Bound In Darkness 02 - The Devil's Knight Part 6

His opponent frowned, then drove his forehead full force into Tristan's, making him see stars, demon or not. "Son of a b.i.t.c.h," he muttered, rubbing his forehead, and Tristan, sitting on the floor again, was inclined to agree with him. "Pax, boy, for pity..." He offered his hand. "I am Simon, duke of Lyan."

"Duke of Lyan?" Tristan knew the name, a mostly useless manor of the crown in Ireland. But he had never heard tell of its master being a monster.

"For the moment, anyway." When Tristan had first seen him, he had seemed half wild, a creature of the dark. Now he looked like any other n.o.ble knight, albeit prettier than most with his long black hair and wicked grin. "And this is Orlando the wizard." "Wizard?" The ache in his head was fading, but he still felt just as confused. He looked back and forth between them, remembering his dream. "Where is the girl?"

The other two exchanged a look. "What girl?" Simon said slowly.

"The girl who wanted you to kill her." He climbed back to his feet. "I saw her with you in my dream." His sword was still lying beside where he'd been sleeping, and he silently calculated how quickly he could reach it.

"I told you," the man called Orlando told the demon knight, Simon, again. "He was an accident, but he is not for killing."

"An accident?" Tristan echoed.

"I didn't mean to make you," Simon explained. "I meant to kill you."

"Ah," Tristan nodded, nonplussed.

"It was nothing personal," Simon promised, his mouth quirking up in a grin.

"We need him," Orlando pressed on as if they hadn't spoken. The graybeard stood barely waist high to his companion, and he wore the mottled clothes of a fool. But he was obviously accustomed to ordering this Simon about like a child with the manner of a giant and an emperor combined. "He has a place in your quest."

"I thank you for your kindness, sirrah," Tristan said sarcastically. "But I have a quest of my own."

"Your quest is salvation," the little wizard answered, turning his airs on Tristan now. "The destruction of evil-"

"What makes you think so, wizard?" Tristan cut him off. "Why should I give myself to such things when I believe in neither?" He turned back to Simon. "Tell me who I am." He picked up his sword. "Tell me what you made me, accident or not."

"A vampire," Simon answered. Tristan frowned, and he smiled. "The word means nothing to you, I know-it meant nothing to me either."

"So what is it?" He had no time for riddles. His child was left to the mercy of his enemies; he had problems enough of his own.

"What is a vampire?"

"A child of evil," Orlando said. "A mortal possessed of a demon that gives him a demon's strength but denies him the light."

"I know that much already," Tristan retorted. "How is such a creature made?"

"You know that as well," Simon answered. "I am a vampire; I drank your blood; in the struggle, you drank mine. That made you a vampire, too. The matters of the soul are more complex, but that is the most practical explanation."

"I care nothing for matters of the soul," Tristan scoffed.

"Have a care, boy," Simon said, making Tristan bristle. In truth, Simon didn't look as old as he was himself. "Do you love this demon's life so much you wish to keep it forever?"

"Why not?" Tristan said with a careless smile of his own. "Am I not immortal now?"

"No." Simon drew his sword so quickly, Tristan never saw him move until it was poised at his throat. "Not really," he went on. "If I should take your head or drive a stake through your heart, you would die, and your soul would be d.a.m.ned." He let the sword fall and sheathed it.

"So that is what you meant to do just now before I woke?" Tristan said, turning to him. "Send my soul to h.e.l.l?" The handsome demon's eyes went wide for a moment. "I suppose," he admitted. "In truth, I hadn't really thought of that. I knew I was not meant to make another vampire, so I meant to correct my mistake..." His expression seemed truly contrite. "I am sorry, Tristan."

"Is that why you were following me?" As much as he wanted to hear the truth about what he had become, he was more concerned about his own business. These two seemed all wrapped up in some fool's crusade of G.o.d and souls and demons, nothing that was any use to him.

"We picked up your trail a week or so ago," Simon said. "In truth, it wasn't hard. You weren't exactly discreet in your murders."

He grinned. "The sheriff was an interesting choice."

"He was a pig," Tristan said with a frown, remembering the man. "I saw him procure three different farmers' daughters for ruin in the s.p.a.ce of one night. I doubt he'll be much missed."

"There was quite a celebration," Simon admitted. "But are all of your victims such villains?"

"Just lately? Yes," Tristan answered. He thought of the brigand he had drained the night before and smiled. "You say I am your brother. Why have you called me your son?"

"I have not," Simon said with a frown.

"I heard you," Tristan said. "Not three nights past when I had killed a coachman." He thought of the man he had seen in his dream and the way he had changed his appearance. But Simon had been in the dream as well, as himself. "I dreamed of you just now,"

he said. "That's why I asked you about the girl; I saw you and Orlando and a woman in a hall of gold with columns covered in jewels."

"Sweet saints," Simon muttered, and the wizard mumbled an oath as well in a language Tristan didn't understand.

"There was another man as well," he went on, watching their faces. "Tall, with long red hair. He called me his son."

