiana. What could we do, if we combined his techniques with our powers? Let me go! I’ll drain all information off the priest, and he will never notice!”
Oh, Matteo. How naive I was, how proud! In my mind, my dear Matteo, I imagined I would amaze you, fool you, or even seduce you... and have you spill to me all your secrets, all your knowledge. I thought I would sweep you off your feet, my beloved, beautiful Matteo. After all, I was a mighty and ancient Vampiress, and you ... you were a mere human! How could you ever stand a chance against me, Matteo? How did you, sweet Matteo? How?
Part 2 - A Vampire in China
Gaiana did not approve of my plan. She never approved of us showing even a hint of abusing our superior powers against humans. But in the end she agreed that we had no other choice, and let me go to China. Thus began one of my many missions in the service of Gaiana, which was to lead me to my one and only love.
I will not describe to you the hardships of a vampire traveling the seas - especially after the first half of a six-month long journey was past and there were no more rats on board for me to feed upon. So terrible was my condition at the moment when we finally reached the port of Goa, that when I ostentatiously dropped dead upon setting foot on land, the ship’s doctor did not even consider it necessary to examine me, and had me buried in the cemetery of the local Christian church. I did not receive a coffin, as the church was still new and struggling in the area, and I was spitting earth for a few days after I dug myself out of my - thankfully shallow - grave. But I achieved what I needed. I was a nobody with no recorded past, and could pose as a local servant girl. My Chinese was a little outdated, as I had last spoken it when I studied calligraphy under master Lu Ji under the West Jin Dynasty, but I could always say I came from a distant village in the mountains. My appearance, rather similar to that of a huihui, a member of one of the several Chinese Moslem tribes, worked in my favour.
With a mind firmly set on my task, I hit the road for Shaozhou. With a few tricks and a sparkle of my charm, I was soon able to enter the service of the Jesuit Order. I pretended to be a Chinese convert to the Christian religion. I would say that I wanted to serve God through taking care of his servants. As there was, indeed, hardly any other way a woman could make herself useful to the Brotherhood, nobody ever questioned my sincerity.
I will never forget the day I first saw Matteo. It was the fifteenth of July of the year 1594 after the birth of Christ when I replaced the old Chinese woman that had served in the Shaozhou Jesuit residence before me. I was just sweeping the courtyard when, in a bustle of Confucian literati, the one man who possessed the art that could save the whole accumulated knowledge of the House of Gaiana, walked in.
Matteo was a majestic figure. He was tall and thin, and his long white hair and beard made him look somewhat older than his forty-two years. He moved about with grace and dignity, despite his slight limp. He wore the dress of a Chinese Confucian scholar, which underlined the aura of wisdom around him. But all that faded into the background when I looked into his deep, kind eyes. I saw in them hope, faith, and something of Gaiana’s infinite grace and nobility. Soon I was to learn that notwithstanding that his religion taught Matteo that women were inferior and should be shunned, he treated us servants with kindness and amused benevolence, seeing in us children unable to comprehend anything beyond the here and now. The man whose knowledge I came to seize intrigued and fascinated me from the first moment I beheld him.
Since that day, I was observing everything Matteo was doing. I spent my days listening to every word of his. Each night, in the few hours that he actually allowed himself to sleep, I would read his Chinese writings. I analyzed every word that Matteo ever spoke and every sign he wrote, looking for clues for that most powerful technique of artificial memory I had come to procure.
Yes, I watched you, Matteo. I followed you, night and day. I invaded your privacy to lay hold of what I thought was rightfully mine. We vampires of the House of Gaiana were, after all, preserving ancient wisdom and using it to help, heal, and advance humanity. Surely I had a right to do that, Matteo? But watching you so closely, my wise Matteo, how could I not see the respect that you showed towards each and every human being? How could I not be aware of your humility and selflessness? You, one of the greatest thinkers of your time, humbly worked in the service of your God. How could I, who had long lost all belief, not admire the faith within you?
Part 3 - Matteo
Drawing on my centuries of experience and my knowledge of human perception and attention, I became all but invisible. Like a silent ghost I moved through the rooms and corridors of the Jesuit mission house. Like a shadow, I was wherever Matteo was.
