Page 92 of Always Darkest

“For most of my youth, my life in the castle was happy. There were of course bitterly cold winters when food was scarce, illnesses that killed indiscriminately, normal hardships for the time. We believed we had a relatively good life. There were rumors, then, that I now know were about local vampires, but at the time they were easily dismissed as incoherent peasant gossip, and we paid little-to-no attention.”

Saber felt the world dissolve away as she listened to the story. Ansel looked around, like he wanted a glass of water or something, but of course he didn’t drink.

“My life, as I said, was good and easy by the standards of the time. When I was seventeen or eighteen, my mother remarried a duke, and he moved into the castle, my family’s home, and immediately sent me to a nearby court. That wasn’t unusual. It was well understood that he would not supplant me as heir, that was part of the marriage contract. I didn’t like him, but I wasn’t worried. I stayed at the neighboring court for two years, during which time communications from my family were infrequent and vague. I missed my mother and sister terribly, but I was learning to be a warrior, a leader, and I had a wonderful time with the other boys, becoming men together as we rode, jousted, learned sword fighting, so I didn’t think much of my mother’s strange, brief letters. I was honestly sad to leave, but I knew it was near time to take over the lordship of the castle. When I arrived, I learned my sister was dead, and my mother was changed.

“She was fearful, quiet, easily startled, and the duke had made the castle his own. He and his degenerate friends played cards at all hours, drank from my father’s cellar, and treated my mother like a slave and a whore. He was not afraid to demean her in front of me, but she begged me not to intervene, because she was certain that if I did, he and his men would kill me.”

Saber tried not to react.

“When we finally found ourselves alone, my mother told me what happened. The duke, along with some of his friends, had repeatedly raped my sister. When she fell pregnant, she flung herself from a window of the castle and died on the rocks below. My mother told me that the duke had no intention of giving me my inheritance, and that he was a violent, drunk, evil man. She begged me not to try to fight him on my own, to go to her brother, who was very powerful, and tell him what happened. I was loath to leave my mother, but I did as she asked.

“My uncle, another royal, of sorts, was very protective of his younger sister. He was horrified to hear what was happening, and vowed to get justice for our family, and revenge for his sister and niece. At that time family was very tribal, and my mother and sister’s honor, and their wealth, was as much my uncle’s concern as my own. We mounted horses, and he brought ten men, which should have been plenty. Together we crossed the countryside to confront the duke. In the time I was gone, though, he had got word of my purpose, and learned that men were on the road, coming to attack the castle and save my mother.

“When we arrived, the castle was closed as though preparing for a siege. Nobody would let us in, and nobody would come out. My uncle said that we would come back with more men, and were going to send messages to other noble families who would help us. When we turned to go, we were attacked by a small, ragged bunch of poorly armed peasants that had been paid by the duke to kill us. There were ten of us, and dozens of them, but since we had been trained to fight, as all noblemen were at that time, we killed many, even most, of them. It was my own first time drawing blood from an enemy. Most of them scattered, but a number hoped for great reward, and kept fighting. My uncle was killed, and some of his men. Some ran from the mob, but I and a few others fought like animals and ultimately the peasantsscattered. I survived and turned back to the castle. I knew the duke must be watching.

“I felt brave and virtuous. I shouted at him, ‘I will not rest until I kill you!’ And that’s when he pulled my mother into the window of the castle, the same window where my sister met her end. I couldn’t see her expression, but I can only imagine how she felt in that moment. He knew that I would involve my greater family, and he would not ultimately prevail. He had nothing to lose. Anyway, he slit my mother’s throat with a hunting knife and tossed her from the window like a doll.”

Saber breathed out, trying to contain her horror.

“I forgot my desire for revenge in that moment. My entire world turned upside down. I went wild with grief. I had taken so many things for granted and regretted that I hadn’t been a man and killed the duke when I had been in the castle. He was weak and drunk, his friends were pathetic, I probably could have beaten them. I thought, before then, that good would generally prevail over evil, that righteousness would ultimately overcome dishonor. I knew, watching my mother fall from that window, that I was wrong. There was no order to the world, only an indifferent, brutal chaos.”

Ansel took a long breath then and glanced at the clock.

“I rode out of the town and into the woods, ultimately falling off the road back to my uncle’s estates. I didn’t really know where I was going and didn’t have a plan. I think I imagined I was taking a shortcut through a valley I knew was dangerous. I rode my horse wildly, and she fell, snapping her leg in some rocks. In my grief, I saw this as an omen, that I was meant to die. I used my knife to kill her so that I wouldn’t have to hear her screams any longer. I could not comprehend pain outside of my own. I wanted to die. I was alone in a mountainous, deserted forest in the middle of the night, out of my mind.

“I wandered for hours, late into the night, and twisted my own ankle on the rocks, fulfilling the omen. I knew I would be killed by a predator then. It was such a different time, Saber. We had, throughout Europe, adopted Christianity, but in that place, so far away from the rest of civilization, we still believed in so many of the pagan rituals, omens, and superstitions. My horse had twisted its leg and I had killed her. Now, I knew, I was marked for death as well. I embraced it,wantedit.

