Legends of Marithia: Book 2 - Darkness Rising (20 page)

“
I am sorry great dragon
king; I had no idea that I could hurt you like this,” said Vartan,
kneeling beside Karven.

“
Karven will recover
shortly with my help, but if I had not stopped you… it would be a
different conversation between you and I. Use your powers wisely,
child of dragon’s blood. We have granted the gift to aid you in
battles with the Forces of Darkness, but that power should be used
with responsibility. Learn to master and control your powers. Do
not let your powers control you,” said Mother Dragon.

Vartan nodded and shuddered as he
remembered feeling out of control. The power did seem to have a
will of its own. He looked to the stars as he spoke sincerely,
“Thank you Mother Dragon.”

“
Remember, we are watching
you and will give you signs on your journey. Follow them,” said
Mother Dragon.

And with the statue returning to its
usual form, she was gone and her work was done.

Karven rose from the waters
with renewed strength and his voice ringing with pride, “You
truly
are
ready
to return to the lands of Marithia. Let’s take our leave of this
storm and gather our strength inside.”

Chapter 15 : The Seeds We
Sow

“
Our destinies are riddled
with challenges that have a tendency to ruin well laid
plans.

Many have attempted to take fate into
their own hands and have been unsuccessful in changing
it.

Others find that their paths differ
from what they had dreamed for themselves.

We must be aware that our choices may
come back to haunt us later in life, but to trust that it is all
part of fate’s design.”

(Makya, She’Ma’Ryn trader)

It was the first time that Mestal was
alone with Tusdar and able to spend time with him. His newfound
vampire’s life had been mostly spent running and he was thankful
for being able to finally stop. Even with the surprisingly peaceful
surroundings of Mestal’s home, he could not stop his fear over a
future meeting with Kassina.

Mestal poured him another cup of
steaming hot blood and smiled through her pearly fangs. Sitting in
the dining room, it was hard not to feel comfortable.

“
Would all these comforts
make vampires weaker?” asked Tusdar.

She took a seat beside him and
answered in complete relaxation, “We like to think of Zhendur as
our place of rest, training and gathering of our strength. There is
a reason we have training grounds and Aryun prefers us to only
remain here for a short time before hunting for prey in
Marithia.”

Tusdar glanced around their home and
took in the sights of the various gold treasures, red silk drapes,
and intricate furniture. It was evident that Mestal came from a
generation of rich vampires.

“
I am surprised to see
vampires living like this and being surrounded with such luxuries,”
said Tusdar, sending Mestal into a fit of laughter.

“
All vampires certainly
do
not
live like
this. Aryun and I are descendants of royal blood and privileges
accompany royalty. Please do
not
go spreading word of our riches to Zhendurians or
it may cause unrest amongst our people.”

She’s vampire royalty? I
always knew I would be rich, but never would have thought to obtain
wealth by becoming a creature of the night,
thought Tusdar.

Mestal dragged her chair behind him
and began massaging his shoulders. Tusdar groaned with the pleasure
of her strong, silky hands relieving the strain.

“
Mestal, I have always
wondered. How did vampires come to Marithia?”

Mestal pouted and her lustful eyes
narrowed with frustration as she sighed loudly, “That is quite a
long story and you will read all about it in our history books
sometime.”

“
Please, tell me something
about it,” pleaded Tusdar.

“
I never knew that vampire
history interested you so much. Aryun will be very pleased with
you. I suppose that I can tell you a little about vampires and our
history. Our kind was never meant for Marithia and it was through
the brave actions of our ancestors that we were able to establish a
settlement here,” answered Mestal, continuing her
massage.

“
Brave actions? What
happened?”

“
Our home world is much
like Marithia and this is why they chose to settle here. The people
treated us like insects and hunted us to the point of extinction.
Our king and queen snuck into their trade city and infiltrated
their portal room. They killed the guards and set fire to the room
before they stepped through it to ensure that we could never be
followed.”

“
Wouldn’t that leave all of
the remaining vampires to die? Are you sure that the portal is
closed? What was your home world called?”

“
The name of our old world
is not important anymore and we can only assume that their actions
successfully destroyed the portal. We look to the future and our
great king and queen knew that sacrifice was needed to succeed in
dire times. They arrived in Marithia when the ancients had just
completed building their own portal here in She’Ma’Ryn. The council
was not aware of our kind and only knew that our king and queen
were the sole survivors of an almost extinct race. They allowed
them to enter Marithia to begin anew and never returned to
She’Ma’Ryn.”

“
Please, continue,” said
Tusdar.

“
They began by turning a
small number of Marithians to vampires and building a city above
ground which was near to Kassina’s tower. In those days, the tower
was abandoned by Shindar and Kassina had not yet existed. We
remained hidden and mostly kept to ourselves until the war
began.”

“
The first war against
Shindar?” asked Tusdar excitedly.

“
Yes, it appears that
you
do
know some
of your history. Shindar and his forces found us quickly and
offered us a choice between assisting him or death. Our numbers
were small and we had no chance of battling the demon of darkness,
so we swallowed our pride and did the only thing we could, join
him. Shindar was very interested in our abilities and spent many
years experimenting with turned vampires for his Forces of
Darkness. Our numbers swiftly increased as per Shindar’s request to
grow our army and our stronghold grew. We fought against humans and
elves when we were called and this continued until Shindar fell to
the king of dragons, Karven. We lost almost all of our royal family
at the fall of our vampire stronghold in the final days of the
war.”