As time passed, I became attuned to Matteo's lifestyle. Often I could predict his plans, and accept tasks that would bring me in his vicinity. Being reduced to conversations with the uneducated domestic servants, I particularly enjoyed the rare evenings when Matteo would stay in the mission house and accept visitors. The Chinese scholars held Matteo, or Li Madou, for they knew him under his Chinese name, in great esteem, and welcomed every opportunity of disputation with him. And in the light, wooden building of the mission, I could easily follow every single word of these long debates by finding occupation in one of the adjoining rooms.
I admired Matteo's style of argumentation. In the course of these evenings, as the debates grew heated and the sounds coming from the dining hall often resembled a marketplace rather than a congregation of learned men, Matteo's strong, clear voice was seldom to be heard. He would sit, calm and composed, reacting to nothing but questions addressed directly to him. Instead of joining the flame of the more and more emotional disputation, he would commit the main arguments of each and every one of the present scholars to memory. And then, as the evening was drawing to an end, he would expose all the weaknesses of his opponents, and offer his own solutions. The wisest men of the Middle Kingdom were at loss when faced with Matteo's superior intellect and knowledge.
It was in the course of one of these evenings that I was allowed to witness, for the very first time, the strength of Matteo's memory techniques. I had seen him mention, in one of his letters that he left, rather carelessly, lying open on his desk, that he had constructed a Memory Place System for the Chinese characters, but now I was about to experience the full power of that system. Matteo had once again began to methodically refute all arguments his opponents brought up in the course of the debate when Xu Guangqi, one of the Chinese scholars present, asked him how was it possible that he could remember everyone's points with such startling precision. I was working in one of the adjoining rooms and could thus hear, but not see, what was going on, but I think Matteo smiled and looked every one of the men in the eyes when he answered Xu that he was using an ancient art of memory that allowed him to retain this, and much more, in his mind. Shouting one over another, the assembled literati asked for proof of his extraordinary claim.
Almost trembling with excitement and anticipation, I abandoned my cloth and broom and steadied myself at one of the cracks in the walls I knew so intimately, hoping no one would come in at this late hour. Now I had a limited view of the room where Matteo was about to expound his art. I looked in just in time to notice the sparkle of amusement in his eyes - Matteo was clearly enjoying the little performance he was about to give. He walked out of my sight only to reappear shortly afterwards, holding several sheets of paper, a brush and an ink stone in his hands. He handed them over to Xu, instructing his guests to write down, in a completely random order, 500 characters.
Leaving the slightly baffled men at the table, Matteo sat down in the corner of the room, slowly sipping his cha and trying not to show his distaste of the bitter liquid. And while the scholars at the main table were passing the writing utensils among themselves, each adding a few new signs to the list, he remained silent, calm and unmoved.
In what seemed like a moment, but must have actually taken a substantial period of time, the scholars declared the list finished. In an unconscious sign of utmost respect, Xu brought the papers to Matteo, who accepted them from him with an amused expression on his face. Carefully, but quickly, Matteo read the signs and passed them back to Xu. Then he straightened up and began reciting the signs, one by one. By observing the scholars, whose facial expressions were changing from amazement to bewilderment and awe, I knew his rendition of the list was flawless. That was more than what any of Gaiana's vampires were able to do with our rudimentary memory techniques. I was where I needed to be.
As much to my own amazement as to that of the Chinese scholars, Matteo's performance was not over yet. He looked contentedly around the assembled men, and said that this has been too easy and he was going to make it more difficult now, and would recite the list again, but in reverse order. The awe in the men's faces gave place to disbelief, but Matteo was not dissuaded from his intent and began calling out the names of the signs again. Seeing the jaws of the men drop was enough to confirm to me that, once again, Matteo's memory had not failed him.
