The Priest of Blood (38 page)

Then she began to chant in another tongue, which I could not comprehend, though my mind began to try to understand the words. It was some secret language that was impenetrable. Perhaps she had learned of it in the rituals of the Old Ways. Perhaps she had found it elsewhere, for there were always rumored to be books and grimoires of deviltry among the rich and noble.

Again, the vision dissolved, and another one came.

She stood holding the child in her arms. My son. A boy of perhaps two years. She wept as she held him aloft, and then she went to the edge of the bog, stepping into the water. The boy clutched her about the neck with fear. Tears ran from her cheek across his scalp.

In her left hand, she clutched a small blade that seemed to be made of a translucent stone. A ritual knife of some kind.

She raised it, and brought it down.

4

The vision turned to red.

I cried out, reaching for her, and yet tangled myself into an invisible force that had the consistency of thick, cold mud.

I ripped through the vision, and it swirled about my arms. I saw flashes of images, faces of creatures the like of which I’d never before witnessed—some with wolf faces but the bodies of beautiful women, others with the bodies of rounded men but with mouths clamping shut and opening all up and down their chests and bellies, with the heads and horns of a stag where their phalluses were meant to protrude; still other sights greeted me, each more fantastic and terrifying than the last.

But worse, figures like shades of blackness, tall and wearing the flowing robes of priests passed by, whispering to me the words,
Maz-Sherah, we know you.

A blur of these creatures drew about me as if they were a gathering of sorts, or of a forest with moving branches, in a circle around me. And then I felt a crushing blow to my back, the like of which would have thrown me across the room had I not been within the Veil. An intense burning feeling ran the length of my spine, then caught fire along my shoulder blades. I felt as if my own geometry expanded in some way—backward from my shoulders. Up from my throat I felt a sucking at my breath, then my lungs filled with air again and seemed to be lifting me up.

I became aware of my wings before I ever saw them. They unfurled like twin flags upon my back—leathery wings, slick with some oil. They opened behind me with a crackling of blue lightning upon my form. Within the whiteness, I ascended slightly, wings spread while my arms moved into an outstretched position.
 

I felt I was floating above the world, beyond clouds, and yet the blurred dark creatures moved in mist all around me.

“When you, the Maz-Sherah, received the Sacred Kiss, these shades were loosed from the Medhya’s cloak. They seek all that protect you. They bring plague and fever with them. You must not let your desire blind you.”
The priest, within my mind, whispered to me that I would be the Bringer of Light to all the dark ones, the fallen ones of Medhya, and the gods of the Veil blessed me, for I was the Maz-Sherah.
“You have but one task to complete the Serpent’s circle.”

I felt his hands at my throat, as if to strangle me, although I did not see him.
 

“You must devour me,”
he whispered.

Then, the juice of that strange flower in my eyes burned slightly as it diminished.

My sight returned.

The rip in the Veil had closed again into a white mist.

I lay on the floor of the tomb of Merod Al-Kamr.

5

I felt an enormous rage within my blood, and yet a surge of power in me threw me back to the floor of the temple. I looked up at the priest, who stood above me. “I have seen all that you have witnessed,” he said. “The mortal you loved has taken the path toward the end of days.”

“To save me!” I shouted. I did not notice how Kiya and Ewen watched me. “She went to God to save me. She went to the darkest pit of Hell to save me!”

“Perhaps,” he said, nodding slightly. “But she is mortal. You are not.”

He reached down to me, offering me his hand. I refused it, and instead rose on my own. My body still exhibited arousal, and I had returned from the vision with the wings of the priest. In my hand I still clutched the Nahhashim.

“She murdered my child,” I said. “To save me.”

“Perhaps,” he said.

I remembered Mere Morwenna’s telling me of the Sight. Of its unreliability. “Perhaps it has not yet come to pass.”

“She will pass the Threshold when she dies. Do not have sorrow. No mortal woman can love you. Your love would bring her death. Her love is darkening. You must not go to her. You must forget her. And any child that exists. I sense the shades around her, seeking the one who holds the heart of the Maz-Sherah.”

