Chapter 53: Chapter 53 – Friends And Enemies

//Author Note: Another perspective on events: //

 

“You are certain that there were no necromancers involved in this incident?” Aldramodore asks, each word pronounced slowly with the sort of weight behind it that tells of the threats that he will not directly speak aloud. “How do you know, if you were not there?”

“I was there,” Semi says, shaking her head at the man. “Along with a few of my more competent agents. We were there to observe, and to step in where possible, but we never had a chance.”

She pushes on, speaking over the monster in the room next to me before he can say a word.

“I’ve lost too many of my people to your ‘children’ Aldramodore. We can’t fight on your side if we’re constantly expecting a knife in the back. It makes it rather difficult to help you, so maybe if you could discipline your children a little better…”

“You’re going too far…” The monster’s voice is low and quiet, but dangerous. My skin prickles as I grip the wall. I want to run, I need to rush into the room and kill him, but I can’t do anything but stand her frozen, listening. It’s like the black chains are holding my hands and feet in place again as he torments me.

“Am I?” Semi asks. “You’re not an idiot, you’ve seen it yourself. If you want my help, then consider carefully how you’re treating me and mine, because I’m willing to walk away if this keeps happening.”

“My children are ash!” The monster rages, and I hear something pounding on stone as he hits something in the room. The others with me jump at the sound, they can’t hear his words, but this was loud enough that they couldn’t miss it if they wanted to.

Lewark tugs at my hand. The stone is set against the base of the wall, and we can leave now, but… I can’t. My legs can’t move from where they’re set and my hands are pasted to the walls.

“They are, aren’t they?” Semi agrees. “So, what do you want from me? It’s all because you’ve dealt with this situation poorly. Your errant child gathered some mercenaries and priests and sent your children to the other side. The knight gave them some trouble but maybe you should have invested in sending more than just the one?”

Aldramodore growls, and I can feel the air souring even through the wall, but it is a controlled rage. The sort of cold control that I remember from…. No, not right now.

“What priests?” He asks quietly. “What gods did they serve? Shialla? Rathian?”

“Tilia,” Semi replies, her voice low and quiet, but calculating. She’s observing everything, it’s who she is, and I know that she’s looking for a weakness in the man. Has she found something? Something to be used against him?

“Tilia? Truth? No, no, that should be fine. Their souls should be safe.”

The silence drags for a few moments more, their conversation frozen. He hasn’t noticed us, has he? The faith that burns from both Belle and Merry would be more noticeable if the very walls around us weren’t burning already, so I doubt that would be it. No, we should be safe with this wall between us, stifling the sounds even further.

We’re safe.

He won’t find us.

We’re safe.

I grit my teeth to keep from hyperventilating.

Just the other side of this stone wall is the man, the monster that killed me, the creature that slayed my family. He is right here. He is within my reach… but if he sees us, then we won’t escape. He’ll kill us all.

Or worse.

 My fingers curl around the wooden stake tied to my leg. I’ve had a chance to get a proper dagger enchanted with fire, but the wood is reassuring and disposable. It’s enchanted such that it doesn’t rely upon my magic to work after I’ve ignited the fire in it, so if I thrust this into his chest and leave it there, it should flood him with fire until it overwhelms him.

It could be enough.

I could see an end to this monster in the next few minutes, or my future could be stolen away.

“No necromancers?” Aldramodore whispers again. “It was just mercenaries and priests?”

“How many more times do I have to say it,” Semi releases a long sigh. “Yes, it was just a bunch of mercenaries and priests led there by Christina. I followed them and I can have them disposed of if that’s what you want, though that’s more your game, isn’t it? You wouldn’t want me wasting blood that your children could have, no?”

