Alexina

  (Winter, six months after the founding of the Eastern Empire).

  The storm outside the inn rattled its stone walls like the wrath of an ancient god of thunder, frightening the humans huddled near the crackling fire burning in the hearth. The inn was small and set precariously into the side of a mountain ,just off the road leading through a lesser known pass, with a common room set with tables and benches showing years of hard use. The kitchen was in the basement below, along with the storerooms, while the stables were a short distance away with the animals snug in their own stone building.

  Wood smoke from the fire mingled with the odors of cheap beer and human sweat… along with the cold scent of undead Vampyres, which Lady Alexina alone could smell coming off the scrawny innkeeper and his equally skinny, scraggly haired wife.

  Sitting in the inn’s only good chair, well padded with stout armrests in the corner beside the hearth, Alexina sipped an… adequate enough wine and wondered how the evening would play out. It amused her to watch the fat merchant in his wool cloak and travel worn garments, along with his half dozen, slovenly guards, speak condescendingly towards the monsters planning their demise.

  Lady Alexina had no such worries. Her five guards were armored in leather with plates of thick hide transmuted into Artifact, hard as steel yet light as the original leather, and transmuted swords made of carved ironwood which never lost their edge. Her familiar stood at her elbow: a short, squat, Daemo creature with yellow and purple skin, bald as an egg with a purple mana stone embedded in its forehead, ready to serve its mistress in a moment’s notice.

  The undead wife looked her way. Alexina’s face took on an amused expression, glanced at the merchant and shrugged, then patted both her captain’s shoulder and her familiar’s before leaning back in her chair. The undead wife put her hands together and bowed slightly, a gesture of respect to someone of higher social standing, then returned her attention to the merchant. Cosmetics had been applied to both the innkeeper and especially the wife, giving them the illusion of life, and despite her disheveled appearance, the merchant seemed to be enjoying her fawning all over him. Alexina sipped her wine and smiled. If the merchant knew what I know, he would be on his knees right now, begging me to save him.

  The merchant, who chanced to look her way, saw the smile and turned pale. The innkeeper’s wife patted his hand. “Don’t worry,” she said quietly in Ruska, the local language, “the Daemo sorceress isn’t interested in you.”

  Seated on the inn’s second best chair on the side of the hearth closest to the door, he whispered, “She might be if she hears you and takes offense.”

  “She don’t speak no Ruska,” the undead wife replied. “The only one of her group who does is the one asleep in the corner.” Alexina listened to Vlad’s soft snores as the wife went on. “Just leave her alone and she won’t bother you.”

  “But the Daemo are blood drinkers,” he argued quietly, “and I’ve heard stories of Vampyres who masquerade as living people. What if her men aren’t men at all?”

  “Husband and I lived up here a long time and we know the signs. Trust me, they’re human.” She patted his hand again. “And even if she was interested, she would never take but a dram or so. Her blood needs are few, especially in one old as her.”

  The merchant looked up in surprise. “Old? How can you tell?”

  The undead wife smiled without showing teeth. “All Daemo females look similar, with their wide eyes and skinny bodies, but if a sorceress is young, her skin’s pale and the purple color of her hair is light. But the more sorcery she uses, the deeper the purple color, both in her hair and her skin.” The wife shrugged. “That’s just a general way to tell the old from the young. There’s no way to tell an ancient Daemo from one just old.”

  Might as well join the fun. “Actually, there is,” Alexina said in Ruska. The merchant gasped while the undead wife froze like a mouse in a hawk’s shadow. Alexina laughed. “Be of good cheer, master merchant. You are safe. My men provide me with all the sustenance I need, both in blood and in… other fluids.”

  The fat merchant cleared his throat. “I have heard stories of the… carnal nature of your people, good lady, but always thought them exaggerated.”

  Alexina raised her wine glass and sipped. “I’ve heard the same stories and they’re actually quite tame, compared to our true nature.”

  The merchant’s eyes went wide as the undead wife slowly took a step away. “I didn’t mean nothing, great lady. Just didn’t know you spoke our language.” The wife motioned at Vlad, being elbowed awake by the man beside him, probably so he could translate. “You let that one do all the talking.”

  “I find it better to be cautious. Do you know how I came to understand Ruska? No? Many years ago a Vampyr bit my shoulder and injected a bit of its essence, thinking a Daemo sorceress would be a useful thing, were she under his control. Unfortunately for him, my centuries of Daemo sorcery left me rather resistant to other forms of magic and I used this to kill him.” Alexina pulled from her robes a knife with an elk horn hilt and a black, shiny blade inscribed with runes of power, holding it up for all to see. “The poor Vampyr died but did leave me his gift of understanding your language.” She gave the undead wife a cold smile as she laid the knife down on the armrest. “Isn’t it strange the effects magic can have, even if you resist it?”

  Without waiting for an answer, she said to the merchant, “To answer the question, I need to know if you’ve ever seen another Daemo before, or just know of us by hearsay?”

