In response to Kurda's Lover's challenge. Requirments - using the quote given below, strictly Darren Shan saga story, not more than 10k words.
I love Kurda Smahlt, and I fondly dedicate this story to you, Lina Mistry. I hope that even if this story doesn't win anything, you still like it. Enjoy.
"We're leaving here tonight
There's no need to tell anyone
They'd only hold us down
So by the morning light
We'll be halfway to anywhere
Where love is more than just your name "
She was the only one who knew his secret. And she was the only one who accepted him as he was, for what he did, despite all the betrayals. He thought about her fondly and sadly: his leaving would break her heart. Kurda Smahlt was contemplating what to do next: how to surrender himself as traitor? How to make sure that the merger, which cost him many of his friends and much of his honour, would remain intact and become stronger over time? How to choose a good leader or two for them all? Whether it was wise to still stay? What would happen if the Lord of the Vampaneze eventually did come, and the vampaneze began their preperations for him again? What if? How? Whether?
And so on. He remembered the night when he'd met her, as he so often did, to relieve himself of his constant tension and because it also sometimes guided him to answers or gave him hints...
"Why are you so sad?" He'd asked the girl. She was clutching a book to herself.
She whipped at him, shaken and irritated. "Who are you?"
His friendly nature always came way before a scowl or a frown, even if he was tensed up to the point of bursting. "When I was younger, strangers weren't looked up so harshly at. I'm Kurda Smahlt. What's your name?"
"Lina Mistry." The girl answered, both surprised and sullen.
"Your last name sounds more like mystery." Kurda mused.
"Any problem with that?" Lina snapped.
"I'm sorry - I didn't mean to offend you!" Kurda apologised. "Here, take this; it's cold!" He wrapped his cloak around her and her fingers instinctively clutched it.
"Thanks." she shivered.
"So, why were you crying?" He asked again.
You wouldn't understand." She whispered, this time confused instead of angry.
"There are many things about me that you won't understand!" Kurda laughed. "You can try me."
Kurda's friendly manner and genuine concern set the girl's mind to ease. "Everything in the world is a mystery; isn't it?"
"It surely is." Kurda smiled. "And so are you."
Lina smiled wryly. "Come, let's walk."
~Oo~Oo~Oo~
"You pronounced my name very suitably, Kurda. I am a mystery. But no other mystery in black and white is a mystery to me." Lina spoke cryptically.
"I've lost you."
Lina sighed. "If someone tells me the name of a document from any time - past, present or future - I can tell you what is written on it and by whom. And I can tell you the names of all the books which will be written in the next year, or the year after the next and so on."
Kurda studied this silently and tested her. "But this is an extraordinary gift, Lina!" He finally exclaimed.
"And an extraordinary curse..." Lina wept. "People have a knack of discovering these little tricks, and it's not the first time I'm on the run from a clandestine group."
"You're on the run?" Kurda asked, surprised. She merely nodded silently. "Lina, tell me," Kurda grasped her arm and took on a very intidimidatingly serious tone, "do you wish to be free of this?"
"Wish? Wish?" She croaked. "I could die to get rid of this - this blasphemy!" She spat. "They - all of them - descended in torrents, without warning. They hurt my family, my friends and I ran away from them to keep them safe. They still hunt me and they still kill."
"Do you - do you want to join me?" Kurda asked before he could stop himself. He'd told her this girl about himself and she'd accepted it without any hesitation or sarcasm. And there was something about this girl that enchanted and magnetized him.
"Join you as in become like on of you?" Lina asked uncertainly.
"Yes."
"No, Kurda." there were tears welling up in her eyes. "I'm sorry, but I have a feeling it will only further complicate everything. I'll be taking a side, and my curse or bane or whatever you wish to call it, is quite like destiny!"
"Complicate everything? How will it complicate anything?" He roared, very frustrated. "You come with me, become my assistant and I'll do anything and everything to keep you safe! You know I will do that!" He growled.
Her tears changed to sobs. She was very fond of him. And he was the only person she felt close to besides her family. Perhaps it was because both were freaks of the world. "You don't understand!" She whimpered. "You will have a book written on you!"
"A book?" Kurda's fury came to a standstill. "A book on me?"
"Yes!" She replied bitterly. "Yes, Kurda, yes! And now that you will be entangled in a book, I can't be siding with you! It'll be disastrous! It'll be atrocious! It'll be a blasphemy of destiny!"
