by Sarah Roark
In his hand the silver gourd began to grow warm. A nauseating heat invaded first his body and then the space within the circle. Even the ground itself gave up a faint steam that drowned out all sight of the room without.
“Cruor cruorem evocat redditque vocem cruor. Loquere et intra, si amicus es genusve,” he intoned. “Aliter abi damnatus a quoque ex Septem Nominibus.” Blood calls to blood, and blood returns the call. Speak and enter in, if you be friend and kin; otherwise begone and be damned by each of the Seven Names.
Kin, at the very least, was the dry response. And I hope I am still friend, but like many an old man with a grandson who wanders far from home, I find myself waiting rather long between messages.
Ah. Well, that explained the forcefulness of the summons. He should have known better than to expect some Ceoris lackey. Jervais quickly girded his mind as best he could, drawing in all extraneous reaction like a man drawing a cloak close about himself. In the inexorable intimacy of spirit-contact, the lesser wizard often found far too much of himself laid bare before the greater—a chief reason why this method of making report had never become as popular as certain ranking Tremere would have liked. “Grandsire. It has indeed been a long time. My apologies. I hope you’re well in Paris?”
I am well, if that is the way to put it. And the clime in Saxony? Am I to understand you find it milder in these nights than formerly?
“There’s little mildness in Jürgen Sword-Bearer, I fear, but he’s now found someone to hate far more fiercely than myself. That must suffice.”
The impression Goratrix made in person benefited considerably from his handsome face: slim, eternally set in clean patrician lines, eyes amber-brown and keenly lit from within. But the rite of the Thousand-League Whisper stripped away those softening ornaments and left only the starkness of the archmagus’s soul, the insistent, hammering drumbeat of his thought, which pressed around Jervais, ensnaring him.
Indeed, it usually must for our kind. But the Sword-Bearer has so many enemies. Who could it be this time?
A ridiculous charade. The old schemer would never go to this kind of effort if he didn’t already have some idea. “The warlord in Livonia, milord.”
Ah, the beast-blooded one. Jürgen means to avenge himself, then, for the death of our late Alexander.
“I see Sir Josselin did reach the Grand Court, then. How was the news received?”
With relief, I think, overdyed in various shades from shame to satisfaction. The specter of Alexander’s possible return never really did leave anyone’s mind, particularly not Geoffrey’s. Myself, I think the Sword-Bearer owes that barbarian chief a debt of gratitude for eliminating his most dangerous houseguest. But I suppose he can’t be blamed for not seeing it that way. Tell me, what part do you play in all this?
“I’m not sure why your lordship assumes that I must have a part to play.”
Come, Jervais. It wouldn’t be like you to just sit by while someone’s starting a war. Besides, what else would you be doing in Magdeburg? There must be a dozen other courts where you could have started fresh and had a more pleasant time of it. In any case, that Sir Josselin is quite a talkative sort. Even I didn’t find it at all difficult to get him started on the subject of you. He doesn’t seem to remember you too fondly.
“Well, naturally I’ve pledged the House and Clan’s assistance to the endeavor.”
My understanding is that you were already pledging the House and Clan’s assistance to Jürgen before word even came back about Alexander. But perhaps his Highness is taking that offer more seriously, now that the Telyavs have demonstrated their power.
“Yes.”
I must assume that you haven’t gotten around to mentioning anything to his Highness about our particular relationship to the Telyavs.
“No, not yet.”
Not yet? The tone was cool, reserved—too cool and reserved.
“It may at some point become unavoidable.”
Hm. Would that not be as unfortunate for us as for them? After all, everyone knows the Tremere stand absolutely united. Our allies depend on that fact, and our enemies also tread more carefully because of it.
“Which is exactly why the Telyavs must be made an example of, grandsire. Indeed, presuming we succeed, having the truth about them come out would only gain us more awe, since it would demonstrate once and for all just how we deal with traitors. As far as I can tell, I have little to fear from exposure…this time.”
Now we come to it. Jervais, you surely must understand the delicacies of my position. If you had succeeded in your little plot—
“I see. Now it’s my little plot.”
—Again, if you had succeeded, then things would have been very different all around. As it was, how do you think it would have looked if I’d petitioned to have you transferred to France and to my jurisdiction, so soon after such a debacle? Would it not have incriminated you beyond the shame you’d already suffered?
“I must thank my grandsire for his concern. Since you express such interest in my welfare, I should report that I too am in a rather delicate position these nights.”
Yes, I know. He’ll never stop trying to make you suffer, and it’s all on my account, I fear. He pours upon you the contempt that distance and terror prevent him from pouring upon me.
“Well, whoever’s account it’s on, I’m the one that must deal with the consequences.”
Perhaps not forever, though, my son.
Aha, Jervais thought grimly. “What do you mean, grandsire?”
Perhaps enough time has passed, I mean, that I could send for you without it being taken the wrong way.
“That’s very kind of you, but it’s a bit too late now, isn’t it? I’m going to Livonia.”
Ah, so you are going to Livonia yourself then. Palpable satisfaction.
“Yes.”
