Wisdom and Warnings

The Concordia, Twelve Hundred Years Before (Give or Take a Century)

The house of Lagita Gulgane, queen of the Concordia, was a single, long room with an elaborately carved screened area behind the High Chair which hid the bed in which the king and queen spent their nights. The rest of the household slept either upon the benches that lined the walls to either side of the central hearth, or upon the floor around it.

Thaelen, like many other child vampires, slept on a ledge built within the rafters and accessible by ladder. From this haven, he could look down upon the revelry of the adults celebrating another successful raiding season and the return of their king, the dancing firelight casting their shadows into gigantic proportions on the walls.

His father sat upon the High Chair, a fragile and treasured glass containing a mix of mead and blood held in one hand, whilst his most trusted soldier regaled Lagita with stories of his prowess in battle. Thaelen lay on his back next to his new blood slave and listened to stories of bloodshed and bravery, picturing the glory of it all within his mind.

For a while he dozed, until Sigrid’s unfamiliar restless form beside him woke him from sleep. He frowned at her in annoyance, before sitting up and leaning over her. She was crying, caught deep in her dream, and his initial instinct to shake her awake in order to chastise her for waking him changed to pity and he placed his hand on her shoulder and leaned close to her ear.

“Sleep and rest easy, Sigrid,” he whispered.

“He is a fool if he thinks he can best me,” Thorarin said from below, and, surprised that his father was still awake, Thaelen turned from Sigrid and eased his way carefully to the edge of the platform so that he could look down into the room below.

The revelry had ended, and the house below had cleared. Only his parent’s personal blood slaves, sleeping along the now empty benches and on the floor around the opposite end of the fire, and his parents remained. Lagita perched on the arm of the High Chair, her elbow resting on Thorarin’s broad shoulder.

“He grows bold for a human king,” Lagita observed. “Claims to be the chosen monarch of a new god, one from a country to the East. He says this god is the only god, and that all should abandon the gods of old in worship of this one or pay the penalty.”

“What nonsense,” Thorarin grumbled. “Surely he does not believe people so disloyal to the gods and goddesses that we have worshipped throughout history?”

“It is growing in popularity,” Lagita replied. “This new human religion. Their priests wander the land with increasing frequency, dressed in brown top to toe and carrying the medallion of this god around their necks.”

“Do not permit them within the fortress again,” Thorarin took a sip of his mead and blood mix.

“They are persistent,” she told his through her teeth. “And apparently bathing is not something their god approves of,” she added with a sneer. “They sat around our hearth, and I could barely breathe for the stink. Thaelen was so irritated by the smell, he told them that they should wash in the sea before they come visiting noble households, and they took offense. It is unnatural, they said, to bare the body. He suggested,” she smiled. “That shouldn’t be a problem as their clothing could also do with the wash.”

“Ha! For Thaelen to comment, it must have been bad. Humans,” Thorarin chuckled shaking his head ruefully. “Just when I think they cannot come up with a new absurdity. At least we are never bored by them. Is this how you have spent your time without me?” He teased her. “In arguments with upstart human kings?”

“I wouldn’t consider it arguments,” Lagita replied with a smirk. “That would require the emissaries to have kept their tongues. I found their presumption and arrogance insulting and sought fit to remove the source of irritation before I returned the emissaries to him.”

“Hah, Lagita,” Thorarin sighed through his grin. “He will retaliate.”

“And we will destroy him, as we have destroyed all like him that have come before. I fear no human man,” Lagita replied confidently rising to her feet and holding out a hand. “There is only one man that can defeat me, and I know his weaknesses. Come to bed, my husband, and let me show how well I know them."

Thaelen pulled a face as his father rose to follow his mother into the screen bed area and leaned back onto the platform, to start when he found Sigrid looking up at him with her haunted dark eyes unfocused.

“Sigrid?” He whispered, shaken by the absence of her expression.

“They will come in the name of the One God but with the greed of wicked men,” she replied, her voice hoarse. “They will spread like plague, destroy sacred sites, and raise monuments to their god upon the unburied corpses. They will kill the children, burn the women, and make men pay for their freedom by killing others. No one will be safe, not even your kind.”

