Now the man in black steps past the dark haired Calcian and addresses me a little too bravely considering our last encounter and how that turned out for him.
“Well, that may be so, but we will take our chances. I am Thack, and these are my brothers, Meth and Satch,” he says, gesturing that Satch is the larger of the two.
“And I am supposed to care about you, why?”
“Because we are your destruction. You are evil,” the one called Meth announces.
“Thank you, but good and evil are points of view,” I say as I pull out an arrow from my shoulder.
“Only those of evil have that opinion,” the bigger man, Satch, spoke through gritted teeth.
Maybe these three brothers would prove a challenge to me after all; a worthy opponent at last. The brother called Satch continues.
“You will leave the Cracked Lands now and you will not return here. You have seen what our magic can do. If you wish to face us we will engage you at the north end of the Gatheck Range, outside the City of Scathack. It is our home.”
“And I’m going to do as you ask because?” I ask, playing with the hearty meal standing before me.
“Because we will kill you now if you do not. We are giving you a chance to grow more powerful, we on the other hand are buying ourselves time to set our affairs in order so that should we fail to destroy you we will not leave considerable difficulties behind us for those that follow,” Meth says in what is evidently his most political voice. His eyes still hold their malice and distaste.
“No. You do not understand,” I tell them, “I am going to kill all of you on this cliff-top. Every last one of you, and I can promise it won’t be quick.
“These men with us defend their homes, they will not easily fall.”
I chuckle to myself hollowly.
“So?”
I raise my palms and flame erupts from my hands, cascading toward the three brothers, but the flame hits some invisible barrier and rolls around them, harmlessly.
“You are outnumbered Muzbeth, leave here.”
I do not catch who said it, but their overconfidence pisses me off. I roar, this time making a bestial sound which is carried for miles around thanks to the wind and the open geography up atop the bluff.
I rush forward, moving as fast as my dead body can carry me. I brush past Meth, let a hand connect with Satch’s jaw and crash directly into Thack, pitching him off his feet. I grab him in mid-flight and carrying him toward the cliff edge, intent on throwing him to his death at the base of the vertical rock. Just a few more steps to the edge, and as one of the steps go, so does my captive. His weight changed in my arms and then he disappeared.
I grind to a stop and look around, everyone in the village, all the archers and the two Calcian Hunters, are nowhere to be seen. This is a trap. I wander back to the street cautiously, eyes everywhere. Looking for any signal as to what they’re up to. My eyes see something. There are two people here; I’m one of them and the other is a tall man covered in a black cowl, carrying a silver scythe, which glints in the sunlight. It has two handles, which are gripped in hands that are covered by the cowl he wears. Its slender wooden structure curves around his body, drawing my eyes up to a pitch-black emptiness where the light fails to find his face.
“You! Tell me what is happening here!” I yell.
He does not say anything. He just stands there, somewhat sedately. I walk towards him, summoning up the magic that will protect me from that scythe.
“Do you not hear me? Or is this insolence just going to be a prelude to your death?”
Again, he refuses to speak. The way he is just standing there, holding his scythe like a staff, is actually quite disconcerting. It’s similar to the way a hunter will play dead to get to its prey, though he is leaning on his staff slightly, not playing dead. There are only a few feet between us now.
“Do not test my patience; I will not hesitate to destroy you.”
But he is testing my patience. I still get nothing from him but silence. I grow my nails and thrust my hand into his torso as I get within range. I strike my hand into his insides, but he does not flinch at all. I remember my ignorance of the arrows; he is doing the same thing. I knew the arrows could not hurt me, and he knows I cannot hurt him. He does not make a noise; he does not even rock from the force of my strike. He is taller than me and as I look up into his shadowed face I suddenly get very worried.
The scythe swings around and cleaves my forearm from the rest of me. I scream in pain and fall to the ground, scrambling away from the man dressed in black. I see his pale hand gripping the scythe and he swings it across my gut, slicing open my stomach and dragging my dead entrails with it. My eyes roll back in their sockets but I fight my reactions and pain so that I can look upon my murderer.
“Don’t kill me! I don’t want to die!” I plead.
“You are dead already,” he finally says. His dry words fall slowly from dry lips.
He swings his scythe down into my face. I feel it cut into my forehead and slice at my brain. Real pain comes to me for the first time. It feels like my very soul is being sucked out through the scythe blade, like something’s clawing at my brain and my eyes. I feel the hollowness where my soul should be. It feels like an angel is inside me instead of a demon, and it’s burning its way out.
The weight in my arms shifts, my legs and feet pound against the floor and my mind lurches, horrible phantom beats cracking the dry organ. I don’t understand. My brain swims in confusion. I don’t know what I’m doing. I desperately try to figure out what the hell is going on. I have both of my arms, I have legs attached, and I’m holding a man.
