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The first glimpse Wyll saw of his Husband was a shimmer of white moving behind the woven lattice that separated their mahogany box cabinets. The Vampire Lord had entered through the cabinet’s back door and sat on the hard cushion, and was now separated from Wyll only by a few inches. However, where a living creature may give off heat, a noise or a scent, there was simply nothing there. He was a solid white shadow.
Wyll avoided looking through the latticework at him. There will be time enough for looking later.
The priest spoke. Wyll answered when his name was said. The priest spoke again.
“Of course I do,” said the Vampire. His voice was rich and came with a slight, almost musical whine, like a violin.
Then the Vampire shifted, pulling back the wide sleeve of his black vestment to extend a long, bone-white hand and rest it delicately in Wyll’s line of sight, palm up. Blue vein marbling snaked back inside his heavy robe sleeve.
Despite himself, Wyll’s hand was warm and damp. He laid his palm over the Vampire’s hand and felt the undead fingers close around him.
The priest bound them loosely in white ribbon. He blessed the union and unwound them before he bowed out of the room.
Wyll had been chastening himself not to release his grip too soon, but the Vampire slipped away almost immediately. He rose into view, cloaked in a heavy black chasuble.
Wyll drew back instinctively.
The Vampire was astonishing. His hair fell about like pale fire around his sylphlike, supple face. Above his viciously red eyes, his eyebrows arched in slight disapproval. Every point of him was symmetrical and slender, like an Arabian horse: lean but not skinny, instead exuding a sharpened sense of power.
“I see,” The Vampire turned his head. His voice still had that violin-whine. “At least you have some looks. The last few spouses they sent me were like fat hens and squawking partridges… But why did they dress you in such an ugly, mottled outfit?”
Wyll resisted glancing down at his robes and instead held eye-contact with the Vampire.
“Well? Do you speak?”
“I do,” said he.
The Vampire curled his lip. “I suppose a better question is – do you have anything intelligent to say?”
Wyll stood and bowed. “Please lead the way, my Lord.”
The Vampire turned and stalked through the wide, chilly stone chapel. Wyll looked around as they left the room. At the head of the pews, the stone plinth which should have held a God’s statue was conspicuously empty.
In the cavernous hallways of the Vampire’s palace, the sunlight was red. The last hour of dusk was staining scarlet the city of Baldur’s Gate outside the tall, narrow windows. Clouds packed the horizon like an open wound.
“It looks like a beautiful night is approaching,” Wyll said.
“At least the day is dying,” the Vampire responded, morosely. He barely glanced at the crimson skyline. “I find I can only think when night falls.”
“Why do you think that is?” Wyll asked.
The Vampire cast a glance over his shoulder at him.
“You are perhaps too young to remember any different, child,” the Vampire said, “but do you know why the sky is always red?”
The Vampire threw open his chamber doors. Inside, lit only by the low crimson sun, his lair was an expansive marble room, laid with thick, opulent rugs. Braziers of oud and myrrh thickened and warmed the late-evening air, curling smoke up into the distant ceiling. Tapestries hung on the wall, but the red light was too dim for Wyll’s human eyes to make out the intricately embroidered designs.
Everything in the room was masked and softened in a way that made Wyll’s skin prickle. He couldn’t help but scan the thickly carpeted shadows—even though the clear and present danger was standing before him, waiting for an answer.
“Well?” The Vampire snapped. “If you really are this dull, the night will be a long one.”
“They say you killed so many of the faithful that the Gods themselves bleed into the heavens,” Wyll said, refusing to be ruffled by the Vampire’s tone.
The Vampire sighed and released Wyll from his gaze. He stalked to a low, long chaise lounge and lay down upon it. Head thrown back, the Vampire beckoned. “Come lie with me, child. I will give you such pleasure that, come morning, you will scarcely mind dying.”
Wyll went rigid.
“What is it now?” The Vampire’s eyes narrowed to red slits. “You cannot be so naive to not know what couples do on their wedding night!”
“Forgive me, my Lord,” Wyll said. He approached, but only knelt a short distance from the chaise lounge, head low. “As you say, I am naive. I am shy of touch.”
“But not too shy to be my Husband,” the Vampire said, archly.
Wyll lay his hands on the rug in supplication. His outfit looked strange in the crimson gloom, an off-black, mottled and lumpy robe. “I only volunteered to feed you with my body, my Lord. Not to be fed in return.”
The Vampire regarded him suspiciously. “You would be very pleased. There was a time when men spent their life savings just to have me. We are married, and although you are human and like a dumb animal compared to me, you do have some dues.”
“I do not wish to exercise that right, my Lord,” Wyll said.
The Vampire tossed his head. “Suit yourself. But I will not eat you before dawn, and I am at a loss of how to spend the time before then.”
Wyll bit his lip. He straightened up. “Allow me to show you something interesting, my Lord.”
The Vampire flicked a lazy hand in his direction.
