Hey everyone! I hope you are still enjoying "Shipwreck!" I am certainly enjoying writing it. But, unfortunately, has not had any functioning statistics for months now and I don't know if they'll ever get it fixed. Which means that I can't tell if anyone is even reading this story. If you would be so kind, and you really like the work that I do here, can you leave a comment or review? I'd just like to know if I have a readership and if you are looking forward to the new chapters. Thanks! - Nas

Chapter 9 – A Letter of Marque and Reprisal

Shadows took the form of vanquished statues and crumpled paper, blending together in the murk of the dungeon until the darkness seemed more like a writhing ruin than the unexpected crowd of people it actually was. Shadowheart was the first to step forward, raising Lathander's Light to chase the snarling gargoyles and ominous shades away to reveal a dungeon filled with row on row of prison cells. Small, cramped, and each one almost at full capacity, the company could see the tell-tale red reflection of vampiric eyes staring out at them from between straight-edged brass bars. They blinked, like predators waiting in the bushes; a floating swarm of hellish fireflies tracking their every move. But to their collective shock, every light filled a hallow face reluctant to meet their gaze and for every darting expression, there were ten more torn hands reaching out from between the slats. There were just so many of them. So many.

Each cell easily held fifteen to twenty captives, standing room only. And there were, even by quick estimation, more than a dozen cells in this stretch of the hallway alone. The dungeon passageway from the elevator to the double doors below must then have held at least a few hundred in total, with more likely packed into the side halls and end chambers. Cazador's congregation of chosen devotees had been expertly assembled and now, they awaited their fates.

Astarion stared in horror at the ghostly faces that drifted in and out of his vision. Like haunted memories, he immediately felt as if he should know them. That he did know them. There was something terrifyingly familiar after all, about the battered and decrepit figures futilely holding their fingers out for him.

"Who…. who are these…. wretches?" He asked reflexively; still unable to completely process the reality before him. He'd never even known that there was such a vast labyrinth as this down here. Years in Cazador's household and yet not an inkling.

From the back of a far enclosure, someone stepped forward. Hunched, dressed in the sorry remnants of a failing waistcoat that was yet a style not seen any more outside of history books, he raised hands adorned with cracked nails and split palms. His hair, still appreciably auburn brown and curled to his shoulders, partially obscured his face with careless tangles and a wayward lock over his eye.

"You." The tattered man spoke with a voice that was both resonant and choked with phlegm. "I know you."

The din of shuffling feet faded and then went silent as the dust and corpses stilled.

"I…I recognize that voice." Astarion scowled and looked around himself nervously. He tried to ignore the images but unfortunately, his mind was quick to supply the memory. "You… you were in the Blushing Mermaid."

"It's your fault." The young man growled, his hands clenching the bars hard enough to crack his own bones. "You stole my life. Stole my death. You smiled. Joked. And got me drunk. You called me….so many sweet things. My name sounded like a lyric on your tongue."

Astarion felt those words. Felt them deep inside of his withered soul. Their meaning now, and their other meanings too.

"I want to hear you say it again." The man raised his voice with an almost malicious lilt. But then, he stepped further into the light, just enough to cast his shattered face in brighter greys. A rune could be seen plainly, cutting through his bottom lip as it was carved into his chin and cheek. A rune very much like one Astarion now knew had also been cut into the flesh of his back, just at the base of his spine. "I want to know if you know me. Say. My. Name."

"That scar. Cazador did that to you. He bound you to the Black Mass." Astarion whispered. His shame was palpable, and he it found it difficult to look into those glowing red eyes the way he had once stared longingly into the hazel ones.

"No more games." The other hissed. "Say. My. Name!"

"Sebastian." The word fell like a lead weight from his tongue. And it tasted just as bitter.

"You still make it sound…so beautiful. You were my first. And my last."

"You were so young. Never been kissed. But I can put this right, I swear." Astarion stepped forward involuntarily. "I'm here to stop the Black Mass. I'm here to kill Cazador."

"Kill that monster? You can't. That's impossible."

"Tell me where he is and I swear, I will end him."

"Astarion?" Halsin called to him from a few feet away. "Who are these people?"

The vampire shifted on his feet uncomfortably. "They're my…conquests. The innocent, the idiot, and the unlucky. They are the ones I hunted. That Cazador sent me, sent all of us, out to retrieve for him. But I thought he was feeding on them! I thought they were dead!"

