“You’re no Scion, Visya. Did any sort of true ethics even reach these forsaken lands? I know that Rustovitch at least pretends to the mantle of a king.”
He felt no answer, but the darkness thickened. Jürgen extended his mind like a dagger, probing, stabbing, digging into the Tzimisce’s will.
“Certainly not a godly man, either. You’ve not time for shame, you say? Are you some slavering beast who makes a show of being a man, but then ruts with the animals at night?”
No response. Jürgen stabbed deeper.
“What will you say when I am lord of these lands, Visya? Will you rail against me, shaking your fist at my keep? Will you command the flies to sting my horses or the dogs to nip at my heels? You fight like one of the low-bloods, Visya. You fight like a skulking leper.”
This garnered a response, but not the one Jürgen expected. Instead of fury or offense, Jürgen felt a glimmer of satisfaction. He pressed on.
“And what when Rustovitch’s skull is crumbling in my hands, Visya? Will you have lost a favored ally? Will you long for his attentions?”
Your attempts to bait me are pathetic, Sword-Bearer. You already know my feelings towards Rustovitch.
“So why fight me, then? You obviously don’t reserve the same hate for me that Rustovitch does. What do you gain from this? Whom do you serve?”
I serve no one. A slight rise in aggravation. Jürgen had apparently found the right nerve to touch.
“Rustovitch? Are you even now fighting against an oath to him?”
Oaths mean nothing to me. I serve no one.
“Why all this effort, then? Why the elaborate ruse to make your childe seem so much more powerful than he is? Whom do you serve?”
You know nothing of my childe. The voice shook Jürgen with fury, and Jürgen had to steady himself against it. I serve no one!
“Some ancient fiend, lurking on a mountaintop, too afraid of Lupines and Tremere to descend? Who is your master, Visya?”
I serve… no one. The voice was weakening. Jürgen could see shapes in the darkness, beginning to form. A Cainite, not Visya, but a vampire of some power. A Scion, the prince of a city… but which one?
“Your childer do tend to claim domain, don’t they, Visya? Do you place them there? Arrange for them to be tutored on ways of kings? I can see why; it wouldn’t do for Cainites like yourself, feral bastards with no sense of how civil folk interact, to rule cities.”
I serve no one! Not another Cainite and not the Beast! The explosion of fury knocked Jürgen back and nearly dissipated the shapes. He surged forward again and tried to recognize the man and his surroundings, but could not.
“No?” Jürgen smiled in realization. “To what purpose your actions, then? Placing Scion children in outposts, to act as honey-traps for travelers, for diplomats, for Westerners.”
A whirlwind of rage and humiliation swept Jürgen back. He fought against it, but Visya was obviously trying to shut his connection with Geidas, forcing Jürgen back into the younger Tzimisce’s mind. Jürgen pressed his advantage.
“You tolerate Westerners, don’t you? That’s why Rustovitch hates you so. That’s why you don’t have any place to go, because you can’t claim domain of your own. You hide behind your childer. Is Geidas the weakest, I wonder, or the strongest? Do your childer betray you to the Voivodate?” Jürgen grasped at any insult he could, any accusation that would drive Visya into revealing something. “What about Vykos? Was he one of yours?”
For a moment, the rage died down, and Jürgen found himself floating, the darkness around him eerily calm and empty. Then he felt a rumble, much like the thrum of the ground when men on horseback were riding to battle. The rumble built, and Jürgen waited with sick fascination as the darkness around him exploded into memory, color and pain. He saw the man again, and knew now that the Tzimisce Scion he’d seen was Visya’s childe, Radu, the Prince of Bistritz. But there was another Tzimisce standing with him, lording over him, an invader, an interloper…
Rustovitch.
The rage overwhelmed him, shoved him back. He tried to cry out, to coax more information out of the deluge, but all he received in return was hunger, pain and fear. His own Beast woke, and howled in unison with the winds and screams around him, and Jürgen realized with a mixture of fear and pride that he must have driven Visya to frenzy. Rather than struggling against it, he submitted, letting Visya’s Beast sweep him out of the Tzimisce’s mind. He came to rest slumped in a chair, a table before him, one cup on the table and the other in his hand.
Geidas was smiling triumphantly at him.