Wyll slipped to his feet. He crossed the room and lifted a cold brazier from the wall. With the dull flame of an incense burner, Wyll lit the brazier.
Light bloomed — and colour with it.
The Vampire rose from his lounging, eyes wide. In the red light of day, Wyll’s robes had looked dull, brownish-black. But in the white flame’s light, the rich, royal blues glowed to life and sensuous, living oranges and yellows danced.
Revealed by the brazier’s light, Wyll’s tunic was a magical and fantastic spectacle, a shower of golden thread, a cascade of riches over the dark blue sky of his chest. Flowers bloomed and rivers burst across his shoulders, devils marched along his coattails, satyrs and naiads jumped and chased across his waist. The crowning beauty of his uniform was his colourful silk sash around his waist, of the finest, densest, most decadent material in an imperial purple.
“Oh my,” The Vampire said. He looked even more pretty when he was pleased. “That is an impressive trick.”
Wyll approached him and set the brazier down in the space between them. He felt the Vampire’s red eyes scour every inch of his expensive, embroidered coat.
“You’ll have to strip before I kill you,” the Vampire purred in satisfaction. “I can’t stand a drop of blood falling upon this needlework.”
“I am happy to please you, my Lord,” said Wyll.
“In fact, take it off now,” the Vampire said. “I wish to inspect it.”
Wyll looked regretful. “I fear the cold, my Lord.”
“I suppose the stress from the chill will make your meat sour,” the Vampire said, with a sigh. “I will have time enough to explore your tunic tomorrow.”
Wyll nodded.
The Vampire was mesmerised. The rich colours of the coat seemed to throw colour into the surroundings, all the brighter for the gloom of the lair. It looked like the clothes of a God.
“The talent to create such a garment is rarer than silver or gold and all the more fleeting,” The Vampire said. “If it was you who has sewn it, I will spare your life and marry another tonight.”
“Regrettably, it was not,” Wyll said.
“Honest to a fault, dull child,” the Vampire tutted. “Tell me who made your wedding suit.”
“I do not know the tailor myself,” Wyll said. “It was given to me by a dear friend. He is the one who travelled to the distant lands of Cimbar, he is the one who saved the old King there from curse and was granted this beautiful coat of blue and yellow when he refused the hand of the Princess.”
“It was a wise choice!” the Vampire chuckled. “I have eaten many wives and none have been worth a coat of this quality.”
“Indeed, my Lord.”
“Tell me the name of your friend and I will ask him tomorrow where the coat came from,” the Vampire said.
“I do not know his name,” Wyll said. “He is good friend of mine, but a very private individual. I know only his alias. He is known as the Blade of Frontiers.”
“What a curious title!” The Vampire exclaimed. “To be only the Blade? And who wields him?”
“There are many answers to that question,” Wyll said, with a secret smile.
“Tell me where he is to be found, and I will send my minions after him,” the Vampire said. “He will come to no harm. I will reward him handsomely for sourcing the tailor of this garment. Even Cimbar is not terribly far from my Empire’s reach.”
“I confess, I have never seen him in the same place twice,” Wyll said. “He is the wandering type.”
The Vampire hissed and rolled his shoulders. “I tire of your cryptic nature, boy! Tell me where I may find him! Where was he headed when last you spoke?”
“I did not think to enquire,” Wyll said. “As you say, I will not live past the morning.”
“Then where does he hail from?” The Vampire demanded. “Well trained dogs and flying birds return to their homes with regularity. At the very least, there will be those who know more of him than you do, my humdrum Husband.”
“He was born in Baldur’s Gate,” Wyll said. “But, alas, he will not return here. He is an exile.”
“Lies. I have never exiled anyone.”
“It was a long time hence,” Wyll said. “Before your ascension two decades ago.”
The Vampire tossed his shoulders back. “Surely he knows the old party politics do not stand. I would not turn away such an impressive traveller. I reward those who bring beauty into my Empire!”
“I told him such, my Lord,” Wyll said. “But his exile was more than just a fact of law. He felt it a moral duty not to return, on account of his Father’s wishes.”
“His Father’s wishes?” The Vampire curled his lip. “Who was this man’s Father?”
Wyll rested his hands on his knees. His clothing glowed gently in the brazier’s soft light. Calm rolled off him like heat from a stove. His expression was of such perfect peace that he could have soothed a rearing snake with naught but a black-eyed glance.
“It may be easier, my Lord, to start at the beginning,” Wyll said. “My friend told me everything one night. I can relay it all you, should you wish it.”
“Go on,” the Vampire said, with a flick of his hand. “We have all night, dear Husband.”
*
By the time dawn’s light quickened scarlet across the rugs and furnishings of the Vampire’s chambers, Wyll’s throat was dry with the telling, but his audience was enraptured. The Vampire Lord must have seen the sun’s bloody light creep across the chamber floor, but he waited, with bated breathe, eking out every moment of the story. He leaned over the edge of his sofa, as if he wanted to snap up the tale with his impressive fangs.
