Chapter 125 - Exodus of the Neirie, 23,000 Years Ago part 3

After we fed, I kept my promise to the boy and told him of my early days as a blood drinker.

My vampire child knew the origin of my parasitic nature. I had already told him of the fierce blood drinker who had attacked our neighbors, a tribe of Neanderthals, and how the warriors of my village had gone to battle the creature in his lair, afraid our community would fall victim to him next.

This the boy knew. That there were two of them, a master and a slave. That we had laid an ambush for the little one, unaware that there was more than just the one. I managed to slay the little one-- with a lucky thrust of my knife-- but his powerful master attacked us moments later.

I woke to find myself in a charnel pit, trapped like an insect in the web of a hungry spider. There, in that terrible pit, he made me what I am. The fiend changed me against my will, tried to break my spirit with violence. He wanted a replacement for the slave that I'd dispatched with my blade, but the living blood wrought a more powerful change upon me than the brutal old beast could ever have imagined.

"I thought only to return to my people after I slew the Foul One," I said. "My only thought, as I climbed from that pit, was to return to the wives and children that I loved."

Ilio listened gravely, the campfire gleaming in his eyes, his belly full of stag's blood.

"I didn't think of the danger my lust for blood might pose to them," I continued, staring into the fire. "My maker knew only violence, so violence was all that he taught me. I knew nothing of our nature, nothing of our powers, or the hunger that so easily takes possession of us. I was an orphan blood drinker, ignorant and frightened. A danger to every mortal around me."

"What happened when you returned to your people?" Ilio asked, his eyes wide with trepidation. "You didn't hurt your children, did you?"

"No," I sighed. "Not my family, thank the ancestors! But I did hurt someone, I'm ashamed to admit. It was a man named Ludd, an old warrior. He had stayed behind to defend the village while the younger men went off to war.

"Gray-headed like my father he was, but always glum, always looking on the dark side of the world. He was standing guard when I returned. We had moved our camp to a place called Bubbling Waters, hoping to evade the demon-ghost who was preying on our neighbors, but the Foul One had found our village anyway, snatched away some children and a good mother named Pendra.

"Ludd was too excited at first to notice how I'd changed. We went to rouse the camp, walking side by side. We were about halfway back when he became suspicious of me. He'd finally noticed how pale I was, how my eyes seemed to catch the light of the moon, but it was too late for him by then. I could smell his blood, and I lost control of myself. I attacked him. I fed on his blood, and then I took his body and hid it in a bog.

"I knew then that I couldn't trust myself to return to my tribe. Even though I had slain the fiend who was preying on my people, my maker had defeated me, for I lost the very thing I had fought him to preserve."

"So what did you do?" Ilio asked.

I poked a stick into our fire and watched the sparks swirl into the sky.

"I hid," I said. "I found a cave in a remote mountaintop—one that overlooked my village—and there I stayed, year after year after year. I protected my people, mostly from myself. I explored my new strength, my powerful new senses. I fed on game while I tried to master the Hunger. I learnt how to fly, how to scale sheer rock walls. I learned that I could stay underwater for hours at a time, and that my body would quickly heal itself no matter how terribly I was injured. I was never able to tame the blood lust, though. I attacked any warm-blooded creature that ventured too near to me. It was impossible for me to resist it.

"In despair, I watched my wives and children grow older. My male companion, Brulde, died, then my Fat Hand wife Eyya. Nyala died the following winter. My children married and had children of their own, and then their children married and had children.

"From time to time I came down from the mountain to defend them. When our enemies came slinking through the pass, intent on snatching away our children, I flew down from my cave like a howling god of death. I tore them apart with my bare hands, fed on them without remorse. Later, when I spied a flood that threatened to sweep away the village, I flew to them faster than the water could flow, and commanded them to retreat to higher ground.

"They called me Thest-u'un-Mann, the Man Who is a Ghost. It was many, many generations before I was able to move among them, and even then, when I appeared unto my children's children's children, it always seemed to be a very uncertain thing for me, the battle between my willpower and my hunger for their blood."

Ilio whined unhappily, "And how many generations must I wait before I can walk among mortal men? You are so much more powerful than I, Thest!" He tossed a stick into the flames. "Perhaps, for me, it is a hopeless aspiration!"

I laughed affectionately. "Don't be so dramatic, Ilio! You have one advantage I never had."

"What?" he demanded, overwrought by his imaginings.

I grinned broadly and thumped my chest. "Me, silly boy! You have me! I will be your teacher, your counsel and your guide. I will hurry you on your path to mastery."

"And will you also be a father to me?" he asked slyly, peeking at me from the corner of his eye.

"Yes, boy. Yes," I surrendered with a sigh. "If a father is what you require to be content, then I will be a father to you."

Ilio whooped and leapt across the fire to me. He was not as small a child as he believed, however, and his enthusiastic hug knocked me flat onto my back.

"Control yourself!" I laughed. "You are much too big to jump into my lap like that!"

Ilio rolled off of me, smiling up at the stars. "I am sorry, Father," he said. "It is just… I am blessed by the gods to have a guardian like you. You saved me from the blood drinker who stalked and killed my tribe. You raised me as your own child, and then saved me again when those terrible Oombai did their best to slay me. If it wasn't for you, I'd just be rags and bones by now. Instead, I have become a magic spirit. Or a god, like the ones my uncles spoke of when we gathered at night by the fire."

I turned on my side, looking at him sternly. "No, Ilio. You are not a god. Never think that! You can perish just like any mortal child. You are only stronger, more resilient, than our mortal brethren. Our kind can be slain. I've done it with these very hands-- and I was a mortal man when I did it. So do not deceive yourself. You are no god. You are only a blood drinker."

"I am sorry," he said quickly. "I only spoke in excitement."

"That is all right, Son," I told him, putting my arms behind my head. "If you promise to be careful, I promise not to coddle you. You must become strong so that you can care for yourself if anything should happen to me."

"I will work hard to master my new skills, Father," Ilio swore. "And I will work even harder to master this hunger for blood. I want to live among the mortals. I want to have a home."

He smiled then, his eyes twinkling at some inner rumination.

"And women," he murmured. "I would like to have mates. As many as you once had. Two. Maybe even three."

I chuckled, staring up at the heavens. "Three wives?" I asked. "No one can say you lack ambition, Son!"