Private Tales The Mountains Ahead

[Kasim Areth]

Kara looked somewhat confused, glancing at the cards for a moment before she slowly nodded. "Alright."

She supposed that neither she nor Aviana were going anywhere. The woman could hold onto the cards as long as they were still on the Blackfort. After that? Well she supposed it didn't really matter then either.

Aviana would have bigger things to worry about than a deck of cards.

------------

Kasim had lost track of the days. It was difficult to count them when your time was spent either flying on the back or a Dragon holding on for dear life, or sleeping so you could have enough rest to do so the next day.

Every waking moment he had been thinking of a plan.

Kiovec was growing larger, and it seemed that the more time passed the more ground they could cover. He did not know where they were exactly, though the Spine now loomed behind them instead of ahead. They were beginning to enter the westlands .

He figured that by the end of the next day they would be in the Reach, which meant that not long after they could reach Alliria.

An idea had formed in regards to that. Kasim knew people in Alliria, friends, or as close as he could get to having friends. They were folk who had helped him shake his father's agents once. He could trust them, and although he knew Kiovec couldn't carry more than just him…getting Aviana back was not a prospect easily faced with just himself and a dragon.

He frowned as the two of them sat in front of a campfire. "I'm going to need your help with something else."

Kasim told the dragon.

"But you won't like it." Would the Dragon understand? He hoped so.

 

[Aviana Sabel]

For the dragon, he had no concept of how far the two of them had traveled, nor how much further they still had to go. All that mattered was that each day they progressed. Kiovec trusted the mate, and not only because Aviana had placed her trust in the man, but because of his unyielding devotion to her. Together, the dragon decided, they would bring Aviana back.

He opened his maw and snapped it shut once, bobbing his head in a nod. A low 'mmm' rumbled in his throat.

Brilliant orbs of golden orange stared back at the Jester with an keen intellect reflected in their depths. He understood. One of his wings stirred and stretched partially towards Kasim, a gesture perhaps for him to continue.

 

[Kasim Areth]

His plan by this point was rather well thought out, at least he thought so.


"Okay so first. We need to stop in a city on our way to where Aviana is going." He doubted Kiovec would like that, but they had no choice. His family had an entire army at their beck and call, and that was without counting any of the Dreadlords or other...things they had at their disposal. " I have some friends there, they'll help us."


That was the first step.


The second…he was not entirely sure how to bring up. His lips thinned and he glanced at the dragon, frowning before slowly speaking. "I can do magic."


Certainly it would understand that. Kiovec did magic with Aviana.


"But if I use that magic, bad things will happen." Then he pulled up a piece of parchment. "I can also do rune magic."


He pointed to the almost finished rune. It was said that the language was ancient, older than the race of man. Some said dragons could understand it, though such things were just rumor. "I can use your blood to make the rune magic much, much, stronger."


Kasim chose his words carefully, trying to paint the picture that this all depended on the dragons own decision

 

[Aviana Sabel]

Kiovec listened to Kasim's explanation of his plan. The dragon was uncertain if flying into the middle of a populated area would be wise for him, but he didn't have a way to convey such doubts to the human. There were only so many ways to huff or growl.

When the unfinished Rune was displayed, however, something interesting happened. The dragon recognized the symbol in front of him. There was no explanation as to how he knew the language, only that he did. It was as much an instinct as breathing.

His neck reached forward, peering at the parchment intently. He could see the missing strokes that were needed to complete the script.

"Ba'elor." The dragon rumbled in a deep, throaty growl; uttering the ancient word without even realizing what he'd done.

As the dragon spoke, the flames of the campfire leaped higher into the air, as if responding to the dragon's words.

He turned his amber gaze to the fire, an amused sound thrumming deep in his chest.

 

[Kasim Areth]

Kasim half leaped backward as the flame exploded, shielding himself from the flame.

He should have been surprised, but the truthfully Kasim could find no real shock at the moment. The Dragon had done...unexpected things pretty much the entire time that it had been around, and the moment that had just passed was just one in a laundry list.

"Shit." He still couldn't help but curse.

It seemed the rumors were true.

Rune Magic was old. Most Anirian scholars believed that it pre-dated other forms of magic. It harnessed not the power of the self, but what the earth itself and the materials it used. That was why Runes of Dragon Blood would be so powerful.

The runes were just a way of harnessing innate energy stored in...well, anything. It would not surprise him if Dragons knew that as well.

"Okay." He said, quickly scribbling in the sand. "Can you read this?"

This time he did not write a single rune, but instead an entire sentence. Can you read this?

