Death Angel's Shadow (25 page)

And with my kiss, then shall you know,

That love's purest expression

Is in death, is in death. With languid movement Naichoryss laid aside her lyre and stretched herself. Kane stared at her in utter entrancement. "There! So silent, Kane? I hope my song didn't lull you to sleep." She glided away from him, out of the moonlight and into the broken shadow of her bedchamber.

Kane followed her into the room; his every muscle stiff with tension, his mind in a delirium of wild emotion. "Naichoryss," he whispered hoarsely.

But she put a finger to her lips, and he was silent again. She faced him there beside her bed, and her dark eyes shone with her hunger for him. Then her slim fingers brushed the fastenings of her robe and it fell away from her like mist. A great band of moonlight framed her in the darkness, bathing every curve of her perfect beauty with new sorcery.

"Do you desire me, Kane?" she asked, laughter now vanished from her voice.

"You know I do!" he answered needlessly.

"And do you give yourself to me now, body and soul, for all the nights of eternity?" Was there still a hint of mockery in her eyes?

And even though Kane had now begun to understand the fate to which he was committing himself, he could not hold back his reply: "I give myself to you."

A flash of wild triumph crossed her face then, and she opened her arms to him. "Come to me now!" she cried joyously.

Kane crushed her in his powerful arms, melting her lithe body against his strength. Deeply they kissed, and the unholy chill of her lips seared the fire of his own. Almost unnoticed he felt the sudden thrust of her sharp fangs locking into position.

With surprising strength her hands tore through the fabric of his shirt, ripping it away from his throat and chest.

He watched dizzily as Naichoryss ended her branding kiss and settled back upon the furs of her bed. Feverishly Kane tossed aside the rest of his clothing, noticing even in his haste the long scratches her nails had slashed across his chest. Her fangs glinted evilly in the moonlight, quite obvious now, but Kane was beyond concern at this point.

Her cold arms pulled him down to her, and they entwined in an embrace of black ecstasy. Kane shuddered as wave upon wave of unendurable pleasure broke over him, and his sensations swirled in an impossible blend of flame and ice, revulsion and delight. He made no protest even when Naichoryss twisted over atop him and broke their kiss to trail her icy lips lower across his body.

When her fangs finally bit into his throat, it was as if the fires within him were suddenly unleashed. An unspeakable vortex of pain and ecstasy engulfed Kane, drowning him as he spun helplessly into its blackness.

Time became meaningless to him. It was as if all existence had become one endless night. Kane no longer knew the sun, although whether this was because he lay unconscious during the daylight hours, or whether time itself had ceased to move for them, he could not tell.

Reality consisted only of their nights together, and even then Kane could never remember how many times they had lain in dark embrace.

He would awaken. Outside there would still be darkness. Sometimes Kane would feel strong enough to walk about Naichoryss's chambers; other times he felt too weak to do more than drag himself far enough to reach the small dinner of wine and flesh that was set out for him. No sign did he ever see of the castle's servants, although he never ventured beyond her chambers to search. He even lacked the strength or curiosity to determine whether the door was locked; the possibility of escape simply did not occur to him.

When he looked at his reflected face in a mirror, Kane saw how haggard and gaunt he had grown, yet he felt no alarm. Without interest he contemplated the two close set wounds which made sullen red swellings upon the white flesh of his throat.

His only emotion was that of expectation--of anticipation for the disclosure of strange mysteries and secret pleasures for centuries denied to him. It was as if after an endless period of frustrated yearning, he were to have his every longing now fulfilled--at last to be free to embark upon an eternally desired journey. In a delirium Kane waited there, too weak in spirit and body to feet concern, waiting for death.

She came to him always. Sometimes through the door, sometimes she just seemed to be in the chamber.

In mock concern Naichoryss would comment upon his weakness, insist that he take nourishment, drive him out of his lassitude. Always Kane made the effort to please the mistress of Altbur Keep, drawing failing strength from some hidden reservoirs within him. They would talk together, or Naichoryss might sing. But each time it would end in the same manner. Together they would make love. And when Kane lay spent and exhausted to the point of fainting, he would once more feel the searing kiss of her lips on his throat and know the pain of her hunger--that would drive him once again into darkness.

