Although I admit to large number of
character defects, a prejudice against the undead is not among them. Some people
think that, as a Priestess of Death, I could only view those unfortunate souls
trapped between life and death as abominations - souls trying to shirk my Lady's
rule. Nothing could be further from the truth. Though most of those people would
find it hard to believe, my Lady's embrace is a still, cool respite between
lives - not some threat to hold over the recalcitrant.
I'll admit that as far as I'm concerned, the act of dying is a tacit agreement to stay that way. But the image of the Death Priests cornering some poor zombie with its brains half rotted away, a holy symbol in one hand and a burning brand in the other, chanting some litany of fear and hate - calumny, I assure you. The truth - that we speak in a language the undead comprehend - reminding them of the calm sweetness of the grave - is much less sensational - so you're much less likely to hear it from a bard.
Its not really such a bad life. You get to travel - see more of the world than most ever do. You also get some very strange looks from the local populace whenever you go in to help them out. Its not fear, exactly. Wariness, perhaps? I guess it doesn't matter what your personality is like - when the only time they see you is for a funeral or a turning, the association does start to stick. Being on call 365 days a year can really get in the way of your social schedule too. Not that a Priestess of Death has that much of a social schedule to start with - so what you do have becomes that much more important
I was on my way to visit my parents for the first time in what seemed like centuries when this particular summons came. I wasn't in a good mood to start with -I'd hoped to be home for Winter Solstice - and that was almost a month gone already. The moment I dipped into the light trance of my morning devotions, I could feel it tugging at the edge of my brain - subtle as a bull in heat. The suggestion - to use the loosest possible sense of the word - was that my presence was demanded at the temple of Death in Kiethos for a turning - possibly vampiric. Kiethos - the most fertile valley in the whole of the nine kingdoms. As I remembered, that lay a little over a half week's walk from my current camp. Sighing, I rolled my shoulders and tried to work a little of the tension out from between the blades. My parents never expected me anywhere on time anyway.
Describing the journey to the temple would be a waste of both of our time. Its another one of those advantages of being a Priestess of Death. Brigands, thieves, highwaymen - they all know that my Lady will come for them sooner or later - and if they'd like to keep it later - molesting one of her servants is not the best way of fulfilling that desire.
The temple at Kiethos was almost exactly as I remembered it. Perhaps temple might be a misleading word for those who have never experienced the area. A lush hillside - hollowed out long ago - whether by nature or the gods, no-one claims to know... The instant I stepped across the threshold - plunging myself from the bright sunlight outside into the cool depth and stillness of my Lady's realm though, I knew where I was. A black clad hearth-tender rushed to meet me before I was two steps inside.
"Lady Kala - thank the powers you've arrived - we sent for a Priestess over two weeks ago" The woman fought for breath, each word rushing and tumbling over the previous in an effort to be the first to escape her mouth. "None of us have been able to help. We just don't have the knowledge. I knew that we'd need some help - but I never thought they'd send someone of your.....". Knowing that getting a word in edgewise would be nigh impossible if I didn't stem the panic she was working herself into, I held up a hand, and cleared my throat. The immediate silence that followed was a relief to my ears.
"Now, tell me slowly what happened. From the beginning". I tinged my words with just a little of the Voice. For her sake, I assured myself. Nothing to do with my own irritation. She paled, and I felt a twisting of shame in my gut. The Voice was meant to be a weapon - used when we had no other choice. A little more patience on my part would not have necessarily led to crisis. I allowed my expression to soften, but the damage had been done.
The young hearth-tender drew a deep breath, her expression hardening. My twist of shame grew stronger. "My apologies, Lady" There was a stiffness to her voice. "As you can see, the current crisis has us worried" I nodded and made meaningless noises of agreement, intended to relax her a little. They didn't seem to be working, and I cursed my initial impatience. The girl bit her lip
"I will let the Hearth Priest know you are here, Ma'am - she will explain the desperate need we have for you" A desperate need? Perhaps the day was going get interesting after all .