But I’m thinking of after you come back. After all, should you satisfy Etrius that the Telyavs are destroyed, then you’ll be in a far better position, will you not, to ask for a different placement?
“If I satisfy Etrius that they’re destroyed?”
He will require some sort of proof, naturally. He is not that great a fool.
So that was the game. The rumors must be true, then: that Goratrix had a running correspondence with the Telyavs despite—or because of—their shaky standing with Ceoris. Certainly it would please Goratrix to keep such a thorn pressed into Etrius’s side for as long as possible. Anything that distracted or inconvenienced his old archrival pleased him.
“I see. You’re saying, then, that if I do satisfy Etrius on this matter…”
You remember when we spoke just before your first journey to Magdeburg? “A Frenchman always longs for his France,” you said. You talked of gentle rolling hills, of fragrant vineyards and primroses, of fair maids…I thought it all needlessly sentimental at the time, but lately I’ve come to appreciate the truth of what you said. Ceoris will always contain some part of my soul, as all one’s creations must, but this land is indeed home. To be honest, I had forgotten what it felt like.
Sickening, to hear his own words returned to him so polluted with insincerity. Jervais silently vowed never again to speak from the heart with Goratrix, not even in the cause of persuading him.
“You are saying, grandsire,” he began again patiently, “that if I satisfy Etrius, you will definitely secure my transfer?”
I don’t see what could possibly prevent it.
And yet something would no doubt come up after the fact. How many times did Goratrix really think he could be made to dance to this same tune?
He forced a smile through his exhaustion and anger. The archmagus wouldn’t see the smile, but it would color Jervais’s thought-words in the right way. “I am glad indeed to hear you say so, grandsire. Shall I contact you, then, when I’ve reached Livonia?”
Yes, do that. Tell me what you find, and I shall be able to better instruct you.
“As you wish.”
Good. Then I won’t keep you
longer. A safe journey to you, my son.
“Farewell, grandsire.” And not a moment too soon. The moucheron slipped out of Jervais’s weakening fingers and fell to the floor; at once the feeling of Goratrix’ presence evaporated and the room reappeared. Jervais started to rise, dismissing the circle with a gesture of his ritual knife, then fell forward onto his hands.
Fidus, who stood guard over a haggard young mortal lying on the floor bound in irons, rushed forward immediately.
“Master.” With a grunt of effort Fidus lifted Jervais up onto his knees, supporting him as he half crawled across the room. The terrified lad bucked and tried to squirm away.
“Hold him, Fidus. Hold him…”
Fidus straddled the mortal’s legs and held his upper body still enough for Jervais to find purchase in the hollow of the neck. Jervais latched on greedily. His arms encircled the lad and squeezed, as though to speed the blood even more quickly on its way. Sometimes he thought he could discern flavors in it, traces of whatever the mortal had eaten or drunk, echoes of humors and feelings. Right now, however, taste was entirely secondary to need. This lad was sick from lack of sunlight, from close confinement, but he’d been fed well at least. Jervais insisted on that. The blood was thick and potent. Very quickly he went from feeling complete emptiness—worse than emptiness, an aching void that would never be sated—to the absolute contentment of an infant at mother’s breast. It honestly did not occur to him that the stream of nourishment could stop until it did stop, slowing to a trickle and then finally running dry. A little moan of disappointment escaped him as he let the body slip free of his teeth. But the sight of it, of the boy’s lightless eyes, brought him out of his inner realms of pleasure and back into the practical world.
“Get off,” he ordered his apprentice. He looked over his robe. There was one spatter on the end of the sleeve. Damnation. “I’m all right now. Hands off of me. You said there was more where this one came from, didn’t you?”
“The man said he was quite accustomed to acquiring youths of both sexes for noblemen and merchants with peculiar tastes, master.”
“I should speak with this person. The pickings are so lean hereabouts. Hand me the sickle.”
“Yes, master.”
Jervais took it. “Now let’s see. Pay attention, Fidus. The uses of the harlot. Tongue, if I recall, is good for enchantments to reveal a falsehood. Eyes and heart for love-charms, the liver for curses…”
Chapter Five
“Pleasant,” was Hermann’s laconic comment.
Jervais surveyed the hills before them. Not in order to take in the scenery but to search for evidence of raiding parties—still, in the process, he couldn’t help agreeing with Hermann. After all, unlike either of his companions, he remembered what the place had looked like upon his last visit. They were in the Carpathians now, and even the relative lowlands were less clement than the fields of the Ile-de-France or even Saxony. This ground had once been green and wooded with fir, stretching all the way up to the tree line. And here, at their feet, had run a beautiful if ice-cold little stream that emptied into a mountain lake not far away. Every so often one could look down from a chantry parapet and spy a shepherd leading his flock along the streambed—during the day, at any rate. When he’d left for the final time, Jervais’s eyes hadn’t gazed on a sunlit sky for many years, but he knew the herds still passed through occasionally because he found the cropped grass in their wake.
“It looks as though there’s been a forest fire.” Hermann picked up a handful of soil, smelled it and wrinkled his nose in disgust. “Foul…”
Jervais did likewise, sniffing carefully at the little clod of earth.
