Chapter 349 - The Body Politic part 7

Drums!

After my performance at the Temple of the Bloodletters, Zenzele and I retired to our lair at the summit of Mount Asharoth. There we were joined by our closest advisors: Bhorg and Drago, who represented our armed forces, the high priest Neolas, Irema, Tapas, Eris, Usus and a half-dozen more, including a mortal named Jafari, who spoke on behalf of the mortal inhabitants of Penthos. But the drumming commenced shortly after we called the high council to order, and we found ourselves distracted by its driving beat. In the still night air, the drumming carried all the way to the Aerie. The rapid percussion was both energetic and sensual. Its throbbing brought to mind engorged mortal flesh, hot and eager to be touched.

"What is going on down there?" Drago finally exclaimed, annoyed that the drumming had diverted us from talk of troop placement and the allocation of weapons and supplies.

"They are celebrating," Neolas said.

"Celebrating what?"

"The return of the Father, of course!" the mortal Jafari said, smiling at me with worshipful eyes.

"Ah, yes, well… that is understandable," Drago stammered, glancing toward me guiltily. "Gon's return is certainly cause for celebration."

Drago was an immensely powerful Eternal, nearly as old as Zenzele, with long raven black hair and eyes the color of winter floes. He'd once been a Clan Master, another denizen of Fen'Dagher, but Khronos became desirous of his woman and set his personal guard upon them. He meant to have Drago Divided and force his woman, Hannan, to his side. Hannan was destroyed in the resulting confrontation. Swearing his vengeance on the God King, Drago escaped from Uroboros and fled east. He was the leader of a small coven of rogue blood drinkers when we encountered him. Learning that we meant to depose the God King, Drago had joined us. He'd since become a dependable ally, though he tended to be somewhat irascible.

"Do not worry about my ego, Drago," I said. "It is not easily bruised."

Drago bowed his head.

Drago's presence was itself a distraction. Like Zenzele, the raven-haired Eternal stirred Yul to anger. They had a long history of antipathy, Drago and my phantom cohort. There was no real reason for their mutual dislike, just clashing personalities, though they did engage in combat when Drago fled Fen'Dagher. As I sat at my hearth, speaking politely to the Eternal, I could hear Yul grumbling in my mind. It was as if his muttered curses were whispered in my ear. I had all but consumed the Eternal's personality, but Yul continued to lurk in the back of my thoughts, a lingering malevolence. His constant rancorous commentary was almost more than I could stand.

In truth, I did not think we were going to accomplish much else that night. I could barely concentrate with Yul snarling in my ear, and the drumming--! It sang to something deep inside me. It called up memories of my mortal life, the ritual orgies my people had held at the summer and winter solstices. I ached to be down there in the city, to join the celebrants, to let the feverish pulse of the drumming sweep away all of my cares. It had been a very long time since I had taken part in an orgy, since I had allowed myself such unrestrained abandon.

And I wasn't the only one. I saw Hammon and Usus and Eris stealing little glances towards the entrance of the Aerie, their thoughts on the festivities below. They fidgeted and spoke distractedly. Hammon looked like he was about to jump right out of his skin.

The drums!

Finally, I rose.

"Perhaps we should continue this council meeting tomorrow night," I suggested.

I expected someone to object, but no one spoke up. Not even Drago.

"Go, enjoy yourselves," I said with a grin. "We'll meet and talk of war tomorrow."

They didn't fall over each other exiting the cave, but they didn't exactly drag their feet either. Only Bhorg and Neolas lingered. We chatted as Irema helped Zenzele clean after the meeting, rolling up the mats and putting them away. Bhorg was in the mood to reminisce and we talked of the friends we had lost in this war with the God King. Goro, Petra, Morgruss… all dead. Of the Orda, Neolas' people, only Hammon and Eris still lived. Although I knew it was not his intent, Bhorg's talk of fallen comrades made me melancholy. I was relieved when Zenzele returned and shooed them on their way.

"All right, I'm going," Bhorg said equanimously. "I suppose you two have a lot of catching up to do."

Zenzele smiled. "Something like that."

"I can take a hint. We'll get out of your hair."

"Good night, my friend."

Bhorg waved from the ledge of the entrance, then dropped out of sight. Neolas bowed and glided from the chamber.

"It's strange to see him without his hammer," I said.

Zenzele laughed. "Yes, it is."

"So many things have changed." I sat beside the fire and stared into its shifting light. "The city has gotten so large! There are so many people now. New people. I did not recognize a single face this evening, when we went down to the Temple of the Bloodletters. It was not so when I left for Uroboros. I did not know everyone, but their faces were familiar to me. Now it is like I am in a foreign country."

