Second encounter

Jashin woke just before dusk. He had only managed a few hours of what could barely be considered rest. His mind would not stop. While the woman from the fallen manor was chiera, there had been no sign of the missing. Only her scent, and the scent of animal blood, had been in the manor. Oh, there were many scents beyond those two, but they were very old. Forgotten memories that lingered on the air like ghosts of the mind, unable to speak for themselves yet present nonetheless.

He ate quickly, bathed quickly, and dressed quickly. He was hunting a predator of the night, and the fading daylight was his only measure of safety. Had he been anjir in truth, he would not have worried so. Jashin was not afraid of the woman. He had proven that he was at least her equal in combat. But he also knew that chiera did not reside alone if given a choice, that the Curse pushed them to congregate for safety. Others might come, or she to them.

Perhaps that was the point.

His eyes drifted north to where the Red Hills rose gently over the canopy of the forest. Jashin knew that there were high places in those low mountains, places where bandits might hide. Or chiera. Once his cookfire was doused and properly buried, nimble fingers took him up to the top of the tallest tree he could quickly find. There he sat, amber eyes fixed on those mountains. He might as well have been a branch himself for all his movement as he studied and planned and thought. Only the wind in his ibliha could have given him away if not for the deepening gloam of early evening.

Where are you? he thought to himself.

Time drifted on, and Jashin was pulled away on it. It wasn't until the last of the day's light slipped below the horizon and night threw her ebon cloak over the land that he returned to himself. He sighed. Staring was next to useless. It wasn't as if some dark tower would have sprouted from the ground square in his vision with a large sign proclaiming 'Here Be Chiera' hung on the door. Such creatures were far craftier than that. Those that weren't didn't live long. Imperial Law demanded secrecy. Discovery often meant death. The chiera may have retained much of their power from the War, but they did not have the superior numbers the Lesser Races did.

His ears pricked as he heard a loud crash in the underbrush somewhere to the east. A covey of nesting quail burst from the canopy in frenzied flight and turned northwest. Jashin waited, listened. The sound echoed for only a moment before being swallowed by the forest, but it gave him a general idea where it had come from. He waited still. It could have been anything, a wolf chasing a rabbit perhaps.

Or it could have been any number of far more evil things prowling the dark.

Were he an average soul, he would have wandered away from the noise. If nothing else, he would have stayed put and been content to wait. But being Jemar'ai meant he had a duty to at least investigate. Were it a wolf, he would let it hunt. If it were something else, however, he would be the hunter.

Jashin slipped down the tree, landing on his feet with less sound than a whisper despite the leaves and twigs tangled in the roots. He drew the hood of his ibliha over his head and moved off into the forest.

It was rolling towards him like a thunderclap, whatever it was. In his mind Jashin could almost see the path that the creature was taking. His eyes went slightly unfocused as he lifted his face and scented the air. In his man-skins, his sense of smell was inferior to that of a divari. The wind was wrong. The dense trees shattered the sound into a million tiny echoes that chased all around him. At the heart of the din, the creature drew closer.

Not wanting to take chances, Jashin wrapped his hand expertly around his scabbard and drew his blade. His fingers pressed to the flat of the blade kept the worst of the rasp from carrying into the wilderness. Not that he thought it would matter, what with all the noise that was being made.

What is it? he wondered to himself. It's not a man; too many legs. Not enough snapping to be anything large. Prey fleeing a predator? But then where...?

Another sound came to his ears, then, smaller or lighter in its pace through the wood. And faster. Almost too fast. Before he could piece the situation entirely together in his mind, the landscape unfolded to provide an answer. A buck exploded from the brush not far from his position, lather slicking his coat. It charged on, heedless of his presence, its ragged and guttural draws of air reaching him clearly. Not a breath passed before a dark-haired woman--accursed gods below, was that the chieran woman from before?!--burst from the brush in a dark blur. Moonlight flickered from her canines as she nigh whooped with the bloodlust from the chase.

