by Garon Whited
“Looks like they got it,” I said, and realized I was still feeling a bit sulky. I hate being caged. “I don’t suppose one of you has conveniently hidden a set of lock-picking tools about his person just in case such an occasion as this came about?”
“Nope.”
“I had to ask.”
We chatted for a while, talking about life as a mercenary and life as a wizard. We found some similarities. They both involve a good deal of traveling—until you find a “good billet,” as they put it. Apparently, the vast majority of mercenaries don’t find a good spot to settle down as a private guard. Most get hired to go fight the barbarians in the north, guard a caravan or ship for a trip or two, or to help settle a dispute between two nobles—none of which is much better than a temp job.
Oddly enough, a large percentage of wizards—they aren’t all that common; a typical village might see a wizard pass through once a month at best—wind up in the same job; a bit of magical muscle on the battlefield is appreciated by a commander. If it’s going to be a longer war, a bit of magical bandaging also goes over very well with commanders. In both cases, the Church doesn’t like it, but someone pointed out that Right Will Prevail no matter what, which lessened the grumbling.
Knights, as opposed to mercenaries, are mostly commanders and managers, not lead-the-charge fighting men. Saved a lot of money with mercenaries that way, since there’s no such thing as life insurance. Although there were always a few who were leaders as opposed to commanders. It made me glad I was new to the job, as these young/old men didn’t think much of most knights; they were very forgiving of my title.
Our conversation came to an abrupt halt with the sound of the door being unbarred. I looked at it, then at the guys.
Leary, the most outspoken one of the bunch, shrugged and said, “I dunno. Ain’t feedin’ time.”
So we silently directed our attention at the door. The second bar was pulled, then came the rattle and rasp of the lock.
Instead of the whole cabal, there was only one, and she had her hood thrown back. She was worth looking at, too. Hair like ink, glossy in the candlelight, hung in a wavy mass down her back. Large, blue eyes, a small nose, a cupid’s-bow mouth, and high cheekbones nudged her over the brink from “pretty” to “beautiful.” The radiant glow of youthful vitality added even more, even though I suspected I knew where it came from.
We all just watched her as she glided forward to the edge of my cage. She didn’t seem to mind; maybe she was used to being stared at. I didn’t bother to rise. I was sitting tailor-fashion, legs folded, since it was either that, lie down, or stand. A gentleman would have stood for a lady. I didn’t think she was a lady.
She looked me over. I looked back. It’s hard to say who won the Searching Gaze contest, but I think it was me; she knew I was a vampire and I think it intimidated her a little. I wasn’t about to ask what she wanted; I was negotiating from a position of weakness. The only thing I had on my side was the fact she wanted something or she wouldn’t be here.
Eventually, she spoke.
“How long have you been a vampire?”
I shrugged. “Not long enough, it seems.”
“Answer the question,” she snapped.
“Go to hell,” I replied, smiling, fangs still out. I leered at her suggestively and fixed my gaze on her throat.
She lifted her hands and I could feel the power building. I made a warding gesture and prepared for a slugging match. A bad one, I reflected, since I couldn’t attack. The circle wouldn’t stop her from lobbing spells at me.
She paused mid-gesture, watching me closely.
“You said you needed magical training,” she accused.
I just sat tight and ready; the spell she had in her left hand looked like it was a mind-affecting one. I wasn’t sure what it did and had no desire to discover by experiment.
“Your defensive spell seems quite proficient to me,” she prompted.
“Put down the spell you’re holding,” I said, “and I’ll talk with you. No interrogations.”
She shrugged and dismissed the spell. I relaxed my wardings.
“As you wish. I note that you possess a remarkable facility with the Art. How long have you been a nightlord?”
“What difference does it make?” I countered.
“Little enough, I suppose. Rather, I should ask how long you have been a wizard.”
I pressed my lips together for a moment, glaring at her. “What difference does it make?” I repeated. “I’m sure you have a foolproof method for sucking out a pint or two of blood when you want it. I’m just another piece of meat, albeit one you’re bleeding in a different fashion from the rest.”
She sniffed. “I am interested in your earlier offer.”
“Oh?”
“Yes.”
“Too bloody bad,” I replied, voice low and intense. “I offered it and it was refused. Now I’m determined to be revenged. I will find a way out of this circle. When I do, I will hunt down every last one of you. I will rip a year from your life every day while you’re forced to watch your body wither with age—I’ll build a room of mirrors, just so you can see! I’ll keep you alive as long as I can, just so you can see the withered old crone you’ve become. Toothless, nearly hairless, with skin like crumpled paper and a voice like a raven! All except your eyes—your eyes will remain perfect so that you can see the hag you will be!”
Her face grew white as I spoke, then a rush of blood came to her cheeks and she turned away, walking quickly out the door. She retained enough presence of mind to lock it, more’s the pity. Not that it would have done us any good to have it open; everyone was chained.
The guys applauded. I started in surprise and stared wildly around at them; I’d forgotten all about our audience. I think I tried to blush; hard to do without a heartbeat. But I stood up and bowed as best I could while they wheezed and whooped and clapped.
