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Vaulted ceilings and marble halls. Spires twisted like dancing girls. And the dancing girls themselves, washing through the corridors in rivers of lovely death. Goblets bubbling with crimson to the spill. They say the undead lurk in sterile dust, in castles and catacombs where nothing grows. But only in the cold hunger of their eyes does her heart’s rich blood rise to her mouth as a freshly-bitten fruit.
And so when the sun fell, she set out again. In a fit of blind nervousness she’d penned a letter to her wife. Really darling, pray they wouldn’t turn me out of doors again. I’m more afraid of that than being eaten. At least the latter would spare her from the committee’s waspish, sneering jibes at her ambition outgrowing her stature. Not child’s play, they’d told her. Her one-hundred and seventy five years of living was outweighed by the fact that her feet dangled above the floor and her chin barely made it over the desk.
We must leave it to Vampire Scholars. This is an inside affair. That’d hardly been an objection when the best of them had muscled their way into sacred crypts and ancient temples, chasing down reclusive clans of woodfolk and deep gnomes as dogs do morsels. No, no. She wouldn’t sacrifice this on the altar of doubt without having the courage or the decency to ask, first.
Her subjects had so long been the fringes; vampires who were fleeing their covens’ wrath, traders of blood, the odd surviving spawn or thrall, servants who had wandered briefly into their world, fleeting and overlooked. On occasion, she made it as far as a petition in a lord’s crumbling crypt or gilded hall. There she was banished, or tossed as a morsel to their spawn. This time, she had reasonable scope for optimism. And a kind invitation.
Trill Longshadow wore her caution with her neat brown skirt, minimal and reliable. The fingers glued to her briefcase were sticky with sweat. The chill wind was a relief, fluttering at the tassels of her white scarf. The metallic vine of roses that topped the manor gates seemed to touch the silver tooth of the full moon. The bats that hung from the gates shuddered impatiently as the groundskeeper answered the windchime’s toll. An elf, pale and plump, regarded her quietly, then bade her to follow without comment. A mortal who asked no questions. She would investigate if Lord Astarion were in the business of taking converts. And how.
A brisk walk up the ornate gardens bursting with violets and vines of hanging wisteria, weaving a delicate fragrance through the musty scent of immortality. At the door she was passed along to someone else, a halfling who eyed her curiously, and led her further up a semi-darkened staircase.
The halfling broke the silence first. “Not the first time we’ve had prey visit alone. But it’s a rare sight. Here, mind your step.” The light of her lantern kissed the banisters, glinted off her guide’s fanged smile. “Don’t wander. The children are hungry.”
There were eyes in the candlelight, settling at the nape of her neck, even a startled gasp of longing, but she saw little beyond that of the figures steeped in the shadow of the half-opened door to the ground floor’s corridors. Her kind patron’s orders, perhaps. She would assess the risk of contact, later.
On either the side of her winding climb, tapestries of frolicking deer stretched huge, an arrested forest. She itched for conversation, but secrets in these houses were tightly kept, squeezed into firm fists and parted with sparingly. The halfling, at least, was trusted enough to convey the coven’s amusement to the parlor without squandering it. “How long have you been here?” She asked, despite herself.
They replied as expected. “I forget. Many moons, I imagine.” Her subjects say that time often ground to a halt within halls such as these, the passing of it marked by nothing but pleasure and pain. Even now, Trill felt it fall as dust at her feet, the passing night of the outside, the coming dawn. Her subjects stumbled out more often than not from a site, blinking in the glare of the sun as a nestling freshly hatched.
But her guide had smiled as they said it. Whatever hunger they’d had for daylight had long subsided.
It was at a marvellously ornate door of dark mahogany that her companion bade her to wait with a wave of her lantern, and stepped in with a knock. Trill took the moment to compose herself. Skirts straightened, flyaways of her brown hair tucked neatly into her bun, and the creases in her smart grey blouse smoothened to perfection.
When the door opened next, she was swept into a tide of their crimson gaze. The point of no return, she hoped. Prayed. Stepped into an amethyst rug softer than any bed she could afford. The parlour closed in around her. The coven was situated in a huddle of plush, velvet sofas and daybeds arranged rather haphazardly about the circular room. The shelves that hugged the breadth of the tapestried walls were draped in shimmering fabrics, decked with trinkets of all sorts; there were daggers with exquisitely jeweled grips, ancient carvings and miniatures presumably procured from treasure hunters or dealers in relics, cloth-bound tomes set out for display. A mirror rose at the corner of the room, reflecting nothing. Here the tapestries were scenes of revelry; rivers of wine and low hanging white clouds that housed the besotted. From either side of the a fireplace flickering with blue flame, the staircase rose again, this time wider and well-trodden. A low growl from the stairwell caught her attention. A pack of wolves stood guard there, regarding her evenly, waiting on their coven’s word.
