Of Truth and Beasts

She glanced at him from the corner of her one good eye and reached under the counter to pull out a brown glass bottle.

“Perhaps instead you wish to remove a rival or two?” she said. “Clear the way to your heart’s desire, the one you covet?”

Her ironic needling bothered him. The one he coveted was so much farther beyond his reach than something that simple. His rival, if any, was only himself—what he was. That was something Chane could never clear away between himself and Wynn. Without reply, he counted out coins, stacking them on the counter.

When he finished, the old woman smiled again and shook her head.

Chane counted out more until he’d gone through nearly half the coins in the pouch.

It would have been so much simpler—more satisfying—to just kill this decrepit wretch. 

Sau’ilahk watched Chane step out of the shop. The vampire paused to shift his pack to a more settled position, and then he took something shiny from his pouch and extended a finger.

Chane slipped on a brass ring.

Sau’ilahk almost lurched out of the awning’s dark shadows as Chane’s undead presence vanished from his awareness. In a thousand years, he had rarely been surprised like this. Was it as simple as a ring?

For all that he had discerned of Chane’s skills, he had never seen this undead display an aptitude for artificing. Chane had not displayed talent enough to make such a device. Why would a vampire need such a thing, when the living would never know what it was until too late?

But Sau’ilahk could see its use. For those brief instances, when he manifested himself fully, that ring could hide him, as well ... from Chane and the dog.

A shift of air broke his obsessed thoughts. The servitor returned and immediately began reiterating all sounds it had recorded inside the shop.

Sau’ilahk listened, though there was little of use that he heard—except perhaps for one term. The servitor vanished with a puff of a breeze, its task fulfilled, but Sau’ilahk continued to ponder.

What could Chane possibly want with corpse-skirt?

He suddenly knew.

Chane sought a remedy to stave off dormancy.

Sau’ilahk had seen such a work only once, long ago in his time among Beloved’s Children. How had Chane uncovered this rare secret? Where had he learned it? Who could have possibly known in order to teach him?

Three times when Sau’ilahk had gone to Beloved beneath the mountain during daylight, one or more of the Children had been present, fully awake! Why was never clear, but it had nagged him so much that he had gone to the Eaters of Silence. He’d threatened that trio of mad servants to his god until they revealed the truth. One of them had assisted in the making of a concoction containing ... What had it been called then? Something from Chane’s own region? Ah yes, Dyvjàka Svonchek—boar’s bell.

Perhaps Chane was nothing more than a common vampire, a mere dabbler in conjury with a growing bag of minor tricks. But did this make him more dangerous or more dependent on what could be taken away from him?

Sau’ilahk hung in the dark, uncertain. 

Chane headed away from the waterfront district, realizing one more task was necessary before returning to Wynn. The apothecary had asked for more than he expected. Half the money from the guild was gone, and he had to replace it.

At a loud voice, Chane slowed and glanced left.

A sailor tumbled out of a tavern door, as if shoved, and stumbled into the middle of the side street.

“Curse you, Ramón!” the man shouted, slurring the words. “You cheat! You cheated me ... and I won’t forget it!”

A shorter, more sober man stepped in the doorframe, his features shadowed amid the light spilling out behind him from inside the establishment. A raucous mix of voices from inside could be heard as well.

“I never cheat, Dusin,” the second man answered. “I don’t have to. You’re too drunk to play the tiles as well as others ... let alone against me.”

Chane kept a steady, slow pace as he crossed the intersection. He casually turned in against a building to peer back around the corner.

The drunken sailor, Dusin, charged and took a wild swing at the object of his rage. Ramón easily sidestepped, letting the door close, and hooked his assailant’s ankle with his foot. Dusin teetered, slamming face-first into the doorframe, and immediately flopped onto the building’s landing.

“Sleep it off,” Ramón called over his shoulder as he walked away. “Try me later ... when you’ve got enough coin.”

Dusin rolled on the landing, holding his face and moaning.

Chane caught the thin scent of blood in the side street’s shifting air. It was so good, that smell, but he had no interest in the loser—only the winner.

Ramón strolled up the way toward the intersection.

Chane flattened against the wall around the corner, watching him pass. He stayed there, waiting as Ramón headed straight onward. Once Ramón was beyond the intersection, Chane hurried to the far corner and looked around the edge.