Chapter 404 - The Death of the Oldest Living Vampire part 1

Lukas sat quietly after I finished my tale, an expression of keen expectation on his face. After a moment, he looked uncertain, then faintly annoyed. "Is that it?" he demanded. "You're just going to leave it there?"

"That is the end of the story," I said.

It pleased me that he wanted more. In many ways, storytellers are like magicians. Every story is an illusion, and if you perform the trick correctly, with all the requisite hand waving and incantations, you can make your audience believe in magic. Do it with some panache and they will beg for more.

Another trick.

Another story.

"What more would you have me tell you?" I asked. "The hour grows late and I am ready to die."

"Well… what happened afterwards?" Lukas replied.

"Everyone lived happily ever after," I said.

I chuckled at his black expression. For a moment, I thought he would leap up and start hacking at me with that axe right then and there.

I would not have resisted. It is what I desired.

But I relented. I gave him what he wanted. And as I spoke, his grip on the axe handle loosened.

"The God King was dead," I said. "Finally, truly, irrevocably dead, and because his Blood had been devoured by more than twenty immortals, the Sacred Core, which had a rudimentary awareness of its own, was divided until no trace of its alien consciousness remained. Not that anyone could sense, on any account, though a few of my compatriots reported terrible dreams in the years that followed, nightmare visions of the universe I had seen when the Dark Seed attempted to take possession of my body. But for the most part, things were well. For most of us, there were no visions. That, I think, is a blessing, for I would not share that terrible burden with anyone."

"I will see it, won't I?" Lukas asked. "When I drink your blood. When I take your memories."

I shook my head. "Those memories do not pass through me in the Sharing. I do not know why. Perhaps it is because they are so alien. They are not human memories. They are not even memories. Not in the way that you or I would define the word. Whatever they are, so far as I know, they are mine and mine alone. Khronos is the only other blood drinker to touch the mind of the Sacred Core, and he died a very long time ago."

Lukas considered that quietly. I could see that my answer disappointed him at first, but he came to the conclusion, after a minute of thought, that it was probably for the best, and I concur. Sometimes it is better to suffer the itch of curiosity than to be subject to the sting of satisfaction. That is not always the case, but in this one it was. I truly believed that.

He looked up at me. I could see that he had put aside his disappointment and set his thoughts on a different course.

"What happened to Uroboros and Asharoth?" he asked. "I've never heard of anyone finding the remains of either city. Not where you say they were. What happened to them?"

"Asharoth was abandoned not long after the fall of the God King. You must understand, its population consisted mostly of refugees. With Khronos dead and most of the Uroboran blood drinkers either destroyed or fled, there was really no need for the city anymore. As I've told you earlier, the human race was not advanced enough to maintain such a large population in any one place for very long. It would be another ten thousand years before mankind began to cultivate the earth, or keep animals for their food. The people of Asharoth returned to their nomadic, hunter-gatherer ways not long after we destroyed the God King, driven by hunger and lack of sanitation, though I believe our efforts to feed and house the refugees of the First Vampire War was the beginning of human agriculture."

"But the walls, the architecture?"

"Rocks and mud and sticks," I said with a chuckle. "Twenty thousand years is a long time, Lukas, and men are restless, roaming creatures, always tearing down the old and replacing it with the new. Asharoth was completely abandoned within a century. Less than a thousand years later, hardly a trace of it remained. What did remain was scavenged for building materials, I imagine, when mankind finally did begin to settle down."

"And Uroboros?"

"Destroyed," I said. "Uroboros was founded upon a dormant volcano. About ten thousand years ago, Fen'Dagher violently erupted, along with several other volcanos in the Alpine volcanic belt. The eruptions were terribly violent. They darkened the sky with ash for months. All that remains of Fen'Dagher is a time-eroded crater at the bottom of the Black Sea. Even now, some twenty thousand years later, it gives me great satisfaction that the God King and all he built have been completely erased from the face of the earth."

"And what of the others?" Lukas asked.

"Our war with the God King was terribly costly-- for both sides of the conflict. When it was over, only a few hundred blood drinkers remained. Mostly Asharothians. The Uroboran immortals were all but wiped out."

