AN UPSTART INHERITANCE: IX -- THE REGENT
The secretaire faced the wall opposite the door, and the man writing at it felt intermittently compelled to look over his shoulder. It was almost as if the room itself had conspired to make him ill at ease. Its careless affluence humbled him, and there seemed to be a lingering presence here, more subtle than a smell but almost that. This in itself would have been enough to set his nerves on edge. These were not his rooms. He was here only because the books were here, a shelf full of leather bound volumes, one for each of the past fifty years, and a hefty stack of loose sheets for this year. He tried to study them, tried to analyse the population numbers and one-line reports documented here. Over a year ago, the city of Darheim was destroyed. It had been their largest city, and there was nothing left now. The other settlements groaned under the weight of the Razelim's demands for blood, and the stock of bottled in the cellars was slowly but surely diminishing.
Harald sighed, and pushed the dry stack of paper away from him. None of that truly mattered, unless he could come to an understanding with Lord Kain. Harald had sent word to the Sanctuary, repeatedly, but there had been no answer. News reached them of the failed assassination attempt, and he sent his knight Sophia to request an audience. Three nights had passed before Kain answered, and the reply was cold. Freezing cold. Harald was to stay where he was; Kain would pay him a visit soon to discuss the situation. Since then, two weeks had passed. Two weeks of increasing disquiet inside the castle, and nothing but sullen silence from the world without. The guards and courtiers at the Sanctuary had been sent back to Darstein, letters to the clan Lords went unanswered, visits were refused. The Razelim were cut off from the rest of Nosgoth; no one would consort with them as long as their status remained unclear. And Lord Kain made no haste to clarify the situation. This terrible uncertainty, the knowledge that everything he did, every decision he made, was essentially meaningless as all still hung in the balance -- it had kept Harald up for three days now.
The lasting silence was not just gnawing away at his composure; the entire clan was short tempered. There was distrust and resentment brewing; their quarters were too small for all the Razelim to live comfortably. Harald dared not send anyone away; he might need every man he had, soon. He guarded a strict discipline, but it was proving difficult to remain control. The prisoner cells held more and more vampires, punished for a transgression or simply too crazed to be allowed to roam freely. Morale was low, nerves were fraying and he was facing down an increasing amount of criticism. He sighed deeply and rested his head on the desk. Perhaps if would help if he could just close his eyes for a short while, if he could just rest, he would feel more able to deal with these problems...
The door behind him burst open and he was up from his chair immediately, his hand at his sword, his heart hammering loudly in his chest.
"Sorry, sir," his soldier grumbled. He and another dragged in a small, dingy figure. "We thought you should see this." They dropped the creature onto the blood-red carpet, and it just sat there, knelt, dirty hair in front of its face. Harald looked at his men, awaiting an explanation.
"This," the soldier said with some gravity, "is the murderer of Daskton."
Harald looked at the black-clad, beaten down figure. "Is this true?" he demanded. "Are you the one that has been preying on the people of Daskton these past weeks? Who are you?"
Slowly, the vampire raised its head to look at him. Through the dirt-caked, oily strands of hair he could see two bright, angry eyes, and under the grime he finally made out the fine features of a familiar face.
"Adoile!"
The two soldiers grinned uneasily and nodded. Adoile did not speak. She merely stared at Harald, an angry, accusing stare.
"We thought you dead," Harald told her. "How did you escape? Where have you been?"
She made no answer.
"Have you just been wandering around? Were you there when Axel was executed?"
Her lips curled into a snarl, but still she would not speak.
Harald growled and said angrily, "Have you even still got your wits, or has madness taken you completely?"
She bowed her head again, defeated, but still stoically silent.
Harald sighed. "Please," he gestured to his men, "leave us." They glanced at each other and left, closing the door behind them.
"Adoile," he said gently, and reached out a hand to help her up. "Please, stand. You need not kneel to me."
She stood up, without his proffered aid, and fixed him with a quizzical stare. He knew what she saw: a usurper, a egotist profiting from the demise of her beloved Raziel. She was not the only one to reason thus.
"Please, sister," he said, "don't look at me that way. I am not trying to take Lord Raziel's place --"
"No?" she interrupted him. "You seem to be getting quite comfortable here."
He shook his head, sadly. "I am only here to look at the books. I go to my own quarters to rest, as I always did. Look," he gestured at the door that led to the Lord's inner chamber. "I've not touched anything."
She hesitated.
"Go, look," he repeated, eager to disprove her suspicions.
