Chapter 355 - Aioa part 3

We set out shortly after sunset, attired in hooded cloaks to conceal our identities from the citizens of Penthos. I did not want to believe that Khronos had planted spies in our midst, but it was all but a certainty that he had—after all, we had done the same to him, and planned to send more-- so we took every precaution we could imagine to hide our movements from our adversary.

There were six of us: Drago, Sunni and Eris, and also Irema, Tapas and myself. Zenzele did not accompany us from the city as Khronos regularly sent his Eye to torment my beloved and we did not want him to discern our intentions. That is why Irema and Tapas came along. It was not our plan for Irema and her husband to accompany us on our mission to rescue her sister, merely to come with us a little way to hide us from the God King's far-sight before she headed to Fen'Dagher to foment rebellion in Uroboros.

Several miles to the north, Rayna, Chaumas and a small company of our elite guard awaited us at the entrance of the northeastern pass. They had been sent ahead shortly before daybreak, and for the same reason we now wended our way through the narrow avenues of Penthos in concealment. The God King must not know what we meant to do, not until it was too late to dispatch reinforcements.

If he hadn't already done so.

It was not yet full dark and mortals crowded the streets. They bustled to and fro, bartering for goods, visiting with their family and friends, chasing after their children, building things up and tearing them down. The atmosphere bubbled with a hundred different dialects, the shouting of blood-sellers, laughter and gossip. The torch-lighters were making their way through the city and the air was redolent with the smell of freshly ignited pitch. On a street corner, a blood priest was proselytizing to a group of new refugees. Nearly two dozen mortals had gathered around the white-faced abuella. They listened to him raptly as he sermonized about the sanctity of the mortal way, which was the unending cycle of life and death and rebirth. I could smell the evening meals of hundreds of mortal families being cooked on hundreds of smoky hearths. Venison. Rabbit. Fish. Leafy greens and vegetables. The smell was rich and fine, and though I no longer hungered for food as I had when I was a mortal man, the aroma unleashed powerful waves of nostalgia in my spirit—that feeling we call homesickness. It reminded me again why I was doing this, waging this war against the God King, when I was by nature a peaceful man.

Our strange appearance garnered a few curious glances here and there, for it was much too warm for such heavy cloaks, and the bundles strapped to our bodies made us look oddly hunchbacked. No one challenged our movements, however, and we were able to pass quickly through the city and out into the open country without incident.

Yes, we were taking my arms and legs with us!

Must I tell you how bizarre it was having my own leg strapped to my back? I could feel it flopping against my shoulder as I walked, flexing at the knee and ankle like a strange broken wing. It was so grotesque it was almost comical. I might have laughed if we were not on such serious business.

Until that evening, I had purposely avoided examining my own dismembered body parts. The thought of touching them made me shudder with revulsion. But I was eager to be restored. Once we dealt with Aioa's pursuers, we planned to seek out the final segment of my body. So after the members of our rescue party had gathered in the Aerie, Zenzele and I took out my arms and legs, rewrapped them carefully in tough leather hides, and then strapped them to the backs of the Eternals who were accompanying me. Drago, Eris, Sunni and I each bore a piece of my body. And do you want to hear something even more macabre? Chaumas, who had gone on ahead of us with Rayna and the elite guard, was carrying a sack with Yul's decapitated head inside of it, for we meant to dispose of his body once I had been restored to my own. His eyes had flashed open when we removed his head from its leather swaddling. Glaring at us with brilliant hatred, he had bared his fangs at us in a soundless snarl. He had even snapped at Zenzele's fingers when she transferred him to Chaumas's satchel.

And that, my friends, is some of the things that go on in our world. We blood drinkers are far more alien than you could possibly imagine!