"And your friends? What happened to the twins?"

"Eris exists to this day, worshipped by a sect of Shains called the Shvetembers in Southern India. Drago was destroyed about ten thousand years ago by the Eternal Baalt, who somehow managed to resurrect himself. I do not know the story of Baalt's restoration, but he is the only Uroboran Eternal to be reborn as I was, his Divided body put back together again. He still preys upon his fellow blood drinkers. If you should ever hear that Baalt is in Germany or France or in the Americas, it would be well that you steer clear of that place, and if you are there already you should flee immediately, for Baalt has no mercy, and he is always hungry.

"The twins survived the war, as did their husband Tapas. Irema, my darling granddaughter, who rescued me from that damnable wall, lived for nearly a thousand years before she succumbed to Time. My beloved Aioa lived a thousand more. Tapas, who was nearly an Eternal, outlived them both. He was my companion for a while, after my granddaughters perished, but eventually he grew tired of living, and offered his life to the Eternal Baalt. Many long-lived blood drinkers seek out Baalt when they are tired of this world. I myself have done so, though he refused me out of spite.

"Tapas was a dear friend. I tried to talk him out of it, but he was so very weary of living by then. He wanted it to end." I sighed, gazing down on the glimmering lights of Bad Wildbach. "It is a terrible thing to lose the ones you love, Lukas. For the unnaturally long-lived, it is a chronic condition. It sickens the soul. After a while, you just want the pain to stop.

"So together we sought out Baalt. He had founded a religious order in the Carpathian Mountains, which lie in the country that is now called Romania, not far from the Black Sea where the God King once held power. I accompanied Tapas on his final pilgrimage.

"Because of the antipathy that still burned between Baalt and myself, Tapas asked me to remain behind while he walked up to the monastery. I do not know what his final hours were like-- if he suffered, if Baalt made him beg-- but when it was finished the Uroboran sent a messenger to the village where I waited. One of his perverse cenobites. The monk came to my door, gave me a sneering bow, and said, 'He is destroyed. Now you must leave as well.' So I left. There was nothing else to hold me there.

"I walked away from that tiny village alone, and feeling my solitude like a mark of strangeness. Death inscribes that mark on the hearts of all survivors, I think. And the more you love the ones you've lost, the more keenly you feel that mark. You become alien to your own soul, until time has soothed the pain somewhat. Even still, I rise sometimes and expect to see Tapas there waiting for me, tending to the fire, or Irema, or Aioa. Sometimes I dream and wake to find myself talking to Isaiah or Tacitus or Ada, or any one of the countless children or companions I have lost throughout the ages. Sometimes I think love is the most terrible emotion we are burdened with, for it pains us more than any other, yet what joy would there be in living were it not for love? It is a double-edged sword."

I glanced up at Lukas. "Is there anything else you wish to know? About the Vampire War or what happened after Khronos fell?"

He thought about it for a moment but finally shook his head.

I rose then and walked down the slope of the mountain a little way, giving him my back. I no longer worried about my fledgling's treacherous nature. I had accomplished what I felt I must. I had confessed my sins. Guilt is like a festering boil. It must be lanced and drained to relieve the pain. And I had cut myself open for him-- and for you, dear reader. I was relieved.

"The sky is beginning to lighten," I said, gazing down into the valley where I was born. "It will be dawn soon. Time to finish this."

Once more I felt that prickling sensation, that unseen witness spying on us. I wondered who it was, and what our peeping Tom must be thinking of all this: two powerful immortals wandering around the mountainside in the dead of winter. Was he or she near enough to eavesdrop on our conversation? Would he try to interfere?

I hoped not. I was so weary of fighting.

Lukas had arisen. The snow crackled under his feet as he approached me. I could feel his tension. I heard him adjust his grip on the handle of the axe. Any second now, he meant to strike me down, and I would let him.

"Are you sure about this?" he asked, his voice tinged with uncharacteristic uncertainty. I was mildly surprised. Perhaps I had had more of an influence on him than I'd thought.

Looking down into the valley, I nodded.

"All right then," Lukas said.

I heard the axe swoop up. It hovered in the air a moment, trembling, then came swishing down against my back.