Chapter 131 - Exodus of the Neirie, 23,000 Years Ago part 9

"Father?" Ilio called. "Are you unharmed?"

I had landed several meters away and approached the boy from the south. As I suspected, Ilio had remained awake, anxious of my return.

"I am unharmed, boy," I said, trying to contain my amusement.

The young man sat beside the ash of last night's fire, my cloak still draped over his body. As I drew near, I saw him quake. "I smell blood," the lad whispered urgently.

I looked at my arms, which were covered in a veneer of glazed blood. Much of the blood had been absorbed through my flesh, but not all. What remained was black and crusting, falling away in flakes. My clothing was stiff with it. Ruined, I suspected.

"I need to bathe," I said. "I wear the blood of many Oombai warriors."

"I heard the cries of your enemies in the distance," the boy said. "Screams of fear… then the sound of them dying." The cloak shifted as he turned his head toward me. "You killed them all, didn't you?"

"Every last one," I said.

It was not a boast. I was simply speaking the truth. Now that the battle was over, I felt only weariness and remorse. I do not like to kill. Or perhaps I should say, my higher spirit does not like to kill. There is a pit in every man's soul wherein lies the most ancient part of us, the reptile spirit, which revels in violence and mayhem and the satiation of our basest desires. I am no exception. It is what makes war so terrible for the men who partake of it: remembering the part of their spirit which reveled in the killing. It is enough to give a man nightmares… and an immortal an eternity of them.

I looked to the west, where the sun was melting upon a scrim of blue-gray mountains. The clouds above were the color of lacerated flesh. I wiped tacky red tears from my cheeks, squinting into the molten sky, then turned to my young companion.

"The sun is setting," I said. "Why don't you remove the cloak? Let's see if you can tolerate the light."

Ilio eased back one edge of the cloak. He yelped and jerked it closed. I waited while he gathered his resolve, and then he surprised me by tossing the entire thing off.

He sat cross-legged, his eyes squeezed down to slits. I saw his fingers curling into the folds of the cloak. Black tears streaked down his cheeks, but he endured the pain. "It burns!" he hissed, but he did not relent.

My brave, strong son!

I hauled him to his feet. "Can you walk? I would like to bathe. I want this repulsive blood off me. Then we can hunt, if you'd like."

Ilio nodded, his lips split back from his teeth. He had very fine, very white vampire fangs. He wiped his cheeks, smearing tarry blood.

"Yes… I'm starving," he said.

His flesh was like mine: milky white and with a faint crystalline texture. Glints of orange and yellow and blue winked upon the contours of his face when he turned his head to look at me.

"Can you see?" I asked, pushing through the grass beside him.

"The pain is abating a little."

"The light will always sting your eyes, but a man can learn to put aside his pain if he sets his mind to it. It is a simple skill to master, even for a mortal."

"Yes, Father," Ilio murmured, opening his eyes a little wider. His pupils had constricted to tiny pinpricks, but he suffered without complaint.

"Good, good. Never surrender to pain. Embrace it. Defy it."

I sniffed the air, then angled away to the north.

"This way."

Ilio stumbled over a hummock, not yet accustomed to the daylight, but I did not have to tarry for him.

Not far from our camp, a shallow rill of water meandered through a sodden flat choked with reeds. We removed our boots and tiptoed across the slurping mud. Ilio washed his hands and face in the idle stream while I stripped off my stiff clothes. As I hung my bloody garments upon the bulrushes, I told him of the battle, and the invitation the Neirie had made to us.

"Perhaps we could visit their camp after we feed," Ilio suggested. "I would not be so tempted by their blood with a full belly. You see how well I am able to endure the sunlight. I can endure my thirst for blood as well."

I came across a human ear in the pocket of my breeches and threw it away with a grunt. "We shall see," I said.

Ilio sighed and splashed his hand through the water.

"Don't pout," I said. "It is not becoming."

"Easy for you to say. You make all the decisions," Ilio complained.

"True," I laughed, shucking off my breeches. I squatted in the middle of the stream and began to splash the water up onto my arms and chest. Ilio twitched, his nose wrinkling at the smell of the blood that swirled toward him in the current.

"What if I leave the decision to you, Ilio? Can you judge your self-control honestly, despite what your desires urge you to do?"

"Yes!"

"So tell me true. Can you resist the lure of their blood? Have you the strength to endure the hunger if we should go and walk among them?"

I sidled closer to him as I spoke, allowing the blood of the Oombai to drip from my skin. The moistened blood trickled down my abdomen and limbs.

Ilio's eyes flashed at me, and his body began to tremble. I could see the desire welling up in him, seizing control of his mind. He wanted to throw himself upon me and lick up all the blood. Perhaps he even fantasized of biting me.

He scrambled away with a cry.

"Ilio...!" I called after him.

"No," he moaned, crouching amid the reeds. He hung his head in defeat. "Not yet. I am not yet strong enough to resist it."

"Take heart, Son. You see your weakness and confess it aloud. That is a good thing," I said proudly. "A man cannot address his weaknesses if he refuses to see them. We will try to strengthen your will. Tonight, when we hunt, you will only drink half your fill of blood."