Finally, when the Vampire could deny it no longer, he threw back his head with a howl. “Husband, your tale was too long! Morning has arrived upon our door and it is not finished!”
“I apologise, dear heart,” Wyll croaked. “Stories are like a thread in a tapestry; though they seem short in the weave, they wind upon themselves and knot in a thousand places.”
“Jump ahead, then! I am looking forward to the comeuppance for your Blade’s foolish arrogance. It will satisfy me to hear him suffer a great deal.”
“I may only tell it as I heard it from the man himself,” Wyll reminded the Vampire. “I shall not lie to you, my Lord.”
“Tell me quick,” the Vampire demanded. “No more diversions, pleasurable though they were. Does the Blade’s noble Father understand what he sacrificed for the city — although he’s forbidden from saying the words? How does he escape the contract with the She-Devil? Tell me now, swiftly child, swiftly, so I may eat you before my court reconvenes.”
“The question is short, my Lord, but the answer is long and tangled,” Wyll said, regretfully. “You may eat me if you will it, but I confess I cannot shorten my tale.”
The Vampire growled to himself. He regarded the red sunlight with disdain. He ground his sharp teeth together, the powerful muscles of his jaws rising under his porcelain skin.
“Fie upon thee!” The Vampire exclaimed. “I will not eat you this day. Drink and rest your throat and wait for my teeth. I will hear the end of tale by the moon’s rise tonight.”
With that announcement, the Vampire flew to his feet. His speed was incredible. He crossed the rug like a greyhound at full stride, throwing the doors open and vanishing.
Wyll waited, still kneeling upon the rug, for a long, quiet moment. When he pressed his hand down his body had begun to shake.
Red had filled the tall, narrow windows behind the Vampire’s lounge. The world outside was silent. Little foliage grew in the crimson sunlight, and without plant life, there was no seeds for the rats and the birds, and no leaves for the cows and the rabbits, and no roots for boar and the deer. The land had emptied of life. Within the boundaries of the Vampire Lord’s red-skied Empire, the only things that moved through the barren lands were the spawn and undead servants shepherding the humanoid chattel from kennel to kennel.
Wyll vomited into an empty basin of incense. His stomach felt like a ringed rag, tied up in a long twist. He would not allow himself to cry. He had not cried in many years.
All he did was drag a few rugs together and curl up under them, like a stray cat under floorboards.
*
By night, the Vampire returned. He looked like he had sprinted from the closing of his court to his chambers. The sun was only just starting to sink under the tall skyline of the Old City. It had not yet been twenty-four hours since they had wed.
“My Husband,” Wyll said, bowing his forehead to the marble. “Fare thee well at court?”
“I fared very unwell!” The Vampire exclaimed. His red eyes were wild and his beautiful, snowy curls fell askew. “Your tale was like a leech upon my brain. I thought of little else. Finish it, now, so I may be rid of it.”
“My Lord, sit,” Wyll soothed. “You are working yourself into a fever.”
The Vampire threw himself upon the lounge sofa, black robes tangling about him. He sat with a tension all the way through him, like a white lion about to pounce.
“Remind me where I left off?” Wyll asked.
The Vampire looked murderous. “At the clearing outside the city! The Blade had just defeated the Tiamat cult! Hours you told his tale and yet, I am no closer to learning the habits and nature of this man — except, perhaps, that he has a tendency to jump into situations far beyond his ability to handle them!”
Wyll nodded, uncertainly.
“I am waiting for the day when he learns his lesson,” the Vampire gestured wildly. “When he learns that there is no place in this world for goodliness and heroism. He will no doubt soon be dashed upon the rocks of fate!”
“As you say, my Lord,” Wyll said. “Let us get to the dashing.”
*
By dawn, the Vampire had taken to pacing manically around Wyll like a circling vulture. Agitation rolled off him. It was distracting in the extreme to be chased about by such a powerful, intimidating predator.
Three times, Wyll had requested his audience be seated. Three times, the Vampire had merely snarled at him to continue his telling.
At morning’s edge, the Vampire finally threw himself back upon the sofa. “Irritating creature! We are no closer to the finish than we were at nightfall. And the tales you tell — first he hunts through the fiery abyss of Avernus, then him and his quarry both are kidnapped by a Nautoloid, a plane-faring vessel captained by an extra-terrestrial? Absurd in the extreme!”
“I can only tell it as he told me, my Lord,” Wyll said.
“He has rightly taken you for a fool, Husband,” the Vampire said. “You are only repeating an old drunk’s incoherent nonsense to your Emperor.”
Said Wyll: “I believe him, my Lord.”
“You have the brainpower of a frog,” the Vampire tossed his head like a bridled horse. “I am not so gullible as thee.”