Sometimes Naichoryss would talk to him about herself, about her plans for him. For the vampire was certain of her prey now, and she knew that knowledge of his fate could not change Kane's powerlessness to escape her spell.

She told him of the fall of Altbur Keep two centuries before in the civil wars of that period, told Kane of how the victors had slaughtered all those within village and castle. On this same bed she had suffered the lust of the victorious troops, until someone had seen fit to strangle her. But violence and hatred were forces too powerful to vanish without legacy. Thus it happened that the mistress of the fallen stranglehold had drawn strength from the curses and the frustrated vengeance of a thousand slain--had become the focus of energies stronger than death itself. At night she had roamed the shadows of her plundered domain, and the light of dawn had exposed many a bloodless corpse to mark her unholy revenge. And eventually it was terror that drove all men from the region, leaving Naichoryss mistress only of ghoul-haunted ruins.

Many years had passed. The grandchildren of those on whom she sought revenge grew old and died; the war itself became a hazy fragment of history, its factions and issues now confused even by scholars. The stones of Altbur Keep grew weathered and mossy; most of the ghouls moved on to more propitious lands. Still Naichoryss remained to haunt the forgotten ruins of her realm, preying only upon the animals of the forests or a rare stranger who unwittingly passed through.

It was lonely. Only the undead can know all the loneliness of death without the final rest of the grave.

When she drove off the ghouls that had discovered Kane, Naichoryss had known at once what she would do. Bringing him back to her castle, she had raised Altbur Keep from the dust of centuries to all its former glory. Carefully she had nurtured her treasure while Kane regained his strength. Painstakingly had she ensnared him in her spell. And when she considered him fully recovered, Naichoryss had taken him into her embrace to feed upon his immense vitality,

But death was not to be Kane's fate, this Naichoryss promised. Kane's destiny was to become her eternal consort--to join Naichoryss in the shadow realm of the undead! Slowly therefore was she draining life from him, carefully preparing Kane so that he might in death become as she--a creature of the night. And then together they would be rulers of this ghoul-haunted wilderness--together they would share the dark and unthinkable pleasures of the undead!

One night it happened that upon awakening Kane was too weak to leave the bed. He lay there, breathing in shallow gasps, his flesh pale and sunken, waiting for her to come to him once more.

Her dark eyes lit with exultation when she found him that last night. "At last!" Naichoryss's cry was as joyous as a bride's on her wedding night. "I had almost begun to believe your vitality an unquenchable spark!"

A note of tenderness crept into her voice then. "This is to be our final night like this, Kane beloved. Only for this last time must you know the pain of mortality--for when you next awaken it will not be from mortal sleep, but the sweet dreamlessness of death. And when you arise from death--then we shall at last be truly together! You and I, Kane--together for eternity!"

Kane smiled almost wistfully as she bent over him. Weakly he tried to speak, but her lips sealed his in silence.

Deeper and deeper burned her kiss. Needles of ice tore at every nerve of Kane's body, chilling his soul with unearthly cold. Cosmic emptiness was reaching through the darkness, engulfing him. Ecstasy and agony together assaulted and overwhelmed his failing senses, the two extremes simultaneously tearing him apart then fusing together to create an intolerable sensation.

Her raven black hair was tangled about his face and smothering him. The weight of her cold body was forcing the wind from his chest. Her insatiable lips were sucking the very life breath from his lungs. He could no longer breathe. He was falling...

Blackness. Kane drifted endlessly through infinite darkness. Not merely absence of light, but nonexistence of everything--matter, energy, time. Floating in the cosmic gulf between life and death.

Somehow through the darkness there extended a thread, a delicate web of substance that would not permit him to drift outward across the infinite void. A miniscule pull, it exerted upon him across the cons, its force weak and almost extinguished, yet too elemental to flicker away altogether. Life made one final attempt to reach Kane, relentlessly demanding expression of its most primeval instinct.

