Blood Betrayal

by Martin V Parece

  A hand or, more accurately, the fingertip of a hand stroked his back as he slept on his stomach. It lightly moved up towards his neck where it lingered making small circles before it moved its way back down his spine. The touch was infinitely feminine, each finger feeling like a thousand tiny caresses, and once in a while, a long fingernail would scratch ever so slightly. The touch gave him gooseflesh and caused tiny electric sparks to go through his body by way of his spine, and he could have sworn he heard a nearly inaudible chuckle.

  He rolled over onto his back, perhaps in the hopes that the owner of the hand may have some other ideas as to what to do with it, and he suddenly realized that he was now truly awake. He lay in his Vault, a puddle of blood no larger than an ancient automobile’s oil slick as the dream faded away.

  And he hated every moment of his existence. Dahk recalled something his own parents had tried to teach him, something from the Bible about not gratifying the desires of the flesh. Fuck that shit, he thought. Sounds like that was thought up by some asshole who didn’t know what not having flesh was like. Oh, what I wouldn’t give for flesh.

  A tickle rippled through the blood pool, a sign to Dahk that perhaps it wasn’t a dream of a woman’s hand on his back that awoke him after all. He closed his eyes and concentrated, or would have if he had a face, and realized that the computer was registering a signal from somewhere in space, a signal with a male voice calling out for Doctor Harold Brown. Instantly, his lab replaced the dark space of his Vault, but Doc did not activate his computer system. Instead, he picked up an ancient device – a powder blue plastic telephone of late twentieth century design, twisted cord and all, that ringed incessantly.

  “Hello?”

  After forty four seconds, the man on the other end sounded somewhat confused, “Ummmm, Doctor Brown?”

  “Yes.”

  Another forty four seconds passed, “The Admiral would like to speak with you. Visually, please.”

  Doc did some quick math in his head. Waiting forty four seconds for an answer actually meant twenty two seconds for his response to arrive and another twenty two seconds for the other end’s response to return. He was no physicist, but he knew that C equaled about three hundred thousand kilometers per second, so a twenty two second delay meant the Admiral was some six and a half million kilometers out, which really wasn’t that far in astronomical terms.

  “No, this will have to do,” Doc replied, and he really didn’t know why he was being a pain in the ass about it. So, he decided to invent a lie to cover it, “Visual isn’t available right now. All my processing power is being used compiling something.”

  “Very well. I’m transferring you to Admiral Zheng,” said forty four second man after about a minute and a half. No doubt he conferred with Cho on the issue or maybe even the Iron Chinaman himself.

  “Doctor Brown,” came the crisp voice of Zheng, “I am dismayed at the inability to see your face.”

  “I don’t have a face,” Doc answered petulantly. “Do you have one ready for me yet?”

  “Soon, Doctor, soon.”

  “You sound funny, Admiral. Are you the same Admiral I talked to last time?” Doc asked, and he sounded childish even to himself, not that he cared. Suddenly, he wished he had turned on the computer to see if this Zheng looked any different.

  “I told you once, we’re all the same Admiral.”

  Doc nodded and wondered if that was the standard response from all of the Admirals or if he had actually spoken to this very Zheng the entire time. He leaned up against the counter casually. “So, what’s up, boss?”

  “Preparations are being made. Is the boy ready?” Zheng asked, irritation at Doc’s behavior plain in his voice.

  “More or less. He’s a bit busy murdering innocents right now.”

  “Excuse me?”

  “Well,” Doc explained, “you know how much he loves his mother, and he’s kind of upset that she ran away after he raped her three or four times.”

  The silence lasted a bit longer than forty four seconds, causing Doc to wonder if Zheng was in the process of moving further away from Rumedia or if he was truly taking a few extra seconds to digest this information. Honestly, Doc found the whole affair with Cor’El and his mother absolutely disgusting, but the boy’s psychological issues had served them well so far and would continue to be the means to Doc’s end.