The Vampire stood again, and this time, approached Wyll directly. It was all the human could do not to lean away as the Vampire loomed large above him.
“I am hungry, Husband,” said the Vampire.
Wyll looked up at him. The Vampire Lord filled his vision.
“You will finish your tale tonight,” the Vampire continued. “I will accept no more delays. No more childhood tales, or Devil games, or pleasant diversions. If you attempt these again I will beat you. At nightfall you will give me useful information. You will please me, and then I will eat you.”
“As you wish, my Lord,” Wyll responded, throat dry.
The Vampire grunted softly and, like a snow leopard abandoning a meal, stalked silently out of the lair.
Wyll turned to watch him go. Crimson glowed in the curls of the Vampire Lord’s hair. The massive double doors closed with finality.
Silence filled the chamber.
Wyll ran a hand over his forehead and adjusted the fall of his long braids. He had reached the end of his fated lifespan, and lived as long on his wits as he might have expected to. All his charm had amounted to was two extra days with his head in the lion’s jaws.
He stood.
Red sunlight burned through the curtains. Distant birds dotted the sky, like flies on an open wound.
From behind the lounging throne, Wyll shifted rugs to reveal a small cherrywood coffer with a golden lock. He lifted the lid to reveal a round brass container of tobacco and rolling papers.
Did a Vampire smoke? In the sun, perhaps. Although that joke was outdated—the red sun of the Vampire’s Empire did not burn the skin of his spawn. There was no time, day or night, when Wyll had been safe from them.
Wyll lifted the tobacco out and found dust and wood shavings underneath. But he noticed that the outside of the coffer box promised more space than the inside provided. He felt along the bottom. He found the tiny hinges and felt along the other side to find the little loop of ribbon that could be lifted.
There was a folded up blanket inside the false bottom. It had worn gauzy and thin in places, soft and slightly fuzzy with bobbles and lifting threads. Wyll lifted it delicately. There was a smudge to the material which suggested it might have once, very long ago, held a pattern.
Underneath was a book. This book was redolent with the enticing smell of paper and ink. Wyll picked it up and turned it over. The pages were fat and crinkled, as if the thoughts written within had thickened the pages themselves.
It fell open on Wyll’s lap.
“Before I was Dalyria, vampire spawn slave to Cazador Szarr,” Wyll read, running his finger along the ancient ink lettering. “I was Doctor Dalyria, Physician General to the Parliament of Baldur's Gate…”
*
The Vampire returned, already scowling, in a sweep of black vestments. He climbed back upon his lounge and settled like a cat.
Behind the throne, another day was dying. Wyll lit another brazier and set it between them.
“How did court fare, my Lord?” Wyll asked.
“Chuh. We do not need pleasantries,” the Vampire said.”Your tale, Husband. I have been awaiting the final act.”
Wyll leaned back. His coat shimmered in the firelight like the pelt of some exquisite animal. He breathed out softly.
“As I said, the Nautoloid vessel had crashed and the Blade of Frontiers had survived the fall by some unseen force. Him and his lady companion were in a peaceful tract of green land, with hedgerows and tufts of trees and the sweet scent of growing vegetation…”
The Vampire harrumphed.
“Looking over the damage, they were amazed they had survived. The air that they were breathing felt all the more special and precious.” Wyll swept an arm out, as if surveying the land himself. “They climbed up the white sands of the destroyed beech when they saw a man on the cliffhead. As they approached they saw it was a pale elf, white curls and red eyes. Over there, this man told the Blade and his companion, I think I see another of those monsters…”
Wyll gave the voice of the stranger a violin-whine. The Vampire narrowed his red eyes.
“When the Blade looked to see a monster, the pale elf tried to jump upon him and stab him. But the tadpole in both their heads activated at the last moment and overwhelmed them, smearing memories of their time on the nautoloid ship. They had both been prisoners, and both infected by the mysterious parasite. They shared the same problem, and the same goal… at least for now.”
“Hmm,” the Vampire said. “And the name of this stranger?”
“Astarion Ancunín,” Wyll said.
The Vampire’s eyes widened. He looked angry for a moment, and then confused. He lifted his head and pulled his lips back to reveal long fangs.
“My Lord. Do you recognise the name?” Wyll asked. “He was a Magistrate in Baldur’s Gate, many years ago now. Perhaps you remember him?”
The Vampire shifted again, drawing back. He changed the position of his lying, turned his head as if to snap at something. And then, gradually, his tempers cooled. His mouth formed a thin line and he bowed his head slightly, as if chastened.
“I confess, I do not remember him,” the Vampire admitted, finally. His voice was a bare whisper.
Wyll watched him with dark eyes. His hands were clasped in his lap. He waited.
“Speak on, dear Husband,” the Vampire said. “Your tale, sir, could cure deafness.”
