In the old days when news travelled at the speed of a merchant caravan, little towns were ideal feeding grounds for their kind. Covens would take them over and use them up. Nowhere was isolated anymore, so they hunted in the cities. The cities were crowded by the lonely. Disappearances were not alarming, they were expected.
The reason for the trip to the seaside University town was unknown to any of them other than Leader, and Leader was not telling. Leader only shared what she wanted, and the reason for visiting the town was for her alone. She said she was looking for something, but she did not say what. She would only say that she was drawn to the town and would know when it was time to leave.
The rest of the coven knew this was bullshit. Leader knew they saw through the mystical crap, but she got a perverse pleasure from the fact that none of them would challenge her word.
They waited in the dark for Leader’s return. Eventually, their hunger for excitement and emotion started to return.
The City, Year 7870 in the Reign of Enki II
Hael was on his way to the Arena to fight Caleb.
Caleb hated him still and, no doubt, always would.
In the year since they had both entered the Academy on Assessment Day, Caleb had worked and sweat and bled until he had made his way into the Ten. In this way Hael and Caleb’s wish of being in the Ten together had been granted, though the reality was very different from their initial hopes and dreams. They were not mutually supportive comrades. They were the most bitter of enemies.
They had both fought in the Arena many times and prevailed against many opponents, but the draw had never pitted them against each other. Until today. The whole Academy, not just their year, had been buzzing since the match had been announced the day before. Everyone knew of their history and of their rivalry.
If Hael were given the choice, he and Caleb would still be friends. He would always regret that he and Caleb had become enemies, even if he could not regret the action that had led to the demise of their friendship.
Since that day they had not spoken to each other directly, they avoided each other’s presence as much as possible in the barracks and they fiercely competed with each other whenever they were given similar tasks. Hael sometimes wondered if he and Caleb would have been doing as well if not for their mutual antagonism and competition; Hael was currently Three and Caleb was Six in their year. If they had entered the Academy as planned, as friends, perhaps they would not have fought as hard to advance.
The outcome of the match was difficult to predict, hence wagering was heavy. Neither Hael nor Caleb had been beaten in the Arena. Technically Caleb was ranked slightly higher than Hael in hand to hand combat, as he usually won his matches quickly, but the odds were slightly favoring a win by Hael. This was more due to the fact that Hael was better liked than Caleb than any other reason. The other boys either respected or feared Caleb, but none would overlook his appearance and actually become friends with him. Hael’s longer average time to win was due to his usual practice of waiting for his opponent to make a move or show an opening before attacking. Caleb’s fighting style was that of the initial aggressor, overwhelming his opponents quickly through speed and strength. This would be an interesting match. Although Caleb was more highly ranked than Hael in combat, Hael’s overall Rank was higher than Caleb’s, due to Hael’s high scores in logistics, probability and mathematics. Hael was also highest ranked in his year in command, control and strategy.
If, after six years in the Academy, they both graduated as one of the Ten, it was likely that they would be offered commissions, but Hael wanted more than that; he wanted a field command. The most certain way to be posted to the field right out of the Academy was to be ranked One when he graduated. Being a successful commander in the field inevitably led to riches, concubines and the opportunity to breed. None of the trappings of success mattered much to Hael; he wanted to dedicate his life to repaying the Debt that Could Not be Repaid. The higher he rose the more he would be able to contribute. His ultimate goal was to be made a general or even a Marshal in the army of the Host, much like his hero Mi Donta, one of the Academy’s patrons.
When Hael’s people had emerged from the desert two millennia ago, the original tribe had been made up of two hundred desperate men, women and children. The starving group were the remnants of the thousands who had entered the desert. No one knew what they were fleeing from or to. It could have been warfare. It could have been famine. It could have been that his great grandfather to the eightieth degree was a bat shit crazy fanatic who dreamed of a paradise on the other side of the desert and convinced his people to follow. That detail had not been important to the Host. What had been important to the Host were the physical characteristics of his people. The Host had documented the names, approximate ages, height, dimensions of torsos, arms and legs, eye color, hair color and, most importantly, mental strength, but nothing about why the tribe had decimated itself through months of hardship to cross a desert.
