Excerpt: Byron Learns About The Vampire Takeover During His Exile
After being defeated during his attempt at a coupe, where he joined the human resistance, Bryon finds himself discarded in the wastelands far away from the Stargazer capital of Xanadu. The damage sustained against his foolhardy battle against the MoonQueen herself should have been fatal, but he is rescued by another exiled vampire called Proxos Commodore. Proxos is actually a disgraced former ruler of Xanadu, an ex-Elder, who has built a safe haven in the radioactive desert. After healing, Proxos and Byron become close companions; and Bryon begins to learn how exactly Lilith and her vampires were able to cause the Holocaust--the revolution that put them as stewards of a ruined planet. And much more...including how to eventually reignite a second insurgence:
That's how I basically started my stay as a guest, a companion to the Heretic in his hidden home away from the home we once had. "It's not so bad," he would say often. "Stargazers are solitary creatures by definition, though they're quite possessive when they attach to something. This civilization idea we had has its merits, but I wonder what it does to our psyche." Proxos resided in a chain of caverns several feet underground, away from the brutish climate still castigating the earth for its sins. He didn't live like animals: furniture, apparels, and artwork adorned the place, besides the clean water and the Rukas roaming below us. The ex-Elder was right about the banal existence of a Heretic. All he did, and soon all I did, was learn how to breed the wild Ruka population, find trivial hobbies, and tend to the place. Occasionally we went on walks or flights in the night, aided by certain insulating suits he owned that shielded us from the radiation's shifting heat. And we talked a lot, sometimes rehashing the same conversation, trying to anchor each other and our situations. It's too bad he didn't smoke. "How did you locate this nifty little abode?" I asked him one night, collecting stalagmites, another one of those hobbies to smother loneliness. Proxos held up a cone of ruby pastels, brow crinkling as he wondered whether to add one to his medley. "I had a few of these places before and after The Holocaust. Being a noble granted me freedom to purchase certain properties outside Utopia, in case of a rainy night. I'm sorry, Byron, that expression means an emergency." "I guess the rainy night came," I commented, wondering what rain might look like, sitting in front of him, also hiding a stalactite, this one of bright bone-pallor. "They always do." I didn't say anything, concentrating on my object. This was sure boring, but it seemed like a good way to pass the time, to lose yourself in the mundane. Proxos liked it. Something caught my eye. I had to blink several times to pinpoint the slight refection on the smooth surface of the spike. "Proxos." "Mmm." He slid another one into a leather bag by his sandaled feet. It hit me I hadn't seen my reflection since that night of self-pity, and that memory had been quickly flushed away. "What color is my hair?" "It used to be brown when you were a Warm One, a shade darker than mine. Did it change afterward?" "Not to my knowledge." He buckled the bag and eyed me, a smile threatening to burst from thin lips. "Well, my dear, it looks like it certainly changed after I found you. It's bleach white." I laughed or coughed or both, running my hands though what must have been milky tresses. "It can happen to…" And he went on that tirade about times of stress or damage. "Just like Shib," I whistled, shaking my head. "Yes," he said softly, "I do believe my old colleague had an experience like that once, sometime during the Burning Time in Bavaria." I didn't know what he was talking about, but I certainly disdained sharing a quality with old Master Shibboleth.