*
And the story unfurled, rolling out like a Persian rug. Threads in the pattern shone, and formed the beginnings of larger shapes, hints of deeper meaning, mysteries explored and some left unspoken. The travelling party grew to add a scathing Githyanki, a vaunting wizard and a mysterious skeletal man who spoke in long, murmuring sentences.
Wyll’s audience grew abruptly quiet and well-behaved. The Vampire listened closely and intensely to the tale, and when the character of Astarion came into focus, he nodded and occasionally muttered under his breath as if trying to commit something to memory.
When Wyll talked over the discovery at Waukeen’s Rest of the Blade of Frontier’s Father’s identity, the Vampire scoffed: “As if it would have been such a surprise. Surely, they could have read from his bearing that the Blade was of a finer breed than the common man?”
“One could say the Blade was a cut above,” Wyll agreed with a slight smile. The Vampire hissed at him.
Then, Wyll told of the unexpected mercy that the Blade expressed for Karlach, sparing her life at the cost of his own trouble at the hand of his She-Devil. Upon hearing this, the Vampire half-rose from his lounge, turning his head.
“Such foolishness,” said the Vampire Lord. “Does he not know that good deeds are never reciprocated?”
Unlike the other times the Dark Lord had expressed such a sentiment, this time he sounded slightly lost, as if he were an understudy checking a script backstage.
Stranger still, was the Vampire’s reaction to the discovery of Astarion’s true deathless nature. The Lord chewed his claws as Wyll talked about the moonlight intrusion, the teeth pressed into supple flesh. But there was no tussle, no fight, no exile.
“Just like that?” The Vampire Lord muttered to himself. “Nothing more?”
Wyll tilted his head. His many-coloured coat shimmered in the light of the brazier. “What did you think was going to happen?”
The Vampire Lord rose only to toss himself back upon his lounge. He huffed and rolled over. “Continue, dear boy, oh, continue.”
Night ended. And ended. Days cycled past.
Soon, a tenday had passed since their marriage night. On the dusk of that night, the Vampire Lord came gliding into their chamber, the long feathers of his black vestments brushing the rugs.
“I would have taken ten more souls by now, if I did not have you still, dear Husband,” said the Vampire Lord. “I have held no cattle calls. I have received no applications.”
“I am sure the people thank you in their thousands and applaud your mercy.”
“Yes, yes,” the Vampire Lord climbed back onto his lounge. “You must admit I have been fair to them. Far fairer than my Master would have been. I have allowed the people to choose my next Groom or Bride from their own folk — I have never complained that they handed me ugly ewes and rams. I have been gracious in that.”
Wyll kept his expression placid. He knew of the constant upheaval. As it approached the end of every day, how communities would turn on themselves like a rabid animal that rips out chunks of itself, like a caged bird that had been trained to pull out feathers for an amused master.
“Do you think your parents have figured out that you yet live?” The Vampire mused, beaming at him.
Wyll shook his head.
“Surely they would,” the Vampire said. “What other reason would I have not to ask for another by now?”
“I confess they already passed on. My mother died at my birth and you executed my father, my Lord.”
“Ughhh, I hope you aren't petty enough to hold that against me. You're smart, you should understand I had no choice. I had to kill the old guard or they would foment sedition and conspiracy. Surely, even at the time, that made sense? You saw it my way?”
“I was eight, my Lord.”
The Vampire Lord tossed his laughing head back in delight. “I remember you now! Gods below, you made such an atrocious noise at the step of your Father's gallows, like a braying donkey. It was horrible! Your nursemaid tried everything in vain to calm you. I hate children and I think she was aware I came very close to dashing your little head open to quiet you myself.”
Wyll considered the memory in silence. Even the Vampire Lord himself could sense a ripple in the calm lake of Wyll’s façade, a tinge of displeasure in him. As the silence stretched and Wyll still did not speak, the Vampire shifted on his silk cushions.
“Of course, who knew such a squalling, ugly chick would grow up to be the elegant, calm hawk who sits before me?” The Vampire Lord looked lovingly across at him. “A beautiful Black hawk to me, a lovely white dove.”
Wyll said nothing, but indeed, there was something hawklike about him. His eyes were black and penetrating, his gaze extremely focused and steady.
“As you say, my Lord,” said Wyll at last. “Shall we begin again?”
*
The Vampire Lord listened with a mixture of disappointment at the Blade’s journey through the Goblin camp. He was annoyed that they did not simply slaughter the footsoldiers, and then he was also annoyed that they denied the requests to ally themselves against the Grove encampment.
Begrudgingly, the Vampire Lord offered counsel that it may be wiser to ally with the independent Grove than entangle themselves with the mysterious and regimented Cult before they knew more about the Absolute. To Wyll’s ears, this reasoning was weak — and seemed to exist only to confirm what the Vampire was clearly starting to believe: that the Blade was a very wise man indeed.