Chapter Twenty-Two
Jürgen slowly stood and looked around. Geidas, Jovirdas, and Rosamund were all present. Jürgen held the cup in his hand and tasted blood in his mouth; it had the same burning sensation as the blood of the Tzimisce woman he had killed. He looked at Rosamund’s eyes; they were the same lovely hazel-green as he remembered. He turned to Jovirdas, but the tysiatskii stood impassive, blue eyes steady. Geidas’s eyes were the same: dead leaves.
Have I lost, then? Jürgen looked down at the cup. It still contained some lingering vitae. He looked up at Geidas and felt the urge to drink the rest, to raise the cup and complete Geidas’s victory.
He heard nothing from outside. The entire world stood still. He searched with his senses, desperate for any sign that this was a trick, a constructed memory, another ploy. He found nothing.
He raised the cup, and then locked eyes with Geidas again and reached out, trying to read his thoughts, see his halo. He expected to feel the usual sickening sensation of violating another Cainite’s mind. He expected to see colors of victory, triumph in his halo. He expected to see plans for Gotzon’s death.
Instead, he saw only one word: “Drink.”
Jürgen dropped the cup and smiled. He walked towards Geidas, grabbed the cup of his own blood from the table, and seized Geidas by the jaw. “Drink,” he growled, forcing the Tzimisce’s mouth open. Geidas struggled, but had lost the support of his sire. Jovirdas, Rosamund, and the room faded away. Other scenes played themselves out around the two Cainites, much as they had in Visya’s mind, but Jürgen squeezed down on Geidas’s face, snapping his teeth and piercing his cheeks. “Drink, now.”
He tipped the cup, and poured his vitae towards Geidas’s mouth. The kunigaikstis strained his lips, trying to force them shut, and then closed his eyes, trying to focus his way out of the memory. The colors around them began to solidify, changing into a clear night on a mountainside, Geidas together with…
“Enough,” said Jürgen calmly. He released both the cup and the prince, but neither moved. Geidas stood, locked in the same position Jürgen had held him in, and the cup stayed in midair, a drop of blood suspended on its lip.
Jürgen was numb. He no longer felt the constant intrusion in his own mind, the emotions of the scene around him, the burning sensation on his tongue from Geidas’s trick—nothing. He felt cold, his mind slipping through this dream-world like an icicle through a child’s fist. He waved a hand, and the scene vanished. Geidas stood before him, naked and alone, hair hanging limply at his shoulders, hands covering his manhood like a boy caught pleasuring himself.
Jürgen raised his hand, and Geidas fell to his knees. The Tzimisce tried to resist, but Jürgen didn’t feel it. The prince had no strength, and could only watch as Jürgen cut open his wrist, and beckoned. Geidas surged forward, and his lips clamped down on the wound.
The scene before him grew patchy and indistinct, and then his vision cleared. He smelled the ashes in the fireplace, the horses from outside, the oil on Jovirdas’s leather, and his own blood on Geidas’s lips.
Geidas set the cup down, and looked up at Jürgen with the resentful respect a boy gives his father. He nodded, and made a gesture of acquiescence.
Jürgen didn’t bother to acknowledge it. He merely glanced to Jovirdas. “Kindly go and release Gotzon immediately.”
Chapter Twenty-Three
Jürgen sat in his wagon with Gotzon. Got
zon looked disheveled—his shirt still bore a large hole from the stake, and the pale white flesh showed through like a moon in a starless sky. His sword hadn’t been returned yet; one of Geidas’s servants had been dispatched to retrieve it. He stared at Jürgen, impassive as always, but Jürgen saw displeasure in his face.
“You would rather have burned in the sun, then?” Jürgen was still recovering from his victory, still shaken from what he had learned. “You would have burned, and I would still be ignorant of Geidas’s sire and his rather strange position.”
Gotzon shook his head slowly. “The risk was too great, especially on my account. You have other methods of extracting information from such heathens.”
“In another Cainite’s domain, I cannot take such liberties without risk to my soul, as you well know.”
“That is your choice.”