"Kivar," Simon said. "The vampire who made me. His spirit must still haunt my blood-"

"Not so," Orlando cut him off. "You know that is not true." Both of their expressions were grave. "He lives."

"He said that he would come to me," Tristan said. "He said that I would understand." The details of the dream were fading as he spoke of it; he was losing the face of the man he described. "You say he is another vampire?"

"He is more than that," Orlando said.

"A vampire can be killed, just as I told you," Simon explained with a bitter smile. "I've killed Lucan Kivar twice already."

"His demon soul is released from his body," Orlando said, as if this were supposed to make sense. "He can possess the dead, take on any shape he likes until his quest is done."

"When you drank my blood, you became as I am, but you are still yourself," Simon said. "At the moment of death, you were transformed to something else, from mortal man to vampire. Kivar used to be the same, I think-he made me just as I made you, except that he acted on purpose. But now he attacks corpses, men already dead. He takes possession of their bodies and pilfers their minds." His scowl darkened as if some memory pained him very much. "He can see their memories; he knows what they wanted, what they thought. But the spirit in control of the body is Kivar."

Tristan's own flesh crawled with horror at the thought of such a thing, but he refused to show it. "So Lucan Kivar is evil," he said, keeping his tone flat. "But you are not."

"I am," Simon answered. "But not by choice." "Simon is sworn to destroy Lucan Kivar," Orlando said. "Now you must help him."

"I must?" Tristan said, arching an eyebrow.

"Orlando has made a study of Kivar for many years," Simon explained. "He believes that he can be destroyed with a holy relic from the time of his making, a Chalice." Tristan's doubts must have shown in his face, because the other demon smiled. "I did not believe it either," he admitted. "I used to be a Crusader; I have seen enough of holy relics to know their uses well, and destroying true evil is not one of them."

"But you believe in this one?" Tristan said, still skeptical.

"I have seen it." Again, his expression clouded as if at some remembered horror. "More important, I have seen Kivar's reaction to it. Whatever the Chalice may be, Lucan Kivar wants to possess it, and I know enough of him to know that whatever he wants, I do not."

"So you mean to have it first." Tristan had served with knights of chivalry since he was ten years old; he had heard every fairy story about the Grail ever devised and believed not a single one. But watching his so-called brother's face, he could not doubt he believed in this chalice, or that he would do anything to win it.

"The Chalice is salvation," Orlando said. "For Simon and for you as well. If the two of you find it, you can be restored to mortal life."

"And why in h.e.l.l's name would I want that?" Tristan laughed. He needed answers, instruction in the powers this vampire had pa.s.sed on to him, not some myth of evil spirits and magical cups. "You witnessed the end of my mortal life, Simon-did it seem so grand I should want to relive it?"

"I don't know you," Simon admitted. "I know you had been treated badly, that the men with you meant to see you dead. I smelled the evil in their blood; 'tis why I was drawn to them in the first place."

"You know nothing," Tristan scoffed. "The men you killed were nothing, no more than messengers. My true enemy still lives, a common thief who has stolen my castle, my t.i.tle, even my child. You say you are sworn to this quest, and may all good go with you, but I am sworn as well. To my king, to hold these lands for the crown. To my child, to protect her from evil."

"What is your king compared to the power of the Chalice?" Orlando said disdainfully. "How can you protect your child as a creature of evil yourself?"

"Tristan, I know what it is to seek vengeance," Simon said in a much more sympathetic tone. "I know the sacred honor of a knight, sworn to the service of my lord, and I know what it is to love. But Orlando is right. So long as you are a vampire, you cannot serve your king or save your child. You can only bring them darkness and can only give them pain." He took a step closer.

"Kivar has come to you in dreams. You have heard his voice. If you do not fight him, he will destroy you and all that you love."

"Kivar is a dream, a fantasy," Tristan answered. "Sean Lebuin is real."

"Oh, Kivar is real enough," Orlando said bitterly. "You should pray you do not learn too soon how real."

"I do not pray," Tristan retorted. "Nor have I ever done." He met Simon's dark eyes with his own. "You speak of holy relics, of salvation. Even as a man, I held no hope in such things. You speak of this demon we carry as if it were a curse, but for me, it is a blessing. I have no love for killing, but I have never feared it, have never hesitated to kill to achieve what I wanted or the glory of my king. This power you would be rid of is all that I could wish, all I need to see my justice done."

"Your justice?" Simon said with another twisted half-smile.

"Aye, sirrah, my justice," Tristan said. "You search for this chalice so you might escape d.a.m.nation for your sins. Believe me when I tell you, I am already d.a.m.ned." "And what if you succeed?" Simon asked. "If you have your vengeance-your justice, you call it-what then? Will you take this child of yours into darkness? Will you play lord of the castle as a demon?"

"Do you not?" Tristan countered. "Your grace?"

"Nay, sir, I do not." Pain darkened his eyes. "I know what evil Kivar holds for me and for my love-may you never know as much. I will not rest until I know he is destroyed." He met Tristan's gaze with his own. "And neither should you."

