Thonos blinked his eyes; the garden lay deserted, but he watched for a time as a cat crept
about, looking for a place to lie down, perhaps looking for one of the streams or pools of
water to drink from.
Thonos never slept now – the Malavide did not need a great deal of sleep anyway, and as
they grew older their need for sleep vanished completely. The scientists among them said it
had something to do with the residual build up of the power of the souls that they drained.
Thonos did not know and no longer cared.
He wanted a woman to hold, he wanted someone to take care of. He was tired of taking care
of the dead, but he had made a pact with ahk’Tabur that night, an ancient pact that he had
tried in the past to ignore. Tried and failed, because they were around him at all times; in all
the places he tried to run from they came, as inescapable as the dawn, as surely as the
sunset they were there, reminding him ever of his pact with ahk’Tabur, of his pact with
Idriates.
He stared out at the intricate gardens, at the small cat now curled next to the statue of a
turtle, and he remembered . . .
ahk’Tabur had done unknown things to him – he had not learned the process until later, but
he literally died that night. That part of the legends was true anyway. Died, and been reborn.
His body had felt the same at first, but by the end of the second day he realized he was much
faster than he had been, and much much stronger though his arms were no larger.
Thonos had been a soldier before, he knew the ways of sword and spear and knife already,
and ahk’Tabur taught him other things; hand to hand combat the likes of which Thonos had
never seen or heard of, combat that would have made him dangerous even if he were not
now many times faster or stronger than other men. Taught him years worth in what seemed
like a day and a half.
A week passed them by, a week in which Thonos finished growing as a Malavide, a week in
which his senses sharpened unbelievably, a week in which he began to see more and more in
the dark, slow to realize that he would never again in his life see darkness. The ability fell
away from him, like his old life, and he did not realize what he had given up till many years
later.
He had not realized he was making himself an immortal, but he was – he had.
One night ahk’Tabur brought two people to the camp; to Thonos’ untrained eye, he could
easily see something about the one on the right, a man who looked about him with wide eyes,
but whose face was brutal and whose knuckles were scarred by battle.
The other man was much the same but did not have that strange, almost glowing overlay
about him. He looked just as hardened a warrior as the first and just as frightened a one.
“What do you see?” ahk’Tabur said, shaking the men by the shoulders easily. Thonos saw
that the one with the glow had both of his arms broken.
“I see two men,” Thonos said, stepping closer to them, and one of them screamed as he
stepped out of the darkness. Of course, Thonos thought – neither of these could see in the
dark. It must have thought ahk’Tabur had been speaking to himself.
Thonos pointed – “That one glows – I don’t know, its almost as if I can see a face beneath
his real face, he has an aura . . .’ Thonos’ voice trailed off, and ahk’Tabur smiled
approvingly.
“That is right, Thonos. Both of these men were in the attack upon your home. This one,” he
said, letting go of the man that did not glow, “We can only kill. This one and his kind, though
– they were the ones responsible for the evil that befell your family.”
Thonos nodded, and without being told reached out with deadly speed, broke the man’s neck
that ahk’Tabur had just let go of. The man simply stood there and let him do it, but he could
not have seen more than a lunging shadow anyway, exquisitely faster than anything he had
ever seen before.
“This one, my friend – this one gives us our food.” ahk’Tabur smiled, his teeth almost
glowing in the dim light of the stars, his black eyes just as feral.
ahk’Tabur smiled his strange smile – and then he showed Thonos how to feed, how to eat as
a Malavide; the taking of the blood was necessary but inconsequential. ahk’Tabur neither
knew nor seemed to care why the blood taking was necessary for the taking of the soul’s
power, but there it was – the acts, physical and spiritual, were wedded as one, and neither
could take place without the other.
They both ate of the remaining man, and as they ate the glow diminished until it was gone.
“That is all, Thonos,” Tabur grunted, and grinned – “Now, it is time to learn your last
lessons – it is time you learned to creep upon the midnight winds, to steal through the
shadows themselves. That is what we were born to do, Thonos, to creep and steal.
“But tonight we will not be silent.” ahk’Tabur reached out, and grasped his friends arm.
Thonos started as he felt himself turning to mist, and knew instinctively that this trick could
not be done unless power were stored – power received from the taking of a soul.
They floated as mist through the night air until Thonos saw below them a small encampment;
three guards, all on the outer edges of the encampment, the rest of the men laying in their
blankets asleep. One man, still drunk, sitting by the fire looking into it with glazed eyes.
