Vermilion Dreams (Book One of A Vampire Fantasy Epic)

by M. U. Riyadad

  “Your older sister’s got fingers far quicker than the two of you hooligans,” Taa said. “She just uses them in a different way.”

  “Now that is an impressive trick,” Chadd said, giving Taa an approving nod. “And your curiosity is right where it should be.” He took the gold baron from me and then removed the dagger from his belt. “I suppose a quick peek can’t hurt.” He held a finger out to Yephi. “Don’t try and grab this one. It’s dangerous.” He turned to Taa, expression suddenly grim. “If they try, stop them, would you?”

  Taa nodded.

  Chadd held the weapon between his fingertips. He wet his lips, then began pulling it out of its case.

  It was wrapped in a milk-white velvet sheath. It had a wooden hilt, made of a dark brown, unpolished oak that still had splinters and unsmoothed cracks. The body of the knife made a rustling sound as it was pulled out. It was made of bone, but not human. Dark shades of grey and blue, almost black—Serpentine bone. Its front end, about six inches down its shaft, split off into two directions like a scissor. One tip trickled out into a line of thin needles like a hair comb. The other tip twisted into a hook. The knife had a thick body, nearly elliptical in shape, with veins of jet-black ink running through its sides. It had a bulging center, and though I couldn’t see its inside, I had a feeling it was hollow. It wasn’t sleek and polished like Yephi’s and Iris’s blades, but it had its own venerable charm. It was a relic from a different kind of world.

  After Chadd held it out for several seconds, a drop of viscous black liquid fell from one of its tips, hissing into a thick cloud of blue smoke when it touched the floor.

  Yephi and Iris both jumped back. It fell inches from my foot, but my attention was too focused on the dagger to react.

  “Don’t touch it,” Taa said.

  I pulled my hand back, just then realizing how close I had gotten.

  “This one. It has a simple, elegant name,” Chadd said. “Sinister.”

  “I can’t read it.” I pointed to a symbol etched into the wood. It looked too complex to be a Hulna letter, though there were stylistic similarities.

  “I wouldn’t expect you to,” Chadd chuckled. “In fact, I’d be worried if you could read it. It’s Voz’ruhdal. Its creator told me the word, though I don’t know what it means. Anyeg.”

  “Hmmm…” Taa frowned. She made a motion with her staff like she was going to say something but remained silent.

  “Why does it look so dull?” Iris asked. She looked at her own dagger.

  “Yeah, it’s a bit ugly,” Yephi said, sniffing.

  “It’s not alchemical,” I replied, glancing at Chadd. “That’s why it doesn’t have the shine of the other blades.”

  “Aye,” Chadd said. “No alchemy in this one. It was made with the old magic.”

  “The old magic? By a witch?” I asked.

  Chadd bent his head low, stiffening his shoulders. His cloak slid down his side. “The same one that made your father’s sword,” he whispered, peering down at the empty hall.

  “My father’s sword?” I looked at Taa. She didn’t react.

  “Father’s sword was made by a witch?” Iris whispered.

  “Always knew there was something funny about it,” Yephi said.

  “You did not,” Iris said.

  “Hmm. Let’s keep that between us, girls,” Taa muttered.

  “This blade, and your father’s sword,” Chadd began, sheathing the dagger back into its velvet case, “they were made by Vladiris Rose herself. Crafter of the Immortal King’s Vestiges. Of Raya’s bow. Of Enek’s scythe. Greatest weapons’ smith to ever live.” He placed the dagger back on his belt. “The knife… it can kill on its own. Without a wielder.”

  Taa whistled.

  “How is that even possible?” Iris asked, eyeing the dagger suspiciously.

  Chadd winked, once more hiding the dagger under his cloak. “The old magic,” he said, while bowing and taking a step back. “And now, princesses, I must call it a night. Your Taa is unfortunately correct in her assessment. Eio is peaking, Glacies is waning, and the vampires are waxing. I must be off before the dark starts to change into the color of night.” He turned to me, placing a hand out. I extended mine. He kissed the back of it, not lifting it any higher than I had originally placed it. A subtle detail, but an important one to notice. It was the correct way to hand-kiss, but it was rare to find someone who still adhered to form. “Queen Anasahara, if ever you require my services, simply make your way to the most dubious looking alleyway you could find, whistle a few times, and I’ll likely be there.” His eyes twinkled as he spoke. “I’m rather certain our paths are going to cross at least a few more times.” He turned, making his way to the exit of the alcove in a flourish of black wool and silver daggers.

