Jürgen smiled. “Perhaps so,” he said. “You were saying?”
“The flesh-shaping powers that Satan offered the Tzimisce were not the greatest of his blasphemies. He gave them power over the land and the elements, as well.”
Jürgen thought back to the explosions of fury he’d faced in the duel. “But why have I never heard of this?”
“For the same reason that many Cainites know that the Lasombra command shadows, but do not know the power taught to the true masters of the arts.” Gotzon was again looking down, and again his face had softened. The shadows in the room were creeping closer. “There are few of them, as there are few of the Tzimisce sorcerers. When I was one of those masters, hundreds of years before your birth, let alone your Embrace, I saw the Tzimisce koldun and what they wrought upon the land.” The shadows widened. The candle flame guttered, but Gotzon seemed not to notice. “I watched through shadows from hundreds of miles away as the Tzimisce called up the blood of the earth, parted the waves, and called down storms.” His voice dropped to a whisper, and Jürgen heard it echo in the chasm that the small room had become. “I envied them. I coveted their power.”
“Gotzon?” Jürgen glanced around and saw that the shadows had begun to take shape. Some of them looked human; most had too many legs. “What is happening?”
Gotzon looked up. “You wanted to know. I cannot use my hell-born knowledge without violating an oath before God, but I can show you by inaction. This is what I must repel, every moment of every night.” The shadows moved forward, lockstep, and Jürgen felt ice growing around his feet. “You talk of the Beast, Jürgen? Of losing control? Of fear? These creatures use my mind as their conduit to God’s Earth.”
Jürgen stood, but a pair of hands pushed him back into his chair. “Gotzon, please.” His voice did not quake, but he knew Gotzon could sense the fear.
Gotzon raised a hand, and the creatures vanished. The room brightened again. Jürgen stood and paced, trying fervently to lose the chill on his neck and feet where the creatures had touched him.
“So, you see, Jürgen, what Hell can grant?”
“I saw it before, in Visya’s mind,” he said quietly. The room was cold, and he considered calling forth the blood to make his skin warm, just to drive away the unclean feeling. “I saw what these koldun can do.”
Gotzon nodded. “When I saw it first, I envied it. After God saved me, after I forsook the shadows and took up the sword of the Lord, I knew one night I would have to venture to these lands in person to face these koldun, these blasphemers who seek to warp God’s order. When I saw you were traveling here, I knew it to be a sign.”
“But what of the Obertus?”
“The Tzimisce Embrace from certain families, including what became the Obertus order. The Obertus are lore-keepers. If their order dies, much of the history of the clan dies with them.” Gotzon stooped and picked up the maps from the floor. “Your theory of the order doing Rustovitch’s work is sound, but the order must not be allowed to infest von Salza’s men. Their ‘scholarship,’ coupled with his numbers…”
“Yes, I see.” Jürgen studied the map again. “I shall need to send scouts, I think. Knight and Cainite both. Some can travel ahead to Taurag, but I won’t send anyone as far as Auce; it might be as much as a hundred miles. But Taurag and Ezerelis both contain Obertus monasteries, and I need to know what kind of resistance we face. I shall discover what the monks there are doing and under whose direction, and I shall use them to lure Qarakh out of hiding.” He folded the map again and tucked it away. “But I do not intend to go forward without securing what is behind me. Which leaves the somewhat thorny problem of what to do about Geidas.”
Gotzon stood. “Geidas is wretch and a sinner.”
Jürgen looked sharply at his confessor. “Did you come here to kill him, Gotzon? Is he one of the koldun?”
Gotzon simply shook his head.
Jürgen reflected that Gotzon had said more this evening than he had heard the Lasombra say in their entire acquaintance. “I’ve never heard you call someone a sinner that you didn’t want dead.”
The Lasombra didn’t reply, but turned for the door.
“What are your intentions?”
Gotzon stopped. “I don’t intend to sleep here, Jürgen. I intend to find an alternate shelter for the day. We can talk again tomorrow night, if I decide to stay here any longer.” He opened the door.
“Do you intend to—”
“No,” said Gotzon flatly. “His unlife won’t end for at least one more day.” With that, he shut the door and walked away. Jürgen heard his footsteps stop, and then continue, and he guessed that the servant had returned Gotzon’s sword.