2
Our conversation didn't span any depth for the first year or so. I was still healing and didn't want any stress. Proxos, I believe, was content with another of his kind here and perhaps wanted to extend our communication for as long as he could.In addition, I had to get used to feeding on Rukas, a process that left me in sour moods.Communication centered around the long walks we took in the middle of the night. There, wrapped in metallic clothes from an unknown material, we spoke and trundled through the dunes and whetted rock, against inflamed wind or sandstorms. Sometimes we reached the base of the mountains and halted, Xanadu just the other side; other times we skirted shaven ruins of pre-Holocaust times to look for baubles. Proxos knew all the ways, this, his stomping ground for a hundred and more years. My stomping ground now, too, forever and ever, amen."Hey, Proxos," I mentioned on evening, both of us standing on a large mound of always-hot sand, admiring scarves of lavender clouds flowing in the sky that tarred Luna into a sanguine sphere. "Correct me if I'm wrong, but aren't you supposed to be dead? They'll have to change the name of the station, oh Elder."He snorted and leaned on his staff, an object he carried to be dramatic."They have changed the past on more than one occasion, Byron," he said. "Aren't you also supposed to be dead, Revolutionist? Wiped out from memory for the health of our progress?""You're right," I said with a chuckle, sitting down on the sand. "I guess we're both dead now."He joined me on the ground. "We've been dead. Better make the best of it. I have for thirty-two hundred years.""Damn," I said. "Did you ever think you'd end up this way?""Never," he said. "I never thought of anything but how to fulfill my hunger. It's your head that always has to go in different directions except where you are now. Believe me, I knew about your fate back then, even though I was already banished and deceased for all purposes. I heard about you on occasion, from other Heretics running madly in the night, from rare intercepted transmissions, and from other sources. I knew you'd brew trouble. They should have destroyed you back then, but Lilith obviously had a warm spot for you in that icicle she calls a heart.""Lilith?" I echoed."That was her name back then, at the beginning, when the mad-god created her and tossed her to some horrible limbo she was able to escape from. She's been called many names—Ki, Inanna, Soph…uh, and others. Some legends say she is a white witch who actually escaped from another world of endless snow and mythical beasts such as satyrs. You know how folklore can warp itself, and somehow her past is as fickle as she and history tend to be. I knew her as Hecate when she gave me new life.""And you followed her all this time?"He pondered for a moment. "Back then, if I can still recall, I was nothing more than a slave with a penchant for sacred geometry to some sodomizing king. I wasn't going anywhere, and the other gods were punishing my civilization for silly reasons. My people's time was all but over—a flash for others to remember. I visited her temple in an island called Argos for advice and succor. I was chosen for no other reason than luck, if you believe in that. She made me a god and morality was different back then, so I didn't have too much of a problem. I didn't actually server her completely, though. We ran into each other here and there, and I followed whatever whim she had at the time.""So there haven't been these great Elders serving her as acolytes from the beginning?"He laughed, a hearty one. "Dear, no. Just a few fellows who crossed her path when she was having galactic p.m.s. We were rewarded nicely, though, but that's about it."I was having trouble understanding some of his remarks, not a first, but my curiosity told me not to worry about it."Why did you do it?""Do what?""The Holocaust, Proxos."He didn't answer then, different expressions etching on his face."I don't know," he said, for the first time realizing I was watching him attentively. "Survival, I guess. Maybe boredom. Amusement? Vengeance? I don't know. It just was, so go ahead and get your little cynical opinion ready if you want. It's hard to explain why you helped destroy a few billion lives and Demeter's kingdom just like that, you know.""Do you really think The Killer of Giants would have wiped out the whole world?" I pressed."I don't know. Nobody really wanted to find out.""Maybe you were just following orders," I said, giving him my cynical opinion.He stood up. "And maybe I could have let you perish in the sand when I happened to hear you by accident, Byron, especially for basically stabbing me and my cause in the back after our truce.""I was just giving orders, Proxos," I said with a wide grin. "Whatever. At least your first comment worked for the Nazi troops. Come on, we better head back before Sol decides to fry us."