I nodded, seating myself on one of the black cushion clad benches that surrounded the small hearth. The girl slunk away. I felt my impatience rising again,and fought to curb it, reaching out instead for a cup of cool, sweet temple water. Which looked as though it had been a wise move when, five minutes later the Priestess glided in - not looking for a moment as though she wanted to have to call on some jumped up travelling clergy to do work that she ought to be able to do herself. The fact that she couldn't evidently had her perched between worry and irritation. I kept my mouth still, not allowing it the slightest twitch, as she got her first look at me, and realised how high a rank her jumped up clergy really was.
Slowly, I stood up, inclining my head, and carefully placed the earthenware cup on the floor at my feet. As the lower ranking of the two of us, it was up to her to speak first. "Lady Kala - I never dreamed they would take the threat this seriously." The mixed emotions that had run rampant across her features coalesced into a palpable expression of relief. Without warning, I found myself feeling rather sorry for the woman.
"Perhaps you would tell me what exactly has everyone so upset?" This time there was no hint of the Voice coming through in the tone that was softened even further than my normal speech. Whatever it was, the happenings seemed to have everyone on edge - and it would not do my reputation any good to make light of it.
Gesturing me to sit again, and seating herself beside me, the Priestess began to hesitantly tell me her tale. It was the custom of the villagers of these parts to send their youngsters into a cave nearby for a night in order to mark their passage into the adult world. Three weeks ago, the father of one of the youngsters had gone looking for his daughter, who had descended into the depths of the cave the night before, and not come back. He had returned with the pale unconscious form of the girl draped over his forearms, and a sick expression on his face. His daughter was alive, but only just.
When the girl had woken - almost a week later - she had told a story of something that had talked to her within her mind, and told her it needed her blood. She'd never seen it - but she'd known it was there. She couldn't remember anything after that, until she'd woken in her parents hut. The villagers were certain that a vampire stalked them. Not unused to such supernatural visitors, the village headman had taken the usual vampire-hunting paraphernalia (here the priestess allowed a flash of distaste narrow her eyes - as I said before, we of the Lady of Death do not hold with such barbaric ways of dealing with the undead) - and left to spend the night himself in the cave. When he didn't come down the next morning, the villagers assumed the worst.
A full scale hunting party had been sent up to the cave the next day - and true to their fears, they had found the headman unconscious and only just breathing on the dusty earthen floor. Knowing that whatever they faced was well beyond their ken, the villagers had elected to call in the Temple. I raised my eyebrow. A wise move - and better late than never. But the priestess still hadn't explained why I had been called in. I nodded, intending for her to continue, and noticed, surprised, that the woman's hands were shaking. What was it that could have another Priestess of Death so worried?
After a few moments, the Priestess seemed to have composed herself again, and, voice trembling ever so slightly, she continued with her tale. Because the vampire had almost killed two of the villagers, the Temple had elected to treat it as though it were one of the ancient - one that might - distasteful as the idea was - need more than mere persuasion to entice it back to a natural rest. The Priestess herself had gone to the cave that day - intending to learn more about it from the traces it had left over the past weeks. Perhaps I should explain. The walking dead - whether they be zombies, vampires or ghouls -all have a kind of a scent to them. It is the scent of something that has allowed fear to seduce it from taking the next step in the eternal cycle of creation, preservation and destruction. The older and more powerful the creature, the stronger its traces. From the description the Priestess had given me so far, I was betting that this creature had a scent we could smell from half-way down the hillside.
I managed to stop myself bursting out with this surmise - congratulating myself on finally having bested my impatience. Perhaps it was simply a case that from the scent, the woman had felt she was unable to handle such a powerful creature. I mentally congratulated her. Not all of us are wise enough to know when we are outmatched. Her next words, however, blew my complacency away, and I had to ask her to repeat them. Through clenched teeth, she repeated her previous statement. There had been no traces whatsoever.
