Vampire of the Mists

by Christie Golden

  Jander shook his head, uncomprehending. “No. You’re a priest. You’ve got to be able to do something!”

  “I’m not the Morninglord,” the priest said. He smiled sadly. “Although you might be. Every time I see a sunrise elf, my breath catches in my throat. I wonder if your people might not be closer to the gods than we mortals, as you look so much like him.”

  “So I’ve been told,” Jander snapped, “but if I were a god, do you think I’d let her die?”

  The priest did not take offense, simply regarded the elf with pity. “This is an illness beyond my ability to cure. I think it may be magical. Perhaps it has something to do with her unaging state. If I try to do anything more for her, I could kill her.”

  Jander had never felt so helpless. He gazed at Anna, his eyes wide with pain. “Magic,” he whispered, “Damn all magic.”

  “Come, my son,” said the priest gently, laying a hand on Jander’s shoulder and trying to steer him toward the door. “You’re liable to take ill yourself. You feel cold already.”

  The golden vampire shrugged off the priest’s hand. “No,” he said. “I’m staying.”

  “But—”

  Jander fixed the old man with his silver gaze.

  “Well, perhaps you’re right,” the priest relented. “I’m sure she could use some comfort.” He walked over to the wooden door of the cell and tugged it open.

  “Lord—”

  The cleric paused. “Yes, my son.”

  “Thank you.”

  The priest smiled sadly. “I’ll pray for her. And for you,” he added, then he was gone.

  Alone with Anna, Jander sank down beside the woman he had taken care of for forty summers. Her fever still hadn’t broken, and, although she was now conscious, she obviously failed to recognize him. Jander laid his cheek on her hair and tightened his grave-cold hand on her shoulder.

  He made the deadly decision without even thinking about it. It was the only option left to him. Anna was dying, but Jander could not bear to be parted from her.

  “Anna, my love,” he said softly, “if there were any other way for us to be together …”

  The elf’s slender hand brushed her cheek, hot and dry and red with her life’s blood. Unable to hold back any longer, Jander kissed that cheek. Corpse-cold lips slid down her jaw to her throat and pressed against the beating vein. Had he thought any deity would have cared, he would have said a prayer for the success of his endeavor. What he was attempting held danger as well as promise. There came the familiar, bittersweet ache in his mouth as his fangs emerged, ready to pierce soft white skin and take sustenance. Swiftly, before his courage could fail him, Jander bit deeply into Anna’s throat, deeper than he had ever gone before. The skin resisted an instant, then popped and yielded a gush of hot fluid.

  Anna gasped and struggled against the pain. The vampire’s strength was more than mortal, and she could not escape his grasp. Gradually she quieted, then went limp.

  Jander drank eagerly, the warm, coppery-tasting fluid flowing easily down his throat. The life force it carried began to seep through him, renewing his power and rekindling his senses. It had been a long time since he had permitted himself such a banquet; he had almost forgotten the elation and heat that a true feeding engendered. He felt himself surrendering to the pleasure. Dimly he noticed the change as the flavor began to turn ashy and empty.

  Abruptly he stopped. He had almost gone too far; had almost drained her dry in his hunger. Quickly, still cradling her limp form in one powerful arm, he slashed a deep gash in his own throat with a clawlike nail. New blood—Anna’s blood—pumped from the incision. Jander moved her like a doll, placing her mouth to his throat.

  “Drink, my love,” he said hoarsely, “drink, and be one with me!”

  There was no movement. Suddenly afraid, he shoved her face into the wound.

  “Anna, drink!” She tried feebly to push him away, and he cast a frantic glance down at her.

  She smiled serenely, lucidly up at him through a ruddy mask of blood. Heartbeats away from her death, some fraction of sanity had returned, like a benediction, to the tortured girl. Her mind was obviously her own for the moment, and she had made a choice. She refused the eternal undeath he was foisting upon her. Her strength was ebbing, but she mustered enough energy to lift a small hand to touch his golden face, content, even happy with her decision.

