* * * * * * * * *
As Marigny retreated back through the crowd of nervous witches, their swelling fears serving as annoyance for the disgruntled warlock, he spotted the wizard Tupelo and the warlock Tricu, two very old friends, arguing near the hallway entrance.
The elder of the two, Tupelo, was pointing at his friend accusingly while keeping a smile upon his face, “I remember how you treated my older sister before she left this world, and it wasn’t always with respect.”
“That was thirty thousand years ago!” Tricu shouted in his own defense.
“And the question remains the same,” Tupelo told him sternly, “If your relationship with Tranessa nearly got you killed by me back then, what makes you think Regina won’t be the end of us both?”
Tricu laughed at him, “If a single witch was all it took to split us apart,” he joked with his old friend, “Then our enemies have been going about it all wrong for many millennia!”
That comment brought a smile to the stern face of Tupelo, causing him to drop the guard he had held so tightly around the only family he had left. “If she truly wishes it to be so,” he said as he placed a hand upon his friend’s shoulder, “Then there is nothing I can do to stop her. But you…” He raised his fist jokingly towards his old friend.
Tricu laughed loudly, “I guess I’ll have to keep my eyes on you!”
Marigny then ceased their laughter with his stare alone. “Have you seen Orleans?” He asked them. They shook their heads, causing Marigny to groan. “Oh, he’s probably still in the conference chambers. That bastard needs to get his head out of his ass and focus.”
“Well,” Tupelo began, “Heather’s news of the coming flood has had its effect on all of us. I’m sure the king is no different.”
“Well, he should be frening different.” Marigny protested. “In times of crisis a king is to be in front of his people, not hiding in the shadows of some far off hallway.”
“He has a lot on his mind, Marigny.” Tricu chimed in. “You should know that better than anyone.”
“And I do.” The warwalker responded. “I understand far too much than I would like. He has to worry about our friends to the east, the natives to the west, and the humans to the south. But we have sat idle for far too long. They send a scout to spy on us and all he does is lock them away and forget about them. He gives us no explanations, no plans of retaliation, no battle cries. He just acts like nothing ever happened. He is sidetracked, off balance, and has been for some time now. If I could only get him to worry about what is actually happening instead of digging through the books of our damn history, then maybe I would feel a bit more at ease when it comes to our future.”
“Yes… I think I see your point.” Tupelo said as they both nodded. “We have since let go of the future in order to embrace more of our present. The future was once within our grasp, maybe only a few years ago it was held firmly, but since the split, and because of our overall content with our present position, thinking about the bright future we could have had now only serves to bring us down. It has been lost.”
“Well,” Marigny said as a brightening smirk broke across his lips, “I think it’s about time we found it. Dreams may die, but as long as hope prevails, so does the chance of their rebirth. I mean, all it is… is hope. Granted… it’s not a promise. There is no certainty. And it has no definitive purpose. But at the end of every day, all we can wish for, all we can ever ask for… is for that hope to still be there in front of us when the sun fades away… so that we can, hopefully, mold that hope, however uncertain it may be, into the dreams that we so choose to create for ourselves.”
“That’s… that’s beautiful, Marigny.” Tricu told him as the two of them felt the shivers of that hope running up their spines.
But Marigny just laughed it away. “Yeah, well, nothing unfinished can ever truly be beautiful.” He told them. “Words do nothing but stir the souls of the faithful. What we need now is action. We need to bring down those elders before they have a chance to take us down. After this storm is over, heed these words… blood will be spilled within that floodwater. And if we don’t assure it to be so… they will.”
As Marigny left them behind he strode through the swirling hallway with confidence, each of his steps defined by the loud clap of his boots against the stone floor. And as he turned around one of those curved corners, he nearly collided with his long time friend, a wizard that had stood beside him through many battles, a wizard by the name of Palmisano. He was walking with a quickened pace as their shoulders nearly collided.
“Hey, what’s the rush?” Marigny asked as the clean shaven wizard hardly even glanced in his direction.
“What’s that look upon your face?” Palmisano asked instead before answering himself with as much sarcasm as his mood would allow, “Ooh, wait, don’t tell me… the second storm was an overgrown troll and now we’re all going to die!”