We marched north once we had cleared the city, walking in the shadow of the timeless Urals. It was half a night's journey to the northeastern pass, where we planned to join forces with Rayna and her elite guard. Our route took us to one of the rapidly flowing rivers that wound its way through the mountain chain, a tributary of the White Snake, and we followed it from there, passing near a couple of the mortal settlements that orbited Penthos like little satellites. A few of the villagers watched us go by, clearly suspicious of our unseasonable garb, but they merely took note of our passing. None attempted to follow or hinder us in any way. To our left, the river leapt and frothed, a hissing white serpent. Overhead, the stars brightened and the moon hove up over the mountain peaks, but we did not hurry. We did not wish to draw attention to ourselves.

Irema and Tapas walked at my side, Sunni a little ahead of us, while Drago and Eris trailed a few paces behind. We conversed in low voices as we marched. After a while, Sunni went to the river's edge and began to hop from stone to stone. It was the first time I'd seen her behave in a child-like manner. Her cloak flapped like the wings of a bird as she bound from one slick boulder to the next. I think perhaps she was showing off, for every now and then she would look back over her shoulder at me and smile, making sure I was watching. She did not slip once on the slimy green stones.

"I think she likes you," Irema confided.

"She is a child," I said.

"She has a child's body, but her mind is the mind of a woman. Her desires are a woman's desires."

"It matters not," I said uncomfortably. "I belong to my queen, body and soul."

Irema laughed.

"Let us speak of your mission to Uroboros," I said, hoping to change the subject.

That is how we spent our trek to the northeastern pass: plotting against the God King.

I took great relish in plotting the God King's downfall. He had injured me. He had injured me physically, and he had injured me spiritually, by seducing my blood child Ilio before destroying the boy before my eyes. If he spent all of eternity in the flames of Tartarus, tormented by every devil in creation, it would not be just compensation for what he had done to my son!

I could not change the past—if only I could!—but I could have my revenge, and I meant to have it, in the most brutal fashion I could devise. In many ways, Khronos had destroyed me, too. He had destroyed the passive lover-of-pleasure that I had once been. That man was no more. What was left in his stead was a colder, more calculating, and far less forgiving creature than I had once been.

Irema and Tapas were taken aback by my bloody-mindedness, but Drago was quite sympathetic.

To win a war, one must become war-like. That is what I said to them. That was why we had brought along Yul's head. It was my idea. I planned to dispose of his body in the same manner that Khronos had disposed of mine: Divided and scattered to the winds. The old me, the gentler me, would have shrank in horror from the thought, but I could no longer afford fine sentiments like compassion or mercy. Their price was much too high in times of war.

We were about halfway to the pass when I sensed something dark and indistinct pass somewhere overhead. From my experience with Zenzele, I knew almost immediately what it was. It was an Eye. Most likely the God King's Eye. Khronos was searching for us.

Irema sensed it as well. She stopped and craned her head back, scanning the starry heavens.

"Quiet!" she whispered tersely. "Everyone, draw close to me!"

We encircled her with our bodies as Irema frowned in concentration, making a visible effort to shield us from the God King's clairvoyant presence.

The Eye doubled back, hovered overhead for a moment, and then flit away to the north.

"He's gone," Irema said, expelling her breath in relief. "He did not see us."

"But he'll see Rayna and the others at the pass," Tapas said. "Your power does not extend so far."

"He may see them," Drago said, "but what will he know of their business? He will think them an outranging patrol. Nothing more."

"Most likely," I said. I looked to the west, in the direction of Fen'Dagher. I imagined our enemy standing on some rocky ledge, high upon the mountaintop, arms extended, head thrown back, casting his Eye across the moonlit landscape. Could he feel me? Could he feel the hatred burning in my soul? I hoped so. I hoped it troubled him. "Still, he is searching for us," I went on. "Perhaps he saw that we are no longer in Asharoth. Whatever he suspects, the time for creeping in the shadows has passed. Irema has given us our head start. Now we fly, my friends. After me!"

I tore off my cloak and cast myself into the sky. Below me, Irema and Tapas flew after. Sunni took flight with a laugh of delight, followed by Drago and Eris.

The wind howled in my ears, plucked at the flesh of my face. I landed and threw myself immediately upwards again. The earth receded rapidly below. The river dwindled to a silver thread.

