Forever

by Natalie J. Case

  The exception to that was Adroushan's village, which had grown in recent years. They had long forgotten Adroushan, but their faith was still strong. Life in the town revolved around their god, and the rites to honor him. The Clan seldom ventured there, remembering Adan's death and Crenoral's decree, but the young members of the Clan knew nothing of either, and one of Vahe's children chose the holy man's daughter as his bride. The town rose up and made to assault the manor in retribution and to cleanse the mountain. With crude spears, pitchforks, and torches, they made their way up the mountain and set upon us.

  The battle was utterly one sided, but the Clan relished it, throwing themselves into the fray with wild abandon. It was in the middle of this melee that I fled. I hoped that they would believe me dead in the fighting, lost in battle. With only a small leather satchel filled with the baubles and trinkets I had stolen and a few robes that I had traded Urel for, I slipped into the darkest shadows, clawing my way up into the highest, deepest crevices of the mountain. There I hid myself for close onto a year, surviving on the blood and occasionally, the flesh, of whatever animal happened my way.

  When I at last allowed myself to believe that my Family would no longer look for me, I made my way down the other side of the mountain, putting as many miles between me and them as I could each night. I kept away from villages and towns, so much more prevalent than they had been before, keeping to the dark roads and treacherous paths. I was hungry, and wanted blood. I knew that if the situation presented itself, I would kill, and the Family would somehow find me. With each passing night, I forced myself through an increasingly populated world, ever southward toward the cities I had heard rumored of in far off places I almost did not believe existed.

  The forests and hills I was accustomed to slowly gave way to a fertile plain, alive with groves of fruit bearing trees and crops of grains. From the descriptions Tova and Urel had given, I was still more than five nights travel from the city they had called Tadmor. The green plain gave way to sand and the long walk across a desert. It fascinated me, sand for miles with no water in site. I had only known sand on the shores of the sea.

  None I had ever known, but Tova and Urel had been this far south. It frightened me to think how alone I was, but it comforted me as well. I was free of Crenoral, and had only my own desires to contend with. To the south, across the desert with its black expanse of nothing, Tadmor rose from the sand, a city where rich men built opulent homes and, to hear the stories told by the brothers, anything could be yours for the right price. An oasis gave birth to fruit trees and greenery that harbored life, and the city reeked of it, of sweating bodies and animals, of birth and death and all the stages in between. It called to me, and repulsed me. The scents, the sounds, the air hummed with everything I wanted.

  I was drawn in by the massive rows of homes and shops selling pottery and fabrics, all closed and shuttered as I flitted through the night streets. The people were fascinating, their lives so much different from those I had known. I wanted to fit myself inside their lives, to learn their secrets. The rich homes near the city's center were endlessly captivating, with walls painted in bright colors and beautiful shapes, and fountains of water in gardens of flowers and fragrant trees

  Even amongst the poor I found things to entice, the scent of bread baking, the banter of children fighting sleep. It reminded me of those things that had brought me to Adroushan's village again and again, only on a much grander scale.

  As much as I hungered for it, I fought myself, my nature, and my convictions. I fed little, when I had no choice, and what I did take made me ill. I found it hard to sleep with so many lives so close at hand, the hunger burning brightly inside me. The faces of those I had killed began to haunt my dreams when I did sleep, hidden in stable stalls or dark alleys. Mortal food did little for me, fueling the need for blood with its heat and the pleasure of its taste and texture. I fled Tadmor, ever west and away from my past. I was despondent, unable to wrench myself free, either of the driving desires that propelled me, or of the guilt for the things those perverse desires drove me to.

  The other cities were the same, and I fled them each in turn. It was then that I was to meet the man who would change the course of my life forever. He had been a healer, a physician. He lived in a small home on the road into Abydus, and he found me in the dust beside that road, less than an hour until sunrise, defeated by my own hunger and the illness that came with feeding it. I was exhausted and ready to let it end. I saw him approaching, and felt the Change come over me, uncontrollably. He flinched a little, but squatted nearby. After a long moment, he held out his hand. Hesitantly, I took it, but darkness consumed me before I could rise to my feet.

  I awoke in a cool, darkened room of his home, the smell of blood and oil strong in my nostrils. He sat in a chair near the bed, holding a wooden goblet which he held out to me in offering. I took it in a shaky hand, sniffing before raising it to my lips. I drank deeply of something that tasted like the blood my body craved, and yet not, feeling the warmth of returning strength move through me.

  “Easy now,” he said, his soft voice thick with an accent I couldn't place. “I do not know how you will react to the formula.” He took the goblet back and poured more of the dark pink fluid from a bottle on the table beside him. “You are very weak. We should wait.”

  “Who are you?” I asked, watching him rise and move to tinker with some jars in the soft light of an oil lamp.

  “I am Damen, a simple physician. You are one of them.”

  The way he said it made me think he knew exactly what I was. I raised an eyebrow and crossed my arms. The liquid was stretching its fingers out into my body, and I craved more of it. “I've heard the rumors, the stories, but I've never believed them to be true. When I saw you, I knew,” he said, one hand gesturing in my direction.

