If the Nosferatu hadn’t been present, Qarakh might have told her the truth about his dream, but as it was, he simply responded with a curt nod.
She frowned and gave him a look that said, We’ll talk about it later, before turning to Malachite. “And how was your slumber?”
Malachite brushed a bit of dirt and mold off the left sleeve of his robe. “I’ve spent the day in worse places than beneath a fallen tree, but I must say that I envy your ability to inter yourself within living ones. I don’t suppose I can convince you to tell me how it’s done?”
“It’s quite simple, really,” Deverra said with a grin. “All one has to do is renounce Christ and embrace the worship of Telyavel.”
Qarakh expected the Nosferatu to take offense at this, but instead he smiled back.
“Is Tremere blood sorcery truly so simple?”
Deverra’s grin fell away. “I am not Tremere,” she said, her voice taut with anger. “I am Telyav.”
Malachite made a half-bow and then straightened. “My most sincere apologies. I have heard whispers that there were members of that sorcerous clan in these far lands. I made an unfounded assumption.”
Deverra said nothing for several moments, and though her face remained composed, her eyes reflected the fury that raged inside her as she struggled to come to terms with her Beast. Finally, her gaze cleared and when she spoke, her tone was relaxed, if melancholy. “I was Tremere once, but that was some time ago. It is, as they say, a long story.”
“I gather we have something of a ride ahead of us,” Malachite said. “A story will help make the time pass more swiftly, not to mention more pleasantly.” Deverra considered for a bit, but finally she said,
“Why not?”
Qarakh was surprised. Not so much that she would choose to share such a story with Malachite when they’d only met last evening, but because he was actually jealous of the Nosferatu.
“Let’s mount up and be off, then,” Qarakh said, the words coming out more gruffly than he intended. Deverra looked at him and, though he wasn’t certain, it appeared she was trying to suppress a smile. Qarakh wondered if some fraction of the link they had shared that heady day remained, still strong enough to allow her to sense his feelings. Then again, perhaps his feelings were so obvious that she needed no witchery to divine them.
“Very well.” Deverra climbed into her saddle, and Qarakh and Malachite did likewise, and the three of them rode off at a trot, headed northeast, in the direction of the tribal lands. And as they rode, Deverra began her tale:
“I was born to my mortal life in Livonia. My father was a village blacksmith, and I grew up to the whoosh of bellows, the crackle of fire and the ringing of hammer on steel. To my father, his work was a sacred task. Telyavel is not only the Protector of the Dead. He is also the smith god, the Maker of Things. My father believed that a smith worked with the basic elements of creation itself—air, fire, water and earth—and molded them as he saw fit. To him, being a blacksmith was not only a way to honor the gods, it was a way to know, in a limited fashion, what it was like to be them.
“Perhaps it was my father’s outlook that sparked my own interest in the secret functioning of the world. I studied the flows of the elements and learned to draw secrets from them. When the village livestock got sick, I was able to find the secret of curing them. Some called me a witch then, but most of the village agreed that as a smith’s daughter I had been blessed by Telyavel.
“And so time went on, my father working at his forge, and I using my paltry knowledge to make life a little better for our people. I was not long into my young womanhood when a solitary stranger came to our village, a wise man garbed in robes of amber and brown. He spoke to the villagers, telling them that he heard rumors of a girl who demonstrated impressive skill at the mystic arts, and they of course directed him to my father’s forge. The man introduced himself to my father as Alferic and they spoke for some time. Later that night, my father told me a great scholar was going to take me on as his apprentice, and I would leave with him in the morning.
“I was saddened at the thought of leaving my family, but I was also excited by the prospect at learning more. So excited that I didn’t notice the glassy-eyed stare in my father’s eyes or the listless monotone of his voice. Years later, I realized that Alferic had ensorcelled my father to make him agree to give me up. The Tremere can be quite aggressive when it comes to finding and taking on apprentices. And the more potential a child has, the more aggressive they can be. My father was fortunate that he was weak-minded enough to succumb to Alferic’s spell, otherwise my soon-to-be teacher would likely have slain him in order to obtain me.
“I went away with Alferic. Over the next several years, he introduced me to the world of the mystic scholars of House Tremere. We traveled from chantry to chantry, through Hungary, Bavaria, Saxony, Bulgaria… and if I found it odd that the magi preferred to sleep during the day and be active at night, I put it down to simple practicality. After all, so many spells and enchantments must be cast in the dead of night—or so Alferic taught me.
“Slowly, step by step, Alferic led me deeper into the realms of dark sorcery until I considered it commonplace to offer up my body as part of a mystic rite or plunge an
