As evening stretched itself into the wee hours of the morning, Aric felt a presence near his face. He didn't bother turning his head.
"As you will, Betzal," he thought, knowing there was hardly a need to even speak the words aloud.
But instead, the raven tucked his head and pressed it into Aric's cheek- an urging that the Shepherd didn't need to receive twice. In moments, he had swung himself off his barely-cushioned bed, rinsed his face and arms in his basin, thrown his robe over himself and taken up his cane. Betzal spread his majestic wingspan and took off, flapping down the hallway with the same ease with which he would have taken to open air- and at first, Aric believed that that was exactly where they were headed. When Betzal suddenly broke to his left down Vhalan's hallway, a heavy realization descended upon the Shepherd.
"Let his thread be still woven with ours," he prayed inwardly, "Yet, if it must be cut..."
Circling back for a moment, Betzal turned his head into the flesh of Aric's cheek, and with closed eyes, Aric could almost feel the Raven Queen herself stretching between planes of existence to strengthen him.
"...I will bear the shears."
Steadied and determined, Aric moved forward- past the murals, past the flame-less candles, and into the lair of a male who had once been every bit as Human as he. Deep inside, past the unfinished sculptures, stood the alabaster-skinned Vhalan- fully clothed and at rest, with paints and brush in hand. He was so focused on shaping the image on his canvas that at first, Aric was not certain his approach- as heavy as his cane-assisted limping sounded to him- had even been heard.
"It is good to see you creating beauty again," the Shepherd stated aloud, with the benefit of about an eighth of his vocal power. Still, it was enough to stop the brush's motion in the listener's hand. "All the sacred candles are out; you could have come and gone. As you wished. With every mortal in here at your mercy."
Vhalan merely put his paints and brush down calmly, then turned to sit down in his heavy wooden chair. Once in it, he closed his eyes and leaned his head back.
"I need not keep you here with ropes and gags," Aric stated clearly. "You didn't touch any other living creature. And you destroyed her so completely that- well. It is as Svaentok says. You fear to become a sire."
"That is... only partially true." Vhalan set his head properly upright again, but did not open his eyes immediately. "Silveredge, whose lovely form cries out to be dominated, is still pitifully mortal."
"Not for lack of effort," Aric scoffed. "You pressed that poor child so hard some nights that I could not sleep until I had seen with my own eyes that your fangs had not met her flesh."
"My desire to enthrall her nearly consumed me," Vhalan replied quietly. "And the Queen is wise; no other mortal but you would willingly do what she did, presenting herself like passive bait before Enmech not once, but twice. I could empower her, uplift her, sharpen every sense- but even she, lovely, intelligent, considerate creature that she is- might have turned hideous and hateful, if my blood touched her soul. I remembered my own sire, who in his power was utterly destroyed at my hands, while only the barest flickers of his rage and hunger had only begun to burn themselves into me, and-"
Aric had to restrain himself from scoffing. "You're nothing like your sire. Despite every temptation, every opportunity, and every threat, you did not destroy your hosts- until Baruk. You enjoyed that, I know- the glory of your revenge was palpable, even at my distance. Now, Quilafae must have made you work harder for the kill, but there was no exultant rage- you may as well have been tearing an old tunic into rags, or destroying a useless pot. Why was it so different the second time?"
"Your sacrifice enabled that restraint; reminded me of the parts of me that were not fully monstrous. She was yours, and you loaned her to me; I was... slower... to destroy her than I would have been had she been only mine." Vhalan finally opened his eyes again to notice that Aric had moved to look at the painting on which he'd been working. "I owe you much. Why torture yourself, Aric?"
Aric slowly turned his scarred face over his shoulder to look at Vhalan, then faced him fully. "Just as part of you will always be a lover of all types of beauty, Vhalan, part of me will always be a slave to an all-consuming curiosity. You know that."
"There was... a type of beauty... in Quilafae's death," Vhalan managed. "Her struggle was lovelier than she herself could have ever hoped to be. Her blood was much warmer, richer- almost worthy of the pride it carried. The scent of Baruk's fear was so rank, I tore his cowardly heart-" Red-brown eyes narrowed for a few moments, then closed completely. "Svaentok had a chance. I couldn't have fought back. He should have-"
"But instead, he made the same choice I would have, given the same situation," Aric interrupted suddenly. "By your self-restraint, he knew something was changing, and he was right. For the first time, you chose your target- you directed your hunger, instead of having it compel you to attack anything, even against your waking will. When your focused thirst was rewarded with the blood of your chosen target, your once-mortal body and spirit rejoined each other on safe and satiated ground- found the ability to work together in their new, soul-less existence. Thus, you transcended, in that very moment, the feral state. That means that the only difference, the only difference between a feral vampire and vampire lord is the degree of mental integrity. And if given discipline, structure, and time- about seventy five years, in your case- a feral vampire can regain its own mental stability without the bloodlust driven rampage that dooms so many much too early."