  “I… yes, I’ve seen them before, in the Great Caravansary just outside the walls of the city now called Konstanopolis. There were two providing entertainment, the sorceress with light purple hair and the dancer with hair the color of sweet cream.”

  “How would you describe their faces?”

  “They were beautiful, in an exotic sort of way.”

  “And how does my face compare with theirs?” The merchant hesitated and Alexina’s voice grew sharp. “Merchant, don’t try false flattery, for I know what men are about by the scent they give off.”

  He gasped. “It’s true then? Daemo can smell a lie?”

  She leaned back in her chair. “We can smell if you know it’s a lie. Now, tell me how you’d describe my face?”

  “Striking,” he replied, his jowls quivering as he sat up straight. “Also… and this is a guess, so please don’t take offense, but there seems to be a leanness about you the other Daemo didn’t have.”

  “The word you want is emaciated,” Vlad said from behind her. Alexina turned in her chair to look at him and he added, “Don’t give me that look, my lady. You need to feed more.” Vlad quickly translated for the others and they nodded their heads, giving her rather pointed expressions.

  Alexina smiled as she turned around. “They started as guards and along the way turned into nursemaids. Regardless, you have correctly stated the way you can tell the ancient from the merely old. Daemo don’t die of natural causes; we never age the way you humans do, nor do we suffer from disease, and with enough sustenance we heal from the injuries we suffer. Yet, we are quite fragile, compared to you.”

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  “But I’ve seen misshapen Daemo warriors in the Konstanopolis grand arena,” the merchant said. “”They seemed extremely fierce.”

  Lady Alexina made a tossing away gesture with her hand. “When you don’t fear death, it’s easy to be fierce. But tell me: how many of those misshapen warriors still lived at the end?”

  “Three,” he replied. “They were the last ones, and the emperor’s son actually allowed them to live.”

  “They must have been exceptionally fierce, for as I understand it, the emperor’s son is the bloodthirsty sort who squeals at the sight of his own. Regardless, since by our request there are few laws punishing anyone who hurts or kills us, not many Daemo last more than a few decades. We cherish death, master merchant, cherish it the way you doubtless cherish coin or the way my men cherish their wine. We cherish it because when we die, we are reborn in the spawning pits of our world as a young Daemo, with no memories of our former life. Everything is new again and even though our faces and our bodies remain the same as they’d been, nothing we did in the past life is held against us. The slate of our old life is wiped clean.”

  “Please excuse this as indelicate, but if that’s the case, lady Daemo, why are you still here?”

  “An excellent question.” Alexina finished off the wine in her cup before looking back at him. “I am still here because a long time ago, a very, very, very long time ago, the princes of the Daemo fought the Celestials, the ones your people hold to be gods, for mastery of the world known as Earth.”

  His eyes went wide in his round face. “Jupiter save us. What happened?”

  Alexina snorted. “We lost,” she replied, setting her empty wine cup on the armrest, “or the conversation we’re having would be a far different one, I assure you. On our world, when you’re reborn in the spawning pits and make your way out, the being who controls that particular spawning site have sorceress’s who possess the ability to reshape both your body and your spirit, if the being in charge so desires. These days, the sorceress’s fine tune some of the young ones to fit in with human society and not be a threat to them, though the older a Daemo gets, the less she worries about what others think.”

  “A trait shared by many older humans,” the merchant said.

  Alexina inclined her head. “However, I was crafted to help the princes win the war, which is why I look so different from the younger ones. I was crafted with the desire to live, to fight, to do whatever it took to give our princes the victory.” She sighed. “In the end, it didn’t matter. At the war’s beginning, there were more than a dozen princes, held together by Arch-Lord Qygot. However, the last time I came out of the spawning pit and was crafted to look like this before being sent here, Qygot was crawling out of another pit himself, a normal Daemo once more. The last three princes eventually gave up the fight and fled, leaving their minions behind. Many of us died, yet many more survived by fleeing the battlefields and hiding wherever they could.”

  “Didn’t the gods hunt you down?”

  Alexina shook her head. “By their own admission, they were exhausted and far more concerned that the last princes would raise new armies and invade again. By the time the gods realized the war was over, the Daemo monsters the princes had created had found themselves lairs in the wild places of the world, while the rest of us had established ourselves with the human civilizations emerging from the ruins. Since we were helping the human kingdoms, and later your empires, become more civilized, the gods let us be, with the ones not returning to the Heavens establishing themselves over mankind.”

  “Lady Daemo, this is fascinating,” the merchant said, leaning forward in his chair. “Might I ask what courts you have served on, over the years?”

  She leaned back in hers, forefinger idly caressing the blade of the knife. “Sumer and Xian were the first to rise, and I had a place in both at different times. Babylonia, and when they fell, Mynos, with their philosopher-kings.” She shrugged. “There were many others.”

  “Great lady,” the undead wife said, “why are you here? This is only a humble inn, sitting in the middle of the mountains, not a palace or grand temples.”