Before his eyes, she skipped into the air like a child at play. In a blink, her body twisted and warped and sprouted a coarse coat of silvered fur. What hit the ground was a wolf, crimson eyes all for the prey ahead. The chiera's clothes rolled into a heap in the leaves, tatters of her torn shirt drifting in the breeze of their frenzied flight.

Sighing to himself, Jashin flipped his blade into a reverse grip and trotted along after them. There was no need to rush. Like as not, the vampire would be consumed with the need to glut on vitae and the scent would make tracking all the easier. He swallowed down his revulsion and shook away the gooseflesh rippling up his back.

Merciful Belzha, when could he have done with their kind?

He watched from a distance and downwind, careful to keep his fali'sara tucked behind him. Jashin's lip twisted against the bile clawing up his throat at the sight of the feeding. He could see pure terror in the buck's eyes as the wolf--no, the chiera--wrenched its neck open. While he knew that the animal would die quickly, he also could see that it would not be a peaceable death.

It would certainly not be a clean one.

The Jemar'ai held still as she scanned about, letting the breeze sway him a little as it played in his clothes. Quick and unnatural movement would only draw her attention. The shadows did not react, did not fear. Neither would he. No, fear was the least of his emotions now. The white-knuckle grip on his blade told him that much. He tried to hold his breath, calm the surging of his pulse. Jashin knew full well that a quickened heart could call to a chiera like wardrums in the distance, bring her to him with that terrible thirst. He watched the buck bleed out and die, twitching, while she fed. Memories cooled the embers of his ire and made them shards of ice.

Jashin could smell the blood even from where he stood, could see it steaming languidly in the chill night air. Worse, her deep gulps came to his ears and slithered down his spine, one after the next. It was a thick, primal sound that he was all too familiar with. The buck convulsed, body still fighting even after the spirit had left the creature. In that moment, he and the animal understood one another.

He had been the prey once, years ago. He had been the focus of that terrible hunger, that unholy lust. Teeth and talons had left their mark on him, burned his flesh and scarred his muscles. He had known the buck's fear as she glutted herself upon him, without concern or pause. She, too, had reveled in his suffering, belittled it. The buck, at least, had known the darkest embrace only once. Jashin had suffered nightly for moons.

You are not she, he tried to remind himself, but Jashin's skin crawled with the memory of it. Yet you truly are of a kind, and that is enough.

When he was certain the chiera-turned-wolf was fully in the blood's thrall, he knelt. Jashin did not stare at her, but at the middle distance between them. Even in his deepest revulsion he knew that the gravity of a gaze could alert prey. Animales existed to serve and to feed even the Lesser Races, so she had done no wrong by the Law. Others were depending on him besides. If she could lead him to the rest of her coven...

Holding back the gelid urge to strike with all that he had, Jashin waited.

Her scrambling caught his attention, made him focus again. What was she doing? Wiping her face? He'd seen them do that before, drunk with blood, trying to get every last drop into their gaping maws with pawing hands and flapping tongues. Even when the bodies were pale and empty, the hole inside them yawned wide to be filled. She was obviously not an elder, had not learned to tame the savage nature of the chiera. Not that he approved of elders, either. No, they were worse with their cold detachment and ritualistic feedings. Death was as rudimentary to them as counting coin, all humanity sucked as dry as the veins of their victims. Vicious or cold, it was all so vile. Unnatural.

Jashin pushed away from the copse's concealment as the chiera fled.

Or, at least he tried. His muscles tensed for what should have been a simple motion, but there was a palpable drag on his body that slowed his forward momentum to nigh a standstill. It was as if the shadows were a warm bed and something within tried to hold onto him as he left, the languid embrace of a lover reticent to release him. A part of him, somewhere in the darkest core of him, wakened to that touch and desired to couple with that dark other. Jashin felt almost sad when the shadows slipped away from him and left him to his chase. Why he should feel guilt for leaving the darkness, he could not say. Still, it ate at him as he swept silently through the forest after the woman.