“I do not regret it, Gotzon.” Jürgen stared his confessor in the eye, but the Lasombra’s eyes did not change. “I made my decisions for reasons you well know, and I cannot afford, as a leader and a soldier, to second-guess every decision I make based on whether God would approve. I can only take my chances, act in good faith and with clear purpose, and confess my sins.”
Gotzon did not smile, but his face relented somewhat. “Amen.” He relaxed somewhat. “And now?”
“And now,” said Jürgen, “I must prepare to move. The prince is a weakling, but has now taken blood from me. I might be able to exact an oath from him to leave us in peace while we are in his lands, but even under a more complete blood oath, I can’t imagine a Tzimisce agreeing to such a thing. Besides, I’m sure Visya has Geidas under a blood oath.”
Gotzon nodded slowly. Jürgen continued.
“What I think is most significant is that Visya is an enemy of Rustovitch, and a sometime ally of the Arpad Ventrue. I think that he wouldn’t be particularly interested in an alliance with me personally, but he might be inclined to non-aggression, were there something I could offer him.”
Gotzon leaned forward and beckoned to Jürgen. “Who killed Alexander?”
Jürgen frowned. “An animal called Qarakh. Why?”
“Animals can be trained.”
Jürgen’s eyes widened slightly. “Surely you aren’t suggesting I try to use the being that consumed the soul of Alexander of Paris?”
Gotzon’s black eyes shimmered like puddles in the rain. “I am suggesting nothing, Jürgen. You long ago proved that neither I nor your sire have any need to give you advice.” Jürgen gave him a sidelong glance, but Gotzon gave no indication of sarcasm. “I am merely saying that for all their posturing, those who obey their Beasts are not truly animals. God gave higher reason to men and therefore Cainites, and so while a beast cannot parley, a Cainite can, no matter what road he walks.”
Jürgen considered this. “According to Jervais, this ‘Qarakh’ has followers, evidently other Gangrel of these forests. He has no love for the Teutonic Knights or anyone else who marches in under the cross.” He pursed his lips. “He reminds me, actually, of a Gangrel woman that burst in on my court some years ago. Morrow, I believe she called herself.” He stood, remembered the wagon was too small to pace in, and sat down again. “Those animals might have joined with the Tzimisce out of spite, but I don’t think that they would have delivered messages and intelligence about our approach to Geidas. I think it more likely that they’d simply have attacked us. So some other faction was carrying information to Geidas, someone who knows the area and can either avoid von Salza’s men or not trouble them.”
“What sort of people wouldn’t trouble them?”
“Von Salza’s men are here to convert the pagan inhabitants of the forests.” Gotzon didn’t respond to this, but
Jürgen knew his mind on the subject; von Salza’s methods of conversion suited the Lasombra well. “Someone already Christian, then, monks…” he trailed off. “Of course.”
He opened a chest and dragged out a map he hadn’t looked at in nearly a decade. It was the map that had been on his table when he, Vykos and Rustovitch had drawn out the Obertus State. The Obertus had monasteries in this area, and the inhabitants could easily meet von Salza’s men and even give them shelter, advice, or friendly words. He then found the map that Jervais had shown him in Magdeburg before he’d left. The Obertus held monasteries near towns that Jervais had mentioned—Auce, far to the north; Taurag, perhaps twenty-five miles northwest… and one not more than twenty miles away, on a western offshoot of the Nemen, not far from a village called Ezerelis.
Jürgen sat down to think. “Vykos and his Obertus are vassals of Rustovitch, meaning any information that those monks acquire is probably known to Rustovitch as well.”
Gotzon shook his head. “Vykos is a base and vile sinner. Whether he swore an oath or not—”
“Means nothing to him, true. So he might well be hoarding information for himself. I’m not even certain he is in this region anymore, actually. Meaning, if the monks are collecting information on anyone’s behalf, it might well be Rustovitch’s.”
“Or someone close to him, issuing orders in his name.”
Jürgen smiled. “Brazen, that. I’d deal none too kindly with any vassal who treated me that way; I can only imagine what Rustovitch would do. But if you’re right, and if what I saw in Visya’s mind is accurate, Rustovitch is in Bistritz.” He absently wished that he had taken Akuji along with him; given a few nights, she could probably determine the truth of the matter. “In that case, the Cainite closest to him of any real power is Radu, Visya’s other childe. If Radu is using even a few of the monks on behalf of his sire…” Jürgen stopped and rubbed his temples. “And that doesn’t address the possibility that Visya might be acting under orders. He probably is, as vehemently as he denied it.”
