Chapter 206 - Uroboros part 7

There was a disturbance in some distant corridor, one that grew in volume as it approached Zenzele's quarters. We had arisen and were waiting for someone to come for us when we heard the great warren of the blood drinkers stir to life around us. Vehnfear heard it first and rose, his hackles standing up. Zenzele stroked his back. She looked at me gravely, her eyes wide, her face drawn. I did my best to comfort her. I smiled placidly, my palms resting on my knees, trying to project an air of calm, but my stomach was churning. So much rode on the god king's approval! My fate. The fates of my loved ones. All of the Tanti.

"Gon…" Zenzele murmured.

Her door hanging was swept to one side and a wizened blood drinker ducked into the chamber. "Zenzele," he croaked.

"Master Edron!" Zenzele jumped to her feet and bowed low.

The creature was dressed in flowing robes and a large headdress, a pipe-shaped hat draped with painted wooden chits. The little wooden tablets chattered against one another when the man moved. There were several warriors in the corridor outside, and a handful of curious spectators.

Vehnfear snarled, and Zenzele stroked the beast to silence him.

"You have been summoned to the court of the god king," Edron said. He nodded to the wolf almost imperceptibly, acknowledging the animal's intelligence, which surprised me. I could feel the T'sukuru's power emanating from him like the wind off an ice floe. An Eternal! Cold silver eyes flicked in my direction and the ancient blood drinker's lips narrowed. "Khronos wishes to examine the stray you have returned from the Western Dominions with," he said.

"Of course," Zenzele nodded.

I bowed, and the Clan Master turned with a swish of his robes, leading us into the corridor with no further comment.

"Stay!" Zenzele hissed at Vehnfear, pointing her finger at him.

The wolf settled back down with a surly huff.

Edron's guards fell into step behind us as the god king's majordomo led us through the winding corridors of the Fen.

The vampire city had seemed all but deserted when we arrived at dawn, its inhabitants bedded down for the day, but it was early evening now, and the underground city was buzzing with activity.

Blood drinkers of all shapes and sizes moved busily through the subterranean chambers. If we came upon them in the corridors, they flattened themselves against the gray stone walls to let us pass, bowing obsequiously to the Clan Master, but for the most part, the denizens of the Fen paid little attention to our group. This was a city, and they had their own lives to concern themselves with. They were artisans and craftsmen, soldiers and whores. They were priests and penitents, courtiers and clowns. Few gave me even a second glance, and then only because I was in the company of a Master.

I was a tourist in hell.

I knew I was probably marching to my doom, but I could not rein in my natural curiosity. I had heard of the vampires of the east-- the great city of the blood drinkers-- from the moment I ended my self-imposed isolation, and I had wanted to see it. Now I was here, and though I found it to be a loathsome place, it was still impressive. It was still a wonder. Throngs of immortals moved about its vast chambers, their dress exotic and rich. Many of the chambers were brightly painted, and in a much more sophisticated manner than the mortal cave paintings of the period. There was a great glittering falls, the water tumbling from a chink in the roof so high up it was almost lost in the distance. Around the falls, man-made bridges circled so that the immortals could enjoy the sight up close. There were tapestries and statuary, monuments and altars. There were things I could not, in my ignorance, even figure out the intent of. Complex wood and stone objects that moved of their own accord, making monotonous clacking sounds. Troughs of flowing water that turned creaking wooden paddles. I was, by turns, amazed, intrigued, amused and even frightened.

Yet, as we moved deeper into the mountain, the inhabitants of the vampire city grew more perverse. In a vast cavern whose roof was open to the stars, some religious ceremony was being held. I watched as ecstatic mortals paid tribute to their vampire masters, slashing open their wrists and aiming the spurting wounds toward large and ornately carved wooden bowls. Blood drinkers in priestly robes slurped from the bowls ravenously, their garments dripping with the scarlet fluid. Further down, in a chamber that billowed with hissing steam, we encountered a great orgy, mortal and immortal alike, fucking and feeding. They coiled and writhed, a collective mound of twitching flesh. The air was thick with the smell of semen and sweat and hot human blood. The pools they copulated in bubbled and splashed with hot gases that had passed up from the belly of the earth. We crossed a stinking abattoir where mortals hung by their ankles like game, to be butchered and bled into crusty stone vats. The immortals working here hardly even looked up as we passed through the center of the workroom. In another chamber, vampire aristocrats lazed about shallow pools of human blood, gossiping idly. The blood clung to their flesh, dark, half-congealed, like clots. It was finally too much for me to bear. My thoughts reeled drunkenly at the nightmarish sights, the putrescent stench, of this pit of vipers. I had to lower my eyes, withdraw into my inner being.

I have always had a self-indulgent nature, and I'm ashamed to say that all this debauchery tempted me. I feared I could lose my soul in this place-- and not even notice that I'd lost it. That, to me, was the crowning horror.

That I could be one of them.

That it would be so easy.

We descended, and descended yet further, until finally we came to the royal chamber, the great court of the god king Khronos.

There, in the deepest pits of Fen'Dagher, I was brought before the father of us all.

The First One.

The original Oldest Living Vampire.