Centuries past, Kane had left the darkness of the womb, a squirming red creature whose first act of life was to draw squawling breath. And now through cosmic darkness this same instinct summoned him forth.

Kane gasped and opened his eyes. Hard stone walls held him tightly and his eyes saw only more darkness. The air in his lungs was stale and foul with century-old dust. Hoarsely he cried out, throwing his arms and legs in blind panic against the wall that pressed upon him. For an instant it seemed he had not the strength to break free, but then every primitive instinct within him howled in fear and loathing, driving his failing limbs onward with strength that surged forth from stores dormant since birth.

The wall gave under his straining heave and toppled away from him. Gibbering insanity only a breath away, Kane shot bolt upright in his sarcophagus and gulped down the cool, musty air of the sepulchre.

Kane sat there in the darkness, slowly breathing in the tomb air. As life streamed through his shivering body, his mind once more began to function clearly, rationally--freed from the enchantment that had so long imprisoned it.

He could see somewhat now, for the darkness of the sepulchre was daylight after the blackness that had so nearly claimed him. Kane decided that he must be in the family crypt that lay beneath Altbur Keep, for in the gloom he could discern the cobweb-hung shapes of other stone coffins, some reposing in niches of the wall, others set like his upon pedestals above the floor. With an effort Kane hoisted himself out from the confines of his sarcophagus and fell to the floor. Somehow he found the curiosity to wonder what had happened to the previous tenant, as he lurched across the dustladen stones. His feet encountered a stairway, which he stumbled his way up, following wan threads of sunlight that stole past the door to the crypt. Throwing his shoulder to this door, Kane forced it grudgingly open and staggered through the opening.

The hallway in which he stood was strewn with debris, and late afternoon sunlight shone brightly through collapsed ceiling at its far end. Painfully Kane dragged himself along the corridor to stand in wonder among the ruins to which it led him.
Altbur Keep was a deserted ruin. As Kane wandered through its silent hallways he met only desolation. No servants greeted him; only bats dwelled here now, along with certain wise-faced rats that scurried into hiding at his approach. The fortress walls still loomed solid upon the hilltop, although in places parts of the roof had given way. Signs of the castle's fall could still be seen in sundered gates and a few blackened walls where fires had sprung up. Many of its rich furnishings had been carried away by looters, although Kane encountered numerous mounds of rotting cloth and wood that indicated the tapestries and furniture of Altbur Keep's ancient magnificence. His own clothing was still the battle worn gear he had had with him, now showing signs of further abuse.

A bit of metal caught the sunlight, and Kane was pleased to discover his weapons stashed in a corner of one of the empty storerooms. Grimly he buckled on the battered sword and dirk, then made his way to the chambers of Naichoryss.

He paused often to regain his strength. His limbs shook and every cell of his body ached with numbing weakness. Nevertheless Kane felt a good deal stronger now than he had for a long while--shaken free of Naichoryss's spell, he ignored the dizziness and fatigue and willed his tortured frame to walk.

The sun was setting when Kane reeled into Naichoryss's chambers. Here too, all lay in dust and decay; yet there was a difference. The floors were not littered with trash and broken debris; here it seemed that the disorder left by the looters had been cleaned away and the room restored to a semblance of its old state. The walls still displayed tattered hangings, moldering rugs covered the stones, furniture reposed in proper order, vases and items that a woman treasures lay within dusty cobweb cocoons about the room. It was as though a loving hand carefully composed these chambers before their centuries of rest.

Kane warily examined the shadow haunted rooms, but no sign of life met his scrutiny. Much of her chambers was as he remembered, aside from the erosion of time--although he noted that many of the costly items which he had seen while he lay here were not present in this tableau. Her bed was still there, but Naichoryss did not lie upon its moldering furnishings as Kane had expected. For that matter, the dust that blanketed it appeared to be undisturbed. He frowned in consternation. Kane had supposed that the vampire would have chosen the bed upon which she had been slain as her resting place during the hours of daylight. This error was serious; he had wanted to confront Naichoryss once more--this time at his own advantage.