15.7
Jewel considered her High King, frail, tired, smelling of a slow rot of death. Supported more by his chair than his body. More draped into the furniture than sitting upon it. So much of him seemingly collapsed inward.
“Thank you for joining us, Lady Jewel.”
She nodded to Mathias, settling onto the cold stone of the feasting hall, with its black stones and polished columns, with the glittering faux night sky in its dome. Barely lit even to her eyes by the subdued number of candles.
For as vast as the room was it was all but abandoned, an accommodation to allow Jewel, Mathias, Erhard and the High Priestess of Asherah, who “holds no name not owned by the mother”, her own priest Leo, and most disconcerting of all a simple woman who looked like little more than a well dressed merchant, her face just as youthful as it had been the first day Jewel had laid eyes upon her, eyes and hair a deep crimson almost lost to the shadows of the room.
The first ‘success’ of Erhard’s vampires.
Franziska Millersdottir.
Jewel took in a breath and then uttered her mind on the matter that she had been called too.
“I am here to speak my dismay for this entire matter, my King. The Vampires ever and always hunger for the blood of the living. They live barely restrained from it by a pact with the heavens, one which can be undone.”
The vampire nodded to Jewel’s words, face slack before she spoke softly.
“The Countess’ words are true, there is not a night or day that goes by without my hunger gnawing from my gut and heart, gnashing from within me every day.”
Mathias took a heavy breath and nodded.
“Yet your son is doing well? He recently married and his wife is expecting a child?”
The thing paused, eyes narrowing to a glare at the High King.
“Leobwin and his wife are doing quite well my king, and my granddaughter was born in the spring, healthy, happy and already exhausting my son and his wife with her fussing.”
Erhard rumbled, finally in the sight and sound of her wyrmish senses again Jewel could see the open candor, the childlike joy and curiosity underneath the stern face and deep roar of a voice.
“Which is the crux of the plan, Franziska Millersdottir performed a rite to bind the will of her blood hungering flesh to her soul. To safeguard her true will and self even when the affliction took hold. To still love, care for and protect her son, facilitated through the miracle of Asherah. Our project will be to extend such a miracle to see that the dead are truly safeguarded.”
The Archpriestess spoke into the silence left by the Wizard’s clamor. Her voice barely traveled in the vastness, contrasting the echo that the iron handed sorcerer had filled it with.
“I have poor tidings for the effort before we have even begun. In convening with the mother Asherah there is a complication, the spirit of even the freshly departed takes flight in a form and nature it is difficult to discern without falling to the false hopes that brought us to this in the first place..”
Mathias attention sharpened where it had waned, his face forming a scowl.
“Is it already doomed?”
The High King’s tone was strained, angry, Erhard rumbled in reply.
“No I think not, in discussion with the Archpriestess it is not an issue of impossibility, but one of clarity, the divinity of Asherah falters in providing the miracle as we state it. I expect we will find the illusive detail with time and effort-”
“For How long?!”
Mathias roared, he stood up straight, then shuddered, began to fall into himself with a wracking cough that was quickly soothed by a gesture from the Archpriestess. Cutting miracles lancing through the man’s chest and neck. Stilling his malady for the time being, but Jewel saw how the vitality of his flesh was only restored so much.
“These things must take time my king, if we rush into it the Miracle will be a thing far worse then death, to even create a working for the Vampires was an effort of years.”
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Erhard’s voice was still a rumble, but a quiet one ever so slightly softened with a care the wizard seemed unfamiliar with.
“Are the vampires not just revenants?”
Leo’s voice sounded far too loud in the space, as both Erhard and the Archpriestess glared at him.
“They most certainly are not! My Predecessor’s work with the Court Wizard assures and maintains their life! Mere revenants would decay, rot and fall into a terrible anguish until their spirits finally departed from the torment of their bodies! Asherah would never allow such a horror to be enacted upon her children!”