Watching the baffled Confucians stare at the triumphantly amused Matteo, I should have felt satisfaction at having come closer to the aim of my mission. I should have started devising plans of acquiring the techniques that made this startling performance possible. I should have been the calm, ever-calculating, sharp-minded and ruthless agent in the service of House of Gaiana that I had always prided myself to be. But I found myself sinking into the deep blue ocean of Matteo's eyes, savouring his triumph not as a triumph of my mission, but as a triumph of a man I deeply admired. How did I let this happen? How did I allow myself to feel after more than two millennia of successfully defying all feelings and attachments except my loyalty to Gaiana?
My plans of despoiling Matteo of his knowledge crumbled. The seductress was seduced, hopelessly ensnared in the velvet coils of Matteo’s voice, the mighty vampiress was drowned in the vastness of his mind, the powerful warrior reduced to a trembling schoolgirl by his mere presence. I was still reading Matteo’s manuscripts every night, but no longer to deprive him of his secrets.
But the ways of fortune are unpredictable, and chance would not let me forget my task. After Matteo’s startling performance that night, his visitors persuaded him, with promises to contemplate on the Christian God, to start writing a description of his mnemonic techniques for them. The text described how a man could build whole palaces in his mind, and within them place images of everything he wished to remember. Every time he would need to recall the things thus stored, he would just need to walk through these palaces, and all items he had placed there would be ready for him to see and remember. As I was copying Matteo’s words for Gaiana, I was wandering through the halls and corridors of his vast memory palace, and it was like seeing his mind unfold before me. And the more I knew about Matteo, the more I admired and adored him.
My gracious, wise Matteo! I was walking through the deepest nooks and crannies of your mind. I saw all your beauty, all your wisdom, your kindness, your faith, your strength. How could I ever forget? How could I ever stop craving your presence? How could I ever cease desiring to hear your voice again? Matteo, Matteo, my one and only Matteo ... even saying your name threatens to break me with the power of the memories of you, yet I cannot resist whispering that sweetest of names once again: Matteo.
Part 4 - Ad Maiorem Gloriam Dei
enter the memory palace
Part 5 - Under the Wings of Mnemosyne
enter the memory palace
Part 6 - Suppressed Confessions
enter the memory palace
Part 7 - Through the Gate of Hell
enter the memory palace
Part 8 - Silent Shades and Elysian Groves
enter the memory palace
Part 9 - A New Beginning
enter the memory palace
Characterization: A historical fantasy that began as a fan fiction for the vampire game City of Eternals, but retained only a single name from it - that of Gaiana. A very unusual love story, which can be read as a Matteo Ricci (1552-1610) tribute fiction. Set in Scotland, China and central Europe at the turn of the 16th and 17th centuries.
Summary: When a vampire community needs to leave its residence and cannot take their vast library with them, a 3000 years old vampire offers to travel to China and learn the art of memory from the Jesuit missionary Matteo Ricci, in the hope to salvage the accumulated knowledge. But spending a few years with Ricci is to make a far deeper impact on her life than she ever imagined ...
The Memory Palace of Passion and Pain
Part 1 - North Berwick
It all began in the winter of 1594, when the fame of our establishment in North Berwick grew beyond the borders of towns and countries, and we realized that it was time to disappear from public life for some time, to return when the memory of us would fade and become a mere legend.
Our monastery compound was large, and larger still were the underground libraries and archives, where we stored, catalogued and studied ancient and modern tomes in our quest for the understanding of the nature of humans and our own. That would have to stay behind. Under Gaiana‘s personal guidance, we started to commit the most important works of our collection to memory, but soon realized that the task would be beyond even our enhanced vampiric abilities.
Despair settled in our minds, and thwarted all attempts at memorizing we were still willing to undertake. Gaiana would walk amongst us - imagine a grand, torch-lit scriptorium filled with mumbling Vampires - choosing one volume, discarding the next, giving words of advice and comfort, yet displaying more and more signs of fatigue and hopelessness. Our task overwhelmed us, as we saw no end to it, no chance to save our precious wisdom.
My place was at the very back of the scriptorium, slightly apart from the others. Though Gaiana believed in me and entrusted me with more and more important tasks, the others were wary in my presence, and in their eyes, I could always read fear, fear of the wild part of me and of the atrocious things I had done in my early years as a Vampire. Of all the beings this Earth has ever borne, only Gaiana, the gracious, generous Gaiana, could forgive me and see in me the new person I had become under her guidance.