“Thank you, thank you. I try my best,” I offered as they wound down.
“And a right fine job y’do!” was the answer. “Haven’t seen any of ’em flinch like that b’fore! Not even when the Cardinal yammers at ’em! Huzzah!”
Verg had my full attention.
“Cardinal?” I echoed.
“Aye. Big man in the clergy, I reckon. I saw him once, before I got picked for age. Chewed righteously on a buncha butt about their aim bein’ off for huntin’ nightlords. I didn’t reckon there was any, y’know, ’till you come by. Never believed in ’em, m’self. No offense, o’course; y’don’t seem t’be half so nasty as legends’d make y’out to be.”
I thought about that. If these magicians were working with the Church… well, why they were keeping me was obvious. You don’t turn over your ticket to immortality to the people who want to destroy it. But if they’re willing to go to such lengths to stay young, then why work for the Church at all?
To find nightlords, of course. To become immortal themselves.
It made me wonder how many of the Church’s magicians were in it for similar reasons. If they were in it for the potential benefits—there’s a whole other world, at least, to explore and exploit—instead of from pious faith… maybe they could be persuaded to switch sides.
“Thanks,” I said. “I try to focus mainly on people better off dead anyway. But giving our captors nightmares doesn’t get us any closer to being out of here. Maybe I should have considered her offer.”
“Maybe. But t’was worth it to see one o’them snotty buggers get a comeuppance,” was the general opinion. I gathered they didn’t have a high opinion of their captors. Then the door started to unbar again.
How many of them are going to sneak down here and try to wheedle me in one night? I wondered.
It was another of the women. That didn’t surprise me. A man might be concerned with staying alive and strong, but women want to stay young and beautiful, as a rule. Men don’t feel too much difference between twenty-five and thirty-five, but women sure do. Seemed reasonable that the ladies would be the f
irst to check up on the prospects of becoming immortal.
She was another beauty, with chestnut hair in an elegant coiffure, highlighted with jeweled combs. Large, dark-green eyes, high cheeks, and a small chin gave her an almost elfin appearance—possibly more than appearance, given the world I was in.
The lady looked me over, then walked around the circle, still eyeing me. When she returned to her starting point, she lifted her arms and folded them together.
“Whatever shall I do with you?” she asked, possibly rhetorically. I took it as rhetoric and did not answer. She sighed. “You realize that your powers are contained within the circle, and that you cannot possibly escape?”
“I realize it appears to be so,” I acknowledged. I wasn’t comfortable at all with the fact, either.
“Then capitulate quietly and things will go easy.”
“You forget something.”
She arched a fine eyebrow. “Oh?”
“Appearances can be deceptive,” I pointed out, attempting to be as menacing as possible.
Her own appearance was somewhat deceptive; she had seemed utterly calm and self-possessed. But my comment, delivered in a low tone of menace, showed me a crack in her mask. She glanced at the floor, double-checking to make sure the circle was unbroken, and then she laughed softly.
“You are more dangerous than I thought,” she said, “especially to one’s peace of mind.”
“Do you realize what you have done?” I asked, standing and drawing on my chains to tighten them.
“Fully.”
“Do you, now? I wonder. How do you see this little relationship ending?” I asked. “You and I go our merry ways once you have what you want? We call it quits, no harm, no foul, and we just walk away?”
She didn’t meet my eyes. “Possibly.”
“Don’t believe her!” shouted Eddon. “She’ll lie to your face. She did to me!”
The lady lifted a hand and gestured with it in Eddon’s direction; he gagged and choked, then fell silent.
“I didn’t need him to tell me that,” I said, trying to sound casual. “You and I both know it isn’t going to go that easily.”
That brought her attention back to me; I hoped it also brought Eddon back his breath.
“It need not be unpleasant,” she replied. “I could make it—” her voice dropped to a low whisper, “—very pleasant.”
“What is this, ‘Make A Deal With The Vampire’ night or something? I already had one of your cohorts down here asking for a bite. What do you want?”
She looked so startled, I nearly laughed. Her expression was almost comic.
“Another?” she demanded. “Who?”
“Like I know your names!” I snapped. “Just another cowled figure to me. You go figure out who it was. It’s not my problem.”
She looked worried. “And the deal?”
“None of your business. Any deal you try to make you’ll have to go at on your own. Like I said, what do you want?”
“Life,” she replied, and I must have looked startled at the intensity of her tone, for she continued. “I want to live. I spent years, trapped in a failing, faltering old body. I cursed that the appreciation of youth came to me only when old; what point to love living if one cannot enjoy it? I want to live,” she repeated, hugging herself with both arms. “I want to be able to run, to feel strong and graceful and beautiful. Forever.”
I regarded her for a long moment, then said, “Tell me one thing.”
“Perhaps.”
“Someone called the Hunt and sent it after me a few months ago. Who was it?”
She worried her lower lip and considered.
“Melloch,” she admitted. “He felt that your blood would be enough. If not, we could create a nightlord from one of these,” she gestured around the room, “and continue our experiments.”
Melloch. A name I would remember for later.
