D2R2 (not scifi, not the real title)

Home-Tree was dying. Syn placed her hand on the weather-worn bark, her fingers blending in with the smooth brown color of the tree. For possibly hundreds of years, Home-Tree had stood and offered a home to the village. And then, it had all changed, just a few days ago. Through her feet she had felt the first small, sharp tendrils of pain and sickness causing her to feel slightly nauseous. She had walked about with headaches for days, wondering why no one else was sick, before she had finally heard the echo of a cry from the tree, a soft rumbling that whispered of oncoming death, of rottenness within and evil without.

What had happened to cause Home-Tree sickness? That’s what Syn wanted to know.

Through her hand the pain was coming stronger, making her fingertips sting as if dozens of needles were pricking them. Syn looked blindly down into the meadow, Home-Tree guiding her vision, towards its gnarled, raised roots. There was a circle of grayish-brown dirt, nearly ten feet around Home-Tree’s giant trunk, and then, a few feet farther, little waves of grass rose and fell, their tiny end-of-summer flowers glistening with night dew. The sickness was coming from the roots, from the circle of grayish-brown sludge.

A flash of fire flew past her where she was standing on the main-limb of her village and made the bracelet hanging loosely on her wrist shine. Perched on a branch a few feet up was the Phoenix, Atun. His short glossy feathers were a burnt orange, shining in the sunset like they were aflame. The only true fire on Atun was his crest and the tips of his blunt wings, flickering in a dance of excitement, chasing the ascending shadows of night away.

“Hello, Atun.” Syn took her hand off of the Trunk. “What is it?”

Without a sound Atun leapt from the branch and dove straight into the coming darkness, toward the roots of Home-Tree, an arrow of light in the blackness fifty feet down. Syn frowned. With the advancing night, no sun elf would dare to go onto the ground. With night came obscurity, mystery, evil. She couldn’t see very well in the darkness, and she didn’t like going into things she couldn’t see. But Syn had no choice. Atun was rarely about, something that she would have been happier for in her early childhood, where Atun had made her even more abnormal than she already was. Phoenixes were the messengers of Uloshi, and they were rare even here in the south. No Phoenix had ever followed a being, sun elf or otherwise, around like Atun trailed Syn. She could only guess that Atun had witnessed something that he wanted Syn to see.

With her frowned fixed upon her face, Syn jumped to a branch below her, some ten feet down. Her feet were barely on the limb when she coiled her legs and jumped again, her arms out for balance. Five times she jumped, descending farther into the swamp of night, whose greedy fingers had already crawled up from the meadow and toward the lights of main-limb. With a final leap, she felt soft, slimy dirt spread between her toes instead of the comfortable familiarity of bark. Atun was like a torch in the darkness, hovering above the indistinct grasses, warding away the night.

Syn knelt to feel the grayish-brown dirt. Below the soil she could feel the concentrated sickness of the tree, and it nearly made her throw up. She took a deep breath and grabbed some of the sludge and jumped five feet into the grasses beyond. Here the sickness wasn’t as bad.

With Atun beside her to give her light, Syn explored the dirt in her hand. Even though it looked like dirt, it didn’t smell like good earth, the nice black earth that gave birth to Home-Trees. This dirt stunk of fire-stones, the kind that littered the dark caves of old volcanoes in the Deep South, and of rotten flesh. Syn had to swallow to dispel the nausea. She ran her fingers through the substance, for now she was sure that it was no longer regular earth, and it felt cold and sticky, like old meat.

“Atun, what could this have come from?”

Atun sang nothing, just continued to hover above Syn. Syn could only guess one thing: something evil or sick had come past the tree and infected the roots. Days ago, since that was the first time that she had felt the first stirrings of disease. The evil had gone through the dirt and infected Home-Tree. That’s why Home-Tree was dying.

Suddenly Atun landed on Syn and pulled at her hair. Syn shook her head violently and swatted at Atun, which made the Phoenix fly higher so as to evade Syn’s hands. Her bracelet flew off into the grass. She bent over to look for the bracelet, but Atun, satisfied that Syn was getting up, flew away from the tree and into the clutching arms of dark, leaving Syn nearly blinded.

