18 Awakening
It is a cold December morning when Jas awakens, and snow lies deep in the valleys of Nosgoth. Icicles hang from the eaves of the buildings and from the black and twisted branches of the trees.
It is very early; day has just broken, and everything is quiet, save for the muted crunch of the snow settling its weight gently upon the land. Nothing moves, for the human slaves have not yet awoken, and the snow in the courtyards is still virgin and untouched.
The sun hangs low in the sky, a huge ball of molten amber, barely rising above the peaks of the eastern mountains. It stretches its rays out lovingly towards the weathered stone of the buildings, turning the frosted surfaces to sparkling gold with its caress.
In his mountain stronghold, Turel turns away from the window, the corners of his mouth turned down sharply in a grimace of disgust; the sun is an insult to his eyes. For three days now, the smoke-stacks he has built to shield the land from its poisonous rays have lain idle. The mines have ceased to produce coal in sufficient quantities to keep them fed, having encountered a wide seam of rock that is practically impenetrable. Despite his threats, and his punishments, production has slowed to a trickle.
And now, the clouds have cleared, and they have returned. Sun, Moon, Stars, he hates them all, but it is the Sun he hates the most. How it burned when he was a fledgling, searing his tender flesh with its cruel, yellow light. He shudders at the memory. At least, he thinks, he is no longer vulnerable to that particular punishment. He might be compelled to look upon its ugly face this morning, but it no longer has the power to hurt him.
He puts his hand to the door, his face sour; he is intending to go and give the miners and their overseers some further incentives to do his bidding. As his claws scrape against the brass handle, his sensitive ears pick up a familiar sound. Turel smiles, this sound is like balm to his irritated nerves, he turns back towards the window, listening; the second scream reaches him faintly. His smile widens. Yes, it is unmistakably a scream. Somewhere, high in the mountains, in Kain's retreat, something is pain.
*
While Turel would have been even more pleased to learn that the 'something', was Jas. He would have been disappointed to learn that she is not in quite as much pain as the screams have led him to believe. All that has truly awakened at this moment, is her hunger.
The screams that she uttered as she forced her way out of the stone coffin where she has lain for seven long months, have paralysed the other occupants of the room in terror, not that they were going very far, all have been fettered securely to the walls in readiness for just this moment.
Her eyes have not yet opened and she has no idea where she is, nor does she care. She is barely aware of her physical body at all, just her hunger and the tantalising smell that leads her unerringly towards the first of the prisoners.
Her claws tear out his throat and she barely feels it, is hardly aware of what she has done. She holds her face under the warm stream that gushes out, her claws embedded in her victim's shoulders, her body hanging low and limp beneath the corpse, as she surrenders to the waves of this most primal of pleasures breaking over her.
Her body shudders uncontrollably, as she loses herself in the ecstasy of the moment. The sensations continuing to build in intensity as she drinks, until they are but a hair's breadth from pain, so acutely pleasurable, that she is almost unable to bear it.
There is nothing beyond this moment, nothing beyond the warmth, the smell, the rush of adrenaline that heightens her senses and the way that the blood seems to flow directly into every vein, into every pore in her skin, until she is experiencing it with every part of her being, tasting it with her entire body.
As the blood ceases its flow, there is calm, the rapture subsiding to a sweet ache that pulses through her, as her hunger is satisfied, though this is but a fleeting sensation. When the first human is completely drained, she moves onto the next.
Only when all six prisoners are dead, does she open her eyes. The sight that greets her, makes her laugh aloud, the six cadavers hang from their chains, each one horribly mangled, the walls of the cell are spattered with crimson and pools of blood soak the flagstones around each corpse. Someone, has a lot of cleaning-up to do!
Jas looks down at herself, and then she gasps. It is not the fact that she is naked, or that her skin is so splashed with vermilion, that the white beneath can barely be seen in places, it is pure delight at the first physical change in her body to come to her notice.
No feet!
She stamps her hoof on the floor, and it rings against the stone in a most satisfying manner.
That's an improvement!
She holds her hand up to her face; she still has all her fingers. She wiggles them experimentally.
No change at all.
Curious.
