“I would have been glad to do it, even if it was not as a bargain for my own.”
She took the gem in her fingers and gazed at it in triumphant wonder. “It is of a slight different shape and hue than the other gems. It must be mine... for I would have made my own gem of a different order altogether, surely.” Just then Charlotte began to stir and opened her eyes.
“Rothan…” Sleep still hung on her face. “What has happened. Where are we?” She caught sight of being held aloft in the air, caught sight of Tiloshar standing next to me, and fright suddenly jolted her awake.
“Do not fear.” Both my arms reached under her back and waist, and I gently guided her down so that she stood on her own feet. It seemed that without Tiloshar resisting I was able to move her out of her hovering flight. “Our plan worked and Sombrala is slain, Charlotte.” She looked about at the black chamber, the large circular Planar Gate. “We are in Hourne, upon a place called the Black Tear, not so different from the White, though this one floats upon blue water rather than in a red sky. This is Tiloshar, the island’s Sanguinar queen. She will not harm us. Be glad of this moment, Charlotte, for once Tiloshar regains her memories, surely your forgotten past will unravel as well.”
“I feel as if I have seen you before,” Charlotte said, standing at eye level with Tiloshar. She seemed nervous, but still held a strong air about her considering she was in the presence of a much more powerful, unnerving being.
“And I know I have seen you.” Tiloshar’s eyes studied Charlotte hungrily. “For you are the very first face I recall, in my very first remaining memory. It was here in this very room, stepping through that very gate.” A reflection rippled through her crown as she turned to glance at the Planar Gate.
Charlotte stared mutely. “I wish I could explain but I don’t even know who I am, much less why you remember me.”
“So Rothan has told me. Let us finally return all we lost.”
Tiloshar slowly brought the gem to her forehead. Violet light began shining from her hands while the gem was suspended in this field of energy between them. The gem clasped onto her forehead. Her eyes closed in delight. “Finally, all will be known.” Her face trembled for a split moment. She seemed to struggle with something. She focused and poured still more violet energy into the gem. “It won’t…open...”
“Tiloshar, what is happening?” My ax bobbed on my back as I walked toward her.
With a loud snap, the gem shattered into purple pieces. Tiloshar’s eyes flared open, a wild shock upon them as bits of violet gem rained down before her face. “No… no…” She fell to her knees, clawed at the floor trying to scoop up the gem’s remains.
“This can’t be,” I muttered. “It can’t!”
Tiloshar staggered away, her face buried in her hands, muttering some lamentation.
I stepped to her, tried to touch her that she might feel my reassurance. “Tiloshar… we will find some other way—”
“No!” She turned to me, and her face was a scowl. “You think me a fool? You… Rothan… you have tried to pass a ruse upon me, to have given me some fake gem that I would grant you your freedom and your precious One Eye’s mind as well.”
“Of course not!”
“Liar!” She gave a savage brush of her arm and I went flying across the room, landed with a grunt, and went sliding still more along the floor until I smacked against the wall. My ax clanged as it slipped from its sling and fell to the ground.
“Tiloshar, no…” I was still injured and weak from my battles on The White Tear but struggled as best I could to summon strength.
“And you!” I heard Tiloshar say as I rose. When I glimpsed her she had Charlotte’s neck in her grasp, hoisting her up in the air as she struggled to breathe.
“Tiloshar, no!” I stepped toward her but she waved toward me and pillars of arcane lightning came rolling toward me, making the terrifying sound of thunder. They fizzled out just paces before they would have struck me. She was keeping me at bay and the moment I stepped closer she could unleash all her fury if she chose.
“You, Charlotte,” she spoke, gazing into Charlotte’s terrified eyes, “you are the source of all this. Let me see what memories you hide from me, thief of my mind!” She placed a clawed hand upon the side of Charlotte’s face. Charlotte struggled. I realized she was probing her mind, just as she had mine when I first came into her possession. “You are useless!” she cast her down and Charlotte fell to the ground. “All I see are memories of you living among harpies, of loving one, who now is less of mind than a common dog.” She glanced at Sirucan who stared back dimly. “Your useless human love. Your learning magic, what use is any of it to me?” She gazed all about the room, and I sensed a growing fury within her, a gathering storm. She let out a scream that matched her fellow slain Sanguinar, a squall that sent winds kicking, sent both her and Charlotte’s long hair, their long dresses tossing wildly. Charlotte rose to her knees and began forming magic. Luminescence began to swirl around her outstretched hands. Tiloshar merely waved and a howling gust struck Charlotte—bringing a yelp from her and snuffing her magic out like a candle in a storm.