“I’ll deal with it,” the monster on the other side of the wall is pacing. He is walking back and forth in frustration, like a human. He’s acting like a human. Why is he still acting like a human? He’s nothing like a person anymore. I’ve seen him when he kills. Felt his cold indifference as he hunts, his complete boredom as his fangs sink into my flesh, draining me of blood and…

“This errant child, one of the Greystone’s wasn’t it? What is she like?” Aldramodore asks. “Has her mind started to fray?”

“She seems like a perfectly fine young lady,” Semi says, speaking thoughtfully. “She’s not quite what I’d expected of a noble child. I’m nearly certain that she’s been raised on story books, which isn’t surprising, she isn’t anywhere near the line of succession, at least if you hadn’t gotten involved, she wouldn’t be. Her family was large enough that I would expect her to be set up in a dead branch marriage just to keep the noble bloodlines clean.

“As far as I can tell, she’s maintaining her principles, but she’s troubled. She’s fighting against the other nobility, finding trouble wherever she can, and butting heads with your other children while she’s at it. So, no. I don’t think that her mind is ‘fraying’ at all.”

Aldramodore sighs, deep and tired. A chair shifts about inside the room, and everything goes silent. He isn’t breathing or moving, just sitting there waiting. Lewark pulls at my arm again, but I can’t just let this go. I can’t ignore it.

“It’s the same every time,” Aldramodore whispers. “They’re always born hateful and afraid. It’s just the nature of our curse, the way that they’re born. Of course, she hates me. Anyone would, after experiencing that.”

“Should you be telling me this?” Semi asks, “If you decide to kill me just because you started ranting about things you don’t want me to know, then I’m going to make certain you regret it.”

“Pah, you’re going to be dead in a few more decades anyway,” Aldramodore dismisses her complaints. “You’re smart enough not to share this. Besides, it’s not healthy to keep everything bottled up inside. So, just sit there and listen to my complaints would you.”

“My employees get paid by the hour for this kind of service,” Semi replies dryly.

“Hah, you want coins?” he chuckles. “I’ll send you fees if it makes you feel better?”

“Go on,” Semi says, her voice suddenly lowering to a comforting timbre, tickling my ears and sending a shock through my spine. “I’m listening, tell me what troubles you.”

“My kids hate me!” Aldramodore says, laughing though the sound quickly decays into a sad chuckle. “That’s fine, on its own. We have eternity to get to know each other. Eternity to get over those issues, but that’s only if they can survive. How can I help them survive when they’re struggling to fight against me? I can order them around, but that only breaks them more.”

“Have you considered giving them distance?” Semi asks.

“What do you think I’m doing now?” He grunts. “I’m keeping my distance, but so many of them end up insane because they don’t have someone to mentor them in their new life, to help them through all the trauma that they’ve experienced. Most of them need help to get through their first kill, they need someone to give them discipline, you were just complaining about how wild they can get.

“If I’m in their lives, I can force them to behave, but that only makes them want to rebel that much more, and if I keep a distance they’ll act like savage animals. The trauma from dying, and the new hunger that they have to contend with, it’s too much for anyone. Whatever I do, it’s wrong.

“I’ve recently been working to force them to open up with me, tell me what’s wrong, but what’s the first thing they say?”

Semi is silent for a moment longer than she needs to be.

“You force them to tell you things that they want to keep secret?” she asks, her voice cold. “I can’t imagine what would go wrong.”

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“Exactly!” Aldramodore says. “The first thing that they say, is that they hate the control I have over them. They hate that I’m the one who killed them.”

“Okay, how do you deal with that?” Semi asks. “Have you explained the situation to them? Why you’re doing what you are doing?”

“I have, but they’re not ready to listen,” he sighs; a human behaviour. A lie. It has to be a lie. “They don’t want to know. They want to hate me. I’ve tried making them forget, stealing their memories of the events, but when they find out what happened, they inevitably hate me even more for it. If I order them to forget their past life so they can’t figure it out, they end up losing most of what makes them people.

“Do you know how difficult it is to raise a full-grown adult, who sees people as food when they have the mind of a child?” He asks. “It doesn’t go well at all.”

