Borric blew out a breath. He did not know why the creatures had so suddenly abandoned their prey, and for the moment he did not much care. He and the others had been granted a welcome reprieve, and he would make the most of it. He only hoped that the fiends would not return just as suddenly. Even if they did not, the open night held many other dangers for a straggling group of unarmed refugees. It would be a long and harrowing trek back to the city.
The townsfolk were already drawing together into small groups. He started walking toward the nearest. He held himself straight-backed and did his best not to hobble; his men and the citizens of Keldrin’s Landing would need him to be strong. He raised a shout for members of the city guard, and several voices responded at once. He allowed himself a grim nod of satisfaction, and then he began the process of organizing the survivors, calling out directions in a clear, commanding voice.
Amric rose to his feet, never taking his eyes from the man in black robes.
The newcomer raised one hand over his head to point skyward, and a brilliant, fist-sized globe sprang into existence high overhead, bathing the entire area in cold, blue light. The man surveyed them all for a long moment as they squinted against the sudden illumination. Then his face darkened in apparent anger, and he started forward, striding down the dune and toward them. He walked with a measured pace, his taut posture an incongruous mix of arrogance and prowling caution.
“I am Xenoth, Adept of the Third Circle,” he announced. “I am the Hand of the High Council of Aetheria in this matter.”
Amric frowned. He glanced at Bellimar and raised an eyebrow, but the old man gave an almost imperceptible shake of his head. It seemed the string of names and titles meant nothing to him either.
The man drew to a halt twenty yards from them. The Sil’ath warriors moved away from Amric in wary crouches, spreading out to form a semicircle around the stranger, but he appeared not to notice. Instead, his deep-set eyes shifted in all directions beneath a dark brow as he seemed to be searching for some unseen threat.
“Which matter?” Amric asked, and the man’s hawk eyes turned to him.
“I seek the rogue Adept,” Xenoth said. “Where is he?”
“I am not certain of whom you speak. Perhaps if you could describe this-”
“Do not toy with me, boy,” the man snapped. “I felt the power that was employed right here, moments ago. Not even you simpletons could fail to notice a display of that magnitude. Where is he hiding?”
Xenoth’s tilted his head to one side, regarding Amric with narrowed eyes. “Yes,” he murmured. “I think you know something.” The man’s arms hung at his sides, and his long fingers twitched. “Time to share what you know, boy.”
Amric tensed, measuring the distance between them. His palms itched for his swords, but he wondered what good they would be against the likes of a true Adept. In his mind’s eye, he saw again the Nar’ath hive swallowed by the ravenous ground, so much like the thunderous collapse of Stronghold’s core; could he even close with Xenoth before the man brought such terrible power to bear against him and his friends? He hesitated. Perhaps he should be considering another defense entirely. But as he searched within for the mysterious, lingering presence, he found nothing.
“Forgive the lad,” Bellimar interjected, stepping smoothly in front of Amric. “He thinks with his sword arm, more often than not.”
“And what have we here?” Xenoth mused. A humorless smile twisted his sharp, angular face, and he raised one hand in a beckoning gesture. Bellimar stiffened with a grunt as he was lifted from the ground by some unseen force. Amric started forward, one hand reaching over his shoulder, but Bellimar stopped him with a warning look. The warrior let his hand fall, and he watched in helpless frustration as the vampire’s rigid form, suspended several feet in the air, drifted over to the black-robed Adept.
Xenoth clasped his hands behind his back and tilted his bearded chin upward as Bellimar floated to a halt before him.
“Fascinating,” he murmured. Then, louder, he said, “Do you know what I see before me, vampire?”
“I can only guess,” Bellimar said through clenched teeth.
Xenoth chuckled. “I see a corrupted being, caught on the knife’s edge between life and death, held there by a powerful enchantment. This is marvelous work, intricate and thorough. This could only have been accomplished by Adepts. Do you recall when this was done to you?”
“As if it was yesterday,” Bellimar hissed.
Xenoth met his eyes and gave a slow, grave nod, as if processing some sobering bit of information he found there. “Yes, indeed,” he said. “It is no secret that my kind have visited this world over the millennia, when the occasion warranted. You must have drawn considerable interest from my ancestors for them to devote such special attention to you.”
“Your kind forced this torment upon me,” Bellimar snarled. “If not for their interference many centuries ago in the affairs of this world-in my affairs-I would have cast all the lands beneath my shadow.”
“Ah, that would be it, then,” Xenoth said with a dismissive wave of his hand. “They were merely protecting their investment.”
Bellimar hesitated, taken aback. “Protecting…? What investment?”
“The spread of Unlife, if left unchecked, can eventually taint the core energy of a world, like a parasite in the water supply,” Xenoth replied. “This world had to be allowed to ripen unhindered.”
Amric went cold at the man’s words in a way that had nothing to do with the cooling night breeze. Allow this world to ripen? For what purpose? He could not see Bellimar’s expression, since the old man was still hovering and facing away from him, but the Adept was studying that expression with piercing intensity.
“Does it soothe your anger to know that there was little nobility in what they did?” Xenoth asked. “No, I thought not.”
“What they did was leave me in torment for more centuries than I can now recall,” Bellimar spat in a venomous tone, “cut off from my powers and afflicted with a hunger that I could no longer satisfy. They layered crushing guilt and conscience upon my existing curse, and amplified my suffering a hundredfold in so doing.” His voice faltered and dropped to a near whisper. “And I cannot say any of it was undeserved, given my crimes.”
Xenoth’s laugh was a harsh, pitiless thing. “Wretched, foolish creature,” he chided. “You continue to delude yourself, even after all this time. Do you not see? The Adepts dampened your connection to all magic, that much is true, and somehow they managed to do it without ending your existence. A fine, delicate touch, that. However, while you could no longer tap your sorcerous powers, such as they were, your vampiric affliction was also suppressed. But that is all. Any quaint sense of morality that emerged at that point, any penance that you believed you had to pay, was your own.”
Amric saw Bellimar stiffen at the man’s words.
“I see you do not fully believe me,” Xenoth said with a chuckle. “Consider another point, then. The enchantment imposed upon you should have lasted a century or so at most, and yet you say it has lasted many. Why do you think that is, vampire?”
The Adept let the words hang there for a long moment, remorseless and still as a coiled serpent, even as Bellimar hung in the air before him.
“You know as well as I, vampire. Your own will, your own tenuous access to Essence, is sustaining this curse-as you call it-now.”
Bellimar gasped and hung his head, shaking it in silent denial, but Xenoth pressed on. “Can you not appreciate the irony? Some part of you is convinced that you deserve this suffering, and so you maintain it all this time, with increasing effort on your part, without even being consciously aware of how you are sabotaging yourself.”