The Host had been good to Hael’s people, the Guest. Not only had they saved the original desert survivors from starvation, but over the intervening two millennia they had made the Guest better — stronger and smarter. The Debt was payment for salvation granted those thousands of years ago and was payment to the Host for shepherding his people through the ages. The Debt was paid though service to the City and Empire, and each year the Guest pledged allegiance to the Host and pledged to reply the Debt at the time of Renewal.
To Hael, the Host was a force for good, a force for progress, a force for stability. The Host needed to be secure. The Host was there to educate and mold future generations of the Guest. His life work would be to help the Host to tame the world, to raise tribes from savagery or cast them back into the wilderness. His own people would be wearing skins and eating bugs if the Host had not accepted them and made them better. The Host would make the world stable and be a bulwark against the chaos of the Feral.
He would do all of this if he was One, if he made his way through the ranks to be Marshal. The next step on that path was to crush Caleb in the Arena, just as he had crushed everyone else that he had come up against.
Hael stepped out of the hallway leading into the Arena and onto the freshly raked white sand that floored the ring. He noticed that the Arena’s benches were packed with boys from every year, and that there were even boys sitting on the stairs between the benches. He noticed his bother Lucan, surrounded by his lackeys. Lucan’s charisma and cruelty always attracted followers. Hael nodded at his older brother; Lucan smiled and winked back.
Caleb entered the Arena through the doorway across from Hael and commenced to stretch and bounce on his toes. He did not make eye contact with Hael, and he seemed oblivious to the crowd. They both wore leather kilts and sandals, their only possessions other than the linen shirts stored in their footlockers in the barracks. All other possessions were forfeited when they entered the Academy.
There was a murmur through the crowd, many of whom were looking at the Judge’s box. Hael was surprised to see that the Judge for the match was none other than Mi Donta, the Academy’s Guest Patron. At least the school’s other Patron, Mi Zabab, who was one of the Host, was not present; that would have given even more weight to the match.
As Hael stretched and readied himself, he studied Caleb out of the corner of his eye. In the year since they clashed on Assessment Day, in the race to the Academy, they had both grown. Caleb, who had started out larger, had actually grown faster. He was as bulky as one of the Host but much taller, a full head taller than Hael. Hael was exactly average height and build, as designed.
Mi Donta stood and raised his arm. Hael and Caleb crouched in anticipation.
His arm dropped.
The match began.
Hael sprinted across the sand flooring of the arena at Caleb. The sound of the crowd became white noise to him. His entire focus was on Caleb.
Caleb hesitated for a moment. Everyone knew that Hael always waited for his opponent to make the first mo
ve. He had demonstrated it again and again, never deviating from that basic strategy, until now.
This was what Hael was counting on.
The slight hesitation was enough for Hael to slip past Caleb’s mental shields and into his mind. Hael locked up Caleb’s muscles, leaving him standing helplessly. Hael leapt off the sand and hit Caleb in the chest with both feet. Caleb toppled to the sand.
Match over.
The watching students leapt to their feet and started applauding and chanted, “Hael, Hael, Hael.” Hael stood, turned and bowed to Mi Donta, who smiled and nodded.
The applause petered off and Mi Donta looked past Hael with a look of surprise on his face. He started to say something and raise his hand. Hael turned in time to see Caleb’s ham-sized fist approaching his face.
Bral was visiting Clea and her family when they came to take her away.
Relations between the families of Hael and Caleb had been tense since Hael had vaulted over Caleb on Assessment Day. They had deteriorated further with word of Caleb’s assault in the Arena and his subsequent arrest. Whether their families had friendly relations or not made little difference to Bral; he still saw Clea as the older sister he never had. He knew his two older brothers had more complicated feelings for Clea. Hael cared deeply for her in a less than platonic way, while it was no secret that Lucan had lusted after her. Nor was it a secret that she spurned his advances.