Thus Gaiana only came to me when her despair was reaching its pinnacle, when she knew our minds were losing their battle with the uncompromising power of time. She glanced over my shoulder at my notes, not really giving me much attention, tired, beaten, defeated … and then she stopped my hand in mid-motion, moved it aside to see the few hieroglyphic signs I scratched into the margin of my notes, using my own language and my own writing for shorthand.
Gaiana’s eyes lit up, the defeat and despair were suddenly gone, giving place to new hope. She did not say a thing, but instead ran off to a dusty, little room of our archive, and returned, triumphantly waving an ancient scroll. She came to me and everyone gathered around us, still keeping their safe distance from me. Slowly unrolling the fragile papyrus, Gaiana explained that the hieroglyphs reminded her of this rare treatise on rhetoric, a copy of which she had personally obtained in Rome about 50 years before the current era. “Ad Herennium,” “for Herennius,” read the dedication in the worn-out first column, and the scroll contained a brief description of the Greek and Roman memory arts, the way of remembering whole archives of information by creating vivid, emotional images for your mind to hold on to.
This was a breakthrough. By applying the methods described by an unknown Roman master of rhetoric, we were able to incredibly speed up our learning, and instead of dull repetition, our work now consisted of creating wonderful, bizarre, colorful images and scenes. Yet, our copy of the memory treatise was incomplete. Just where the author promised to explain the most powerful of all techniques of artificial memory, which would allow a mind to store unlimited amounts of information for indefinite periods of time, the scroll was broken off, and although we hoped we could manage with the less powerful techniques, we soon realized that, despite the increased speed of learning, we were, once again, being overwhelmed by our task.
It was then that an idea occurred to me that would eventually bring me to the sweetest, and the most painful, moments of my existence. “The Brotherhood of Jesus, Gaiana ... they’re proselytizing around the world, and some say that in China, one of them is using the memory arts to convert Buddhists to Christianity, performing unseen achievements with his memory. That is a human, Gaiana. What could we do, if we combined his techniques with our powers? Let me go! I’ll drain all information off the priest, and he will never notice!”
Oh, Matteo. How naive I was, how proud! In my mind, my dear Matteo, I imagined I would amaze you, fool you, or even seduce you... and have you spill to me all your secrets, all your knowledge. I thought I would sweep you off your feet, my beloved, beautiful Matteo. After all, I was a mighty and ancient Vampiress, and you ... you were a mere human! How could you ever stand a chance against me, Matteo? How did you, sweet Matteo? How?
Part 2 - A Vampire in China
Gaiana did not approve of my plan. She never approved of us showing even a hint of abusing our superior powers against humans. But in the end she agreed that we had no other choice, and let me go to China. Thus began one of my many missions in the service of Gaiana, which was to lead me to my one and only love.
I will not describe to you the hardships of a vampire traveling the seas - especially after the first half of a six-month long journey was past and there were no more rats on board for me to feed upon. So terrible was my condition at the moment when we finally reached the port of Goa, that when I ostentatiously dropped dead upon setting foot on land, the ship’s doctor did not even consider it necessary to examine me, and had me buried in the cemetery of the local Christian church. I did not receive a coffin, as the church was still new and struggling in the area, and I was spitting earth for a few days after I dug myself out of my - thankfully shallow - grave. But I achieved what I needed. I was a nobody with no recorded past, and could pose as a local servant girl. My Chinese was a little outdated, as I had last spoken it when I studied calligraphy under master Lu Ji under the West Jin Dynasty, but I could always say I came from a distant village in the mountains. My appearance, rather similar to that of a huihui, a member of one of the several Chinese Moslem tribes, worked in my favour.
With a mind firmly set on my task, I hit the road for Shaozhou. With a few tricks and a sparkle of my charm, I was soon able to enter the service of the Jesuit Order. I pretended to be a Chinese convert to the Christian religion. I would say that I wanted to serve God through taking care of his servants. As there was, indeed, hardly any other way a woman could make herself useful to the Brotherhood, nobody ever questioned my sincerity.
