An Alliance of Mortals, page 29
part #6 of The New Earth Chronicles Series
“You knew Simon? Really?”
“I did indeed,” he replied with a smile. “Simon helped me to control my 'condition'. Without his intervention, my friend Aiden and I would have died years ago in the old town of Nottinghill.”
“Condition? What condition?” Sarah asked him in confusion. “You look pretty strong and healthy to me.”
“He is a werewolf.”
Everyone turned to look at Antoine, who was staring at Malcolm dispassionately.
The big man glared back at him.
“Yes, I am. It's not surprising that a creature like you would recognize me,” he growled.
“A creature like him?” Magnus said, baffled. “What do you mean?”
“Your friend's friend is a vampire,” Malcolm stated.
Chapter 21
“What?”
Magnus looked from Sarah to Antoine and back again.
“Is that true?” he asked her. “He's a vampire? An actual vampire?”
She was watching Malcolm suspiciously, but nodded in reply to the shaman's question.
“Yes, that is his curse. He was bitten by one of those monsters created by the dark necromancers not long after Paris was destroyed. But rather than allow himself to be controlled by that magic user, he hunted the necromancer down and killed him. After that, Antoine was free of evil influence and he decided to bury himself deep beneath the ruins of Paris, away from everyone.”
She continued to stare at Malcolm.
“I'm guessing that you became a werewolf under similar circumstances?” she asked him. “Bitten by someone cursed by evil magics?”
The big man let out a deep breath and relaxed slightly.
“Pretty much, yeah,” he replied. “Simon created a relic that blocked our involuntary transformations in the light of a full moon. Since then, I was able to negate that curse and now I can transform when and where I wish.”
“Handy,” Sarah told him with a grin. “Well, Antoine is no more of a monster than you are. He does not drink blood, nor is he controlled by anyone else. And his powers are substantial. I managed to convince him to offer his services to your people, rather than hide away forever in the dark and let humanity be destroyed.”
“We appreciate your efforts, Sarah, and your support, Antoine,” Magnus told them with a quick glance at Malcolm. “But how did you even get to Paris, my friend? And where are the other Changelings?”
Sarah shrugged and looked past him at the towering gate.
“I don't know where they are,” she told him. “When I last saw them, all of my friends were fine. They built a little village on the border between Ontario and Manitoba, far from any threats. The winters are fierce, but the summers are long enough to grow food and keep them alive.”
She grinned at Magnus.
“But you know me,” she said lightly. “I was never one to settle down in one place, especially after we lost Bobby.”
The shaman nodded gravely.
“Yes, his loss was particularly painful, for all of us. But especially for you, Sarah.”
She closed her eyes for a moment and swallowed noisily before she continued.
“Anyway, after I was sure that the others were as safe as they could be, I left. There was a whole world out there to explore and I wanted to see it all.”
She dipped a hand under her tunic and pulled out a wand. It was made out of a simple length of dark wood and tipped with a gem that was as yellow as her eyes.
“Ah, you still have it,” Magnus murmured. “Good for you.”
“Yes, I have it. And I have learned to use it more effectively since we last saw each other,” Sarah told him. “I can Gate to wherever I want to go now. I can defend myself if I need to. And I can do much more. But my wanderlust taught me a lesson.”
She looked at the walls surrounding the castle again.
“The world is being swallowed by evil, Magnus,” she stated. “Goblins and their monstrous allies are everywhere. I've narrowly escaped from them more times than I care to think about. They're breeding like cockroaches and engulfing our planet. Not long ago, I traveled to Paris. I'd never been there in the old days and I was curious to see what was left of it.”
“And you found goblin soldiers?” Malcolm asked her.
She smiled and looked back at Antoine.
“No, I didn't. In fact, I found no evil things at all. My friend here had finally awoken from his long sleep, you see. He was enraged by the desecration of his old home and took matters into his own hands. The goblins now steer clear of Paris, thanks to Antoine. They fear it. I think this is the first time that the forces of Chaos have actually feared anything so much that they avoid it.”
“You did that?” Magnus asked the vampire in amazement.
“It was not my intent to instill fear in my enemies,” he replied in his toneless voice. “I do not care about their feelings. I merely wanted them gone from Paris. But as Sarah has said, the goblins' numbers are very large. When I would clean out one nest of them, another would take its place. So I simply exterminated any that invaded the city until they stopped coming. And then I went back to sleep. Until she appeared and woke me from my slumber.”
Malcolm stared at him, seeming to weigh the vampire's words as if seeking the truth within them. Then he turned to look up at the ramparts that loomed against the light of the pale moon.
“Archers!” he called out. “Stand down! Return to your posts. There is no threat here.”
“Understood, Commander,” a voice above them called back. “Standing down.”
He turned back to smile at Sarah and Antoine.
“It didn't feel right to have you targeted by my troops, not when you are friends, not enemies,” he explained.
Sarah looked at her companion, who nodded slightly.
“Thank you, Commander,” she said to Malcolm. “We appreciate the gesture. Does that mean that you will accept our assistance?”
“I will have to speak with the other leaders and get their agreement before we can formally accept it, but for now please consider yourselves our honored guests.”
