Myca Vykos was mildly amused to see that Velya had obviously not enjoyed an entirely restful winter. Beneath the Flayer’s cultivated air of genial elegance lurked exhaustion so deep he could not entirely conceal it, no matter how smoothly he crafted his face or carefully he carried his body. Myca rose and embraced him as a kinsman and hid his pleasure in the time-honored rituals of greeting.
“You surprise me, Myca,” Velya admitted, once they had made themselves comfortable. “It is somewhat unlike you to travel unannounced and without companions. Where, dare I ask, is fair Ilias?”
“Ilias is dead.”
Silence. Velya’s face was as still as a lake on a day without wind. Myca reached into his dalmatic and drew from an inner pocket a small bone disk, which he held up, allowing the lamplight to play over the symbols incised in its surface. To his credit, the Flayer showed no reaction on his face, though his hands curled on his thighs as though he wished to tear the charm from Myca’s hand, and possibly the hand along with it.
“He was more powerful than he knew, and more beloved of the powers he commanded,” Myca said, softly. “His workings, some of them, survived the death of his flesh.” He closed his hand, the charm shattering beneath his fingertips, crumbling to dust.
Velya the Flayer visibly slumped in his chair as the magic he had labored under for months dissipated, the counter to his own maleficia undone.
“I know what you did, Velya.” Myca whispered. “Before he died, Ilias told me of it. He sensed what you were doing and moved to protect me from it, and he even knew from where it came. It pleased me to let you suffer as I suffered, at least for a time.” He rose. “I came to tell you that, and to tell you that your punishment is ended, and I am satisfied by it. That, and your quarrel with my family is ended.”
Velya rose, as well, his eyes narrowed. When he spoke, his voice was a hiss in which Myca clearly heard the Beast speaking. “It is not for you to decide such things.”
“Oh, but it is, Velya. It is. If you raise your hand to me or mine again, I will finish what I started, and I will begin with you.” The words, and the voice that spoke them, were not his own but, for the moment, Myca did not care. “Death is clean, Flayer. Death is an ending. There are worse things, and I know all their names.”
Silence descended again. Myca turned, and strode toward the door. As he touched the handle, the Flayer spoke again.
“What are you?”
“An apt choice of words, my old friend.” Myca opened the door. “I am not what, or who, I was before. I am not yet certain what, or who, I am becoming. You showed me truths that have changed me, and will continue to change me. For that, and for the… friendship… we have shared in the past, I am grateful. For that, I am willing to overlook the means you used to show me those truths. But do not cross me again, Flayer. If a reckoning is to be made against the blood that created me, that reckoning will be wrought by me and for my purposes, my vengeance. Be content with what you have gained already.”
He closed the door behind him, and walked out into the waiting night.
About the Author
Myranda Kalis (an alias she uses to protect her relatively innocent husband) has been writing incessantly since the age of twelve, honing her skills as a slinger of verbiage on bad space opera. She did, however, nobly refrained from angsty Goth poetry, even when she was an angsty Goth. Dark Ages: Tzimisce is her second novel (Dark Ages: Brujah was the first) and she has, over the years, contributed to several roleplaying game supplements for the Dark Ages setting of the World of Darkness, as well as fiction pieces and the odd essay here and there. Myranda lives in Pennsylvania with her husband, Anthony.
Acknowledgments
The author would like to offer her profound thanks to Philippe Boulle, Joshua Mosquiera-Asheim, and Lucien Soulban, without whom this book would likely never have been written.
She would also like to thank her husband, Anthony L. Sarro III, for tolerating her protracted disappearances into the writer’s hermitage over the last year or two, and for all of his help and encouragement.
Dark Ages Clan Novel Tzimisce: Book 13 of the Dark Ages Clan Novel Saga Page 25