I will never forget the day I first saw Matteo. It was the fifteenth of July of the year 1594 after the birth of Christ when I replaced the old Chinese woman that had served in the Shaozhou Jesuit residence before me. I was just sweeping the courtyard when, in a bustle of Confucian literati, the one man who possessed the art that could save the whole accumulated knowledge of the House of Gaiana, walked in.
Matteo was a majestic figure. He was tall and thin, and his long white hair and beard made him look somewhat older than his forty-two years. He moved about with grace and dignity, despite his slight limp. He wore the dress of a Chinese Confucian scholar, which underlined the aura of wisdom around him. But all that faded into the background when I looked into his deep, kind eyes. I saw in them hope, faith, and something of Gaiana’s infinite grace and nobility. Soon I was to learn that notwithstanding that his religion taught Matteo that women were inferior and should be shunned, he treated us servants with kindness and amused benevolence, seeing in us children unable to comprehend anything beyond the here and now. The man whose knowledge I came to seize intrigued and fascinated me from the first moment I beheld him.
Since that day, I was observing everything Matteo was doing. I spent my days listening to every word of his. Each night, in the few hours that he actually allowed himself to sleep, I would read his Chinese writings. I analyzed every word that Matteo ever spoke and every sign he wrote, looking for clues for that most powerful technique of artificial memory I had come to procure.
Yes, I watched you, Matteo. I followed you, night and day. I invaded your privacy to lay hold of what I thought was rightfully mine. We vampires of the House of Gaiana were, after all, preserving ancient wisdom and using it to help, heal, and advance humanity. Surely I had a right to do that, Matteo? But watching you so closely, my wise Matteo, how could I not see the respect that you showed towards each and every human being? How could I not be aware of your humility and selflessness? You, one of the greatest thinkers of your time, humbly worked in the service of your God. How could I, who had long lost all belief, not admire the faith within you?
Part 3 - Matteo
Drawing on my centuries of experience and my knowledge of human perception and attention, I became all but invisible. Like a silent ghost I moved through the rooms and corridors of the Jesuit mission house. Like a shadow, I was wherever Matteo was.
As time passed, I became attuned to Matteo's lifestyle. Often I could predict his plans, and accept tasks that would bring me in his vicinity. Being reduced to conversations with the uneducated domestic servants, I particularly enjoyed the rare evenings when Matteo would stay in the mission house and accept visitors. The Chinese scholars held Matteo, or Li Madou, for they knew him under his Chinese name, in great esteem, and welcomed every opportunity of disputation with him. And in the light, wooden building of the mission, I could easily follow every single word of these long debates by finding occupation in one of the adjoining rooms.
I admired Matteo's style of argumentation. In the course of these evenings, as the debates grew heated and the sounds coming from the dining hall often resembled a marketplace rather than a congregation of learned men, Matteo's strong, clear voice was seldom to be heard. He would sit, calm and composed, reacting to nothing but questions addressed directly to him. Instead of joining the flame of the more and more emotional disputation, he would commit the main arguments of each and every one of the present scholars to memory. And then, as the evening was drawing to an end, he would expose all the weaknesses of his opponents, and offer his own solutions. The wisest men of the Middle Kingdom were at loss when faced with Matteo's superior intellect and knowledge.
It was in the course of one of these evenings that I was allowed to witness, for the very first time, the strength of Matteo's memory techniques. I had seen him mention, in one of his letters that he left, rather carelessly, lying open on his desk, that he had constructed a Memory Place System for the Chinese characters, but now I was about to experience the full power of that system. Matteo had once again began to methodically refute all arguments his opponents brought up in the course of the debate when Xu Guangqi, one of the Chinese scholars present, asked him how was it possible that he could remember everyone's points with such startling precision. I was working in one of the adjoining rooms and could thus hear, but not see, what was going on, but I think Matteo smiled and looked every one of the men in the eyes when he answered Xu that he was using an ancient art of memory that allowed him to retain this, and much more, in his mind. Shouting one over another, the assembled literati asked for proof of his extraordinary claim.