Zenzele settled beside me. Though her every movement was visual poetry, I had put on blinders of melancholy. I felt her cold fingers on my shoulders, kneading the taut muscles there.

"Penthos is much changed," she said. "You were gone for two years. And it is still growing, my love! Every day there are new refugees waiting at the gates, begging to be let in. They come to Penthos seeking sanctuary. They come to see this new thing we've made here, this city where everyone is free. But most of all they come seeking you, Gon. They come to see the Father. The Divided God. They come to share the dream you dared to dream. They come to fight for you."

I sighed. "Yes, they fight for me. They fight and die. And it weighs heavily on my conscience."

"They fight in your name, but they fight for themselves, too, and they know it."

Zenzele took my face in her hands and turned my eyes toward the entrance of the cave.

"Listen to their joy," she said. "Your return has filled them with hope. The God King has thrown his army against us time and time again. Yet here we are, stronger than ever!"

"All to your credit."

"All thanks to you, my love. We all hated and feared the God King, but you were the first to openly defy him!"

"I doubt I was the first."

"But you are the first with the strength to defeat him."

I nodded, putting aside my melancholy.

"They fight because they yearn for freedom," Zenzele said. "They celebrate because they believe you are the one who will help them to win it."

She leapt to her feet suddenly.

"Let us go down," she said, grinning at me with excitement. "Let us join in the revel before they surrender to exhaustion."

I laughed in disbelief. "They would mob us!"

"Not if we go in disguise."

Zenzele hurried away while I looked after her in wonder. I never would have thought of it myself, going down there in disguise, but as soon as she suggested it, I was trembling with excitement. When she returned a few moments later with a change of clothes and all of her skin paints, I rose eagerly to join her.

"Strip," she said, arranging her cosmetics on the floor beside the fire. As I disrobed, she came up behind me, swept my hair behind my back and began to braid it into plaits.

"Are you certain you want to do this?" I asked, speaking to her over my shoulder.

It was natural for me. The culture I was raised in was very open sexually, but I had learned in recent years that it was not a common thing. Most societies were not as uninhibited as my people had been, with either their thinking or their bodies. Even the Tanti, the direct descendants of the People of the River, had a social structure that was based on monogamous sexual relationships, one man to one woman, and they guarded their lifemates jealously. My sexual proclivities had never angered her before, but I wanted to make sure her attitude hadn't changed. Zenzele was a good mate, loyal and indulgent. I didn't want to hurt her.

Also, she had a ferocious temper.

She smiled behind me, her fingers nimbly twining my hair. I did not see her smile but I sensed her amusement. "I can think of nothing more futile than trying to possess you," she said.

"You need only say the word and I will never look at another woman."

"Forever is a very long time. Especially for immortals."

"Yes, it is," I said, enjoying the sensation of her fingers in my hair. I closed my eyes and tilted my head back with a sigh. There is nothing quite so delightful as being groomed!

"I do not wish to possess you, Gon," Zenzele said, a little more seriously. " All my life, men have tried to own me. First my father, whom I loved, then Onani, the man who stole me from my father, and then, shortly after him, Bujune, my maker. I did not know what it was to be my own person until Khronos destroyed my maker and set me free. And even then I belonged to Khronos. He just tied me to a longer leash. No, my love. I no more wish to bind you to my heart than I would allow you to enslave me with your affections. We can be lovers and equals. Together and free."

"As wind and whim propel us," I agreed.

I knew that she had spoken her true feelings. I had lived her life through the sharing of her blood, lived it as if it were my own. I knew of Onani, who had abducted her from her childhood home, leaving her brother to die on that savage African plain. I knew the fear and pain of her circumcision rite, and how the smell of blood had drawn the vampire Bujune to the site of the ritual. The predatory blood drinker had fed upon all the girls who were mutilated during the ceremony. Drugged, legs bound, weak from blood loss and infection, they were helpless to defend themselves from the bloodthirsty fiend. Bujune spared Zenzele because she was beautiful, and took her to live in his mountain lair. There, a slave to the beast, Zenzele had passed from her mortal life and into immortality, never knowing a breath of free air until her master took her to the city of the blood gods and Khronos rid her of her brutish maker. I knew Zenzele like I knew myself, but it was reassuring to hear her speak her feelings aloud. In many ways her soul is the twin of my own, but I still worried she might someday grow weary of my libidinous ways.

I wondered if she felt similarly fettered by her responsibilities to the people down below, to our war with Khronos, to me, and to all the roles she had to play in this world we had created for ourselves: wife, general, goddess, queen.

Of course, she did!