  CHAPTER 18

  Mother came to my room a half-hour after Chadd left. Taa was cooking in the corner, near where I kept all of my books. A three-hundred volume collection of novels, histories, encyclopedias, travel logs, biographies, and alchemy guides. They were stacked in vertical columns and divided across wooden shelves nailed to the walls. A wheeled ladder stood next to the collection, extending all the way to the ceiling, more than fifteen feet high. Mother, Yephi, Iris, and I were playing chutrang. The three of them against me. They sat on my bed, Mother in the middle. She was wearing her glasses—quartz spectacles with thin iron frames, alchemically binded together for durability. Her eyes scanned row after row, searching between diagonals, lines, and squares to find patterns in my thinking. A general atop her own army of twenty-nine troops. Iris had twenty-six left, and Yephi the fewest, with nineteen.

  In between stirring her kettle, Taa would occasionally flip through one my books, always commenting loudly on an author’s style or on some historian’s opinion she was at odds with. Yephi had been tasked with moving the pieces on the board. Every few seconds, she’d leap off my bed, move a piece or two according to someone’s directions, then jump back up without showing the slightest hint that she was getting tired of the responsibility.

  “Third row. Cardinal. Move it two spaces north, one to the east,” Iris said.

  Yephi jumped down. She was wearing her hair up now, willing to show her ears in the privacy of her immediate family. They weren’t unnaturally big, but they did take after Father. I assumed he had gotten them from his father. Taa’s were small like Mother’s. Mine and Iris’s struck a balance between the two.

  I stood by the window at the far side of the room, facing southeast. I had a good view of upper and center Chaya from here. Not as broad as the view from the hallway outside, but with one of the telescopes, I could see the kingdom in more detail.

  “Fourth row. Elephant takes cardinal,” I said.

  “Are you sure you don’t want to look at the board?” Mother asked. “It’s getting quite complicated with Iris’s moves overlapping mine.”

  “I’ll look if I lose my place,” I said, fiddling with the telescope’s parameters. The one I was using didn’t click into place at different focuses like the other two. You had to play with it for a while before getting the perspective you wanted. Let a finger slip, and the whole view distorted into a slosh of colors.

  “Wait!” Yephi gasped. “That’s my cardinal.”

  I looked up from the telescope. “Yes, I imagine it is.”

  “You’re always taking my pieces,” Yephi said. “What about hers. She’s the one moving her cardinals about like she owns the whole western side.” She pointed to the piece Iris had just moved. “It’s probably got a bunch of bribes in its pocket.”

  “It’s not my fault you leave all your pieces out in the open,” Iris retorted. “They probably say a prayer to themselves every time it’s your turn.” She pointed to the other side of the board. “Look at that line of pawns you’ve got all the way in the east. It looks like they’re trying to desert your army without drawing attention to themselves.”

  “Fine.” I sighed. “Take it back. Same piece. Rush it four pieces south.”

/>   “Finally,” Yephi whispered, grinning. She removed two of Iris’s pieces off the board.

  Iris gritted her teeth, but didn’t say anything.

  I looked back into the telescope.

  Eio was at its peak. Rain, thunder, mist everywhere. A blue moon in a summer storm. Rain you could smell. It swam into clay tiles, wooden wells, and stone sewers, carrying its sweet mint scent to all the corners of the city. Thunder you could feel. The lightning came a full minute before the sound rolled in. The air shook. The kingdom vibrated. The wind split. It flowed toward stiller spaces. Mist you could hear. It blanketed all of Chaya with an enduring silence. Creaks became screeches. Footsteps gave way to chase. Then it returned to the silence again. The upper kingdom turned into a maze of religious opulence. Symbols of the gods, cut in gold and silver, dared the nightwalkers to test consecrated land. The center kingdom turned into a fortress. Wooden spikes. Iron traps. Groups of people fenced in by soldiers, priests, and nuns. In the lower kingdom, the story was different. A bandaged night. Fleeting shadows. A lingering quiet—and then a cry like distant music.