“When the monster appeared, it was as though I had expected him. He was not like a human, not like I appear to you. He was naked, filthy, and had no hair on his body. His eyes were catlike and glowed, as mine often do, but that’s where our similarities end. He had large, pointed ears, and his mouth was smeared with days-old blood. His hands were huge. I remember thinking ‘Huh, the peasants were right after all.’ That might have been my final coherent thought as a living man.

“He connected with me, his own mind to mine, and seemed amused by my rage and grief. I remember him laughing, but his laughter was more like a shuddering of his whole body, his mouth curling into a horrible grin, barely any sound. I have wondered how old he was. Older than history, perhaps. I did not fight, did not resist. I welcomed death, and he offered it to me freely. I still don’t know why he turned me into a vampire instead of feeding and leaving me for dead. I think it was because I was so emotional. Human emotion is very transmissible to vampires, and our own feelings dull over the years, so it feels good to feed off the passions of others.

“After he was done, he buried my body in the dirt and leaves. I lay like that for days, dead. On the sixth day I rose with the full moon. I do not remember very much from those early days, other than hunger. I was so hungry that I fell upon a hare, caught it, and using my new fangs, drained it of its blood. Nothing about that, at the time, seemed especially remarkable. Ihad no memory, yet, of my former life. I killed animals, not even noticing that I was much faster than a normal human, that my instincts were flawless, my sense of smell and vision in the dark heightened.

“I do not know how long I remained in that primordial state. Weeks, maybe, but I think months. I was like an animal, who lived to feed and nothing more, but remained terribly, gnawingly hungry. I was in a state of constant starvation.

“On one of my hunts I ventured closer to the township, my family’s, though I had no notion of it at the time. I crept about at night, smelling their human smells, and my hunger grew all the more pronounced, distinct. When I saw a young woman leaving a house late at night, my whole body came alive with longing and need. She was nervous, looking around to make sure no one saw her, and crept very quietly between houses. I followed her to another home, where I climbed onto the roof and watched as she slipped into the house. I watched her have sex with one of the men who lived there, and it excited me greatly. Vampires still enjoy sex, probably more than living humans, and the sight of it ignited my lust, and also reminded me of something. I had been human. I had been with a few serving girls and maids in the township, and I began to remember these encounters. The sight of the two lovers opened up a flood of strange, distant, distorted memories.

“The woman slipped out of the house again and I followed her. I felt my first internal conflict in that moment. I had killed animals without a thought, but this woman was a person, and some part of me knew that. Still, the lust I had, for her body, for her blood, was so much more powerful than my ability to resist. I grabbed her from behind, covered her mouth instinctively, and dragged her, stunned with fear, into the woods.

“I mutilated her in my efforts to satisfy myself. I did not know, then, how to feed on a body without destroying it. I did…terrible things to her both before and after she succumbed. I didn’t know better. I suppose I should be ashamed of it, and I have enjoyed much greater pleasures since that night, but I will never again enjoy the feeling of having satisfied such deep and penetrating lust for the first time.”

He paused there, and Saber froze when she noticed that his fangs had become longer, as though they extended when he was excited, more pronounced. He ran his tongue over them and closed his eyes. She felt tense and excited. She knew she should be disgusted, but she wasn’t, even as she willed herself to be. Another incomprehensible thought occurred to her. The unbelievable truth was that, twined with her horror was a kind of unspeakable jealousy.

“Can I get you anything to drink?”

Saber seemed to snap out of a trance.

“No, uh, I’m fine, just keep going.”

He smirked at her, and she shuddered. Then he spoke again.

“I returned to my hole in the dirt that night, but it was the beginning of my awakening. I remembered being human. I remembered who I was. It was not an instant process, but a slow revealing. The hunger subsided for a few days and began to assert itself again, and I killed another peasant, mutilating the body much the same way I had the first time. In the meantime, as I lay awake on the nights I was not hungry, I remembered my sister, my mother, my uncle, the evil duke. I had something closer to human emotions then. I never really made a plan, or I don’t remember making one, but after I rose one night, I bounded through the forest like a deer, then through the town, and was able to climb the walls of the castle with my bare hands as though I weighed nothing. I didn’t question that at the time. It’s funny, now, but I never questioned anything then, just accepted it. I was a bloodthirsty monster, and I wanted revenge for the destruction of my family.

“I crept through the castle, crawling along the walls and the ceilings, creeping through the kitchens. I found the duke playing cards at a table with his wicked friends, and I watched them until the duke stumbled off to his chamber. He pissed in his chamber pot and tried and failed to pull up his pants. I had not spoken since before I became a vampire. My last living words were a threat to kill him. Now, I said ‘murderer,’ but my voice was like a creak in a loose board. He was drunk and did not hear me. I said it again with a little more power in my voice, and he looked up at me with dull eyes.

“‘What are you doing here, Ulrich?’ he said, and it was the first time I remembered my name.”

“Your real name is Ulrich?” Saber interrupted.

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