by Tim Waggoner
She swooped down to the vessel, navigating by a complex interplay of bat senses, human intuition, and vampiric psychic abilities, but just as she reached the Boundless and was about to land upon the deck, she heard voices.
"Into the hold with those two, but go easy! I want the priest and his half-orc servant in the peak of health when we reach Demothi Island."
Makala didn't question how Diran and Ghaji had come to be captured. In life she had been more of a doer than a thinker, and death hadn't changed that quality in her. She banked upward, beating her wings as she flew toward the sound of wicked laughter. The ship was berthed at the furthermost end of the dock, and as Makala approached, she heard brisk movement-boots shuffling on deck, ropes being untied and cast off-and she knew that the vessel's occupants were preparing to get underway. Though she was only a few dozen yards closer to the open sea than where the Boundless was berthed, the mystic pull of the water was far stronger here, and as she angled down to the deck, she had to concentrate to resist the water's tug. It was as if the sea were interfering with her senses in an attempt to cause her to miss the ship and splash into the water, but she managed to make her descent-albeit an uncertain, wobbly one-and just as her tiny bat feet were about to come in contact with the wood, her form became living shadow that stretched and reformed itself into her natural shape.
It was part of a vampire's powers that personal items such as clothing and weaponry disappeared when one assumed an alternate shape and reappeared when one resumed human form. Makala had no idea where these objects went during her transformations, and she really didn't care. She was simply glad that the process worked the way it did. She drew her sword and cast about the deck, searching for the man who'd ordered Diran and Ghaji to be stowed in the hold. The fog was thinner at this end of the dock, and Makala, with her vampiric night-vision, had no trouble making out the forms of the ship's crew. They, however, being mere humans, could not see her. Makala decided to rectify that.
She willed the smoldering crimson flame that dwelt within her eyes to blaze and was rewarded with a shout of, "By the Host, what's that?"
It wasn't the captain's voice, so she assumed it was one of his underlings that spoke. No matter. She was certain the captain would hear her words.
"You've abducted two friends of mine." Makala spoke in a hollow-toned voice that seemed to issue forth from everywhere and nowhere all at once. She hoped the kidnappers would find the effect suitably chilling. "Release them and I'll allow you to depart in peace. Refuse, and I shall kill every one of you and then free them myself."
One of the crewmembers took several strides toward her, drawing his sword as he came. "Who might you be, missy? And more to the point, what makes you think you can scare us with your strangely spoken words and street-magician's light show?"
Makala smiled, revealing her fangs, though she doubted anyone could see them in the fog. "If you want to find out, just keep walking toward me."
The man hesitated. He was close enough now that Makala could make out his features despite the fog, and she saw he was tall, muscular, and blond-bearded. He carried a long-sword with the natural ease of someone who'd had so much practice wielding it over the years that the weapon had become virtually an extension of his own body. Not that it would do him any good.
She sniffed the air and smelled the blood coursing through the man's body. He was strong, in the prime of his life, and his blood smelled to her like the finest of wines. Makala's hunger welled within her, powerful and insistent, and for an instant she forgot about Diran and Ghaji. She pictured herself leaping upon the man and burying her fangs in the sweet-salty flesh of his neck, drinking deeply and letting the warm wet fluid that was life itself gush down her throat. She went so far as to take a step toward him, but she restrained herself. She wasn't an animal, and her friends-Diran-needed her.
"I have little patience," Makala said. "I'll say it one more time: release my friends or-"
She didn't get the chance to finish her ultimatum. A pair of sailors, both men and both as large and muscular as their captain-rushed at her from both sides and grabbed hold of her arms.
Blond-Beard grinned. "Looks like we have three passengers to ferry to Demothi Island now."
Unlike Diran, Makala hadn't been raised in the Principalities, and she'd never heard of Demothi Island. Whatever it was, Blond-Beard acted as if going there was some sort of terrible fate. Not that it mattered, for Makala had no intention of letting Blond-Beard and his crew set sail.