The violent winds in the chamber subsided but left a crackling tension. I sensed at any moment it would return. Tiloshar began laughing, as if to herself. Her chest shook, and the riotous laughter began bursting from her. Tears traced her elegant cheeks. “All this I have sought… All this.. Ah, I will tell you, my wolf. Secretly... secretly I longed to find something in my memories, something of my past that would tell me I was not a creature of darkness… that this that I am, a vampire queen, was not my true nature… that I was... good.” She hunched over, and trembled with muffled sobs.
“Tiloshar…” I stepped toward her, my hand outstretched.
She turned her face to me, her eyes red with an equal thirst for blood and power. “I wanted to be good, my wolf. Me, a vampire queen. But I ask you: what is good… to a Sanguinar!” Winds lashed out from her sending dust and candelabras and tapestries flailing all about. “If you have slain my sire, then I am the Queen of the night! I lord over all creatures beneath me! What need have I of some lost memories—dreams they are! I have an eternity before me, to be what I am—a vampire!”
“Be a vampire, then,” I shouted from one knee, high winds still upon me. “Just let us go!”
She glided slowly toward me. “Let you go? Do you not understand, you will be my champion, my lover? I will mold you to be my most beautiful creation. I will mold all of you!”
“And what of Charlotte?” I shouted, struggling to stay standing as the arcane winds lashed at me. “Will you turn her?”
“Ah, yes, why not? If it is true that Sombrala and I warred for her, she must be rather precious.” She laughed. “The irony, you defeated my truest rival, and I didn’t even intend it.”
“And me? Will you even turn me then?”
“I had not considered that.” Her face brightened. “What a marvel you would be. A Fenrir vampire. The apex predator of Malfeon, merged with the apex predator of Hourne. What glory. What beauty. Oh, my consort, my truest, destined consort.”
“Come then!” I said. “Get it over with.”
She glided closer still. “Imagine, us together, ruling over a world we can plunge into darkness, my love.”
Her dress rustled as she glided nearer. I gazed up at her. “Embrace me then.” In one fluid motion I snatched my ax from the ground, stood to my full height, and held the great weapon out toward her. “Embrace me if you can get through this light!” In an instant I willed my ax to come alive, sparking with the light of a newborn sun. It had gorged itself on its light, and it unleashed it now. Tiloshar screamed. Her skin began glowing as iron in a furnace. I willed the light of my ax to dim, but it was still as a bright torch in my hand. She went howling in a mixture of fear and pain. My boots clinked as I moved toward her. “This that you feel, you have not felt in centuries. And in truth the world has not felt it for eons. It is the light of a newborn star.”
; “You!” she howled, recoiling from me, crawling away as best she could, her arcane powers crippled by the sudden burst of light upon her. “I gave you that very weapon!”
“You did. And it must have been your good fortune that guided you such. For I wish not to destroy you, Tiloshar! Not after all we have done for one another. I could turn you to dust, as I did Sombrala. Truly, it pains me even to hurt you so! But I will not remain here as your thrall, I cannot remain here even as your lover or companion. Skald needs me! Those I love need me!”
“Destroy me, then, you greatest of betrayers, and be done with it!”
“No. I will not do so unless you force me to. Now listen to reason. Give me One Eye’s mind gem. I will not force you to restore him. I will find other mind wizards to do so. I even came across one on my voyage here—the poor bastard who I have likely doomed—yet if I have met one, there must be others. I will take a flying mount from your stable to leave the island with One Eye, and with Vixerai, and any others who wish to come. I will leave you be, to do with your island as you wish. That is what you will do! Agree to it!” I willed my ax to shine brighter for an instant.