  He turned to face me fully, his expression one of examination. “How do you feel?”

  “I want more.”

  He smiled, and returned the goblet to my hand. I drank more slowly, running the liquid around my mouth to analyze it better. It was warm, not hot as I might have preferred, and slightly thick, like a heavy syrup. I could taste something of an animal blood in it, but it was unlike any animal I knew. “What is it?” I asked, handing him back the empty goblet once more.

  “Let's call it an experiment,” he responded. I stretched, feeling better than I had in weeks, months even.

  “I'd like to know what is in it.” I said, sitting up a little. I noticed he moved back away from me.

  “A little of this, a little of that. I had hoped to be able to replace blood lost from wounds. It falls short of that.”

  Perhaps it did, but my body was fooled. It was the greatest blessing of my cursedly long life. I could feel it bringing life to my body, restoring the health my battle against myself had ravaged. I craved more, but thought it wise to pace myself. “I thank you, Damen. It seems to have done wonders for me.” I shifted just a little for comfort and crossed my arms. “I have need of sleep, if I might trouble your hospitality a little more. I give you my word, no harm will come to you while I tarry here.”

  He nodded tightly. “It is not yet noon. Sleep. I will make more for when you wake. Perhaps then we can talk more.”

  He extinguished the lamp and ducked through the curtained doorway near the foot of the bed, and I got the briefest glimpse of sunlight streaming into the room beyond. In the dark left behind, my eyes adjusted quickly, sweeping over the mud-brick walls, the window, covered by a dark, thick cloth. Shelves lined one wall, crowded with jars and drying herbs and the table that dominated the center of the room held an assortment of animal hides, bones and teeth.

  With a deep breath, I closed my eyes, listening to his movements in the next room as I let the fatigue pull me downward into sleep. It was not quite sunset when I woke again, instantly alert as the unfamiliar sounds of my surroundings registered and the memories of the morning shifted into place. Opening my eyes, I found the goblet on the corner of the t
able, beside a ceramic bottle. I rose slowly, sliding bare feet onto the cool earth and standing to reach across to the table. A sniff of the bottle's contents confirmed that it was the formula and I poured a goblet full and drank it quickly.

  Not quite the rush of blood, but warm and fulfilling in its own way, the formula was satisfying, as nothing had been since Adroushan's death. I drank two more goblets full in rapid succession before I noticed that my host had also left a basin of water and a comb made of bone on the table, and on the end of the cot, a pile of cloth, that revealed itself to be a clean robe of a soft beige and a wrap as I picked it up.

  It had been a long time since I had last bathed, and I took the opportunity gladly, rinsing weeks of dust from my skin and out of my hair before donning the fresh linen robe and sitting on the bed with the comb to detangle my long hair. I braided it then, to keep it from knotting up again before pulling the other length of cloth around my shoulders.

  Peeking around the curtain, I could see the room beyond was mostly dark, with a ruddy glow in the far corner where the setting sun reached in through the window. My host was eating at a low wooden table, and looked up as I came through the door.

  “Thank you, for the change of clothes,” I said softly. “And the … food. I feel much better now.”

  “Good.” He set aside his bowl of a thick looking porridge and stood up, lighting a number of lamps to illuminate the room around us. It was a small home, but comfortable with a place to prepare food and to entertain guests. The door I had come through sat off toward the back of the main room and opposite another door that I imagined led to his private chambers. “May I examine you?” he asked, setting a lamp on the table near me. I nodded and sat as he gestured for me to come closer.

  In the light of the lamp, I could see that he was older than I had first thought, probably closer to fifty than thirty. His fingers were stained a dark brown, darker even than the skin that stretched tightly across high cheekbones. His dark hair was shot through with gray and silver and his dark eyes glittered in the light of the oil lamps as he peered closely at my skin. He listened to my heart and tested my muscle tone with his fingers. When he was done, he invited me to sit with him among the soft pillows and talk of our lives.

  He had come from a place called Epidaurus, where he was descended from a long line of healers, but had left them when his work was denounced. His first tries with the formula had led to the death of his patients and his fellow physicians had driven him out. The formula had changed and a second attempt followed, this time in Athens. More deaths had led to further exile, and so on, until he had given up and settled there, outside of Abydus. His life's work may have come to naught, if he had not heard the rumors of our kind, and thought to take one last chance on his formula when he saw me.

  I told him of my journey, of my need to free myself of the demon within, and confirmed for him the rumors of the Clans. I did not know how many of Bestin's or Dovan's clans might have gone further west, but it was obvious that some had. I had seen no signs of the others since I had left them, indeed, hadn't thought to fear them finding me since I had left Tadmor, yet rumors of our kind had reached into Athens and beyond. I was not alone as I might have once assumed.

  He never made a formal invitation for me to stay, nor did I ask. Yet, I spent the next ten years with him, learning to speak his native language and several others that he spoke, learning to make his formula for myself, learning to trust myself with people again. He taught me the care of the sick and the wounded, simple math and awakened in me a new hunger, the hunger to learn.

