by Greg Curtis
“Their magic though, is small. They can't just steal all a persons life to become powerful and leave behind a withered husk that had once been a man or a woman. If they could everyone would have known about them. But it doesn't work that way. The healers say the same thing. Life is delicate. It has to grow. That's why healing is slow, and I keep having to use this unguent every day instead of someone simply snapping their fingers and me being healed.”
“My guess is that they simply remained close to someone over a period of time. Months or years. And slowly absorbed their life. They didn't grow young so much as they simply stopped ageing, and whoever they leached their life from grew older and sicker, faster than before. And that someone was likely a spell-caster because you, thanks to your magic, have more life to give. Or maybe because your magic is the very thing that makes you vulnerable to theirs.”
“Maybe they didn't even know what they were doing for the longest time. It was all instinct. But then they started coming together into groups. Forming the Silver Order. And when they came together they discovered their gift. Maybe they just compared notes with one another. Maybe it grew stronger in the presence of others like them. Regardless, four hundred years ago, when they came together to form the Silver Order, they discovered the truth. They gained control of their gift as I gained control of mine.”
And by the gods must that have been a strange thing. To discover that you had a gift, and that it was actually a curse. Much as his seemed to be according to others.
“That's where things fell apart. They learned that they could take life and remain young. But they also realised that their gift was something they could never reveal. The moment they did, they would be hunted down and killed as a danger to other spell-casters.” That he knew would have happened. It wasn't about law or justice. It was far more basic than that. It was survival. Kill or be killed. Their very nature meant they were at war. The Silver Order and the spell-casters.
“So they hid it. They learned to use it to become powerful. To start enchanting things. To make the Silver Order a powerful force within Redmond. But even doing that there was a problem. The more life they stole from the spell-casters, the more likely they were to be found out. And the more of them there were stealing life and enchanting things at will, the nearer that time came.”
“To stop it, they hatched a plan. Probably a hasty one. They grabbed up some walkers – because they couldn't send people to the other realms themselves. They probably gathered up a few Smythes as well. Because the walkers could have escaped their prison if it wasn't properly tangled up and a Smythe could help create the dimensional tangle they needed. And then when everything was ready, they struck. All at once.”
“But how?” Larissa stared at him, still confused.
“The walkers of course. They could send someone to the otherworldly prison with scarcely a thought. But they wouldn't. They wouldn't be forced into it and they wouldn't be bought. However the Silver Order could enchant. So somehow they enchanted the walkers' gift, or maybe just a spell, into something. A wand or a staff or something like that. And they made thousands of them. One for each of them. And finally when the time was right, they used them.”
“All of you have said the same thing. You don't remember being sent to the prison. Some of you remember seeing members of the Silver Order though. Just before everything went away.” It was funny how all of them had the same stories to tell and yet none of them seemed to realise it.
“My thought is that they got together. They set a day, maybe even an hour. And then all of them, thousands of members of the Silver Order across every town and city, simply started wandering the streets, seeking out any spell-casters they could find, and then banished them to the prison dimension one by one. There was no warning. No excitement. Nothing to show what they'd done. They struck like thieves in the night, unseen.”
“But there was a problem. Four hundred years ago there were thousands of the ice blue eyed vampyres. Now there's not. They sent you away to a dimension where you could not escape, but one from which they thought they could continue leaching your life away. But things didn't work out that way. Something about the life they steal across the dimensions, isn't right. It's poisoned them even as they drained you.” He didn't understand how that could be. But then his knowledge of other dimensions and magic itself was limited. But it seemed the logical explanation for what had happened. On the other hand he wasn't so sure that Larissa agreed from her silence.
While he waited for her to say something he turned his attention back to the street and the people wandering by. And to a certain extent to the two cats who were still arguing with one another. Though arguing was the wrong term, he thought. There was no real argument, just a lot of insults being tossed back and forth. Cats! Some days he suspected they actually enjoyed abusing one another – and everyone else!
“Do you have any evidence?” the shaman finally asked.
“Oddly, yes,” he answered her. “Though I didn't expect it. But when the idea came to me, I realised that if the Silver Order are essentially ageless, then what I knew about one of them at least, had to be wrong. Lady Jayla Marshendale.”
“According to what's been reported in the papers she's the King's great niece as well as the head of the Silver Order. So I went to the library in Aysling when we were there a couple of days ago, and looked up the records of Royal ancestry. She's not there. Which would make sense. If she's four hundred and more years old she couldn't possibly be King Willhelm's great niece. And she's not.” Of course that didn't tell him who she actually was or why the King had accepted her as his great niece. But it was something.
“So, another liar.”
