While engaging the other swordsman and drawing his sword up high in a mix of attacks that continually went upward, Sebastian released his left hand from the rapier, stepped forward with his right foot and threw his hand into the chest of his combatant with all of the force of his disciplined body. The stranger went backward and down.
Sebastian relished his small victory, ready for the stranger to stand and counter with renewed vigor. But he hesitated, and Sebastian worried.
The only thing that came forth was a low laugh. So disarming was this that Sebastian made a threatening advance. The laugh only increased, and the figure relaxed visibly. This continued to confound the fight instinct in Sebastian.
The figure began to stand slowly and when he reached his full height he reached up to his cowl and pulled it back from his head. This was the first opportunity Sebastian had to see something else besides the eyes that he had taken full measure of and knew them to not be friendly.
There before him, standing in the moonlight, was an enemy he did not ask for, did not want, and did not care to know, but what did that matter? In the moonlight his features took on a sharp appearance formed by the harsh difference between light and shadow, matching the landscape that surrounded the scene. His hair was longish, down to his shoulders. The color was hard to establish in the given light, but if he had to guess, he’d say it was the color of the fog and the moon and shone with radiance. His skin was not exactly pale but definitely fair in contrast to the color of those eyes which still burned somewhere between yellow and red.
They stood considering each other for moments that seemed like days, and Sebastian was no happier the figure had shown himself.
“And now you will understand—this is why you were chosen. From the day you were born you have not changed; you remain indomitable. Time has borne out the truth.” The figure spoke for the first time, and the sound came through the stillness of the crisp night air like a voice in an amphitheater.
Sebastian heard the words, the voice; they echoed in his head like so many memories … or were they dreams? He could not distinguish the difference—the past and the present collided.
He bent over as if in pain from a sword thrust, but there was nothing but the thoughts. Coming back from the confusion he looked up again to the face and the features connected with the voice. The voice he had heard before. Not only had he heard that voice before, he realized, but it was some of the words he had heard before.
Surely the hate that welled up in Sebastian from the realization that this figure was no stranger at all was like nothing he had experienced but on one night—one night in a life of so many nights, when he had lost everything and gained his new life, a life of personal struggle, a life with no days, only nights, and with no end.
In his head he heard the cries of his family and the screams for vengeance from his soul. The vampire before him let Sebastian work over the multitude of emotions and memories he surely must be reliving.
“I have come home then,” the figure said.
Sebastian had no time for games and felt a stronger desire to kill than at any other moment he could remember. “Then plant yourself in one of these graves never to rise again.”
“I have missed the grounds from which I came. This is home to me, though I have lived in many places. I have been away for too long.”
“I know not who you are, but I do know this is not your home anymore. I lay claim to this land. For I have been lord here for a very long time and all who have thought to supplant me have found a new home very similar to the ones you walk upon,” said Sebastian.
“I guess we were never truly introduced. For that I do apologize.”
The figure righted himself from his easy posture, which made him proper and serious. He then stabbed his great sword into the earth to his right and bent low into a bow. Sebastian thought to take advantage of his unarmed and unaware enemy but knew that appearances weren’t always what the seemed.
“I am Baldric,” the voice once again boomed.
“I care not. Leave or join those before you,” Sebastian felt tired of this pleasant enemy.
“You should care because I care who you are. Yes I know. You are Sebastian, my saint Sebastian. Lord over these lands I know, for how could I not? I do keep abreast of those who are mine.”
“I am not yours or anyone’s. I have survived on my own with the aid of no one like you.” Sebastian did not care for the inference to him belonging to anyone, much less this fiend.
“Oh, but I beg to differ. You are very much mine. If you weren’t you would very likely be dead right now. That is a gift I have given you. You were mine from that very day I spotted you—you, the one that stood out on the lawn, battling there stronger than most of my very own warriors. You presented yourself to be recognized, and you didn’t even know. I watched the battle from my horse, and I took note on that night that this was the night we would not be victorious, and that was because of ones like you.
“That time I had come back for the home I had once called my own, but I came back with a force to take that home and all my surrounding lands, like I had taken everything else in the region. I wanted to be rid of all that was on my land, my land that had been overrun with filth. I wanted my solitude back, my place that I could retire to.” Baldric told his story as though he were the one who had been wronged.
“That army was yours?” Sebastian asked. “The nighttime army that came to destroy everything?”
“Yes.”
“Were they all vampires?” Sebastian asked.
“Some, but not all were vampires. Some fought for us because they were afraid or because they thought we might make them like us. Foolish!” he smiled at the thought.
“Those who were vampires were not vampires like me or you. They were new to that world—ones that I or mine had taken and turned to our side to fight for us because they would be stronger. But that did not matter to you. You fought them all and fought them with brilliance. You did not even know, and still you conquered. A great one in the midst of so many, many unworthy. So to you I came,” Baldric reasoned.