“So what will you do?”
Jürgen studied the map again, and then nodded. “The Tzimisce obviously have capabilities that I was not aware of, both in terms of sorcery and in terms of manpower. I shall need to understand both further before I can make any real progress here.”
“Both are connected, in this case.” Gotzon’s voice was more hushed even than usual. Jürgen turned to face him.
“I’m sorry?”
“The Obertus are intimately connected with the Tzimisce, Jürgen. Vykos is younger under the Blood than you, or so you have said. But the Obertus predate him by many years, and have had ample time to spread west and north from the forests of their Tzimisce masters.”
“How do you know this?” To Jürgen’s knowledge, Gotzon had never been here, but after what he had seen in his confessor’s mind, he was prepared to admit that he knew far less about the Lasombra than he had previously believed.
“I have been doing the Lord’s work for quite some time.” Gotzon shut his eyes, something that Jürgen had never seen him do. The shadows in the room crowded close to see. “Before that, however, I was involved in blasphemies of which I dare not speak.”
“You have said as much before.”
“Yes, but I have seen blasphemies here, in these lands, that rival even the perversities that I wrought. I have seen them, though I never set foot in these lands until recently.”
Jürgen sat down and brushed the maps aside. “Gotzon, tell me what you have seen.”
Gotzon’s eyes snapped open and the shadows recoiled like cats from a cracking fire. “Do you wish to hear? Having gazed at the darkness, do you wish to return?”
Jürgen’s brow furrowed in confusion. “No, Gotzon. I only wish to know the nature of the foes I face.”
Gotzon sat forward and stared directly into Jürgen’s eyes. Jürgen looked back, and within seconds was lost in the same sea of blackness he had faced before, when he’d read his confessor’s mind. Those eyes contained the ocean, and as Jürgen gazed, he remembered what Rosamund had said—the darkness isn’t empty.
“Jürgen,” Gotzon said. “To show you what I have seen, I would have to break my vow. At my command, the shadows would open to show you any place or person I have ever m
et, and allow you to step through those shadows to face them. All of this and much more I could command of the Abyss.”
Jürgen shook his head before Gotzon finished speaking. “Not only, my friend, could I never request such an act of you, I have no desire to win my battles based on a broken oath.”
The Lasombra’s face softened. “Very well, then.”
“God created the Heavens and the Earth,” Gotzon said, staring past Jürgen into nothing, “but more, He created the order that governs both. Sun rises, sun sets, living things grow and die. Mortals don’t understand it until they are no longer mortal, and even we, separated from life and death, can grasp little of it.” He turned his eyes on Jürgen, and Jürgen saw the rigid control in his face slip a bit.
The papers on the floor rustled, but there was no breeze to rustle them. Only the shadows had moved.
Gotzon steeled himself and continued. “We among the undead, outside of God’s grace but not his plan, we experiment with things best left undisturbed. I do not know how the first of my clan learned to command the darkness, though I imagine Satan offered him the power and he accepted. Possibly the same is true for the Tzimisce and their control over flesh. Your clan, Jürgen, has remained perhaps the most noble of all of the high-blooded, and that is one reason I respected your decision to choose Hardestadt over me.” Gotzon cast his gaze downwards and the candlelight on the table brightened a bit. “You recognized Hell when you saw it.”
Jürgen drummed his fingers on the table. “I chose my fate for the reasons I gave then, Gotzon,” he said carefully, “but not for those reasons alone. I saw your eyes and what your presence did to the light. I admit it frightened me.” Jürgen’s Beast laughed, and Jürgen let it, in shame.
Gotzon seemed to see his thought. “Jürgen, there is no honor lost in fear. God gave man fear for good reasons—we are to fear God as a boy fears his father, fear Satan for the monster he is, fear the beasts of the forest for their claws and fangs, and so on. Your feeling fear when looking upon me reflects your wisdom, and, perhaps, your piety.”
Dark Ages Clan Novel Ventrue: Book 12 of the Dark Ages Clan Novel Saga Page 15