3
As time continued I learned more while trying not to challenge Proxos that much. I actually enjoyed his company and grew fond of him. He was more down to earth than his old associates, less eloquent or pompous than Shib or some of the others. He wasn't political like many of the rising Stargazers, like Mephisto. He was just a Heretic. "I've met a few through the years," he would tell me, only really getting talkative in our treks or perhaps when we ate by a fire (a habit he had as a Warm One way before electrical light was invented). "I've also me Warm Ones, scattered around the land. I've eaten a few of them, but most are grossly deformed by the radiation, basically mutated savages. They taste rather foul, so I would advise you not to chomp on any if you run into one. I hadn't had gas in millennia, but it happened." "What about the Heretics?" I asked him that time, while thinking the warped Warm Ones had to taste better than Ruka juice. "Oh, just fools who got in the way of The Elders' revolution," he answered. "The MoonQueen sometimes prefers just to rip them apart herself for sport. You know, her mind is Tiffany twisted." He started laughing (nothing like people who laugh at their own jokes). I repeated the question. "Most of them are as much victims as me, more or less," he said. "Sometimes they're just a random pruning of our ranks in order to create new ones or proportion food supply. Usually, by the time I reach them, they're insane with despair, ready to dig themselves into oblivion. They never take my invitation, especially the times I made the mistake of telling them my name." "Superstitious Stargazers," I whistled. "I assume they go raving mad and probably don't survive, not taking any care in this weather. The few who do eventually become as mutated as the Warm Ones, monsters lurking in the sand or scavenging the ruins. It's rather ugly." "So, you're basically the only civilized Heretic?" I asked, taking another pungent swig from my cup. "Aside from me." "I was the only prepared one," Proxos said. "Like I said, I had these little hideaways all over the world. I came to this one after they expelled me." "They didn't like your hairstyle?" "Not exactly. They were extremely upset at the fact that I had a faction dealing with the revolutionaries. They thought, and rightfully so, that I had some weak spots for your kind—after three thousand years most of us tend to mellow out. When the Ozone Processor rose in flames and caused a small nuclear detonation, they destroyed my allies, tried me quickly, and made me a martyr. They threw me out into the wilderness and named a station after me." "Nice," I said. "And then you came here." "Yes," he hissed, "and then they brought you in to be tried. The rest is history. I would have loved to have left you drying in the dunes, Byron, but when I saw you, when I thought about what they did to you—" I finished his sentence. "—you knew that was punishment enough." He sipped on more blood, admiring the fire.
4
The MoonQueen had remarked about chess, so Proxos explained it to me. Weeks later, he brought in a dusty box from his cellars and asked me if I wanted to play. I'd been sitting by the basin, trying very hard to suppress all the memories overwhelming me. I'd learned so much in so little time, trauma dislodging traumas in a bedlam of recollection. Now I spent much effort covering it all up, playing the Heretic. I'd vowed not to think about my Warm One existence, my feats, and even her. Medea. The name brought pain, the acerbic taste of failure. It also brought the taste of Clannad, the Slaughterhouses. I wanted to forget it all, dissolve it in ambiguous contentment. Proxos had done it, perhaps several times. Even Lilith had mastered it, hadn't she? I was Byron, the Heretic. Forever and ever, amen. It didn't take me long to master the game, and I became a challenge after the tenth time he beat me. Chess was great to loosen his tongue. Whenever mammoth sandstorms ripped the area or the radiation count heated the wastes, we would play strategy on a stone table he carved himself. I soon learned of another strategy: The Holocaust, the greatest covert strategy in a world unbelieving of Stargazers. Apparently, The MoonQueen's idea sprouted when the Warm Ones mastered the might of atom-splitting. It dangled on her thoughts for years, as she spent her time in her beloved winter kingdom somewhere in a place called Antarctica. She passed it on to some of the older ones through her thoughts, but it was still only an idea.Twenty, maybe thirty years later, The Killer of Giants began to spread across the world. It was then that she made those thoughts potential. The other ancients, different creatures with different powers roaming the world, did not seem to care. Stargazers really cared. Thus, The Elders were formed and great