“Salted,” he said at last. “Scorched and then salted.”
The stream still flowed, but weakly. It had silted up, choked with islands of ash and blocked with charred fallen trees. It also bore a thin rime of ice around the edges, a warning of winter’s swift approach.
“Tzimisce?” Hermann asked grimly.
“Perhaps,” Jervais temporized. But even as he said it, he knew it was a lie. Much of the reason the Tzimisce tried again and again to take this region was because they held it sacred. The ancient blood-drinkers didn’t graze herds or grow crops, but their magic, their very blood-strength was rooted in the earth’s power. These mountains, where ground and sky touched, were especially holy to their pagan creed, and their fertility made them holier yet. He supposed it was always possible that the Fiends’ war-lust had blazed so high that they’d decided to lay waste to the area rather than let the Tremere enjoy it unspoiled…but it wouldn’t be like them.
It would, however, be perfectly in Tremere character to do such a purely practical thing: denying the enemy all cover from spell or sun, clearing the land of any spirits of wood, soil or water that the Tzimisce koldun-priests might summon for aid. As long as the ley line still flowed between the hills to soak Ceoris’s stone foundations—and by letting his vision slip off-center from the waking world just a bit, he could see that it did, a blue-white river of radiance that dulled and changed color as it passed through the barrens but remained as thick and swift as ever—the House and Clan had all it truly needed from the earth. Sheep, and grass for them to gorge on, were pleasant but ultimately unnecessary.
“Well, which way now? Toward the highest and most forbidding peak, I fancy.”
“Which one is it, Fidus?” Jervais prompted his apprentice, who, to his credit, was already fishing out a little lead plumb on a string. He held it loosely in his thumb and forefinger, letting it swing until it found the correct axis. Those who could not directly see the ley line could still dowse it fairly quickly, it ran so strong here.
“The middle one,” he reported glumly.
“Good lad. Exactly right.”
“As I said,” Hermann grumbled. “Can you even get a horse up there?”
“Yes. That is, a Cainite can usually get his horse up,” Jervais answered. “But you see now why I thought it best to leave the men in the village and do the last leg alone. It’s only a few miles, but it’s a few nearly vertical miles. Besides, they can cover our backs. This is the only known way in. Or at least I hope it still is.”
Fidus laid a hand on his horse’s flank, trying to coax her on. The beast could find no sure footing, and she tossed her head back fearfully.
“Come, Sirene. You’re all right, I promise. Come! Look…this is what you want, isn’t it?” He bit into his wrist, tearing it open, and showed her the gleaming bead of vitae that welled up. Her large, floppy lips closed around the wound, nipping at it.
“Yes. Trust me now? That’s a good girl.” He wiped the saliva off on the side of his gown with a grimace. She went far more willingly now. At first it wasn’t clear whether she’d really regained her courage or was just hoping to get at his arm again, but soon she began to nudge up behind the monk-warrior’s big gelding, who refused to move one whit faster.
“They’re spooked,” Hermann muttered. “Something’s not right up ahead.”
“That may be what their noses tell them, but I’m telling you we’re no safer below than above,” Jervais called back. “I’ve been nearly murdered two or three times down in the foothills. Keep moving.”
“Magog knows his own footing. Fidus! Restrain that animal of yours.”
“I’m—I’m trying.” But the mare, newly braced with unnatural nourishment, was determined to push ahead. She bumped up against Magog and then tried to edge up alongside him. The gelding, who had also fed on blood earlier that evening, jostled her away, perilously close to the edge. Hermann pulled hard on the halter.
“Magog! No, lad.”
“Sirene! Back! Come away! Leave him alone.”
“Easy, lad. Let it be. Fidus, boy, for the love of God!”
“What in hell’s name is going on?” Jervais stopped and leaned around his own mount’s substantial bulk, looking back. “No room up here for playing king of beasts—”
Even as he said it the two horses turned and
reared against each other. Sirene snapped at Magog, who responded by falling heavily against her neck. She staggered and put her hoof down awkwardly upon the snow, which slid away to reveal a patch of loose rocks. A moment later she was straddled across the steep edge of the trail. Fidus seized hold of her, his ropy muscles straining taut enough to pop. Hermann forced Magog away from the edge and forward.
“Fidus!” shouted Jervais. “Let her go, you stupid boy, you’ll fall.”
“Master, help! The equipment!”
“I said let her go. Hermann!” Jervais fairly yelped as the mare’s left rear leg slid over the edge, taking most of the rest of her with it, dragging Fidus—who still clutched her front leg—right up to the brink. But the knight made no move other than to keep restraining his horse. Jervais pushed past him and squatted down to lock his arms around Fidus’s torso.
“Fidus,” he spoke calmly into the young Tremere’s ear. “I can get a new horse and new equipment far more easily than a new apprentice. Now let her go before she takes us both over. I promise I won’t be angry.”
He braced his feet against the slick rock as best he could, just in case his worst-case scenario began coming true. But then the horse’s leg slipped through Fidus’s fingers, as though by accident rather than design. With a piercing cry the animal disappeared into the chasm.