“I cannot forget her. Not after seeing this. And my son,” I said, as if I had forgotten a sacred vow, one of my former life. With it, the magnetic pull of my homeland, even there, in the underworld. “I must keep her from this fate.”

“You must think of the others,” he said in a nearly harsh tone.
 

“What others?”

“Mortal and immortal both. I was not a priest to the vampyres, Falconer, but of humankind. I performed the necessary rites to keep Medhya in darkness. The drinking of blood from mankind is sacred, and not to be abused as if we were wolves. Think of your life as a mortal man. You ran with the hunt, and you sought the boar and the stag. Did you not also leave them in spring and summer to mate and replenish their kind? So humankind must be allowed to sustain and grow. The Myrrydanai—who are the priests—”

“Other priests?”

“From Myrryd there came three castes of priests. I am of the Kamr priests, who are of the blood and whose Medhyic aspect is of Lemesharra. Lemesharra, who was known here as Lemesharra Medh-Kamr, by which it meant, Lemesharra, Mother of the Sight. The staff is all we know of the Nahhashim priests, who are of the Serpent and of Datbathani Medh-Nahhash, who is the Mother of Serpents. You now take your place among the Nahhashim and Kamr here before me. But the priests called Myrrydanai are those who have had their flesh torn from them by Medhya herself—torn and devoured for her pleasure. Like Medhya, they are shadow vultures that follow her darkness.

“The Myrrydanai are five in all, but they can grow into many as a shadow grows with the sunlight, for they travel by day as well as night. They do not drink blood, but instead drink souls. They are the most accursed, set loose only to Medhya’s command, her bidding. She released them from the Veil because of your coming. They sweep the night to find those who will destroy you. But you will not allow it, for mankind brings us life, and we are born from human life, after all. Many vampyres may look upon mortals as flagons for drinking, but we must see them as sacred. Do you understand?”

“I have felt this sacredness,” I said. “And yet is any life sacred with our kind?”

“Life is more sacred than are we,” Merod said. “We are sent back to our bodies from the Threshold not as destroyers, though we may take life at times. We serve life and take it when necessary, but only as a sacrifice. For every life we take, we must preserve a hundred more. Just as the hunter preserves the deer of the wood after hunting the stag, so we must all be priests of blood, Falconer, and though we bring terror to mankind, we must also bring protection. All blood is drunk from the chalice of sacrifice. This is why Pythia destroyed me, with the alchemist urging her onward.”

“Who is the alchemist?”

“A man who goes by many names, but I knew him as Artephius. He enslaved my daughter, turned her into his whore, and gained the ancient sorceries of stone and blood, which mortal man is not meant to possess. Medhya blessed him, and the Myrrydanai listen for his command. He wishes for the prophecies to be fulfilled as much as Medhya does. He built my cage. He took my daughters from me.”
 

“You have great power,” I said. “How could you be subdued?”

He didn’t answer at first, then only said, “Perhaps someday you will know all. For now, Falconer, you have a journey ahead of you. You must know the final prophecy of the Blood of Medhya, for you will need to know it. It is written in my blood, within the vessel of my flesh.”

Waiting for him to speak again, I felt a rush of wind at my back, pressing me toward him. It was more than wind—a wall of pressure, invisible, took me and I felt as if I were floating toward Merod Al-Kamr. His sorcery was strong, even without the staff of Nahhashim.

Finally, pressed against him, he leaned to whisper into my ear, “There is a final prophecy you do not know, Maz-Sherah. It must be broken. It is of the end of all mortal life and the destruction of the Veil and the Glass, a time of monsters and madness. The only hope is to raise the Nahhashim. And only the possessor of the staff may do so. But it will be at the cost of many. Sacrifices will be made. Sorceries will burn the skies. Many will extinguish. Many will fail. The staff is the source. You cannot let any other take it from you. You cannot give it. Keep it close at all times, for within it is something more powerful than even the Veil, though I do not know what it may be.

