“Other priests?”
“From Myrryd there came three castes of priests. I am of the Kamr priests, who are of the blood and whose Medhyic aspect is of Lemesharra. Lemesharra, who was known here as Lemesharra Medh-Kamr, by which it meant, Lemesharra, Mother of the Sight. The staff is all we know of the Nahhashim priests, who are of the Serpent and of Datbathani Medh-Nahhash, who is the Mother of Serpents. You now take your place among the Nahhashim and Kamr here before me. But the priests called Myrrydanai are those who have had their flesh torn from them by Medhya herself—torn and devoured for her pleasure. Like Medhya, they are shadow vultures that follow her darkness.
“The Myrrydanai are five in all, but they can grow into many as a shadow grows with the sunlight, for they travel by day as well as night. They do not drink blood, but instead drink souls. They are the most accursed, set loose only to Medhya’s command, her bidding. She released them from the Veil because of your coming. They sweep the night to find those who will destroy you. But you will not allow it, for mankind brings us life, and we are born from human life, after all. Many vampyres may look upon mortals as flagons for drinking, but we must see them as sacred. Do you understand?”
“I have felt this sacredness,” I said. “And yet is any life sacred with our kind?”
“Life is more sacred than are we,” Merod said. “We are sent back to our bodies from the Threshold not as destroyers, though we may take life at times. We serve life and take it when necessary, but only as a sacrifice. For every life we take, we must preserve a hundred more. Just as the hunter preserves the deer of the wood after hunting the stag, so we must all be priests of blood, Falconer, and though we bring terror to mankind, we must also bring protection. All blood is drunk from the chalice of sacrifice. This is why Pythia destroyed me, with the alchemist urging her onward.”
“Who is the alchemist?”
“A man who goes by many names, but I knew him as Artephius. He enslaved my daughter, turned her into his whore, and gained the ancient sorceries of stone and blood, which mortal man is not meant to possess. Medhya blessed him, and the Myrrydanai listen for his command. He wishes for the prophecies to be fulfilled as much as Medhya does. He built my cage. He took my daughters from me.”
“You have great power,” I said. “How could you be subdued?”
He didn’t answer at first, then only said, “Perhaps someday you will know all. For now, Falconer, you have a journey ahead of you. You must know the final prophecy of the Blood of Medhya, for you will need to know it. It is written in my blood, within the vessel of my flesh.”
Waiting for him to speak again, I felt a rush of wind at my back, pressing me toward him. It was more than wind—a wall of pressure, invisible, took me and I felt as if I were floating toward Merod Al-Kamr. His sorcery was strong, even without the staff of Nahhashim.
Finally, pressed against him, he leaned to whisper into my ear, “There is a final prophecy you do not know, Maz-Sherah. It must be broken. It is of the end of all mortal life and the destruction of the Veil and the Glass, a time of monsters and madness. The only hope is to raise the Nahhashim. And only the possessor of the staff may do so. But it will be at the cost of many. Sacrifices will be made. Sorceries will burn the skies. Many will extinguish. Many will fail. The staff is the source. You cannot let any other take it from you. You cannot give it. Keep it close at all times, for within it is something more powerful than even the Veil, though I do not know what it may be.
“You are the One, and as the One, you are the All. All, One. One, All. Understand what this means, and you will begin your journey. Medhya is gathering skins of humans, and her Myrrydanai swallow souls. They create an army of the spirit using the Veil itself to bring the shades and banished demons into a monstrous existence. Even now they whisper in the minds of men, and seek to destroy those who have touched the Maz-Sherah. They are unleashing the Old Gods, as well, the beasts who have been held by the Veil for thousands of years. One day, the war will begin, and you must lead our tribe, and protect the flock of humanity both for their sakes, and for your own. You must protect those from whom you drink life, or life will be no more.”
“I waste time here,” I said, drawing back from him. “If what has befallen me has come to poison others...”
“You must first fulfill the prophecy,” Merod said. “You are here for the Feast of the Passing.”