Vhalan remained silent for a few moments, contemplating Aric's summary. "I hope you don't expect me to turn some young thing in order to test that thesis, Questioner Owain," he murmured. "Why did you leave the Bone College?"
"Semnemac leaves his mind purposefully unguarded for prolonged periods of time, and the results tempt me into attempting to figure him out. He insists that Afflux would guide us both, but I suspect the relationship would warp dangerously close to some one of us abusing the other somehow." Aric scoffed at the half-hearted comment and leaned on his staff. "How do you feel, Vhalan?"
"Feel?" Vhalan echoed, looking over Aric's frame. "Like a wolf sitting quietly among sheep. As I have always felt- as it has always been, since you and your flock found me here."
"But there are no chains, brother. No blindfolds, no sacred candles- Betzal hasn't come to smack his wings in your face. This day, when the wolf sits quietly, it is not because he is trapped in a pen. I had feared this day, Vhalan, but now... now, I find I must rejoice in it."
"As well you should, Aric," Vhalan replied, rising from his chair and pushing his head toward it in a wordless command for Aric to sit in it. "You are free. You weakened yourself further and further each time you submitted your blood to me, but those nights are behind you. Your sheep have no idea of the full value of their shepherd, and now, they will never have to."
Aric moved slowly to Vhalan's chair, allowing his whole self to register the pain with which he constantly lived. "Had the Raven Queen not had faith in my ability to withstand your needs, I am certain she would have disagreed to my terms. And as for the sheep- who are also your sheep- some of them are not as cattle-brained as you think. Kennig has repeatedly asked to take my place, urging his youth. I have against him urged his inexperience, and he has in response far exceeded his coven mates' dedication-"
"Ironfeather can train with me if he so desires," Vhalan replied, picking up his paints and his brush again. "He will be a useful bridge between you and the Firebirds."
A few moments, punctuated only by the sound of calm brush strokes, went by before Aric tried the air with his voice again.
"Do you accept the continuation of your thread in this place?"
Vhalan raised his head for a few moments, then turned over his shoulder to look back at Aric, who had rested in his chair with his staff in his lap. Betzal, who had rested himself on the back of the chair, turned his head so that it seemed that he could watch both males at once.
"I will honor the Raven Queen because I so wish, but our accord is complete. I do not expect either of you to have a use for a creature who has completely flouted the laws of mortality."
"It wasn't your choice," Aric reminded Vhalan very quietly. "I thought you had already died when I found you, and when you awoke, you had no idea what your name was, let alone what plane of existence you were on. You didn't know how, or even why you were attacking me-"
"Does it matter how or why a monster becomes a monster?" Vhalan asked, putting his paints and his brush back down again and turning to face Aric with crossed arms. "Is it not sufficient for any monk, mage or fighter that the monster simply is?"
"You are our brother, not a monster," Aric argued, raising an eyebrow at Vhalan. "All of the warrior initiates prayed for a favorable turning of your fate- Shanna herself cried desperately for you."
" 'The Raven Queen abhors the undead,' says the scroll. All mortals must pass through the sacred doors of death once- just once. I am no less an abomination than a necromancer; it is enough for me that I may even exist in peace."
"The doors of death are sacred, but Raven Queen herself passed through them twice without any god's permission or bidding, and is thus herself undead," Aric replied strongly, putting half his proper tone into his voice. "Much as I respect Sulyic, it is her stubborn refusal to remember that fact that brought the full and righteous wrath of both the Firebirds and Lucien down on the entire coven."
"The Queen ascended to godhood while shielding countless souls from abuse. Who did I protect? Who did I save? Certainly not you, nearly beaten to death by Cuthbert's cowards when you brought me back to them. They had protected themselves by putting a fearful distance between themselves and the vampire lord their great saint had marked for destruction. And I? If my intent had been self-preservation then, then I either failed miserably, or succeeded beyond my wildest dreams. What here is worthy of any special dispensation of grace?"
"Aside from the fact that you, alone, completed the quest that the entire monastery of Saint Cuthbert had been given, consider this," Aric breathed, taking his voice back down to its normal, near-rasp level. "Your sire was Lucien's vampiric brother- you are one of the two Daggerdale dire wolf vampire lords left in all Sembia. Unlike bat vampires, wolf vampires command a famously strong pack sense. In your near-feral condition, you affected the otherwise stalwart creature so strongly that through him, all his spawn sensed your episodes. Had Enmech succeeded, had he managed to somehow force you into his court, Esvele's protege would have used you to lure Lucien- and all his spawn with him- to her very doorstep, eventually replacing the bickering mortal mercenaries that Svaentok obliterated when he first came to this plane with pack-minded, immortal warriors. The Pale Lord of Urmlaspyr- a vampire old enough to have had the small village that this place used to be built on top of his coffin, who warned those whom he considered his mortal charges against the danger of Thultanthar long before the civil war even began, who arose from his ancient crypt to lead midnight battalions in the war against the Shadovar- would have been trapped and compelled to work toward the reclamation of Urmlaspyr by the vampiric equivalent of a far, far younger nephew."