Makala flexed her arms and slammed the two sailors that had hold of her into each other. Their skulls collided with a sickening hollow sound, and the men slumped motionless to the deck.
"Cast off!" Blond-Beard bellowed to his crew. "Cast off now!"
Makala didn't know whether Blond-Beard realized she was a vampire and understood she'd be weakened by being out on the open water or whether the man was simply acting on instinct. Either way, she couldn't afford to let this vessel get underway.
She stepped forward, intending to strike at Blond-Beard with her sword, but before she could attack, the man reached beneath his tunic collar and withdrew a small metal object that dangled from a chain. He held the object out toward her, and intense pain flared through Makala's entire body, as if her veins had suddenly become filled with molten fire. The pendant's shape-an iron spiral with a small indigo gem at the center-was unfamiliar to her.
She dropped her sword and raised her arms to block the spiral from her sight. That lessened the pain, but only a little. Hissing like an angry cat, she backed away from Blond-Beard, but he followed her, advancing slowly step by step, making sure not to get too close but still keeping up the pressure on her, not allowing her to find escape or respite from the pain that was burning her up from the inside out. She continued retreating until her lower back bumped into the ship's port railing. Without thinking, driven solely by the all-encompassing need to get away from the spiral, she turned, hopped up onto the railing with inhuman grace, and then leaped out into space. She intended to transform into a bat and fly away from the ship and the agonizing metal spiral as fast as she could, but she was too wracked with pain to manage the change, and she plunged into the sea.
Frigid water enveloped her, and she felt herself sinking. No, not sinking-being drawn downward, as if unseen tendrils had encircled her body and were dragging her deeper and deeper. The sea, the cradle from which some said all life had been born, was pulling her, a creature of death, down to where she could harm no one ever again. She struggled, thrashing her arms and legs, attempting to swim back to the surface, but it was so hard… her limbs felt like heavy lead weights, and she felt a weariness coming over her, not unlike the daylight torpor in which she slept. It would be so easy to give up, to surrender, let the Lhazaar take her and be done with it.
Then she remembered: Diran needed her help.
She renewed her efforts, swimming with all of her strength, and slowly, inch by inch, she felt herself rising back toward the surface. It felt as if she struggled against the sea's pull for hours, but finally her head broke the surface and, though she no longer had any need for air, she drew in a gasping breath. She swam to the edge of the dock, reached up, gripped its wooden edge, and hauled herself out of the water. She lay on the dock, wet, cold, and shivering, but still alive-or at least not dead. The fog had thinned out even further during her struggle to escape the Lhazaar's embrace, and she could clearly see a ship drawing away from the dock.
Makala rose unsteadily to her feet, turned back toward shore, and began staggering down the dock. Each step was an effort, but she couldn't afford to take time to rest. She had to reach the Boundless and rouse Eneas before the other vessel could get too far out to sea. She had enough faith in the old sailor's skills to believe he'd be able to track the ship if they could set sail soon enough, though what the two of them might be able to do on their own against Diran and Ghaji's captors-especially with her weakened as she would be by being out on the water-she didn't know, but she had
to try.
She reached the Boundless and climbed aboard, nearly collapsing in the process. She managed to stay on her feet and made her way down into the hull where she'd left Eneas slumbering. She was relieved to find the old sailor still there, snoring away as if he didn't have a care in the world. All she had to do was wake him and then they could get underway. She crouched down and put her hand on his shoulder, intending to give him a shake…
And then she caught the scent of his blood.
She'd been greatly weakened by her plunge into the sea, and she desperately needed to rebuild her strength. She tried to resist the urge, but she was too weak to do so.
Just a little, she told herself. Enough to help me function, and no more.
She bent down over Eneas's neck, bit into his flesh, and began to feed. Blood poured into her, trickling through her body, filling her with warmth and life. She was unaware of time as she fed, but when she felt strong once more, she drew away from Eneas and wiped her mouth with the back of her hand. Then, without thinking, she licked the smear of blood from her hand.