“I suspect you'll find the same holds true for the rest. Grab their names and then go through their histories.” He had no idea how many members of the Silver Order they now had locked away. He didn't know how many cities had been overturned or how many battles had been fought, or how many of the ice blue eyed warriors had survived. But he knew there were others locked away in other gaols. They would be a good place to start asking questions.
“That's …”
“I know,” Manx agreed with her. Madness? Brilliance? Stupidity? There were no words for what he'd worked out about the Silver Order. “But I think it's right.”
“And I think someone needs to toss this worm faced piece of refuse in the street!” Whitey interrupted them. Then she started hissing some more as the argument got out of hand. “Send her away! She should not be allowed in the inn!”
“What?! Frightened that your servant might prefer me over you?” the worm faced piece of refuse asked Whitey with mockery in every syllable. “I mean I'm far more adorable than you!”
“Slut! Trollop!” Whitey yelled at her, her fur bristling. “Hideous pig! And you're full of worms!”
“Dog breath!”
“Enough you two!” Manx snapped at the pair of them. “I actually don't need any cats!”
“Ooh, you're so masterful!” The strange tabby purred at him. “I'll bet this flea bag never tells you that! But I would! Every day!” Then she started walking towards Manx. “I would be so nice! And I would never piss in your boots!”
“How dare you! Whore! He's my monkey servant!” Whitey hissed at her. And then she finally gave up on name calling and ran straight at her competition.
After that there was no more name calling. Just howling and spitting and the occasional tuft of fur flying as the two fought, while Manx kept yelling at both of them to stop it and as usual no one listened to him.
Fortunately for them all, the shaman was fast on her feet. Quick enough to grab the garden hose which was only a few feet away, and douse them both. Something which neither of the cats seemed to enjoy. But the cold water stopped the fight in a hurry. After that both cats snarled at her – and him. And then the stranger slunk away around the side of the inn.
“Thanks,” Manx told her. “I thought that was never going to end.”
“Really?” the s
haman asked, a strange look on her face. It might actually have been amusement. “You wanted that to stop?”
“Of course.” Manx didn't understand. “Why wouldn't I?”
“Because it's not every day you have two women fighting over you, is it?!”
“Bitch!” Whitey snapped at her.
“You know, I have to go and buy some boots. I wonder if they'd take a cat in trade?!” And with that and wry smile on her face the shaman left them, heading indoors while Whitey hissed and spat at her departing back.
Meanwhile Manx found himself sitting there with an ill-tempered cat who clearly blamed him for her soggy fur coat.
“Why didn't you defend me?!” Whitey began with her complaints the moment the shaman had gone, even as she angrily licked herself down. “And you should kick that cow! After what she did to me, you should kick her hard! That's your job after all!”
Manx sighed as he realised he was never going to hear the end of this. It was going to be a long night!
Chapter Twenty Four
The librarian was right! Sorsha realised that as she stared at their prisoner sitting in her cell, staring back at her. More right than he knew. The woman wasn't just a vampyre, or some sort of a leach of life. She was a parasite! She had to keep stealing that life to live. And now she was dying without it. She was all alone in a cell, without another soul nearby to steal from. And it showed.
Already she looked ten years older. There were wrinkles appearing around the corner of her eyes. And her skin had lost its glow. Sorsha had thought it was just some sort of illness, but now that she'd heard the librarian's theory and was staring at the wretch in the cell she could see the truth for herself. She was already ageing without her regular fix. And for a normal woman that would have been bad. But for a four hundred year old one, it was probably deadly. And she knew that the others in their gaol cells across a dozen other cities, were the same. The reports had all said the same thing. They'd been saying it for some time. But everyone had just assumed that they were ill. Not starving to death.
But how was such a thing possible? That was what she didn't understand. A race of vampyres? And they hadn't even known?
“What are you looking at bitch?!” The woman yelled at her. But she didn't get up off her cot and come to the bars to try and grab and spit at her as she had before.
“Something I never expected to see,” Sorsha replied. “A living ghoul. A leach of life. A vampyre. Something that shouldn't exist outside of horror tales told to children to get them to go to bed at night.”
“You've lost your wits girl!”
“And you're starving to death!” Sorsha replied calmly. “I don't know how long you've got left, but my guess is another month or two at best.”
She paused for a few minutes to let that sink in. And then she asked the questions that she thought might finally get an answer. “Is it painful? Do you suffer watching your body rot all around you? Seeing your stolen beauty fade before your eyes? I could get you a mirror so you could watch the life fade!”
“Bitch!” The prisoner yelled at her. But she didn't get up and try to rush at her through the bars. She didn't even spit at her.