“To me you did not come; to my family you came,” Sebastian stated flatly.
“Yes, we did. For how else can you extract one from his former life if you don’t take it all away? Leave them with nothing to look to but the future.”
“You did not think if I had been given the choice to go with you and save my family I would have chosen that course?”
“That I think you might have done, but that is not my way.”
“And still you tortured them for your pleasure.”
“Your family fought bravely, like you. You most of all—you should be proud, for none of mine wanted to come near you in your rage, and that is why they brought you down with their bows. Cowards, the lot of them, and that is why I destroyed them all. There you were, the bravest, and none of them had the courage to face you as a warrior who deserved respect. They had all but killed you, finally filling you with their arrows. I came to find you and they had disobeyed my orders. You reminded me of the beautiful paintings of Saint Sebastian and I knew I could not let one such as you slip into the abyss of death, not my beautiful warrior.”
“I bent low to you and I took you into my arms and still you fought, with rods of wood sticking out of your bare chest, no armor to protect you because you and your family had been asleep. I took what blood you had left and then I gave you mine.
“I would have given more but I was interrupted. While holding you in my embrace I felt a sharp pain in my back. It seemed your brother had not been killed and was not about to let his little brother come to any more harm.
“If it had not been for that inconvenience I would not have turned my back on you and dealt with him. Since he was willing to do battle I offered that up to him and struck him down. That may have been a mistake as well, for I could not have envisioned the ensuing attack from you also. I thought my night done at that point until I felt another sharp pain in my back, twice in
so many minutes. I was indeed in poor shape when you left me, but not near death. In all my time I had never laughed at myself so fully. I fell in love with you more—making me laugh is not an easy task but the situation called for it.
“I figured you dead without my aid, alone in the woods at night, with not enough blood to sustain you and the coming dawn, a night of catastrophe all around. But I see we both managed to survive. My family was gone and so was yours.” Baldric laughed at the irony.
“Yes, but I didn’t kill my own family. And you are wrong: you came for the wrong person; my brother was a much better fighter than I was at the time. You killed him without a thought.”
“True, he was one of the few brave, but there was a difference between you both, a difference that shone in the night like our Mother Moon,” Baldric said, looking up lovingly. “As for my family, I made them and they are bound by my wishes. I am actually a very tolerant father, but they deserved nothing less. They were not worthy in the end. So few are.
“That is one reason I am here, and I ask that you will obey my wishes. I have some request of you, seeing that you have looked over my domain in my absence; I pay you that much respect. Respect I hope you will acknowledge in return. I wish not to take another family from you, but I will.”
Sebastian gave him a look of disbelief that he would ask him for favors even after all of his admissions.
“Two wishes I ask: I wish to return home, for a while at least; the monks must leave and leave me to the Lonely Tower, until such time that I deem necessary and then I may leave. The second wish, I would like for you to stay with me while I am here. It is time that you come to know your true self, to be with those of your kind. There is so much you could learn from me, and I would be the willing teacher. Will you grant me these wishes?” Baldric asked with seeming humility.
“I could not imagine under any circumstances why you would believe that I would grant you any such wish,” Sebastian said, utterly astonished at the suggestions.
“There are many reasons why you would grant these things that I have asked for so politely because I do not have to. Remember that, please.
“I have given you immortality—no small matter. To give one this gift is a hallowed event that does not happen very often. You should be grateful, for you would have otherwise perished.
“I ask for my home back because it is mine, do not doubt. I know those halls better than even you, I would say. There are things of mine that I wish to recover in my own time. I miss my solitude there. I am sure you can understand the feeling of residing in the halls in the midst of the great woods.
“If you give in to my wishes no harm will come upon those you love. I would think this would be very important to you and quite noble of me to offer. I give you the lives of those within, when all they would do would be to put me to the grave like so many of my family.”
“I know what you really want through all of the flattery and the lies,” Sebastian said, with no pretense of playing games. “I see the truth and have known for some time that someone might come for it, or do you think me the fool?”
“You have not lived so very long to know what it is that I want. I have endured for more years than you know, and I will not suffer one such as you to not see my plans come to pass.
“I have history and family you have no idea about, and I will fulfill the right that is mine. And never forget we are family, and your family lies here and there with no one to mourn them. I will find them with or without your help, but the cost will be high. The Brothers of the Word will pay with their blood for the crimes to my kin they have borne out. Centuries have passed with no accounting for their treachery. Soon, very soon, our family will be reunited, and the night will rejoice in their freedom,” Baldric said, letting his voice rise in volume, animating the litany with his hands.
Sebastian took in all the old vampire said, giving rise to many emotions, emotions that collided and tortured his soul. Confusion played out over his face and this angered him so; his convictions were always firm and always his guideposts to his life.