Syn’s eyes widened. Going onto the ground at night was dangerous enough. Going out into the meadow, and toward the thick Wikki forest beyond was suicide.

“Atun! Atun!” she whisper-shouted at the fading light. Atun continued to fly, for what Syn thought was an eternity, and then became a levitating light, probably perched on the beginning branches of Wikki forest. What was that Phoenix doing? Did he want Syn killed? “Atun!”

Atun’s loud song came struggling through the thick night. He wanted Syn to come with him. That much Syn could understand.

“Damn it, Atun,” Syn growled. She paused, feelings of fear intruding upon her. Syn shook her head to dispel them. Nothing to be afraid of. It was only the dark. If there was anything out there, she could take care of it. To reassure herself, Syn touched the dagger at her side. She had even more of them, hidden on her person. Nothing in the dark could possibly get her.

With a deep, somewhat shaky breath, Syn stepped farther away from the safety of Home-Tree. The darkness chewed into her heart, swallowed her up. She could see nothing; the soothing song of Atun’s was strangled and choked, dulled and beaten into submission by the night. Only her sense of smell was still working, but that was hardly any prize. The night smells were cold, dank, and moldy, unlike the warmth of day. Sun elves didn’t go out at night, barely went anywhere away from the Home-Tree. Outside of the meadow, into the Wikki forest and beyond, were unknown evils. Who knew what monsters lurked in the all encompassing shadow that night was?

Well, no naki. Syn knew that the naki, the dead body, didn’t lurk in the real world, only in the infinite levels and mazes of the Fiery Pits of Dahse. Yes, the un, the naki’s separated spirits, did roam in the living world, but they did no harm. Syn continued to walk cautiously, the soft brush of daytime grasses turned into the sharp claws of demons by the death of the sun. The un only congregated in certain places, like where they had been turned into unnaki, the body separated from the spirit, or where great acts of evil had occurred. Like seemed to attract like.

Syn’s mind ran through the list of other monsters that she knew mainly from Xisa’s collection of random books. No dragons, which lived in the upper parts of mountains and hidden lairs in the sky. No trolls: they lived in dank tunnels in northern regions. Werewolves hid in packs in dark forests up in mountains. Suki, the giant snake people, did live in the south, but they were often resting in the temples to the west of Home-Tree, nearer to the Kalmani Ocean, so no worries there.

Vampires, of course, were always a problem. Syn clenched her fists in anger just by thinking about them. Those monsters were perfectly at home in the night. They loved it. They couldn’t stand being in the day, for some insane reason that Syn couldn’t comprehend. Not that Syn wanted to figure them out. All she knew was that they worshipped a dark goddess, a perversion of all good things which were embodied in Uloshi. Sometimes sightings of their graceful shadows, like those of the Suki, would be seen near sun-elf Home-Trees, and then young sun elves would go missing in the night. No one would be able to find them, but all knew that it was the vampires who had captured them, to take them to their fortress way up in the very Northern Regions. Myth had it that they even had a city in the dark Tunnels of the Northern Regions. But that was just myth. Their blood thirst was so strong that they wouldn’t be able to process through their tiny brains the needs for cities, medicine, and culture. That’s what separated the sun elves from the vampires. Intelligence, the quality that separated all conscious creatures from beasts.

Finally, Syn caught up with Atun. She was at the very brink of the Wikki forest. All was still, like the still of a rabbit when it knew a hungry jungle cat was about. The quiet was heavy, choking all into waiting silently until the predator had their jaws ready to spring shut. No leaves rustled even though a constant, reeking wind howled from the forest, as if even they were afraid of attracting the attention of the spirit of whatever haunted the woods. The wind blew Syn’s hair back with its ferocity, as though it didn’t want any intruders entering its domain. Syn didn’t know if this was how the forest usually felt, or whether the stifling silence was an exception. All she knew was that the unnatural quiet had invoked an until-then hidden instinct inside Syn to flee. Syn forced herself to stand steady. She would never flee; once she got herself in danger, she’d fight her way through it. Still, she took comfort from Atun, who was preening in his usual cocky way.