Not since the time in the oubliette deep beneath Conclave had he felt such a strong connection to the deeper darknesses of the world. They had tried to use the unnatural and disorienting darkness to break him free of the longing for Carmine and the pains of her death. It was supposed to force him to feel it, robbed of sight and sound in that cold void. It nearly broke him completely, destroyed him. But in that place, away from it all he had found himself face-to-face with something else: his nature.

Jashin had been unable to recount what had occurred within the oubliette, or why a patrol had found him sleeping so very peacefully in the shadows of the Conclave towers. All he could say for certain was that the longing for Carmine was simply gone. Oh, he still bore her scars--both mentally and physically--but that longing had been taken away. The darkness, true darkness, had healed him. When he had spoken of the sensations to Ero, his Master had stared at him for a long while before responding.

"Real darkness," the old man had explained, "is something that belongs wholly to Belzha. She is the space between the stars, that which tolerates no light or matter. She is the end to all things, entropy and oblivion. Droa and Her night, her shadows, only steal from that as She stole from Her Mother to obfuscate and confuse. History and myth tell us that your people were without form before the War, bits of the purest darkness that consumed all and left nothing. Perhaps what you felt in that place was a connection to who your people truly were before all this, just as I can see a fragment of my ancestors when I look in a mirror. Just... never stare into a mirror for too long, or you might begin to believe yourself the reflection."

He stopped at the edge of the lawn surrounding the manor to which he chased her last time, both from thought and hesitation. He could feel almost a thickening to the air just above the grass, an invisible presence that was watching him. Jashin hadn't noticed it before, only had become vaguely aware of it while the chiera had slept. The idea unnerved him especially now with the nagging feeling that there was something within watching as well.

Jashin spotted something pale stumbling across the sea of grass, and he surged forward after it. No sooner had the grass closed behind him, though, than he stumbled forward and fell. He tumbled end over end for what seemed like ages, screaming in terror and lashing his limbs in confusion. The grass snapped its verdant jaws around him, swallowed him into the deepest places of the earth. His senses were torn away until he lost even the sensation of movement, until he was left with nothing but himself. He still tumbled, but Jashin could not say whether he were rising or falling any longer. It was as if he had returned to the oubliette, so vast and secure was this void.

Or perhaps he had never left?

That chilling thought tore through him like a singular ache, a wintery slash that ripped along his consciousness and left him feeling hollow. Had he only imagined the last few years in Conclave, dreamed it all while slumbering in his cell? Had he conjured up a vision of what he could have been without Carmine, something that hunted what he hated so much in her? But no, he still felt no longing for her crimson embrace, the taste of her or her horrid attentions. Those cravings had been fully and completely replaced by revulsion of the strongest caliber. Where, then, could he have been?

Home. a voice purred from the darkness, slithering all around him. You have returned to me, and I to you. Here, we are united. Here, we are one!

"I... I don't know you." Jashin stammered. "Release me. Where is this?"

A derisive chuckle poured over him, thick and cloying. Don't you know? Open your eyes and see!

Before Jashin could fully process the meaning of the suggestion through his confusion, a blinding glare split the perfect darkness from horizon to horizon. It yawned wide, peeling back and over him until he was surrounded by pure brilliance. Yet no sooner was it total and complete than it began to fade. A blanket of night was thrown over him in the vault of the heavens above. Billions of stars lay strewn across the throat of the night like a shower of diamonds clasped across an emerald veil beneath his feet. In the distance, a manor struggled against the inexorable press of nature. A pale woman fled towards it, her raven tresses lashing in the faint breeze.