I must devour you, I thought, as you wish. I must cut you down and eat your flesh so that what you know and what you possess comes into me. The Nahhashim and the wings, they are aspects of the power. The resurrection of the loins is another signal of the source. But it is the essence within you and your meat that is to transform me. But your blood will destroy me.
Within my mind, he whispered, The Anointed One of the Serpent may drink its own venom. My blood will become your blood. Your essence, my essence. All, One. My flesh retains the memories and the ways of Medhya. If you were not to kill me now, I would die before the next full moon beyond these walls. The One has come, the Maz-Sherah, the new priest has come, and my time is passed. Do not mourn me, for I have crossed many years of the life-in-death, and I am ready for my journey.
Merod Al-Kamr, the Priest of Blood, the King of the Alkemars, bowed down before me, as a humble servant. I unsheathed the black sword and in one stroke swung it down upon his neck, severing his head from his body.
A rush of air filled my throat, and I heard his voice within my mind:
Seek the knowledge of the Nahhashim. When the One becomes All, the All become One.
His head rolled beside my feet. I cautioned Kiya and Ewen to keep their distance, for I was not sure of what poison the blood might yet contain.
I lifted Merod’s head and began the duty that had been set forth before me. With each bite of his flesh, I tasted the history of our kind and acquired the divine fire of immortality that had been denied us since the priest had been betrayed by his own daughter and her lover, the one called Artephius.
When it was done, and there was nothing but the bones of the priest, I began to feel his past, and his childhood, as well as a moment when he worked, a slave in the fields, and a great wind came up while a crescent moon lay along the horizon of the flat, fertile valley. And as the grasses moved in the wind’s fingers, I heard Medhya’s voice, and the words of the Blood that would transform Merod and begin our race, our tribe.
She whispered to me from the shadows, “Priest, you are mine.”
As I stood there, drenched in blood, Kiya bowed down before me, as did Ewen.
When I asked them to rise, Kiya told me, “The falcon has devoured the serpent and has brought us the ancient sorcery. You are the king of our tribe. We feel it in the stream, even now, the change. You must anoint me. You are the source of our strength.”
Instinctively, I went to her and held the Nahhashim against her loins, and against her breasts, and against her scalp, and, finally, to her lips, and she tasted of it. And likewise I went to Ewen, and touched him in the places of power with the Nahhashim. As I did so, I felt the Serpent within the staff wriggle in my hand, and a fire grow from it.
They, too, felt my stream come into them. Within their bodies I invaded their souls, and burned at the weakness there, bringing them the light of my internal fire, a fire stoked by the flesh and blood of Merod Al-Kamr and of the source of All, the Serpent.
They, too, felt the surge of power, of the Old Talents of the Fallen Ones of Medhya. What was once merely legendary, was the history of our race.
The Nahhashim staff seemed to glow in my hand with a blue-and-red fire as if the powers of old, rekindled, had themselves drawn strength from our tribe.
And when they had been restored with the abilities of transmogrification, of transforming into creatures of the night, of sprouting wings along their shoulders to fly like dragons above the trees, above cities, and to move so swiftly as to appear to vanish, they and I praised the Serpent above even Medhya. For Medhya, our mother, had cursed us, but the Serpent had
bestowed blessings upon our kind so that we might prevail among the world that was ruled by darkness. We praised Lemesharra Medh-Kamr, and Datbathani Medh-Nahhash, and the Priest of Blood, Merod Al-Kamr, who had not been extinguished, but coursed within my blood, the All becoming One in me.
We would be immortal for many more years than the century that Kiya had feared. We might not overcome the silver that held a strange power over us, which was the mined ore of the fallen kingdom of Myrryd, nor would we defeat an enemy by daylight, for the sun could still destroy us with its slightest glance.
But our tribe had been restored to its rightful place among the Medhya’s children, and of our father, the Serpent who was within us, in the blood itself.
We stayed in that place long, but when at last we emerged into the night, having drunk our fill of the hanging bodies of Merod’s tomb, Kiya said, “It’s too late. It’s nearly too late.”
