He asked us both to try the burning leaf. Pythia refused, but I cupped the bowl in my hand as he had and sipped at the pipe stem until smoke filled my mouth. It was sweet and strong and seared my throat with its heat. Then I coughed it out, for it was too much like inhaling fire itself.
He laughed, though the other men were silent while they passed water and meat and boiled grain among themselves. One of them began singing a high, beautiful song of distant maidens and lovely flowers while more sacks of grain were poured into black pots and set to cook over the fire.
I began to love these men, despite their rough circumstance, and particularly Illuyanek, the Storm Dreamer, for his wisdom and respect. He did not fear me, nor had I given him reason to fear; but better than this, he treated me, a demon to his kind, as an equal—even as a son.
As if reading my thoughts, Pythia came up behind me as I stood in the doorway, watching the men enjoying their repast.
“You know this vampyre, Illuyan?” I asked.
“He ruled Myrryd, and founded many cities. But as with all the old Myrryd kings, he extinguished. All who wear the crown are hunted by those who wish to take the crown, yet no one wears it long.” She looked at me almost lovingly. She took my hand in hers, drawing me along the corridor, past the many rooms to the steps that led above. Once on the deck, she let go of my hand and went to look out over the deep mist. I followed her there and stood a few feet behind her.
“You are like my father.” She sighed. “You believe mortal man is worth saving.”
“And you?”
“This one man, Illuyanek, is worth the world,” she said. “But to care for the prey...it was the downfall of my father’s kingdom. It is like taking a soft rabbit into your arms and keeping it safe...until the hunger for it outweighs the love of the creature. My father protected many rabbits, but few vampyres.”
“You have rarely spoken so kindly of Merod.”
“What is there to say? He fulfilled his prophecies. In the end, that is all he cared for—he was a guardian, he told me. Not a wolf, but a shepherd—as if a blood-drinker who lives off the wine of man could also care for mortals beyond the thirst itself. He nearly ensnared me in his delusions.”
“Ensnared?” I faced her, shaking my head. “It was you who trapped your father.”
“Were you there? Did you watch me trap him?” she asked. For the first time, I genuinely believed I had hurt her in some way. She was not as invulnerable as she seemed. “You cannot pretend to know what I have done. Or what has been done to me.”
“No, I cannot know any of this, other than what you tell me. You have kept much from me. You spent years in Nezahual’s kingdom. Tell me of those times now. Was there another vampyre of our tribe there? A vampyre who had no glamour, no beauty? A vampyre whose eyes shone red with the blood that pulsed behind them? A vampyre whose skull jutted from rotting flesh?”
The golden mask rippled slightly on her face, and her eyes would not meet mine. “Why do you ask this?”
“I have seen him. You must have sensed him in the stream. He follows us from Aztlanteum.”
4
Pythia grabbed one of the hanging ropes, drawing herself up to the edge of the ship, swiftly leapt from it, and soared off into the mist. I tried to reach her through my mind, but it was as if I had hit a wall with my thoughts. Then she dove back down, crouching along the ropes of a nearby mast. I reached her seconds later, grabbing her at the waist before she could flee again.
“This is no time for anger and games. He slaughtered a dozen men on the other ship. I caught a glimpse of him. He looks like a ghoul—a walking corpse. Did you see him in the prisons?”
As I said this, her eyes betrayed some knowledge, but she remained silent. She withdrew her wings, and I took her down to the quarterdeck of the ship. We sat among ropes and trunks, and she looked out at the mist.
“There were many prisoners in Nezahual’s city,” she whispered, as if it were dangerous to say.
“He wears a hooded cape, and I did not detect any feeling from him,” I said. “Just a pure and utter chill.”
“He didn’t attack you,” she said.
“He seemed...terrified of me. He did not want me to see him.”
“Nezahual and his priests imprisoned many—some creatures who crossed from the Veil itself and others from the nameless territories of the deep earth.”
“Tell me what you know of this vampyre,” I said.