She opened the door, and looked inside. It was all there, exactly as she'd left it: the heavy fourposter with the red satin sheets tight and spotless, the side table with two books and a clean, empty cup, the glass case with ancient artifacts, and on the bed his soft grey robe and kid leather boots, laid out for him, for he would surely wish to put on something more comfortable when he came back...
"You're... bookkeeping?" she asked. Her voice was tight, but there were no tears. He smiled approvingly. She had come a long way from the naive and weak serving girl she had been when he first met her.
"Yes, sister," he said, leading her back into the reception room, "someone has to. Our herd is not what it once was. I have to make sure I can still feed my people."
"Your people?" she said indignantly. "So you are the new clan leader?"
"I am trying to lead the clan, yes," he said impatiently. "Lord Raziel is dead, Adoile, but his children remain. Someone has to lead them, or they are utterly lost. I am simply doing what I believe is my duty."
She frowned at him from behind her curtain of filthy hair, and he continued, compelled somehow to explain himself to her, to justify his actions to the one who had stood up and called for vengeance.
"Everything I do I do in his honour, Adoile. How can we keep his memory alive unless his clan is alive and intact? The house of Raziel is in chaos, they need a strong leader, esoecially now." The words were painfully familiar to him. He sighed. "Now, tell me what happened. Why do you still live?"
"Because Axel asked me to," she said blankly. "I was not there when they attacked, though I saw the aftermath. They were slain by the Reaver, all except for Axel. Melchiah was arrested, and executed at the same time, I imagine. I fled. I've been sleeping in a farmer's loft in Daskton since then." She was silent; this was all there was to her tale. She was staring at one of the paintings on the wall; it was a portrait of Raziel, standing tall and proud on top of the castle wall, looking out over his lands.
"Lord Melchiah isn't dead," Harald informed her, "only badly wounded. He was called, apparently, to witness the execution of -- " he hesitated, swallowing the words he now normally used to refer to his late brother, "-- of Axel. Kain knew of his involvement, and he was punished, but he remains alive. Galen wrote to me, Lord Melchiah has sustained serious burns over his entire body and is in an enforced sleep, but he will recover."
"Did Kain fire one of his flashbolts at him?"
Harald frowned. He had heard of the artifact. Some kind of explosive, according to Galen. "It would appear so, yes," he said stiffly. "And you ought to refer to him as Lord Kain."
She snarled. "Lord Kain?" she repeated. "After what he did? I'm sure you were all too eager to kiss his boot. Does he acknowledge you as the new clan leader?"
"Whether you approve of this or not, Adoile, Kain is still the Lord of Nosgoth, and your emperor." For the first time, anger rang through in his voice. His patience was starting to run out. "There is nothing you or I can do to change that fact and it is blasphemy to even wish it were otherwise!"
She glared at him, undaunted. It fuelled his anger further.
"Now," he said, "Lord Kain will visit here soon, to discuss our future, and there are two possible ways for you to meet him. On your knees as the rest of us, to swear your allegiance to your Lord, or as the last of the conspiritors for him to kill. You'll be just another pointless death!"
She looked away from his flaming eyes, her hair falling in front of dirt-streaked face. Harald realised he was grinding his teeth together. He closed his eyes briefly, trying to contain his anger and frustration.
"So I am your prisoner now," she said in a low voice.
"No," he said, in control again, "not unless you want to be. I only want you to come back to us."
She made no reply, stubbornly staring at the floor.
"Adoile," he pleaded, "can you not see that this is the only way? What choice do you have now? What reason do you have to throw your life away -- the life he gave you!" He shook his head. "Don't squander his gift." Cynically, he commended himself for his skillful word-twists. There was little honour in this, but in truth, he did not want her to die. She had belonged to Raziel. Like these rooms, he wanted her to remain, as a memory. Too much had been lost forever.
"Am I not your brother?" he asked and laid a hand on her shoulder. She looked up. "Come, sister, all is not lost. We still remain."
Tears were in her eyes, and her mouth was pressed into a tight line. Clearly, she was trying not to cry.
"Live," he said. "For his sake."
This was too much. Heavy, red-tinted tears ran down her grimy cheeks, and she embraced him suddenly, pressing her head against his chest. He closed his arms around her, ignoring the smell of filth and rain in her hair, and held her tightly for a long while.
Author's Notes
It was about time I updated this. Not a very exciting chapter, I'm afraid, but necessary.
Ah, the angst! This story is starting to draw close to the grim conclusion. Coming up next: Kain's visit. Will he be in a good mood?
Reviewer replies:
Varyssa: Thanks as always for reviewing and for answering my questions, it's actually really valuable to me.
Dark Dragon: Your mild praise is a true joy to me, sir. bows Please come again.
The rest: Where are you all? I feel lonely. whimper Don't make me do this on my own!
