The second part of the story in which Alexis is smuggled out of Prespur.
The Chamber
It had been a long journey, but at last they had arrived. The village of Hoon was a surprisingly smart-looking place, with whitewashed buildings, roofed with blue-grey slate tiles from the mines and quarries of the Hersemein Hills, the rough borderlands that separated the Lanun and the Plains of the Bad Prince from the Northern Nomes of the Calabim. The Village was centred around a small, solemn Inn and Church, and bordered on one side by the extensive farm lands of Hersemein, where much of the Empire's wheat was produced, and the dense Walakr Forest on the other. This morning it was quiet, as the vast majority of it's inhabitants were out working the fields, growing the Nome's famous wheat.
''Right, well... Onwards, Milady?'' Morteros said meekly as he jumped to the ground, Alexis had been in a foul temper during the last few miles of the journey. She had complained of dizziness, and a raging migraine, which she was convinced was caused by the ''vulgar'' animals that had wandered in the fields on either side of the road. Bizarrely, she had not recognised the cattle and sheep at first, and when Morteros had explained to her what they were she had seemed quite offended that they had been allowed to roam free, fouling the fields with their excrement, instead of being confined to their natural habitat, the smokehouse. Sometimes Morteros was amazed how ignorant Alexis was in some subjects, considering she was an Archangel of what was once the greatest of all the Gods.
''Onwards indeed.'' She replied, emotionlessly, whist climbing gracefully down from the cart, still covered head to toe in the dark robe.
The pair walked along in front of the cart, Morteros leading the horses. The Nome of Hersemein possessed strict laws against the riding of carts, horses, chariots and wagons in its towns and villages after one of its ruling Nobility, Harska'an Mournheart was struck down by a wild, run-away horse in the town of Meriya. Despite no murderer being found, few believed the tyrant's death had been an accident, yet the following day the Northern Council immediately passed the law to prevent such a terrible act of human defiance from ever happening again. Vampires rarely die of natural causes, and the majority of Vampiric Deaths are caused by exposure to human diseases, some of which Vampires have very low natural resistance to, and assassination, although the more experienced and powerful Vampires have become more or less immune to assassination. Nevertheless, this caused paranoia to run rampant whenever large numbers of Vampires were grouped together.
Morteros lead the cart into the Inn's stable and filled the horses' nosebags with fresh wheat from a pile nearby. They arrived at the church after a short, and rather scenic route through the village. It was incredibly tidy, and the cobbled roads had been entirely swept of hay and dirt. Alexis suspected that it's current Governor was rather compulsive when it came to cleanliness. The Church was a small building of perfectly carved stone, apparently the only building in town that had avoided the whitewash. It was shaped, as were most Churches of the Natural Order, like the Ancient Calabim rune ''Thergos'', which meant ''Servitude'' in the old tongue, and had been written similar to a modern ''T'' on top of a square shape. The Oakwood doors were imposing and grand, and looked quite out of place on the small, single-storied building.
Suddenly uneasy although unsure why, Morteros cleared his throat nervously and said, ''Would you like to knock, milady?''
She sighed angrily, ''He is not inside, I cannot sense his soul.''
''Are you sure, milady?'' Morteros had never been completely convinced of the reliability of a Vampire's sixth sense.
''Yes. But don't open the door. I'm not sure you'd like what you'd see. Go back to the cart please.''
Morteros scuttled away to the cart in a hurry, he knew this tone of voice well, it meant 'Disobey me, and face the consequences.', and Morteros doubted that even he would be able to talk his way out of some serious punishment. For a moment, Alexis's eyes shone a terrible shade of green, before the Church door, quivering as if with fear, swung open. She stepped inside, raised her hand, and the doors shut once more.