“You accepted us more quickly than I had expected you to, Monsieur,” Antoine said. “Especially considering the fact that you know my nature.”
“I know little about you, sir,” Malcolm admitted. “But Magnus knows Sarah and she seems to trust you. And I have an instinct for people, even people who are a little...different than most.”
For the first time, Antoine's lips twitched in an almost smile.
“That is a delicate way to put it. I thank you for your welcome. I just hope that your fellow leaders will be as open-minded as you are.”
The big man laughed.
“They've put up with a werewolf living among them for many years now. Why not a vampire?”
Sarah laughed as well and Magnus smiled in spite of some lingering misgivings.
“Please follow me,” Malcolm told them. “I'll arrange for quarters for both of you and set up a meeting with the leadership in the morning.”
The shaman chanted softly under his breath and the fireflies scattered in all directions, taking their light with them. Sarah watched them fly off with a delighted smile.
“Do you have a dungeon in this castle?” Antoine asked as they began to walk back to the gate.
“A dungeon? Why would we need a dungeon?” Malcolm asked curiously.
“Most castles come with a dungeon,” the vampire told him. “They are a good place to keep prisoners. Very secure.”
They reached the narrow side door and Malcolm turned to look at Antoine.
“So far we haven't needed a prison. Why do you ask?”
Sarah glanced at her companion and spoke up.
“He needs a place to rest where the sun cannot reach him,” she explained. “And where he will be undisturbed. When he sleeps, a vampire is almost comatose and very vulnerable. When I first found Antoine in the catacombs beneath Paris, I thought that he was already dead. I fell asleep nearby and, when I woke up again, he was just standing there, watching me. Scared me half to death.”
“Yes, I imagine it would,” Magnus said, looking at Antoine. “So does that mean that you can't walk around in daylight?”
“No, I can function just fine during the day,” the vampire replied. “But my powers are affected. In direct sunlight, I am very weak. Not much stronger than an ordinary human. So I keep to the shadows when I can.”
“Understandable.”
Malcolm slipped through the doorway and the others followed him. Once inside, he slid the bar across the door and led them into the torchlight.
The guards watched them silently, their eyes wide inside their helmets.
“While we don't have a dungeon,” he said to Antoine. “We do have store rooms beneath the castle. I'll arrange for rooms for Sarah and then lead you down there. I'm sure that there are a few with locks on them that you can choose from.”
The vampire bowed.
“Very kind,” he murmured. “You have my thanks.”
After a staff member had led Sarah to her new quarters in the northeast tower of the castle, Malcolm left with Antoine to find him a cozy room in the cellar while Magnus sat down to speak with his old friend.
Sarah was delighted with the suite of rooms she had been assigned and she spent a few minutes exploring while Magnus settled into a heavy chair and relaxed.
“This is wonderful!” she exclaimed when she had returned and sat down heavily across from the shaman on a narrow couch.
The main room where they were sitting was painted a pale blue, with several shelves hanging from the walls and a round gray rug covering the wooden floor. A small fireplace had a fire burning merrily within it and the sweet smell of apple wood filled the air. Candles were lit in candle holders and set on the shelves, filling the room with warm light.
Besides the sofa and chair, there was a long, low table in the middle of the room that had several old books stacked on it. Sarah picked one up and began to leaf through it.
“The bedroom is lovely,” she said as she scanned a page. “There's a big bed with a quilt on it. And the bathroom has a toilet that actually flushes!
She looked over at Magnus.
“How does that even work?” she asked him curiously.
“Magic,” he replied with a smile. “Or so they tell me. I have no idea how the mages here manage the plumbing in this place. That's not my area of expertise.”
“No, I suppose not.”
Sarah began to read the book again and Magnus gazed at her fondly.
After a minute, she tucked her legs under her on the couch and sighed softly.
“I can feel you looking at me, you know,” she said without raising her head.
“Can you blame me? Sarah, I haven't seen you in years. The last time I did, it was on another continent. And yet you turn up tonight, appearing like a ghost out of the darkness, with a vampire in tow. I'm still trying to wrap my head around it.”
She looked up from the book.
“How do you think I feel?” she said, her yellow eyes catching the light. “Speaking of ghosts, I feel like I am seeing one myself. You left us to muddle along on our own in the wilderness and vanished. You might have been dead for all I knew. And now we've met here in Nottinghill Castle. I'm as surprised as you are. It is quite the coincidence, isn't it?”
“I don't believe in coincidences,” Magnus replied as he crossed his legs and folded his hands on his lap. “I sense other powers at work here. What they are or what their objectives are, I don't know. But I do think that they are on our side.”
“Gods?” Sarah asked skeptically.
“Perhaps. Who can say? But you and your friend have turned up just when we needed both of you and your abilities. And that, as I said, cannot be a simple coincidence.”
“Hmm. Interesting.”
Sarah put the book back on the table and stared at the shaman.
“How have you been?” she asked him softly.
He smiled at her.
“I've been well. I left you because I believed that you and the other Changelings were ready to survive on your own. And because I felt the need to return to my roots. I wanted to feel the pulse of nature under my feet again. I wanted to commune with the spirits the way that my ancestors had.”