  “Sir,” she whispered, a single tear sliding down her ashen cheek. Her magnificent eyes closed for the last time, then her head fell back limply across his trembling arm.

  “Anna?” Jander knew she was dead, of course, but he kept repeating dazedly, “Anna? Anna?”

  Sanity returned to him shortly before dawn.

  His eyes were closed when he again became aware of his surroundings. The first thing he noticed was the silence. Not a single groan or whimper floated to his ears. No breath, no rustle, no sound at all. Next came the smell—a hot, coppery scent that was as familiar as his own name.

  He was lying on the cold stone floor and attempted to rise. It was then that he discovered that he had been in his lupine form over the past few hours. His silver eyes still shut, Jander ran a pink tongue about his jaws, tasting the fluid that had given off the coppery smell. What had he done? He did not want to know, but he had to face his deeds. Slowly the gold-furred wolf opened his silver eyes.

  He had left not one of the miserable wretches alive. The sight of the slaughter greeted him like some obscene carnival tableau. The madwomen lay strewn about like a child’s forgotten toys, some on their pallets, some on the floor, all with their throats gaping open like second mouths. Here and there were the mutilated corpses of the guards who had foolishly tried to stop the carnage. Red was the predominant color now instead of the flat gray of stone. It looked as though the same child who had tossed the corpses carelessly aside had hurled bucketfuls of crimson about.

  A low moan escaped Jander. He couldn’t even remember attacking them. He had killed before, often. He had enjoyed killing before, occasionally. However, he had not known he was capable of such total butchery. The people who lay in ghastly puddles of gore had not been his enemies. They had not even been food for his unnatural, cursed hunger. This was wanton murder, and the part of Jander that was still elven, the part that still loved light and music and beauty, was appalled.

  The full horror of what he had done settled on Jander like dust on a gravestone. Those slain by a vampire were doomed to rise again as vampires themselves. He wasn’t sure if these pitiful wretches would—he had merely ripped them apart, he thought with grim humor, not drained them of blood. Still, it was a thought that would chill any heart: a hundred insane vampires wandering the night landscape of the Sword Coast.

  Jander turned his shocked gaze back to Anna. He changed then, his sleek, golden wolf limbs dissolving into mist and reforming gracefully into his elven manifestation. He gathered the dead girl’s slight frame in his arms and held her tightly for a few moments. Tenderly he laid her corpse out on the straw, cleaning her bloody face as best he could.

  Jander had tried to make Anna his mate, but she would not drink his blood. When she rose in a few nights as an undead, she would be only a weak, servile vampire: his slave. That was all she would ever be, for all eternity, for slaves could never become true individuals while their maker existed.

  “Oh, Anna, I never wanted that for you,” he said brokenly. “Death would have been better.”

  The elven vampire rose slowly, wearily, and glanced around at the dead bodies until he found what was left of a guard. He searched the bloody corpse until he found a ring of keys, then unlocked the heavy wooden door and went to the other main cell. He wondered if he was doing the right thing for a brief second, but pushed his hesitation aside. Jander inserted the large skeleton key into the lock, turned it twice, then pushed open the door. Most of the madmen within took no notice of him, but a few crept timidly to the door and peered out cautiously. With a cry, the elf ran about the large cell, waving his arms and he
rding the inmates to freedom. When the last one had left, Jander went to the individual cells and unlocked them as well, swallowing his revulsion.

  The asylum was empty, save for the dead. The vampire returned to the women’s cell, and knelt beside Anna for the last time. He allowed himself one final kiss, a gift that she had been too frightened to grant him in life. Then Jander removed a torch from its sconce on the wall and tossed it into the straw that covered the cell’s floor. It caught quickly, and for a few minutes the elf hesitated.

  His existence was a wretched one. It was tempting to end it here, to burn to charred flesh along with Anna. The thought had occurred to the miserable vampire more than once over the last several centuries, but always Jander had decided against suicide. There were worse things than vampires, and Jander would become one should he die.

  The smoke became black and thick before the elf hurried outside into the fresh, cold night air. He did not want to watch as Anna’s body burned, but he knew it was the only way to send her tortured soul to a final rest.