The Battles took two nights to tell. There was the carnage of melee combat followed by the desperate arrows that quilled our Fiery Friend’s front as she marched up and throttled hidden archers. Traps were triggered or disarmed in time: sometimes both, when the adventurous band would not allow their rogue to finish his work before charging ahead. The Vampire Lord approved of bloodshed, of trickery, of needless and hilarious cruelty. Wyll learned he could find approval with the Lord by twisting the Blade’s actions, making him spiteful and callous, delighting in the suffering of his enemies, in the rush of heady power villainy provided.
Then the Battle was won. The Goblin encampment lay in smoke and dust. No Goblin that fled or surrendered was spared, no quarter was given.
“And at their camp, the party commenced,” Wyll said. “There was drinking and rejoicing and dancing, revelry of all kinds. The Tiefling survivors provided all they had in scant rations and supplies, and although they were not rich in material goods, there was a wealth of joy in the air.”
“It sounds awful,” the Vampire Lord drawled. “They deserve more for their trouble than a pat on the head and some vinegar for wine.”
Wyll tilted his head. It was the first time the Lord had spoken that night, and there was something unusual about him.
It was approaching twenty-five days since their marriage, which would mean twenty-six since the Vampire Lord had last eaten. Perhaps it was only hunger which gave him a wild-eye.
“I’m not sure what you were expecting,” Wyll said, regretfully. “They were not wealthy by any means, and had a long journey ahead of them.”
“They could have a little fun,” the Vampire Lord showed his fangs as he spoke. “Even the dirtiest peasant can afford some fun.”
Wyll was perplexed. “Fun?”
“By the Hells, Husband,” the Vampire Lord laughed. “Sex! A night of passion.”
Wyll drew back. When his Lord had such an expression, Wyll’s immediate thought had been that he must mean torturing small animals, or grabbing women by their braids and yanking them. Some small-minded, nasty little trick at someone else’s expense.
“My… My friend did not cover it in his telling,” Wyll tried. “Perhaps some of the Tieflings who developed a special friendship may well have—”
“Oh, my sweet innocent thing,” the Vampire Lord cut through. “Is it not clear? The Blade and Astarion have that special friendship.”
Wyll’s throat was dry. “Well… Perhaps, or perhaps not. Anyway, it had been a long week, and between the dancing and the drinking, there was little time to go about—”
“Little time? How long do you suppose it might have taken to be bedded?” The Vampire Lord had a mean smile.
Wyll failed to reply.
The Vampire Lord rose from his perch and stood. He was like a white birch tree, tall and stark. He began to circle.
“Well?” asked the Vampire. “Have you no words for me now, great orator?”
Wyll resisted the urge to unsettle himself by trying to keep the Vampire in his line of sight. But as the Vampire moved about silently, he merely reappeared on Wyll’s periphery, like a fleeting ghost.
“I confess, I have never been in a like situation,” Wyll said. “And therefore I cannot comment.”
“Never had sex?” the Vampire asked, archly. It was as if he did not believe Wyll.
“It’s true. It’s as I told you on our wedding night, I am one who is shy.”
“But you must have wondered, you must know something,” the Vampire said. “You must imagine for me.”
“I cannot.”
“I command it.”
“I cannot.”
The Vampire pounced upon him.
It was a motion so startlingly animal, from a creature that had learned to walk on hind legs. Suddenly the Vampire was a springing panther.
Wyll’s head hit the marble floor with a vicious smack, pain rolling through his skull and throbbing the back of his teeth. The Vampire caught his wrists and held them to the dense rug, leaning over him. His cold and hard body kept Wyll pressed down.
“It is because you have never experienced it, that you feel it does not concern you,” the Vampire said. “I had not known I, your Husband, was leaving you in such poverty... Once you have felt it, you will think differently.”
Wyll tried to pull his wrists out of the Vampire’s grip. “I thank thee, but please, release me.”
“Do not struggle,” the Vampire advised.
The Vampire’s bone-hard body pressed down like the upper jaw of a trap. Wyll’s chest heaved. He tried to move his legs, but when he drew his knee up, the Vampire only worked himself harder into Wyll’s lap.
“Enough games now, my Lord,” Wyll said, chest heaving. He was sweating from fear, a coldness prickling at the back of his neck. “Release me. I’ll continue the tale.”
The Vampire was unmoveable. “But why have fantasy when reality can provide?”
“You should not trouble yourself. I will not — I do not wish it.”
The Vampire gave a growl of frustration. “Trust me, good Sir. You are like a child who refuses candy because you have not eaten it before. You will be very pleased, I give my word.”
Wyll ducked his head, heart hammering. The Vampire was crushingly strong. His skin was as cold as ice and hard like stone. He felt the Vampire’s clawed hands loosen his embroidered belt, while Wyll could only tug uselessly against him.
With a yank of fabric, Wyll’s belt fell loose.
“Enough!” Wyll cried. “Stop it now! Stop it Astarion!”
The Vampire’s head snapped up.