Then, suddenly, even the moaning wind stopped. Syn’s hair settled back into its normal crest, and the rotten smell stopped smacking her nose. Atun stopped preening, peering anxiously into the dark forest. If the silence before had been stifling, it was crushing now. Syn tried to breathe; it felt as if the air had been sucked away. The quiet was like that in a vacuum. Now Syn wanted to run, but it felt as if she was glued to the grass before the forest. Atun fluttered his wings weakly; he couldn’t fly.

Why couldn’t she move? Syn tried to move her arms, to reach for her dagger. Only her fingers moved, but so slowly that they didn’t seem to move at all. Atun’s wings were flapping even slower, minutes in between each up and down flap. What was happening?

And then, the reeking smell came back ten times stronger. It almost knocked Syn off her feet with its rotten stench, but the force that grasped her held her up. Syn’s eyes watered still, the tear drops falling slowly, so slowly that she could watch them fall to the ground and then, dissolve into steam. Heat began to pulse from the Wikki forest, almost directly in front of Syn, so hot that the leaves that were still withered and fell to the ground. There they burst into cinders.

Atun was now still, as frozen as Syn, incapacitated by the stench and the heat, which grew and grew. It seemed to grow in Syn, and she wanted to squirm, because it kept growing, uncomfortably, kept growing and growing until Syn thought she would explode. She wanted to pass out, to drop unconscious, to die, just to get away from the heat and the smell.

Then, when both seemed to reach it’s peak, just when Syn was sure she was going to burst into flames, a shriek rose from the Wikki forest, a scream so horrible, so wracked with pain, misery and agony, that Syn was surprised her ears didn’t bleed from hearing it. She wanted to clap her hands over her ears, but she couldn’t, so she was able to hear the scream form one word: Soon.

Then, like a vacuum, wind blew past Syn, stinging her back, the heat and the stench and all the dead leaves and grass disappeared into the forest. It howled, and Syn’s hair whipped around her forehead, and some of Atun’s feathers were pulled from his wings. The shrieks doubled in intensity, filled with an ear-piercing rage. Syn could almost make out the words: OUT OUT OUT. Then, with a roar that echoed through the forest and obliterated any other noise, the reeking wind and the shrieks, disappeared.

*****

Ah, the darkness. The sweet obliteration of light, the mysterious beauty of shadows and corners that couldn’t be seen by day. The sounds of everlasting night resonated out of the Tunnels; the high-pitched screeches of bats, the low moaning of lost winds, searching for a way back to the home sky, the rumbling hums of the serpent-worms and other subterranean creatures devouring their way through the earth, and finally, the haunting melodies of the Kishiyl, Uloshi’s winged envoys.

The wind blew again, and this time, Kelai halted. The rushing air had a perfume to it that was different, a stench that smelled like…rotten flesh and sulfur. The wind was shrieking now, instead of its normal moaning. Whatever could have happened?

But then the stench disappeared as suddenly as it had appeared, and the wind took up its groaning again. Kelai shook off his feeling of unease. No matter to worry about incessantly.

Kelai smiled widely. Who couldn’t love the sense of tranquility, calm and delicate danger that the Tunnels gave to vampires? Who couldn’t worship the feeling of adrenaline rushing through their veins as they went farther and deeper than they ever had before? And who couldn’t desire for the freedom that the Tunnels gave from the certain boredom that the Council discussing such scintillating issues such as what to do about the Black Market when half of the vampires on the Council were two-faced hypocrites and obtained their rare items from said Market would give? But that was impolite to mention. And Kelai was all about politeness.

He glided through the silky darkness, the cool, slightly damp air caressing his body, making his open coat flap in the now-fresh breeze and brushing his hair from his face as he followed the melody of the Kishiyls, searching for the nest that he had stumbled upon earlier that week. He wondered if the petite chick that he had found, lying on the smooth rock under the rising cliffs that held the colony of night falcons, was secure. Kelai had placed the baby Kishiyl, the miniscule bird twittering all the while, in a tiny concave in the smooth rock below the cliffs. Now he was coming to retrieve it; he decided that he could do with an animal companion.

An almost silent pair of wings flew past Kelai, above his head. His eyes followed the Kishiyl as it flew, up and up and up, toward the highest part of the cliffs. It sat on the very edge of the rock face; its head to the side on its long, swan-like neck as it stared at Kelai. The Kishiyl’s long, slender body, wings and tail feathers were ebony-dappled silver. It let out a low, soothing call that bounced off of the rock walls and stalagmites in the Tunnel. The note rose up and up into the dark air beyond the jutting rocks, into the ceiling of the cavern that continued on and on. Kelai wasn’t sure he had ever seen the ceiling of the Lower Tunnels.