  Jander walked silently westward, pulling his cape tight about his slender frame. The bitterness of the midwinter night was not uncomfortable to him. The touch of a vampire was cold if he had not fed, but the undead never felt the chill themselves. As he strode down the empty streets toward the city limits, he could hear sounds of wakefulness behind him. He hoped that aid would not come before Anna’s body had been completely destroyed.

  The elven vampire left Waterdeep behind him, heading for the comfort of the forest. The grass beneath Jander’s feet was coated with frost, but it made no sound under the tread of his gray boots. The large trees were bare, and their silent, massive shapes did not invite his touch. Nevertheless, the elf leaned his back against the trunk of one and lifted his eyes to the sky. The moon was half-full, fading before the lavender and pink tinge of the approaching morning. He had a good half-hour, though, before he needed to seek the dark shelter of his cave.

  The predawn beauty felt more like a rebuff than a reassurance to the stricken vampire. He was undead: he could hope for no acceptance anywhere. Even Anna had rejected the living death he had offered. For forty years she had been the one hope that made his existence bearable. Now there was nothing, no one. Who would spare sympathy for the plight of a vampire?

  “I did not choose this life!” Jander raged to the empty air. “I did nothing to earn it! Have I not suffered in this state? Is there no mercy for such as me?”

  The night remained still. It did not answer him. He clenched his fists.

  “Anna!” he wailed, his voice shattering the night. He fell to his knees. “Anna …” He had killed the thing he loved best. It made no difference that that had not been his intent.

  Perhaps, came a thought like a whisper, you freed her. The vampire grasped at the hope. He forced himself to remember her dreamy insanity, and the anger that had been directed at himself and his undead state began to focus elsewhere. She had been something beautiful that had brushed his life, had given him a reason for continuing his existence. Now he had a new reason: revenge. Jander already felt certain that someone had done something terrible to Anna, something that had driven her over the edge of sanity.

  That was a greater sin than his. Filled with new resolve, he raised his arms to the lightening sky.

  “Hear me, gods! Hear me, powers of darkness and pain! If there is one who harmed her, I will find him. I will destroy him. Punish me if you will, for my hands are not clean. But deny me not my revenge!”

  Not in five hundred years of undeath or in two hundred years as a living being had Jander spoken with such anguish. His hatred poisoned the words, and the good, clean earth of Toril shrank from the bitterness he spewed forth. But there were other powers, far more corrupt than anything that dwelt in Toril, and they drank Jander’s tainted curse like nectar.

  As it was a seaport, Waterdeep had its share of fogs. But years later, the inhabitants of the Dock Ward would speak in hushed tones about the malevolent mist that appeared suddenly on that particular dawn. It rolled in from the sea like the ghost of a ship. It was damp and chill, as was every fog, yet there was something uncanny about it. Those awake retreated into their homes or huddled in their boats until it passed them by. Those yet abed frowned in their sleep as dreams transformed into nightmares. The fog came as if guided, rolling through the streets of the ward to the west. It passed over the dock area quickly, leaving behind a hazy morning. The noon sun burned away the last traces of the strange mist, and the sunset that evening was stunning.

  Jander never saw that sunset on Toril, nor the clear night that followed. When the mist rolled in, it engulfed him completely. His mind was as clouded with hot thoughts of vengeance as the forest was with the weird mist, but the vampire retained enough presence of mind to realize that he didn’t have much time to return to his cave.

  He took the shape of a bat and flew toward the dank underground lair he called home. The mist would obscure normal vision. Bats, however, navigated by emitting high sounds that bounced off objects and returned to sensitive ears. Jander was surprised that the shrill shrieks he produced as he flapped his leathery wings never echoed back to him. Resolutely he flew on, grimly crushing any notion that he might become lost in the dense, gray fog.

  After an alarmingly long time, an echo bounced back. Jander fluttered to the ground, changing yet again into his elven form. The fog was lifting. It dissipated as quickly as it had come, revealing a landscape so completely transformed that Jander couldn’t believe the evidence of his eyes.