“It isn’t funny, Palmisano.” The warlock scoffed at him. “The second storm was a frening vampire!”
Palmisano’s jaw nearly dropped to the floor, “A what? How in Tartarus did that happen? Where is it?”
Marigny just shook his head, “Jade wants to keep it.”
“What,” the wizard exclaimed. “Does Orleans know about it yet? I am sure he would never allow…”
“Orleans doesn’t care anymore. You know that.” Marigny cut him off.
“Um, no,” Palmisano corrected him, “No, actually… I don’t. Seeing as how I have been all but excluded from any position of knowledge as of late, I don’t know a frening thing about anything that’s been going on. It’s like I’ve just been shoved to the side ever since you got your special little position back at the side of Orleans. Seriously, I feel like a damn youth with the way I am being ignored.”
“And by the way you are complaining, you sound like a damn youth, as well.” The warwalker commented uncaringly.
And his wizard friend could only shake his head in disgust. “You know, this is really getting old, Marigny.”
“As are you, Kindlefell,” the warlock tried to joke as he slapped the wizard on the back, basically calling him a young and untrained wizard, “Nearly a Waken already.”
Palmisano’s eyes turned towards the warlock’s as he removed the hand from his shoulder. “You know that I ascended in Normandy Castle, and saved your life by doing so. I have been Waken for five years now, despite whether you wish to admit it or not.”
“And you think that grants you some sort of special privilege?!” Marigny shouted. “You know that the ways of old matter not in this place! You are Witch, and nothing more, just as everyone else is in this forgotten by the gods land!”
“You can treat me however you wish, but only as long as I am willing to take it.” Palmisano told him, almost warning him. But Marigny just laughed. This caused the wizard to take a step towards him. “You may think it humorous for now, but one of these days you are going to find a line that I am not willing to follow you across… and we will then find ourselves on opposite sides of the battlefield.”
“And I will only laugh again when that day arrives.” Marigny told him simply enough as he left his old friend behind, striding down the hallway with his shoulders held high, back to being intent on making Orleans see things his way. But upon entering into the conference chambers, King Orleans lowered those shoulders just a bit.
“Planning an attack before we even know the full extent of the flood and the consequences thereof would be foolish to even consider.” The king told him harshly. “Our first priority needs to be safety. We need to evacuate these chambers. I already spoke with Jane and Heather. They will take care of the stones. The vampire, I am told, is not a threat. So I have agreed to allow him to seek sanctuary here for the storm. After it passes we will further discuss his future here with us. And that brings me to where I was before you so rudely interrupted me. Drannin,” Orleans pointed at one of the older warlocks in the room, “I want you to go and search for that book I told you
about. You should still have a few hours before we have to leave here.”
As Drannin nodded and left the room, Orleans turned to Marigny. “And since you want so badly to be heard… you can go and see if the natives are willing to listen to you.” He said as he leaned back in his seat. “I have already made arrangements for some of us to reside in the mortal’s church. But everyone else will either need to follow the direction of the natives or fend for themselves.”
“That is a fool’s errand.” Marigny blurted out. “The natives will never help us after Jade got one of them killed.”
“That was an accident!” Orleans shouted. “I am sure they will understand that.”
“And if they don’t, then what?” Marigny asked. “You’re just going to watch everyone die from your perch within the domain of God? Do you expect him to care about you, to protect you, to actually exist at all? Do you not…”
“Enough of this, Marigny!” Orleans cut him off. “You are allowing your emotions to cloud your loyalties.”
“My loyalties are unwavering!” The warlock shouted back at him defiantly.
“Then you will do as I say.” The king commanded.
Marigny glared back at him and shook his head, “I will not.”
“Then go and wage your war, you stubborn bastard!” Orleans spat in disgust, waving him away. “See how far it frening gets you.”
“It will get me farther than you have brought us in the last three years, at least.” Marigny spoke under his breath as he turned away.
But, “What was that?” Orleans heard him. “You feel that war is the only answer, do you, the only way to achieve peace?”