The secretaire faced the wall opposite the door, and the man writing at it felt intermittently compelled to look over his shoulder. It was almost as if the room itself had conspired to make him ill at ease. Its careless affluence humbled him, and there seemed to be a lingering presence here, more subtle than a smell but almost that. This in itself would have been enough to set his nerves on edge. These were not his rooms. He was here only because the books were here, a shelf full of leather bound volumes, one for each of the past fifty years, and a hefty stack of loose sheets for this year. He tried to study them, tried to analyse the population numbers and one-line reports documented here. Over a year ago, the city of Darheim was destroyed. It had been their largest city, and there was nothing left now. The other settlements groaned under the weight of the Razelim's demands for blood, and the stock of bottled in the cellars was slowly but surely diminishing.
Harald sighed, and pushed the dry stack of paper away from him. None of that truly mattered, unless he could come to an understanding with Lord Kain. Harald had sent word to the Sanctuary, repeatedly, but there had been no answer. News reached them of the failed assassination attempt, and he sent his knight Sophia to request an audience. Three nights had passed before Kain answered, and the reply was cold. Freezing cold. Harald was to stay where he was; Kain would pay him a visit soon to discuss the situation. Since then, two weeks had passed. Two weeks of increasing disquiet inside the castle, and nothing but sullen silence from the world without. The guards and courtiers at the Sanctuary had been sent back to Darstein, letters to the clan Lords went unanswered, visits were refused. The Razelim were cut off from the rest of Nosgoth; no one would consort with them as long as their status remained unclear. And Lord Kain made no haste to clarify the situation. This terrible uncertainty, the knowledge that everything he did, every decision he made, was essentially meaningless as all still hung in the balance -- it had kept Harald up for three days now.
The lasting silence was not just gnawing away at his composure; the entire clan was short tempered. There was distrust and resentment brewing; their quarters were too small for all the Razelim to live comfortably. Harald dared not send anyone away; he might need every man he had, soon. He guarded a strict discipline, but it was proving difficult to remain control. The prisoner cells held more and more vampires, punished for a transgression or simply too crazed to be allowed to roam freely. Morale was low, nerves were fraying and he was facing down an increasing amount of criticism. He sighed deeply and rested his head on the desk. Perhaps if would help if he could just close his eyes for a short while, if he could just rest, he would feel more able to deal with these problems...
The door behind him burst open and he was up from his chair immediately, his hand at his sword, his heart hammering loudly in his chest.
"Sorry, sir," his soldier grumbled. He and another dragged in a small, dingy figure. "We thought you should see this." They dropped the creature onto the blood-red carpet, and it just sat there, knelt, dirty hair in front of its face. Harald looked at his men, awaiting an explanation.
"This," the soldier said with some gravity, "is the murderer of Daskton."
Harald looked at the black-clad, beaten down figure. "Is this true?" he demanded. "Are you the one that has been preying on the people of Daskton these past weeks? Who are you?"
Slowly, the vampire raised its head to look at him. Through the dirt-caked, oily strands of hair he could see two bright, angry eyes, and under the grime he finally made out the fine features of a familiar face.
"Adoile!"
The two soldiers grinned uneasily and nodded. Adoile did not speak. She merely stared at Harald, an angry, accusing stare.
"We thought you dead," Harald told her. "How did you escape? Where have you been?"
She made no answer.
"Have you just been wandering around? Were you there when Axel was executed?"
Her lips curled into a snarl, but still she would not speak.
Harald growled and said angrily, "Have you even still got your wits, or has madness taken you completely?"
She bowed her head again, defeated, but still stoically silent.
Harald sighed. "Please," he gestured to his men, "leave us." They glanced at each other and left, closing the door behind them.
"Adoile," he said gently, and reached out a hand to help her up. "Please, stand. You need not kneel to me."
She stood up, without his proffered aid, and fixed him with a quizzical stare. He knew what she saw: a usurper, a egotist profiting from the demise of her beloved Raziel. She was not the only one to reason thus.
"Please, sister," he said, "don't look at me that way. I am not trying to take Lord Raziel's place --"
"No?" she interrupted him. "You seem to be getting quite comfortable here."
He shook his head, sadly. "I am only here to look at the books. I go to my own quarters to rest, as I always did. Look," he gestured at the door that led to the Lord's inner chamber. "I've not touched anything."
She hesitated.
"Go, look," he repeated, eager to disprove her suspicions.
She opened the door, and looked inside. It was all there, exactly as she'd left it: the heavy fourposter with the red satin sheets tight and spotless, the side table with two books and a clean, empty cup, the glass case with ancient artifacts, and on the bed his soft grey robe and kid leather boots, laid out for him, for he would surely wish to put on something more comfortable when he came back...