  He was an old and happy man when he died, and I was more prepared to continue my journey, once again mindful of the voices on the night breezes, and the passing of others in the night. I set out to continue what had begun for me, learning.

  Chapter 4

  My desire to learn carried me from that little house near Abydus to Athens, to Mantinea, searching out knowledge. In Mantinea, I learned of an academy to the south across the waters of the Mediterranean, where scholars taught lessons in math and reading, and skills for careers in public service and the military. More than all of that was the library, rumored to be the largest of its kind in the known world, it was a collection of written words, clay tablets, beaten metal etched with symbols and animal skins, stretched thin and beaten into sheets to be marked with charcoal and plant dyes.

  It was my love of the written word that drew me to that academy, and it was in that library where I would meet Jesse. He was young when we first met, not even twenty and handsome. Dark curly hair ringed his angelic face to make him appear so much younger than he was, and he had deep, caring eyes. I fell in love with him long before he even knew of me.

  I slipped through the shadows in the night, haunting the narrow confines of the library's shelves after the students and scholars had withdrawn to sleep, with only a small oil lamp to read by. Long, low tables dominated the eastern side of the room, with lamps hung above them to light the space. Immediately closest to these were painted and decorated chests holding clay and stone tablets, most from the local area, some from the north and east. Arranged by origin, the chests stretched from the first table to the distant wall, and in that final chest lay the broken remains of tablets from the mountains of my homeland. Beyond the rows of chests came shelves of wood and stone, crowded tightly together and piled with fragments of stone and clay, and metal sheets with strange etchings on them, from the north. Seemingly randomly placed were freestanding stone monuments, carved with words boasting of victories and the reigns of kings already forgotten to most of the world. Most fascinating to me however were the shelves of parchment rolls, some nearly as tall as I, filled with words in Greek, Latin, and languages I had yet to learn.

  Late one evening, long after everyone else had gone to supper, Jesse was still there, pouring over parchment and ancient clay tablets, haloed in a gentle circle of light from oil lamps scattered around the table. I watched him from a shadowed corner, keeping my distance, yet curiously interested in his reading. The materials he had gathered had a mystical nature to them, vague references to a creature of the night. Long into the night he read and studied, scribbling notes as he translated from Greek to his native language, and tried in vain to understand languages from as far away as the mountains of my home and beyond into the lands behind the setting sun. The next night was the same, and I simply observed him. Each night he set a frantic pace, setting up his table with new material, as the other students were pairing up for evening pursuits of less scholarly natures. Nearly a week passed like this, with me passing ever closer to him as my desires for him grew bolder, yet he hadn't even noticed me.

  My boldness grew as I ventured into the library from my hiding place in the dank back buildings of the complex earlier than ever, and sat myself with a tablet of poetry at the table nearest the one he always filled with his work. As he sat, he looked my way at last. I nodded, a slight smile playing about my lips and he returned the gesture. That was all, but it sent a shiver of excitement through my heart … his smile made me want him all the more.

  He often worked nearly to morning, murmuring beneath his breath as he pieced together the stories of my Family from tales of ancient evils and demonic creatures. He believed in them, knew that they existed, and was determined to find proof there in that room full of words. I imagined, watching him as I did, when a certain haunted look would come across his face, that he must have at some point in his young life seen one of us, lost someone close to him to one of us … and somehow lived to tell the tale. Only, he told nothing. He rarely spoke, and when he did it was only that polite conversation of society that said nothing of substance.

  Around us, his society was rigid, structured. He was one of a community of Hebrews living and working at the schools, a passionate group of men that followed the laws of their god and remained separate from the other groups of men and women who studied there. I passed quietly among them, unseen, unknown, save by him. Their rites and rituals filled the
air with their strange tongue, voices raised in prayer to the gods that I knew nothing of. Many of the scrolls and parchments contained in that library were merely long recitations of the rituals themselves, or their origins. Some were truly exquisite and beautiful in a way that transcended the ritual itself, but in a way I couldn't understand, only appreciate.

  There came a time when I decided that I wanted him, in all the ways I can want. I was no longer content to watch from the shadows. I approached him, tantalized him with the ability to translate a text from my homeland, drew him close to me. It was a slow process of gaining his trust, of sharing ideas, thoughts. His belief was strong, but not entirely that of his people. Something had altered him significantly in his youth. He never did say what it was, but it was always there, somewhere beneath the conversation. He was charismatic, passionate, and argumentative. I started out trying to seduce him, but in the end, it was I who was seduced.

  We would sit for long hours discussing some obscure text or a bit of poetry. Or, we would debate the nature of life, or evil, or gods. Other times we would each be caught up in ourselves and pay little attention to the other.

  “Is it so difficult for you to believe that there is evil so dark that it cannot stand the light of day?” he asked, exasperated one evening when we had been debating around and around the subject.

  “Of course not, Jesse, I only think you shouldn't hunt it so closely.” The last rays of the sun had long since vanished, leaving heavy shadows hanging in the room where we debated, our table filled with texts of contradicting theories regarding the Clans. “There are some things better left to the night. Come, let me take you to dinner.”