If Gotzon kills Geidas, thought Jürgen, how would Jovirdas respond? The tysiatskii seemed competent and even honest, but Jürgen hadn’t been able to guess at his ethos yet. If he followed the same codes as Jürgen, he might be able to secure an oath. But where did his loyalties lie? Jürgen didn’t for one moment believe that he was actually Geidas’s childe, but the duel hadn’t told him that Jovirdas was in league with Visya, either. Perhaps Jovirdas was of a different line altogether, maybe a vassal of Rustovitch or some other Tzimisce monarch, sent to watch over Geidas in the name of the Voivodate. Or perhaps Jürgen was wrong; perhaps Jovirdas really was Geidas’s childe and had simply been Embraced recently, too recently for Visya to have had anything to do with it. The fact that Jürgen hadn’t seen Jovirdas at all in Geidas’s memories was strange, but then, he hadn’t called up any memories of his own childer, either.
There were too many possibilities, too many permutations, to make any informed decision. Sending scouts to the monasteries was Jürgen’s only firm plan at the moment, so he concentrated on that. Wishing he had Christof and Heinrich with him, he pulled the map once again from the chest and began to pore over it. He knew he had little time before sunrise, and knew also that Rosamund might well visit him before sunrise, but he wanted to have some preliminary plan before sleeping.
Chapter Twenty-Four
Plans did not come, and Jürgen was forced to wait for nearly three weeks before taking more action. He watched Geidas carefully for signs of treachery or action, but the boy-prince seemed to slip into a kind of depression. Gone was the bravado he had first shown Jürgen and the assurance of his own position.
On the night that a young knight, a ghoul named Dieter, came running into Kybartai shouting for Jürgen, the Sword-Bearer was in fact planning to give Geidas another drink of his blood, just to see if it would make him slightly more useful.
Jürgen heard Dieter’s shouts and left the stone room where he had dueled Geidas, now serving as his planning chamber, to find him. The young knight was flushed, sweating, and on the verge of collapse.
From the look in his eyes, he was also nearly dead from fright alone.
“My lord… oh, God. Help me. I saw him. I saw…” Dieter fell into the snow, writhing as though trying to put out a fire.
Jürgen picked him up and carried him into his chambers, dispatching a servant to bring Václav and Rosamund at once. He set Dieter down on the floor and stood up, unsure of what to do. The boy wasn’t injured, at least not visibly, but the madness in his eyes made Jürgen afraid to read his mind. He always felt dirty after looking into a mortal’s thoughts; God alone knew what filth this mind was carrying.
Václav and Rosamund arrived together, and both looked down at the knight in shock. Rosamund knelt down next to him and took his hand, trying to soothe him. Václav stood close to Jürgen. “Where did you send this knight?” he asked.
“Northeast of here,” answered Jürgen. “To a town called Ezerelis to look into a monastery there.”
“Alone?”
Jürgen’s eyes widened. “No,” he said. “Klaus was with him.”
Rosamund looked up. “Klaus? But he is—”
“Yes, I know. One of us.” Jürgen crouched down beside Dieter, who was beginning to sob quietly. “Dieter, please, tell us what happened.”
Rosamund looked up at Jürgen, but Jürgen only shrugged. “Go on.”
“He called to Klaus, and Klaus went to him… like a man to his lover. I tried to stop him, but he pushed me away.” Dieter began to shake again. Rosamund touched his face, and Dieter’s eyes flickered over her for an instant. He calmed somewhat, and then began to breathe quickly and shallowly. “Klaus went to him, and he took Klaus’s head in his hands… and turned it to blood.”
“My lord, what can—” Václav began. Jürgen shushed him.
“And then what? Dieter, then what?”
Dieter did not answer at first, but only breathed harder. After a moment of this, he began whispering a phrase, over and over, so quietly that even Jürgen had to listen carefully to hear it.
“Not a drop spilled, not a drop spilled, not a drop spilled—”
Jürgen caught the boy’s eyes and commanded him to sleep. He looked confused for a moment, and then his eyes shut and his breathing slowed. Jürgen motioned out the door for one of Geidas’s servants to take Dieter off to a comfortable place to sleep.