"How can it be so blasphemous to destiny?"
"I don't know exactly." she frowned. "But supposing you were this person who knew everything. And you took a side with a particular team. The team you're siding with would definitely win. But it won't be because of their own work or their own luck - it'll be because you interfered! This team is linked to other teams in one way or the other, and this team will slowly start tearing apart. Soon, all the teams in the world will be down because of your preferences, which may lead to extinction of one resource or another.
"All books are hidden in other books, for the things which make them - letters - are the same in every book. Or if the letters aren't same, the strokes are. If you tamper with one book, and steadily and quickly keep tampering others of its kind, the genre will be affected and it might get lost eventually. Writers, when trying to link their books with other genres, will fail to impress people due to their disbelief. The same way, if I take the side of vampires, I'll be bound to help you all. And so on. Till it's all over."
Kurda listened to this in shocked silence. He hadn't imagined Lina to be so tightly bound to destiny. He wondered if she knew who Des Tiny was and whether she was his agent or creation. He decided to ask that for another time.
~Oo~Oo~Oo~
"What will be my story?" Kurda asked for the zillionth time. He was both curious and scared of how his life had to be entangled with written words.
"I can't tell you, much as I would want to." Lina repeated the same reply as always. She had begun to love this peaceful, smart vampire, not to forget handsome and it hurt her to keep him in the dark. He'd given her his support when she'd needed it and had done much for her, and offered to do much more.
"Do you know Desmond Tiny?" Kurda tried a different technique.
"Am I supposed to?" Lina asked, wondering not for the first time Kurda's obsession with this question. Asking about what part he would play in a book is pardonable, but she couldn't understand his desperation with this so called Desmond Tiny. What a strange name!
"But do you know him?" He persisted.
"No." she sighed, frustrated. "Should we be knowing each other, Kurda?"
"Oh, you could do better without him." Kurda chuckled darkly. There was a pause. He suddenly shifted to a different question. "Why were you crying the night I met you? Were you crying because of your curse, or because of some particular reason?"
"Oh, that..." she smiled tightly. "I love reading. And I love solving mysteries. Ironic, huh? Anyway, there's not a single book I don't know about before I even read the title. Out of desperation, I tried reading a book once, blocking out my powers. I succeeded for the short term, but suddenly, my mind broke loose and before I could help it, I knew in detail the entire story. And that my favourite character was dead. I cried out of frustration and mourning for that character."
~Oo~Oo~Oo~
"How old are you exactly?" Lina spluttered with laughter one night, as she and Kurda stumbled ahead on the lone road, intoxicated.
"Older than your grandfather!" Kurda snorted and almost collapsed on poor Lina.
"But how old?" Lina scowled. "I'm 20, you know that?"
"Then I'm 115." Kurda chortled in reply. She gave him a punch and he was sent packing to the bushes. Picking himself up clumsily, he stumbled over to her, grasped her shoulder and began walking again.
Lina stopped suddenly and becoming strangely serious, she put her hand over his hand. "Is it too great, the age difference?"
He squinted at her, trying to recover some of his sense and to understand her question. "What do you mean?"
"You know what I mean!" She snapped, irritated only because of both of their intoxicated state. "You and me - are you too old for me?"
Kurda roughly grasped her and kissed her full on the mouth. She clutched him closer to her, and their kiss lasted for quite some time.
~Oo~Oo~Oo~
"Hold the sword - like this!" he snapped as Lina limped towards him because of the weight of the heavy sword. She grit her teeth, and came towards him very slowly.
"You'll die before you can say 'oops' the way you're going." Kurda commented as Lina slid down on the ground.
"I know." She replied, dejected. "But you're not helping!"
"Of course I am!" Kurda said, pretending to be shocked. "You would have been dead sooner if you weren't doing so well."
"Kurda, can we take a rest now?"
"Of course we can." He smiled and scooped her up in his arms and began walking, occassionally bending his head to give her a light kiss.
"I've to give it to you: you're a very good teacher." Lina murmered lazily. They'd been traveling together for a long time, with different covers, with different plans and with different destinations. He'd protected and saved her from more than one spot of trouble, and she'd updated him about everything to do with the evolution of humans from his century till date. And their love had deepened. Kurda couldn't forget how she'd fallen asleep in his arms and how he wanted to keep kissing her many times over...