Almost trembling with excitement and anticipation, I abandoned my cloth and broom and steadied myself at one of the cracks in the walls I knew so intimately, hoping no one would come in at this late hour. Now I had a limited view of the room where Matteo was about to expound his art. I looked in just in time to notice the sparkle of amusement in his eyes - Matteo was clearly enjoying the little performance he was about to give. He walked out of my sight only to reappear shortly afterwards, holding several sheets of paper, a brush and an ink stone in his hands. He handed them over to Xu, instructing his guests to write down, in a completely random order, 500 characters.
Leaving the slightly baffled men at the table, Matteo sat down in the corner of the room, slowly sipping his cha and trying not to show his distaste of the bitter liquid. And while the scholars at the main table were passing the writing utensils among themselves, each adding a few new signs to the list, he remained silent, calm and unmoved.
In what seemed like a moment, but must have actually taken a substantial period of time, the scholars declared the list finished. In an unconscious sign of utmost respect, Xu brought the papers to Matteo, who accepted them from him with an amused expression on his face. Carefully, but quickly, Matteo read the signs and passed them back to Xu. Then he straightened up and began reciting the signs, one by one. By observing the scholars, whose facial expressions were changing from amazement to bewilderment and awe, I knew his rendition of the list was flawless. That was more than what any of Gaiana's vampires were able to do with our rudimentary memory techniques. I was where I needed to be.
As much to my own amazement as to that of the Chinese scholars, Matteo's performance was not over yet. He looked contentedly around the assembled men, and said that this has been too easy and he was going to make it more difficult now, and would recite the list again, but in reverse order. The awe in the men's faces gave place to disbelief, but Matteo was not dissuaded from his intent and began calling out the names of the signs again. Seeing the jaws of the men drop was enough to confirm to me that, once again, Matteo's memory had not failed him.
Watching the baffled Confucians stare at the triumphantly amused Matteo, I should have felt satisfaction at having come closer to the aim of my mission. I should have started devising plans of acquiring the techniques that made this startling performance possible. I should have been the calm, ever-calculating, sharp-minded and ruthless agent in the service of House of Gaiana that I had always prided myself to be. But I found myself sinking into the deep blue ocean of Matteo's eyes, savouring his triumph not as a triumph of my mission, but as a triumph of a man I deeply admired. How did I let this happen? How did I allow myself to feel after more than two millennia of successfully defying all feelings and attachments except my loyalty to Gaiana?
My plans of despoiling Matteo of his knowledge crumbled. The seductress was seduced, hopelessly ensnared in the velvet coils of Matteo’s voice, the mighty vampiress was drowned in the vastness of his mind, the powerful warrior reduced to a trembling schoolgirl by his mere presence. I was still reading Matteo’s manuscripts every night, but no longer to deprive him of his secrets.
But the ways of fortune are unpredictable, and chance would not let me forget my task. After Matteo’s startling performance that night, his visitors persuaded him, with promises to contemplate on the Christian God, to start writing a description of his mnemonic techniques for them. The text described how a man could build whole palaces in his mind, and within them place images of everything he wished to remember. Every time he would need to recall the things thus stored, he would just need to walk through these palaces, and all items he had placed there would be ready for him to see and remember. As I was copying Matteo’s words for Gaiana, I was wandering through the halls and corridors of his vast memory palace, and it was like seeing his mind unfold before me. And the more I knew about Matteo, the more I admired and adored him.
My gracious, wise Matteo! I was walking through the deepest nooks and crannies of your mind. I saw all your beauty, all your wisdom, your kindness, your faith, your strength. How could I ever forget? How could I ever stop craving your presence? How could I ever cease desiring to hear your voice again? Matteo, Matteo, my one and only Matteo ... even saying your name threatens to break me with the power of the memories of you, yet I cannot resist whispering that sweetest of names once again: Matteo.
Part 4 - Ad Maiorem Gloriam Dei
enter the memory palace
Part 5 - Under the Wings of Mnemosyne
enter the memory palace
Part 6 - Suppressed Confessions
enter the memory palace
Part 7 - Through the Gate of Hell
enter the memory palace
Part 8 - Silent Shades and Elysian Groves
enter the memory palace
Part 9 - A New Beginning
enter the memory palace