“What will you do, my lord?” Václav had posed the question, but Jürgen had already decided.
“We will visit this monastery in Ezerelis. If the being there can so easily destroy a Cainite, even a neonate like Klaus, I do not wish to leave it behind me, undefeated.”
“So we attack?”
Jürgen nodded. “I have to answer for Klaus’s death. Go, and begin preparation with the other knights.” His childe left, and Jürgen turned to Rosamund. “My lady, would you give me a few moments? I have things to prepare, but—”
“But you won’t leave without telling me first,” she said. Her voice told him not that she was afraid or angry, but that she understood. She gathered her garments around her and left the room, leaving Jürgen alone with her scent and her memory.
Rosamund. How can I bring her with me? The attack on the monastery would involve slaughtering many of those present. While they might be monks, the Obertus order was largely composed of ghouls, and he had no idea what the capabilities of Tzimisce blood-slaves were, to say nothing of the being that Dieter had seen. The attack would be dangerous, but moreover, he had no desire to show her what he could do in battle. My father told me that battle was his mistress, he thought. Was this what he meant? Can I not share conquest, the first part of my joy, with the one who so inspires my soul?
Jürgen shook off the thought and considered the monastery. He would be best served by attacking near dawn, with only an hour or so to spare. Certainly some of the monks would be accustomed to functioning at night—there might even be a Cainite overseer present—but close enough to dawn would find those who moved by night bedding down and those who moved by day still abed. It would leave him precious little time to escape if something went wrong; that simply meant that he would have to make sure nothing did.
Taking too large a force with him would be a mistake. He needed to cross the ground quickly, preferably in one night. That meant moving on horseback and not dragging wagons. So he would have to leave Rosamund, Wiftet, and anyone else not able to fight. It also meant that he would have to find some way of ensuring her safety. He couldn’t leave behind any Cainite knights; he would need them for the attack. He couldn’t send his knights on without him—if Christof had been with him, he would have let her take command of the assault and remained to supervise Geidas and Jovirdas.
His Beast suggested an obvious solution—kill the two Tzimisce. He considered this for a long moment, and could find nothing wrong with the idea. He had been loath to attack before because he was unsure of Geidas’s relationship with the Voivodate and of his personal power, but now that he knew that Geidas was a weakling and Rustovitch wasn’t exactly his staunch ally, he reasoned he could burn both Cainites to ash without repercussions.
But then, what of Rosamund? The thought stopped Jürgen in his tracks, and he listened almost guiltily for the sound of her footsteps. Could he truly leave Rosamund behind after murdering two Cainites? Would she approve? Did it truly matter? Of course it matters, he reproached himself. Displeasing her would sour his victory, and how could he concentrate on the next phase in his campaign if she were here, surrounded by the ghosts he’d created?
But what if Gotzon were to kill them both? No, he might kill Geidas, but Jovirdas (who might very well be the more dangerous one, anyway) hadn’t earned the Lasombra’s ire as of yet. Killing them both would be a breach of courtesy of the worst sort, and while that wouldn’t have mattered to Jürgen even a week ago, tonight it was important to him… because it was important to her.
Chapter Twenty-Five
Jürgen wasn’t the least bit upset when he woke the next morning and found the kunigaikstis dead. He was, however, rather surprised to find Jovirdas holding the sword.
The Sword-Bearer had risen immediately upon waking at sunset, donned his armor, and summoned up his knights to bring Geidas out and burn him. When he entered Geidas’s “throne room,” he’d found the tysiatskii standing over his sire’s decomposing body. Jürgen noted with some satisfaction that he’d been correct in assuming that Geidas was a young Cainite—the body decayed slowly enough to give off a noticeable stench.
Jovirdas turned and faced Jürgen and his knights. “He was a weakling.”
Jürgen nodded. “I know.”
“I am not.”
“So I see.”
Jovirdas took a torch from the wall, with some effort. “I do not intend to die easily, Lord Jürgen. I also do not intend to drink of your blood.”