"You brought me to this hell. Abandoned me. How long has it been?" Sebastian sagged against his confines as the others imprisoned with him crowded closer.

Astarion did not want to answer this question. Not one bit. But nor could he escape it. "One hundred and seventy years. You…you were one of my first too."

"My family….my friends…they're gone…" He heaved a sorrow filled breath. "You took them from me. You took everything from me. You did this! You did this to all of us! Cursed us to this hell!" Sobbing, the wraith in once fine clothing slammed his fists into the bars and slowly sunk to the floor with a soul-chilling wail.

Shadowheart could only shake her head, but Astarion caught the motion out of the corner of his eye. Anger and humiliation welled up into his chest. "Don't you dare judge me." He snapped. "You don't know what it was like. You don't know what he did to us."

The cleric sneered and wrinkled her nose against the suffocating smell of decay. "What could possibly make you do something like this? All these people condemned…"

Astarion rounded on the three of them, his mouth set in an angry line and his brow sunk low to hood his eyes. In truth, none of them, not Shadowheart, Lae'zel, nor Halsin, had ever seen their pale companion show such raw emotion before. It was always hidden behind a jovial, if mocking, demeanor and a liar's smile. Never outwardly expressed in a tremble and a…tear? But he turned away and the sight of it glittering on his cheek was lost.

"You don't know what it was like." He started softly. "There was no way out. Once – in the first decade of my slavery – I found a darling boy who I couldn't bear to bring back to him. So, I ran. Instead of hurting that… sweet man. After Cazador caught me, the bastard…" his voice rose to sharp pitch. "Sealed me, starving, inside a dusty tomb, all on my own, for an entire year. A year of silence. Months of scratching my hands raw, trying to carve my way out. More months of not moving at all. Months wishing for death. So don't you ever judge me for doing what Cazador ordered."

Halsin dropped his hands with a mournful sigh. "I am so sorry, Astarion. I have no words. For any of this."

"Nothing can make up for that." He replied. "Not even Cazador's death. But…I won't let him destroy her too. I can still make him pay. If not for me, then for Lyric. And for Sebastian too maybe. And for the whole…hecatomb…that he has built. Not just seven spawn. But seven thousand souls linked to each of us through blood as the sacrifices that will assure his Ascension. I can take all of that from him. Maybe, that will finally be something."

"Not possible." Sebastian wheezed plaintively from his prison. "They've already gone so far…"

"Then help me kill him." Astarion pleaded, his voice nearly cracking with emotion. "When he's dead, you'll be free. Sebastian, please."

The frayed young man mustered the strength to look back up at his executioner and chewed at the chapped skin of his broken lip. "I saw her." He said quietly; his voice still unaccustomed to so much use at one time. "I saw him take her down to the grand chamber. She fought him but it was no use. His staff controls everything."

"Lyric!" Astarion exclaimed as he rushed to where Sebastian sat and knelt down to the floor. "Was she alive?"

"Yes, but badly wounded. He cut her. Runes and lines that I couldn't recognize but deep into her chest. He's also dressed her for the occasion."

"Occasion?" Halsin prompted.

Sebastian nodded. "When all are consumed, she will be the first of his new harem. His bride. The others who trailed after him could talk of nothing else. She, the one who will stand at his left hand as consort, concubine, and captain."

Astarion could have screamed but instead, with a gesture of tenderness he was certainly not known for, he unthinkingly reached through the bars to lay his hand on Sebastian's in a fleeting touch of comfort.

"The ritual chamber is down the steps, past the gate. If you can get to him, maybe you can free us. Hurry. Please. I don't think I can wait any more. For whatever comes next."

With a determined nod, Astarion stood up and faced his companions. "This is it." He announced. "Beyond that door…is death."

"Then let us meet it together." Halsin bellowed, dropping onto all fours as he unleashed the wild indignant rage taking shape inside of him. In seconds, the bear erupted and let out a rattling roar as his massive paws scraped against the granite and left grooves in the wake of four-inch-long claws.

But not to be shown up by a druid, Lae'zel was already ahead of the party, vaulting the stairs in a single leap as she laid her sword into the latch. Then, with a swift kick from one greaved foot, she knocked the heavy portal open to a long, open, staircase descending even further into the depths. Shadowheart and Halsin-Bear were quick to follow, motioning for Astarion to stay close.

For one last second, he turned back to Sebastian. Out of earshot of his companions and nearly out of sight in the gloom, he whispered. "I'm sorry, Sebastian. You were blameless. You deserved better… than me."