Resigned to her fate, Sorsha wondered? Or simply too tired? But that didn't matter. What did was that she got some answers before the woman died. She stepped back and leaned against the bars of the cell on the other side of the corridor and did her best to look relaxed.
“Oh stop the griping demon! You'll get no sympathy from me. You're a liar as well as a murderer. You told me that you locked us away in the prison dimension so that you could use our magic to enchant your weapons. But that wasn't true. That was just a deception. You were stealing our very lives to maintain your own. But you were too worthless to even admit the truth!” And she was angry about that. But then she was angry about a lot of things lately.
The prisoner didn't answer her. Just sat on her cot and glared in Sorsha's direction. Her lies had been found out and she knew it. More than that she knew she was dying.
“So you can't steal the life of normal people. Only spell-casters?” Sorsh continued. That was another of the librarian's guesses, but it seemed like a good one. “And when you banished us to another dimension, that went wrong somehow? A stupid thing to do!” She let a sad smile find her face, knowing it would anger the woman.
“Whore!”
“But there is a cure for you – you won't like it though.” She dangled the possibility of salvation in front of the woman, guessing that she would be interested. And she was right. Jayla Marshendale's eyes widened and the anger left her face. But she didn't say anything. She wasn't that trusting. Just desperate.
“Well, must go. I'll see you in a few days, to come and see how much more you've rotted.” And with that she turned and began her walk out of the gaol.
“A cure?” The prisoner asked her before she'd walked more than a few steps.
“Yes. But as I said, you won't like it.” Sorsha stopped and turned around. “It'll save your life, but you'll be doomed. Of course you're already doomed. You'll end up as dust on the floor of that cell in due course. And good riddance to you and yours.”
“Tell me!” The woman didn't bother yelling at her or shouting insults. She was too desperate for that.
“Our sages say that your mistake was trying to drain life across dimensions. The laws of the dimensions differ. Time and space themselves are different. But it's even more problematic in the void between dimensions. A place where life doesn't exist. Where nothing exists. It's literally non-existence. A capable walker can get around that to send and summon people and creatures back and forth. But you aren't that.”
“We're guessing you used the services of a walker to create an enchantment. Maybe two. One to send us to the prison dimension. Another to allow you to drain the living vitality of those trapped in it. But the enchantments didn't work. You sent naked living vitality across the void without the protection of its flesh.”
“I'm surprised the walker didn't tell you that.”
“That muck spouting bastard!” she cursed.
Even though she didn't name who she was cursing, Sorsha knew it was an admission. But she kept from showing any sign of triumph. It was important that she seemed to already know everything anyway.
“Probably,” she agreed, doing her best to sound as if it didn't matter. “But then I'd guess he or she wasn't really very motivated to help you.”
“He had no choice! We had him down. Begging for his life. Filthy worm!”
“And still he beat you. How sad!” By the gods, by Temperance herself, it was hard to keep from giving in to her anger just then as the woman confessed her crimes. But she had to. Jayla Marshendale wasn't just confessing to her crimes. She had admitted that she was a vampyre and that she was at least four hundred years old – and she hadn't even realised it. But Sorsha knew, they needed more. They needed to heal themselves. And only the woman could give them that answer.
“But he couldn't lie!”
“There's more than one way to lie,” Sorsha pointed out. “And maybe the simplest is simply not to tell you everything.”
“Bastard!”
“So he lied,” Sorsha continued calmly. “He got you to send living vitality from one dimension where time and space don't exist so it was essentially trapped, through a void where nothing exists which caused it to freeze, and then into this one where living vitality can travel. And it wounded you.”
“It froze?”
“In a manner of speaking. Have you ever seen an animal that's frozen to death and then thawed? The meat turns hard and becomes too tough to eat. It turns pale. There's no blood left in it. No taste. It becomes like pale leather. Ice can actually burn. And that's what you've been eating these past four hundred years.” Sorsha was angry about that. Both because the crime was so vile, and because she'd once imagined that they'd believed it was only the enchantments that they'd been using the living vitality for. They'd been so wrong! But how could she have known th
e Silver Order were vampyres? There were no such things!
“But you can cure us?”
“Cure's a strong word,” Sorsha told her. “We can prevent it getting any worse. But really you don't have anything to offer. My people are still sick. They can only heal to an extent. And you can't help with that. So I'd prefer it if you just slowly rotted away to dust, never to trouble us again. It's what you deserve.”
“What we deserve?” Jayla Marshendale raised her voice. “You think we chose this? That we wanted to become this? I mean you're foul creatures that don't deserve to live, but we would still not have done this if we had a choice.”
“I assume you were born vampyres. Born to suck the life out of spell-casters. You're saying you're not?”