machinations given birth. It took them time to understand, infiltrate, and embrace all the technology. In fact, one of The Elders, Balkros, had been a high-standing military Warm One in the former empire we now abide in. He was also a dangerous and perhaps psychotic person, whatever that meant, so when we turned him into a Stargazer, it was not a problem to make him see Our Mistress' vision. No problem at all. By then, on different corners of the earth, as nation warred against nation, as Warm One killed Warm One, the web was woven and the noose tightened. Several thousand cobalt-salted warheads, an infiltrated silo, a blip on the radar here and there, and the sky burned for nights."I was in charge of taking over Utopia," Proxos said, moving a piece. "Getting everything in order for the new world.""Sounds familiar.""And fortunate, at least for you. By the time New Town was ablaze, a group of Ravens caught your ally, Wendy, and her friends and ripped them to shreds.""So I guess she decided to stay in the tunnel after all." My hand shook.Some of The Elders perished during and after The Holocaust. What mattered is that The Queen of Darkness and her vision lived.Of course, no conspiracy is clockwork, no vision fully sees the curvature of karma. It seems some miscalculations were made. The nuclear winter was only meant to last a decade, perhaps only a few years. No mortal or immortal scientist ever imagined that the ozone layer would be shredded to the point it might never truly mend, leaving the planet in a continual maelstrom of recycling radiation, from above and below, and an atmosphere that was less than conducive for major life forms. But I had crunched my own numbers and worked on my own scientific models during my curious yet productive episodes, often exchanging formulas with both Mephisto and Archimedes. All of us agreed that Earth should have healed long ago. I had mentioned this to Proxos a few times; but he simply said that if great minds had not foreseen the lasting damage to the ozone layer how could three idiots like us predict when the stars and Luna would once again take court in the heavens.I knew Proxos well enough by then to know he was lying.Something else prolonged this never-ending apocalypse. My intuition told me it had to do with the secretive city of New Atlantis…and also with Lilith herself. What could have so much power than even now Proxos wouldn't speak of it? Then again, no conspiracy is clockwork, no vision fully sees the curvature of karma. Thus, the victors write history as they go along, while those like Proxos and me who are left behind sometimes just want to forget the whole damn thing and find time for a game or two of chess until eternity finally ends."Oh, yes," he added, "and we had to keep confidential the secret of creation, leaving that to Lilith alone. After all, our kind needed leadership in the form of a deity, not to mention population control. Those with the knowledge and big mouths were quickly destroyed right after The Holocaust.""And I'm sure those unfortunate enough to hear about the secret of creation met the same fate," I continued sourly.He raised an eyebrow. "Ignorance is bliss, Byron, as an ancient saying goes, but knowledge is power. You figure out the rest."Proxos also told me that it was very likely that not all of earth was ravaged by the atomic gales. One of The Elders' secrets was that eventually they would be able to find those areas of the world and reap the Warm Ones there. Then the true empire would grow. But first to wait, to build, to consolidate power in creatures that preferred chaos to order."Checkmate," I said. Proxos regarded me quizzically because the game was not even near being over. He was right.
5
"Proxos?" "Yes?" "Have you ever thought about destroying yourself, ending it all? There isn't much purpose in our lives." "There's that head of yours going again. No. I've existed long enough to not worry about time. Only the moment." "That's my problem. The moment. I feel I never had the moment. It was taken away when I was just savoring it. Why? Your move." "If you never had it, it never was, Byron. Get over it. You're probably mad you failed twice, but at least you tried. Good move." "I still miss, though…" "That's the existence of a Stargazer, Byron, and if I can still remember, that of a Warm One. We miss, we yearn, but with our kind it is much more severe. We miss life, we miss death, we miss satisfaction. I, for one, just miss missing, Byron." "Then it's all over…" "Forever and ever—" "Amen." "Unless you wish it to be all over, Byron, then wait till Sol arrives and end it all. I tried it a few times throughout the centuries. Never had the nerve, though, but I think it would have been beautiful." "So, you don't remember what it looked like." "We miss, my dear, we miss…check…" Amen.
