Chapter 207 - Uroboros part 8

He was much shorter than I expected him to be.

Of course, I had only seen him through Zenzele's eyes until that moment, and so he had appeared taller in my imagination. His stature had little effect on the sense of power that radiated from him, however. It was like a high-powered radio signal, if you'll forgive one more anachronistic lapse, a humming field of energy in which his personality was embedded, transmitted to all who stood in his presence.

He had a broad, heavily muscled physique, but more than that, he looked dense, as if his body were composed entirely of stone. His flesh was white, the purest white you can imagine, and shot through with curling threads of blue-- his veins. He was bald, with crude, primitive-looking features: a heavy brow, a flat broken nose, full lips and a bony, jutting chin. A deep furrow angled from his left eye to his jawline, and another marred the broad flat plane of his forehead: scars he must have received when he was a mortal man. Countless smaller scars pitted the surface of his skull, his torso, his arms. He was attired in simple garb: leggings, boots, a plaited chest-piece. His arms and shoulders were tattooed. The feature I found most disturbing, however, was his eyes. They were black.

Blank, glimmering, soulless black.

Edron led us to the center of the chamber, then gestured for us to kneel. All along the perimeter of the court, gaunt white blood drinkers stood in attendance. They stared, a few whispering among themselves, but most were silent, grim. The only sound in the chamber were our footfalls and the crackle of the torches that lined the walls above the heads of the god king's courtiers.

Palifver stood among them, Hettut at his side. He stared at me with a tiny, cruel smile, his eyes sizzling with jealousy.

I met his hot stare with ice, then turned my attention to Khronos.

"Zenzele, my lord, and the stray from the Western Dominions," the majordomo announced. He bowed and backed away.

"Zenzele, my love," Khronos said with obvious pleasure. Smiling, he rose from his throne of basalt and bone.

The floor of his reception chamber was made of volcanic stone. The igneous rock had formed a polygonal pattern when it cooled ages before, and the ancient blood drinker stepped gracefully from section to section as he approached. His shadow, multiplied by the torches, leapt and capered on the walls.

"Khronos," Zenzele bowed.

The god king of the vampires appraised me as he drew near. I found his black gaze disconcerting, but I tried not to betray my fear.

"Palifver says that you've brought us a stray," Khronos said. "An untamed blood drinker from the northern wastes. We hope that you have wet-trained the beast." 

Some of the creature's sycophants tittered. Their voices echoed off the walls of the royal chamber like a flurry of bat wings.

"I'm certain Palifver has said... a great many things," Zenzele replied.

"Do not concern yourself overly much," Khronos reassured her. "I am not so ancient that I have forgotten how spurned love can poison the tongue."

With one last nimble hop, he stood before Zenzele. He held out his hands. His fingers were very long, very white, and sported long, thick, black nails. Zenzele put her fingers in his palms, and those pallid claws curled around them.

He grinned down at her, his teeth sharp and yellow, like old ivory.

"You have been gone too long, my beautiful Zenzele," he said. "The Fen is much too drab in your absence."

"I am glad to be home."

"Yes… home," he sighed. He seemed lost in thought for a moment, and then he turned to address me. "Perhaps, someday, you will consider Uroboros your home as well."

He grinned at me, waiting for a response.

"Perhaps," I said carefully.

"Good! Good!" he cried. "Tell me, stranger… what is your name?"

"Thest," I answered.

"Thest," he repeated. His jaw worked as if he were chewing the word. He turned suddenly to Zenzele. "Thest is a name used by one of the mortal tribes in the Western Dominions, is it not?"

"Yes, Khronos."

"It is not a common name," he ruminated. His eyelids fluttered, and then he made a face as if to say "ah-hah!"

"Thest is the name of one of the Tanti's deities!" He laughed at the expression of surprise on my face. "Of course I know the Tanti! I was old when the Tanti came down from the north, before they even called themselves the Tanti, when the world was gripped in fists of ice and snow and giant beasts still roamed the land!"

He looked at me with sudden intensity, and I felt his eyes boring into my skull. I imagined I could hear his thoughts in my mind—low, grinding, alien thoughts. Incomprehensible.

"But you are old, too," he said softly. He released Zenzele's hands to approach me, and I was nearly overwhelmed by a desire to retreat from him. It took all of my willpower to stay there on my knees. I wanted to scramble across the floor like a frightened child.

"Not as old as I am, but very old," he said, his eyebrows drawing together. "From before the Time of Ice, I would think. And yet, you are still very much the mortal man you once were. Interesting…"

He circled around me as he spoke. As he did, I felt that he was examining me with more than just his eyes. I had the notion that he was looking inside me, into my past, possibly even my future, with senses not much different from the strange intuition that Zenzele commanded, only more powerful, more piercing.

Several more blood drinkers entered the royal chamber. Bhorg, Tribtoc and Goro, among others, slipped as unobtrusively as possible through the main entrance. The courtiers made room for them along the perimeter of the chamber.

"Palifver said that you surrendered to Zenzele to protect the life of a T'sukuru child. He said the two of you had been living among a tribe of mortal men. The Tanti, I presume."

"Yes," I answered, turning my head to keep sight of the creature.

"Did they worship you, these Tanti?" he asked. "Is that why you took the name of one of their deities?"

"No. I lived as one of them."

"They knew what you were, and they accepted you?"

"Yes."

That caused a bit of a stir among the king's court. The god king's audience murmured in surprise and consternation.

"You are no longer a mortal man," Khronos said with a strange sort of pity in his voice, as if he were speaking to a child.

"I have begun to teach him our ways," Zenzele spoke up nervously. "He was forced to destroy his maker shortly after he was given the Blood. He has lived among mortal men all of his life. He is ignorant, yes, and stubborn, but I would like to take him into my House. I would like to give him the same opportunities that you have given to me."

"You feel an affinity with him," Khronos said to her. "You were also a stray."

"Yes, Lord," Zenzele said.

"Do you love him?"

I saw Palifver's head jerk up at that. His eyes narrowed. His fingers curled into fists.

Zenzele looked stricken. "I… am drawn to him," she said haltingly. She glanced toward me, then stuttered, "Yes… I feel… a strong affection for him."

"You have Shared?"

"Yes."

"Then he knows," Khronos said. His eyes twitched back toward me. "We will have your blood now, wild man from the north. Let us look into your soul."