A slight chirping distracted Kelai from the majestic bird. There was the little chick, about the size of a kitten, and it seemed perfectly fine. Its long, adult feathers hadn’t grown in quite yet, so it was covered in silver fluff. Its black eyes trained on Kelai, and the Kishiyl hopped out of the concave and towards him trustingly. Kelai couldn’t hold back a grin; this little bird was so naive, he was surprised that it hadn’t been discovered and consumed already. Or maybe this one just recognized him.

“Hello, little bird,” he whispered, picking the chick up. It dug into his fingers with a smooth, black beak, searching for food. “You seem to remember me. You do, don’t you? Or are you always this unquestioning?”

The bird ignored him, still searching for food. If he remembered correctly, Kishiyls at this age ate bits of raw meat that their parents brought back from their hunts. “Sorry, little bird. I don’t have anything to eat right now. But, if we go back to the castle, I can get you scraps from yesterday’s feast. How would you like that?”

The bird tweeted and flapped its stubby wings. Kelai took that as a yes.

“Okay, then honey, I’ll just put you in my pocket, and we can go back to the castle, hmm?”

The bird chirped and he stood up, ready to move it to one of his coat’s pockets nearer to his chest. With just a quick scan of its head, he knew its gender: it was a girl. The females never had crests, while the males had silvery white feathers that stood to attention on their heads. A little girl. How cute.

“We’ll have to find a name for you, now won’t we, little Kishiyl?” he said, putting the night falcon in a pocket near his shoulder. The Kishiyl wasn’t having it, however. With a deft hop she flap-jumped to Kelai’s head and nestled in his curls, chirping contentedly. Kelai laughed and left it where it was; why not? With a quick turn, he glided away from the Kishiyl’s nest, away from the siren darkness, and towards the city, climbing steadily up hill.

Kelai really didn’t care to go back, but he knew the Kishiyl must be hungry. He sighed despondently. The city: filled with Councils on tedious issues of Diplomacy and Commerce and Etiquette, with hordes of vampire commoners, blood lust hot in their eyes, pale in their skin and blue in their lips, with his older brother, Erusil, sneering and scowling and perpetually in a horrendous mood, and with his father, King Graset, who wished that his youngest son, namely Kelai, destined to be the next King, would stop wandering Uloshi knows where and to finally settle down and take some responsibility. The only reason Kelai could find to even come back to the city of his birth was his bosom friend, Ames.

Kelai’s gloomy mood flew to the ceiling and away as he thought of Ames. She was always there when he needed her, always listened to his infrequent rants with comforting pats, and asked to hear of his adventures beyond the Tunnels. She was so pleasant, so trusting, that everyone was gentle with her, as if she was made of glass and might break. Ames believed in the good of everyone, and often made Kelai feel guilty because he absolutely loathed his brother. She said that Erusil was just misunderstood; that he didn’t mean to shove, pester, and generally raise hell with Kelai on a regular basis. But then, she actually thought that, underneath all the viciousness, that the vampire commoners were gentle. They weren’t, and everyone but her knew it. Vampire commoners were not evil; they were just slaves to the all encompassing blood lust. Of course, vampire nobles couldn’t rule the city without being free of the blood thirst, for their minds would be on the thirst at all times, so it was a common necessity that all of the vampire nobles had satisfied their blood lust for life.

While any magical being would do, such as dragons, unicorns, or mermaids, sun elf young were preferred as Blood Partners; they were less violent, more frightened and less able to take action. But an adult sun elf was supposedly much more interesting to take. The blood, allegedly, was thicker, sweeter, more delectable…just thinking about the taste made Kelai’s mouth water as he steadily traipsed up hill. He felt his fangs begin to grow, begin to secrete the dry venom that incapacitated a victim and he swallowed. Then again he could only imagine. For some obscure reason, he had never gone through the Blood Partner ritual, the ritual he should have done when he was much younger. His father had seemed to have forgotten it. His mother had died when he had been very young, around his twenties.

