Chapter 196 - Zenzele, My Love part 15

How much more tangled shall the web of this narrative grow?

I fear it is too much already, all these frayed and wagging threads. My life's remembrances, the experiences of my soulmate, my latter day machinations... Prithee, bear with me a little longer, my dear readers, for I fully intend to weave them all together, and make of them one complete tapestry before this tale is told.

But let me return to Bujune and Zenzele for a moment before we proceed with the next-- the penultimate-- chapter in this, the third installment of my memoirs.

Bujune and Zenzele traveled to the city of Uroboros.

Now I do not wish to overshadow my own adventures there, so try not be frustrated if I gloss over the details of their experiences. I will say this: the denizens of Uroboros took them in, and being the first immortals to come from the continent now known as Africa, they were welcomed with much fanfare and curiosity. Khronos was unusually taken with the vampire Zenzele, being the beautiful proud warrior-woman she was-- and still is to this day. He was so enamored of her, in fact, that he destroyed Bujune within moments of tasting Zenzele's blood.

He did not even Share with Bujune. When they were summoned to his court for his blessing, as all new arrivals must do in Uroboros, Khronos sipped delicately from Zenzele's wrist. His eyelids fluttered, a soft sigh escaped his colorless lips, and then he turned and struck Bujune's head from his shoulders, sending it smashing into the wall on the far side of the great chamber.

Bujune's head struck the wall with enough force to shatter into a million glittering particles. All the courtiers who were gathered there that day scrambled out of the way, shocked by their ruler's sudden violence.

If he had been a true immortal, an Eternal, even an injury as grievous as that would not have been enough to kill the ill-fated Bujune. It would have disabled him, but he would have survived. He might even had healed without much psychological trauma, if his head were returned to his shoulders and he was given enough blood to drink. But in his creation, Bujune had fallen short of true godhood, and when his head was struck from his neck, the Strix that resided within him was unable to repair the sudden and catastrophic damage.

Bujune fell to his knees, every muscle churning beneath his dark and glossy flesh. Black tendrils erupted from the shattered stump, whipping wildly in the air. The immortal courtiers gasped or cried out in horror at the sight of those madly wavering pseudopodia, or did so moments later, when the Strix withdrew and devoured Bujune from within.

Zenzele fell back in surprise when Khronos decapitated her master. She watched in stunned disbelief as Bujune's massive form began to shrivel. She put her hand over her mouth as chinks zigzagged down his chest and shoulders and his left arm snapped off and fell away to twinkling dust.

Bujune's torso keeled forward, separating from his pelvis with a loud crackling sound. It hit the floor with a dry crunch, bursting into granules no larger than flecks of sand.

His legs and pelvis remained upright a moment longer, still shriveling, the last bits of drying Strix wriggling upon his vertebrae, and then Khronos lashed out with one foot, sending the man's lower half swirling across the floor.

Zenzele watched with fatalistic detachment as Khronos ground the last of Bujune beneath his heel, thinking that she would join her maker in the afterlife momentarily, or worse, be bound to the will of another jealous man.

Instead, Khronos turned to her and held out his hand.

"Rise, Zenzele," he said. "I have freed you from bondage."

Trembling, frightened half out of her wits, incapable of comprehending even the concept of her freedom, Zenzele took his hand.

And so she became a free woman, and master of her own house.