The Vampire Lord’s pin-prick eyes were swimming with scarlet. He looked over Wyll in horror: the heaving chest, cold with sweat, the tension in his body, the shivers. Every inch of him was screaming in terror.
The Vampire Lord released him. He lifted up to stand above him, casting a long shadow.
Wyll was too dazed and frightened to move. He simply lay where he had been tackled, belt lying untied. He breathed, shakily.
Though it was still dark with night, the moon still high, the Vampire Lord left and did not return before morning.
*
After the crimson veil of day had drawn back to the black lace of night, a meek creature visited their chambers. Wyll sat there, obediently waiting, his bowl of fire casting glimmering light across the many colours of his embroidered coat.
The Vampire Lord landed, soft as a dove, upon his throne. He did not speak.
More things than that were strange with his Lord. The skin on his face was as thin and fine as white petals, drawing back across his well-carved skull. His comely, lamplight red eyes looked uncommonly large and bright. His wrists were delicate.
Wyll took pity upon him, and pulled a finger along the bronze lip of the lit brazier, relieving his Lord from eye-contact.
“The way I heard my friend tell me that night,” Wyll said. “After a few cups of wine, they spoke to the Druid leader of the grove, if you remember him?”
“Yes. Halsin,” the Lord muttered. His voice was mostly rasp.
“He told the Blade’s party that he knew of no cure to their other-worldly pestilence, but he had another landmark by which to turn their voyage,” Wyll said. “In the depths of the
Shadow-Cursed Lands, rises a formidable citadel blacker than even those impenetrable shadows that give that land its infamy, by the name of Moonrise Towers. There he had seen other such victims of the same affliction, and there they might find solace from their peculiar plague...”
There was a brief silence, where Wyll waited for his audience to make some snide comment about the convenience of the meeting, or some accusation of time wasting. But the Vampire Lord seemed to have finally run out of malice.
“Why have you stopped?” The Vampire Lord finally asked, softly.
“I am only lost in my thoughts,” Wyll said. He sipped his wine. “Memory is a fae business. My friend told his tale so fluently, so easily, where I… Perhaps it is not the same for our undead masters, who have an even greater burden of years to categorize, so I apologise. It is only my human frailty.”
“I know not,” the Vampire Lord said. “Ascension cast aside my memory. Old though I be, in memory, I am likely younger than yourself.”
“Truly?” Wyll frowned.
The Vampire Lord turned his snowy head. His eyes were a shock of colour. He looked severe. “I have never needed it.”
“I feel like a mere fane to my own past,” said Wyll. “I knew life only once. All else is memory of that time.”
“You sound as if you have already died,” the Vampire Lord snorted. “And all else is the voice of your pale ghost.”
“As do you, my Lord.”
Familiar irritation coloured the Vampire Lord’s countenance. He looked like his old self for a moment, bitter and incensed and magnificent. “Speak on! Tell no more of yourself, I much prefer the bonny Blade to my passive, unlovely Husband.”
“As you wish, my Lord,” Wyll said. “In the morning, though there were aching heads amongst his party, the Blade directed his friends to brave the Shadow-Cursed Lands as they continued upon their momentous quest…”
*
Night came on again, and Wyll spoke of black ground and soft, sucking oozy mud that found its way even into under-shirts and gambesons and the most private places. And mushrooms—a man could grow very tired of mushrooms.
The Last Light Inn stood out with jewel-bright windows and a shimmering globe of a ward. Even this final glint of hope was nearly crushed under the heel of a strange and wicked force.
The Vampire Lord watched, catlike, blinking slowly. His interruptions became rarer. His attention was exact. Instead of attempting to shred the story, he pieced it together like an archaeologist, asking only for clarification and nodding silently when he understood.
Wyll felt much less pressure to bend his tale towards cruelty. When the Blade was chivalrous and bold, the Vampire Lord only looked wide-eyed and meek, like a child expecting a smack.
When the Blade finally entered the basements of Moonrise Towers to find the secrets there, it had been thirty-five days of marriage, and thirty-six since the Vampire Lord had last feasted on living blood.
*
The Vampire did not leave that morning.
Sun rose, and the pale elf did not stir from his lounge. His red eyes matched the sky behind him.
Wyll licked his dry lips. “I cannot continue my tale. I will talk myself to muteness.”
“Do not trouble yourself, Husband,” the Vampire Lord croaked. “I am only resting here a moment. Soon, I shall leave to attend my court.”
Yet, he did not.
Wyll walked around, feeling carmine eyes upon him, but went through his chores, as had become his habit. He emptied the last oil of his night’s brazier. He changed out of his many-coloured coat, into a soft white nightwear. He ate the food left out by the Vampire’s servants and drank a great deal of cold tea. He washed himself in a cold basin.
Despite his attentive audience, Wyll pulled together the rugs and turned away, falling asleep.
*
Wyll slept through dusk, and was not woken. When he rose, blinking blearily in the gloom, he looked around in confusion at the burgundy darkness.