“It is the only way to make them see who the future truly belongs to.” The warlock answered him.
“Okay, so it’s all about them, right, our adversaries to the east?” Orleans asked as Marigny nodded. “So the mortals are of no concern, the storm of no consequence, and all we need to worry ourselves with is wiping the brood of Saint Bernard from existence.” As the warlock smirked, he went on, “Now let’s pretend we already did that, okay. They’re dead, all of them, and we own the future. So… what next, ridding the world of mortals?”
“Maybe,” Marigny spoke out of spite.
“Alright, so how do four hundred and twenty witches, assuming we lost absolutely no one in our civil war, how do four hundred and twenty witches defeat a species whose numbers are impossible to count, and one that has conquered the world over to span all of Terra?” Orleans was asking him in all honesty.
As the warlocks Anlo and Vinson looked back and forth between the two of them, Marigny had nothing to answer with.
“Exactly,” Orleans exclaimed after the silence had grown too long, “There is absolutely no way to defeat the mortals and reclaim our Terra, not in our current state of being. It is simply impossible. The only chance we have is time, as long as we can always keep it at our side. We need to grow as a race, and a war will not help us do that. You know me well enough, Marigny, to know that I will never simply surrender our future. But you should also know that I am a patient strategist. My patience keeps us all alive. You know this. Remember back in the conquests when we were first sent out to battle. Arabi allowed us no time to prepare, and even though I took my time in getting there… when we rushed in on that first night…”
“I know. I remember.” Marigny said with the squint of his eyes, but Orleans had to remind him anyway.
“We lost nearly our entire troop, all in a matter of minutes.” He spoke solemnly. “I had never lost a single fighter until that night, and on that night hundreds were slaughtered before my very eyes without me being able to stop any of it. But… what happened after that night?”
Marigny shrugged his shoulders, “We remained until the last demon was in the dirt bleeding, as I recall.”
“Yes, but did we do it all in one day?” Orleans asked him.
He thought back and shook his head. “No, it probably took the better part of a month.”
“Exactly,” Orleans confirmed. “I took my time, never once lost focus on the ultimate objective, which was disposing of the demons, and always held out hope that we would reach that objective… in time, of course. And right now, considering our current position, our only objective is survival. So before I do anything else… I need to assure just that, our survival.”
The warlock bowed politely and apologized. “I am sorry.” He said. “I just…”
“I know.” Orleans confirmed before he could even explain. “All of our nerves have been frayed. If it isn’t the storm, it’s the vampire, and if not him then the threat of war.” He laughed lightly. “It never seems to end… and we need to keep it that way, because once it ends… that’s it.”
As Marigny turned to leave the room, Orleans told him, “Listen… do not trouble yourself with the natives. Just summon Jade for me, will you?”
He just nodded and left the room, and as he did, the warlock Anlo told Orleans, “I can deliver your message.”
Orleans smiled at the youth. “I know you are eager for action of any sort, and it will come soon enough.” He told him. “But dealings with the natives are very sensitive, especially considering our unfortunate history with them, and such a task must be placed within much more experienced hands… no offense.”
“None taken,” The young warlock said with a smile.
“But,” Orleans spoke up again, “If the two of you wish to be entertained you could always join Drannin in the library.”
“What exactly are you looking for anyway?” Vinson asked him.
Orleans shook his head, “Nothing for the two of you need to concern yourselves with. Drannin knows what books it may be in, so just follow his lead.”
With two nods, they each exited the room, leaving Orleans to ponder within his own thoughts. Something dark was on its way to their swamp, and when once he believed it to be the vampire, he was no longer so sure of himself. The Vampire Storm had arrived and yet still the darkness approached. When once it felt like a figure approaching, now it felt more like a time, a moment. But regardless, whatever it was, it prevented him from thinking clearly. It forced him to stall in his pursuit for the future and begin searching desperately for answers that may be hidden within the present. He planned for its arrival and hoped to survive it, but no matter how much hope he held out in front of him, there was no definitive answer to be found, only uncertainty.
Chapter 4 - For The First Time
Vampire Storm (Volume 1 : The Hurricane Journals) Page 8
