Josh Reynolds - Neferata

Even as her own numbers had increased, so too had W’soran’s. Of them all, only Abhorash resisted the temptation to share his blood-kiss with others, save for his few followers. She did not know whether that suggested weakness or strength on his part. Perhaps it was simply the old familiar stubbornness that had so characterised her former champion in better, brighter times.

Not all of W’soran’s followers were vampires, however. Like some virulent strain of plague, the vampire-disciples had taken apprentices of their own, creating a strange, semi-cultic hierarchy. Only one had not done so. And it was that one she was on her way to see.

W’soran’s creatures went up and down in their master’s favour like a fisherman’s cog on the waves. Sometimes one would be the favourite and then another. Morath was out this week, it seemed. He was out often; refusing W’soran’s bite was tantamount to spitting in the old leech’s face.

She smiled. Morath had courage, of a sort. Not a physical bravery, but a mental fortitude that she admired. If circumstances had been different, she would have given him her blood-kiss. As it was, he could still prove useful, in the right circumstances.

Circumstances like these, for instance.

Finding out what W’soran was up to had become an itch that needed scratching. What higher matters, what concerns occupied the necromancer deep in his lair in the mountain? Why did he only go to the pyramid on certain nights? And why did he inevitably leave with fewer acolytes than he entered with?

The floor vibrated quietly with the rumble of the mine-works below in the guts of the mountain. More than gold was being dredged out of the dark now. She paused for a moment, listening. The gold would go to good cause. It could be used to open up trade routes to Cathay and Araby, and even Ind. Too, thanks to the whispered influences of her handmaidens, the barbarians over the mountains and to the north now desired it, though they had little practical use for it.

W’soran was even crafting a golden crown for the Draesca brute, Volker. Knowing W’soran, the crown would likely be more than just mere metal, but that was of little import. No, what was important was that the crown — that all of the gifts — would bind the savages to Strigos. Here in these wild hills she was perfecting the arts she had learned in Cathay and employed in Araby. War was a blunt tool, at best. Conquest could be achieved more easily by simply convincing the enemy that they were more like you than they’d thought. Familiarity bred more than just contempt, it also bred complacency. In a few centuries, the wildling tribes would fold easily and with little complaint into the Strigoi empire.

The same tactics could be applied personally. Seduction was more potent than fear, and took less effort to maintain. She had considered Melkhior at first, but found the idea of drawing too close to that creature repugnant.

But Morath was different. In his own way, the necromancer reminded her of Abhorash. Ushoran had forced him to accept W’soran’s tutelage, wanting a man inside whatever spider’s web the foul creature was sure to weave in his new lair. And it seemed only fitting that Neferata now take Morath under her wing.

She knew his scent now. It was stale, like crypt air, but lacking the rotten undercurrent that so many of W’soran’s creatures emanated. The room was small as such places went in the hold. Bats fluttered in brass cages and jars of strange liquids sat on benches and shelves. Papyrus and scrolls were strewn everywhere, scattered amongst stacks of clay tablets from the Southlands and hairy books from the ice-lands far to the north. W’soran’s agents had been scouring the world for centuries, hunting up precious bits of sorcerous know-ledge for some purpose she did not yet fathom.

It all tied into the pyramid somehow. And the hunched figure sitting before her, with his back to her, would tell her how.

‘My lady,’ Morath said without turning around. ‘The spirits bound to these old stones spoke of your coming.’

‘Did they? And did they also impart my reason for coming here?’ she said as she came up behind him.

‘No, they did not.’ Morath flinched as Neferata stroked his arm. ‘Why are you here?’ he said, not looking up from the scroll unrolled before him.

‘Call it curiosity,’ she said, peering over his shoulder. She clucked her tongue. ‘Fell magics indeed.’

Morath looked at her. ‘What would you know of it?’

Neferata shook her head. ‘Me? Nothing, of course. W’soran’s brood do not share their secrets with just anyone…’ She traced his cheek with a claw, eliciting a thin trail of blood and a wince.

‘What do you want, my lady?’ he said.

‘I should have thought that that would be obvious, Lord Morath,’ she said, gently licking the blood from his cheek. He thrust away from her, knocking over the table and starting awkwardly to his feet. She could hear his heart thudding in his chest like a war-drum and see his blood pulsing in his veins. The smell of his fear was intoxicating. She frowned, restraining the urge to leap on him and feed until he had been bled white.

‘No,’ he said harshly. ‘No, no. I’ve been around your kind too long. I’m not as foolish as that oaf, Vorag, panting after that—’

‘Careful,’ Neferata said mildly, looking at the scroll. Morath swallowed then snatched it away from her.

‘This is not for your eyes,’ he said. Neferata looked at him. Morath was handsome, in a way. He was no brute like Vorag, but there was none of the lean beauty of the men of her people either. He was hard-faced, all flat planes and angles and sharp words and edges.

‘It could be, if you gave it to me,’ she said, holding out her hand.

‘And why would I do that?’

‘Because only I can protect you from the trap you find yourself in. Ushoran can’t — or won’t. And W’soran is the cause of your nervousness, unless I miss my guess.’ She took his abandoned seat and leaned back against the desk, smiling slightly.

Morath swallowed. ‘You see much.’

‘I see everything,’ Neferata said. ‘He is angry with you, isn’t he? Because you have chosen not to accept his kiss, I’d wager.’

Morath said nothing. Neferata nodded as if he had. ‘Did you know that it was he who first convinced my husband Lamashizzar to search for the secret of immortality? Even then, far before your people had even grasped the rudiments of agriculture, W’soran was scheming to cheat death.’

‘And why shouldn’t he?’ Morath said. ‘Why shouldn’t we all? Our empire could persist forever with that power at our disposal!’

‘Then why have you not accepted it?’

Morath paused. ‘It is not the same thing. What you are is not what I wish to be. I’ll not be a slave to my hungers for eternity—’

Neferata shot to her feet, forcing Morath back a step. ‘A slave, is it? Is that how you see me, Morath of Mourkain?’ she said in mock anger.

‘Are you saying you’re not? A slave to your bloodlust, a slave to that black presence which—’ he began, and then stopped abruptly.

‘The presence which — what? — lies perhaps in that pyramid,’ Neferata said, and gestured loosely in the direction of the pyramid. She swayed closer to Morath, trailing her fingertips across his robes. ‘What is in that strange barrow, Morath? Why do I feel some black malevolence in those stones? And why does your master seek to hide it from me, eh?’

‘Because Ushoran requires it,’ he said, stumbling back. ‘I think you should leave.’

‘Are you afraid of me, Morath?’ she purred, staring into his eyes. She prodded at the sharp edges of his will — it was a thing of razors and brittle strength. One flex and it would crumble like grit in her clutches.