The rest would also be heavy of liquor; Thonos did not have to be explained this type of
soldier, and in almost all of them he could see the strange glow. As evil as ahk’Tabur said
they were, as evil as they had to have been, they were still creatures of habit, and some of
those habits were bound to be bad.
Being drunk when you were hunted was a very bad habit to get into, but then the men
scattered around the campfire had no idea what hunted them on that night; they had no idea
they were vulnerable in any way.
The one by the fire was the first to go, by the hand of ahk’Tabur – then Thonos went to
destroy the sentries while ahk’Tabur started in on the sleeping men.
Thirty men, almost half of them dead when one stirred and rose, and screamed at what he
saw by the dying fire. He died of Thonos’ knife, and then the rest were surging up. Thonos
learned immediately that he was not invulnerable – he was a little to slow one time as three
men rushed him with swords, and his right arm was cut deep.
But it made little difference to him. He sidestepped, and cut the three down before they
realized he was behind them, and then the rest were short work. After the battle he and ahk’
Tabur moved among the wounded, finishing them off by taking what was left of their life
force.
The more of the life force Thonos took, the more clearly he could see the rippling aura
surrounding the men. He would ask what that was later, he thought. For now, he was glad to
know that he had killed those responsible for his wife and children’s death.
They escaped in the velvet embrace of the night; this one fire slipping behind them as they
slid easily through the shadows thrown by hundreds of other fires. This one fire, this one
squad of the giant army had been the ones responsible. There was no doubt of that. Thonos
clutched a heavy silver horse the size of his hand as he walked – it had been Idriates favorite
of the small sculptures they had collected.
It had been all the proof he needed, but he did not yet realize as he walked that ahk’Tabur
had not set him on the mission of a night, or of a week or even a year. He had set him upon a
mission that would not end until he made a mistake, a mission he could never give up. A
mission he was realizing, and had been realizing for a long time now that he could not win.
Thonos did not know where the silver horse was now – he had lost track of it at sometime in
his long history, maybe in Germany when Hitler tried to take over the world or sometime
soon after that when he went into the swiftly changing Russia – he knew he would have good
hunting there, just as he had known he would have it in Germany. Anywhere there was
brutality he was there, hunting, avenging deaths avenged long ago.
One more would not hurt, and a dozen more would never return Idriates to him, nor Shenna
or Benote. He had tried to ignore those strange men and women with the glowing aura. He
had tried to ignore them, and found that task as impossible as killing them all.
Thonos sat in his chair, and looked out at the garden and smiled a sad smile. America had
been such a nice dream, but now he was here as well. And tonight – yes, tonight, despite
everything, he would once again venture unto the shadow.
Tonight he would go hunting once more, and there was no telling where his hunt would take
him.
about, looking for a place to lie down, perhaps looking for one of the streams or pools of
water to drink from.
Thonos never slept now – the Malavide did not need a great deal of sleep anyway, and as
they grew older their need for sleep vanished completely. The scientists among them said it
had something to do with the residual build up of the power of the souls that they drained.
Thonos did not know and no longer cared.
He wanted a woman to hold, he wanted someone to take care of. He was tired of taking care
of the dead, but he had made a pact with ahk’Tabur that night, an ancient pact that he had
tried in the past to ignore. Tried and failed, because they were around him at all times; in all
the places he tried to run from they came, as inescapable as the dawn, as surely as the
sunset they were there, reminding him ever of his pact with ahk’Tabur, of his pact with
Idriates.
He stared out at the intricate gardens, at the small cat now curled next to the statue of a
turtle, and he remembered . . .
ahk’Tabur had done unknown things to him – he had not learned the process until later, but
he literally died that night. That part of the legends was true anyway. Died, and been reborn.
His body had felt the same at first, but by the end of the second day he realized he was much
faster than he had been, and much much stronger though his arms were no larger.
Thonos had been a soldier before, he knew the ways of sword and spear and knife already,
and ahk’Tabur taught him other things; hand to hand combat the likes of which Thonos had
never seen or heard of, combat that would have made him dangerous even if he were not
now many times faster or stronger than other men. Taught him years worth in what seemed
like a day and a half.
A week passed them by, a week in which Thonos finished growing as a Malavide, a week in
which his senses sharpened unbelievably, a week in which he began to see more and more in
the dark, slow to realize that he would never again in his life see darkness. The ability fell
away from him, like his old life, and he did not realize what he had given up till many years
later.
He had not realized he was making himself an immortal, but he was – he had.