I felt the blood drain from my face. Never, in the entire history of the Temple,had we met any undead who didn't bear the scent even in the tiniest amount. Even the smallest of them - those that drew their sustenance from butterflies - were detectable,when we searched for them. In terms of intelligence, most vampires were relatively beastlike - thinking only of their next meal. Few ever killed, rather just taking enough to survive - making them mostly more of a nuisance than a danger. But it seemed we had here a creature that almost took enough blood to kill - and had the intelligence to successfully mask its scent against a Priestess of Death. To say I disliked the implications of such an idea was a gross understatement. Suddenly, I could understand why the woman's hands shook. If I wasn't careful, mine were going to follow suit.
I spent the rest of the afternoon in prayer and purification in the altar room of the temple. If I had to go up against something that could elude detection by a Priestess who lived here, I'd be damned if I went unprepared. There was little point in looking for such a creature in daylight - the Temple had already done that and found nothing. No - I'd need to face it on its own ground, in its own time. Of course, for a Priestess of Death, the night has few terrors. Except for undead that can mask their own scent, that is.
As the sky began to turn fiery, my meditations came to an end. I ascended from my trance to find the Priestess standing in the doorway of the altar room, a tray of bread and fruit in one hand, and a gentleman who could only be the village headman from his ... interesting style of dress, at her side. I rose smoothly to my feet, nodding calmly at the man. The priestess explained that the villager would lead me to the cave, but no further. From that point on, I was on my own. I kept the smile from showing. As a Priestess of Death, I couldn't expect it any other way. The temptation to smile waned, however, as I considered the lunacy of what I was about to undertake.
I accepted a portion of the fruit gratefully, allowing the sweet juices to trickle down my throat, offsetting the dryness that grew stronger every time I began to consider the craziness of a vampire that was able to mask its own scent. I gulped at an offered glass of temple water, forcing my face to keep displaying a calmness I was no longer feeling. The last thing the villager and priestess needed was to see their face of authority thrown into a panic before them. Finally, I had no more credible excuses. I nodded to the headman. It was time.
Less stoic than me perhaps - or just permitted to accept that he was outclassed by a vampire of this level - the headman made only a token effort to school his fear. His chiselled jawbone seemed only a step away from shaking. He said nothing as he led me down the temple hill, through landscape that would be rich and verdant when the morning sun again touched it. The silence suited me just fine. The moon was a brilliant silver disk just above the horizon, as we reached the mouth of the cave.
At first glance it seemed like any other entrance I had seen. Set deep into a grassy hillside, there was little to contrast it to the temple hill. I could smell the perfume of night blooming wildflowers. But as I stepped closer, I realised that ...something was different about it. I felt a chill that had nothing to do with the balmy warmth of the air. Gathering the semblance of confidence around me like a cloak, I turned to the villager, and dismissed him, ignoring his palpable relief. Then, drawing in a deep breath, I turned back to the opening in the hill before me.
I climbed up the steep face of the hill until I came to the cave-mouth. It was surprising how small the entrance was - barely the height of my shoulders -and I am not a tall woman. I stood there a few moments, questing outward with my mind. Those seconds seemed much longer than they had any right to be, and my throat tightened with the realisation that the temple priestess had been right. There really was no scent. I don't think I'd believed it was possible until that moment...
I shook my head, dispelling the daze, and stared back into the cave depths,allowing my night vision to develop. The packed earth of the floor fell sharply behind the entrance, opening the cave up into a miniature grotto. It was empty. Drawing a deep breath, I walked forward - turning sideways to the incline, but ending up stumbling the last few feet anyway.
The bottom of the cave was loose black silty dirt - cool and fine. I picked up a handful and felt it ran through my fingers like sand. Hundreds of embedded footprints decorated the dust - a testament to all of the young people who had journeyed there to experience their vision quests. They would be able to quest there again, I promised myself. I just needed to take care of whatever was preying on them first. I looked at the footprints closely, but there was nothing that gave me any clue as to the nature of the beast.