Bral and Hael had spent a lot of time in Caleb and Clea’s company before Hael had entered the Academy. Bral saw no reason to stop spending time with Clea because of conflict between their brothers. Clea was happy to have someone other than her mother to talk to. The rest of the neighborhood shunned her.
Bral had come by to inform her that Caleb’s trial would start the next day.
“Mi Donta will be the judge for the case.” Bral looked up at the square of sky visible above. They were in the central courtyard of Clea’s unusually large family home.
“Then there is no hope. He will be found guilty and sentenced.” Clea’s voice sounded tense. Bral wanted to remain composed, so he continued to look anywhere but at her.
“Maybe I can speak to my father, maybe he will plead for leniency.”
“Oh Bral, you are sweet, but your father will never do that. He and my mother cannot abide being in the same room anymore. There is too much bad blood now. The things Sela said to him following Assessment Day can never be taken back. She can be so selfish and stubborn, not like you, dearest Bral.”
Bral’s skin tone darkened slightly as he blushed; praise was a stranger to him. “There must be something we can do. Can we talk to Mi Zabab? He could overrule Mi Donta, couldn’t he? He is Host.”
“No, not Zabab, anything but him.” Bral turned to look at her, as her voice had trembled as she said the words. She had wrapped her arms tightly around her torso and she was rocking slightly on the bench.
It was at this moment that a thumping on the front door announced the arrival of the City Guard. They had come to take Clea away.
Bral sat like a coiled spring on the floor beside the mat that Hael lay on. He was a smaller, slightly younger version of Hael. He would be taking part in Assessment Day next year, entering the Academy two years behind Hael and three behind Lucan.
That their parents had been able to produce three sons was a sign of their strong lineage and their achievements. Their father had attained the rank of Major and was allowed to call himself Ma Gral instead of just Gral. If he had achieved a higher rank, say Colonel, he and his wife, Luca, would have been allowed to have five children, as Luca’s lineage was also top tier.
Hael was having trouble focusing on what Bral was saying. He would be released from the infirmary today and he was thinking of what he needed to do to catch up with his peers in the Academy. He had spent two brutal weeks in the infirmary being subjected to accelerated Healing at the hands of the Host Healers. Hael’s nose and cheekbone had been shattered by Caleb’s blow and his front incisor had been chipped. The Healers has fixed his nose and cheekbone, but Hael had asked them to leave the chip on his tooth as a reminder to himself to never let his guard down. Ever.
He dragged his attention back to Bral, who was speaking quickly and urgently, but also quietly. If he caused a disturbance the Healer would ask him to leave. “You have to help her. You need to appeal the sentence.”
Hael was puzzled. “Who? What? Bral, start over, I thought you were here about Caleb.”
“They have taken Clea too. The sentence was just announced. They are ending their line.”
Hael closed his eyes and a wave of nausea roiled through him.
Not Clea.
He had known that Caleb would be treated harshly, but this was too much. It seemed that Mi Donta was making an example of him.
For sentencing, Donta would have had the option of choosing something relatively lenient such as Exile from the City, or something more arduous, such as sending him to the quarry to mine stone for the Emperor’s new monument, or even sentencing him to be a Mason to work on the monument itself, under the brutal desert sun. The harshest of punishments, Banishment to the Outer Darkness, would not have been considered, as that was reserved for High Treason and was uncommon.
“How are they doing it? How are they ending their line?” Hael choked the words out.
“Nightfeeder Curse,” said Bral. Bral looked away and a tear ran down his cheek.
Hael’s thought processes froze for a moment, then he started thinking about the implications.