I knew what she meant—I could feel a movement in the stream, stronger, a pull backward. It was a call through the stream, back to the Hedammu, for our tribe had begun to suffer greatly.
The stream felt as if it were afire.
Chapter 19
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THE WHISPERING SHADES
1
Taking up the Nahhashim staff, I rose, my wings unfurling from my shoulders, brought about by my will. The others followed, and we three flew from the tomb and returned through the city of Alkemara to the milky sea. The barge we had abandoned no longer remained, but unfurling our wings—which came to us from our thoughts first, then grew swiftly from our shoulders as did the wings of devils—we flew above the choppy white waves, and though we heard the Alkemars calling to us, we ignored their entreaties.
Arriving on the far shore, we met Vali and Yset, who had stood guard all the while. They had tales of fighting off the Alkemars, who tried to reach them at the shore. After their anointing, we took off swiftly up through the passages of the mountains, emerging at the chasm’s doorway through which we had entered into the moonless night. We flew, and felt both fear and an incredible freedom, for we had the ancient sorceries within us. Ewen flew highest, a great dragon he seemed above me, and Kiya remained just ahead of me, watching the earth below for signs of any enemy. I felt bolts of lightning within me, as the flesh of the priest became part of my own flesh. Merod was not dead—he could not enter the Nowhere. But he was within me, I felt his presence with me, and his stream was like burning sand at my throat.
We moved fast, our wings beating with the dusty wind, traveling many leagues in minutes, and what had been a journey of several days on foot had become a night of travel by air. The memory of Merod’s voice in my mind: Medhya is gathering skins of humans, and her Myrrydanai swallow souls. They are creating an army of the spirit, using the Veil itself to bring the spirit to a monstrous existence. They already whisper in the minds of men, and seek to destroy those who have touched the Maz-Sherah.
We began the descent as our birth-grave city Hedammu came into view below us. It was lit with many torches, and the cries of both men and vampyre. The stream felt like a boiling water within a pit, and it drew us earthward on a path of heat.
A battle raged below us.
2
As the five of us descended swiftly into the midst of the fighting, I drew the black sword from its sheath, the Nahhashim staff in my other hand. I brought the sword down to the head of a soldier who had swung an ax against a vampyre who already lay dying.
I could not know then the author of this fight, or why my own countrymen—knights and commanders of the Hospitallers—had come to the poisoned city to find and destroy the tribe of the undead, but the Myrrydanai showed themselves between the light of the many torches and fires that had been set.
They were shadows of men with long, tattered robes and cowls covering their heads. They moved between and among the mortals, whispering as men fought and died. Their whispering was like locusts amid the battle. When I was not hacking at the soldiers who attacked, I was watching over the others of our tribe. I looked over to see Kiya slaughtering the human intruders who had come under the influence of those loathsome shades. Ewen, never far from my side, was gathering men up in twos and throwing them over the battlements with the newfound strength of the anointing.
As the torches flickered, the shades of the Myrrydanai crowded around one particular man, and when I looked to see who it was, it was a knight, commander of this army, in full gear, with his great broadsword hacking at a vampyre whose arms had already been sliced away. When finished with the vampyre, Myrrydanai surrounded him with darkness. They possessed his flesh and raised his sword, pointing it toward me.
I flew to him and became a wolf as I came down on his throat, tearing at his skin, all the while jabbing my sword between his ribs. Yet, even torn, he began speaking to me with the voice of the shadows. “Maz-Sherah,” he whispered, “Your son will be a sacrifice to the Veil, so that we may multiply among you and among mankind. When the war comes, Maz-Sherah, you and your tribe of blood-stealers will be no more.”
Then, in my human form, I held him there, and said, “What do you mean? Tell me of my son.”
“Your son’s blood will feed the dark, and your child will destroy you,” the voice whispered from the knight’s lips. “Despair, oh Hallowed One, for you have lost before the war has begun.” And then, in a woman’s voice, “Please, oh dear God, where are you, Aleric? Please, come to me. They’re burning me!”
I recognized the voice as Alienora’s.