“
I read about some of that
from Marithian history books.”

“
You very well may have,
but did you read about the vampire laws?” asked Mestal.

Tusdar cocked his head and said, “You
are stretching my memory, but I recall that breeding with humans
was banned.”

Lord Aryun appeared seemingly out of
nowhere and stepped into the dining room. He walked with his hands
behind his back and spoke to his new student in a formal manner,
“Not only was breeding with humans outlawed, but we could only feed
off filthy prisoners and animals. You will discover how unpleasant
animal blood is to a vampire. We were treated like animals
ourselves and stripped of our dignity.”

Mestal quickly moved away from Tusdar,
reddening with embarrassment. “Father, I did not hear you come
in.”

Tusdar moved to stand and Aryun raised
his hand for him to stop.

“
Please, there is no need
for formalities on my account while we are discussing our history.
I am glad that you are both focusing on training rather than,”
Aryun finished his comment with a raised eyebrow, “I couldn’t help
but listen to your conversation and am happy to be the one to
continue answering your questions.”

“
But father, you must be so
busy…” protested Mestal.

Lord Aryun’s body blurred when he ran
with unnatural speed to his daughters side and backhanded her
harshly across her face. The loud impact caused Tusdar to
wince.

Aryun moved in close to her face and
spat as he screamed at his daughter, “Never undermine
me!”

Mestal rubbed her reddening cheek and
tears escaped her eyes. Tusdar’s heart felt as if it had been
punched as he struggled to stay still.

Tusdar spoke with a tender voice and
poured him a drink. “I beg you… my lord, sit. I would love to hear
anything you have to tell me.”

The move succeeded in distracting his
attention and the lord sat opposite him. Tusdar reached under the
table and gently caressed Mestal’s hand in an effort to console
her.

“
Forgive me as my temper
gets the better of me at times. Children will always disobey you if
you lack discipline. Now, where were we? You were discussing the
vampire laws. It was decreed that any vampire of royal blood would
be killed on sight and there were great rewards for any vampire
that would identify royals. My brother, Danton, and I were all that
was left of the royal family. I decided to remain hidden in the
outlands and could not convince Danton to join me. All he kept
talking about was his love of a sorceress named
Niesha
,” chuckled Aryun, “A vampire
in love with a human? Can you believe it?”

The lord paused to take a sip of blood
before laying a kiss on Mestal’s reddened cheek and
continuing.

“
Turned vampires never age
unlike born vampires who grow until maturity. For a vampire to love
a human would mean that they would watch their love grow old and
die, while
they
live on. Vampires were allowed to blend in with humans, so
long as none of the laws were broken. The elves never forgave us
for our agreement with Shindar and we stayed far away from their
city of Veldrenn. We experienced an age of peace until my brother
shattered that peace by producing a child with Niesha,” said Aryun
with an angry sigh.

“
Is that, Kassina?” asked
Tusdar.

“
My word Mestal, you
have
found us a sharp
one,” laughed Aryun, “but this discussion stays within these walls
as the subject of Kassina and the vampire royal family is one that
can be cause for disagreements and in turn, deaths.”

“
I understand my lord,
please continue.”

“
Kassina was born a half
blood, a vampire sorceress. Can you imagine the power of a vampire
with inherited magic running through her veins? It was not long
before her gifts and her unique
requirements
were discovered. It was
not much longer after this that King Grueber discovered Danton’s
royal heritage. The agreement had been broken and Grueber took it
upon himself to serve justice on Kassina’s parents. His brutal
slaying sparked bloody vengeance from vampires and a war within
Marithia. It was a war that we were winning until we made the
mistake of attacking the elves. We had greatly underestimated their
power and it was when we were all but eradicated from Marithia that
we pledged our undivided service to Shindar at Kassina’s tower,” he
continued, pointing upward.

Tusdar stared at the lord
in disbelief and asked, “
Shindar
saved the vampires?”

“
That is correct. We would
have been chased down and long extinct if it wasn’t for him sending
his army to defend us and build Zhendur, our home. We recovered
over time and rebuilt our civilisation.”

“
I understand that we owe
much to Shindar, but don’t vampires want freedom?” asked
Tusdar.

Aryun drew a deep breath
and sighed as he stood slowly. “Of course we do, but these are
blasphemous words that can
never
be uttered in Kassina’s presence or you will be
executed on sight. Our pledge can never be broken unless Shindar is
destroyed and I do not foresee that event taking place. You only
need look to the skies to see the Blood Red Moon rising. The
prophecy has already begun to be fulfilled and we will be safe in
Shindar’s new world if we stand by his side…” said Aryun, his words
went quiet as the deep sound of a horn filled the air.

“
What was that?” asked
Tusdar, now standing at Mestal’s side.

Aryun snapped as he hurried outside,
“That is the sacred shade horn and it appears that you will be
honoured today… follow me, quickly!”

Mestal and Tusdar shadowed the lord as
he burst out their door and ran to Zhendur’s centre. All vampires
had assembled quickly in a circle around a large object. It was
like a giant compass with four large metal hollow circles spinning
freely in the air above it.

The spinning circles emitted a loud
scraping sound but they were not connected by anything that the eye
could see.

Tusdar stood at the end of the rows
and yelled, “What is that and why didn’t we hear that
before?”

Lord Aryun waited nearby and focused
on the object, ignoring his question.

“
That is our portal to the
underworld! It is made of powerful magic. You didn’t hear it
because it was not in use,” answered Mestal.