~Oo~Oo~Oo~
"How come you can stay so long with me and find me so often?" Lina questioned one day, after sharing a soft kiss with him. They were admiring the moonlight, sitting on a bench. She valued these cheesy moments for their rarity.
"Instincts." Kurda shrugged, and put his arm around her. "Vampires have stronger instincts than humans, Lina. But being so often with you might change..."
"What?" Lina sprang. "Why? How?"
"My services to the vampires have increased in demands and intensity. Plus, I'm always looking out for mergers with vampaneze."
"Take me with you!" She begged.
"But you're human." He replied softly.
She glared at him with tearful eyes, and marched away.
"Wait!" He was left shouting after her as she stormed away. He ran after her, but failed to cut ice.
~Oo~Oo~Oo~
"This might be the last time I'll be seeing you." Kurda whispered.
"I know." Lina replied, trying her best not to cry, but barely succeeding.
"And do remember: I always love you and will keep loving you." He'd cupped her face with one hand and raised her chin slightly and delicately with another finger.
"I - I - I love you too!" Her tears finally burst open, and she grabbed him in a hug which surprised him by its strength, but delighted him because of its passion.
"Keep these maps: if you can't live without me, and are on the verge of submitting yourself to death, follow these maps. They will lead you straight to me." He too shed a few tears as he whispered this in her ears, hugging her tightly too.
"I will come to you." Lina gulped. "I will definitely come to you."
"Well, then this is goodbye, I suppose." He hated being so abrupt, but he knew that only this measure would be effective in the long run. So many years of his life had taught him that.
"Wait." she rasped. "Wait, I've something to tell you." She cleared her throat, wiped her eyes and looked directly into his. "When we'd come to know each other a few years before, I'd told you that I won't be toying with my knowledge to help you or myself. But I've become far too entangled in love with you: hence heed warning, there is a certain half-vampire named Darren Shan, who'll be coming to your story. He's a very good lad, but he's your downfall. He will survive to tell the Vampire Council that you're treacherous - something about your plans of re-uniting the vampaneze with vampires, but I'll leave you to find that out for yourself - and he will succeed. If you wish to succeed, then you must..." she trailed off.
"How could you know so much?" Kurda gasped.
"I was born like that." She smiled ruefully. "Remember, dear, if you wish to show your loyalty, you might have to initiate it with treachery. So long." she skittled off, but not before giving him a lovely kiss and he was left gazing at the direction in which she went for hours.
Remember, dear, if you wish to show your loyalty, you might have to initiate it with treachery.
How right she'd been! With the Vampaneze Lord's arrival confirmed, he was left with throwing the dice for the last time in this gamble of war and possible bloodshed. He had to get the vampaneze to fight his own immediate brothers and sisters. He had to kill his own lords - the Princes - to make sure his order alone was executed, for the better of two clans. He had to himself kill many of his friends. And he had to kill Darren. He'd loved the boy like the father he could never be. Taking care of the boy reminded him of his own father taking care of him. And killing him made him realise that he'd fallen pretty low to elevate others high from the danger level.
~Oo~Oo~Oo~
Kurda only realised that he'd fallen asleep at his desk when his assistant, Cyrus, came bursting through the door.
"Kurda! They - them - the vampaneze!" Cyrus panted, distraught with terror.
"What? What is it?" Kurda sprang up to his feet and grasped his assistant.
"They know!" Cyrus tried to calm himself down. "They know - what you did - and how you did - merging the clans!"
Kurda ruminated this in numb silence and shock. He knew this day would come. But he'd thought of it as himself telling the others of his deeds and surrendering to death and destiny, not the other way around. "Go and find out who started this..." Kurda commanded as calmly as possible. Cyrus gave him one blank look, and sharply turned to leave to do his mentor's bidding, when Kurda stopped him.
Kurda placed his hands on Cyrus' shoulder. "We might not make out of this alive. But you've been a good assistant and like a brother to me. Thank you for all that. I just wanted you to know."
Cyrus locked his gaze with the senior vampire's, before he burst into tears. Kurda kissed his forehead and patted him on the back, himself pretty close to tears.
~Oo~Oo~Oo~
Kurda's only hope was the people for whom he had sacrificed so much would appreciate him and remember him fondly even if they gave him the death of a traitor. He'd found Cyrus' and his other assistants' mutilated bodies. Now he would face them, answer their questions and surrender himself to destiny. He only hoped the Lina would be here to speak to him. He didn't want her to watch his death, no. But he wanted to hear her voice again; not in flashback, but in reality.