I sliced his head off neatly from his body and kicked it away from me. The remaining soldiers had lit a pyre of vampyres with their torches, but most of the humans were dead, and soon those that remained ran from the handful of our tribe, ran like dogs from Hedammu, out into the purple light that broke, heralding the coming sun.
3
Near the great bonfire of bodies we watched as the smoke rose and curled, and the smoky blackness bore witness to the shadows of the Myrrydanai as they rose up into the sky and traveled on vulture’s wings across the sea.
Kiya had been wounded, but it would heal soon enough. Ewen flew down from a tower, his face and chest covered with blood. Yset’s wounds from the battle had healed; Vali crowed like a madman and cried out for his lost brothers. We looked at the extinguished of our tribe, and the dead of the mortals, and had no words for each other. We carried those of our tribe who could be gathered up into the deep corridors beneath Hedammu.
We found that dreaded chamber filled with those who had already gone to the Extinguishing, and laid our lost companions down among the ash and bone. I blessed them with the Nahhashim, and called to Datbathani and Lemesharra to carry them to the Veil itself, though I did not know if the Nahhashim staff was powerful enough for such a prayer to be answered. With these five, we sealed the chamber as best we could so that should mortals find us during the day, they might not enter before we had awakened. In that chamber, I set the Nahhashim staff in the lock of the doorway, on the inside that it might keep out all shadow.
I dreamed in that sleep of a great serpent that moved through murky water.
At nightfall, I told the four left of our tribe of the war to come, of our mother, Medhya, who created us and would destroy us.
I told them of our purpose as protectors of the flock of mankind, and of how we must only take the blood necessary for our sustenance, as a sacrifice from a sacred creature of man and woman. Even as I spoke, I felt in the stream their resistance to this, for they had been a pack of jackals before the journey.
Would they be ready? Would they follow me as the Maz-Sherah, even with the power to bestow the Sacred Kiss? Might they not raise their own armies of our tribe and destroy me? How could I be the leader of these vampyres who would be nearly indestructible?
4
I knew I had to return to my home to find Alienora and protect her from the shadows that whispered at her ear. My son might yet be alive, and I had a burning inside me to make sure that the Myrrydanai would not d
estroy either of those I had left in my past.
“You must stay here and gather others of the tribe where they exist,” I told Kiya. “You each now are able to bestow the Sacred Kiss. You will be the leader of Hedammu, and you must find other leaders to bring under our banner. Find us warriors, and princes, and those with rare talents. Find the scholars and those who seek to serve the Nahhashim.”
“As you will it,” Kiya said.
“We will speak in the stream,” I said. “When you hear my call, come to me. Raise a great army, for a night comes when we will need to overcome a terror greater than either man or vampyre can fathom.”
I took Ewen with me, for truthfully I could not bear a night’s journey without him, and he, too, desired to see our homeland again with me.
We spread our wings out and flew beyond the city, beyond the cliffs, across the midnight sea. I did not want to think of the possibility of a war between spirit and flesh, but I knew it would come. I knew that, as I fulfilled the prophecy of the Maz-Sherah, so Medhya’s prophecy of the great Last War would come.
Ewen and I slept that dawn in an ancient graveyard on the isle of Crete. We felt others of our tribe in the stream there, but did not have time to seek them out. We drank our fill from a maiden and her lover, but left them alive, yet weak. I spoke with Ewen about the nature of mortals within the realm of the tribe. He lay with me at the first light, and when we drifted into dream, he whispered, “I would walk through Hell with you if you wanted it.” His words reminded me of Alienora, and I dreamed of her, of our blasphemy in her father’s chapel as we made love, creating the son whom I might never see. The dream left me with equal parts sorrow and hope.
We raced the winds by night, by day finding graves or tombs or shallow caverns. We continued to feel other vampyres nearby, unknown to us, clans within the great tribe, and it gave us hope, though we did not seek them out. We could not stop; I felt the urgency grow as we flew over cities ancient and new, barbaric and sophisticated in design, until, finally, on a night of storms, we sensed our village and the Great Forest itself just beyond the horizon.
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