Fair skin was as gray as Stefan's dead wife and son when he had buried them. The man's shin-length robe was soiled all over, as were his boots and bloodstained shirt. Stark white hair hung out of the cowl in dirty, lanky clumps. His eyes peered out from sunken sockets.
Stefan tried to speak, but his voice caught in his throat.
Vordana stood by the hearth.
Yes, came the word with its taint of reptilian slur, but Stefan was uncertain if he actually heard it aloud. He jerked out his sword and rushed around the hall's table.
Laughter surrounded him, and he stopped before the pale figure of Vordana. Disbelief made him dizzy as he held out his sword.
I am already dead, and that will not help you.
Vordana's dead lips never moved.
I could drain you to a husk, like your mate and offspring, but I want you to live a long, painful life… my puppet! Even your guards I will leave… for a while.
Stefan rammed the blade through Vordana's chest. The man lurched back one step, but that was all.
Unintelligible words, like a hum, built to an ache inside Stefan's head. His vertigo increased with those sounds in his skull, and he lost control of his body. His hands dropped limply to his sides, and his legs buckled until he knelt upon the floor.
Vordana did not bother to remove the sword from his chest. Stefan watched helplessly as the man's pale, begrimed hands clamped about his own head. Over the hum in his head came words he could understand.
I can maintain my watch here just as easily behind a puppet, but for my broken life, yours is forfeit. You remain in the manor, and by my command, if you step beyond the threshold, you will die in that instant. You will do whatever I instruct but always while locked within your stately cage. I will drain your town and land as I need to sustain myself. When they are gone, I will turn to you and your household.
And before you think that death is your escape, you will not join your son and wife by such an act. Look upon me to see what lies beyond your death if you attempt to take your own life.
Stefan lost awareness of the room, of himself, and of Vordana, except for the words that subjugated his own thoughts over the chant buzzing within his skull.
Then all was sudden silence, and he opened his eyes.
The hall was empty, as was the passage through the archway. He ran along it to the front door and pulled it open. There was no one outside.
In that quiet moment, it seemed his fevered imagination, fed with guilt and loss, had conjured him a nightmare. Had Vordana even visited him? Light-headed, he put his hand on the edge of the doorway to steady himself. A chill bit his hand through to the bones, and he fell back with a scream.
"What happened?" Wynn asked abruptly. "Could you not leave the house?"
Lord Stefan closed his eyes and shook his head. He opened the blanket wrapped about him and held up his hands. Or rather one, for the other was missing. All that Wynn saw of his left hand was a scarred stump of wrist.
"We had to cut it off," Geza said in Belaskian.
Wynn jumped at his voice. She had forgotten his presence across the room while she listened to Stefan's tale.
"It had to be removed before the rot of dead flesh spread," the captain added.
"Your wife and child," Magiere asked of Stefan. "Were there any wounds or other marks on their bodies?"
Elena shook her head, answering for him. "They just faded, the life draining from them."
"How did Vordana survive two thrusts through the heart?" Leesil asked. "And how did he trap this lord in the manor? What are we dealing with here?"
There was long pause.
"We hoped you would tell us," Stefan said.
"Well, he was certainly an undead, judging from your description," Leesil said. "Perhaps even a type of Noble Dead we haven't heard of."
"What is that… a Noble Dead?" Stefan asked.
"The highest, most powerful of the undead," Wynn answered. "They retain more of who and what they were in life than simple spirits of the dead. They move freely in the world under their own volition, but must feed on the living to sustain themselves. They can learn, grow, become more than they are, like the living."
Magiere grunted at this last comment, but Wynn did not respond. They never spoke of their disagreement over Chane in the sewers of Bela, but Wynn knew Magiere had been wrong. It stood to reason that if not all humans were the same, then not all vampires were the same either. Lord Stefan's replacement was certainly another matter.
"So Vordana is one of your Noble Dead," Stefan said, pulling the blanket around himself again. "He gained a title after all."
"By what you described, he's a mage," Leesil said. "We've run into such among the undead before."
Wynn caught Leesil's glance toward her. Obviously Magiere was not the only one to recall that moment in Bela's sewers.
"Could he do this to himself?" Leesil asked her. "Raise himself from the dead?"
Wynn shook her head. "I don't know. At my homeland guild, we study many things to prepare for becoming journeyman sages. Domin il'Samaud was my instructor for arcane arts, but I never heard mention of anything like this. There was talk of life-theory, and how some conjurors focus on spirit work. A few to the extent of reanimating the dead."
There was one small detail of Lord Stefan's tale that surfaced in Wynn's thoughts.
"You mentioned that Vordana wore something around his neck."
Stefan nodded. "A small brass vial on a chain. A token of some kind, I assumed."
"Some conjurors use brass containers," Wynn continued, "to trap conjured or summoned elemental material, including that of spirit-even a human spirit. But to do so as preparation against one's own death, or to reconjure one's own spirit back from death… It would be impossible."
Wynn felt Chap pawing at her leg. The dog snatched the rolled hide sitting on the bench and pulled it to the floor. She reached down and finished unrolling it, and Chap began tapping upon it with his paw.
"What is he doing?" Elena asked.
"It's a bit much to explain," answered Leesil.
Wynn followed his movements until he stopped and looked up at her.
"Tolealhan "… will-craft?" she asked in puzzlement.
At first it made no sense, but when clarity struck, she wished it had not.
"Sorcery," Wynn whispered. Chap barked once to confirm it before she continued. "I know what was done. Vordana placed a has upon Lord Stefan."
"Sorcery is outlawed," Leesil said. "And what do you mean?… What's this has?"
"It is Numanese, my language," she answered. "I do not know a Belaskian word for it. Tolealhan' is Elvish and could refer to a mage of the mental realm. That is sorcery, just as the arcane of the physical realm is thaumaturgy, and that of the spiritual is conjury. In the Elvish of my continent, has translates to gyeas. It is a task set so deeply into one's mind that the victim would 'will' its own death rather than fail to accomplish it."
She looked at Stefan, and though there was twisted justice here for what he had done to keep his position, she pitied him.
"Magic does not hold a gyeas in place," she said to Stefan. "It becomes part of you, your thoughts, like a hidden memory you refuse to forget. Deep inside, you believe beyond doubt what will happen if you fail to obey. Only a countering gyeas might break this."
"And that would require a sorcerer, like Vordana," Stefan replied, his gaze distant.