“You are the One, and as the One, you are the All. All, One. One, All. Understand what this means, and you will begin your journey. Medhya is gathering skins of humans, and her Myrrydanai swallow souls. They create an army of the spirit using the Veil itself to bring the shades and banished demons into a monstrous existence. Even now they whisper in the minds of men, and seek to destroy those who have touched the Maz-Sherah. They are unleashing the Old Gods, as well, the beasts who have been held by the Veil for thousands of years. One day, the war will begin, and you must lead our tribe, and protect the flock of humanity both for their sakes, and for your own. You must protect those from whom you drink life, or life will be no more.”

“I waste time here,” I said, drawing back from him. “If what has befallen me has come to poison others...”

“You must first fulfill the prophecy,” Merod said. “You are here for the Feast of the Passing.”

I must devour you
, I thought,
as you wish. I must cut you down and eat your flesh so that what you know and what you possess comes into me. The Nahhashim and the wings, they are aspects of the power. The resurrection of the loins is another signal of the source. But it is the essence within you and your meat that is to transform me. But your blood will destroy me.

Within my mind, he whispered,
The Anointed One of the Serpent may drink its own venom. My blood will become your blood. Your essence, my essence. All, One. My flesh retains the memories and the ways of Medhya. If you were not to kill me now, I would die before the next full moon beyond these walls. The One has come, the Maz-Sherah, the new priest has come, and my time is passed. Do not mourn me, for I have crossed many years of the life-in-death, and I am ready for my journey.

Merod Al-Kamr, the Priest of Blood, the King of the Alkemars, bowed down before me, as a humble servant. I unsheathed the black sword and in one stroke swung it down upon his neck, severing his head from his body.

A rush of air filled my throat, and I heard his voice within my mind:

Seek the knowledge of the Nahhashim. When the One becomes All, the All become One.

His head rolled beside my feet. I cautioned Kiya and Ewen to keep their distance, for I was not sure of what poison the blood might yet contain.

I lifted Merod’s head and began the duty that had been set forth before me. With each bite of his flesh, I tasted the history of our kind and acquired the divine fire of immortality that had been denied us since the priest had been betrayed by his own daughter and her lover, the one called Artephius.

When it was done, and there was nothing but the bones of the priest, I began to feel his past, and his childhood, as well as a moment when he worked, a slave in the fields, and a great wind came up while a crescent moon lay along the horizon of the flat, fertile valley. And as the grasses moved in the wind’s fingers, I heard Medhya’s voice, and the words of the Blood that would transform Merod and begin our race, our tribe.

She whispered to me from the shadows, “Priest, you are mine.”

As I stood there, drenched in blood, Kiya bowed down before me, as did Ewen.

When I asked them to rise, Kiya told me, “The falcon has devoured the serpent and has brought us the ancient sorcery. You are the king of our tribe. We feel it in the stream, even now, the change. You must anoint me. You are the source of our strength.”

Instinctively, I went to her and held the Nahhashim against her loins, and against her breasts, and against her scalp, and, finally, to her lips, and she tasted of it. And likewise I went to Ewen, and touched him in the places of power with the Nahhashim. As I did so, I felt the Serpent within the staff wriggle in my hand, and a fire grow from it.

They, too, felt my stream come into them. Within their bodies I invaded their souls, and burned at the weakness there, bringing them the light of my internal fire, a fire stoked by the flesh and blood of Merod Al-Kamr and of the source of All, the Serpent.

They, too, felt the surge of power, of the Old Talents of the Fallen Ones of Medhya. What was once merely legendary, was the history of our race.

The Nahhashim staff seemed to glow in my hand with a blue-and-red fire as if the powers of old, rekindled, had themselves drawn strength from our tribe.

And when they had been restored with the abilities of transmogrification, of transforming into creatures of the night, of sprouting wings along their shoulders to fly like dragons above the trees, above cities, and to move so swiftly as to appear to vanish, they and I praised the Serpent above even Medhya. For Medhya, our mother, had cursed us, but the Serpent had bestowed blessings upon our kind so that we might prevail among the world that was ruled by darkness. We praised Lemesharra Medh-Kamr, and Datbathani Medh-Nahhash, and the Priest of Blood, Merod Al-Kamr, who had not been extinguished, but coursed within my blood, the All becoming One in me.