6
Two years passed. We existed. By then, I was comfortably numb, an expression Proxos enjoyed using. We talked. We walked. We existed. Once a week, what my companion called Saturday night, we had a treat. I had thought I'd almost learned everything about the caverns and the surrounding areas, but I was obviously wrong. He walked in holding a bottle, while I was attempting to fit some loose wires on one of his hard drives."Here," he said proudly, "it's a treat for us, for your good behavior." "Excuse me?" I looked up from the prehistoric CPU. "It's Warm One juice," he explained. "I keep a secret cache in a supercool freezer. I only use it on special occasions." "What's the special occasion?" I questioned, fangs already dripping. "Why you're good behavior. You haven't betrayed me or started any Ruka revolutions." I laughed, he poured, we toasted. "Oh, yeah," I purred. "This is so good." "B-negative," he agreed. "Tart but with little aftertaste. Could have thawed it a little longer. Don't drink it too quickly and don't expect it too often." "You're the master." "And get ready to dream," he added. "What?" He explained the Ruka juice never induced the visions Stargazers had during Moratoria. Warm One blood, on the other hand, granted broad imagery. "At first, during the revolution," Proxos said, "I thought that the only way to sate our kind was with direct feeding. That, of course, changed. After all, I've heard that the Dark Instinct is an eater of souls, that we mollify ourselves on the passing of their lives, make them part of our tragedy. But symbolism is more important than substance. It's meaning, Byron. Their juice is just that. Eaten away from their receptacle, while it's cooling, doesn't give us as much of the meaning, the hunter meaning, which perhaps is one of the reasons why our society is so brittle." "I've heard other theories," I said, eyeing a mirror by the door. I'd let my bleached hair grow long, usually leashed by a black ribbon. The features were harder. Two years. But it still was me. "I'm sure you have. It's still all so new, this collective society. All theory. Perhaps I'm wrong, maybe we just need the nutrients to fuel our undead bodies, our shells no longer able to re-create blood cells, our hearts a useless muscle. But I believe the juice, the blood still symbolizes the life we perhaps crave. It gives us meaning. I know one thing, though: Warm One blood is our dream, now more than ever." "You're making my head hurt, Proxos." "Good. If anything, Mr. Solsbury, don't forget this. We're notable creatures. Hunting for prey, flying, changing shapes. Bah! Mere apprentice shit! We have the gift of the Goddess. Yet Lilith has kept a shroud over us for such a long time. We're notable creatures, our potential so undiscovered in our blind hunger. What we can do…" I rolled my eyes, cursing myself for letting his tongue get free again without much challenge. "You've had plenty of time to discover this 'potential,' Proxos. "Why aren't you in charge of some creation?" He shrugged. "Perhaps for the same reason I couldn't end it all, Byron. Just drink your juice, damn it. And get ready to dream." "I can't wait," I said sourly, but wouldn't stop sipping on what he called a wineglass. We, then, shared a bit of moody silence. I knew it wouldn't last, Proxos' contemplative expression already wrestling with something new. "What's funny is that I can't recall dreaming until The Holocaust occurred," he said. "Perhaps it also has to do with the fact that we all lost something we now try to make up in Moratoria. Before, it was like just being…dead, you know." "Like drinking Ruka's blood," I said. He didn't say anything, musing in his own silence. But I had read all of his warnings, or perhaps they were just mine.
7
I did dream. I dreamt of so much. The city burning, me rescuing people, running madly with my mortal family…the little girl on my lap…Clannad, eat your dinner…Tina pouring pints in glossy surrounding…and…and…Medea.Medea!Through the tunnel of simmering memories, a voice called me, distant, a faint echo in a storm of revelations. For a moment, I thought I could go there, ethereally anchor myself to my thoughts and slide toward it. It called me.Suddenly, I thought of fire and ice, and shivered backward, knowing who it might be, who it likely was. My creator. My destroyer!Ripples of panic filled the images, and the voice shouted with more strength.Never…amen…I struggled upward, and away from the tunnel, and reality exploded before me.Suddenly awake, I found my bed open with the covering slab on the ground in pieces, and I was standing ready to jump into the basin.I didn't jump. I went for answers.
