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"Ashes and Emptiness" (Judas) ------------------------- Late November, Afternoon The Border Range ------------------------- Intriguing as his homeland was, Judas found the foggy, crisply cool climate of Artolia and Crell Monferaigne to be his preference. His ancestors were surely turning in their graves. It was certainly more hospitable to his kind than the scorching Egyptian sands, which, he had discovered to his annoyance in Aedvans, he /still/ had not managed to shake completely out of his coat. It gritted in his boots too, and he could still taste the dust despite being five days and three snacks out of the desert. There would be no respite in Lorien. As soon as he returned, the old hag would probably send him right back to Amenti. She didn't like to see him return empty-handed. Bloody royalty. As if he hadn't sacrificed enough of Akhetamen's treasure for her greed. He was running out of minor trinkets to pass on to her. Burning coal and woodsmoke tainted the air, hanging like a pall over the mining town below and drowning the scent of rain that he'd missed so much during his trek through the desert. There was no sun to light his way. Clouds hung thick and threatening in the sky, slate gray and growing darker, deepening the afternoon gloom into something more like twilight. All the eye could see was a thick tangle of trees, evergreen with their tangy pine scent. The sap had already frozen on their trunks, but he saw no sign of snow, yet. The path Judas followed was overgrown in many places, rocky and beset now and then with muddy patches where the forest canopy thinned, and steep now that he was above the mines. Humans didn't venture this far if they were smart. There were few legends left about his mistress's city, but miners were a superstitious lot. A few disapperances and gory remains had kept them quiet for the last century and Berri, thankfully, was too far up the mountain to draw adventurers or vampire hunters. He avoided the miners anyway. Biting into coal-smudged, sweaty skin was not his idea of a good meal. Night fell, and still he walked, stepping lightly to avoid attracting the notice of forest denizens, yet covering ground at a reasonably fast clip. Lorien was so close he could taste the mold on the air. The mountain rose above the trees, a sheer rock face that gleamed in the moonlight when the orb dared show its face beyond the clouds, and at the end of his path, at the bottom of that granite wall, was the crumbling gate of the city. It was more of a home than Egypt was despite his disgust with the woman waiting for him there, and he longed for the comfort of his bed and the hum of the magic wards woven into its walls. The hateful sunlight could not break through the layers of shielding rock to reach him /there/. What kind of people had lived in such a city? When had there ever been humans willing to give up the wide open sky for the embrace of cold, unfeeling snow? His mistress rarely spoke of them. He knew it had been a city of magic, and little else. Was it the magic? He could relate to that. There was nothing like the burn of power flowing through his veins when he cast a spell. He would brave the sunlight, if necessary, to experience that thrill. Judas sensed the moon was near setting before he finally laid eyes on the gate to the city. It was small and unassuming, dwarfed by the immensity of the mountain that served as Lorien's home, and just as he had left it, collapsed and crumbling, and the crosses broken by long, wide gashes in the stone. No vampire worth the name would be afraid of such a symbol, but the imagery was quite effective on humans. He hurried through the tunnel, footsteps and the strike of his staff echoing back in a staccato beat, and breathed a sigh of relief when he stepped into the city. The air was cool and damp, heavy with mold and the scent of stagnant water, but it held a comfortable familiarity that made him want to stop and savor the feeling. He halted at the center of the old square, where the cross marked his spot, and closed his eyes. There was only silence to greet him in the city. Nothing else. //Nothing?// His eyes opened to slits. Nothing. Even the wispy residue of the city's long-dead citizens was gone. Had his mistress left? And why would she do such a thing when she expected him to return with his findings? He hadn't suffered all /that/ much of a delay. He continued on more cautiously, straining both his ears and his astral senses in the hope of catching a hint of a clue as to why the city suddenly felt so empty. There was a flicker of something, a residue similar to the ghosts that had once clung to the walls around him, and it seemed to be at the center of the city, where he and his mistress stayed. Nothing else made itself known. It saved him time, he supposed. Instead of wandering the city as he was tempted to do he followed the road straight to the chapel and, throwing caution to the wind, pushed the rotting doors open with a bang. It echoed, but otherwise inspired no reaction. There was no hint of movement in the shadows, and no torches lit that he could see, as there should be. Judas let his arms drop to his sides. The doors squeaked and fell from their hinges, clattering to the floor in pieces. He kicked them out of his way and strode toward the curtain that separated his mistress's audience chamber from the main hall of the church. When he pushed it aside, only darkness met him, uninterrupted by even a glimmer of light. Something was charred; he could feel an echo of magic cast days ago, and smell ash. He let the curtain slither closed behind him and stepped carefully into the room, examining the currents of the spells and feeling along the wall for a torch. As soon as his hand found one he snapped his fingers and ignited it. The chamber was empty. His artifacts were gone, and the candles at the far end, near the throne, were burned all the way down, and wax had caked the brass holdings. Powdery gray ash was scattered on the marble floor in something resembling a human shape, as if someone had dropped it and forgotten to clean up the mess. He knelt and ran a finger through the ashes, rubbing it between thumb and forefinger. Could it be? Judas whispered a spell to set all the torches alight and rose to examine the room more closely. There wasn't much to see, though there were small clues that pointed to what he suspected: a streak of charred stone here, a half-burned tapestry there, gouges in the floor that might have been made by a mis-aimed sword stroke. He felt himself grinning, and didn't care that it was bad luck to think ill of the dead. "A thousand years, and this is what you've come to?" Judas chuckled and knelt beside what remained of his mistress, sifting her ashes through his fingers. "Serves you right, really." His fingers caught on something, thread, maybe fiber, and burned. He snatched his hand back, eyes narrowed, and shook it until the sensation disappeared. There were fibers of some kind sticking up where he'd pulled on them, and he reached down to examine them more carefully, gritting his teeth against the pain. They were silver. Not thread, as his mistress had disliked silver and favored simple gowns over elaborate. Nothing on her person would have survived her death, in any case. He pondered it, shifting the filaments from hand to hand to avoid injury. Hair, maybe? It was delicate like that. But whose? And then it made sense, all at once. His mistress's remains, the silvery hair, the residue of battle. The burning. His grin cracked wider and Judas laughed, falling back to stare into the shadows cloaking the ceiling. Who was it? One of those damnable valkyries, or some other predictably self-righteous god? He laughed until his ribs hurt and the hair wrapped around his fingers burned red marks into his flesh. He'd been searching for /years/ for enough power to kill the old witch, and now it appeared the gods had done it for him. What irony! He'd never have been able to reach his goals with /her/ in the way. Now the path was clear. Akhetamen would be a darker stain on their precious mortal plane than his mistress would ever be, and it was all thanks to their interference! Maybe he'd find this fool of a god and offer thanks, one day. Surely even one of /their/ kind would appreciate the irony. (Summary: Judas returns home to find that his mistress has met her end at the hand of a god.) ------------------------------------ "Ashes and Emptiness" (Judas) By Amber Michelle ------------------------------------ |