  “Taa,” I called. “I know the history of the world. How the new gods defeated the old gods ten thousand years ago and exiled them to the nether. But where does Saythana come into it all? He is neither old nor new, human nor daemon.”

  Taa slowed her stirring, then cooled the fire below the kettle.

  Mother, Yephi, and Iris fell silent. They had been whispering a plan to each other for the last few seconds. Something about my elephant and Mother’s temple.

  “He is both,” Taa said after a long while. She lifted her spoon to test the stew. She furrowed her brow, trying to savor the taste.

  “You know most of the origin story already,” Mother said. “It’s just the gaps you need to fill in.” She paused to whisper something to Iris and Yephi, then continued, “It’s hard to learn about, Dina. Something that I’m sure will irk you. Little is known about him, less of that is written, and every culture has their own take on his lore.”

  Taa carried a spoonful of the stew to Mother for tasting. I could smell the meat and onions from here. Caramelized goat and beef. Taa always cut her onions big. She liked to get the whole taste in bites, not just the flavor.

  “Ayetha,” Taa began, speaking softly. “Do you know how Raya distracted Satan while the new gods battled the old gods in the Eternal War? It is the only reason they won. And even then, about a quarter of the new gods died in the battle.”

  There were variations to this story. I thought of the common threads that pulled them together. The parts that occurred in all the lore across the different cultures.

  “She seduces him,” I said.

  “Ahh,” Taa said, smiling. “But that’s just half the story.”

  “They had a child together,” Yephi chimed in.

  Mother and Taa paused to look at her, both of them momentarily stuck in awkward positions. Taa with her spoon in my mother’s mouth, Mother eating the stew while cocking an eyebrow at Yephi.

  “What?” Yephi shrugged. “I heard Father Clairmont talking about it with Mother Mendhi. Iris was there too. Not listening.”

  Taa pulled her spoon out. Mother chewed, eyes watering as she swallowed. She smacked her lips together, breathing in the flavors. Her cheeks went red from the heat and spice. She sucked in air, waving two hands in front of her. Smoke trailed from the spoon. The hairs on her neck stood rigid. Beads of sweat on her nose.

  “They had a child together,” Taa said, giving Yephi an approving tilt of the head.

  “Raya and Satan?” I asked.

  Taa clicked her tongue. “Raya and Satan.” She doused the fire underneath the kettle with a pot of water to let the stew simmer in its heat. Steam filled the corner of my room, dampening the screens of dust on the covers of older books. “Raya and Satan had a child together. Red Shaed. Vermilion. The only to exist in our world with both the essence of life, and the essence of death. Half-god, half-daemon.”

  “Saythana is stronger than Satan himself?” Iris asked.

  “What you’re thinking of isn’t the same kind of strength that Satan has.” Mother’s voice, in between sharp breaths. She rested her elbow on Iris’s head and her other hand on Yephi’s shoulder. Her cheeks were still flushed from the stew. Her breathing ragged. “Power does not always come in the form of strength. You’ll understand better when you’re older.”

  Taa strummed on a netted spoon she was using to strain the stew. “Satan isn’t strong like that, ayetha. Satan is the old god of deception. His power comes in a different way. It comes from lies.”

  “Who is the new god of truth?” Yephi asked.

  Mother grabbed Yephi’s ear playfully. “Studious daughter, how do you know so much from eavesdropping on priests and nuns, but nothing of what’s actually taught in class?”

  “Because they always keep the good stuff to themselves,” Yephi replied briskly. “Elsa taught me how to eavesdrop. It’s something of an art. It’s the useful things they never teach you up front, she says. Important skill to have. I’m better at it than even Dina.”

  “Dina doesn’t need to eavesdrop,” Iris interjected. “She already knows everything.” She turned to me with a confident smile. Eyes that laughed and shared secrets.