There was no question that the cave was a dead end. No passageways existed for me to explore - which meant that there was no way the vampire could be resting within the bowels of the earth. It must have its daytime resting place somewhere close though. Nevermind that neither the villagers nor the temple had been able to find it. Any undead wily enough to mask its own scent would have no trouble masking its resting place.
I considered my options. Occasionally, priests of Death could actually command the undead to come to us. As I said, however, we tend to prefer persuasion to brute strength and ignorance. Of course -there's a time and a place for everything. Being alone in an empty cave and unsure of the nature of the vampire meant now was neither the time nor the place for the aforementioned BSI. So I did what I'd normally do. I sat, and tried to look like bait.
I sank into a meditation position on the cool ground - ensuring my holy symbol and water lay within close reach. I settled first my robes and then my Lady's peace around me, and then began the regulated breathing that would take me into trance state. My eyes closed and I replaced my inner vision of the cave with a picture of her cool features and still, patient eyes. Low in my throat, I began the chant that would simultaneously arouse the curiosity of any undead, and raise my own power.
It wasn't long at before I felt a inquiring touch at the edge of my mind. Odd - most of the undead were as psychically sensitive as a clod of dried earth. An ordinary vampire would have shambled over and investigated physically - not probed delicately at my brain. Then again - an ordinary vampire couldn't mask its own scent either. A point of fear wedged its way into one of the cracks in my confidence. I was not happy. With an tang of desperation I didn't mind admitting to, I visualised my Lady's face once more, and tried to follow the wisp of thought backward.
For a second there was nothing - then I found it again - the delicate tendril. It was like nothing I'd ever sensed before. I followed it further - further and suddenly felt my heart slam against my ribs in shock as the mind at the other end of that tendril drew me into itself. I tried to wrench myself back - and felt as though a wall of rock had sprung up behind my mind. I threw myself against it - imagined it shattering under the strength of my psyche. I could all but feel the bruises as I hit it. Whatever it was, it had trapped me. The pulse between my ears was a roar. Nothing - vampire or otherwise should be able to do this to me.
I drew in a deep breath and willed the pounding of my heart to quiet so I could think. "Who are you?" The fear I had felt as my pulse roared was quickly being replaced with an icy anger - but I didn't let any hint of that into my tone. When you're dealing with something that had me wrapped up as neatly as this vampire had me now, a direct challenge is not an intelligent way to increase your life expectancy. The answer was almost immediate - although the voice was so agonising slow and deep within my mind that if I hadn't been listening, I might not have caught it. "I... am... Kharzudenn..." There was a sense of confusion about it - as though it hadn't expected me to be able to speak to it. I nodded to myself. So it had enough sentience to name itself, and was surprised that I did as well. Of course, anything with the ability to trap me as it had should have enough sentience to name itself. But you just never know. "Kharzudenn - I am Kala. Priestess of Death. Why have you
bound me?"
Difficult as it was, I kept anything resembling human emotion well away from the mental question. Something told me that it just wouldn't understand. I expected anger at the statement of my calling - or maybe fear. But nothing prepared me for the sudden wash of ancient joy that flooded over my skin and washed into the deepest crevices of my emotions.
"Priestess.....? A holy one.....? Then... You are the one... that has ...brought back the rites?" I felt the wall behind me dissolve - but I was almost too mesmerised by the words to register it. No vampire calls a priestess 'holy one' - they're too scared we're going to take their precious immortality away from them. Murderer, yes. Assassin - thug - certainly. But never holy one. I suddenly wondered why I had been so damned certain all this time that I was dealing with a powerful vampire all this time. No scent - and now it thought of me as a holy one - and with a joy so intense it made me want to cry. Alright, it had taken the blood of the villagers. But surely that didn't necessarily make it a vampire. Of course, if it wasn't a vampire...
I created a shield at the centre of my core, and pushed it outward until I'd managed to shut enough of the enraptured relief to let me think. The clarity that followed was empty coolness that was like a balm to my emotions. Inhaling deeply, I tried to phrase my confusion in a way it would understand. "Kharzudenn - what rites are you talking about?"