Thaelen’s heart raced in his chest. “Why do you say these things?”

She blinked and then looked around her in confusion. “A bad dream,” she said fretfully. “I am sorry, Thaelen.”

“Worry not. Many people have bad dreams. Sleep, Sigrid,” he settled down beside her.

“My mother died,” she whispered sliding closer to his side. “She said that you were monsters and that we needed to die or suffer a fate worse than death. She killed my little brother and sister, but that man, your father, he came before she could kill me, too.”

Thaelen dragged in a breath through his nose, his tongue bitter tasting, and his skin crawling with the horror of it. “We are not monsters.”

“You drink the blood of the people that you take captive, and your tongue heals burns,” she replied.

“We are vampire,” he replied. “We are people, not monsters.”

“I am not afraid of you,” she rested her head on his shoulder and sighed heavily, sleep crawling closer, her breathing evening and deepening.

“You are my blood slave,” he yawned. “It is my duty to look after you.”

Below, his father moaned, and the bedframe groaned in rhythm. Isaid, the scholar that his father had brought back from one of his raids as a birth gift for Lagita, a tutor for the newborn son she had delivered just before the journey, rolled onto his back, and snorted out a snore.

“You have not drunk from me.”

“I am not hungry,” he lied.

In truth, he had never fed from someone unused to being fed from. The communal blood slaves were used to the routine, and secure both in the knowledge that they would not be drunk dry, and that in return for their blood, they were sheltered and well fed. They would simply offer their wrist to a hungry vampire and wait for them to be done. The new slaves were always reserved to the older vampires until they were trusted enough to have their shackles removed.

“I saw it on the ship,” she continued insistently. “I know what it is.”

“Do you want to be fed on?” His hunger and exhaustion made him irritable.

“It is what I am. Food.”

“Go to sleep Sigrid.”

She accepted his answer, and within a short time, became heavy and limp on his arm. He slid his way free of her and turned over, so that she was against his back, before settling into sleep.

In the morning, when Lagita and her blood slaves decided that Sigrid needed to be bathed, detangled, and re-dressed, Thaelen retreated, and made his way to his favorite blood slave’s house and sat at her feet whilst he drank, and then whilst her clever fingers combed the knots from his hair before braiding it into intricate designs threaded with brightly coloured beads.

Abara had been born a slave amongst humans and viewed her repossession by Thorarin to have been a rescue rather than a capture. Where, amongst her own kind, she had been beaten and starved, as a blood slave within Lagita’s stronghold, she was well fed, well dressed, and provided with a home as a valued member of the community. She viewed the vampire children with the fondness of an elderly childless aunt, and often finished their feeds by tending to their hair.

When Thaelen left her house in search of play, he was hailed by Thorarin.

His father tweaked his braids. "Do you not like the taste of your new slave, Thaelen? You have been to see Abara. I can tell from how pretty your hair is.”

Thaelen shrugged his shoulders and ducked his chin to his chest. “Abara’s hair styles are good.”

“They are, and I often have her do my own before I go on a raid,” Thorarin agreed. “But that does not answer my question. Do you not like the taste of your slave?”

“I don’t know,” Thaelen admitted guiltily. “I have not tried her.”

“It is best done quickly, Thaelen,” Thorarin advised. “Things which we delay, become more difficult to face. It is like the brand that we place upon our slaves. It is best if it is done, and healed, before they have time to let the fear take hold. The experience is rarely as bad as the fear makes it.”

“I have just fed, father,” Thaelen admitted guiltily. “And mother has Sigrid.”

“Well, then,” Thorarin gripped Thaelen’s shoulders. “Something that must take place soon, but not right now. Walk the ramparts with me, son. In a few weeks, we shall make the journey into the hills, and make sacrifice to the gods.”

“Truly?” Thaelen’s eyes lit up. “I can come?”

“Yes,” Thorarin laughed indulgently. “Your mother may think otherwise, but you are old enough to make your first pilgrimage and sacrifice. You should take this time to prepare, both yourself, what you would ask of the gods, and what you will give them in return.”