Leo nodded, then stepped up from his chair to approach the still standing Franziska.
“So you live? Breath? Eat? Make water?”
The vampire peered at Jewel’s priest before nodding.
“If you would call this life, I breathe yet ever yearn to gasp for more, I eat and am never satisfied... I make water and pass stool only when absolutely necessary for the bloating I feel. I give up naught but what I absolutely must.”
Leo turned back to the Archpriestess.
“Then they are alive? What possible use do you think the rituals for such as the vampires could possibly aid in preserving the dead?”
Erhard nodded to her priest’s words.
“Clever as always, that is the puzzle: how do we make that which lives for that which does not? But make no mistake, clever Leo, without the work of Asherah, all meaningful remains of the woman that stands before you would be gone. Her will would be lost to the blood hunger that seethes in her flesh. Her soul fled from the hungering body. It is proof that the divine can preserve the spirit and hold it fast in place.”
The Wizard’s words were met by nods from the Archpriestess, but Jewel could see Mathias struggling to keep his eyes open, his breathing slowing towards the even pace of sleep.
“Assuming we could even manage whatever horror you want to enact, How will this help those that have already departed?”
Jewel’s words were sharp and deep enough to jolt Mathias awake from his slumber, but she could already see how drained the High King was, even with his focus restored and his every will struggling to maintain him he was only barely maintaining his focus against the weariness that seeped off him.
“We do not even know where to begin to look for the already departed Lady Jewel of Viznove. Asherah is blind to it for all my pleas, when she can see my desire for truth over hope she can speak not of where the dead have gone.”
The Archpriest was again soft, voice gentle, sounding so much like her own Mother trying to sooth Alexander.
“Correct, the High King’s mandate is to find a rite which can secure the souls of the living for the future. An already difficult, but not impossible task.”
Erhard’s flat tone and stern face hid the eagerness of the puzzle he had been presented with. A challenge that Jewel could feel made the wizard’s fingers itch to begin, to build and fashion, to forge and create.
“Us mortals have just had the promise of our life after taken from us, oh Shining Wyrm, mere men no longer have an assurance of forever, and I will see that at least in Cantor Reborn that promise to men is restored!”
Jewel could feel the way his muscles trembled beneath his finery when Mathias stood to roar those words in her face, beneath his bluster she smelled the stink of terror on her King.
“When we have regained security for the souls of the living, then we can concern ourselves with finding the lost dead.”
Mathias collapsed back into his throne with a wince of pain, she could hear his flesh complaining for bruises welling up where he had come down onto the edge of it too hard for his thighs.
“If that is the High King’s command, Viznove will do what it can in this endeavor, but for concern of your health I must recommend you seek rest my liege.”
The look Mathias gave her was furious, but it soon sagged into a defeated frown.
“Yes, I see that the matter is well in hand with Court Wizard Erhard and the Archpriestess of Asherah. Advise them as you would myself Countess of Viznove.”
He stood, his legs briefly trembling before another whisper from the Archpriestess and a stabbing intercession from the heavens restored his vigor and strength for the time being. He strode from the room with a strength she could already see fading.
Jewel eyed the Archpriestess after the High Kin acquired an escort from one of the guards posted outside the room.
“Why do you not give him a greater miracle to restore his vigor?”
Before the Archpriestess could answer Erhard hissed like water spilled on hot coals.
“High King Mathias follows the strictures of the Pantheon closer than their own priests, It is not the place of the god’s touch to linger upon the rulership of mortal men. He demands that no miracle should touch him any more than absolutely necessary.”
The Archpriestess sighed in exasperated agreement.
“I do so wish our King would allow himself just a bit more sin then he does, Asherah’s heart goes out to his suffering every night.”
Jewel turned to consider the closed doors that Mathias had left through with a frown.
Leo’s mutters were quiet enough only she could hear them. “He probably is just terrified that too many miracles could risk making him a god.”