The sensation of flight is always exhilarating. Would that I could truly fly, soar upon the lofty currents like a bird, returning to the earth only at my choosing, but we vampires cannot defy the law of gravity, only challenge it, and so we must soar in leaps and bounds, rising and falling in great sweeping arcs. But it is still exhilarating, and if we catch the wind just right, we can glide a little distance, just like in a dream.

I fell and leapt and fell and leapt. The craggy Urals rocked past like the gray waves of some storm-tossed sea. I sensed the God King's Eye somewhere up ahead. It seemed like a hole in the sky this time, a loathsome void. It quavered in the distance a moment, almost fretfully, then flashed blindly past me, heading towards Asharoth. I followed its flight with my eyes, looking back over my shoulder, though it was not really a visible thing. I saw it with my mind in a way that I cannot verbalize, and there was something more. I could feel Khronos's anger as he passed by. I could feel his frustration and fear.

Good! I thought. You should fear me!

Rayna had posted lookouts to the south of their camp. They joined us when we passed, leaping into the air after us. There were no campfires to home in on. They didn't need a fire, for comfort or for light, and neither did I. I sensed them up ahead of us, sheltering near a copse of pine trees. I adjusted the trajectory of my next bound and watched their white faces, angled back to observe our descent, grow rapidly as we dropped from the sky.

I landed a little clumsily, but managed to roll to my feet with most of my dignity intact. Behind me, Irema and Tapas and the rest descended nimbly, almost silently, to the earth.

Rayna strode toward me, her finely shaped features taut with urgency. Her gold plaited hair swooped across her back as she walked, twitching like the tail of a nervous cat. She was a beautiful woman with a lean, lanky figure clad in leather and plated bone armor. She reminded me much of my long lost Nyala, so serious and self-possessed.

"Chaumas says the God King has observed us," she reported. "He will, no doubt, dispatch more of his warriors to intercept us."

"He has seen! More will come!" Chaumas sang. And then he laughed, his blind eyes gleaming like pearls in the dark.

"Hush, old man!" Sunni scolded the elder. Despite her harsh tone, she went to him and looked him over, making certain that he was well.

"It matters not," I said to Rayna. "Fen'Dagher is days away, and we will not tarry here long."

"This is where we part company then," Irema said wistfully.

"Regrettably, child," I said to her.

Rayna turned to her guard and ordered them to make ready for our departure. As they gathered their things and prepared to move out, I took Irema to one side so that we could speak privately.

"You know what you must do, Irema," I said, "but take care that you do not underestimate our foe. Do not rely on your gift overly much. The God King is cunning and ruthless. He may find some way to circumvent your power."

She nodded, looking up at me seriously.

Taking a softer tone with her, I said, "I remember holding you in my arms when you were a baby. The thought of you coming to harm is like a knife in my guts."

"I can be cunning as well, grandfather," Irema said. She smiled when she said it, but her dark eyes were pensive.

"I know," I replied. "You've more than proven yourself to me. Were it not so, I would not be sending you back to Uroboros. But it is not in my nature to place my loved ones in harm's way. I cannot help but worry about you."

"I know the risks, grandfather. I will be careful. I ask only two things of you in return."

"Name them."

"Protect Aioa."

"I swear it."

"And drink of my blood this night. Now, before we part ways. I would have you know my heart, and bear my soul through the ages if something should happen to me."

"Of course."

The thought echoed in my mind as I inclined my lips to her neck. Of course… It is what they always ask, the short-lived ones. Eternal life. And I could grant it to her. I had precious little else to offer, but I could drink her blood, Share her life, convey her memories through all eternity in the imperishable vessel that is my immortal flesh. I could grant what the gods only promise to men. But I am no god. I do not require obedience or worship. I would do it for love. Only love.

She turned her head aside. Those long curling lashes drifted down and settled on her cheeks.

As gently as I could, I bit into her flesh.

Her Living Blood, cold and slightly viscous, pulsed into my mouth.

It seemed I fell forward into rushing waters. For a moment, her memories, her entire life, washed over my consciousness.

It was like drowning.

It is always like drowning.