22 The foundling
Jas does not know how long she sits on the beach, but eventually her will to survive resurfaces. She cannot stay here. Wearily, she drags herself up the narrow cliff path towards the cave. She has no idea what she is going to do now, but at least, if she finds shelter she will be safe and she will have time to think.
When she reaches the cave, she finds it ideal for her purposes, in all but one respect; it appears to already have an occupant. She finds the remains of a fire at the very back, the ashes still warm to the touch. She smiles grimly to herself, as she looks out over the sea; at least she won't have to go far to find her next meal. She settles down at the mouth of the cave and waits.
The sea is almost impossibly calm, and only the softest of breezes ruffles her hair. The moon is full tonight, and a broad belt of moonlight points the way to Nosgoth, stretching towards the horizon like a silver road across the water. Idly, she imagines herself walking upon it.
If only it were that easy, she thinks.
The occupant of the cave does not return home that night or the following day. The next evening, Jas is hungry and tired of waiting, she decides to go and hunt in the hamlet she had spotted from the boat. As she walks down the path leading towards the fishing village, she collides with someone, who dashes headlong into her. She smiles, a sharp anticipatory smile, as she puts out a hand to halt their progress. To her disappointment, what she gets hold of seems no more than skin and bone.
It is a human female of no more than fourteen summers, brown haired, blue eyed, barefoot and filthy, her freckled skin barely showing through the layers of grime on her arms and her face. She is wearing a thin and rather shapeless shift of some indeterminate shade of grey that could have once been blue, or green, or just about any colour, and she is holding something in her hands. As soon as Jas catches hold of her wrist, she offers it to her.
"Fisk." She says, holding out her stinking treasure. "Fisk. Is good."
As if to prove her point, she raises the fish, which has obviously been dead for some days now, to her mouth and takes a bite. Jas wrinkles her nose in disgust.
"You don't know what I am, do you, little human?"
The girl squints at her, but clearly, she has trouble seeing in the dark. Just at that moment, a helpful gap appears in the clouds that were obscuring the moon; now she can see.
Immediately, the girl drops the fish and falls to her knees. She holds out her arms to Jas, fists clenched and the insides of both wrists raised towards her in supplication.
"The Goddess!" She gasps. "The Goddess from the temple! Forgive my trespasses. Take me!"
Jas shakes her head wearily at the sight. Another unappetising mortal, babbling nonsense and desiring to feel the sharp caress of her fangs. Is it some fault in her, she wonders, that she is invariably reluctant to take a life when it is offered? If all the humans were as obliging as this one, she could quite easily starve.
She pokes the creature in front of her, with her hoof.
"Get up." She orders. The girl scrambles to her feet and Jas points up to the cave. "Is that where you live?" She asks. The girl nods, she is shaking from head to foot. "Who else lives there?"
"N…n…no one," she stammers.
"And who else knows you live there? Think, before you answer."
The girl shuffles her feet in the dust. "They don't come near," she says. "Bad place, haunted. No one comes."
Jas smiles, luck must be on her side, she couldn't have chosen a better hiding place.
She looks down at the quivering human in front of her. What is she going to do about this thing? She can't leave it here. It might have useful information, Jas thinks, or maybe she could grant the creature's wish after all; it would save her the bother of hunting. She nudges the girl up the path, back towards the cliff.
"Show me."
The girl's face breaks into a smile, though Jas is at a loss to see what she is so happy about. She scoops up the fish, apparently heedless of the thick coating of dust that it has gathered, and scampers ahead of her, up the path.
While the girl does seem to have a lot of information, she has one fault, common to most mortals of her age, she is full of questions. While Jas learns much from her, she has to tell the little creature quite sharply, to curb her own curiosity.
"When you have told me what I wish to know, then I will decide what I will tell you." She says. This works for the time being, but she is aware that she has somehow entered into an agreement with the girl.
Oh well, she thinks, it is up to her whether she keeps to it.
Jas learns that the girl was originally from the fishing village, but she had been expelled.
"Too many girls," she explains in her heavy accent. "They want boys. Boys are better, stronger, work on the boats. They put me outside."
"Just you?" Asks Jas.
The girl shrugs. "The babies, little ones, they don't last so long."