Tears of the sorrows from his past began pouring. All the sorrows which he'd dammed, or ignored, or even wept for earlier, now came out in one defeating river. It was ironic that in his human life he'd been charged with treachery, when he'd not even dreamt of committing a crime against his own land and, especially regarding how close he used to be to the ruler of his land. His adopted son. Even so, he'd been rescued by vampirism and still he went out of his way to make things right for his land again. And now, he'd actually acted as a traitor to save his clan.
Tears of shame... tears of distress... tears of pain... tears of agony... tears of fear present, past and future... tears for Lina. His head automatically bowed down onto the table, and he visualized Lina standing before him. Hers was the only memory which would act as a shield for all the torture and humilation to come. He raised his head, wiping his tears, expecting the vision to dissolve. But it didn't. Maybe he had gone mad after all. He decided to take advantage of it.
"Lina." He murmered.
"Yes, darling?" He frowned as she cooed. Her voice seemed too real.
"Have you come to take me to death?"
"No, Kurda. I've come to take you with me." She advanced towards him and kissed him. Her kiss also seemed too real.
"Is this a dream? Have I gone mad?" he wondered.
"No, this is real. And I'll do anything to make sure that you stay sane." She kissed him again and pinched him hard. The agony was too sharp.
You really are here!" He exclaimed softly.
"Yes. What did you think?"
"But - but - how are you here?" He jumped up and looked deeply into her. She was covered in bruises, but she was as lovely as ever.
"You gave me the maps, remember?"
"The maps - of course!" Kurda slapped his head. This was too good to be true, but the best part was, that this was happening in real! But why did she come here? Did she know that he was going to die soon?
"You must come with me!" She started. "You've united the clans, yes? Now you're mine - come with me!" She begged. "The time I spent without you, zigzagging the globe has taught me that if I want to be happy again, I must join you. Come with me... there's nothing more for you here!"
"I have some issues to sort, Lina." He spoke, despair rising in his voice.
"Which would go in vain, for they will kill you without batting an eyelash." She remarked bitterly.
"How do you know?" Kurda gasped.
"As I told you, you're bound to a story. And the story portrayed what you tried to do for the vampires and the vampaneze. You were supposed to fail, but succeeded because I warned you beforehand about what you should be doing. In the book, you died like a traitor. I heard them talking as I was racing up the caves. Just because the way and setting have changed, doesn't mean that they're still not die to see you executed excruciatingly."
"What?" Kurda snapped.
"Yes!" Lina raised her voice. "I decided to begin my trek here just by chance... and you can't imagine how badly I'm thanking that chance! Come with me, Kurda, come with me!" Lina begged again.
"But - but..." Kurda trailed off, confused.
"The vampaneze who followed you are dead now. No one's left to support you. You'll die a death worse than a dog's."
"Lina. They are my people."
"Not anymore!" Lina almost screamed. "Not if they want to show so much ingratitude and thanklessness for all that you've done and given up for them!"
"Lina..."
"We'll live together! We'll roam together! We'll sever our ties with the entire vampire clan - after all, you destroyed that blasted Stone of Blood years ago, right?" Lina asked anxiously. Kurda nodded, and she continued. "I heard about the Stone too. And we'll love each other, like we loved each other all those years ago!"
Kurda looked was torn between taking up her offer - which was what his mind and heart were screaming at him to do - or whether to face the angry vampires and vampaneze, who'd already made up their mind.
"Kurda, remember the day when I first saw you?" Lina asked.
"Of course." He whispered.
"I'd been reading the same book which ties you in. And you were the character whom I was weeping for." Lina spoke each word softly and lovingly.
That was too much for him. "Yes." he rasped. "Take me with you."
"I'll become like you. I'll become your assistant, and then a full vampire. And we'll live together." She chanted fervently. He kissed her passionately, and she broke away shortly, clasped his hand and pulled him along with her. He let himself be led away, overcome by love and surprise. Soon the darkness of a cave closed around him, and he heard her voice singing to him:
"We're leaving here tonight
There's no need to tell anyone
They'd only hold us down
So by the morning light
We'll be halfway to anywhere
Where love is more than just your name"
And he realised that his life had just begun - once again.