Treason's Truth

Chapter 1 Destiny’s Ride For approximately six hundred years, he dwelt in isolation in the dark holes interspersed as oft snowless crevices and naturally bored bleak uamhs in Am Monadh. From afar, over these years, he had taken note of the progress of the several clashing tribes which often stirred violently at the base of his massive and indestructible hideaway. He had been waiting over half a millennium since his previous incarnation for the correct human spirit to inhabit. He was simmering to shed his separation and ride the wave of human culture once again. His destiny this round was at imminent creation and he was profoundly excited at the prospect. Anonymity had served him decently for the span he had just spent in the frigid mountains here. Of course he had fed; but it was primarily on detestably poor quality blood. Animals yielded enough for him to survive but humans allowed him to thrive. He was simply bristling with an almost uncontrolled anticipation; almost uncontrolled, as he truly controlled most everything within his sphere. He had been restless shortly after dispensing with Septimius in the tumbling years of Roman decline all about the world. Restless then was mild in comparison and not what galvanized his senses in this moment; it was a huge surge that pierced his spirit to almost frantic impending motion. He hunkered down in the dank and dripping tunnel that he had considered home for far too long. He was clenching himself tighter and tighter as he prepared to recoil and exit the cave. He was unable to resist the primal call that wrapped its tentacles around him. This was not his power of foresight, which was much limited and rudimentary. No, this was the wrenching force of an essence beyond him. It was pulling him, silently screaming in his head to fly now. All that he knew absolutely was that his instincts were to be his only guide for an unknown length. This vast compulsion had played upon his history before. And he had blindly followed it as he would do this time too. What embodiment then did he have to anticipate now in the arms of this nameless weave upon him and a brutish era surrounding him? He rushed to the sky and converted into the winged form that he loathed but that allowed him to gobble up distances as he thrashed the air mercilessly. He was not likely to return ever to his den and for that he was thankful to be plying the clouds and caressing the moon’s sliver as he shot forward toward horizons of mystery and import. All that he ascertained in this moment of exit from prior shelter and entry into history’s precipice was that he was to enjoin with one who was to impact mankind’s trajectory forward. He had known two other pivotal periods in his craven life; one tethered to the dawn of time and the other bound to the flailing of the Roman Empire. His impact had been irregular and he was ready for better. He had been an icon of chaos and destruction as the son of Cain, Mezopx. Septimius had brought no ultimate harm to the human species at least, had restored Roman buildings but he had hardly been an individual to leave much more than ventures that had been undergirded by violence and war. He pleaded for a human skin that was to bestow more significant influence upon primitives yearning to be led. He further pondered though that he knew not where his pleas fell. So, he had no certainty of whether the spirit driving him cared his desires. This force was greater than him and it placed him seemingly wherever it choose. In spite, he begged in case it meant anything. He continued to swirl in the river of stained dark clouds with palpitation of pulse grown all consuming. His wingspan insured that he jockeyed these heavens with disregard for his safety. His flap of wings was so hard churning that an ability to remain aloft no matter the conditions was his to assert always. And the conditions experienced this dense enshrouded night were eerily calm besides. He felt hardly a burst or brush of air as he swept over the retreating mountainous landscape to more benign flattened wilderness. Small encampments hewn out of lessening timber were espied by him as he followed magnetically that mysterious dominion which was directing the beat of his heavy appendages through the air. As he hurtled downward toward an oblong circular patch of fire lit illumination, the earlier shrieks that commanded him from inside his skull to become airborne and search out a different destination softened. Somehow, he recognized that this quieting was his compass. The closer he came to his target the more diminished the cacophony inside his brain became. Thus he dropped swiftly toward what was a fortress and city within that fortress. His mind was almost his own again so proximate was he to the male that he was about to transform to. The walls of stone surrounding the enclave and the wheelhouses intermixed with roundhouses were well laid and large but had no effect on his entry as he swooped lower. He then shot through one sodded roof no different than the sodded roofs of the neighboring houses and met his fate in the form of a large built, pale skinned, brownish haired sleeping male. Molecules of his collided with molecules of this other and instant fusion occurred. He was this man until that guiding force instructed him otherwise. He knew now exactly where he was and who he was. His resting place was in one called Eumann. He roused this Eumann, in order to rise and find the way to undead tomb of enough quality to thoroughly shelter himself from the coming sun’s potentially damning toxicity. He was to learn the ways of the clan that he had just joined and the burgeoning culture that he was to contribute to vastly. First though, he had to find shelter for his being from the scorched effect of the sun’s rays upon him. These people were going to have to adapt to his presence in eventide only. That was to be the way of it from this instant forward. They were to yield to his requirements, as Eumann was also the tutor for the very youthful Cinaed. His vampire overseer left a full mapping so that there was immediate understanding of land and person surrounding him. If he had done this at Cinaed’s birth, he would have traversed over open sea to the island of Iona. But Cinaed was now the proud owner of seven years of breath and experience. He was a rambunctious and rowdy lad with an intellect that soaked in so much so rapidly. Eumann was to teach and guard over this youngster. This youngster was special and therefore Eumann’s instructions to the boy were outsize and deeply significant as well. But he also comprehended magically that much had stirred and changed since Cinaed’s birth. The family no longer tended the desolate treeless terrain of the island of his origin but instead had risked the sweep of ocean to alight in the territory of Dal Riata. Eumann was blessed to be profoundly attached to Cinaed’s father, a clan warrior and near King of the locale, and to Cinaed’s mother, Pictish princess and dark beauty of magnificent spirit. Time, in human terms, was about eight hundred years after the coming of Christ. Chapter 2 Love’s Fool Up and outside, just as he was readying himself to search for an adequate lair, Eumann froze at the subtle touch of hand to his shoulder. This touch hardened into a firmer grip and he moved to peer into Catrione’s shining eyes. “You dash off at such odd and stealthy hours my favorite tutor. Might you rather share a string of moments with me? Teach me the means to fan your flame. That is my heart’s desire. I assumed that it was yours also.”