Jas frowns. "And how is it that you have lasted so long?" The girl looks at her, unsure of her meaning. "How do you eat?" Jas asks.
"I steal a little, but they beat me, throw stones too, so not so much now."
The girl sniffs and rubs her nose with the back of her hand, leaving a trail of slime across her knuckles. "Sometimes I trade," she says, "but I don't like to do that." She looks down at her toes, curling them in the dust, before she explains. "The men, they hurt you sometimes, and they don't always pay, either."
"And how do you know who I am?"
The girl's face brightens, this is a happier subject.
"I've seen you!" She exclaims. "You picture, it's in the temple, the forbidden places to the west. You're not angry?" She asks suddenly, "Did you come to punish me?"
Jas shakes her head. "No, no punishment. The one you saw there, it wasn't me, she just looks like me that's all, and I'm not a goddess, I'm a vampire. Do you know what that is?"
The girl shakes her head, she has never heard the word before. Jas explains it to her, and cannot help thinking that she accepts the information extremely calmly, under the circumstances. "Tell me," Jas continues, "now you know what I am, are there any more of my kind here?"
The girl wrinkles her brow.
"I never seen any," she says. "You're the only one I ever saw. But I didn't go far, in the forbidden land. There's people there. Not my people. I got scared, came back."
Jas leans back, considering what she has learned.
"Will you take me there, to these forbidden places you speak of?" She asks. "Would you be able to show me what you saw?"
The girl nods, she does not think she would be so afraid, if this strange lady were with her, with her fierce eyes and her sharp sword. But her own questions are rising now and they will not be quelled.
"If you're not the Goddess," she asks Jas, "then who are you? How did you come here? Where do you come from?"
Jas smiles, it appears the bargain is going to be honoured after all.
When she has finished answering the girl's questions, there is a full, blissful minute of silence. The girl sits at her feet, lost in thought; finally, she raises her eyes to Jas again.
"If you were once like me, then we're the same." She says.
Jas raises her brows at the filthy apparition in front of her.
"We are?" She asks.
"Our souls," says the child. "Our souls are still the same, aren't they?"
Jas stares down at her, she had not expected any powers of reason from such unpromising looking material. Slowly she nods, it is true of course, though it is not something she has ever really considered before. On seeing that she is nodding, the girl suddenly lunges at her, her face passionate, she grasps her ankle as she speaks.
"Make me like you, please! I'll serve you forever. I'll never leave you, not unless you tell me to. Please, Lady. Please."
Jas shakes her head. "I can't," she says, "I don't know how. Only the males of our kind seem to have that ability."
The girl stares at her.
"You can't? Honestly?"
Jas shakes her head.
"But a man could?"
"Some can, not many. I'm sorry."
The girl looks down, digesting this new information.
"You 'vampires' stand things on their head!" she mutters, finally. "That's not the way it's meant to be, that's not the way at all."
Jas stands up, the hour is getting late, and she is suddenly aware that she is very hungry.
"I'm going to the village," she says. "I have to feed."
The girl has started to devour her fish, eating flesh, skin and dirt, all with equal relish. On hearing this, she gets up.
"Wait!" She cries.
Jas frowns, she hopes the child is not going to be tedious. The girl grabs her arm and points down the coast, towards the village. "If you drop a body off those rocks there," she says, "the sea will take it. They don't come back for months, sometimes never. No one will know."
Jas stares at her in amazement.
This one is full of surprises!
The girl shuffles awkwardly. "I thought it might help," she says. "Sometimes it happens by accident, and sometimes… not. You get to know these things."
Jas smiles and thanks her, and then she leaves to hunt.
*
They do not leave for the Hylden City the next day or the day after. In truth, Jas can hardly see the point, not since she learned the truth about her parentage. Another reason for delay is that her would-be guide is sick.
She creeps out the first morning, a dry rasping cough telling Jas that she is awake. Later that evening, she comes back, claiming she has been looking for food, though Jas notices that she is empty handed. The second evening, she comes back with three tiny sea urchins, which she smashes on a rock at the back of the cave, scooping out the slimy innards with her fingers and seeming to smear as much across her face as she actually manages to eat. The next night, she has a couple of crusts of stale bread, and the night after that, nothing again. At first, Jas had feared that she might use one of these excursions to betray her to the men of the village, but the child seems incapable of such deception.