What would life be like for him? he wondered. Yes, he often felt alone and misplaced in the world of mortals. Was he just fooling himself into thinking he could live with them but not be one of them? His family had been taken from him, but that was so long ago; many families had lost loved ones in those years. Could he merely discount the manner of their deaths to take a chance to come to know who he was, and could he discount the threat that all he loved now were under? The consequences weighed Sebastian down. He did not know if he had the fortitude to make such decisions.
Clearing his mind, he looked at Baldric but could not bring an answer clearly. The only thing that saved his decision-making was a movement he saw out of the corner of his eye. To the left from out of the woods, a small band of horses with riders emerged into the clearing, stopping only after making their presence known. They had come from the east and Sebastian knew who had come for him—his family, the ones he had known now for some time. He felt great love and fear for them now. He knew the danger they were putting themselves into by showing themselves here, this night, to their foe.
Baldric sensed the conflict in Sebastian and took note of the small band as he turned his head. His eyes flared brightly in recognition. Hatred came to life in the only thing that appeared to be living in that figure—the eyes. Sebastian readied himself, not knowing what to expect from his unpredictable enemy; surely, this one had some madness to him.
“I have seen you. I have told you. I will return to you, and I will expect an answer from you, but not this night. I suspect you have a lot to think about, and I know you think. You think so much and to such great ends that I love you more than any other.” Baldric clasped his hand onto the hilt of his deadly sword and pulled the blade from the ground, sheathing it beneath his cloak.
A distance away Sebastian noticed another form emerging from the woods in the opposite direction; great black horse, large by any standard, came trotting up to its master, Baldric, through the fog and the tombstones, like a great nightmare itself. Its presence was a force not unlike its master.
Baldric took hold of the beast’s reigns and mounted the horse. Sebastian also took note: down at the edge of the woods more of his fears emerged this night—two other dark riders waiting, he knew, for their master. His other family, he thought to himself, but how could he feel this way? He knew his feelings were very different because he was very different; he was not human. He cursed the longing he felt—the very betrayal of his family.
“I give you a week, and I hope you come to a decision that will be good for all.”
Baldric’s steed turned without any prompting and slowly made its winding journey through the field of standing granite.
The sound of others came to Sebastian and brought him out of his trance, which still held his gaze to the west. He turned his head and saw familiar faces, faces with amazement and worry written on them.
“Are you okay?” Father Dagrun asked after a brief silence.
“Who were they? What did they want?” Father Andrew asked.
Sebastian looked up to them glassy-eyed, unsure what to say. Father Donovan, always the consummate observer, knew things were not as fortunate as they appeared just because Sebastian had been found.
“I do not think it best to answer these questions here just now,” Father Donovan said.
Sebastian looked at his mentor and friend and saw a father figure … or was he a best friend? Their relationship was so complicated. Then he saw someone taken away from him, a glimpse of a possible future. He looked down as he began to walk toward them and said in a low voice, “Take me home.”
With no more spoken, he mounted Father Andrew’s horse, since he was the smallest on the biggest horse, and they made their way east to their goal, the Lonely Tower—home. On top of this hill they could see a great breadth of the lands, and there in the distance was something slight in the night sky, something standing out against the dark sky—a sm
all outcropping, something man-made and highlighted by small lights circling like a crown. This could only be the Lonely Tower, and the lights he knew were the fire braziers lit to mark the way home, to signal that all was okay, and everyone would be up and alert, awaiting the arrival of lost family.
chapter EIGHTEEN
BACK IN THE MONASTERY every light was on and every room was checked. Most now gathered awaiting news and the return, hopefully, of everyone who had gone out that day. They waited in the study, some in the Grand Staircase Hall, pacing in its great void. Others kept a watchful eye from the top of the Lonely Tower.
The twins were ushered into their rooms to wait with their father. They accepted it all with no fight and soon realized their father was not in the know.
Jacob and Jessica paced in the common room as the time went by, while their father kept glaring at them and asking repeatedly for them to stop. Every time he did, they stopped pacing and looked at each other and started pacing again. The world as they knew it had changed, and they still wondered how it could be possible.
The time crept by with no care to their worry or anxiety. The whole monastery was on edge. That edge was brought to bear when the calls went out from the tower. The approach of the small band of riders was met by monks pouring out of the castle to greet their long-awaited friends. The twins had to endure this all from the confines of their rooms, which felt as though they were closing in on them. They looked pleadingly at their overlord father but he was unmoved by their sad faces.
The horses were led away and many pats on the back were given by the monks as they passed Sebastian. The greeting was light and informal but was a longstanding tradition and a sign of warmth. Sebastian took the greetings in stride as he made his way past the front doors into the castle.
Jacob and Jessica were making the situation almost unbearable for their father who was attempting to read to pass the time. That was their goal: to break him. Finally, no longer able to stand their pacing, their silence, and their glares, he broke, giving in to them as he usually did even when they were in trouble.
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