She recoiled and howled. “I will do it! I will do as you say!”
I dimmed my ax blade but kept it shining enough that Tiloshar would still be under my command. The room was bathed in my ax’s warm light. I turned to Charlotte and saw that she was standing.
“You brought the sun’s light with you.” She walked to me, wearily keeping her eyes on Tiloshar.
I nodded then turned to the humbled queen of the night. “Now, where is One Eye’s mind gem? Is it in the room with the rest?”
She shook her head. “It is in a place I knew I would never lose it, and you would never find it.” She reached down into her forearm, pierced her flesh with her claw-like nails. Crimson oozed from the wound as her long fingers withdrew a bloody mind gem from her flesh. She held it out to me.
“Gods!” I exclaimed as I took it. Even weakened by my ax’s light, her wound began to heal, though more slowly had sunlight not been in the room. Now that I had what I needed from her—for the mounts I felt I could find on my own—I looked upon her with sorrow. “I would have come back, Tiloshar. Once I saw peace return to Skald. I would have come back to help you find your gem, and your past. I would have come back… for you. You had all eternity to wait.”
“You make it sound… as if you loved me. That, my wolf, is not for creatures of the night.” She cast her face down, as if to hide tears, or rage, I did not know.
I made to answer, but did not. “Come, Charlotte. Decide if you will come with me. Or perhaps we can open this Planar Gate and send you and Sirucan back to Malfeon.”
Charlotte did not answer. She stared unblinking at Tiloshar’s healing forearm. “Rothan,” she said without lifting her gaze, “could it be?” She stepped closer, her face far away in some revery. “She hid the gem within her flesh.”
“Aye. Tiloshar is like Sombrala, perhaps even more adept at fashioning flesh.”
“Don’t you see. The ring I have.” She slipped it off her finger. “You said it was just like the one given to you by Tiloshar. I have had it with me since I can remember, since I woke in Malfeon.”
“Aye.” I said impatiently, unsure what this all meant.
“Don’t you remember, the inscription upon it?” She read it out loud now. “The greatest journey always begins on the right foot.”
My mind began conjuring what she might mean—but it could not be.
“What if it was not Sombrala who sought to protect me, what if it was Tiloshar who watched over me, or who sought my well being in some way? What if her mind gem is hidden within me, and the ring was given to me that someone might solve its meaning should they ever find me again. What if the gem is within me...in my right foot.”
I gazed between the two women’s faces, and I was unsure which of us had the most shocked, perplexed look upon us. I dimmed my ax still more, so that its glow was truly faint. “Tilsohar,” I glanced at the Sanguinar, then toward Charlotte. Tiloshar grasped my meaning. She willed for Charlotte to come floating to her, held her aloft from the ground enough that she took her slipper off then pierced her claws into her foot with ease.
“By Fenris!” I cried out as a bloody violet gem slipped out of Charlotte’s flesh.
Tiloshar brushed Charlotte’s foot absentmindedly, all the while staring at the gem in her hand and the small cut she had made began healing.
“My gem... this truly must be it.”
I dimmed my ax entirely. “Do it, Tiloshar. Learn the truth once and for all.”
The violet luminescence pooled between her hands once more, the gem suspended within it. She brought it to her forehead, where it clasped on. Joy swept over her face.
“I see…” she cried out, overwhelmed, “I see it all.” Tears of blood began sweeping down her ivory face. My heart swelled for her, for whatever she saw within her mind’s eye.