“Nothing,” she said. “If he did not harm you, perhaps he is merely following us to escape from Nezahual’s reach.”
“Are there vampyres who look as we do in the silver of mirrors?”
“I have never looked into a mirror, nor gazed in deep water to see my reflection. It is forbidden. You should not do so, either.” She gave me a look—from eyes that flashed fire beneath the gold mask—that made me want to rage against her, yet I knew this was her bait for me. I grinned, which only made her angry. “If you seek answers, go to the Veil and tear it again.”
“You will tell me of this vampyre.”
She would not look at me. “I do not know this creature.”
I knew by her tone she lied, but at that moment the young sailor found us on deck and told us that Illuyanek had commanded him to show us our quarters for the coming of day.
5
The sailor led us along the deck to the captain’s quarters, which had but one small window that could be easily covered with heavy drapes to block the sun. We did not need a deep grave for our sleep, but darkness without sunlight—for it was the sun itself that would burn us.
I was not used to comfort in sleep—I much preferred a tomb to a palace, a rock-strewn cavern to a bed. But Pythia liked her comforts, and when she entered the room ahead of me, she cried out in delight.
I glanced about the quarters—vials of perfume littered the room, no doubt gifts for mistresses or wives, collected from outlandish places, tossed about by the men who had murdered their leader—and fine silks and heavy cloths, torn and drawn as if the men on board had gone mad and sought to destroy any finery their captain had gathered for himself. Reds and blues and vibrant yellows in the cloths, and woolen and silk rugs, made by expert craftsmen.
There was treasure here for me and for Pythia—fine linen and silk clothing, like the perfume, gifts from foreign princes or bought in exotic marketplaces.
Because I had traveled much, my clothes were caked with the filth of earth and air, and I gladly undressed. I tore off the nasty tunic I wore and the ragged trousers and all manner of clothes that had seemed to become one with my body.
Naked, I took up the water bowl at the door and washed myself clean, though this was not something my kind seemed to do—nor was it necessary, for each dawn, our flesh renewed, fresh and clean, and only covered with the dirt of our resting place. Bathing was a habit I missed from my mortal years, and so I relished the scrubbing of my arms and legs. Water was considered our enemy, but this was simply because being immersed in it, we would have no strength, no magick. Who cared for power when one could be clean?
Pythia sat on the bed and watched me. She questioned my need for such cleanliness, mocking my mortal ways. “The day’s sleep will refresh you enough,” she said. “Although I am enjoying seeing you scrub.”
“Do not laugh,” I said. “You are next. You still stink of Nezahual’s snakes.”
Once I was clean, I tossed tunics and trousers and mysterious leggings and various cloth bindings that I did not quite know the use for—all across the enormous bed. “Tonight, when we rise, we will dress as the lord and lady demon that we are. Now you, my lady.”
I beckoned her to the bath.
“Come to bed,” she said as she drew off the rags she had worn since our escape.
Reaching for the bowl of water and the rag within it, I said, “I feel no sun yet. Here, wash.”
“A daughter of Merod does not wash like a mortal. Water would...”
“Hurt you?” I asked. “Perhaps we grow weak in a
river, or a lake. Perhaps we would drown if in the sea. But the rain does nothing to us. A good bath will help you rest.”
“I rest well enough. Vampyres have no need of baths.”
“In more than a thousand nights, you have not bathed? Not ever? You forget yourself, Pythoness. You live in a prison of mortality now. You reek of life,” I laughed as I threw the cloth over to her.
She seemed to rear back, her eyes burning, a snarl curving her lips. The cloth landed on her shoulder, and she shrugged it off to the floor. “You vile snake, reminding me of this...insult...this parasite!” She reached up to the mask, raking her fingernails into its golden flesh. “I wish I had never put this upon my face. I wish now I had remained with Nezahual and ruled his kingdom beside him and left you to your fate in the jaws of Ixtar.”