 

[Aviana Sabel]

Kiovec's keen gaze flitted over the freshly scrawled runes in the sand with his head tilted slightly to the side. Another quiet huff escaped the dragon, clicking his maw once more.

His head bobbed in a single nod.

He could read the runes that the man etched, though why he could do so he didn't know.

He was curious as to what the jester was up to. The dragon turned his gaze back to the human, watching him intently.

"Hmmpm?" He grunted in the low voice that grumbled like thunder.

 

[Kasim Areth]

It seemed that the Dragon understood.

Kasim did not ignore the fact that he may have made the academic discovery of the century, but in that moment he decided it was less important than getting Kiovec to understand what it was that he actually wanted to do.

I can use your blood with these runes. He told the Dragon, or at least wrote very quickly.

Utilizing the Runes to make actual sentences was surprisingly easy. It was a language after all, and conveying these thoughts was simple enough, if rather time consuming.

The magic will be very powerful. He wrote further. It will help save her.

No need to qualify who 'her' was.

 

[Aviana Sabel]

The dragon peered over Kasim's shoulder as he etched out the runes in the sand, a low purr still thrumming in his throat. Standing up, the dragon's shoulders were now nearly as high as Kasim was tall. It wouldn't be much longer until they were stopping to let the jester rest, instead of Kiovec.

Bobbing his head in understanding, the dragon then turned his gaze to Kasim.

Kiovec would let nothing stand in the way of him and his bond.

He glanced around their campsite, and his expression shifted to the closest thing that a dragon could muster as a scowl. With a huff he looked back to the sand, his eyes seemed to almost glow for a moment and then a scrawl of runes slowly formed at Kasim's feat.

Do as you must. Take what you need.

 

[Kasim Areth]

There was a solemn nod from Kasim to the Dragon, his head bobbing in understanding.

Kasim couldn't help but feel the slight feeling of excitement well in his stomach. The focus was still there, the anger, rage and indignation of Aviana being lost was still there. Yet excitement floated through him.

He could not help it, not really.

The Jester wanted to save his love of course, but the scholar in him, the small part of him that had always cared of learning and the like couldn't help but feel a thrill. Rune Magic had always been strong, but with Dragon Blood?

With Dragon Blood he could do unthinkable things.

Something in the back of his mind seemed to echo that thought, something dark that lingered at just the edges of his thought.

 

[Aviana Sabel]

The Jester seemed almost... giddy when Kiovec gave his consent. He didn't understand the implications of what he was giving the human, or the power that his blood would allow Kasim to unleash. Even if the dragon did come to understand, he doubted very much that he would particularly care. All that mattered to him was getting his Bond back from the clutches of the beast that'd taken her.

No matter the cost.

Huffing quietly, Kiovec turned to find the Jester's pack. He flipped open the flap with a flick of his muzzle and then started to rummage around inside, looking for something that he could use as a container. It wouldn't do either of them any good if the blood just fell to the ground and was tainted.

It was difficult for him to search through the bag, and he looked back to Kasim. His eyes glowed once and another set of runes appeared on the sand in front of the Jester.

Well?

 

[Kasim Areth]

Kasim nodded as he snapped out of the dark space that lingered within his mind.

There was work to be done yet. From his pack he pulled out a small container. It had once held the basilisk venom that he'd needed for drawing runes. Inside of his bag there were a dozen others like it, and he quickly upturned and empty them.

Once he would have balked at doing such a thing, screamed at anyone who would try, but Dragon Blood was more powerful than any of them. A few seconds later he pulled out a small knife, his fingers unsheating at he looked at Kiovec. "I'll do this as quickly as I can."

He said softly, and odd line of red briefly flickering through his iris.

The ocean was becoming rather droll. That was what Sarkus had decided as he stood at the prow of the ship and watched the waves go by.

He had been assured by the Captain that they would arrive in Vel Luin inside of a month, though given that the conversation had just taken place this morning that meant he was still stuck on this Craft for another few weeks.

It was torture.

The boredom had nearly gotten to him twice, and he'd had to entertain himself with some of the crew members in the meantime.

Things were now becoming...frustrating. Just about the only fun that he'd managed to find in the last week had been with one of the Dreadlords. She had been enjoyable, though even that lost some of its luster now. His gaze fell to the skies above, frowning for a brief moment as a flicker of sunlight lashed across his hand.

Burning flesh tinged his nostrils, and he sighed as he turned to head back inside.

 

[Aviana Sabel]

Time almost seemed to stand still on the massive ship, the only indication that the world still proceeded on without them was the steady rise and fall of the sun. Aviana lost count of the days after a few weeks.