She then took hold of Eneas's shoulder and gave him a shake.
"Wake up, Eneas! I need your help!"
But the old sailor did not wake. Makala shook him harder, and his head slumped forward and lolled back and forth. That's when Makala realized she could no longer smell his living blood, couldn't feel his pulse through her fingertips on his shoulder. She had taken too much.
Guilt and sorrow filled her unbeating heart, followed immediately by anger. How could she have been so foolish? Without Eneas, there was no way that she could go after Diran and Ghaji. Even if she knew how to sail, as a vampire she couldn't operate the Boundless on open water. She needed help, but first, she had a duty to attend to.
"I'm sorry, Eneas. You were a good servant, and you deserved better than this."
Makala took firm hold of the sailor's head and with a single swift violent motion broke his neck. She then picked up his lifeless body, threw it over her shoulder, and climbed up onto the deck of his ship… her ship now, she supposed. Though what she would be able to do with it on her own, she had no idea. Once on the deck, she lay his body down and removed a dagger from a sheath on her belt. The blade was sharp, and with her strength it took her little time to sever Eneas's head from his body. There was no blood, for there was none remaining in the corpse.
Though the blade wasn't stained, Makala wiped the dagger off on Eneas's clothes before returning it to its sheath. Now that Eneas had been beheaded, there was no chance that he would return to life as a vampire. Still, she wanted to make sure. First she threw his head out to sea as far as she could, and then she tossed his body after it. Instead of floating, Eneas's remains hit the water and sank like stones as the sea claimed them.
Makala gazed at the rippling water for a moment longer before casting aside her human form and rising into the air on leather wings, bound for the King Prawn.
CHAPTER NINE
Cathmore stood at the open window, hands gripping the stone sill as he gazed westward. Galharath didn't have to read the old man's mind to know what he was searching for.
"You're wasting your time. You won't see Chagai approach in the dark."
Cathmore didn't turn away from the window. "It's my time to waste, isn't it?"
The two men stood in one of the highest chambers within Mount Luster: a stone room constructed near the pinnacle of the mountain, with a window that faced westward. There were three other chambers just like it, each with a window facing another point on the compass. These were watch chambers, with shutters painted on the outside to resemble the mountain's rocky surface. The shutters were open, and the late autumn wind blew cold and harsh. Cathmore, wrapped in his thick bearskin cloak, still shivered continuously, though he displayed no other sign of discomfort and made no complaint about the wind. So fierce was the old man's will and so intense his concentration that Galharath thought Cathmore capable of ignoring the temperature until he froze to death. As a kalashtar, Galharath could appreciate such disciplined focus, even when it was less than practical.
"Do you really believe that the half-orc Chagai recognized is in fact the partner of your former student?"
"I don't believe-I know." The old man glanced over his shoulder at Galharath. "Tell me, do your people believe in Fate?"
"Not by that name. Fate is far too simplistic a concept, but we recognize the existence of probability matrices that intersect with an individual's unique potential."
Cathmore scowled. "Forgive me for being so simplistic, but I have no idea what you just said. I believe that Fate is real and that it sweeps all of us along like the current of a vast river, and while we-the fish caught within its power-have some choice over how we swim, ultimately we are at the mercy of the river's force."
Galharath nodded his understanding. The metaphor was similar to something a kalashtar child might postulate but not altogether inaccurate. He was impressed anew by the keen intellect the old man possessed-for a human.
"I believe the river of Fate has swept both me and Diran to this point, and that soon we will be brought together to finish what we started so many years ago."