"You're... bookkeeping?" she asked. Her voice was tight, but there were no tears. He smiled approvingly. She had come a long way from the naive and weak serving girl she had been when he first met her.
"Yes, sister," he said, leading her back into the reception room, "someone has to. Our herd is not what it once was. I have to make sure I can still feed my people."
"Your people?" she said indignantly. "So you are the new clan leader?"
"I am trying to lead the clan, yes," he said impatiently. "Lord Raziel is dead, Adoile, but his children remain. Someone has to lead them, or they are utterly lost. I am simply doing what I believe is my duty."
She frowned at him from behind her curtain of filthy hair, and he continued, compelled somehow to explain himself to her, to justify his actions to the one who had stood up and called for vengeance.
"Everything I do I do in his honour, Adoile. How can we keep his memory alive unless his clan is alive and intact? The house of Raziel is in chaos, they need a strong leader, esoecially now." The words were painfully familiar to him. He sighed. "Now, tell me what happened. Why do you still live?"
"Because Axel asked me to," she said blankly. "I was not there when they attacked, though I saw the aftermath. They were slain by the Reaver, all except for Axel. Melchiah was arrested, and executed at the same time, I imagine. I fled. I've been sleeping in a farmer's loft in Daskton since then." She was silent; this was all there was to her tale. She was staring at one of the paintings on the wall; it was a portrait of Raziel, standing tall and proud on top of the castle wall, looking out over his lands.
"Lord Melchiah isn't dead," Harald informed her, "only badly wounded. He was called, apparently, to witness the execution of -- " he hesitated, swallowing the words he now normally used to refer to his late brother, "-- of Axel. Kain knew of his involvement, and he was punished, but he remains alive. Galen wrote to me, Lord Melchiah has sustained serious burns over his entire body and is in an enforced sleep, but he will recover."
"Did Kain fire one of his flashbolts at him?"
Harald frowned. He had heard of the artifact. Some kind of explosive, according to Galen. "It would appear so, yes," he said stiffly. "And you ought to refer to him as Lord Kain."
She snarled. "Lord Kain?" she repeated. "After what he did? I'm sure you were all too eager to kiss his boot. Does he acknowledge you as the new clan leader?"
"Whether you approve of this or not, Adoile, Kain is still the Lord of Nosgoth, and your emperor." For the first time, anger rang through in his voice. His patience was starting to run out. "There is nothing you or I can do to change that fact and it is blasphemy to even wish it were otherwise!"
She glared at him, undaunted. It fuelled his anger further.
"Now," he said, "Lord Kain will visit here soon, to discuss our future, and there are two possible ways for you to meet him. On your knees as the rest of us, to swear your allegiance to your Lord, or as the last of the conspiritors for him to kill. You'll be just another pointless death!"
She looked away from his flaming eyes, her hair falling in front of dirt-streaked face. Harald realised he was grinding his teeth together. He closed his eyes briefly, trying to contain his anger and frustration.
"So I am your prisoner now," she said in a low voice.
"No," he said, in control again, "not unless you want to be. I only want you to come back to us."
She made no reply, stubbornly staring at the floor.
"Adoile," he pleaded, "can you not see that this is the only way? What choice do you have now? What reason do you have to throw your life away -- the life he gave you!" He shook his head. "Don't squander his gift." Cynically, he commended himself for his skillful word-twists. There was little honour in this, but in truth, he did not want her to die. She had belonged to Raziel. Like these rooms, he wanted her to remain, as a memory. Too much had been lost forever.
"Am I not your brother?" he asked and laid a hand on her shoulder. She looked up. "Come, sister, all is not lost. We still remain."
Tears were in her eyes, and her mouth was pressed into a tight line. Clearly, she was trying not to cry.
"Live," he said. "For his sake."
This was too much. Heavy, red-tinted tears ran down her grimy cheeks, and she embraced him suddenly, pressing her head against his chest. He closed his arms around her, ignoring the smell of filth and rain in her hair, and held her tightly for a long while.
Author's Notes
It was about time I updated this. Not a very exciting chapter, I'm afraid, but necessary.
Ah, the angst! This story is starting to draw close to the grim conclusion. Coming up next: Kain's visit. Will he be in a good mood?
Reviewer replies:
Varyssa: Thanks as always for reviewing and for answering my questions, it's actually really valuable to me.
Dark Dragon: Your mild praise is a true joy to me, sir. bows Please come again.
The rest: Where are you all? I feel lonely. whimper Don't make me do this on my own!