With that, he took off at a run. Under the archway, through the grand doors and out onto the stairs hovering over the void that led to the ritual dais. Shadowheart and Lae'zel had already zeroed in on the worst of the sight before them though. The massive geometric platform was lit from underneath by red-orange magics that caused the entire expanse overhead to gleam like hellfire, illuminated with layered circles of Infernal script. The whole stage was oddly shaped however, with jutting diamond-polygons around its edge that were hewed directly out of the rocky outcroppings in the cavern wall. And suspended above each of the seven corners, a vampiric spawn with scars carved into their bodies. Scars that now also glowed red from the inside and appeared to keep their victims completely restrained as they hung more than six feet above the dais. All except for the far-left platform anyway. That one remained empty.

As he stepped clear of the precarious stairs, Astarion should have immediately been drawn to the silhouette of his old master, standing proud in the center of it all. But he wasn't. All he could see was the thick wooden beam that had been erected, like a mast, above an ornate casket several feet from where Cazador stood. And on that beam was Lyric, wrapped in the gauzy filaments of a white dress. Hung by ropes, as freshly incised wounds dripped a steady stream of blood onto the lid. Unfortunately, she didn't seem to be conscious either, her red hair falling in clotted waves over her face, but Astarion still had to catch himself from shouting her name. Rather Shadowheart did it in his stead as she began the somatic motions for summoning her divine healing.

Then, Cazador turned…and smiled.

"Who stands before us?" He tapped his gothic staff happily onto the stone by way of a greeting. "Is this truly our prodigal son?"

Lae'zel frowned. Was this really the master vampire she had been promised? This thin, reedy-looking man with the slicked-back black hair and jaundiced skin? He looked little more to her than a teenager playing dress-up at a carnival. Pinched and snide, he didn't even seem to warrant the respect of an imposing figure or intimidating voice. Even the dab of mashed potatoes on his shoe didn't go unnoticed. The githyanki sniffed irritably. The ruby-topped staff crackling with the pact-power of Mephistopheles might be a problem though.

"Do not slouch before me, boy!" The elder vampire suddenly yelled, obviously annoyed at not having been the immediate focus of attention. "Have you no respect for yourself?! Ugh. Look at you. Crawling back after abandoning your family. You should be begging our forgiveness."

"Forgiveness" Astarion replied, his eyes darkening as his gaze shifted from the woman on the beam to the face of Cazador Szarr. Hate began to cloud his voice. "You've never forgiven anything. Every mistake, every slip was punished!"

"I strove for perfection in all things – even those as imperfect as she is. As imperfect as you. A pity you amounted to so little, despite my efforts. I can promise you though, that I will do better with her."

"No!" Astarion shrieked. He could feel the bile rising in his throat and the tears stinging his eyes. The fury boiling through his blood was making his skin prickle and it threatened to unmoor him completely. "No, fuck you." He shouted. "And fuck everything you've ever done to me! You son of a bitch." And then be broke.

With howl of pain and insanity, Astarion lunged for Cazador, nearly rending through his own fingernails as he scrambled forward intent on tearing that sneering face apart piece by well-earned piece. But to his surprise, the elder simply smiled again and tapped the bottom of his staff against the runes shimmering on the floor. In an instant, he was held. Bound. The carefully crafted blood magics surrounding his wrists and throat with manacles made from demonic conjury. In an instant, he was completely helpless, once again unable to resist the commands of his maker. He almost couldn't believe it.

"You truly forgot my power." Cazador stated with an amused tilt to his head. "You truly thought our bond as creator and creation was all that stopped you from killing me. Hmm? Oh, you are weak, my child. You are a small, pathetic, little boy who never amounted to anything."

Astarion tried to fight it. Tried to wrench free. He screamed and tore at his own joints; perfectly willing to lose an arm or even a few ribs if it meant he could crush that insulting face. But it was simply no use. He couldn't move. He couldn't even cry out.

"But today," Cazador continued gleefully. "You will finally do something worthwhile. You will burn, and I will ascend."

Shadowheart jumped back as Cazador flicked his wrist and gave the staff a quarter turn. Because as he did so, Astarion was suddenly ripped from his footing and tossed into the air with all the dignity of a ragdoll. Then, as bear, battle master, and cleric watched, Astarion was pulled to the empty platform, which had been prepared especially for him. His shirt and armor disintegrated in the hellish light, his scars abruptly alighting in time with all six of his siblings. And within a moment, he too was locked there awaiting his own sacrifice, arms pressed to his sides and his chin tipped up to expose his throat to the coming slaughter.

