If given the chance.
Von Kharkov's ebony skin rippled in a chill of revulsion as memories of countless awakenings swept over him, countless visions of shredded flesh, countless imagined images of his own features as they regained human form through a veil of blood. If only, all those years ago, he had been able to resist the lure of —
But you could not, Von Kharkov. You could not resist, and you did not.
A new voice echoed in his mind, stronger than Dakovny's had ever been. He stumbled, almost falling.
Resisting temptation was never in your nature, was it, Von Kharkov? That is why you found your way to Dakovny so quickly and submitted to his ministrations so gratefully. And look at you now, rushing headlong toward another of your illusory goals, not a worthwhile thought in your head.
The voice laughed, sending needles of pain through Von Kharkov's mind. It seems I shall have to save you from yourself, then. After all, you are mine now. And your little machinations — you thought I didn't know? You thought you could hold your thoughts secret from not only your master but from me? That is delightful! Naive as well as impulsive and easily tempted! But as I was saying, your little machinations did give me the opportunity to eliminate an old enemy — at least eliminate him with less effort than I might otherwise have had to exert. So you see, Von Kharkov, you did me a favor, and now, in return. .
A pair of eyes, glowing red in the darkness, swooped out of the air directly at his face, sending him reeling. Others appeared, and he could see the shadows of bodies around them, hear the high-pitched chittering. Ahead, at the line of trees that had emerged from the Mists, larger shadows began to take shape, shadows that snarled gutturally as they lumbered toward him across the barren plain.
Desperately, he lurched to the side, toward the river. If he were able to throw himself into the Tempe, no matter how slowly it was running —
The Mists and the escape they offered were obviously beyond his reach now, but the escape of oblivion might still be attainable. It would even be preferable.
With every last ounce of his strength, Von Kharkov plunged into the water.
Fool! the voice thundered in his mind as the water, burning like liquid fire, closed over him.
Fool, he agreed silently as he forced himself to surrender, to simply wait as the pain burned brighter and his consciousness guttered lower even as it tortured him with visions of the Mists he had failed to reach.
Slowly, Von Kharkov's senses returned.
He was lying, not in the icy water of the Tempe but on ground that was solid and utterly featureless. What —
The Mists! They were all around him!
They had not been a figment of his pain-racked mind! They had been real! They had reached down into the water itself and swallowed him up!
And for the first time since that terrible moment in Karg, he felt hope. Not hope that he could someday be human again — his humanity was irretrievably lost — but hope that he could at least be free, free to think and act on his own, but most of all, free of the horrors he had been forced to commit again and again, whenever Dakovny grew bored or wished for another enemy to be destroyed in retaliation for some minor misdeed, either actual or imagined.
Surely even Dakovny's kind could not follow him here!
And the voice —
Von Kharkov smiled abruptly. The voice was gone. There was only silence in his mind. Only his own thoughts.
Eagerly, he leapt to his feet and looked around.
But there was nothing, only the Mists. He could see a few yards into them before they blotted out his vision, but that was all.
And the silence of the world around him was as complete as the silence in his mind.
He began to walk. But though he could see the featureless ground move beneath his feet, nothing changed. There was only the muffling whiteness of the Mists flowing by him. And the silence. Even his own footsteps were swallowed up in it. He could see his feet striking the ground, could feel them thud against it, but no sound reached his ears, ears that had once been able to catch the rustle of a single leaf as it drifted gently to mosscushioned ground.
He ran, but even that was silent and dreamlike, and he began to wonder: Did this place have no end? Had he escaped into the Mists? Or simply been trapped by them?
He remembered the last word the voice had spoken to him, the word his own mind had echoed! Fool. .
A wave of dizziness swept over him, and the Mists seemed to thicken and coil more tightly around him.
But only for an instant. As he lurched to a stop, the muffled silence suddenly evaporated, replaced by the rustling of thousands of leaves in the wind, the beating of wings overhead, the padding of a predator's feet as it stalked its prey through the underbrush —
And the Mists were gone.
A forest — a jungle! — surrounded him, with all its myriad scents and sounds flooding his senses.
Scents and sounds he was certain he had never experienced before, yet were instantly and intimately familiar. The spoor of a hundred different animals conjured up a hundred different images, each as detailed as if the animal itself were standing before him. The cries and flapping wings of a hundred birds, the muffled buzz of countless insects, the fragrance of decaying vegetation drifting up from the matted jungle floor, all assaulted his senses, screaming their familiarity. For a moment, the puzzle of that familiarity gripped him, but he quickly cast it aside. It wasn't important. All that mattered was that he was free!
Or was he?
A new chill of fear gripped him.
He stood perfectly still, listening not to the eerily familiar world around him but to his inner world. Ever since that long-ago night in Karg, there had not been a moment when he had been alone in his mind. The voice might not always be heard, but its potential had always been there, like a velvet cord looped about his neck, waiting to be pulled tight.
And Dakovny's eyes. .
They were never seen, but they were always felt. Dakovny had been a constant presence in Von Kharkov's mind, just out of range, never touchable, but always there, watching, waiting, ready to take control at any moment, to grip the velvet cord and pull it tight in an instant.
Von Kharkov listened. With his ears and with his mind.
And there was nothing!
He was alone, truly alone, in his mind!
For a long time, that was enough. Like someone who has just emerged from years in a dungeon into the open air, Von Kharkov was euphoric with the simple pleasure of freedom, of looking at what he wanted to look at, of touching what he wanted to touch, of not having to constantly fight to cloak his true thoughts, his true intentions from what he had come to see as a hated part of himself.
Finally, more practical thoughts began to intrude.
Where was he? Was this world, wherever it was, nothing but jungle? Were there no people? No villages? No cities?
But the thought cheered rather than worried him. Villages and cities held only painful memories. It was Karg where he had gone to seek immortality, and where, to his everlasting regret, he had found it. It was in Karg and other cities of Darkon he had been forced to assume the form of the Beast and perform for his master, again and again.
Here in the jungle, there would be no vampire masters. No innocent victims to be tortured and killed for his master's idle amusement. Only others like the Beast, content in their mindlessness, never knowing —
A chill swept over him, moist and clammy, and everything was silence. It was as if every living creature within earshot had frozen, motionless, not even breathing.
Suddenly, his every sense was hyper-alert.
Something physically cold and damp brushed against his back.
Silently, he spun toward the touch.
And saw the Mists. For a fleeting instant, they swirled before him, and then they were gone.