“I want you both to witness this with me.” She gestured for us to come closer. She touched both of our foreheads. Suddenly, my mind was swept up in a vision, many visions, a rushing waterfall of memories. I saw a young girl, playing upon a land that could only be some small town in the midlands. As she grew I saw she was Charlotte, exquisitely beautiful and tall. She began studying magic, tutored by her father, a balding wizard that radiated gentle discipline. I saw that girl one night, deep in candlelit study alongside her father in their small tower home. A figure swooped in, their curtains billowing, the candle snuffed out. In the faint moonlight its red eyes glowed. The figure stepped closer. When the father went to conjure a spell, his throat was raked open by a spectral claw. The young Charlotte screamed for her father. She was taken to dwell within the onyx walls of the Black Tear then, with the figure that had slain her father and kidnapped her. Sombrala. The vampire queen loomed over the girl, now a young woman. Surrounded by burning candles, statues with hands held out and receiving streams of blood, Sombrala embraced her. She sank her fangs into Charlotte’s neck, and the young girl gasped as she breathed her last mortal breath. Slowly, over many agonizing days, Charlotte’s form changed, her already luscious beauty becoming otherworldly. Her skin turned pale as snow, her features became even more sculpted, her bosom swelled, her hair turned raven black, her eyes turned ruby red, she was draped in a queen’s finery: she became Tiloshar.
At this point I was too startled, my concentration broke and I snapped out of the mental link with the mind gem. I was aware of the chamber once more, and saw that Charlotte had snapped out of the vision as well and was holding her hands to her mouth as she reeled back in utter shock. Tiloshar was still entranced, the violet light still dancing upon her brow.
I looked between the two women, and though I could not understand, I saw the truth of it. They were indeed the same person, though one was the vampiric form of the other.
“It’s true, isn’t it… somehow it’s true?” Charlotte’s voice broke as tears welled up in her.
“Charlotte.” I reached out, unsure what to else to say.
Tiloshar came out of her visions. She looked between the two of us. “I understand now. I see it all.”
“How can it be, Tiloshar, that Charlotte and you are the same being?”
“Don’t you see, Rothan, the same way I have made another of you. Charlotte... is my homunculus.”
“No... that can’t be! Charlotte is a true person…”
“Listen to me, for I have glimpsed it entirely and…” she had to stop, gazing up to gather what must have been all too much to say. “I am Charlotte… was. I was to be a mage like my father, but Sombrala took me. She sensed that I had the potency to become a Sanguinar like her. She turned me, and though I reached the potential she dreamt for me—became adept in all manner of vampiric arts and sorceries—I was never truly content. Deep within me, I harbored hatred for what I had become and longed to find a way to undo the eternal curse of being a vampire, of living by bloodlust and hiding from daylight,
of serving a vampire sire that was even more abhorrent than myself. So I devised a plan. I would create a homunculus of my very self, and I would place all my memories in a mind gem to transfer them to her once I woke her to life.
Once I woke her, I would send her to another plane, a beautiful one where Tiloshar could not find her. In time, with all my arcane knowledge she would find her way to Hourne to live as she chose. However, I knew I was in danger—at any moment Sombrala could discover this defiance of mine and destroy Charlotte, or me, or both. So I fashioned my mind gem in a unique way, so that it constantly absorbed my memories through a psychic link to my mind. I also gave the Charlotte homunculus a ring which she could craft a disguise with, something I was sure would be useful to evade danger on Hourne as well as on other planes. The ring also had a clue so that she might find her memories in case I was destroyed before I could wake her. In this way, even if I had to hide her or send her away for her safety, she would have a chance at transferring the memories from the mind gem to herself.”
“I was a way… for you to start over,” Charlotte said, staring at Tiloshar in wonder.
Tiloshar nodded. “It was my truest desire. And my plan was working. Once I had created Charlotte in secret, I began studying how to use the Planar Gate. However, just as I woke Charlotte and readied the gate to send her away, Sombrala appeared in the chamber. She had found out of my plan somehow. We fought, with great magics that nearly tore us apart. I knew I could not win. So in my desperation, I switched the Planar Gate’s destination from Paradise to Malfeon. Rather than send Charlotte through, I would send Sombrala through that she might be sealed away forever. It worked. Sombrala was caught in the gate’s pull, her red dress swirling. However just as she was sucked in, she snatched a half-conscious Charlotte into the gate with her, and with a last curse blasted my mind with her memory erasing spell. The blast broke my psychic link to the gem inside Charlotte, so this is where the gem’s memories end… and the new ones begin. That is why for thirty years I have remembered seeing Charlotte’s face plunging into the gate, but not known who she was.”
Wolf Blade: Chains of the Vampire Page 25