"No!" Shadowheart could hear him shout. "Stop him! Get me out of this!"

"Witness the birth of the Vampire Ascendant!" Cazador cried, raised his staff high once again. "Ecce dominus!"

It was all Halsin could take and with a deafening roar, he proclaimed the first blow of battle. Ghouls and werewolves, having lain in wait for their master's call, burst forth out of the bloody trenches sunk into the dais. They coalesced into packs, readying their ranks for the assault. But Lae'zel, far more practiced in these maneuvers, wasn't about to let them get the upper hand so quickly. Racing forward, she sprung on her right heel and barreled into the first line, cutting down a large, shaggy, werewolf in two swings. Halsin however, was not far behind and the second werewolf soon found most of its hind leg in a bear's mouth followed by the rest of its head on the floor underneath a paw twice the size of its muzzle.

Shadowheart gulped and hesitated at the sight of wolves closing in from the margins. But now was not the time for a little girl's nightmares, and she grit her teeth against the flood of fear threatening to overtake her. She had her healing light at the ready, she just now needed to get to Lyric. Her sweating palm gripped her mace all the harder as she uttered a blessing and dashed for the coffin at the center of the infernal rite.

Astarion choked out a sob. He could see the fight, of course. Could see Lae'zel and Halsin cutting a swath through undead minions and obedient vermin. He could see Shadowheart scrambling to reach Lyric, still lifeless and unresponsive on the beam where she had been tortured and torn, all for having suffered the grave misfortune of knowing him. But he could also see what the cleric could not. That Cazador was waiting for her. He had dissolved into a black mist almost as soon as the violence began, flying up along the angles of the terrace unseen, to engulf the spaces just below the beam where Shadowheart was soon to arrive. He would take them both in mere seconds. Because that's what he wanted to be sure of. Cazador wanted to be sure that before Astarion died, before he was consumed to ash in the final moment, he would watch his old master murder his one and only love.

Astarion squirmed. He couldn't really move, not properly anyway. But he could shift about in small ways. Just enough, it would appear, to press the back of his palm against his hip pocket (he also couldn't express to Fate, or whatever it was, just how glad he was to have kept his pants on for this). He pulled upwards as much as he could, glancing down and back out to the fight in terror, certain that at any moment everything would go black and he, all as he was, would cease to be. He pulled upward again and finally felt something small and solid poke up over the edge of the hem.

Yes, there it was! The Moonbeam Strand: the amulet he had found hidden in his old doublet in the trunk back at camp. With some extra writhing, the little moonstone pendant slowly slid out, but he had to be extremely careful. If he dropped it now, there would be no hope of getting it back.

Hope. A tiny sliver of hope.

The clash of metal on bone echoed throughout the chamber but with delicate fingers, he was just able to get the end of the chain caught on his thumb. It dangled and shone but Astarion knew he could not risk trying to move it any further. So, he glanced upwards towards the top of the cavern. One thing he knew about these kinds of rituals was the need for some source of natural light. Usually moonlight, but regardless, it would necessitate something akin to a small hole in the ceiling that could be set with reflecting mirrors to supply the dim ambience. And just as he suspected, he could, in fact, see one. On the upper end of the cave, the glint of a tiny mirror.

Calling on all his dexterous skills, Astarion twisted the chain until the little moon charm had turned sideways. He then murmured a short little phrase that, under the circumstances, could almost have been mistaken for a prayer. But the amulet did as it was meant to do and glimmered as it shone out a single, small, ray of trapped light. Barely more than a few candles worth, it arced straight up and into the hole in the cavern to be reflected out by the silver mirrors. There, to be lost into the night sky forever.

Nothing special. Nothing so much as a stray flash in an already magnificent sky. But a flash that could, if one was looking for it, be seen from quite a distance away. Even, under the right conditions, the harbor of Baldur's Gate.

He closed his eyes and begged the universe for a droplet of fortune. And for once, it came.

No one else heard it because no one else would even think to listen for it. Not in the clamorous heat of battle certainly.

But Astarion heard it. Far, far, in the distance, through layers of floor and rock, something like the crack of fireworks. A single, loud, explosive note followed by silence.

And more silence.

And then, a faint whistling.

And then, a louder whistling.

Getting closer.

And closer…