“That’s the guy who was doing the talking?”
“Yes.”
I nodded. “All right,” I answered. I mentally filed his face—where had I seen it before?—under the name and marked it as pending business. “I’m not promising cooperation. Not caged like this. And I won’t cooperate simply to gain my freedom; you owe me that already, and then some. As long as I am a prisoner, you’ll get no deal, no matter what you do. You’ll have only my immortal hatred.”
“Perhaps I have a solution.”
“I’m listening.”
“What if I were to give you a slave? One that you could turn into a nightlord? Then we would have no need to keep you; you could leave your offspring here with us and return to whatever you were about.”
I thought about it. It would certainly mean they had a steady supply of vampire blood for their experiments. It might even get me out of this circle.
There were just two things wrong with it. First, there was no guarantee they would actually turn me loose. Second, I wouldn’t do such a thing to some nameless person. I might feed on someone when I’m hungry or kill them when they’re trying to kill me, but to change them into a nightlord and leave them in the clutches of a bunch of magicians for experimentation?
That’s a little much, even for me.
“No.”
“Why not?” she asked.
“I could try to explain, but you wouldn’t understand.”
“You are so certain?”
I looked at the men against the walls, my circle, and my chains.
“I, the unholy fiend of darkness, object on moral grounds. So, yes, I’m certain you wouldn’t understand.” That went home. She flushed a nice shade of pink.
“It would be a reasonable exchange,” she crooned, trying to sound persuasive. “One nightlord for another. You could walk free.”
“Nothing doing. There’s no guarantee you wouldn’t just keep both of us. I hate being caged and I won’t make it happen to someone else without a better reason than ‘It would be convenient for me.’”
“And what if I were to… free you?” she asked, softly. “What would you do?”
“I would see to it that you and I and these fellows here were spirited away and hidden. Then we can discuss what you want and what I want. If we cannot reach an agreement, I am willing to part company. If we can work together, I will be pleased. I’m only willing to be that gracious because you did answer my question about Melloch. It shows that someone here—you—may have a reasonable side.”
She thought about it.
“However,” I added, “this deal is only good for any one of you. I will make no deal with the group, or coven, or cabal. Whoever takes me up on it first gets the chance at immortality. Then that person can work with the rest of them—if they feel like it.”
She looked startled, doubtless recalling someone else had already visited me. She turned and left without a word.
I spent the rest of the night fiddling with the links of my chains. The chains were attached to heavy metal rings that projected from the floor—it looked like they were set in concrete. So I worked on those rings, bending them back and forth to weaken them. I might need to snap them and move quickly, later. Maybe not, too, but it doesn’t hurt to be prepared.
When sunrise came, it was nasty. Apparently, I’d done a lot of regenerating during the night. Probably from multiple knocks on the skull, at a guess; I didn’t notice anything else that needed fixing. In minutes, I was feeling much more human. A filthy, stinking human, but human again. I also noted it was cold in our communal cell, and very poorly lit; my eyes took a while to adjust to the gloom.
Most of the guys were sleeping; made sense, as I had been brought in during the middle of the night. I laid me down and tried to relax and wait. Not easy to do on a cold stone floor while wearing chains in a thaumaturgic circle.
My wait was lengthy. The only break in the monotony of snores was a servant; he came in to hand out breakfast. He was a wizened little guy, shuffling about with a rolling cart and ladling out something like gruel. My fellow-prisoners got up and held o
ut their hands, forming a sort of bowl. Nobody got implements; they just sucked it down as quickly as they could.
He made a circuit of the room and departed without feeding me. Ah, well. I wasn’t very hungry anyway.
I found myself hoping he fed them more than once a day. Curiosity got the better of me again.
“So, do you get fed often?” I asked.
“Three times a day,” Leary answered, licking at his hands. “Ain’t enough, but it serves. He’ll be handin’ out a piece of meat and cheese around noon.”
“I see. Well, hopefully they’ll feed me this evening.”
A couple of the guys shuddered. Leary chuckled, an evil sound.
“Don’t go lookin’ at us!” he declared. “Ain’t hardly a bite fit t’eat left.”
I laughed with him. “Not at all! I’m hoping for a sheep.”
“Y’can eat sheep?” he asked, looking puzzled.
“Sure. Anything alive and moving. Why? Did you think I could only stalk human prey?”
“Yup.”
I blinked. “Really.”
“Yup.”
“Where did you get that idea?”
“Ever’body knows it. Listen t’the priests at Festival every year; they does go on ’bout how nightlords fed on men,” he said. “Hell, it don’t seem like nightlords ever fed on anythin’ but people, and damn near ate us all, what with bitin’ and makin’ others inta nightlords, and them bitin’ others, and so on.”
“That would be a little silly, yes,” I agreed. “And that’s not how it works, anyway. You can’t become a… a nightlord just by being bitten. You could feed me a little blood every night for years and never run that risk.”
“Now, y’see, there’s another thing,” Plud interrupted. “I was always told a nightlord had to drain all your blood. Couldn’t stop even if it wanted to, once it got teeth into you.”