Galharath thought Cathmore had an exaggerated sense of his own importance in the complex and ever-shifting tapestry of events that made up what limited minds like his termed reality, but he could see no gain in bringing this point up, so he didn't. Galharath and Cathmore were not friends, and they weren't partners. Not really. They were two individuals currently working together for mutual advantage. Cathmore wished to repair and activate the psi-forge in order to create an army of unstoppable assassins-a goal Galharath found small-minded and ridiculous. Galharath was simply using the old man and his orc servant to provide him with supplies and protection while he studied the construction of the psi-forge. Galharath, like many kalashtar, was far more concerned with the advancement of his mind and the strengthening of his psionic abilities than he was in worldly achievements. The knowledge he would gain-had already gained-from helping Cathmore would prove invaluable in and of itself, but Galharath also had a practical application of his knowledge in mind.
Galharath's race, the kalashtar, had been born from a union of humans and quori, renegade spirits from Dal Quor, the Region of Dreams. The influence of the original quori spirits affected their descendants, so that while newborn kalashtar were distinct individuals, they possessed some of their ancestors' character traits and even fragmentary memories. They also possessed vast reserves of mental resources upon which they could draw, making them a race of powerful psionics, but the evil spirits that still remained in Dal Quor despised the kalashtar and sought their extermination. To further this aim, they possessed the bodies of physical beings on Eberron in order to operate on this dimensional plane, becoming a separate race of psionic beings known as the Inspired.
Galharath-or, as he thought of himself, Gal of the lineage of Harath, his original quori ancestor-had fought against the Inspired all his life. He had become a psionic artificer to discover and develop new weapons that might be used in his people's struggle for survival. When Cathmore approached him with an offer-working at a "site of singular interest to one of your kind," as the old man had put it-Galharath accepted without hesitation, especially since he'd been able to read the particulars of Cathmore's offer in his thoughts. Cathmore might have no greater vision for the psi-forge than producing mindslayers, but Galharath hoped to learn enough about the device in order to recreate it-or something very much like it-to construct beings that would fight the Inspired alongside the kalashtar.
"Do you think the stories are true?" Galharath asked. "Has Diran Bastiaan forsaken the ways of the Brotherhood of the Blade for priesthood within the Silver Flame? Or is it merely a ruse and he has come to Perhata to track you down and slay you once and for all?"
"Why do you bother asking questions when you already know the answers?" Cathmore said. "I hired you for your psionic abilities, and I have no illusion that you refrain from employing
them on me. You'd be a fool not to."
Galharath's estimation of Cathmore went up a notch. "Then permit me to say this: I am well aware that yours is not the only spirit that inhabits your body. That much, at least, we have in common, but whereas my spirit is inextricably bound to that of my ancestor's, yours exists alongside a darker spirit that you allowed to be implanted within your body. Two spirits, connected but at the same time separate."
"So?"
"So your darker half knows that it has nearly used up your body and is hoping to find a replacement."
Cathmore turned away from the window again, but this time a darkness lurked in his eyes, and his smile was cold and feral. When he spoke, it sounded as if he did so in two distinct voices. "Of course. Why do you think we're so interested in being reunited with Diran-young, strong, healthy Diran-once more?"
Cathmore laughed, the sound dry and brittle as ancient bone, before returning his attention to the darkness that lay beyond the window, a darkness, Galharath thought, that was bright as the sun compared to what dwelled inside the old man.
"I have something to tell you." Cathmore's voice had returned to normal, though it was no less chilling for that. "The spirit within me is sensitive to the unseen world. It's one of the reasons that the Brotherhood of the Blade uses them, and mine is whispering to me that we are not alone in this room."
Galharath frowned, his psionic senses sweeping through the chamber, and while he was normally acutely aware of his surroundings, this time he paid far closer attention to its minute details. At first, he detected nothing out the ordinary, and he began to wonder if perhaps Cathmore's dark spirit hadn't corrupted his mind to the point where the old man was starting to take leave of his senses, but then he found it: the merest flicker of a mental presence, so infinitesimal that even the most skilled psionicist would have been hard-pressed to notice it without conducting a careful search. The physical nexus for the presence lay in the far corner of the observation chamber. Galharath got a firm mental fix on the presence to make certain that it couldn't conceal itself from him once more, and then turned in its direction.