Carpathian Vampire, When You've Never Known Love

by Lumi Laura

CHAPTER 42 Cheiron, Beyond Acheron

  They moved forward through darkness more swiftly than Alex could have imagined. They were no longer running but flying above the long train of vampires. Although she had just introduced Alex to flying, Cosmina started to lag, and Alex grabbed her hand to help, but by the time they reached the front, Cosmina was too tired to continue. They stopped at the edge of a dark lake. It seemed to Alex to have been a long while since she'd been to the front, a lapse of years instead of weeks. The lead vampires, elders, had camped out on the lake's shore after arriving. Neither Alu nor Cheiron were among them. Cosmina talked to some of the elders, and they told her that Cheiron, with Alu on his back, had crossed.

  "What lake is this?" asked Alex.

  "Don't know. Alu wouldn't say."

  "We must find them," said Cosmina. "Perhaps here in psychic space, we can learn the truth about Alu."

  "Why haven't you crossed?" Alex asked the elders.

  "The cold. No soul would survive the swim.

  "Why haven't you built a boat?" asked Cosmina.

  "Alu did. But one made of material from Millennium Road wouldn't float. Cheiron told us to wait here. He's more rugged, but even he was afraid. It's been a long while, and we became bored, so we started building a city. We call it Vampire Purgatory."

  "Alexandra and I don't have the luxury of waiting. We must cross now," said Cosmina.

  "A small boat rests at water's edge," he said. "Made for one, but might accommodate two."

  "It floats? Where did it come from? Why haven't you taken it?" asked Cosmina.

  "After Alu crossed the first time with Cheiron, he returned by the boat. He told us not to use it because he knew a better way. Then he went north. Not only that, he said that if it all worked out, he had a big surprise for us."

  "What's on the other side?" asked Alex.

  "Alu wouldn't say. He did say it wasn't safe for us as yet."

  After locating the boat, Alex and Cosmina each took an oar, and they rowed forward on a glassy surface without a ripple. Alex accidentally splashed a little water on her arm, and it was so cold that it penetrated to the bone. She shivered all over. Cosmina was still tired, and Alex took over both oars. Once across, they coasted onto the sand beach to avoid stepping in the icy water. They saw a cliff rising up and disappearing in darkness. Cosmina was too weak to stand. Alex supported her.

  "Cheiron's grotto," said Cosmina, pointing to a cave at the base of the cliff.

  They stood before the cave where a campfire smoldered, a stack of boulders to the left of the entrance. To the right stood a stone structure of Doric columns. "Temple of Apollo," said Cosmina. Before the temple sat a slaughter stone, black blood coating the surface of the rock and the ground around it. Next to it another fireplace smoldered. Off to the side of the temple stood a holding pen separated into two parts, one for sheep, the other for goats.

  "Are you sure we're still in psychic space?" asked Alex. "This feels real."

  "I know what you mean. Looks as if it's been here forever."

  They heard a commotion within the cave, a grumbling, growly voice, and the Centaur emerged, the clop of his hooves against stone a warning that he was coming, but he appeared with such suddenness that they stepped back a couple of paces for Cheiron was huge, much larger than Alex anticipated. The horse portion of his body stood as tall as a man, the largest horse she'd ever seen, and the man portion, the trunk of which replaced the horse's neck, was much larger than any man's, with well-muscled arms, broad shoulders, and a neck as thick as most men's waists. The head was the size of a cauldron, with thick curly hair falling past his shoulders in golden ringlets.

  Alex's first inclination was to run. But she forced herself to stand her ground. Cosmina was still week, but Alex barely had the strength to support her.

  Cosmina straightened herself and spoke to the ancient beast. "We've just crossed the lake and don't know where we've landed. Perhaps you could enlighten us."

  "You're from Millennium Road?" Cheiron asked, his voice echoing inside his chest.

  "Yes. We're looking for the first vampire."

  The Centaur's hooves stamped impatiently as they told him who they were and why they'd come. Cheiron had a cavernous chest from which his voice originated and was then modulated by his vocal chords and further articulated by tongue and lips. He had a full beard, a much darker shade of hair that glistened in the firelight.

  "Wish me to divulge the activities of one Alucius of Kardasia? Well, let me fix a place for you to sit. I'm pretty much a night creature myself now. We'll share some meat, break a little bread, perhaps share a cup of wine."

  Alex whispered in Cosmina's ear, "We don't have time for this. Alu could return any minute."

  "Be patient. He's an ancient creature, and his ways are much different than ours."

  "What lake is that?" asked Cosmina.

  "Acheron, named the same as the river supplying it," said Cheiron.

  Cosmina looked at Alex. "Separates the real world from the Underworld."

  "Is that Hell or Heaven?" asked Alex.

  "That's beyond my knowledge," answered Cosmina.

  Cheiron sat to work, first bringing out fresh dough molded into four loaves and put them inside the oven that was fired from below. Then he went to the pen, bending over it rather than opening the gate, and grabbed a young goat by the leg. He brought it to the altar, flopped it on the slaughter stone, picked up the knife leaning against it, and while slitting the goat's throat, shouted a prayer to Apollo. Cheiron's voice was filled with music as he sang, signifying both love for the god and the many times through the millennia he'd sent forth prayers into the Divine World. His words seem to take on physical form and loft into the dark heavens. Their echo sent gladness and hope into Alex's heart.

