“I am more fit to die than people think.” – Lord George Gordon Byron

The prospect of immortality has dazzled man since the dawn of time. It is not without it’s shortcomings however. I have spoken to many men who suspecting that I am older than I appear begin to barrage me with sometimes-hostile questions about how I came to be what I am. Unfortunately no series of questions can get to the root of it or the root of my own question about it, the answer to which escapes me to this day. What a normally aging man does not realize is that while it may appear that I have what they want, it is they who are the lucky ones, they who are the ones that have a gift. I am cursed.

Time for me has slowed to a crawl. I am not an immortal. I just age at a very slow pace. I can still get sick and often do, and I can still be injured as well although I have outlived everyone who has injured me to date. Because of the retarded pace of my metabolism, one of the unpleasant side effects is that injuries take quite some time to heal. The more serious ones can take years, so I am very careful to avoid them. Once the novelty of perpetual youth wore off for me, I went through a period of wonder at the freedom of time that I had been granted. This was exciting at first, but only at first. I enrolled in the finest institutions, sought apprenticeships with scholars and studied a myriad of foreign languages, starting with Latin and the romances. Then I moved on to physical skills. This period for me was replete with fencing, war strategy, consumption of epic poetry and a broad immersion in fine literature as well as artistic painting, which I was not so good at. All the time in the world does not make one an artist. These pursuits were rewarding, but they lead me down another road that is often overlooked when people debate the merits of immortality. There is a limit to the quantity of knowledge that one can retain in a single mind, especially if you do not call upon it frequently. That realization dampened my thirst for knowledge, but fortunately I recovered it after a period of profound intellectual laziness.

What does one do upon the discovery that you may be afforded many lifetimes of experience? The first 70 or 80 years can be puzzling. It takes some time to realize that you are not aging like your peers or that time has seemingly stopped for you. These lessons are hard learned. Although my faith preaches celibacy, I find myself unable to avoid falling in love when I meet the right woman. It is that love that taught me the worst lesson of all. I cannot travel through life with a companion, because there is no companion who can match my pace. I have buried wives, lovers, children, grandchildren and more. I keep a watchful eye on my living descendents, a group which has grown to several hundred people. I had children with three wives and two lovers at varying times in history, but I do not wish to share more on that today.

Mankind was built to experience things that have a beginning and an end. To humanity, time sees infinite but it is in fact not. It is only meant to appear infinite to man. This is the way of things. Every day has a beginning and an end. Mankind is too small to change this and always will be, irrespective of his desire to develop God-like technology. People of my faith believe that all matter is inherently evil, and that the body is a prison fashioned by the apotheosis of evil, Rex Mundi¹. Following the doctrine of my faith, the only conclusion for me is that this long life that I am living is a punishment and I must have done something very, very wrong to deserve this tar pit of despair. I have attempted to end my suffering on three separate occasions by taking the endura². I met the requisite of serious physical illness only one of those three times, possibly condemning me to a longer life than I was originally sentenced to. Fasting is not very effective when you have the metabolism that I possess.

My faith, once common is now among the more rare in the world, and I am but a handful of practitioners. Since I am quite aware that very few readers will take this letter seriously, I offer it in selfishness. Drafting it has given me one of the few pleasures I now have in life, writing. In a few moments I will wash the ink from the bottom of my hand and seal this letter to my dear friend, Arenas. Then it will be one less thing that I must keep to myself in the infinite loneliness created by having more deceased loved ones than living loved ones.

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1 - Rex Mundi: The ancients knew the ‘man in the pupil of the eye of Horus’ was ‘Rex Mundi’, King of the Universe or King of the World. One of two Gods recognized in The Count’s Faith, Catharism. Rex Mundi is not worshipped by the Cathars, but feared and despised. Horus Reference: Dennis J. Stallings, “Catharism, Levitov, and the Voynich Manuscript” The Voynich Manuscript,  Jul. 2006 <http://www.geocities.com/ctesibos/voynich/levitov2.htm>.
2 – Endura: A Cathar ritual of euthanasia, translating literally to fasting. The Cathars:  Cathar Beliefs:  Ceremonies:  Endura <http://www.cathar.info/12011005_endura.htm>.