  “It is of no matter,” Zheng finally determined. “I need to meet the boy in person. He needs to see who and what I am, and I need a demonstration from him as well. Lin Zexu will land tomorrow morning. There is a suitable site near the city you call Byrverus. I’ll have the coordinates transmitted to you. Arrange it with the boy.”

  “What about my body?”

  “Soon, Doctor. After I meet the boy and am satisfied, I must run an errand at the edge of the system. I shall return in a matter of weeks, maybe a month, in your time. At that point, I’ll come retrieve you from your Vault.”

  “Thank God,” Doc whispered.

  “No, thank me,” replied Zheng, and the line clicked and left Doc with a dial tone.

  Cor’El

  The young emperor jumped again from his throne; it was the third or fourth time he’d done so in the last hour, finding himself completely restless. Cor’El paced the platform upon which the thrones sat, he climbed up and down the burgundy carpeted steps leading to it, and he walked the hall from one end of the hall to the other. Every time he did this, the few guards who still remained watched him with a terrified gaze while trying to maintain their professionalism. He felt like a caged beast, a great predatory animal with nothing on which to prey, invisible bars of an unseen cell keeping him at bay.

  Over the last day or so, Cor’El had terrorized parts of Byrverus and almost the entire palace, even more so than when he staged his coup. He had been told his father was at the docks, and of course, that turned out to be false. The guard captain who told him the lie was suddenly nowhere to be found, having surreptitiously faded into the crowd somewhere along the way, so Cor’El had no choice but to visit his vengeance upon those who were there. Dock workers, sailors, merchants and even women and children fell beneath his sword and his magicks, mostly his magicks.

  His ire only worsened upon his return to the palace. Finding the place quiet, though after all he’d already slain hundreds here, he immediately went to his royal bed to find his empress no longer there. He raged and screamed, set fire to tapestries, curtains and carpets. He very nearly did the same to the bed before he stopped himself suddenly. Half dazed, Cor’El stumbled over to it and planted himself face down where he knew he’d left her manacled with the chains he had created to hold her powers in check. He breathed deeply through his nose, relishing her scent as he took it in.

  After a few minutes of this, his anger returned, and Cor’El stormed from the suite to stand in the corridor beyond. The men he had left to stand guard were gone, no doubt fearful for their own lives in their duplicity. A pair of armored figures turned a corner, heading toward him, and these were the first to receive his anger. When he was done with them, only molten metal and some blood and flesh remained to form a bubbling puddle of goo on the floor. He had spent the next several hours stalking the halls of the palace, looking for any to slay as horribly as he could manage. It was only after going for some time without finding a victim, as they were surely all hiding, that the need to hate abated, replaced by a heavy sleepiness.

  He awoke late in the morning, the sun already well above the horizon, and he stared out the window disdainfully. Apparently, he’d been far more exhausted than he had realized, but the longer he waited to go after them, the further away they would get. Not that it truly mattered. In the end they could only run to the ends of this world, and he would surely catch them. It just may be wise to start.

  Cor’El closed his eyes and reached out with his blood to find his mother, and she certainly was not within the walls of Byrverus. Expecting this, he pushed out further, several miles into the towns and villages beyond,
but still there was nothing. Yet nonplussed, he pushed out even further, fifty miles from where he stood at a window in the palace, and now concern and confusion crossed his brow. One hundred miles he reached with no sign of her, followed by even greater distances, distances that she could not have reached on a horse at a full gallop without stopping from the evening before.

  It occurred to Cor’El that, once freed from his chains, she could have willed herself to blow away, maybe as far as East Aquis or even beyond, but he discarded that idea almost immediately. No, she left because Cor came and took her, because he made her go with him. They almost certainly were together, likely somewhere on horseback. Cor took her from him, his one and only true love, and he wanted her back.

  He searched the countryside again, but this time he sought the man who would compete for his mother’s affections. Annoyance turned to frustration when nowhere in Aquis could Cor’El find the blood of his father, and they could not possibly have even gotten to the edges of the kingdom. Assuming the Dahken would be together, he extended his blood one more time, but found only a scattered lone Dahken here or there all across the West, none of them for whom he searched.