“You hated him,” I said, feeling anger rise up. “He would have tormented you until your Extinguishing. He would have destroyed you, my sweet Pythoness. You have bad taste in men. For the most part.”
“He loved me,” she said. “He would not have sought my destruction.”
“You have been loved by many, and you have loved them,” I said.
“As have you. What is good for a man is also good for a woman,” she said. In those nights of that century, I had an old way of thinking of maidens, although the fierce vampyre women had changed this swiftly enough. “I have even loved my prey when it has taken my fancy.”
“Did Nezahual keep the mask from you?” I asked, ignoring what was surely a barb aimed at me. “Or did he take you to it and show you its glittering beauty? Did he allow you to feel its seduction? Did he tell you where it was, knowing that you would not stop searching for it until you had it on your face?”
Her eyes widened, and she froze, as if remembering. The gold mask rippled at her brow. When she spoke, her voice had altered; it was lower and deeper, as if she had gone into a trance merely by recalling her first sight of the mask of Datbathani. “It called to me. It sought me. It is a creation of a deep place, where sorcery still holds power over us. It is beyond even Medhya’s touch. You would not understand unless it called to you. I slaughtered many of Nezahual’s priests to steal it. It had been locked away, this beautiful mask—so lovely—like a beautiful creature, a bird of rich and vibrant plumage held against its will, selfishly imprisoned so that none might bask in its glory. It had been laid upon an obsidian statue of some demon of Nezahual’s choosing—a youth with many arms, a god long forgotten to even that world of the Ketzal. The mask was a whisper in my mind as I beheld it. Will you come to me, Pythoness? It asked. I am your fulfillment; I am power beyond dream, it whispered. I am meant for your face. I trembled at its sight, Falconer. I shivered as I touched the smooth edge of it. When I held it in my hands, I saw beauty and hope, as you can only dream. I saw sunlight reflected in it—light that I had not seen in millennia, and it did not burn me. This beautiful gold mask. Its power. I felt it. When I wore it, when I could not remove it, I felt its lies, its deception. I felt my power being sucked from my flesh and blood just as we drink from mortals. I must bring nourishment to myself and my child—but also to this. This?”
She reached up and tore at the gold of her face, pulling at the mask as if it could come off, but instead, she only tore at her own skin—for the gold was within and on her skin, and could not be separated from it until death.
She began weeping, and I felt the heat of her pain. I set down the bowl and went to her. I crouched down to pick up the moistened cloth, and then I took her in my arms.
“I do not understand this world,” I whispered. “Nor do I understand the destiny to which we are drawn. I have hated you. I have loathed everything about you. Yet, here we are. At the edge of the world’s oceans. For whatever gods or demons have called us to this Earth, I know that your fate and mine are bound together.”
She fought against me, but I drew her close to me that she might weep upon my shoulder. I felt her mortal heartbeat as I held her.
“I will not leave you,” I said.
“How can you say that?” she whispered through tears. “I will destroy you. I know this.”
“In visions of prophecy?” I asked, amused by her fear. “What if our vision has been faulty? No, I do not believe you will harm me—not in that way. You brought me back from death as a fulfillment. No, Pythia, you fear that I will destroy you. We have both envisioned this. Even this dream, I do not believe.”
Within a few minutes her sobbing had ended. I carried her over to the bowl of water. I took the washcloth, dipped it, and brought it up to her face. I wiped the tears from the mask, from her lips, then washed her throat clean of the foulness of her journey.
I kissed her throat, feeling the throb of the stream between us, smelling that delicate aroma of mortal skin. I had an urge to drink from her—it was both the scent of life and a feeling of wanting to get beneath her flesh, to be part of her, to ease her pain by the passing of blood.
Remembering those I had loved, I pressed myself close to her as I washed down her slender belly, following the curves of her body. I reached for the pouch she had still had wrapped about her waist, the only modesty that remained on her. The orb was within the pouch, and when she felt me touch it, she drew her hand down to remove mine from it.
“I felt its pulse when I touched it,” I said.