  “I’m here because the storm drove us off the road to seek shelter. But that’s not the question you’re asking.” Alexina watched as a dark haired, slender servant girl, a living human no doubt in thrall to the innkeeper, threw a log on the fire, causing it to blaze up. “I find the older I get, the less enamored I’ve become with palaces and temples, with intrigues, plots, counter-plots, and the like. It’s said that a Daemo pines away if she cannot scheme against someone. It used to be true. Yet now I find myself wanting a more simple life, with my only concerns where my next meal will come from, or what service can I do to earn gold and pay my men.” She laughed unexpectedly as she turned her gaze back to the merchant. “I would become a dancer at the Grand Caravansary, except my men would likely throw a fit.”

  Glancing back as Vlad translated her remarks to the others, every one of them gave her a stern look which made her laugh again. Then the door banged open and every head turned as a blast of cold air swept through the room. “Apologies,” a tall man in armor said in Roma, as he closed the door behind him. “Mother and I seek lodging tonight.” He stepped into the light coming off the fire.

  His face was young with a definite wolfish cast and a body whipcord lean, wearing leather armor covered in thick pieces of shiny black Artifact plate pitted and cracked from hard use. He wore black gloves but no helm, his shoulder length hair bound in a warrior’s braid and a katana style sword in a sheathe slung at his back. The light picked up the silvery-grey color of the young man’s hair and Alexina’s eyes went wide. A Shadow-walker? Here?

  She stood up, armor rustling behind her as her men and familiar went on alert, while the undead innkeeper babbled, “Welcome, welcome young master. Do you know Ruska?”

  At the young man’s puzzled expression, Alexina said, “Master innkeeper, it appears he doesn’t. I’ll translate for you. The innkeeper gives welcome,” she said in Roma before the undead man could reply, “but be on guard. Can you keep face still?”

  “I can,” he replied, “but curiosity as to why?’

  Alexina took a deep breath. “Because innkeeper and wife are Vampyr, which means ghouls lurk in basement.” The young man stiffened imperceptibly, but kept his face in its pleasant mask, smiling as if she’d welcomed him herself. Good, this might not descend into chaos after all.

  She’d forgotten about the merchant. “Gaaah!” The merchant flung himself out of the chair, knocking over the servant girl as he scrambled away. “Vampyr,” he said in Roma to the half-dozen men sitting at the table, pointing at the innkeeper. “Show valor or lose position.”

  Alexina’s misshapen Daemo familiar, with the purple stone embedded in its forehead, knelt beside her and she laid her hand upon its head to draw power. Sounds behind her like ringing crystal told Alexina her men had drawn their Artifact swords as well. The innkeeper snarled, showing long fangs as the cosmetics on his face cracked, and the young man backed away as he yelled, “Asena, Vampyr!” The innkeeper’s wife backed away from everyone as well, calling to something in an inhuman voice as the innkeeper raced towards the young man. A grey oval formed before him and he stepped into it.

  The oval collapsed with the young man inside as the Vampyr ran through the empty spot and slammed face first into the door. It rattled worse than the storm had done as he bounced off, spinning around as the merchant’s guards scrambled away and inhuman squeals began coming from the bowels of the inn.

  An oval formed in front of the Vampyr and the young man stepped through. Behind him, the oval collapsed again as he swung, his katana moving inhumanly fast as he slashed the monster across the face. Milky fluid sprayed from the wound as the innkeeper shrieked and staggered back. The young man’s movements returned to a normal speed as he went to a traditional lower attack position and prepared to slash upward.

  The Vampyr wife jumped onto his back and sank her fangs through a gap in his armor into his upper shoulder, close to his throat. He yelped in pain and dropped the sword, grabbing her by the hair and pulling the Vampyr off him before flinging her at the door. She bounced off and hit the floor as Alexina’s second sight showed tendrils of white mist rising from the wound and seeping into his ears and nose. “You’re mine now,” the undead wife said in Ruska, rising from her crouch as she gave him a grin, showing fang. “Get your sword and kill the Daemo witch and her men.”

  The tendrils turned to ash as they burned away. “Go bugger a goat,” he snarled in Ruska, stumbling backwards a few steps as he shook off the last effects of the spell and came close to where Alexina and her guards held themselves in readiness.

  “Here,” Alexina said as she grabbed the Artifact knife. “Catch.” He turned towards her as she tossed it, catching it with his left hand and spinning back around as the Vampyr hurled herself at him.

  He met her halfway and thrust the knife into her chest. “I burn,” the Vampyr screamed as her skin blackened into char. “I burn…aieee!” The Vampyr’s body turned black and began to break apart, the young man’s eye wide as he pulled the knife out and stepped back.

  The Vampyr’s body crumbled into blackened fragments. “Bastard,” the innkeeper said from a place beside the door, slurring the word as he pressed his hand to his face. “My children will tear you apart and eat your flesh while I drink your blood.” Crashing sounds came from the kitchen as grey-green humanoids that used to be men shambled through the kitchen doorway. Alexina readied a spell as her men readied their weapons and the young man brandished the knife.