Bachiyr Omnibus

by David McAfee

  He left Ramah’s chambers and closed the massive oak and steel door behind him. Only when he was outside did he allow himself a relieved smile.

  Ramah hadn’t seen her face. He didn’t know.

  His secret was safe.

  His mood as he left Ramah’s chambers was a great deal better than it had been when he arrived.

  Epilogue

  Mistress Baella walked through the door to her keep. Feyo stood just inside the entryway, a large glass of red liquid in his hand. Blood for the Mistress, altered via a special psalm—developed by Mistress Baella herself—to still be viable long after the host was dead. She kept a store of it downstairs. She took the glass and quaffed it, then stormed through the room. Feyo followed close at her heels in case she needed him.

  “It did not go well?” he asked.

  Baella turned around and reached up to grab him by the shoulder, then she pulled, forcing him to bend down to her height. Her nails dug into his cheek as she grabbed his face and shoved it to the side, then buried her fangs in his neck.

  Feyo did not struggle at all. They had been in this position many times before. He knew his role and dropped to his knees to give her a better angle. It only hurt for a moment, and afterward he slept for a night and a day as his body recuperated. But when he woke he would be as strong as five men, and faster than a deer. It was a good trade.

  He realized something was wrong when he started to feel dizzy. Normally, Mistress Baella stopped drinking after a minute or so, but this time she’d gone on much, much longer.

  Realization struck him like a hammer.

  “No,” he whispered. He grabbed her head and tried to pull her mouth from his neck, but it was like trying to move a bronze statue. His arms bulged with muscle, enhanced by the strength she had lent him, but he could no more move her than he could move the mountain on which her keep was built.

  “Why, Mistress?” he asked. His vision faded, and the strength left his limbs. In far too little time, his arms fell to his sides and his legs buckled. He simply lacked the strength to keep them functional.

  “Why?” he asked again, just before he closed his eyes for the last time.

  ***

  Baella stood and wiped the blood from her lips with the back of her sleeve. She looked down at the body. It was much paler than she thought it would be. She had not planned to kill him when she arrived, but his question irked her, and she was in no mood for it. Besides, she had a powerful psalm to work tonight, and fresh human blood was far stronger than the stuff she stored in her cellar. Tonight she would need all the extra energy she could get.

  Feyo’s blood coursed through her veins, igniting her nerves along the way, and the warmth made her feel better. Her plan had failed, but there would be other opportunities. After all, she had an eternity to try again.

  But for tonight she would have to content herself with something else. She strode to the stone stairs on the far side of her foyer, headed for the topmost room of her keep. There she would find the mystical items she needed for tonight’s work, as well as the means to send the effects of her psalm across vast distances.

  Time to send Ramah another dream.

  THE END

  79 A.D.

  By David McAfee

  Cover design by Jeremy Robinson

  Cover Image provided by iStockPhoto

  This is a work of fiction. The events depicted in this story, though based on real events, are entirely products of the author’s imagination or are used in a fictitious manner and should not be construed as fact.

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  Visit David McAfee on the web at mcafeeland.wordpress.com

  Twitter: DavidLMcAfee

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  Email: Monkeyfeet73@yahoo.com

  ---For Ember, the Littlest McAfee.---

  TABLE OF CONTENTS

  Prologue

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Epilogue

  Prologue

  Somewhere in the Carpathians

  Spring, 79 A.D.

  HERRIS walked through the stone halls of the ancient castle, marveling at the fact that the crumbling walls had not yet fallen into the leafless valley below. He supposed she had something to do with that. Her power was great—at least as great as his own, though he was loathe to admit it. But was she grateful for it? Of course not. Like him, she had been given power beyond measure, yet instead of using it to further the cause of their creator, she chose to ignore her own gifts and instead spend her time whining about how things should have been. She’d spent the last four thousand years trying to prove that her lot was not fair.

  Well, life wasn’t fair. Neither was death. Someday, hopefully, she would come to understand that.

  Outside, the wind howled against the walls of the fortress, chilling the air and freezing the blood of the living. Though winter had ended for most of the world, here in her valley it retained a firm grip on the land. The arrival of Spring in Baella’s valley was as undependable as rain in the desert. It might come. Then again, it might not. One could never be sure.

  The people in the valley below made their living from hardy livestock. Goats, chickens, sheep, and others. Even from the castle, high above the tallest building in the village, Herris smelled the beasts. He hated that smell. It reminded him too much of his own life before the Father had come. As a boy, Herris had lived in a small village much like the one below, tending to his father’s filthy animals and hating every moment of it.

  But not anymore.

  For the last four thousand years, Headcouncil Herris had ruled the Bachiyr. His seat on the Council of Thirteen was second to none, and he took orders only from the Father himself. That was the way he liked it, and he intended to keep it that way.