Her examination of her hands and feet completed, she looks around the room. There is a chest against one of the walls, its top slick with blood; she shakes her head, she was never normally one to feed this messily. She opens it up and finds it contains cloths, which she uses to clean herself, and under these, her clothes. She dresses slowly, examining her body for any other changes that might have occurred.
Her skin is definitely different, she admires its new texture, and her face? She gasps as her fingers come into contact with the ridge of flesh which now rises above her brow; it feels like a crest, and it seems to end in something like horns which curl forwards on either side of her head, just below her ears. Next, she puts her hand up to the back of her head. She is rather relieved to find she still has her hair, though it is matted and sticky with blood; she will have to comb that out when it dries.
She runs her fingers lightly over her face again. What, she wonders, does she look like?
*
There is a single door leading out of the cell where she has slept, and beyond that, a narrow stone staircase, which winds sharply upwards. There is nowhere else to go, so she ascends the stairs, wondering what awaits her at the top.
Where is she? She remembers Kain arriving in the Dumahim stronghold, but after that, very little.
At the top of the stairs is a wide chamber, devoid of furniture, with a large window dominating its furthest wall. Jas walks towards it; it is some time in the day, and the feeble rays of the sun stretch out weakly towards her. She notices they don't hurt her eyes like they used to. She keeps walking, stopping only when the beams are actually touching her.
They don't burn her skin, they don't even sting.
She walks right up to the glass and as she does, she becomes aware of a new sensation, warmth. Her skin is warm, not the faint, evanescent warmth that comes with feeding, but warm from the sun.
Warm from the sun!
She runs her hand down her arm, delighting in the sensation where the light gently touches her.
She opens the casement and leans out to look at Nosgoth's mountains. The snowy peaks are illuminated by the light that filters through the clouds; clouds which seem strangely thin, today. Jas marvels at the sight, catching her breath at the intensity of the colours, it has been a long time since she has seen Nosgoth like this.
A movement beneath her causes her to glance down and she is just in time to see a figure, achingly familiar, crossing the courtyard below. It is Dumah, walking into the building with a female companion on his arm. She watches them as they saunter towards her, the female clearly enjoying the reflected status of being in such exalted company.
So, that's how it is.
As they draw closer, she realizes that the female is known to her, it is the Lady Serrah.
Her hands grip the windowsill and she hisses in displeasure, her fangs bared.
Serrah! He's chosen to take that bitch into his bed?
If Jas' thoughts had the necessary power, they would have ripped Serrah's heart from her chest and pulled it, crushed and bleeding, into her fist at that very moment, but alas, Serrah does not even stumble.
Jas turns away from the window, shocked by the intensity of her feelings, and berating herself for succumbing so easily to them.
Pull yourself together, Jas! This is enough to make Kain laugh.
Salvage your dignity, and let it go. That's one ego, that does not require further fuelling, especially from your jealousy!
But her pleasure in the day is gone, despite her stern admonitions, and she walks back into the room, without even noticing the beams of light that play softly across her skin.
She wonders if Dumah's appearance might be another lesson from Kain. A subtle reminder of where his lieutenants' loyalties really lie. If it is, she thinks wryly, his style of tutoring could grow very tedious indeed, especially since it would appear that he is nearly always right.
It must be hard having him as sire.
She sighs deeply, and consoles herself, that at least now, she won't be brought face to face with Dumah and his companion without warning. But even as the thought crosses her mind, she has to admit this is no consolation really, no consolation at all.
*
She looks around the room, wondering what she should do next, there are two doors on the far wall, one must be the door she came in by and the other has to be the way out. On the wall to her right, is a looking glass; she steps over to it quickly, Dumah momentarily forgotten. How did she miss that?
Hesitantly, she looks into the glass, and the face that looks back at her is her own, and yet, at the same time, strangely alien. She puts a hand up to her face, and watches her fingers as they travel across the curling ridges of her brows, and then on, up to the low crest, which rises above her forehead.
She has seen this face before she realizes, in the sketches Kain made of the Hylden city. Somehow, she has evolved into the very image of the female depicted in the murals in the Hylden buildings. She steps back, unable to even think for a moment.
How is this possible? What does it mean?
What will Kain do when he sees her?
She does not have long to wait, before she finds out.