"I will not join you," Tristan answered, refusing to be moved. He could not afford to be distracted. "When my castle is secure and my daughter is safe, if you still want me, I will consider it. But for now, you must forgive me."

"Madness," Orlando fumed. "Stupid, arrogant-"

"Enough," Simon stopped him, putting a hand on his shoulder. "I do forgive you, Tristan, and I will trouble you no more unless you ask it." He offered his hand, and Tristan clasped it, thinking this the strangest offer of alliance he had ever heard tell of in his life. "I just hope you do not find you cannot forgive yourself."

"I will risk it," Tristan answered. He looked down at the little wizard, still fuming but silent. "But I thank you for your hopes."

Nodding once more to his strange brother in blood, he left the hillside hovel and whistled for his horse.

Simon watched him ride away, shaking his head. "It's not fair," he muttered. "Ten years before I found a mount who would bear me, yet this one...Why should his horse not fear him?"

"Because he knows he is an idiot," Orlando muttered. "What now, warrior? You cannot kill him."

"No," Simon agreed. "But we can follow." He looked down at his friend with a bitter smile. "Kivar will be along."

Over the next few days, Sean made good on his promise to move them all into the tower. When Siobhan came into the lower chamber looking for her brother one afternoon an hour or so before sunset, she found it buzzing with activity, ready to serve as the castle's new main hall. Several of the trestle tables from the manor had already been carried in and set against the walls, and a huge tapestry Sean had taken in one of their forest raids was being hung behind a newly raised dais along the back wall. "Quite pa.s.sable," said a pa.s.sing servant who had once served Tristan DuMaine, obviously pleased. "Wouldn't you say so, my lady?"

She made herself smile as she glanced in his direction. "Very nice." In truth, she felt sick, the shiver of dread she felt every time she pa.s.sed the threshold of this tower writhing in her stomach. Sean could say what he liked about the sin being DuMaine's; she knew better. They had no business living here, not in this new tower. This hill belonged to the Old Ones, and it always would. If they did not mean to honor them, they would do well to leave it alone. "Where is my brother?"

The servant frowned. "I don't know." A chair with ridiculously ornate carvings on its back and arms was being carried in by two men she barely knew-soldiers of Tristan's old garrison. "He was here half an hour ago."

Their answer quickly came. "The baron's man is dead, Lebuin!" Gaston was raging, following Sean down the stairs. "Another is likely the same, and the third will not live out the week-from what the messenger said, he could be dead already!"

"I feel the baron's grief, Gaston," Sean answered, sounding tired and annoyed. "But what is that to me?"

"The survivor said the man was yours," Gaston insisted.

"Then he was mistaken." He caught sight of Siobhan. "I have no more men in the forest."

"Then where did this brigand come from?" Gaston glanced at her as well and hesitated before he went on. "Who else would attack the baron's coach?" "I couldn't say," Sean said mildly, the expression on his face telling his sister he was reaching the end of his patience. "What does your survivor say about it?"

"He raves," Gaston muttered. "He swears the man attacked the coachman and tore out his throat like a dog, but the coachman was gone when we found them."

"Perhaps the coachman did the killing," Sean suggested. Siobhan joined them, and he smiled. "Or perhaps it was some lunatic run off from his people or set loose in the woods."

"A lunatic who took down two of the baron's best soldiers with a sword?" Gaston was sweating, she saw-how marvelous. "The baron is furious, Lebuin. He will want answering-"

"And I will answer." Her brother fixed the courtier with the glare that could make the rowdiest brigand quake in his boots.

"Come, Siobhan." He held out his hand, and she took it.

"The baron is coming!" Gaston insisted. "He is coming here-"

"And we will welcome him." He turned his back on Gaston and led Siobhan up the stairs.

He took her to the topmost chamber of the tower. A workman a.s.sembled a huge cabinet bed on one side of the room. "Come and see your view," Sean said, taking her to the window. "You can see all the way to the river."

"We should station a guard here, then," she answered. Tapestries depicting girls petting unicorns and other such nonsense had been hung around the walls, and a heavy oak wardrobe stood open to reveal the gowns hanging within. "What was he talking about, Sean?"

"Some of the baron's men were attacked in the forest," he answered. "Never mind; it has naught to do with us."

"But he said the baron was coming here." A delicate screen had been set up in the corner of the room. "What is that?" she muttered, peering around it.

"A privy closet, little heathen," he answered with a laugh. "Surely you haven't forgotten."

"I'm perfectly capable of using the necessary on the wall like everyone else," she grumbled.

"In the dead of night, you mean to walk all the way down the stairs, across the courtyard, and up onto the wall?" he teased.

"That's quite a voyage."

"Better that than to expect someone else to carry my p.i.s.s out in the morning," she retorted.

"Don't say p.i.s.s." He looked her over with a frown. "What have you been doing?"

"Practicing my bow," she answered. "And I'll say p.i.s.s if I b.l.o.o.d.y well feel like it, thank you. Stop changing the subject; why is the baron coming here?"

"You have no need to practice anymore," he said, still frowning. "You are the Lady DuMaine now, remember?"