Ames had been like a substitute mother to him, though she was seventy-five, his age. He would love to have her accompany him on adventures, and she often wished that she could go, but she was so frail that Kelai wouldn’t think of it. He protected her from the evils of the city and made sure that she was surrounded by beauty at all times. Most of the days out in the Tunnels found his pockets loaded with effervescent under-ground sea shells, the ice-flowers that grew creeping along the rocks and jewel-like feathers from the Kishiyls. She would definitely delight in the little night falcon. Maybe she could assist in finding a name.

The Tunnel was slowly becoming less cavernous, narrowing down from its splendors as Kelai neared the city. He could hear the creaking of cart wheels far off, could smell the earthy richness of the nobles’ cow farms, and could almost see the dancing heat impressions that emanated from the city. The city, when viewed in heat vision, dimly glowed, like an ember. It was quite different from the blazing light that most towns and cities of other denizens emitted, likened to a spectacular heat show that Kelai had gotten used to over the years. Why didn’t the city produce such a light? Kelai shrugged. Vampires were just cooler in blood; the better to blend in with the icy shadows. Most of the other creatures on the earth, the unicorns, werewolves, and most importantly, the sun elves, couldn’t blend in with the darkness, no matter how hard they tried. The stuck out like a sore thumb in the night.

As Kelai drew nearer to one of the entrances to the city, he whiffed the same rotten stench that he had smelled deeper down the Tunnel. What was it? Vampires had no need for rotten flesh; rotten flesh was filled with nasty bacteria, and usually the blood was caked dry or infected. So what was this smell of rotten meat doing in the outskirts? And, could he detect a hint of sulfur?

The Kishiyl, quiet up to this point, started fluttering about anxiously, a piece of its down falling from Kelai’s head. He caught the fluff and rolled it around in his hands before he threw it away, checking his shoulders to make sure that his coat wasn’t dirty. Satisfied there weren’t any droppings, Kelai returned attention to the road. He could make a staggering figure, walking with a limping pace, ahead of him. Kelai frowned. Not even the vampire commoners, more burly and ungainly than their noble cousins, walked with such a gait. No vampire would walk like that; it yelped of weakness. And the trolls that ran the Black Market stalked. Besides, they rarely came to the city; vampires had to pick up their purchases in one of the lesser used Tunnels, towards the east. No other bipedal creature lived along the dark ways of the underground Tunnels.

Feeling the fingers of unease grip at him, Kelai took the Kishiyl from his head and placed it in one of his spacious pockets. This time the bird didn’t object; in fact, it dug deeper into the cloth. He continued walking steadily, gaining on the figure. As he walked, he ran his hand down his coat’s right side, searching for the fifth pocket to the collar. His hand stopped and entered the velvet lining. He took out a dagger and palmed it in his right hand, reassured at the cold metallic feeling of steel. The stench of fire and death was getting stronger.

The figure was only a couple of yards away. Kelai couldn’t make out a lot; it seemed to have a skin that was deep in color, no hair, and horrifyingly dirty, tattered clothes. He realized, with a jolt, that the creature was limping as if it was afraid of breaking one of its legs, as if they were too…decayed to hold its vigorous movements.

Kelai held a breath. A naki. Even after he named the creature, he couldn’t believe what he was seeing. Nakis didn’t traverse on the real world, the world of the living. They just didn’t. It was impossible. They were supposed to be trapped for eternity, going through the mazes and levels of Dahse, suffering an eternity of pain and agony for the evil that they had done on earth. What was its purpose out of the Spirit World?

Kelai knew that if a naki touched anything, even earth, that the thing it touched would be come rotten, infested with disease, which could spread to anything else. If it touched flesh, you were sure to die a slow, painful death, one in which your skin fell from you like flies from fire, and your body rotted while still alive. Only stone was immune, and, unfortunately, Kelai was not stone. But what was it doing? What if it was after its un, the spirit half of its body? Kelai didn’t know what would happen if a un and a naki were rejoined. He didn’t even want to speculate.