Simple sterilization would have been a fairly meaningless punishment. It was also unlikely that Caleb and Clea would have ever been allowed to breed with others unless they managed to prove themselves in some exceptional way. His unconventional appearance and her light coloring would have made it much more difficult for them to be authorized to breed, even without a trial. Her fair complexion indicated that she had some Host blood somewhere in her lineage. Cross breeding between Host and Guest had been outlawed a few generations ago after the Emergence, but the fairer coloring of the Host still turned up now and then among the Guest.
Subjecting them to the Nightfeeder Curse was harsh, but in this way they would continue to be useful to the City and Empire. As Sela, their mother, was past her optimal breeding window and had been sterilized already, she was exempt from the curse.
Hael could understand the logic, but that did not mean he agreed. He could not let this happen to Clea.
Hael started to get up. He needed to see Mi Donta.
His pleading with Donta had borne no fruit. He was, however, required to witness the execution of the sentence. As Donta was not willing to spare Clea, Hael would do as he was told. The Debt required obedience even when it was difficult to obey.
The sentence was carried out in the temple beside the Academy. The temple was functional rather than magnificent. It could handle a Working of moderate complexity and power, such as the Nightfeeder Curse, and it could serve as a focal point during the annual Renewal Celebration, but it could not support a major Working, such as a Gaes, on its own.
Hael was expected to bear witness from the front row bench, so he did. The victim was supposed to have an unobstructed view of the convicted.
Caleb and Clea were dragged from the depths of the Temple into the massive inscribed granite circle that housed the four altar stones. Only two would be used today. Clea looked up and her odd blue eyes locked on Hael’s. She was a terrified vision of white robes, pale skin and golden hair. She was looking for a savior but she only found Hael, obedient Hael. He looked back impassively, as was expected. He saw the last of her hope wither in her eyes and the bloom of hate replace it as she and Caleb were bound to the altar stones.
Nine Host adepts entered the ring of granite, heads bowed and cowls drawn forward to obscure their faces. They silently made a circle around Caleb and Clea. They joined hands and minds. They broke open Caleb and Clea’s mental shields and performed the Nightfeeder Curse.
Caleb and Clea were curse
d to never breed. They were cursed with absolute obedience to their makers. They were cursed to crave pain and suffering in others. They were cursed with indifference, remoteness and emotional shallowness. They would be unable to experience joy or love. And finally they were cursed to live and serve in the resulting, miserable half-life for eternity or until destroyed.
Clea sobbed once as the ritual started. When it was done she was dry-eyed. She and Caleb were unbound and they walked without complaint out of the temple and, presumably, out of the City. It was likely that they were had already been assigned to a Legion in the field with a Nightfeeder Brigade. The priests would mentally transmit their control patterns to the commander of the Legion that they were assigned to. A control pattern was a complex image that was used to command one of the Cursed. When issuing an order, the commander would project the control pattern into the mind of the Nightfeeder to guarantee obedience. A command linked to the control pattern was irresistible. Each of the cursed was issued with a unique control pattern to ensure that only one of those authorized could issue commands. Thus, the reigns of control could be passed from master to master ad infinitum.
The two newly created Nightfeeders would fight in the war until they had been destroyed or the war was over. And the war was eternal.
Brightly colored rugs covered the entire floor, which was a shame, as one would presume the floor would be made of the same creamy marble that covered the walls of the room. Cushions of red and yellow were piled at strategic places around the room. A low table in the center of the room was covered with bowls of grapes, oranges, figs and cherries. Scattered amongst the fruit were a few small platters of grilled meat on skewers. Shallow bowls with dipping sauces accompanied the meat platters.
Alcoves lined the walls. Within the alcoves were various objets d’art like clay statuaries, golden trinkets and vases decorated with hunting scenes. On the marble walls were frescoes depicting more hunting scenes and a few battles. The north wall, however, was covered by a graphic and forbidden scene depicting the Cleansing, during which Mi Zabab’s people had achieved preeminence over their makers.
Ancient Evil (The First Genocide Book 1) Page 9