"Lucien well deserves his title," Vhalan admitted, moving away from his easel and leaning himself on the wall near the place where the old mace still sat. "I have heard of one or two relatively recent strikes that I believe are his, but more interesting are the Bone College's tomes concerning vampiric tendencies and attacks, some of which read as though he simply sat and allowed them to take dictation. He has the determination, patience and precision of a master warrior, that much has become obvious to me."
Aric watched Vhalan's movements with a dull concern, and Betzal ruffled his wings. "He admires your passion for beauty and art; apparently, it is amazing to him to behold a creature who can wield what he considers an exotic weapon, a chisel, and a paintbrush with the same stunning dexterity. He sent one of his spawn- a little girl, freshly turned- with his message, while you were gone. He meant her to speak with you, but she would not tell me what about, and the message made no mention of it." Aric shrugged lightly, then produced a paper that had obviously once been sealed. "The message I read, but out of respect, I kept my vision to myself."
There was a pause during which Vhalan heard a distant howl- a young, thin sound that awakened an entirely unfamiliar sense of paternal concern within his spirit. He realized with some amusement that Lucien and his clutch of spawn would be the only actual family he'd had since being dumped on the monastery of Saint Cuthbert for his various indiscretions many years before. Then a grim understanding broke upon him, and he laughed bitterly within himself.
"Aric. After everything you've done," Vhalan sighed, testing his ability to near the mace. "How I could do to you what you would not do to me?"
"That will still burn you," Aric warned as he laid the paper on the arm of the chair, opting to ignore Vhalan's question entirely. The vampire, in his turn opting to ignore the warning, laid his whole hand on the base of the thing.
"Good," Vhalan managed as he ripped his hand away almost at once. "It can yet serve its purpose."
"What purpose?" Aric asked bitterly, planting his staff and arising. "All it has ever done is remind you who left you rejected, feared, hated, and alone."
"No- let it remind us both that I will not do the same," Vhalan replied, nearly whispering. "I expected the Raven Queen to be done with me, but I have never had any intention of being done with you."
"If that is so, then take your proper place and title from Shanna, and let her return to Quilafae's place." Aric stood, and Betzal moved from the back of the chair to his shoulder, pressing his talons into his shoulder and leaving his wings outstretched as if prepared for an embrace. "Let there be no more confusion or thought of rejection; become, and remain, our warrior elder. If the Queen would have had it differently, I am certain she would have told me so before this moment, wouldn't you agree?"
Red-stained brown eyes met and held the Human shepherd's grey eyed gaze. Both in the silence traveled back to the beginning of their friendship, when one soft-hearted necromancer and one worldly monk laughed together at the strange turns of life over a dying fire pit and a shared flask of pilfered wine. Neither one of them could ever have imagined the turns and tumbles their lives would take, separately and together, that brought them to the moment of this decision, this new accord.
Vhalan nodded- a gesture so small that it hardly troubled the air around him.
"I will. And, if I break my word, may you, or Svaentok, or whatever shepherd comes after you both, take up this same implement against me. Let it find my skull and my heart, as it could have, and probably should have done years ago."
Betzal gave a single piercing cry that seemed to push through the cold stone walls of the place, and received a higher pitched response. Moments later, Vashte soared into Vhalan's chamber, rested herself comfortably on the back of the wood chair and turned her head to consider the vampire lord.
"What have you to do here?" Vhalan asked, raising an eyebrow. "Your mistress is dead."
"I told her that," a female voice replied. Shanna poked her head into the chamber with a smile that infected Aric at once. "But I couldn't convince her not to come up here anyway. Now I know why."
"As you will, Vashte," Aric encouraged, relief warming his voice. Beyond the chamber, scuffles and murmurs began to sound as rumors of Vhalan's return spread from one person to another. "I tell you, brother, you were sorely missed in this place."
Vashte turned her head in the other direction, clamping her talons down into the chair a few times. Vhalan frowned and moved toward the chair.
"If it's a perch you want, you could have at least waited until I carved a proper one."
Betzal cawed at Vashte, who lifted herself briefly to move to Vhalan's shoulder. Vhalan looked at her, then at Aric, who was watching Vashte's ginger acclimatization to the unnatural cold of the vampire's body.
"I think she found one," the Shepherd nodded. "Welcome home, Elder Vhalan."
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