She was probably just as eager as I to cast aside her responsibilities for a little while and slip down anonymously to the city below. To be Zenzele instead of the Mother. To be a woman instead of a queen.

I felt obliged to show her a good time.

"We should find a well-hung stag for you to play with tonight," I teased. "A man who can make up for this body's woeful shortcomings."

Yul took offense at that—yes, I know; it is not the length of the spear but how hard you throw it!-- but I ignored his indignant protestations.

Zenzele laughed. "You are irredeemable, my love."

She had finished braiding my hair and directed me to turn and face her. Squatting down, she retrieved her paints. Rising and dipping a finger into one of the containers, she said, "If women were like men, that would be the answer to all of life's difficulties. But our spirits are more subtle things."

"So you would have us believe," I said, and the side of her mouth quirked in amusement.

"Hold still!"

"Yes, my queen."

I was unrecognizable when she had finished painting me. That is what she told me, anyway. I didn't have a mirror to look at obviously. I painted her then, pausing to kiss her on the lips and neck and breasts.

"Quickly," I said when it was finished, "before dawn's sober light douses their passions!"

That was how it was for my tribe, when all the merje had been smoked and all the framash guzzled down, and daylight disclosed every scar, wrinkle and wart of the sex-addled celebrants.

I took her by the hand and pulled her after me. Together we clambered down the face of the mountain, adhering to the rocks like two very large salamanders. The wind whistled in the crevices of the slope as we descended. A storm was blowing up, driving the wind ahead of it like a hunted animal. Several times the gusts threatened to snatch me from the wall and send me crashing to the rocks below, where I would no doubt shatter into a thousand tiny pieces, but I clung stubbornly on, determined not to make a fool of myself.

I very carefully placed my hands and feet, concentrating on their positions as I descended. It was difficult. I found myself underreaching by an inch or two, or overcompensating and overreaching, unless I was looking directly at them. I was afraid Yul might try to sabotage me. Though I had mostly absorbed the foreign personality, he was still enough of a presence in my mind that he might easily cause me to misplace one of my limbs. I glanced inwards to see what my cohabitator was thinking. He was, I saw, just as eager for the orgy as I. Enemy he might be, but he was also a man. A truce then, I thought, and he grumbled in assent.

Just for tonight.

The district of Penthos was hosting the revel. When we completed our descent, I took Zenzele's hand and pulled her after me again. "Hurry! Come on!" I cried, and together we raced through the canton of the blood drinkers, like two young lovers to a favored trysting place.

I felt young again. I felt alive. The drumming throbbed in my chest like a beating heart.

We passed through the inner wall, slipping past revelers who had surrendered to exhaustion. Stinking of blood and sweat and mortal sex, they staggered home to their beds. I pushed smugly by these namby-pambies. One of the weary immortals, not knowing who I was, cursed me extravagantly when I bumped into him. Laughing, I turned back to confront him, my blood singing in my veins, but Zenzele put her hands on my back and pressed me onwards. "No fighting!" she said. Exiting the dark passage, we found ourselves at the perimeter of a seething mob.

I hesitated for a moment, taken aback by their numbers, and the sheer abandon with which they'd thrown themselves into the celebration. I've seen nothing its like since. The Roman Bacchanalia, perhaps. But never a crowd so large. Never such wanton extremes.

"They do this for me?" I gasped.

"So it began, perhaps," Zenzele said. "But now…"