  Cor’El’s frustration mounted, for apparently his father had found some way to shield them from his ability to feel their blood, and this frustration turned to seething rage. He had murdered several more innocent Westerners, in some cases simply picking someone random off of the streets and plazas below, to vent his boiling rage before he finally simmered down.

  And it was then he realized that he was truly alone, for she was gone, and he didn’t know if he would be able to see her again, be able to love her again as he always had. The idea that she abandoned him seeded itself into his mind, and the more he tried to ignore it, to push it away, the more it forced itself to be dealt with. Melancholy set in, followed by deep sadness as lonely, cold and dark as the deepest ocean waters. Cor’El began to cry, slow tears rolling down his cheeks, and the more he wiped them away with the sleeve of his wool tunic, the more they returned. He couldn’t stop himself from crying, acute sobs wracking him unstoppably in a fit of tears as he lowered himself dejectedly into a corner of the bedroom. He hadn’t realized that he had been wailing as well, and the one Westerner that investigated the emperor’s well-being met an unfortunate end.

  Hours passed before he finally brought himself under control, and he stumbled into the hall with his throne, his reddened eyes the only sign of his recent sorrow. After only an hour or less, Cor’El realized the throne room itself imprisoned him, for here he was, apparent ruler of Aquis, but who did he actually rule. He claimed himself King of Aquis, ruler of all Rumedia actually, yet no one – not in the West, Dulkur or Tigol – had any idea of the fact or what it meant. Menak had returned to his side of the Spine to “prepare the lords” in East Aquis, but what did even that mean? Somehow, being King didn’t seem to feel the way he expected it would.

  These were the thoughts that forced Cor’El to pace under the watchful and frightened eye of the few remaining Westerners in the palace. He needed purpose, a task, a goal to work towards. He yearned terribly to chase after Cor and his mother, but he knew not where to search. And without that, he found himself completely directionless.

  He glumly plopped himself back onto the throne atop its dais and leaned his head against his closed fist. He blinked a few times, and each time he did so, Cor’El found it harder and harder to raise his eyelids again. He realized how exhausted he was from the morning, knowing that a short rest would likely do him quite a bit of good, perhaps help him think more clearly. He considered returning to his bed, but it would likely only bring grief back upon him. Besides, pushing himself up and walking suddenly seemed so very difficult.

  When Cor’El awoke, instantly alert, it felt at once that he had been asleep for both mere moments and hours. The latter appeared more likely, as the hall in which he sat upon his throne seemed dark as if night had fallen, though he couldn’t possibly have slept in that gods awfully uncomfortable chair for so long. Four guards stood about the hall at various entrances and exits, and yet they apparently hadn’t thought to light the room.

  The gloom struck Cor’El as odd however – it was almost as if the darkness obscured the outer perimeter of the hall, removing all color and causing it to appear in shades of gray. It almost appeared as if a barrier completely separated most of the hall from the center with its thrones, raised dais and carpeted steps, but even this area seemed muted, lit feebly as it was by a source he could not see.

  As if all this were not enough to lead him to believe that all was not as it should be, he spied a Westerner just past the invisible wall separating the hall into its two sections. The man was overall uninteresting, though Cor’El could make out little details through the obfuscation, dressed as plainly as any Westerner. He was likely just a courier or runner for some noble or aristocrat, but the fact that he stood completely frozen in place, midstride, made him stand out.

  “Sorry to disturb your nap,” Dahk, said from the throne next to Cor’El’s. He wore a humanoid shape made of slightly rippling, undulating deep red, much like a blood ghast, except seemingly much shorter and softer of build.

  “Don’t sit there,” Cor’El snapped.

  “I don’t think she minds that much. I don’t see her anywhere nearby,” Dahk jabbed, his form leaning forward, head turning back and forth in a mockery of looking for Thyss.

  “Don’t do that.”

  “Do what?” he asked innocently, leaning back in the throne.

  “Jest with me,” Cor’El elaborated. “Now, get off her throne.”