  Thus he had made this horrendous trip out to the middle of a long dead mountain range in the middle of a country whose name no one remembered, all to speak to his oldest nemesis.

  Baella.

  She’d been around as long as Herris himself, thwarting his will and that of the Council seemingly at her whim. Flaunting her power and abilities, which were taken but not earned, and generally proving a nuisance with her never-ending quest to capture Ramah. No, he amended silently, Baella was much more than a nuisance.

  Thousands of years ago, that might have been the case. But she’d become very powerful and much more aggressive of late. Herris knew exactly where Ramah’s dreams came from, though he could never admit as much to Ramah. The Blood Letter’s ignorance was Herris’s best weapon and his only refuge. Without it, Herris would have far too many questions to answer and not enough time in which to do so.

  At least, not enough time before the rest of the Council turned on him.

  But he would see to it that it never came to that. This night, with this visit, would put an end to Baella’s interference once and for all.

  The time had come to make a deal.

  Herris followed her servant up a long flight of stairs, the gray stone spotted here and there with patches of moss and lichen. The smell of the green living things and the cold, hard stone mingled with th
e smell of burning pitch from hundreds of torches. Herris assumed the torches were for Baella’s servants since Bachiyr required very little light in order to see.

  At the top of the moldy staircase, a hallway branched out to the left and right. The shuffling servant, who wore only a ragged tunic and no livery, took the hall to the right, waving for Herris to follow him. Herris did, and soon they arrived at a massive set of old wooden doors.

  The wood was dry and half rotted, but the hinges looked sturdy, though ancient. Herris was forced to wonder just how old Baella’s fortress truly was, and how she’d managed to erect it without drawing the attention of any members of the Council. Not that it mattered. No one but Baella herself would be able to locate the place without help. Herris had only been able to find it with her permission—and her help. Her psalm had brought him to her gate, but no further. From there he had to follow her shuffling servant.

  The servant opened the door.

  “Herris is here to see you, Mistress.”

  “Bring him in, Arnaugh.”

  Arnaugh stepped aside to allow Herris to enter. On his way by, Herris struck out with a clawed hand, grabbing the servant by his throat. He drove his claws deep into the flesh of the man’s neck. Arnaugh gagged, then choked. He brought his hands up and tried to pull Herris’s clawed fingers free, but Herris could have told him not to bother. No living man could break his iron grip.

  “It’s Headcouncil Herris,” Herris growled. The man’s eyes rolled upward, the irises disappearing behind his eyelids, and he slumped. Herris listened for a few moments, waiting to make sure Arnaugh’s heart had stopped beating. Satisfied, he released the body, which crumpled to the floor in a heap. Then he turned to Baella.

  She sat atop an iron chair, cradling a thin scepter in her hands. The chair was spotted with rust, but the scepter, topped with a deep red ruby the size of a robin’s egg, gleamed in the flickering torchlight. Herris didn’t know if the scepter held any power, and he didn’t care.

  “That was rude,” Baella noted. “You are a guest here. Remember that, Herris.”

  Herris’s eyes flashed. “As a guest, I should think I would be treated with a bit of courtesy, wouldn’t you agree?”

  “You are here. And I have not killed you yet. That is courtesy enough.”

  Herris stiffened. “You will address me accordingly.” It was not a request.

  “Pah! You can’t hurt me here, Herris. This is my place, not your silly Hall. The Father’s fingers do not reach this far. State your business and be gone.”

  Herris resisted the urge to test her theory, but only barely. It was absolutely possible that she was lying, or bluffing. Much of what Baella did and said could not—and should not—be taken at face value. But if she was right, if the Father’s long reach did not extend to the outer world, then could Herris be in danger? Probably not, but his pride was not worth finding out. At least not yet.

  “I have come to offer you a place on the Council,” he said, forcing the words through clenched teeth. “It is time you joined your people, Baella. You have been an orphan too long. Embrace your heritage and come be with your own kind.”

  “You have spoken with the Father on this?”

  “No,” Herris admitted. “But it does not matter. The realm of the Bachiyr is mine to administer as I see fit. The Father himself gave me absolute control over the Bachiyr’s earthly affairs. He will not question my decision.”

  “Is that so?” Baella’s smirk annoyed him.

  “It is.”

  “And in this absolute power, did the Father ever bestow upon you the ability to shed the odor of cow dung?”

  Herris paused, unsure what she meant.

  “You stink of the farm,” she clarified. “The stench of hay and feces follows you like fog follows the dawn. I’ve no interest in your Council or your people, as you well know. If this is your only business here, then go now. Go back to your precious Halls, and take your stink with you.”