Theirs was the only breath in the room beside her own. It was thunderingly loud. Her quick pulse, with her blood brimming at her veins was a cup running over.
The thought put a smile on her face. She plucked her skirts into a curtsy. “Good evening, my lords.”
“Well,” said the Lord of the coven. “Hello.”
Lord Astarion glittered in the dull light of a rose-shaped chandelier. Everything about him, from the rich red of his brocaded cape to the gem-studded wineglass held delicately away from him, and the sharp, high-elven planes of his face, were knit together in some wicked pleasure. Even settled into his velvet parlour he was far from lethargic, spine straight and feet poised to move, like a dancer’s, perhaps. Or a rogue’s. He was beautiful in the way that all vampires were, like pressed flowers, pared down so to the bones of life that they became their own ornaments.
Astarion took stock of her, like she would turn over a trinket at the morning’s marketplace. “A gnome? This is the one you wanted, darling?”
He’d placed himself at the head of the parlour. The group of vampires around him was smaller than she had glimpsed in older castles. Their attention flicked to her only for a moment before they returned to him, heads tilted, deferring. Each of them more well-tended than the starving, rotting spawn she’d glimpsed in her time, but carefully placed, carefully turned, carefully picked as jewels to a crown. At the heart of it all was her gracious host. She knew the tales. She supposed them true. She had seen the wilting, bloodied, bejeweled consorts of vampire lords, preciously adorned dolls thrown about and trampled underfoot. Vash’s violet skin glowed with a violent contentment. He crossed his legs, flicking his tail easily so its piercings caught the light. He did not droop to Astarion’s side the way many of his station did. He was just as mobile, taut as a bowstring, with a hunter’s shrewd smile.
She bowed to him, and he nodded encouragingly. “Go on.”
A flash of approval in the way Astarion leaned forward. He liked that she deferred to Vash.
“Eternal lord, I’m honoured to have your audience.” She began. “My name is Trill Longshadow, of the College of Folk. My life’s work has been to observe the immortals of Faerun, to document and study your ways of society. When I met your lord consort in the city, he was ever so kind enough to extend an invitation to your great manor.”
Astarion laughed. A few others did, too, some in an anxious mirror, the others, in incredulity.
“Study our ways of society ”.
“A peculiar one, to be sure.” She admitted. “There are many persuasions to that knowledge.”
“I see.” Astarion played with his awareness of her as vampires do, with the curious detachment with which one regards a butterfly caught to be dissected. He made a fine butterfly himself, with his crimson silks fanned about him as wings. “And what are those?”
“The intricacies of a coven’s organization, for one. You are poised uniquely in our world, steeped within and yet outside of our time, our structures of authority. That aside, we mortals live in the light of our deaths, my lord. It floods our world and blinds us in our need to live enough. You of all beings offer us a glimpse- of absolute life.”
Astarion laughed. Many of his kind had grown slow and unheeding, time settling upon them like many layers of dust, their keenness drained of pleasure, their strength grappling for something to mar from nothing more than habit. But this one was young, yet, basking in his power, glowing and luxuriating like a man in love. There was purity in it.
The velvet dark wrapped its wings about her. She had never belonged anywhere more truly than in its threshold, watching eternity spill like ink before her. And so she pressed on. “All in proper measure, of course. Subject to your kind patronage, and your comfort. You will have every say in what truths I choose to publish, and what I keep to myself. Should I trespass an agreement, my life is forfeit, as you will it.”
A few surprised titters scattered across the hall. Older lords had been bored by this, the petitions of mortals willing and eager to lay down their lives.
“You will have my service until the end, and my loyalty until I die.”
“What kind of service?” Another vampire stirred from the corner. They were a half-elf, exquisitely dressed in black robes that draped about them like flower petals. There was a bright flush of rouge about their cheeks, and the tops of their kohl-rimmed eyes were dusted with silver. Yet they looked strained, their face twisted in pain. Hunger, perhaps. Their eyes darted to Astarion and Vash, then back towards her.