  Mother smiled. “There might be some truth to that.” She glanced up, pondering something far off. Her breath finally calmed, but she still stuck her tongue out and blew air through her cheeks every few seconds. “You’ve done it again, ahjur. The stew.” She made a sour noise, holding a thumb up to Taa. She wiped away flakes of pepper from her lips, then turned back to Yephi. “There is no new god of truth. Nor even an old god of truth. Maybe there was one day, and Satan killed him. Now, for truth and lies, we have only him.”

  “Who is the strongest of the gods, then?” Iris asked. “After Saythana, who comes next? Strong in the way I mean it.” She held a fist to the air. With her other hand, she grabbed her wrist, then held both tightly.

  Taa hummed, pleased by the question. A grin with sharp teeth lurked underneath her hood. “Enek. Old god of death. World Breaker. The Devourer. Blade of Shai’tan.” Another taste of the stew for herself. She added a splash of water to it from the pot, then a dash more spice and herb. “Don’t forget her name, ayetha. Shanto might be the one who ferries us over the long journey now, but Enek was death. Is. You understand? After her… Raya. Empress of the skies. Though I don’t think Yuweh and Stala can be too far behind.”

  “That’s a lot of titles,” I said, turning back to my telescope. I pointed it to the lower kingdom, trying to adjust the zoom to get as best of a look as I could. There was a question I wanted to get to. Something I had been thinking about, but I needed to be delicate in bringing it up. The question couldn’t come out of anywhere. I would have to use this thread to get there. It would have been easier without Mother here. She was more sensitive about topics pertaining to daemons and the old magic. Mother wasn’t superstitious, but she did not want my sisters and I to take after Taa’s fascination with the dark.

  “Why would Raya have a child with Satan?” Yephi asked, sounding uneasy. “Didn’t she know something like Saythana would come out?”

  The question sounded so innocent I coughed to keep from laughing. It was easy to forget how old Yephi and Iris were, but easy to be reminded of it once you listened through a full conversation.

  “There are different answers,” Mother said

  Taa lined up four clay bowls next to each other, dabbing at the center of them with a circle of avocado oil. Meat, bones, lentil, and chunks of a sparkling salt fell neatly into the bowls as she poured the stew, sizzling into place against the greased plates. It was all cooked inside a soup the color of mustard, flavored with toasted cinnamon, violet pepper, freshly cut salt, and sea spices. Iris hopped off the bed for a closer look. She rested on Taa’s staff, trying to cover her face in the mirage of smoke and herbs. She picked at the goat, the beef, the bones, till she found a piece to her liking. A thin
rip of steak marbled with fat and coated in chunks of lentil. She dropped it in her mouth without a second thought. She panted wildly as she chewed, fighting back tears. Mother watched with a half-irritated, half-sympathetic look.

  “The three of you best not complain that it’s not spicy enough this time,” Taa said. “If you want anything hotter, you can go eat coals from the ironworks.”

  Yephi smiled wickedly.

  “Taa, how did Raya have Saythana?” I asked. “I mean I know how… but… why?”

  Taa waved at the air above the bowls. “Like your mother said, there are different answers. Go to Mimenhi and ask how Raya came to carry Satan’s child, and they’ll tell you that she never wanted it. That Satan… forced the child upon her.” She turned to me with a hard look, making sure I understood without having to explain in front of Yephi and Iris. I nodded.

  Taa continued, her voice unassuming. “But that doesn’t quite make sense to me. Shai’tan has his own kind of power, not the kind that would let him…” Her voice trailed off as she glanced at me again. She tapped her head, then her mouth. “He thinks. He speaks. That is his power. In Xenash if you asked the question, they would never insult their goddess of the skies with such an answer. In Xenash they believe that Raya wanted to have Saythana. She planned it all. She knew what she was making, but she didn’t expect how wild Saythana’s nature would be. She was trying to create a weapon. The old gods can’t be killed like the new gods. They were made with the essence of death. If she had a son like Saythana, she might be able to create a final solution—to keep them locked away in the nether forever.”

  Taa sighed with the echo of a grimace. “Ask five people in Xenash, and you’ll get five different reasons for Raya’s reasoning. Ask scholars of the Church, and you’ll get ten or fifteen, each one claiming two or three possibilities. The point of their story is to shed the right light on their goddess. Not to seek truth.”