by David McAfee
The gods were listening, it seemed. When they finally reached the depression, not only was it still standing, but several large boulders had settled around it, providing even more cover than before. Caelina all but pushed Nona between a pair of stones the size of small horses and then went through herself.
The ground continued to shake, and there was no way of knowing for sure that the mountain would not simply collapse upon them, or that a stream of magma would not flow into their tiny hiding place and burn them to cinders, but the moment Caelina entered the alcove and sat down, she felt a tremendous relief. At the very least, they would not have to run anymore and that was something.
The two sat on a rock, breathing heavily. Caelina was glad she had trained so hard with Gareth. She knew many women who would never have made that run down the mountain’s slope. Galle, for example. Although Galle was Bachiyr now, if she was still alive, so she no longer had need of breath. Caelina couldn’t help but chuckle. That could come in handy sometimes, she thought.
After a few minutes, Nona’s breathing evened out. Caelina marveled at how quickly the child seemed to recover her breath. An advantage of being young, she supposed.
Nona stood and walked to the edge of the alcove, staring out between the two boulders that marked the entrance. Caelina followed her gaze and saw the city of Pompeii, which was now barely visible through the smoke and falling ash. A tear rolled down Nona’s cheek, leaving a trail of wet skin though the smudges of ash and soot on her face. Caelina thought she understood.
“Don’t worry, little one,” Caelina said, reaching out her hand and placing it on Nona’s painfully thin shoulder. “There are sure to be survivors. When the eruption stops and it is safe, we will go to the city and look for your family.”
“I don’t have a family,” Nona said, wiping the tear away. It was soon replaced by another.
“Your parents?”
“Dead,” Nona replied. “Mother died when I was little, and Father died last year.”
Caelina hadn’t expected that, though as soon as the words were spoken she realized she should have known all along. The tattered clothes, the dirty face, the pitifully thin frame…this poor girl had been living on the streets for some time. That was probably why the Bachiyr took her to begin with. Pompeii was a city crawling with street urchins, and no one missed them when they disappeared. Most of the time, no one even noticed.
“Pompeii is gone,” Nona said, sniffling, “And it doesn’t matter.”
“Of course it does,” Caelina began.
“Not to me,” Nona said. “There is nothing there for me. I might as well not even be here.”
Caelina sat back. Nona was right. In a way, she and Caelina were in a similar situation. Her husband was probably down there right now, trying to save as many people as he could. That was Gareth. That was his nature. As such, he would die tonight with the rest of the city. And Filo was long gone. Like Nona, Caelina had nothing in the city. No home and no family. No future. Not in Pompeii, at any rate.
“You can stay with me,” Caelina offered. “I don’t have anyone, either. I don’t know where we will go, but wherever it is, we can look after each other until we get there.”
Nona looked up, her eyes still shiny with tears but a slight smile pulling at the corners of her mouth. “Truly?”
“Of course,” Caelina said. “I would probably get into no end of trouble without you there to help me.”
“Can we go to Rome?”
Caelina thought about it. It was a long way to Rome, and the walk there would be exhausting, to say the least. Still, where else did they have to go? One city was as good as another, she supposed.
“Of course,” Caelina said. “Why not?”
Nona did smile this time. How similar the child was to Filo. She didn’t look the same, of course. Her hair was a shade darker, and she was thin and frail where Filo had been blessed with his father’s strength and girth. Still, there was something about a child’s smile, the innocence and trust, the way they wore their emotions without masks that made all children’s smiles beautiful.
Caelina smiled back. It felt good to smile, to let go of the anger and fear that she had carried for so long. Her shoulders straightened, and she cracked her neck. It popped several times in rapid succession, sounding like a woodpecker at an olive tree. It had been over a year since Caelina had truly smiled or felt happy. She decided then and there, on that blasted mountainside, that she liked feeling this way. She resolved to do so as often as possible from that day forth.
Caelina hugged Nona to her and began running her fingers through the child’s hair. In moments the girl was asleep. Shortly afterward, Caelina joined her.
For the first time in a long time, she did not dream of Filo.
Chapter Sixteen
TARAS eased into consciousness the way a normal human sometimes eases into wakefulness: slowly, with a sense of foreboding about what they will find when they rejoin reality. He braced himself, waiting for the pain to return, and was considerably surprised when it didn’t. The last thing he recalled was jumping through the portal. At the time, he’d been badly burned and very weak, with no blood left to heal himself. By all rights, he should be dead, having exhausted the last of his energy in his escape. At the time, he’d known he would probably die, but he took a great deal of satisfaction in knowing that his escape would help secure the deaths of the other Bachiyr in the cavern.
So why was he not dead?
Taras opened his eyes. The first thing he noticed was that someone had healed him. The burned flesh was gone, replaced with new, healthy skin. The bone in his forearm, which Theron had broken during the experiment, had been mended. Even his clothes had been changed. His rough, dirty tunic and breeches had been replaced with soft black trousers and a silken shirt. His feet were bare, but they, too, showed no sign of the abuse they had taken in the bowels of Theron’s cave.