  He had been fleeing the dawn. Yet, judging from the position of the moon, it wasn’t even midnight. The elf frowned. The moon was wrong too. It had been only half-full when he left, but now it was full. Even the stars bore no resemblance to the constellations he had come to know through centuries of observation. Everything was alien.

  What was going on? For a moment, Jander wondered if he had spent too many nights among the insane. Perhaps he, too, had lost his reason. Whatever the explanation, as far as his senses could determine, he was no longer in Waterdeep. Judging by the unfamiliar stars, he wasn’t even on Toril anymore.

  He shivered, though the air was balmy and full of the scents of spring. Magic.

  The moon slipped in and out of cloud banks, alternately obscuring and revealing Jander’s new surroundings. Instead of frost-crusted grass, the elf discovered he was standing on a road, well-kept enough but clearly not often traveled. The shapes of the tall trees that fringed the side of the path were large and seemed to hover over him. They were apple trees, in full bloom, and they scattered petals on the ground as the breeze stirred them. The road wound through a pass up ahead, then took a steep downward turn. Jander strode to the crest, and peered down into the valley.

  Nestled in the valley was a huge ring of dense fog. From his vantage point, Jander could see that there was a village inside the circle, and north of the road a forbidding-looking castle perched like a vulture over the town.

  A mournful howl rent the air, one quickly joined by a dozen others. A fell harmony was raised, and the source drew closer by the minute. The wolf pack did not worry Jander. He was no lycanthrope, but he knew what it was to run four-footed over the hills with the scent of the quarry hot in his nostrils. He had yet to meet a beast that did not bow to his command.

  The howls increased. Jander threw back his head, found the slight wind, and sniffed, catching a wild, musky scent. As the pack cleared a small hill the moonlight caught their bright eyes. They were enormous—great, shaggy shapes of shadow and darkness. Jander kept his keen silver gaze even with the pack leader’s. Wolf and vampire regarded one another for a moment. The leader glanced back at his companions, then down at Jander again. He cocked his head and twitched his ears, considering.

  The elf was a bit taken aback. Always before, the mental commands he had issued had been immediately obeyed. Jander narrowed his eyes and increased his concentration. Leave, he told them silently. He sensed their strength of will, their c
unning, their threat, but they made no move to obey. Leave!

  At last the mighty beasts slipped away, and the night engulfed them. “Fare you well, brothers,” Jander said. He was alone again.

  The moon was swallowed by a cloud. With a deadly swiftness, the night was subtly transformed. The whiteness of the apple blossoms looked like shrouds. The hard-packed dirt road twined away like a snake. Long though he might for the sun, Jander was a denizen of darkness, and knew he had nothing to fear from it. Still, he felt a shiver touch his spine like an icy finger.

  Once, as an elf in whose veins warm blood circulated, he had known the dread of shadows. Even then, he did not fear the cloak of darkness itself, but rather what it hid from view. Jander was one of those terrifying, hidden things. Yet he was afraid of the night in this strange land. The very soil under his feet felt wrong. He had called the wolves “brothers,” but that was out of habit, not a sense of kinship. These wolves had no ties with him. Had he not had the strength of will to turn them, he knew they would have leaped upon him and torn him to pieces for the sheer pleasure of doing so. Wolves in Faerûn, with a few exceptions, were merely beasts, travelers under the black skies in search of food and nothing more. But those huge, shaggy beasts staring balefully at him had been full of malice.

  He again turned his attention to the only evidences of civilization he could find, but they offered no reassurance. The town that lay below him looked imprisoned by that ring of unnatural fog. The brooding castle had an aura about it that boded ill.

  Jander sighed. He had no idea where he was or how he had come to be there. The only ones who could tell him anything dwelt in the village and in the castle. The elf decided on the village, as he would be more likely to pass unnoticed there. Suddenly he remembered his clothing, drenched in the blood of the innocent victims in the asylum. He certainly couldn’t show up in the village with that on his garb.