Jürgen took a step into the room, but waved to his knights to stay close. “I hope you don’t flatter yourself to think, Jovirdas, that—”
“That I could best you? I don’t. But I hope you don’t think that I am the only Cainite remaining in this forest not marching under your banner. What one starts, another can finish.” He set his sword on a table, still in easy reach, and shifted the torch to his right hand. “I do not wish to burn tonight, but I’ll sooner taste cinders than your boot.”
“Admirable.” Jürgen began to peer into the man’s mind, but Jovirdas leapt forward and shoved the torch at the Sword-Bearer’s face. Jürgen’s Beast cried out in alarm and screamed at Jürgen to run; Jürgen slapped it down, but did jump backward. Jovirdas took a step back, right hand extending the torch, left hand hovering near his sword.
“Stay out of my mind, Teuton.”
The insult at being so addressed paled next to the bitterness in Jovirdas’s voice. “Geidas was in the habit of—?”
“Yes!” Jovirdas’s voice twisted into a snarl, the fangs extended, his grip on the torch tightening to the point that Jürgen could see the wood fracturing. “I never drank of him, for he had no need of the oath. He saw all he needed to know.”
Jürgen sheathed his sword. “Go on.”
Jovirdas shook his head as though trying to clear it. “He claimed me as his childe, but that was a lie.”
“I guessed as much.”
“He made me take this post as his tysiatskii, but he never made me drink of his blood. He looked into my mind and took what he needed to know, and forced me to serve him.”
Jürgen nodded. Jovirdas was evidently unaware that the ability to read minds was not the same as the ability to command them. “So how, then, did you manage to summon the strength to destroy him?”
“I…” He stopped, his voice catching in his throat with a strange hiccuping sound. “I felt… everything… grow cold.”
Jürgen’s eyes widened, and his hand slipped to the hilt of his sword. “Go on.”
“I don’t know.” His voice seemed to return to normal, and the tysiatskii lowered the sword. “I approached him with no ill intention, but then the hatred I felt for him came up around me, as though I were dropped into the river in winter.” Jürgen nodded. “And I felt nothing. No pain, no hate, nothing but the need to kill him.”
Jürgen
dropped his eyes momentarily. “And the Beast? Did it guide you in this?”
Jovirdas looked shocked. “My Beast does not guide me, Jürgen. Ever.”
“Never?”
Jovirdas lowered the torch, but eyed it uncomfortably. “Geidas would indulge in play with his meals. He would break his oaths and treat those beneath him like shit on his boot. I cannot do this. It sickened me to watch, and yet I could do nothing.”
Jürgen smiled. “I understand how you feel.”
Jovirdas’s eyes narrowed. “That does not mean, Sword-Bearer, that I have any intention of bending knee before you or anyone, ever again.”
Jürgen cocked an eyebrow at the Tzimisce. From his talk of oaths and treatment of lesser, Jovirdas followed Jürgen’s ethos, but this was strange behavior from a Scion. Most of them were willing to swear oaths when necessary, especially if the result were advantageous. But Jovirdas seemed positively repulsed by the idea—why? It couldn’t be because he fancied himself a tyrant and ruler absolute; Jürgen guessed he had never ruled his own fief. More likely, then, he equated being a vassal with being a slave, as he had been to Geidas.
Jürgen, of course, treated his vassals much better than Geidas, and Jovirdas’s less-than-perfect knowledge of Cainite politics would make him an acceptable, if not ideal, minion. This fief wasn’t important enough to leave one of Jürgen’s knights to rule, but for an experiment, a placeholder like Jovirdas…
Of course, the problem remained: How to convince the Tzimisce that he would do well to accept?
“Jovirdas,” said Jürgen carefully, “who mentored you on your road?”
Jovirdas replied only with a blank stare.
“What I mean is, after your Embrace, you must have been taught the methods of keeping the Beast under control, especially to excel at it as you apparently do. So who taught you? Obviously Geidas walked a different path, possibly taught to him by his sire, but you’ve never met Visya, have you?”
“No,” Jovirdas shook his head slowly. “No, and I never mean to.”
Dark Ages Clan Novel Ventrue: Book 12 of the Dark Ages Clan Novel Saga Page 16