Kelai’s pace had steadily grown more silky, quieter, the step of a hunter, or at least that of someone who did not want a dead body to suddenly hear him and come after him. He was close enough to see that its skin was a rotten greenish-black, falling off in little gobbets that jiggled on the rock ground. The stench hit his delicate nose harder, making tears prick at his eyes, adding to the nausea. It was emitting a soft, crooning sound, moaning and groaning, occasionally crying out in a soft shriek. Kelai walked as if he were on eggshells. He really didn’t care for the idea of the naki knowing he was behind it.

Then suddenly, Kelai stopped, and brought his hand to tap, quietly of course, his forehead in self-directed fury. What would a dagger do on an undead being? They were departed! They couldn’t be mortally wounded. He put the dagger back in his fifth pocket and began to search quietly for something with more magical abilities. The Leela powder that he had brought back from his latest venture would work. His hands dipped in and out of his pocket. As long as nothing alerted the naki…but it was just then that the Kishiyl emitted a little venturing chirp.

The naki stopped and turned around slowly, as if unsure of what it had heard. Already Kelai was deep within the shadows of the Tunnel, pressed against the rock wall. Some of the Kishiyl’s fluff had been stuck between his fingers; he pulled it off and threw it down without a thought. If he created an Illusion, made it look as if he were an abandoned wheelbarrow, would the naki see through it? He had to attempt it. He really didn’t care to become a rotten piece of flesh. Kelai moved his fingers delicately up and down, his palms pressed at his side. He felt the rain of the cold magic fall over him, tickling his face and neck like sprinkles of mist. A brief shower, Illusion fell over him, making him seem a wheelbarrow. And like a brief shower, it ended, the glistening, invisible drops still on him. There. Completed. Correctly, he hoped.

The naki was shifting from side to side, staring at Kelai, muttering its little screams. It stood there, confused, what was left of one yellow eye peering, it seemed, right past the Illusion. Can he see me? Or her? Or whatever it is, or was, can it see me, he thought anxiously. He was about to make a move to search more of his pockets, but then he remembered: once the Illusion had been cast, no movement, or the magic would be dispelled. Kelai almost swore.

The naki shuffled forward, barely putting weight on one leg, which squelched like footsteps through deep mud. Kelai held his breath. The naki stopped, a few feet away from Kelai, and then stood, shifting and moaning. Kelai wanted to throw up; the smell was worse than ever, like skunk and rot and vomit and the smell people had when they were sick. The naki hobbled closer, grinning now, a few pieces of yellow, holey teeth still left in its festering mouth. A small white, round maggot poked a little out of the gums, which bordered a black hole of a mouth. Goodness gracious. It was smiling, a really rather nasty smile. It saw him. He was ready to fight, although he really didn’t care to. He just wished that he had had the foresight to not back against a wall; it would be that harder to evade the naki’s touch.

Just when Kelai was ready to make a move, itching to pull out his dagger—the heck with it— the naki bent somewhat sloppily, as if its upper body wasn’t quite attached to its lower half. Then, its skeletal, green hand, bits of burnt bone where the flesh had fallen away, grasped an item a few inches away from Kelai’s feet. It shrieked out in a triumphant way, and then followed it with a happy moan, as it put the bit of fluff from the Kishiyl to what was left with its nose.

It inhaled, and let out a content groan, then shuffled away from Kelai and back down the Tunnel. Kelai waited until it was far down the Tunnel, until it was just a shadow amongst shadows, then he let out a sigh of relief. The naki was probably following the smell of the Kishiyl. He peeled himself off of the wall, the Illusion falling apart, clinging to him like the delicate threads of spider web.

What to do now? What to do? Kelai went frantically through his pockets. Map, no. Dagger, no. Some gold coins, no. Burgundy ribbon, no. A piece of leaf, no! Where were his vials of Leela powder?

He smacked his head silently. Of course! He had left it near his pallet, where he had been reading up on the magical properties of the Leela tree. Leela powder could dissolve dead flesh in an instance; if he had thrown a vial on the naki, then it would have turned into nothing but harmless bones. This was just swell. He had the knowledge, but he didn’t have the powder.

Very well, then. He would go and feed the Kishiyl, and then he would get the Leela powder, come back, track the naki down and dispose of it. Until he had the vial, there was nothing he could do. The naki was going in the opposite direction of the city anyway. With one swift glance down the Tunnel, at the grunting naki, Kelai glided quickly up the Tunnel and towards the city. He just hoped that the naki would stay down in the Lower Tunnels, where it could do no harm. And that his brother, Erusil, wasn’t at the castle.