On the fifth night, it is raining, the girl comes back to the cave soaked to the skin, carrying a bundle of sodden sticks for the fire and small bunch of the violet-pink flowers that grow on the cliffs to the west of the village.
"For you." She says holding out the flowers to Jas.
Jas takes them from her carefully, they are the first real flowers she has ever held in her hands; she is amazed at their fragility the depth of their colour, and as they dry, their scent.
The girl is watching her closely as she holds them.
"You look sad," she says. "Don't you like them?"
Jas smiles. "They just reminded me of something, that's all."
The girl regards her for a few minutes more, watching as she cups the blossoms in her hands, bringing them up to her nose so she can better drink in their perfume.
"Who is it, that they make you think of?" She asks.
More of that uncanny perception. If Jas were capable of making herself a companion, she thinks she would be tempted by this one.
"Never you mind." She says.
The girl goes to the back of the cave, where a small fire burns. She huddles over it, sniffling and trying to dry her wet clothes. Her cough has got steadily worse throughout the week. Jas puts the flowers down and comes over to sit next to her. She puts another log on the fire.
"Did you eat today?" She asks.
The girl looks up at her incredulous; never, has she known anyone so kind as this mysterious lady. She actually cares whether she has eaten. A sudden fear clutches her heart. What will she do when this wondrous being leaves? And she will leave, she knows she will. The cave is not a fitting home for a lady, she shouldn't be here at all, she should be in the temples. She must have got lost somehow, and when she remembers her way back, the lady will return to her own people and she will be left alone again.
The girl stretches out a trembling hand to Jas.
"Take me with you, when you go." She says, her voice shaking with anxiety. "When you go back home, to the north lands, where the sun doesn't shine. I'd be good, I promise. Will you, please?"
Jas looks away from her, the naked longing in her face is disconcerting. She gets up and goes to the mouth of the cave, keeping her back turned towards the girl, as she sits down and looks out over the sea.
"Who says I am going back?" she asks with a sigh. "I'm like you, I've been cast out. I've served my purpose, and I've no way of getting back home. I was sent here to die."
The girl follows her. She says nothing, instead, she burrows into Jas' lap, winding her thin arms around her body.
Jas is mildly revolted by being in such close proximity to the little creature even though the dirt and disease she carries can't harm her, but she understands the desire to comfort was behind her gesture and so tolerates the embrace. After a minute, the girl releases her and withdraws to the shadows, watching her Lady, as she has come to call Jas, as she continues to look out across the sea. She huddles in the dark, just behind her, barely daring to breathe, for she feels safe here, in the vampire's shadow, and she does not want to be sent away. She wonders, as she sits there, if Jas was telling her the truth, when she said that only the males of their kind have the power to make other vampires. She can't imagine Jas lying, but part of her hopes that she was. She wants so much to be like her, strong and beautiful. As she sits in the moonlight, with her sword drawn across her knees, she looks as if she could rise above anything.
Maybe, if she tried really hard to please her, maybe…
The chill, dampness of the night air is seeping into her clothes now and the girl starts to shiver, desperately smothering a rising impulse to cough; it is hopeless, its violent spasms wrack her body, and Jas, kindly ignores them, just as she has all week.
Hours pass, and still the girl continues her watch. After a while, she notices Jas' expression has changed, it has softened somehow. The girl creeps closer, holding her breath. Finally, she dares to stretch her hand out to touch the vampire's wrist.
"Was it good?" She asks in a whisper. "Was it good with your man?"
Jas turns to her in surprise.
"Yes." she says, quietly, "It was good."
The girl shuffles closer still, her head bowed, her face hidden in the shadows.
"Tell me how it was," she says. "Please. What was it like? It was never good for me."
Jas does not answer; instead, she slips her arms around the emaciated form beside her, and holds the girl's head against her shoulder. There is a muffled gasp as her cold flesh presses against the girl's skin, but she does not pull away or struggle. Looking down at the huddled bag of bones in her arms, Jas realizes the girl is fairly cold herself, far too cold for a human, in fact, her own skin is barely warmed by her touch. She picks up her cloak and wraps it gently around the thin shoulders. After a minute, she is rewarded by the faint stinging sensation of a tear dropping against her arm and then, a little later, by the ragged, wheezy breathing that tells her the child is asleep.