Suddenly I’m falling, the person that was in my arms is forgotten. Instinctively I beat my wings hard to slow my descent, it works. Apparently I’ve still got my instinctive magic. But it is tired and I know I can’t hold it for long. My sudden exhaustion is almost paralysing. I need blood. Sweeping out into the ocean I circle and head further up the shore, attempting to skirt that abomination of a town. I land about a mile up from the town and lay spread eagle a rocky beach at the base of a cliff, completely exhausted. I need sleep but my body doesn’t. I hope I’m dying. I just want something, anything, to end the hollowness within me which I am now so wholly aware of. I lie on the beach, staring at the sun willing it to take this soulless monster in.
- Satch -
His punch glances off my chin, causing little damage but enough to bring the taste of blood to my mouth. I look around at the vampire, who’s got Thack in his arms somehow. My younger brother is apparently too shocked to do anything to free himself. Suddenly I’m up and running, charging after the vampire as it heads to the cliff, no doubt intent on throwing my brother off.
As it nears the edge, the vampire falters in its step and slows dramatically, though he still runs toward the drop. I’m gaining on the pair fast. Just a few more steps and I’ll have caught him.
To my horror I see it happen.
He doesn’t stop running; straight over the cliff they both pitch. I dive forward, reaching out a solitary hand and a single lifeline, grabbing at my slow falling sibling. I catch a hand and the vampire plummets. I look into Thack’s eyes and see it; his faith. The faith I used to have, and in that moment something leaves me, a terrible loss that tears at my soul and strength, it makes me weak. Calcia has deserted me, taking the strength to save my brother with her. I speak to my hanging brother, the words coming naturally, but through gritted teeth.
“I’ve got hold of you and I won’t let you die, not today, not for a long time,” I say as a tear rolls down my cheek. Thack just smiles calmly up at me.
“You can’t die!” I tell him, “I need you to help me though all of this. I’ve come back.” My voice is breaking, and my arm is burning. I can’t hold him much longer.
“Thack. No,” I whisper as our fingers lose their tenacious grip and he falls, a long and agonising fall, viewed by me alone on top of the bluff. His landing is a long time coming and when he final
ly hits the base of the cliff there is a red spray to rival that of the ocean. I couldn’t save him. I wanted to but I could not. Calcia killed him. Calcia made me incapable of saving him.
All I can think of as I turn to watch the vampire fly away is my brother’s last few words, shouted to me as he descended to his untimely death.
“Keep faith!”
The Ninth Chapter
- Muzbeth -
70 days until the birth of a god
The 1st day of Spring-Rise, 1538
I stumble into the abandoned tavern just before sunset, tired, though slightly magically regenerated. Witch runs to the door to hug me tightly. Her body feels hot against mine.
Inside the tavern nothing has changed, spare the dust, which has been churned up by our movements. Still there are the rotting tables strewn about the place, though there are no chairs to be seen. The shelves that line the wall behind the bar are empty save for a few long empty, dust-covered bottles, their little white labels bleached by the sun streaming in through the twelve-foot wide hole in the roof.
“Kellum said you’d find your way back here! Where did you go? I was worried!” Witch blurts out a little too quickly.
“Went for a walk. Wish I hadn’t.”
“Why? What happened? Muzbeth, tell me!” she demands, as relief replaces the panic in her eyes.
“Where’s Kellum? He should hear this too,” I say to her.
“He’s in the cellar, I’ll take you down to him.”
Witch turns to head over to the cellar door, but I grab her by the hand and turn her back to face me. I pull her close into another embrace.
“No, I need to eat,” I tell her, “I’m exhausted; I can’t even use magic anymore.”
“Don’t worry, Kellum’ll be able to go and find you someone.”
I smile at her. She smiles back thinking I’m going to agree with her. I’m not.
“I need you.”
“What? No,” she says defiantly, trying to push away from me.
“No? You refuse your master the necessities of life?”
“Kellum told me that you’d kill me if I let you feed from me,” Witch says as the panic once again returns.
I throw out a fist, aimed at her face. It stops a few inches from her face, energy crackling around it my hand. Her magic is stronger than I am at the moment. But for how much longer?
“Fine! If I die on your head be it,” I spit, before pushing here away.
“Come on then.” She scowls at me but seems to come to her senses.
Witch proffers her hand, trying to help me walk to behind the bar where the trapdoor to the cellar is, but I push it away, a little less violently than I would have liked. She looks at me, a look of fear flashing across her face momentarily and the recognition of truth in her eye. No longer would she entertain thoughts of sleeping with me. Now she knows I am truly evil and that I care for none but myself. I came to realise that upon that rocky beach a mile from the hamlet.
“What?” she asks, stupidly. Is she trying to deny herself the truth she’s just seen. I’ll give her more proof.
“I can fucking walk on my own! Dare you diminish my authority by assisting me? I will make Kellum’s prophecy true if you would wish it. Just leave me alone.”
She looks away from me and my broken and disturbing voice. It takes me a moment to realise that they were not my own words; I was speaking like Kellum again. Witch is evidently trying now not to meet my eyes. In sullen silence she pops behind the counter and pulls open the trapdoor set into the floor.
She stands aside, respectfully allowing me to enter first; I jump down silently, the only noise is made by my feet on the damp cellar floor. I look around for Kellum and see a shadowy figure in the corner.