“So, you need to find some middle ground,” Semi suggests. “Keeping your distance, while helping them when and where they need the help. Have you considered having someone else mentor them for you? Someone who isn’t the person that murdered them in the first place?”

“You?” He asks, cutting right to the point.

“In this case, I’d certainly be suitable,” Semi says. “I could act in your place, I’m strong enough to deal with her if she starts misbehaving, and I know her well enough to help her to mature. All you’d need to do is provide… what is it that you need to do with her? You’ve been intentionally vague about that aspect of this.”

Aldramodore, the monster. The man who killed me. He killed my family.

He is contemplating my fate, like a father considering how to deal with a troublesome child. I grit my teeth tight, to keep from making a sound.

Semi’s behaviour makes sense to me.

She’s manipulating the situation to her advantage. She didn’t simply hand me over to Aldramodore, as her words a moment ago had made me suspect. He already knew about me, and she’s working to try and stay in between us, likely so that she can use that position to influence me. In a certain sense, she’s protecting me, or trying to.

She’s undeniably protecting Syr, even if she’s using me to do so. An understandable thing if she never had a chance of hiding me in the first place. I don’t begrudge her for that, and this matter doesn’t make me trust her any more or less, she’s always been the sort to act in her own self-interest.

The monster on the other side of this wall is something else.

Something I don’t understand.

A monster, but one that acts like a person. A killer that is pretending to care about the person he murdered.

“You told me that you need to do something to keep her from going insane,” Semi says. “Like your other children, the ones that have been causing me trouble.”

Aldramodore remains silent, thoughtful.

“I need to do something to keep them from acting out too much,” Aldramodore says. “It’s difficult to adjust to life as a vampire, and I need to give them some basic guidelines on how to live to keep them in line. Many start to have issues, things that I can fix as their sire. I can take away the trauma that’s troubling them, or the phantom pains and the sudden bouts of fear that come about because of their deaths. I can help them in a way no one else can.”

“Well, in this case, I don’t think that Christina needs that help,” Semi addresses the idea calmly. “Try to limit how much you’re in her life. Maybe you could deliver her one of these devices and you can speak to her as a person from a distance. That way she wouldn’t feel confronted by the power you hold over her.”

“Would she even pick up the call?” Aldramodore asks.

“I would make sure that she does,” Semi replies. “If you would trust me with this?”

They’re silent for a while longer before Aldramodore replies.

“I’ll consider it,” he finally says. “I want to confirm your story with my children first. If there is a necromancer around, then we need to hunt them down. I’ll contact you again in a few days.”

“Very well,” Semi replies, her voice disappearing.

“I didn’t want to do this so soon,” Aldramodore whispers on the other side of the door. “She’s not ready, but if there’s a necromancer out there, I can’t risk it. Pharisa should know what the truth is, I’ll just have to be a little more forceful in getting it out of her.”

The stone door slides along the wall, and a man steps out into the hall. His brown eyes don’t glow red, and his skin is pale, but not so much that it seems unnatural. If I couldn’t hear the silence in his chest, then I would not think him undead. I can hardly even recognise his face. It is too human.

He is too human.

His eyes, plain brown—simple, boring, human— look past me. Almost focusing on us, but not quite. He opens his mouth as if to say something, and my frozen heart sinks, but he pauses, blinking briefly before turning away.

He can’t see us.

He can’t see us.

Lewark pulls insistently at my arm, but I can’t let him stop me.

Aldramodore is escaping. He’s walking away, towards Pharisa.

Someone who ought to be dead.

He’s going to hunt me again. He’s going to hunt Syr and my acquaintances. He’s going to find out everything and kill everyone. He’s going to destroy everything.

He needs to die.

I can’t let him have his way again.

Drawing the stake hidden in my cloak and clutching it tightly to keep myself steady. I stalk after the monster, ready to kill him.

 

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