  “Okay, look kid,” Dahk said with a finger pointed at Cor’El’s face, “in your world you may be the ultimate badass, but this is my world. Just try something, go ahead. You’re going to find none of your ultimate badassery will work here. You wanna know why? Because when you see me, nothing you see is real. Your powers only work on the physical, and this is some serious mental shit.”

  Cor’El sat and stared at the god for a long moment, half in consideration of his words, half in confusion at the words he didn’t understand, but Dahk’s meaning was clear. Regardless, a moment of teenaged rebellious angst overtook him, confronted as he was with authority that he was fairly certain he could destroy should he so desire it. With his powers he tried to touch the form of the blood ghast sitting in front of him, and he raised one eyebrow with the disappointing realization that there truly was nothing there.

  “You done now?” Dahk asked. “Because look, I really don’t have time for this bullshit. Admiral Zheng is coming tomorrow to meet you.”

  “Here?”

  “No, you’re going to have to meet him. You know of the ships that he uses to travel the stars?” Dahk asked, receiving a nod in answer. “Okay well, they’re pretty big, and he needs a good, flat place to land. There’s a good spot about three miles southwest of the city. You’ll need to meet him there, but you have to wait until he lands before you approach. It would be dangerous.”

  “When is he coming?” Cor’El asked, and he raised an eyebrow again as Dahk’s form solidified into the rather mundanely human form of Doctor Harold Brown.

  “Just before noon.”

  “How do I find the place?”

  “It’ll be easy. When his ship breaks through the upper atmosphere, you’ll hear something like thunder. Keep a watchful eye to the southwest. As he approaches, you’ll eventually be able to see the ship. It’ll look like something on fire falling from the sky. You should be able to follow it from there, but like I said, don’t be too close when it actually lands.

  “Look kid, he’s really looking forward to meeting you,” Doc continued. “He will show you respect. You must respect him as well.”

  “He’s not coming to take me away yet, is he?”

  “No, no,” Doc replied, the relief plain on Cor’El’s face. “I know you need to find her first.”

  “I can’t feel her or Cor,” Cor’El stated glumly.

  “Yeah
, I know… He’s found a way to hide himself from us. Don’t worry, he won’t be able to do it forever. I’ll help you find him. Well, her. Don’t forget tomorrow morning, look to the southwest for Admiral Zheng.”

  Dahk suddenly vanished. Cor’El turned to look around the grand hall, and the light restored itself back to that of bright daylight, reaching into the deepest corners. Color fully returned throughout the room, and the Westerner Cor’El had noticed earlier frozen in place, courier or whatever he was, continued on his way as if he had never stopped, not daring to hazard a glance at the young and temperamental emperor.

  The Chronicler Paul Chen

  Once again, he found himself on the outside of the giant iron doors that granted entry into the God of Blood’s Vault. His desired entry hadn’t gone unnoticed by the lone denizen, and Paul waited patiently for several seconds, a virtual eternity in computer terms, before he decided that he was being directly ignored. He began knocking incessantly, a constant and hollow metallic thrumming that echoed deeply into the non-existent and limitless room beyond. When knocking for several minutes, until Paul’s knuckles were bruised and almost bloody, produced no results, he turned to saying, “Doctor Harold Brown,” over and over in various pitches and rhythms. Still nothing.

  Okay, he thought, what next? He began to sing the most horrific ear worm inducing thing he could imagine.

  “All you need is love.

  “All you need is love.

  “All you need is love, love.

  “Love is all you need.”

  No one ever accused Paul of being able to sing in his entire life. As a matter of fact, he was generally the butt of such jokes as, “Hey, Paul, who sings this song? Yeah, let them sing it, okay?” In addition to his complete inability to not only carry a tune but to even recognize the difference between a flat and a sharp, he only knew the chorus of the famous Beatles song. He sat on the cold floor, leaned his back up against the surprisingly warm iron door and sang at the top of his lungs. After his third time through, a piece of white chalk appeared in his hand, and Paul made a vertical hash mark every time he completed it. When there were four, he slashed a fifth sideways through the group before starting a new one.