In 1893, legendary Norwegian explorer Fridtjof Nansen was embarking on an expedition north to explore previously unknown territory. He undertook this trip aboard the world’s first icebreaker the Fram, which still holds the world record from his trip for northernmost passage by a wooden surface vessel in history. She also holds it for the south after a bait and switch departure at the hand of Roald Amundsen who told the world he was headed north, but we digress. One might expect that Nansen encountered a great deal of phenomena that would have at the time been new to mankind and of course he did, but the one that we find the most fascinating is what he described as dead water. His log reflected the experience which happened in the Nordenskiöld Archipelago (approximately  76°34′37.65″N  96°41′41.33″E):

“When caught in dead water Fram appeared to be held back, as if by some mysterious force, and she did not always answer the helm. In calm weather, with a light cargo, Fram was capable of 6 to 7 knots. When in dead water she was unable to make 1.5 knots. We made loops in our course, turned sometimes right around, tried all sorts of antics to get clear of it, but to very little purpose.”

Dead water is a good example of a scenario that lacking an explanation, over the years might have lead many people to all sorts of speculation about it’s cause. Nansen however was not prone to such speculation.

“Never stop because you’re afraid – you are never so likely to be wrong.”  – Fridtjof Nansen

The researchers at Immortal Count feel that because it was Nansen who encountered this problem, this event passed relatively unnoticed by maritime mythologists into the annals of time. Nansen may have felt that even though there was no plausible explanation for it, one would eventually be discovered and therefore there was no need to speculate on its origin. In October of 2008 the University of Lyon revealed that it was able to recreate Dead Water in a lab and even shared proof of this on video.

“The human factor is three quarters of any expedition.” – Roald Amundsen

From the experience of research into legends and folkore, the Immortal Count researchers feel that had someone else been in Nansen’s place, this event may have easily unfolded into a fascinating story of maritime legend detailing how a mystical unseen force held their ship motionless in the sea even though her sails were full and a brisk wind was blowing. A vessel caught in such circumstances could lead a superstitious crew to panic, and since dead water may be perceived as a potentially indefinite event even if calmness prevails initially, the crew might eventually unravel. Once the propriety of their hierarchy devolves, a lot of things could go wrong. They might even abandon the ship, convinced that it is cursed and unable to ever move forward again, held back by Neptune himself. In so doing, they might find that since dead water acts differently depending on the draft of the vessel upon it, that they can easily escape it in a yawl or lifeboat that sits higher on the surface. If they abandoned that vessel, far out at sea with only the provisions they could carry, wouldn’t there be a reasonable chance that they might not survive nor ever be found? Perhaps. It could be that a set of circumstances like this befell the infamous ghost ship the Mary Celeste, but that is another tale, which we’ll be posting our analysis on in the coming weeks. It is an enthralling story.

It is difficult for people who’ve not been at sea for extended periods of time to understand the isolation or the magnification of the full spectrum of human emotions that inevitably becomes prevalent among the passengers and crew on a long trip through uninhabited realms. In the United States, NASA has spent millions over the years studying this phenomenon in an effort to guarantee the success of long-term deep space missions. There is a point at sea when even the most scrupulous man realizes that there is no law but the law in his head. There is that moment when he comes face to face with his dark side and begins to live with the idea that most likely there would be no consequences to his amoral actions other than living with his conscience. If you are at sea with that man when he has that thought, and he is fearful or distrustful of you…God help you – because no one else can.

* Note – Although sometimes we cite Wikipedia as a source, we encourage users to explore further as Wikipedia entries are wildly inaccurate more often than not. An perfect example of this would be the Fridtjof Nansen Wikipedia entry that as of this posting states he was a pioneer of Neuron Theory. This is patently false.