Inside it was pitch black, and even her piercing grey eyes could not make out the dark, cold room that she sensed around her. She groped the wall beside her slowly, so as not to make a sound, until she felt her long, slender fingers close around a torch, which she lifted carefully from its socket on the wall and brandished in front of her like a weapon. After a second or two of deep, calming breaths, she concentrated on the torch for a moment. The torch burst into flame, and Alexis's eyes widened in horror, she gasped and dropped the torch to the floor, illuminating the fine, silver sand she remembered so well. She reached down to the floor, and composed herself. The traditional furnishings of a Church, the Altar and benches, were no-where to be seen, and the usually bleak stone walls of the room had been painted with the colourful murals she had seen in her dream the night before she allowed Agron to succeed her on the Throne. She followed them frantically with her eyes, they were the same. She saw in them the Fall of the Empire, the Brujah, everything. This was the chamber? She felt a shiver run down her spine. This was the Chamber? Suddenly she felt her eyes drawn to the far corner of the room. There was a body, presumably the cause of the spilled blood she had tasted in the air before entering the holy place. She approached it slowly, cautiously, suddenly aware that she may be in danger. As she gained towards it, and it fell within the sphere of dark, orange light the torch emitted, she realised the corpse was several days old, and had began to shrivel and grey despite the cold of the room. He, for it was a man, was wearing the long, dark red robe of a Priest, and was surrounded by a pool of thick blood. Alexis recognised him as Hadroen Vanliere, the local clergyman, and the man she had come all this way to see. She quickly examined his body for a possible course of death, and found a long, silver dagger embedded in his stomach, right down to the hilt. She removed it easily, for all Vampires possess some degree of supernatural strength, and cleaned the blood from it by wiping it on the man's robe. Suddenly, it caught the light and it's carving became visible, causing Alexis to drop it in surprise and amazement. It rang out with a long shrill sound as it made contact with the masonry of the floor. It had read
'Ka Ypeigna sor ka Heim Nroghe', The Bringer of the New Age, Agron's Knife.
A loud knocking came from behind her, causing her such shock that she felt her ancient heart beat within her chest for the first time in years. She span, running her hand through the fine sand of the floor and sweeping up the dagger. She would at least have something to defend herself with, she concluded. The door creaked open slowly, and Alexis braced herself to leap towards her aggressor, knife in hand, holding her breath.
''Mistress?'' Came a voice with comforting familiarity, ''Mistress!'' Morteros ran towards her apparently unaware of the strange murals, the body, or the knife in her hand. She breathed once more, ''I am here.'' She hissed back , willing him to be quiet, as he arrived at her side. ''Mistress our cart is gone! With all our equipment!''
''Shhh! We may be in danger!''' She whispered, remembering only too well her encounter with her brother the last time she had seen the Murals. ''What do you mean milady? This place is like a fortress.'' He replied. Churches were the traditional strongholds of the villagers when their village was threatened with invasion. Alexis replied with a simple motion to the body of the Priest and the murals around her. Morteros observed the bench, and traditional statue depicting the execution of the Four Black Kings, the Brujah, questioningly. These were commonplace within any Church, Temple or Shrine dedicated to the Natural Order, the fact of which Morteros hastily began to describe to Alexis. She must be in one of her moods again, he decided. He supposed such periods of confusion were a result of her immense age, and had brought it upon himself to try to contain them as much as possible. ''What!?'' She cried, ''The body! Look!''. Morteros became more and more uneasy. ''I see no body...'' He admitted cautiously, not wanting to upset her. Alexis stood, carefully, and walked to behind Morteros, who turned to face her. She could tell he was uneasy, and was confused that he seemed to be seeing the normal church instead of the grave scene she saw. She held his head in her hands, gripping strongly, and forced it towards the body. She pressed lightly, and muttered an incantation. Morteros shook with fear, and wriggled out from her hold, vomiting onto the strange sand that he was sure had not been present a second ago.
Morteros looked around in wonder, wiping the sweat from his face, as Alexis coolly explained to him that the scene was the same, or similar at least, to the one she had seen in her dream, the night Morteros had woke her with news of Agron's betrayal. His eyes fell upon the knife, that now lay next to the body of the Priest. ''Agron's Knife!'' He cried. ''I found it embedded in the corpse. It was the murder weapon.'' Morteros's mind swam, wildly trying to make sense of the bizarre scene surrounding him.
''Come, I do not wish to stay in this place any longer.'' She told him, pitying his weak resolve. She led him by the hand, through the narrow stone passageway that began in the far right hand side of the room, near the body, and then doubled back on itself towards the centre where it split in two. She led him down the passageway on the right, the one that connected the Priest's home with the church. They reached a wooden door, similar but much smaller then the main, grand door. Alexis opened it with a large iron key that she had removed from the corpse, and they stepped inside.
. (It's all linked in with the previous stories, but I think you are lacking some important information atm)
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