Dawnlight

I slumber. Timeless, unbound by the constraints of the world, shifting on ethereal currents. Fragments of memory flicker across what consciousness is left to me, life, , blood, pain. Always I come back to the end. Bound, sealed, shut in a crypt, a circle of light traced with runes. The flow of power, of essence, across my skin. The chanting of the robed figures that surrounded me, struggling against my shackles, screaming against my gag.

How long? Can eternity be measured in hours? No clock. No sun, no moon. No hunger or thirst, or the red thirst that replaced it, no hair to grow. Nothing. Only me and my memories, wrapped around themselves. Only my prison.

And something else. A whisper. A fragment of a whisper. Greedy for noise I follow, and something miraculous happens. I smell. Blood. Essence. Power. Do I hear, or only remember hearing? I am a fragment of thought atrophying outside space and time. I cannot perceive, and yet I do. I open my eyes.

The ceiling above is grey stone, chipped painstakingly into the mountain, not built. No mortar lines. Flickering torchlight shows chisel marks as it dances. There is chanting again, around me, outside the sarcophagus, and a whisper of thought, saying "please..."

Blood drips from a slashed wrist above me. Some strikes my mouth and my tongue unconsciously seeks it. More splashes on my nose, cheeks, chin, dribbles harmlessly past me. Too much blood. The flow of essence behind it is weak. I reach out without thinking, push some back. Cut off the flow. I am weak but that much I can still do. A true healing is beyond my skill but I push energy into the cut, scab it over.

I don't breathe. Essence is life, produced by life, and I am not alive. No heartbeat. No vitriol raging round my system bringing vitality to my extremities. With so little I am grey and clammy, my movements stiff. The thirst rises up and urges me to snatch back the wrist as it is withdrawn, I fight it down. Now isn't the time to lose control. I grasp the edge of my prison and lever myself upright.

It is a very different group of cultists that surrounds me now. Black robes, cheaply-dyed wool. Hoods raised. No silks or golden sun discs. To the right the owner of the wrist is crumpled, small, robed like the rest. A woman. I study her aura for a moment. Drained, exhausted, probably no permanent damage. In need of rest before being fed on again. The rest have backed off a pace and the chanting has ceased. The crackle of torches compete with the faint clash of steel far down the passageway. We stare, for a moment, me looking from hood to hood. The tension, the fear, is palpable.

Another figure steps into my field of view. Robed like the others but his hood is down to reveal a round ruddy face under an unruly mop of blond hair. He hesitates, steps forward. Bows. "Master." Master? "The enemy will be upon us shortly. Do you feel fit to depart?" He gestures at the woman on the floor. "Do you require more food?" I couldn't place the accent.

Flush with vitality. Smooth skin. Stubble. It'd take a skilled analytical mage to convince you he was another vampire, but the signs were there for those who knew how to look. The aura bulging with stolen energy, its boundaries shrunken and wizened but its contents fresh. Undisciplined. The aura of a vampire who takes what he wants when he wants it and damn the consequences.

I twitched myself to my feet, the cultists around the perimeter stepping back at the suddenness of the movement, the other vampire flinched but stood his ground. A modicum of backbone, then. Good. Or possibly bad. I hadn't decided. I looked around, counting. Twenty cultists. Some with torches. I might escape but the odds weren't in my favor, as weakened as I was, best to play along for now.

"I am perfectly mobile." Dry, sibilant, hissing forth in a whisper from a long-unused voicebox. "Who are you?"

The vampire looked confused for a moment, then worried. He looked to one of the cultists and with no answer forthcoming bowed again. "We are the Watchers of the Dragon, milord. For a thousand years my ancestors have sought and schemed for your return, to bring forth your rightful dominion over the Empire."

Thoughts rush across my mind, chasing each other. A thousand years? Rightful dominion. He thinks I'm Vhaldirm. Dust for so long...

My sire was always one for long plots. A seed of a cult like this, a fledgeling sired in secret and hidden away from the inquisitors, that was just his style. I shook off the memory of his emaciated body stripped of its vital protection struggling to escape the flames. Looked back down at my rescuer. "Clothing," I hissed, coughed. "And another vessel." He cocked his head. "Victim. Person on which to feed."

"You haven't finished that one?" He gestured at the woman next to the coffin.

I looked down at her. Up at him. Outrage chased horror. How far gone were our children? Feeding to excess, killing their flock? "Another. And I am keeping this one."

"Of course." A flicker of doubt passed over him and was gone. His vaunted ancestors returned to pass judgement on his lifestyle. How it must smart.

I looked down at my body, a memory of what it was when I was alive pulled forth from the ashes of my grave by enchantment, given shape and form by essence. Naked. "Clothes."

I stepped from the sarcophagus, picked up the woman. Light. Underfed. Her hood fell back to reveal a thin pale face topped with black hair quickly tied back. Warm. Living. I fought down a shudder as the thirst probed at the edges of my awareness. Later. I moved towards the exit, robed figures trailing behind.