She managed to get the debilitating morning sickness under control once she gained access to the ship's apothecary. With the herbs stored there she was able to concoct a medication to soothe her symptoms. There'd been a scare for a few days, since Aviana had been incapable of keeping anything down.

This was where Aviana was headed as she stepped out of her quarters, her scarf wrapped around her hair to hide the horns.

She hesitated when she caught sight of Sarkus in the narrow corridor.

Her eyes flicked over his form, catching a strange scent in the confined space. It didn't take long for her to notice the seared flesh on the back of his hand. The resemblance between the man and Kasim was still startling. Sometimes when she saw Sarkus out of the corner of her eye, she'd feel her heart leap into her throat, thinking that she'd seen her lover. Each time when she realized the foolish mistake, she'd been left crestfallen and inescapably lonely.

Biting her bottom lip, she gestured towards him. "You're hurt..."

 

[Kasim Areth]

Sarkus hardly seemed to register that Aviana was there at all.

To his mind she was...well barely a blip. Ordinary humans were so...boring. After three lifetimes on this earth he had difficulty keeping his attention on any one thing for too long, and humans were just...well they were just so much the same.

It was hard to pay attention to any of them, and although Aviana had been the reason they were heading home Sarkus almost forgot why she was here in the first place.

The very fact was a mark of how far his mind had gone. No one was meant to live as long as he, no human anyway. His mind had become a broken and fragmented thing, skipping from place to place instead of following a single path.

Dangerous. "This?"

He gestured to his hand as memories of who Aviana was flooded into the forefront of his mind.

"A paltry thing, a mark of my...condition I'm afraid." He chuckled. "Worry not, my dear. Your uncle will be okay."

She was his nephews lover, family was she not?

His nostrils flared slightly as he scented the air, catching the familiar smell of her.

 

[Aviana Sabel]

"There's some aloe vera in the apothecary, it may help with the burn in the interim." She said cautiously, glancing over her shoulder towards the staircase that led further into the ship.

No matter how much Sarkus looked like Kasim, he was nothing like the Jester. There was something fractured about the man and the way he spoke. It was impossible to tell what he was thinking or where his mind would wander too next. Aviana quietly questioned the man's sanity in the privacy of her own thoughts.

Her tongue pressed against the inside of her cheek.

She wondered if she should correct Sarkus. Was it safer for her if she was married to Kasim? Did that even matter in Vel Anir? She didn't know. Their culture was so foreign to her and Kasim never told her much about it. All she had was what she'd gleaned from the crew and Kara over the course of their journey... which wasn't much to go on.

Her eyes narrowed slightly when she saw his nostrils flare, knowing that he was inhaling her scent. She made a mental note to add more lavender oil to her hair, to cover her own scent. For reasons she couldn't quite explain, she hated the thought of him knowing her by smell. It simply made her skin crawl.

She paused, licked her lips and then spoke. "You must hold family in quite high regard, if you're referring to yourself as my Uncle already. Or, is that simply your idea of a joke to make me uncomfortable?"

 

[Kasim Areth]

"A joke?" Sarkus sounded almost incredulous at the very insinuation that he had been mocking her. Almost as if such things would be utterly uncouth. His abashed facade faded away and slowly he shook his head.

"No no my dear." He shook his head. "My dear nephew chose you, and that makes you family."

A shrug rolled over his shoulders. "Nearly four centuries this earth have taught me certain things are precious, few things that you get to choose."

The words were rather cryptic, and at odds with the fact that he had kidnapped Aviana. One could hardly read the understanding of a broken mind though, much less the intent. Nevertheless Sarkus seemed genuine in the words he spoke to her.

"Come." He told her. "I'll show you something that you'll find interesting."

 

[Aviana Sabel]

His answer was eerily cryptic and she frowned slightly, but wasn't sure how to go about asking him to elaborate. If he held family so dear, Aviana wasn't going to question the response too far. As far as she could tell, her connection to Kasim and the child in her belly were the only things keeping her alive.

"Alright then..." She murmured, following the man down the hall to see whatever it was he wanted to show her.

 

[Kasim Areth]

They walked through the blackfort for some time, descending deeper and deeper into the depths of the massive ship until they were at the lowest decks one could reach.

As Sarkus reached the last step he motioned for Aviana to follow. No light reached this deck of the ship, its breadth hidden deep in a shell of black wood. The lack of sun or torch hardly seemed to bother the Vampire, and if it concerned Aviana he did not realize.

"I was a boy when this ship was built." He had told her that before, though he did not remember.

He slowly wandered to the middle of the deck.

"Just before the third war." He paused, looking as if in search. "By the time it was used..."

Sarkus trailed off, then wandered towards a nearby wall.