*
The next morning the girl is awoken by a strange sensation. She can smell cooking. She sits up with difficulty, her arms refusing at first, to support her weight. The fire is burning brightly but she still feels cold, and her teeth clack together as her skin is exposed to the chill of the early morning air. Looking down, she see that she has been sleeping under Jas' cloak, and Jas has moved her to the heap of dead bracken that serves as her bed.
"What are you doing?" She asks her benefactor.
Jas smiles. In reply, she brings over a bowl of the broth she has been heating on the fire, and then she sets down some bread beside it. The girl stares at her.
"How did you do that?"
Jas sniffs in amusement. Does the child think she has used magic to conjure something as simple as a bowl of broth?
"The same way you would." She replies. "Only don't expect to get this treatment again in a hurry. I just wanted to see if I remembered how, that's all."
She hands the girl a spoon, stolen from one of the kitchens she had raided last night. "It's getting cold," she says pointedly.
The girl eats slowly, and there is something painful about the way she does it. She is at once overeager and yet strangely reluctant at the same time. Jas goes to the front of the cave, she does not like watching this. After a few minutes, the girl starts to retch. The food is too rich for her. She flinches away as Jas approaches again, her hands raised in a feeble attempt at defending herself from the blows she is sure are coming. Jas hands her the cloth she was bringing over.
"Come, clean your face." She says gently, ignoring the stench of vomit that permeates the far end of the cave.
There is another smell that catches her nostrils now, and it is one with which Jas is very familiar. It is not the sweet, cloying scent of disease, for the girl has smelt sick since the day they met, it is something stronger and colder, the unmistakable smell of death. Jas looks down at the wasted figure on the bed, still mumbling incoherent apologies for the offence of being so starved she can no longer eat, and she realizes that whatever aid she is willing to offer has come too late; the girl is dying.
It does not take long, the girl is so weak at this stage, and the fever has a firm grip on her now. She lies on the makeshift bed, and her body is wracked by spasms of coughing, each one longer and more violent than the last. After sundown, they appear to ease, and then they cease altogether, a scant half an hour later, she draws her last shuddering breath.
Jas goes over to her and closes her eyes. She has stayed in the cave all day, but she is not sure the girl was aware of her presence at the end. She goes down into the village and steals a winding sheet from the tavern that also serves as the undertakers and the village shop. The customers are all crammed into the tiny lounge at the front of the building, sweating in the heat from the fire while they drink the vinegary brew that passes for beer in these parts. No one notices either her arrival or her departure. Her booty secured, she returns to the cave to wrap the body.
The girl has one last surprise for her. When she takes off the thin shift, so she can dress her in the funeral sheet, Jas discovers that she was with child, and close to term by all appearances. Jas stares down at her, and at her swollen belly, which is by no means as swollen as it should have been.
Was that the reason she was cast out to fend for herself? She wonders. Or had someone got her into this condition since?
The ways of humankind never cease to disgust her.
Carefully, she wraps the body in the sheet, slipping the withered flowers the girl had brought to her, in between the folds.
It is the last act of kindness any human in this land would ever be able to accuse her of.
A/N O.K. confession time. I'm blocked, badly. This is as far as I've got with the story and with the European release of Defiance so close now, I don't really feel like trying to take this any further, not until I've played the game. *Grovels* I'm really sorry! When Eidos announced November for the release of Defiance, I was sure I'd have plenty of time to play it and pull my ideas together, without leaving everyone hanging like this. Alas, it didn't quite work out! I do intend to finish this story. I have a few more chapters drafted, and another story planned, which depends on me finishing it. So don't despair. As a bit of a peace offering, I've another tale to offer in the meantime. It's called ' A Matter of Honour' and it's very simple and uncomplicated. In other words, the plot can only go in one direction, so I don't anticipate getting stuck like I have here!
I'd just like to thank everyone who has reviewed this story for taking the time to comment. It really means a lot to know that people are out there reading my stuff. I've really appreciated your reactions to the plot and the characters and especially, any suggestions as to how my work could be improved. Hopefully, I'll be back here before too long. Watch this space!