The crowd engulfed us before she could finish. I reached out to Zenzele, shouting her name, but she had already been carried away from me. Bodies, naked and gyrating, flesh slick with sweat. They pressed against me from all sides, battering me in their fervor. I felt like a rock on which storm swept waves kept crashing, violent and foaming. Fingers reached in and tugged at my clothing. Hands roamed my body without license, shivers of pleasure trailing their touch. A mortal woman, her neck and arms covered in bites, thrust her bleeding wrist to my lips. "Drink!" she encouraged, laughing giddily. Hot blood spurted from her tender flesh. I seized her arm, drawing hungrily at the wound, dizzied by the pleasure that rushed through my body. She cried out, head falling back in ecstasy, pain and pleasure distorting her features into something that was both beautiful and grotesque. Another bleeding mortal pushed the woman aside, a second spouting gash offered for my delectation. "Drink! Drink!" the man cried, mashing his gushing wrist to my mouth. As I drank, another mortal male seized me from behind. He sank his teeth into the flesh of my neck. I pushed him away and he fell back against the heaving crowd, eyes rolling in their sockets, lips smeared black with my blood. Was it enough to change him? I did not know, but the crowd swept him away before I could go to him and check. A woman dashed up and emptied a vessel of fresh mortal blood over my head. I nearly swooned as the blood coursed down my face. Blood in my mouth. Blood on my chest and belly. Dizzied by the taste and smell, I was only dimly aware that my clothes had been completely torn from my body. A beautiful male immortal lit upon me like an insect and began to lap the blood from my bare chest, tongue flicking in and out. A mortal female had dropped to her knees in front of me, lips locked around my tumescent organ. A cold immortal hand fell upon my shoulder, pressing me forward at the waist. A moment later, an icy organ, hard as stone, pressed forcefully between my buttocks. My would-be sodomizer wrapped his arms around me, kissing me fervently on the neck as he thrust at my thighs from behind. A second mortal female knelt before me, lapping at the base of my cock as the first pleasured the tip. A moment later, an ancient immortal seized my wrist and plunged in his fangs with a hiss. He pulled at the wound hard enough to make my heart flutter, and then stumbled back, eyes wide, as my memories poured into his mind. He opened his mouth as if he would speak—he looked as if he meant to cry out my name, so surprised was he by my identity—but the shifting masses swallowed him before he could stammer it out. The male behind me—or some other fellow who'd taken his place—pushed abruptly inside of me, and I stumbled forward with a groan. I have never particularly enjoyed that sexual act, but I surrendered to him, I surrendered to them all, too weak with ecstasy to resist. Let them have their way with me then! Let them all have their way with me! I belonged to them and they to me. We were one and the same. My surrender was absolute. I gave myself to the multitude, my body, my identity, my soul, thrusting joyously into every orifice that was offered to me, letting my own flesh be used by any man or woman who desired it. The drums! The roar of the mob! No single voice was discernible, not even my own. The flesh was no different, melting into a heaving wet protean whole. It was a glorious chaos, a transcendent coalescence of flesh and spirit and sound. And blood! So much blood! Red, hot and spurting. I gorged until my stomach was sloshing, vomited and then drank some more. I spied a man who looked much like my Brulde. He had shoulder length curly blonde hair, a stocky build, broad muscular shoulders. His ass was muscular too, and fuzzed with downy hair. Overwhelmed with lust, I seized him by the nape and shoved him down onto a bed of writhing bodies. He resisted me a moment, but I would not be denied. I wrapped him in my arms as he surrendered, pressing my face into his hair as he arched his back to receive me, both of us grunting as I thrust urgently inside of him. Before I spent my passion in him, a buxom beauty with tawny skin and dark, almond-shaped eyes danced by. I scrambled eagerly after her, calling out her name. "Eyya! Eyya! It is I! Gon!" It was not my beloved Eyya of course, but I was beyond rational thought. I swept her into my arms and laid her down upon the ground. "Oh, my love, you've returned to me!" I cried, smothering her cheeks and neck and breasts with kisses. Eyes gleaming lustily, she laughed and spread her legs, parting the creamy lips of her sex for me. I was inside of her in one thrust, and gushing blissfully an instant later. The crowd parted then and I spied Zenzele, dancing wildly in a line of ecstatic women. Their arms were twined and their heads lashed to and fro as they leapt and kicked their legs in unison, the mortal dancers sweating water and salt, the immortals sweating blood. Then the woman who still held me drew my mouth to her breasts and I surrendered to her want. I began to thrust into her again, but gentler now, not so desperate to empty myself inside of her. Yes, give her pleasure. Pour myself into her, like river into sea. Take me, I thought. Take all of me! I was a single quivering cell in the body of a vast living organism, and it was glorious. All identity, all will, all cares surrendered. All my pain and loss forgotten. My defeat at the hands of the God King, the eternity I suffered on the wall… all forgotten. And the forgetting was like the lancing of a boil, all the horror and shame draining away like some poisonous exudate. It was not so much a rebirth as a cleansing, a sexual purgative, and a reaffirmation of the divide that existed between the God King and myself. Where he was pain, I would be pleasure. Where he took, I would give. Where he destroyed, I would create. In the arms of these mortal celebrants, I realized what I truly fought for. Not the dominion of one tribe of vampires over another, not philosophical or political ideas, but the supremacy of mortal man itself. It was these frail, hot-blooded, living human beings who must be ascendant. A world ruled by our kind, by the blood gods of Uroboros, would be a cold sterile unchanging world, an unending cycle of parasitism and pain leading inexorably to our mutual extinction.

Oh, Mankind! You fecund mayflies! You mad passionate ingenious creatures! You've weathered the hoary ages of ice. Now you must live through the age of the vampire.

And I, Gon, most ancient of my tribe, will see you through that dreadful night!