He sat up and took in his surroundings. He was laying on a soft bed, complete with red satin sheets and a feather pillow. Next to the bed was a table. Atop the table, a small lamp burned. The flame was small, but it was more than enough to illuminate the gray stone walls of the tiny room. The walls themselves were covered with artworks of varying sizes and types. As he looked at the various tapestries and paintings that adorned the walls, he had a feeling he was looking at more than mere art.
On one tapestry, a being that looked like a Bachiyr, only much, much larger, stood above a naked woman while hundreds of smaller Bachiyr danced around her, waving torches and swords in the air. In another, the same woman knelt in the sand, holding the body of a man in her arms. Her pain and anguish were plain to see on her face.
In yet another, the woman walked away from a doorway. The doorway glowed with light, but it was blocked by a shadowy being who pointed away. Taras had the feeling the woman in the painting was being cast out of something, but he had no idea what.
The rest of the paintings were similar in theme. Many of them featured a woman being ostracized by various beings who looked like Bachiyr. Others depicted great battles where many died. In these, the dead lay in pools of red, their mouths forever open in their final agony, revealing the sharp fangs of his kind.
Had the Bachiyr ever warred among themselves? Taras didn’t know. He’d rarely spoken to any of his people, and on those occasions he only spoke to them for a brief period before he killed them. It wasn’t the best way to learn about the history of his race, he knew, but he’d yet to meet a Bachiyr who did not deserve to die.
“They are impressive, are they not?” a voice said at his back.
Taras recognized the voice at once. Baella. That made sense, it was her portal he had used, after all. He fought back the urge to spin around, claws at the ready, and attack. If she had wanted to kill him, he would have been dead already. But he wasn’t. She had let him live, even tended to his wounds. That meant she wanted something from him. He didn’t know what it was, but he had a feeling he was about to find out.
&n
bsp; “Baella,” he said, turning. “Where have you brought me?”
“The portal brought you here,” Baella replied, leaning casually against the doorframe. “I had little enough to do with it. As I recall, you jumped through it on your own.”
Taras smiled. True enough. He’d jumped through the portal and left her behind to die, just as she had planned to leave him. Yet she had escaped somehow.
“I see you survived,” he noted, not particularly surprised.
“No thanks to you,” she said.
Taras didn’t bother to respond.
“I could have killed you,” she continued. “When I found you in my chambers, you were very near death. It would have been quite easy to send you to the next world.”
“Why didn’t you?”
“I wanted to,” Baella admitted. She stepped out of the doorway and walked into the room, taking a seat in a soft chair next to the bed. She looked up at Taras, and he was surprised to see anger in her eyes. She seemed so calm and collected, yet the anger was plain to see, simmering just beneath the surface of her otherwise calm demeanor.
“I wanted to rip your arms off and feed them to my dogs while you watched,” she said. “You left me there to die, but worse, you left me to die with them. You left me to die at the hands of the Blood Letter.”
“Yet you lived.”
“I am never without a plan,” she said. “Or a backup plan, should the need arise.”
“So I see. You still have not told me why I am not dead.”
“I will tell you everything soon enough,” she said. “For now, let me just say that you are far more useful to me alive than dead.”
“And I should take comfort in that? It seems capricious, at best.”
“Believe it,” she said. “I have no reason to kill you. You are far too valuable.”
“Valuable?”
“Indeed,” she replied. She looked around the room, nodding toward the paintings. “How much do you know about the Council of Thirteen, Taras?”
“Only what I was able to learn from my victims,” he replied. There was no reason to pretend he was anything more than a ruthless killer. She already knew the truth of his nature. “And that was not much. Why?”
“I have a great deal to teach you, Taras,” she said. “I confess, you were not my first choice. I had initially hoped to recruit Theron to my cause, but he proved…unreliable. You, on the other hand, would have no reason to try and hand me over to the Council. You despise them as much as I do.”
Taras nodded. That much was true, at least. He’d sooner cut off his own legs than do anything for Herris and his ilk.
“And so, Taras, I would like to extend to you an offer: give me your word that you will remain here, in my sanctuary, of your own volition. You will be quite safe here, I assure you. Promise me that you will help me in whatever manner I might require without question, and in exchange I will teach you everything about the Bachiyr. I will teach you our history, our future, and our powers, including those that Herris and the rest of the Council do not want anyone other than themselves to possess.”
“Why?” he asked. “What benefit is there for you?”
“An ally,” she said.
“For what?”
“Isn’t it obvious?” she replied.
It was, actually, now that he thought about it.
“The Council,” he said.
Baella nodded. They did seem to have common cause, at least for now.
Taras stroked his chin, wondering if he dared trust her. She was a treacherous woman, no doubt about it. But what, truly, did he have to lose by accepting her offer? There was just one problem he could think of.
“How will I feed?” he asked. “I will not kill innocents.”
This castle is located on top of a mountain,” she replied. “The valley below is filled with murderers and cutthroats. I doubt you will have any trouble finding sustenance.”
“And you will teach me everything? Your word?”
“My word,” she replied.
“Very well,” Taras said. “I will remain here, under your tutelage, until such time as we are ready to strike.”