“And did you?”
Magnus chuckled at her dubious expression.
“Yes, I did. It's been a good life, living in the deep woods as I was meant to. But while my people are gone, I am still a human being and my race is on the brink of extinction. I could not stand idly by and allow that to happen. So here I am. And here you are as well. Why did you come, Sarah? Why now?”
“Why? I'm not sure.”
She stared pensively at the dancing flames in the fireplace for a long moment.
“I arrived in Paris about a month ago,” she began, speaking quietly. “I discovered Antoine after doing a deep scan of the city. I felt his life force beneath the city and I wanted to see who or what was still living there. And once I had, and once we became acquainted, I simply followed him as he led me through the ruins of his city. He told me stories of his youth, growing up near the Seine River. He was the son of a baker, you know. Quite a well respected man, apparently. Antoine was barely twenty when the Change came upon him. What he would have become if he'd been allowed to evolve completely, who can say? He survived the initial attack on Paris because he was exploring the catacombs. It was something that he began doing once his features had altered to the point that his father was disturbed when he saw his son. Sad, that. Anyway, the tunnel collapsed around him as the dragons pounded Paris and he was trapped down there.”
She shifted her position on the couch to lie on her stomach. She rested her head on her hands and continued to gaze into the fireplace as she spoke.
“Luckily, Antoine had some food and water with him in a backpack and he spent several days trying to find a way out of the catacombs. He had no idea about what had happened above in the city. Naturally he assumed that it had been hit by an earthquake. Who wouldn't?”
“Understandable,” Magnus commented. “He was lucky to be alive.”
“Yes. But his luck didn't hold. It was while he was still down in the tunnels that he was attacked by the creature that turned him into a vampire.”
Sarah looked over at the shaman.
“Remarkably, the strength that his Change had given him allowed him to kill the thing. Isn't that amazing? He never even saw whatever it was. Even weakened from blood loss and barely able to see in the darkness, he killed his attacker. And then he fought back against the evil magics that sought to control him and destroyed the necromancer that was down there in the darkness as well. It must have been a horrific experience.”
“And then he turned into what he is today?” Magnus asked her.
“Yes, but very slowly. As Antoine told you earlier, he fell into a slumber and remained comatose for what must have been several years. When he rose again and made his way to the surface, the Paris he knew was gone. All that remained was rack and ruin. It broke his heart. His father was gone, along with the little shop that he had called home. The Eiffel Tower was a melted ruin. The Seine was choked with debris. The Champs Elysées was buried beneath tons of stone and rubble. It was like a scene out of a nightmare for him. But what made it worse, and what enraged him, was the presence of goblins picking through the ruins as if they were scavengers gnawing on the bones of a fallen hero. And that defilement is what set him off. He began to prey on any enemies he could find in the city. And even though it seemed that the more he killed, the more moved in to continue their desecration, he did not relent. So now, not one creature pledged to the Darkness dares to set foot in Paris.”
Magnus sat up, uncrossed his legs and leaned forward, catching Sarah's eyes.
“Can he be trusted?” he asked her simply. “You've described a ravening beast, an avenging angel. Can he control his rage? We need powerful allies, but more than that, we need allies that we can rely on. Is Antoine such a one?”
Sarah sat up as well and met his gaze calmly.
“Oh yes, he can be trusted. You know my gift, Magnus. I can read people very well. And my skills have only grown over time. Antoine despises the creatures that follow the dark gods, but he is still connected to the human race despite his condition. He was not aware that any of us had survived, did you know that? When I found him in his slumber, he was astonished by my presence. Not only was I never in any danger from him, but he was incredibly gentle with me. And when I told him that other people had survived and now lived here in Nottinghill, he was eager to offer his aid to you. So here we are.”
Magnus relaxed and smiled with relief.
“Good. I may not trust him, Sarah, but I do trust you. And that is enough. Let's just hope that the leadership here will do the right thing and accept your offer of help. We could use it, especially now.”
“Why especially now?” she asked with a frown. “What has happened?”
The shaman began to explain the situation to her. Sarah was excited to hear that the elves had returned to the world and amazed to learn that the dwarves were now their allies. But the description of the three anchors agitated her.
“Connecting the three races via these anchors was a good idea,” she told Magnus. “But they are also an incredible risk, don't you think? If our enemies should take control of one of them...”
“Yes, we know,” Magnus replied seriously. “They've already made an attempt on the anchors in Caladur, the elven town and in Kingstone, the capital city of the dwarves. They failed, fortunately.”
“Which means that the next logical target would be the anchor here in Nottinghill,” Sarah told him.
“Exactly. We've sealed it behind thick walls of stone in the courtyard and it is guarded day and night, but the new leader of the enemy forces is clever and we know that we will probably be attacked soon.”
There was a knock on the door of the suite and Sarah looked at it with a frown.
“Visitors?” she wondered. “At this hour?”
Magnus stood up and walked over to the door. He opened it to reveal the figure of a young man wearing the uniform of a member of the castle's staff. He was holding a silver tray in his hands and smiled at the shaman as the door opened.