*****

Erusil sat on the eastern balcony of the castle, looking up into the opaque darkness, searching for the ceiling. Darkness. The thought of a furiously devouring gloom, the shadows jealous of light’s presiding reign over most of the earth, while eternal night waited in these Tunnels, biding its time uncomplainingly until it could claim the entire world as its domain, struck a chord in his heart. Like him, the darkness was—and had been—waiting patiently. But, finally, finally! Erusil had found the piece of information that would be Kelai’s downfall.

Erusil’s pale fists clenched; his nails dug into his skin. He stared furiously, blindly into the city that was rightfully his, glowing with the cool heat of commoner bodies. The injustice of it all infuriated him. He was the firstborn, he was Satiated, he had spent all of his life going to the meetings that his younger, dreamer brother Kelai had spent all of his life avoiding. He knew the processes, knew everything a King should know. But, no! For some hidden reason, a reason that he would soon find out, Erusil had been robbed of his birthright. The crown would go to Kelai as soon as Father was ready to give it to him. And that would be soon; the old man was barely holding on to life, although he did cling to it with the tenacity of a true vampire. Maybe he should slip something to the old man, make it easier for him to go to the Spirit World.

But it didn’t matter. There was one thing that Kelai had to do before he was crowned King. All nobles had to do it. And Kelai was the only noble vampire that hadn’t.

Erusil grinned into the envious darkness, and gazed down at the city that would soon be his. All the twists and turns, the dark alleys, the stone streets and onyx abodes. And all the vampires, commoner or not. He would control them all; control them with a strong will and an iron fist. Unlike Kelai. He didn’t know anything about mercilessness; an ability Erusil knew was needed for a true King.

Kelai was such a bleeding heart; he often brought in injured and sick animals to the castle, just to care for them until they were better. He wrote poetry, for Uloshi’s sake. Not even poetry about killing; no, he had to write love ballads. He played the piano, the flute and the ula, a stringed instrument. He healed and read and thought and dreamt and did all of the things that the city did not need their future King to do. He was such a pansy! The city needed a King who was strong and ruthlessness and conniving, a King that would lead them to spread their kingdom. Father hadn’t organized any conquests in all of his time at the throne. The old man had also been a bleeding heart, though not as much as Kelai. Erusil grinned wickedly. It was so satisfying that Father was idiotic enough to trust him. The old man had made the fatal mistake of secretly telling Erusil that he often wished that the vampires and the sun elves could call a truce. Of course, he had wanted to blame him of blasphemy in front of the whole Council. It wouldn’t matter if the old man tried to lie; there were many legal, and dozens more illegal, ways of getting the truth out of someone. But Erusil had decided against the impulsive action; working on whim was something that Kelai did. Erusil just logged it away for future use.

Then there had been the recent attack from a band of sun elves, and yet Father had done nothing. True, it was nothing more than a few slayings on the vampire commoners, nothing to be truly worried of, but the fact that they had had the nerve to come to the city was infuriating. When word had come from the throne that there was going to be nothing done to catch the intruders, the young vampires had cried out in rage. Even the old vampires had wondered what had gotten into the King. Such a blatant offense, and yet no reprimand? Erusil had done nothing that time either, though it was all he could do to not go after the sun elves with a group of his acquaintances to teach the dogs respect of the lords of darkness.

He hadn’t done anything then, but he would do something soon. The city was wilting under such weak-spined guidance. The hot-blooded vampires that were just growing into their powers needed someone to lead them to the final battle, a battle that would, finally, destroy the sun elves. That someone would be him. And all he would have to do would be to get Kelai out of the way.

Erusil nearly laughed when he thought of something else he had seen Kelai frequently do. He pictured last night, over dinner. The blood in the golden goblet. Kelai’s hidden grimace. His forced swallowing, as if he were drinking poison. The boy was messed up in his head. But such a weakness was Erusil’s gain. This was certainly a happy day. Erusil turned towards the castle, smiling, going to prep the victim. Kelai was, in truth, a bleeding heart; but he wasn’t going to be the only one to bleed today.