A shape moved just before him, and he could pick out the curve of a shoulder. It was a man--a Jemar'ai--standing there. How had he not seen him appear, sensed his movement? The cowl of his ibliha was drawn up, obscuring his features, but there was no mistaking the cruciform scythe embroidered on the nape of the hood. Had Conclave sent help? He opened his mouth to whisper after the man, but his lips would not work. Alarm filled him to bursting as he realized that he could not draw breath! There was no fear of suffocation, no natural instinct cried out in panic. His lungs would simply not answer his mind's request for air.

As if sensing his disquiet and the need to know his identity, the man turned. An angular face smiled--no, leered back at him--eyes like polished amber glittering with mad joy back at him. An errant breeze teased a single strand of bone-white hair from the man's cowl, set it to wave at him teasingly before falling back into the shadows of the ibliha. A feral smile slid onto the man's face slowly, teeth glittering like daggers in the moonlight. Realization slithered down Jashin's spine like a drop of winter frost sliding down his skin.

Jashin was staring at himself!

The other Jashin grinned knowingly back at him before he gave a petulant pout. "Oooh, saa saa, little one. There is no need to fret."

Jashin cried out wordlessly as his other self began to change before his eyes. Darkness seeped out of every pore. dripped over every bit of his flesh like thick honey. Grahidal and ibliha were swallowed by the umbral tide, melted away and into the shape that was beginning to emerge. With a gurgling sigh, a thick tail dripped to the ground and began to lash expectantly back and forth. Talons stretched forth to tease the tips of the grass while a row of ivory daggers yawned wide in a predator's face. For a brief instance, the powerful and corded form of a true divarian stood before him, amber pinpricks watching his awe and fear with rapture.

The other Jashin shook himself, and Jashin himself wanted to weep in horror as every strand of coarse black fur fell to the ground in a dark cascade. The other's corded muscles and straining sinews were wrapped in an armor of the finest black scales as such to make the mightiest serpents coil in jealousy. Whatever the other had become rolled its neck and spread its arms in a mighty stretch. Its slathering maw opened wide to bark a sharp roar, and Jashin could sense in it a deep hunger. It was the call of a predator to prey, a summons of the chase. With a sickening crunch and a tearing without blood, Jashin watched as a pair of leathery wings tore away from the other's back and spread wide before falling against its back. When it's terrifying transformation was complete, the other Jashin looked at him once more.

We will protect you. it cooed in a voice of nightmares. We will do what we were meant to do, and destroy her for you. And then we will destroy all else, as we were meant to. And once all is as nothing, as in the beginning, no one will ever harm you again.

The black demon lifted its face into the breeze, scented the wind in quick, sharp pulls. Jashin would have assumed such a thing would have made a thick, wet sound. To his ears--however he was hearing, displaced in his own mind--it was as soft and dry as the grass dancing in the wind. Or perhaps the rasping of scales.

She is near, it whispered to him from everywhere and nowhere at once. We smell her and all that delicious blood. We also smell...

Jashin grit teeth he did not have in disapproval. Fear.

Yeees, it sighed lustily, its eyes fluttering half-closed. She is close, and we want to kill her for you. We will make an example of her to all her kind so that they know to fear the dark and empty places once more. We will remind them why. No longer will they seek Her sacred shroud as a haven for their wretched shapes, their cursed bodies. It will turn on them just as their bitch Goddess turned on Her Mother.

The creature dropped to all fours and shook itself again, a rippling shudder that started at its shoulders and rolled down the length of its spine. Its great tail slashed a wide swathe behind it, and grass fell to the earth before blackening to dust. Its chest heaved and another thunderous bellow shook the plain, its wings stretching wide like two night-black cloaks to embrace the night. While perhaps not strong enough to loft the creature, it was enough to press the grass down into a verdant carpet in an expanding ripple for yards before fading.

It sat back on its haunches then, great taloned feet digging into the loamy earth. It gave another thick, gurgling chuckle.

Where are you, little one, it cooed aloud. Come out, come out! I have something for you, a gift! Doesn't that sound nice?