The shield around me rocked and almost buckled under a new onslaught - thistime a rushing whirlwind of confusion. Gasping, I wondered if I shouldn't just have taken the credit for these rites, whatever they might have been. Human minds are simply not built to deal with that kind of emotional intensity. They're just not strong enough. I poured everything I had available into my shield. "Kharzudenn?"
There was the emotional equivalent of a head being shaken on some kind of elemental level. "Talking... too difficult". At least it wasn't just me that was getting frustrated! "Let... me... show you" I suspected that if it wanted to show me something, it could do it irrespective of my puny shield. Somehow, it felt as though it would be easier to just let it. I shrugged and nodded. As long as it wasn't too emotional about it.
An image formed inside my mind. There was sense of age - a feeling that was somewhere between last night and a hundred millennia past. I was looking down over a valley from a hilltop somewhere. I couldn't be sure - but I had a feeling it was the land around this cave itself that I was seeing. A village - humans going busily back and forth about their business - dressed in rough, unadorned clothing. A sense of time passing. A look at the night sky - the planets and stars suggesting winter solstice. How long ago was this? The people looked up at the sky, and all as one stopped their to-ing and fro- ing, and came together around a huge fire - singing and dancing. Behind them were rows of benches, every one of the boards laden to the point of buckling with foods of every description. Some kind of celebration evidently. A thanksgiving, perhaps?
Nothing I recognised. I kept watching. A group of people finally broke away from the general population, and started solemnly up the hill. One was in front with a determined expression on his face, looking as though he were much younger than he wanted those behind him to believe. I realised he'd barely be out of his teens - if that. They moved silently. I wondered if I was going to like what I was about to see.
They reached the mouth of the cave in which I stood... The boy/man in front nodded at his companions, and each one of them nodded back to him in turn. Then, taking a deep breath inward, he went in alone. He sank cross-legged to the floor - looking small and frightened, and I felt a strange desire to comfort him. He closed his eyes for a few seconds, then reached down to sheath at his belt that I hadn't noticed, drawing out a black stone knife. I felt my brows drawing in closer. I was starting to suspect I knew what was coming, and I was relatively certain it wasn't going to make me happy.
He put one hand palm up on the dusty earthen floor, and flashed the jagged blade of the knife diagonally across his hand, wincing at the pain, then watching fascinated, as the blood formed a thin line of scarlet that beaded and welled. Taking another deep breath, he lifted his hand, then placed the wound directly
onto the cave floor. His head flopped forward, and my brows drew even closer together. While I was aware of the existence of human sacrifice, I also believed my lady came in her time - and not for the benefit of other gods.
I felt a shudder at the idea of the sacrificing a human life - a sensation of vigorous denial. If it had spoken, it would have been saying 'Wait and see before you judge.' But there were no words. The night rolled on, and the boy/man's blood continued to soak into the porous earth. The eastern sky began to lighten, and his face lifted wearily. He looked as though he were having difficulty thinking - hardly surprising with all that blood loss. At least he was alive though. What was the point of all of this?
Slowly the boy/man pushed himself to his feet. As the first rays of the sun hit the entrance of the cave, he stepped gingerly into the sunlight and looked over the valley below him. Then he turned back to the cave, and for the first time, I heard him speak. I understood what he was saying, even though the words were strange. 'For the bounty of the year gone by, we thank you. This night I have given you my blood, that you may grant us another such year. Today I am a man. For this too, I thank you'.
I went to the entrance of the cave myself. The lushness - the greenness - it was almost supernatural. I smiled to myself. So the cave itself was taking their blood. Not their lives, just their blood. And offering prosperity in return. Life force for life force. Something for something. It was a bargain I could accept if it was made voluntarily - and evidently it had been.There were some people who believed that the bounty of the earth was free - that bargains were something that could only be made with other human beings. 'As far as I'm concerned, its a universal law - the just ain't no such thing as a free lunch. I had no idea how I was going to explain this one to the headman. I just hoped he had a finely developed sense of fair play. He was going to need it.