Having become conquerors of the earth, defenders of Holy Land, legendary figures, as mythology to Armenians and distant lands and peoples, the knights of Cilicia soon became a forgotten memory, its symbolism nearly faded, its fervor only written in books.
Buried along side one another, in unity, with no division, the nobility, the Knights of Cilicia became a story to be told, of victory and loss. For the Kingdoms of Armenia are but dust and ashes.
The only enemy yet to conquer were the Turks, who upon the advancement of Armenians within their culture, even their borders, upon their own soil, dominating their peoples as a ruling class, became a threat to Ottoman continuation and its national unity.
There remained a lineage, old and dying, with one remaining heir, his name, Boghos. At the age of only 11 upon an attack on his village within modern Turkish borders, a forgotten noble house, was this boy, whose family possessed as inheritors this bloodline, now mere symbolism to all but his father, who knew of its reality, of its truth, and of its power within.
Upon a raid, his mother was raped and killed, his younger sister shot in the chest. His grandfather with a gun drawn and with tremors of old age and shaking hands, shouted, Run!
As he ran away with his father beside him, he gave him the cross upon his neck and a sheath containing a sword from the time of the Third Crusade.
Here, my son, He said in the calm of the momentary protection of grandfather, Our time is finished. I will give my life today for you, and through this underpass you may find life. Continue the work we have done. And bear this cross, for our life is within it and one day you will know of its power.
As he pulled out from within a hidden chest in the ground locked beneath, the father continued and said, And here, I want you to have this. It is too big for you now, this sword, but one day you will be strong enough to wield it. From a thousand years, this sword has brought us victory, even to me, giving me life when near death. Upon it remain remnants of blood, the blood of Saladin, who was brought to his knees by the might of heaven, the might of King Leo II who slaughtered him by the head. This, my son, is his sword.
After passing down the sword, the father was shot. He got up and held back the door. Shot again, he pushed and with a roar toppled the gunman.
Go, my boy! Run!
Hearing the roaring of his fighting father, with treasure in hand, the boy, just the size of the underpass, continued crawling as a child, with tears through towards a safer region.
Hayrik! The boy screeched.
The father, wounded and shot twice, having knocked out the gunman was then stabbed in the chest from behind by two, yet quickly turning grabbing a kitchen knife and stabbing the eyes of the Turk and able with final breath to break the neck of the third, he fell upon the ground beside his beloved. Lying upon his knees breathing his last, the blood pulling around him, he screamed over his daughter and holy wife and roared and died as a lion and a king.
The sound of his father silenced the boy who, having stopped, uttered a prayer for his family and for his father. His screeching turned into purpose, his tears into strength, his fear into reverence, for he was a child of a king and god.
He remained there for days, weeks, sleeping and reentering the room frequently where his father's dead body lay upon his mother and sister, praying in the secrecy of holy sorrow with quiet and fewer tears for fear of discovery. He was only a boy and forgot his father's commands. He missed his mother's voice, the sound of her singing in the morning light as she raised them up from their beds. He longed to play chess with his grandfather again. Maybe this time he could win as he never had before. Yet, amidst the mourning of the wounds of a child, his heart was sore and with the pain of a people, the future of the survival of a nation upon his shoulders, a responsibility spoken to his ears by an angel in the night, in dreams and in visions, seeking to prevent the end of all Armenians, to fulfill his promise to his dead father, seeking God, seeking to become as his father was and had been, he became a knight in commitment to the vow of his father's last words who knighted him by passing along the holy cross of their noble and historic house and lineage. Before he left, he beheld their spirits ascend as one, guided by the right hand of his grandfather into the holiest of holies where Christ with infinite and brilliant countenance blessed little Boghos forever for having stayed. With spiritual armor and with physical sword, a sword which was greater than a thousand years, unknown to himself, the boy was alone and surrounded by tearful saints, kings and queens of Cilicia, with crowns cast before him, and his families blood upon his clothes, upon the ground. He buried his father and mother and sister and grandfather quietly in time.
The lost son, the lost knight, nearly 12, named after St. Paul, was bound by oath of his father to protect all Armenians and Jerusalem and to avenge his mother and sister. He went through the underpass, and left his home, the last place he would find true peace before his end.
Herein this room, of slaughter of the last true Armenian nobility of the Crusades, began the Armenian Genocide, and a legend, of a man who would make immortal the memory of his family, his people, and the Knighthood of Cilicia.