“You did not wake me,” Wyll asked his Lord. “Forgive me for not rising.”
“Nothing need be forgiven,” the Vampire Lord murmured. He, too, had not moved. “Begin your tale when you are able.”
“Where were we?” Wyll asked, fetching the brazier and lighting it. Though he wore not the magnificent coat, and the true light only illuminated his copper chest and thick dark hair. He set the bowl of light between them.
“The Gauntlet of Shar,” the Vampire whispered.
The Vampire Lord looked unwell. His flesh grew ever thinner. Even his flashing eyes seemed drained of their fire, and seemed almost pinkish now. He had not risen his head from the silk pillows of his lounge.
“It was a grand antechamber,” said Wyll. “Amethyst and Silver, ancient and powerful, ushering nightshade darkness into every corner. Our friend told us of the temple’s origins, where once she had trained, where the mistresses had said…”
*
Again, upon a red dawn, the Vampire Lord excused his tardiness but assured his Husband he would leave when he had the strength to stand. But he did not leave.
*
That night, the Lord’s eyes fell shut, and only opened when the sound of Wyll’s voice paused. Only that was enough to stir him. And then, after a few hours, even that was not enough.
So Wyll paused his tale, and nothing moved, not even to breathe.
In the silence of the moonlit night, Wyll stood and approached his Husband for the first time.
He touched the cool skin of his Husband’s temple. Touched a blue-tinged cheek. He even pushed his thumb through pink lips to feel the points of sharp teeth.
Wyll’s heart hammered. He knew the dangers of the endeavour. He had seen the many stains that the rugs had not been enough to hide, the scent of rotting meat that lingered under the heavy incense. He knew why the sky was always red.
The Vampire Lord did not stir under his fingers.
Wyll pulled back. He moved through his Husband’s chambers.
During daylight hours, when he had preserved enough energy despite a night of story, he had broken off and sharpened a stake from the leg of a tottering ottoman.
This weapon he drove into the unbeating heart of his Husband.
With a terrible gasp, the Vampire’s eyes flew opened again. He convulsed and flopped over the edge of the lounge and onto the rug. He clutched his chest, dirty now with sticky, molasses-thick blood, black as tar. He did not have the energy to writhe, nor to pull out the stake. He clutched the embedded weapon like a blind man trying to feel what it was.
“Please—” the Vampire gasped. “Wyll—please, dearest Wyll, please tell me what happened next.”
Wyll had jumped back as the Vampire had started to move again. With a great effort, the Vampire turned onto all fours, but ignored the stake protruding from his chest. He wept black blood onto the fine rugs.
“What, what did you say?” Wyll muttered. “What did you say?”
“Tell me, tell me,” the Vampire Lord gasped. “Not the ending. Do not torment me with the ending—I know that too well, dear Heart, or I can imagine it well enough. But tell me, tell me, do they ever marry, as the Blade promised?”
Wyll licked his lips.
The Blade and Astarion had grown closer, and yes, the Blade had promised to wed at journey’s end. Wyll had twisted it into the tale as a dark, private joke. But he felt a cruel man now — to see the aching, naked need on the Vampire’s face.
Wyll knelt before the Vampire. He hesitated for a moment. “They… it takes a long time to secure approval from the Blade’s father, but yes, they do wed. It’s a private ceremony.”
“Speak, please,” the Vampire begged. “Tell me how.”
“It’s… under the chapel, in the basement,” Wyll suggested. “The Chaplin—”
“Not underground,” the Vampire muttered. “Astarion doesn’t want to be underground again. Please.”
“You’re right,” Wyll said, gently. “Even though it’s risky, and the Blade feels a healthy fear, they are married outside in Springtime. Almond blossoms are a velvet snow on the fresh breeze. The Blade and his Husband each have a parasol in one hand, and clasp their free hands together.”
The Vampire sagged into the rug. He breathed heavily, black blood trickling down his chin. When he grew weak, the stake in his chest propped him up, the point of it lodged into his spine.
When a pale hand reached blindly across the rug, Wyll was merciful enough to take it and press it between two of his own. The Vampire Lord squeezed Wyll’s warm, dry palm, weakly.
“I couldn’t remember... being loved,” the Vampire Lord said, voice aching with wonder. “I never knew I, I...”
Tears glowed hot in Wyll’s eyes. He swallowed thickly.
“Thank you,” the Vampire Lord murmured. “I never knew.”
Wyll rubbed the lonely vampire’s cold hand, even after it slackened. Astarion put his forehead onto the sticky, blackening rug, ruby eyes falling only half-shut, as if he was reluctant to stop looking. His pupil relaxed, swelling wide. Soon, it was only the stake which kept him from lying flat on the dirty rugs… and his hand in Wyll’s hands.
Dawn drew in. Orange. Pink. And then a beautiful, glazed and fresh blue.