  “Damn you, woman! I am offering you a full pardon. You can leave this rotting corpse of a castle and return to your own kind. Everything you have done, every murder, every unauthorized conversion, every law you have broken, all will be wiped clean. It will be as it was meant to be in the beginning.”

  “And Ramah? Where does he fit into your plans, Herris? What will you do with him once I return to your precious Halls?”

  “You know the answer to that,” Herris said.

  “Indeed,” she replied. Baella turned her face away, staring at the wall on the far side of the room. Her long nails tapped out a staccato rhythm on the metal armrest of her makeshift throne. The harsh tink tink tink of them grated on Herris’s nerves. He forced himself to remain calm and in control.

  After several long minutes, she turned back to face him.

  “No,” she said simply.

  “Do not be hasty, Baella,” Herris warned. “Think on this carefully. This is your last chance to make things right.”

  “Make things right?” Baella laughed. “In whose view?”

  “The Father’s, of course. And mine.”

  “And why, dear Herris, should I care what The Father thinks of me?”

  Herris stared, at a loss. Surely she was not serious. The Father was everything.

  “You don’t mean that,” he said.

  “To the abyss with the Father. He has done nothing for me.”

  Herris gaped at her, unable to fathom such a statement from another Bachiyr.

  “But…but—” Herris could not recall ever having been so flustered. “The father is…He’s…”

  “You should be more worried about your wayward Enforcer,” Baella interrupted.

  Herris blinked. “Theron? The renegade?”

  Baella nodded. “He sits, brooding, in a cave on Vesuvius, plotting your downfall even as we speak. He is more dangerous to you and your precious Council than I am. Or at least, he will be soon enough.”

  Herris snorted. “Dangerous? He is nothing. No more dangerous than a piece of lint.”

  “A piece of lint that has evaded you for decades,” she said.

  “He is nothing.”

  “Of course,” Baella purred. “How silly of me.” Her eyes sparkled with mischief. She seemed on the verge of laughter.

  “Very well,” Herris said. “Why should we worry about Theron?”

  “You should not. He is nothing, as you say. Just a fool hiding in his hole.”

  “What do you know, Baella? Tell me.”

  “Very well. I will tell you what I know.” Baella leaned forward in the chair, making a show of looking around the room, as though her words were for Herris’s ears alone. “I know you have overstayed your welcome, Herris.”

  “Headcouncil Herris!” he snapped.

  “A meaningless title,” she replied. “A mantle you gave yourself, if I remember correctly. Whatever you call yourself now, Herris, do not forget that I know better. I knew you before the Father sunk his fingers into you, back when your only charges were sheep and cows.”

  Herris’s nails dug into his palms, digging bloody holes into his flesh. “Use caution, Baella. I would not be so cavalier were I in your place.”

  “Bah.” Baella waved her hand dismissively. “You have not managed to kill me in four thousand years. And you will not kill me tonight, either. I have given you my answer, Herris. Take it and go.”

  Herris’s face burned. He took a step toward the throne.

  “Headcouncil Herris,” he growled.

  “Did you know, Herris, that you are actually quite handsome when you are angry,” she said. “If only you didn’t smell like sheep…”

  Herris charged, his vision obscured by a red wall of anger. He forced blood into his legs, making him faster than the fabled cheetah. He forced blood into his claws, growing them long and sharp. He forced blood into his arms, giving him the strength of a hundred mortal men. The time for deals and diplomacy had ended. Now was the time for blood.

  As he closed the distance between them,
he saw the smile bloom on her face and realized he’d been baited.

  Too late.

  With a bright flash of light, Herris found himself sitting in his own study. In his hand he clutched the blue sapphire he’d used to transport himself across the world to Baella’s fortress. The acorn-sized stone, now a blackened lump of charred dust, fell from his fingers to land in a small pile on the floor, taking with it any chance he had of ever finding her sanctuary again.

  Chapter One

  A cave on the northeastern slope of Mt. Vesuvius

  Late Summer, 79 AD.

  HEAT rose from the floor in rippling waves as Theron wound his way through the rough stone passageway, reminding him of the importance and urgency of tonight’s test. He’d chosen this location for its ever-present heat and secluded nature, but the mountain did not have much longer. The rumblings in the earth had become more and more frequent, and he feared he would lose his chance if he did not finish his work soon. That would be a disaster. Too much depended on the outcome. He’d been working on this experiment in some form or another for the better part of a decade. Hopefully, this time would see success.

  This time, he told himself, it will work. It had to. He’d gone over the psalms and the blood too many times for it to fail again. By the end of the night he would be even more powerful, yet another step above his Bachiyr brethren. And where would the Council of Thirteen be when he waltzed unhindered into their precious Halls? Hiding, probably. Or sleeping. Either way, they would be helpless against his omniscient might.