8 I had overslept Luna's ascent by about an hour, which is very rare for my kind. If anyone would have even said that 'stress' thing I would have slugged them. The cavern seemed different. It was still dank, but the sounds had changed. The usual whistling that snakes throughout the tunnel and crevices was replaced by a deeper, faltering moan. I felt the ground hum. I found Proxos in one of the smaller chambers, a section of natural balconies where he had all his machines. He was in front of one of them intently scanning a primitive radar that worked only half of the time. "Commodore," I said, floating to him. "I think Lilith might have tried to contact me, I—" "It's coming?" I asked, blinking. He looked at me, as if for the first time knowing I was here. "It's coming! Get your suit on, Byron. Hurry!" "Proxos, what are you—" "Hurry, fool!" He imploded in mist and swept into one of the rifts on the floor. I thought about shrugging or just staying there with my jaw hanging, but found myself doing exactly what he told me. Knowing his style, I met him at the entranceway, the end of the uneven tunnel. I started questioning him, but he started on his tracks. I followed, annoyed, thinking about my dream. That soon ended. The first thing that took my attention was the pulsing wind. The land was usually covered with such currents, wiping forces that could take a Warm One off his feet and severely mangle him. To us it was merely tough walking or flying. This dwarfed it. We walked practically slanted against the flow of air. We trudged for about a mile or so in a haze of sand and rock fragments, barely looking up. I wondered how resistant these suits were, even though the heat from the radiation appeared less than it usually was. We headed away from the mountain range to the flatlands. "It's a tornado storm," he yelled through his screened mouth-opening. "A big one, probably the biggest I've ever seen." "A what?" I shouted back suddenly recalling some research I'd done back in Xanadu for one of the guilds. "They hit open areas once in a while," he said, stumbling against the increasing gusts. "Rare, but sometimes you can find one." I thought about asking why anyone would want to find one, but a sheet of air nailed us from all sides. We teetered in place, and I pointed in terror at the sky. The gales, clothing themselves in debris, took shape before us, dozens of them. They took the form of massive funnels, whirling in the heavens, pruning the land. They headed in our direction. "Get down, Byron!" he screamed, words barely discernible through the rising concert of perceptions. "Down where?" "Anchor yourself!" I saw his silhouette drop and begin excavating into the loosening surface. "Go deep. If we get hit directly, we're done for, but you'll see…" That's the last I heard of him. The sky blasted in fury, the funnels wobbled monstrously toward us. You'll see how I rip you to shreds, I thought, but I mimicked his actions. In my greatest Stargazer arrogance, I would have never challenged this. Digging a few feet in a matter of seconds, I braced myself from wave upon wave of heinous wind, each time stronger. I heard ground ripping close by and felt the storm aggressively challenging gravity to pull me away. I clenched my jaw as a million objects struck me, as reality was absorbed into a sound so loud I thought I might go insane. I wanted to place my hands over my ears, but knew that risked taking to the skies in a flurry of brutal pummeling. All around me, the ground shifted, no, it practically was pulverized by the beating of the funnel's drum. For a second, I dangled in nothing, suspended with hundreds of pounds of ground, a bubble in a sea of compressed air. Then, so quickly my senses didn't register it, I was tossed into the air, crossing an expanse of gust and rubble. I heard Proxos scream, but then he was drowned in a detonation of basso rumbling. I thought about screaming, too, but my body couldn't obey. Like a marionette, I flopped along the contours of a large curve, gaining dangerous momentum. Shards of everything pelted me from all sides. This is it, the god-soul told me. Shit, fuck, shit, it's not even Sol, for hunger's sakes. Or was it me, I wondered for an instant, momentum taking solidness. Once again I was missile on a seriously downward trajectory. "NOOO," I objected in the celestial roar, but this time I wouldn't give up. My first instinct was to rise, but that would have been useless. Instead, I surfed on the overbearing current, bouncing on the arms of the gusts. I was still spiraling the wrong way. This is it… Immediately, I was motionless. I did it. I landed safely. No movement. Nothing. I did it. No sound. I see… The second bubble burst, and I smashed into the ground along with several tons of dirt and a loud BOOM!Not again, a voice inside told me, and it pulled a dense curtain over me.
READ MORE EXCERPT FROM STARGAZER
No comments have been added yet.