“Excellent.” Baella’s smile took up the entire lower half of her face. Her teeth gleamed, white and perfect, in the flickering light of the lantern. He’d forgotten how beautiful she was, a fact often hidden beneath layers of treachery and guile. But when she smiled, he thought he could see a glimpse of what she must have been like as a living, breathing woman. “With your help,” she said, “I can finally bring the Council to its knees. You cannot tell me you would not like to see that.”
“What is your plan?”
“Later,” she said. “I am late for some pressing business. You are welcome to join me, if you like.”
“Does it have to do with our plans?”
“Hardly,” she replied. “I am meeting with the leaders of the village in the valley. They are late with their taxes, and I need to remind them why that is not a good idea.”
Taras wrinkled his nose. He had no desire to watch Baella inflict her will on anyone other than the Council.
“I believe I will find something else to do,” he said. “Is there a library in this castle?”
“Of course. Have one of the servants show you where it is. And remember, they are here to serve you, not the other way around. It would not do for them to think of us as soft.”
With that, Baella left, taking her secrets with her.
She is lying, Taras thought. Or at the very least, she is not being completely honest. He did not believe for a moment that she would tell him everything. Not that it mattered. He had given his word, and he meant to keep it. In any case, there were worse ways to spend one’s time than as a guest in a large, luxurious castle. After so many years living in caves and dirty hovels, this would be a welcome change.
He left the room and its artwork behind and started looking for a servant. It was never too early to start doing one’s research.
***
Baella walked down the hallway, doing her best to suppress a chuckle. Taras was too easy to fool. He would be useful, of course, but perhaps not in the manner he suspected. He would figure that out soon enough, but by then it would be too late. He would be caught in her web as surely as any fly.
She walked by the doorway to her audience chamber, which was quite empty, of course, and kept walking.
Taxes, she thought, smiling. Does he think me a queen or some such nonsense?
She kept walking until she reached her private chambers. The same chambers in which she and Taras had arrived after jumping through her portals. She pulled out a silver key and unlocked the door. Inside, she noted with some disdain that her maids had failed to remove the stain of Taras’s blood from her rug. A dark brown patch still showed in the spot where she’d found him, broken and dying, the previous night. This could not be tolerated.
By morning, she would need new maids.
She strode to the far side of the room, stopping in front of an ornate dresser. She took a moment to admire her face in the mirror, then reached into the top drawer and pulled out a small blue stone. A sapphire. Worth a tidy sum to those who lived in her valley, yet they had surrendered it to her easily, even eagerly.
Pretty stones were of little use to the dead.
She took the stone and dropped it into a mortar. Then she took a small knife and cut open a vein on her left wrist. She allowed a tiny bit of blood to drop into the mortar, then she took the pestle and started to grind the two together. When she had succeeded in turning the sapphire and blood into a thick, purplish paste, she removed the pestle and dipped her finger into the mixture.
Baella used the blood and sapphire paste to draw a square on her mirror about a foot wide. Then she drew a symbol in the center of the square. This done, she wiped her finger on a small piece of cloth. She leaned close, and breathed a word onto the symbol she had drawn.
“Herris,” she said.
The mirror began to shimmer.
***
Ramah shoved Theron through the heavy double doors none too gently. The escape from Vesuvius had taken a toll on them both, and Ramah had refused to rest until they made it back. He’d been unwilling to take a chance on Theron escaping while he slept, and so he’d forced himself to remain awake even through the day as they sought refuge beneath the ground.
The eruption had destroyed the portal in Pompeii. As a result, the two were forced to make their way to Neapolis. Normally, the trip could be made in a single night, but the night that Vesuvius erupted was anything but normal.
The roads around the volcano were clogged with people from the surrounding villages. There were a few refugees from Pompeii or nearby Herculaneum, but not many. Those two cities had borne the brunt of the eruption, and by the time Ramah and Theron made it down the mountain—after dodging rocks, trees, and streams of molten rock—it was too late.
Pompeii was already dead.
They had been forced to join the people leaving the area, and with the roads so full, the going was slow. As the sun rose the following morning, they were still several hours from Neapolis, so they’d had to take shelter in an old well. It was damp and small, but it served its purpose well enough and kept the sun at bay. The close quarters actually made it easier for Ramah to remain awake during the daylight hours, an act of extreme willpower that would be beyond the abilities of most Bachiyr.
Bachiyr such as Theron, for example, who slept while Ramah watched over him.
Ramah wanted nothing more than to drive his claws through Theron’s throat and separate his head from his shoulders, but he couldn’t. Not if he wanted his answers. He would have to question the renegade, and the best place to question a prisoner as powerful as Theron would be the Halls of the Bachiyr, where he could be assured there would be no chance the bastard could escape.
And so Ramah spent the day staring at Theron, anxiously awaiting the coming night. Once night had fallen, Theron awoke. Ramah thought the renegade might try to fight him, but Theron was still injured from their battle the night before, and Ramah had not allowed him to feed on the road from Vesuvius. As a result the renegade was weak and somewhat pliable.