  "God of prophecy and enlightenment, grant us the gift of wisdom that we might understand these terrible gifts you send us mortals. Help us bridge the gulf that forever separates our worlds. Bring forth the fellowship and understanding that creates our retched civilization, so that we may reach yours. For these gifts, we'll forever burn fat and glistening shanks for your divine repast."

  The goat quivered and died as the last drops of blood fell from the cruel throat wound. Cheiron then skinned and quartered the goat, stripped it of the largest pieces of glistening flesh, which he placed on a large rack before the roasting fire. The skin, fat and bone he placed in the divine fire, which roared up searing all he placed on it.

  But Cheiron's prayer had a lasting impact on Alex. She felt a closeness to something divine, and it instilled in her a powerful desire to explore the darkness beyond Cheiron's grotto.

  Cheiron removed the fat brown loves of bread from the oven and sat them on the table to cool while he roasted the goat flesh over the open flame. The table had chairs around three sides of the stone square. Cheiron stood before the fourth side where he'd obviously stood many times as evidenced by the ground packed by his hooves.

  "You might think I've hosted many visitors by the looks of the place," he said. "But Alucius is the only soul to sit at this table until now."

  "Where is he?" asked Cosmina.

  "Alu went on ahead," the Centaur said, his voice deep from within his chest seeming an echo from the depths, as if he'd spoken the words millennia ago, and they'd traveled through time to reach them that evening as they sat before him sopping bread in rich gravies. "I could go no farther, although I could not tell you why. Perhaps some divine edict."

  "How did Alu get through?"

  "Because he had tasted the blood of Christ. At least that's what he'd been told."

  If that were true, Alex knew she could never make it through either. Then she remembered her Silent Scythe initiation. This just might be doable. Cosmina and Cheiron continued to talk but Alex realized that this could go on forever.

  "We should go," said Alex.

  "I can't. I'm still too tired. Go on, if you can. Find out what happened to him."

  Alex left Cheiron's cove
and moved forward scrambling over huge black boulders, the dim pentagon in the heavens becoming obscured by a pale light in the distance. She entered a ravine that went off to the right, a pass between vertical cliffs with barely enough space to wedge through. She encountered an impenetrable wall and had turned back when she found a path off to the left that skirted the cliff. It led to a tunnel that was so pitch-black she had to inch her way forward feeling the sides until she stepped out into fresh air and realized that she was at the edge of a deep dark forest. The longer she stood before it, the more it became visible. She sensed a great calm and serenity. This would be the place to live out eternity, she thought.

  She stepped into the forest and walked along a path following the dim light in the distance. Just as she was about to break out into a clearing, she saw a man coming toward her. She stepped back behind a tree and let him pass. Sure enough, it was Alu, and he was carrying something. What, she couldn't tell. She considered confronting him, but realized if she did, he'd spook and turn loose his ferals in the real world. She also wanted to warn Cosmina but realized that this was psychic space and that Cosmina would be safe there with Cheiron in any case. She had to find out where Alu had been.

  Alex crept on through the trees and into the meadow. The light she had been following came from a building at the far edge. Alex didn't want to be discovered. What sort of being she would encounter in vampire psychic space she didn't know and wanted to find out before she let them see her. She walked between trees until she reached the building and realized that it was a gazebo, a nonagon, much the same as the one in ruins at the edge of her grandmother's graveyard. When she got closer, she saw two people inside talking. She stayed back out of sight and tried to overhear what they were saying. They were speaking in a language unknown to her. She crept closer through the trees at the edge of the gazebo and peeked around a tree.

  The woman seemed greatly distressed, and the man was obviously angry. He was pleading with her, and she was crying and shaking her head no. The man turned his back on the woman and walked to the far side of the gazebo. Alex moved back behind the tree. Somehow she knew this was forbidden territory. She peeked around the tree again and caught her breath. She could see them more clearly now and recognized both. It was Catalin and Velinar. Alex knew she'd be discovered if she didn't leave, so she made her way back through the trees wondering what sort of place this could be.

  Once away from them, she turned to look back one last time. She marveled again at how similar this gazebo was to that apparition of one she'd seen the night Velinar had bitten her there in her grandmother's backyard. She saw something she hadn't noticed before. Growing near the gazebo were two trees, both bearing fruit. One seemed to be an apple, but the other was less familiar. Then she realized that it was a pomegranate, the same variety that had sprouted up from the seed she'd pushed into the ground the night Velinar bit her. She caught her breath.

  Alex hurried back along the path, felt her way through the tunnel into the dark ravine with its close vertical cliffs but stopped before she reached Cheiron's cave. She was both elated and frightened and now realized why Cheiron couldn't go on ahead with Alu. He had been forbidden to reenter that place back when he gained his immortality.

  Alex worked her way forward to Cheiron's grotto. And then she saw the unthinkable. Alu was at the edge of Lake Acheron getting into the boat and with him, seemingly of her own volition, was Cosmina. He shoved off from shore, and neither looked back. Alex stood there alone, stranded. Were they all working together? Was this all a snare for her in psychic space? And the other big question hung in the air. What had Alu taken from the Garden?

  Alex realized she was now trapped between the Garden of Eden and the lake fed by Acheron, known as the River of Pain, in a psychic space that was beginning to make a lot more sense.