“You must not take it from me. I do not understand its power, but it is of some great worth. I will not lose it.”
“Nor will I take it unless it is given to me,” I said. I dipped the cloth into the bowl, and wiped the warm water below the binding of the pouch, where its strings hung across the light hair where her thighs opened.
Thin rivulets of water ran along her legs, and I brushed the cloth at the back of her knee and down to her calves. Finally, when I reached her feet, I took special care and massaged them with my hands to try and warm them.
She pressed the sole of her foot against my chest. I felt the now-familiar pleasure rise as she brought her left foot downward, playfully brushing it lightly between my legs. I drew a dry cloth from the wardrobe and began drying her skin, daubing at the droplets of water that remained.
She closed her eyes, smiling, moaning softly as I brushed the cloth down her belly.
I laid her down upon the soft bed and grabbed a vial of perfume. Opening one, I smelled the petals of sirus blossom, one I had known well in my youth, for in those years this blossom grew the world over. I dipped two fingers into the aromatic liquid and rubbed it along her ankles and daubed her shoulders with it. I took the scent and gently caressed her thigh. I held her feet until she parted them, slipping back the cord at the top of my trousers as I drew her knees away from her center.
I slipped between her legs and embraced her, bending toward her face, kissing the last of her tears back, and rocking the two of us slowly together. My lips wandered her pale flesh, and I remembered those I had loved, and how fleeting love could be—and yet, how the fires of lust and love rekindled easily between two souls to whom all others were enemy.
I thought of her sorrow and my need to sweeten it with closeness and warmth. I brought her some pleasure before the vibrations of the sun’s light closed our eyes within the darkened room.
6
In a vision during the day’s sleep, I stood before my friend Ewen. He sat upon a large round stone, like a millstone, chained to it from a brace at his neck, and along his arms and waist were more chains, moored to the stone.
He looked up at me with terrible, accusing eyes, and opened his mouth in an agonizing wail.
When I tried to comfort him, it was as if I was a ghost, and he could not see me. I tried to glance around his prison, but it was vague like morning mist, with a terrible burning sun beyond it, blinding me. I heard his voice cry out, “You abandoned us!”
7
Whether in dreams or during my waking hours, I was haunted by a sorrow I could not express, and such visions burned into my soul.
I had failed. I had left him there to his
terrible fate, and instead, I lay next to Pythia in a room of wealth and luxury, full in my belly, sated in my desires.
And Ewen—I could not stop imagining the torments visited upon him.
The last moment I had seen him, he had been painted with silver. A metal band had been drawn about his teeth and jaw to keep them locked in a trap so that he could not bite. Glass tubes had run from his body to crucibles and cups, drawing out his blood slowly, as the alchemist sought immortality’s essence. In Ewen’s eyes, I had seen a glaze of tears.
That moment would only be the beginning of his torments. I knew what the Red Scorpion machine would do. It would flay him and pierce him. It would take his last shred of human memory from him and leave a hollowed shell to be filled with the voice of Artephius himself, or worse, the Myrrydanai White Robes, who would use Ewen as their attack dog, a Morn.
I had failed him whom I had sworn to save. I had failed Calyx, and those of the Akkadite Cliffs and of the forest.
My children, whom I did not know, raised by their wolf-mother, Enora, counseled by the White Robe priests who were Myrrydanai in disguise.
I was no Maz-Sherah. There was no savior of my tribe.
We were the damned.
Everyone I had ever loved, destroyed.
Gone, I thought. All gone.
I pushed away these thoughts. I could not seek my grief, for it would bear down upon me as the heaviest of burdens. I could save no one with worry, with fear, with doubt or heartache. I could only save Ewen, and my tribe, and perhaps even my children, who did not know me, if I kept focused on our journey.
Dusk arrived, with its cooling fingers on my skin. I awoke, and Pythia stood over me, beside the bed.
“We haven’t moved?” I asked.
“The sails are slack,” she said. “You worry about your friends. You call to them in your rest.”
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