 

[Aviana Sabel]

Had Aviana been human, she would have found it impossible to see in the unsettling darkness of the ship's underbelly. Even as an elf, however, she struggled to make out any details in the depths of the shadows. Being down here with Kasim's vampiric uncle was less than reassuring.

She folded her arms over her chest, warding off a chill that seemed to cling to the air. Perhaps it was just in her mind... it should have been stifling down here.

Her head tilted slightly to the side as she watched the silhouette of Sarkus prowl through the dark towards the wall.

"By the time it was used?" She prompted, curious as to where he was going with this.

 

[Kasim Areth]

The man touched the wall, his fingers slowly running over small lines that had been carved into the ancient wood.

He beckoned her over. "I was twenty three."

Blackforts were not ordinary ships. They were difficult to create, impossibly so. It took a decade to mill the wood itself and another decade to actually put it all together. Great magics went into these vessel, and there was a reason they could no longer be built today.

"The war was in full swing." As Aviana came closer Sarkus gently grasped her hand, guiding it to the wall.

There she would feel a carving of names. A slow roll of them. "Our days were but fire and blood."

 

[Aviana Sabel]

As he took her hand in his, Aviana tensed slightly. Her heart ached in her chest, a sharp reminder of how desperately she missed Kasim.

She bit her bottom lip as she traced her fingertips along carved names, Sarkus' hand still pressed over the back of hers.

"Are these the names of the people that built the ship?" She asked in a low voice, feeling as though speaking at a normal volume would be inappropriate some how.

 

[Kasim Areth]

He scoffed. "No."

His hand stopped on one of the names in particular.

"It's the name of the people that died on this ship." Fingers tightened slightly on her hand, and then slowly he pushed her index to trace one name in particular. It was slow, methodical.

Perhaps at first she would resist, try to stop, but he guided her with his touch until the whole of it would come to her.

It was his name.

 

[Aviana Sabel]

Aviana made every conscious effort to keep her fingers steady as Sarkus forced her to trace the lettering in the panel. She didn't want to give him the satisfaction of her fear.

Why show her this? He already had what he wanted... Was he just bored?

She took several deep breaths to calm her nerves once she realized what the name read.

"You died on the..." She murmured quietly, her words trailing off.

"What happened to you then? Since... You're clearly not dead." She asked hesitantly.

 

[Kasim Areth]

"The War was a cruel one." Sarkus said as he let go of Aviana's hand, glancing around the bottom deck for a moment.

His eyes were forlorn, lost.

"The third war was a practical stalemate between us and the Elves." Sarkus explained slowly. "We could not take their forest, but they could not match us anywhere else. Thousands died almost daily."

A hand ran through his hair. "Your people...your cousins?"

He seemed amused at that comparison, though quickly continued over it.

"They grew desperate. As desperate as we did." A shrug rolled over his shoulders. "Magic doesn't work on Blackforts, but monsters do."

 

[Aviana Sabel]

"So they unleashed one." Aviana murmured quietly, shaking her head.

Until relatively recently, war and bloodshed had been purely academic for her. Minaris was so isolated that the mainlanders left them to their own devices. But that didn't stop war from building from within...

She took a deep breath, bringing her thoughts back to what was happening presently. The scent of stale air met her nostrils. It was so very still down here in the bowels of the Blackfort.

Her brow furrowed, trying to remember her studies. What kind of monster could kill an entire crew of a ship this size? There were several possibilities, but very few explained why Sarkus was still standing in front of her.

Her mind conjured images of the werewolf village that attacked her and Kasim, causing her to shudder.

Sarkus didn't fit that description...

"Were you the only survivor?" She asked cautiously. Instinct and manners told her not to press him with too many questions... But he was the one that brought her down here. He wanted her to know.

 

[Kasim Areth]

"Survivor seems the wrong word for it." He chuckled.

Sarkus glanced down at her for a moment. "I was not the only one infected, no. Most people on the ship were left 'alive'."

He remembered the events well, waking to find himself and the others turned. There had been panic, talk of desertion. The Elves had planned for the men of The Red Ashes to seek vengeance, to wreak havoc in Vel Anir. They had thought men weak.

They'd been wrong.

"The intent of the monster was to turn so, so that we would turn on our home. Vampires and other Monsters are despised in Vel Anir you see, like everywhere else." That would not come as a surprise. "However, unlike in Alliria or places, our fair city devotes much to their cleansing. Templar, Dreadlords, Paladins, and even the Guard works to destroy such scourge."

It was why monster attacks were extremely rare around Vel Anir.

"The plan did not succeed." He said quietly. "Most ended their own lives, walking into the sun when dawn broke."