“Why did you not tell me I would be attacked?”
“Because I have to look. Occasionally the visions come to me, but most often I have to look myself. You did not tell me you were going there, I did not expect to need to look. That is why I did not tell you. Why did you leave Witch behind?”
“You know why, you would have seen my intentions.”
“Yes, you idiot, intentions, I see what is going to happen. Not what is done, or what is happening, but what is to come. I cannot tell you what you are thinking!” he shouts back, frustration in his voice.
How insolent! Who the hell does he think he is? Maybe he’s getting some thoughts above his station. I will have to sort that out.
“Speak to me like that once more and you will never see anything again. Understood?”
“How can you be so blind? You are in no state to be making threats. I can see the future. I know what you will do. Get over yourself. You may be one of the Lys-Karalis, but fuck me; you are an arrogant fool as well.”
My blood positively boils. I will not forget this. I reach for my magic and feel it there. I summon it up, preparing to form it, but it does not come. It has failed me, probably because of my earlier encounter. Time for a different approach I think.
“I am beginning to tire of your assumed immunity from me. Just because I tolerate you, does not give you licence to live without threat from me,” I say, rolling my shoulders. When all is said and done I’m still the stronger man.
“Are you even capable of listening?” he asks with a shake of his head.
Kellum is getting quite wound up now. I notice that he is beginning to shake with anger. Without my magic to protect me, he is a little threatening. I let him continue.
“I could strike you down now. You have no magic, or at least will not cast if you do. Now what the fuck happened to you? Witch came to find me a couple of hours ago and told me you’d lost her. So I looked for you, and you were lying on a beach somewhere. Now last time I checked sunbathing wasn’t all that tiring!”
“Oh, and you would know. Very well, though your insubordination has been noted and you will be punished later. Just hope my ire has lessened by then.”
So I tell them exactly what happened, though I keep my reason for going to the village to myself, there’s no point in letting Witch know my intentions now.
When I finish my description of the attack, Witch pauses for a moment, just staring at me down through the trapdoor, then she stands up abruptly, and takes a few steps back, I smell something akin to fear emanating strongly from her.
I have known this was coming since the three of us left that tavern where she dressed. I have known for a long while, but until now, I did not know when it would happen.
“How could I have been so blinded by vengeance? My gods want you dead, and now I have seen sense, I will strive to make it so, no matter how long it takes,” Witch says from the upper floor, with a slight tremble in her voice.
“Ah, poor Witch, I have known of your treachery for a long time, I know how this encounter ends.”
She pauses momentarily. Then I assume realisation sets in as she figures out how I knew.
“Kellum. Of course, I should have figured that one long ago, but then, I’ve only intended on killing you for a few seconds, how long have you known?”
“Oh, since we first met in that stupid little village. I’ve only kept you for the chance of bedding you on your own terms. Now I’ll do it on mine.”
“No! Master,” Kellum interrupts me, “she must be allowed to run, she will not get far. You will send me after her – to kill her, and she will scream. That is what I have seen.” His futures sort of makes sense. Given my own state of wellbeing, which frankly is not good, I’ll need some blood before I can be my usual voracious self again.
That said, I want this. Kellum must be wrong.
“No, she will be mine.”
“Master, it is destiny,” Kellum pleads.
Kellum is calling me master? This is new, but it is right. If he truly believes that he must kill her...
“It is a pity, but very well. Run, Witch, run like never before.”
And she does. Witch runs like hell, heading toward the door. I long to chase her down and make her suffer. She sh
ould never have thought of harming me. Kellum walks forward slowly, his head turning to look up at the quickly darkening light coming in through the trapdoor; suddenly he tenses and jumps up into the bar proper. His face looks down at me through the hole and he shakes his head.
“My ‘Karalis, she will suffer. I will bring you her blood if you wish it?”
“That will not be necessary, I am feeling stronger; her fear has fed me. Make her pay.”
And he disappears into the fresh night. A few moments later I hear Witch squeal. I strain my senses and manage to hear what is being said.
“I do not want to hurt you, Witch, but that does not mean I won’t,” Kellum says.
“Then let me go Kellum,” Witch pleads.
“Sorry, did I say I didn’t want to hurt you? I lied.”
“Kellum, please. There is no need to kill me, your master will never know. Just tell him you killed me,” she tries to bargain.
“Unfortunately for you, my loyalties are strong and will not be tested so easily.”
“But… Please, I don’t want to die. I… You could come with me, we could go together, and we never have to see him again.”
“Witch, I do like you, but now you must scream; for me, for all the vampire Lys-Karalis, and for your master, Muzbeth.”
And then it comes, a deliciously tender scream, full of fear and desperation and best of all, pain.
Though I will never get to have her, I will always be warmed inside knowing that she suffered so much in her last moments.
***
Kellum and I made the final journey to Gatheck under the light of a full moon. Being unhindered by Witch meant we could move much faster and travel all night. We reached the Heartland coast an hour before dawn; its white sandy beaches a stark change from their rocky counterparts on the Cracked Isles.
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