Trill took a breath. “I have my share of talents. I could tend to your ledgers, curate your library. I could furnish whatever information my lords require, through present investigations, or the considerable records I have collected through my travels. I could appraise your treasures, keep them in good form. I don’t imagine myself particularly appetizing, nor am I a fetching lure. But I could be your cupbearer, if my lords so desire.”
She stepped forward, dropping her briefcase and lifting her palms, and looked to Vash again. “I offer you my pledge, my lords. I only beg that you allow me a chance.”
There was a brittle moment of silence as Astarion considered her with a slanted look. She had seen it before. Loathe to part with his secrets, and equally inclined to flatter his vanity. He had let the legend of his Ascension grow, and the elder patriars had grumbled of this upstart’s goading. But they could no more.
He looked to Vash, like he was casting out for light. “Darling?” He asked, velvet and indulgent.
“Keep it.” Vash answered. He watched her like he was amusing a small pet, waiting to see it clap and jump. And she rose to it, at that, eyes widening of their own accord, her hunger as palpable as true as theirs, her breath quick and warm. She knew she appeared frolicking prey. She welcomed it.
Vash had recognized it, it seemed, in their little brush at the city. “More interesting than Volo. And it’s so cute.”
Astarion faced her again. “I get to see your little scribbles.”
“At your bidding, my lord.”
“And this agreement is for life.”
She swallowed. “I only have one little life, my lord.”
Vash threw him a playful glance. Astarion softened, looking over her at his rapt audience. Even this little severity was only to toy with her, she realized. She did not merit his true suspicion. That too, suited her.
“You’ve gone to other covens before?” Vash asked her.
“Many, over the past decades. Most were unwelcoming. Many I had to run from.”
“Huh.” He tilted his head. “But you kept at it.”
She shrugged. “Only one little life, my lord.”
“Sweet.”
Astarion smiled at Vash. It was to him, not to her, that he replied. “ Alright, then. I’ll let it stay.”
In a flash, not unlike one on a deathbed, Trill thought of her own wife. Delia’s mortal love cast in honey and sunlight, how gently it bolstered her through failure and accomplishment. She would be home at this hour, still poring over her ledgers, her delicate, ink-stained fingers trailing every shrewd line of profit she’d gathered to keep Trill free to wander relentlessly into lairs of death and return with shards of unlife stuck to her skin. Seeing her Delia cross her legs or adjust her spectacles in concentration, Trill would wonder as all lovers do if there existed any need, any feeling at all more potent than the one she knew then.
The whispers say it was this Vash who had laid a city’s worth of souls at love’s feet. They say this Astarion shaped each one of his countless castles and its splendors to sate love’s hunger. It must be true. She would do no less.
She still thought of Delia as she sank to her knees. “My lords, I thank your grace.” The universe thrummed to dizzying life. The tug and pull of every star beyond their velvet drapes simmered against her skin. Even in stillness, she hurtled into their movement at breakneck speed. No wonder some came willingly, pleading for immortality. But her life’s work stretched ahead of her, brief and long and transient.
She repeated her thanks until she could steady herself, and Astarion waved her to her feet. His interest was waning fast. Vash crossed the parlour to greet her. “My Lord, I’m-this is an honour beyond measure.”
“It’s alright.” Up close, he looked softer, younger. They were both young enough to remember mortality, its jerks and continuities. She wondered what home, what honey and sunlight this one might have left behind for a town’s worth of souls. The others were receding in Astarion’s shadow. The dapper half-elf had vanished.
“Sáng could hear your heart. Makes them hungry.”
So could she. She wondered if it were an artist’s sensitivities that followed them to their unlife. Perhaps she could ask them later. She nodded, smoothing her clothes and picking up her briefcase. “When it suits my lords, I could present my papers. Ethics and confidentiality, that sort of thing. I would never harm the willing subjects of my work.”
Vash flashed his teeth. “Worried about us?”
“By way of good practice.”
“Know how to fight?”
She patted her belt, indicating the row of dagger-teeth assembled there.
The wolves at the stairwell stirred and began to pace.
“We’ll give them your scent. Shouldn’t hurt you. The rest-” Vash shrugged. “I can take care of that.” He paused, once, at the foot of the stairs. “Not scared of spiders, are you?
She stood like a droplet squeezed from the open wound of the chamber. She smiled. “Not at all.”