One night ahk’Tabur brought two people to the camp; to Thonos’ untrained eye, he could
easily see something about the one on the right, a man who looked about him with wide eyes,
but whose face was brutal and whose knuckles were scarred by battle.
The other man was much the same but did not have that strange, almost glowing overlay
about him. He looked just as hardened a warrior as the first and just as frightened a one.
“What do you see?” ahk’Tabur said, shaking the men by the shoulders easily. Thonos saw
that the one with the glow had both of his arms broken.
“I see two men,” Thonos said, stepping closer to them, and one of them screamed as he
stepped out of the darkness. Of course, Thonos thought – neither of these could see in the
dark. It must have thought ahk’Tabur had been speaking to himself.
Thonos pointed – “That one glows – I don’t know, its almost as if I can see a face beneath
his real face, he has an aura . . .’ Thonos’ voice trailed off, and ahk’Tabur smiled
approvingly.
“That is right, Thonos. Both of these men were in the attack upon your home. This one,” he
said, letting go of the man that did not glow, “We can only kill. This one and his kind, though
– they were the ones responsible for the evil that befell your family.”
Thonos nodded, and without being told reached out with deadly speed, broke the man’s neck
that ahk’Tabur had just let go of. The man simply stood there and let him do it, but he could
not have seen more than a lunging shadow anyway, exquisitely faster than anything he had
ever seen before.
“This one, my friend – this one gives us our food.” ahk’Tabur smiled, his teeth almost
glowing in the dim light of the stars, his black eyes just as feral.
ahk’Tabur smiled his strange smile – and then he showed Thonos how to feed, how to eat as
a Malavide; the taking of the blood was necessary but inconsequential. ahk’Tabur neither
knew nor seemed to care why the blood taking was necessary for the taking of the soul’s
power, but there it was – the acts, physical and spiritual, were wedded as one, and neither
could take place without the other.
They both ate of the remaining man, and as they ate the glow diminished until it was gone.
“That is all, Thonos,” Tabur grunted, and grinned – “Now, it is time to learn your last
lessons – it is time you learned to creep upon the midnight winds, to steal through the
shadows themselves. That is what we were born to do, Thonos, to creep and steal.
“But tonight we will not be silent.” ahk’Tabur reached out, and grasped his friends arm.
Thonos started as he felt himself turning to mist, and knew instinctively that this trick could
not be done unless power were stored – power received from the taking of a soul.
They floated as mist through the night air until Thonos saw below them a small encampment;
three guards, all on the outer edges of the encampment, the rest of the men laying in their
blankets asleep. One man, still drunk, sitting by the fire looking into it with glazed eyes.
The rest would also be heavy of liquor; Thonos did not have to be explained this type of
soldier, and in almost all of them he could see the strange glow. As evil as ahk’Tabur said
they were, as evil as they had to have been, they were still creatures of habit, and some of
those habits were bound to be bad.
Being drunk when you were hunted was a very bad habit to get into, but then the men
scattered around the campfire had no idea what hunted them on that night; they had no idea
they were vulnerable in any way.
The one by the fire was the first to go, by the hand of ahk’Tabur – then Thonos went to
destroy the sentries while ahk’Tabur started in on the sleeping men.
Thirty men, almost half of them dead when one stirred and rose, and screamed at what he
saw by the dying fire. He died of Thonos’ knife, and then the rest were surging up. Thonos
learned immediately that he was not invulnerable – he was a little to slow one time as three
men rushed him with swords, and his right arm was cut deep.
But it made little difference to him. He sidestepped, and cut the three down before they
realized he was behind them, and then the rest were short work. After the battle he and ahk’
Tabur moved among the wounded, finishing them off by taking what was left of their life
force.
The more of the life force Thonos took, the more clearly he could see the rippling aura
surrounding the men. He would ask what that was later, he thought. For now, he was glad to
know that he had killed those responsible for his wife and children’s death.
They escaped in the velvet embrace of the night; this one fire slipping behind them as they
slid easily through the shadows thrown by hundreds of other fires. This one fire, this one
squad of the giant army had been the ones responsible. There was no doubt of that. Thonos
clutched a heavy silver horse the size of his hand as he walked – it had been Idriates favorite
of the small sculptures they had collected.
It had been all the proof he needed, but he did not yet realize as he walked that ahk’Tabur
had not set him on the mission of a night, or of a week or even a year. He had set him upon a
mission that would not end until he made a mistake, a mission he could never give up. A
mission he was realizing, and had been realizing for a long time now that he could not win.
Thonos did not know where the silver horse was now – he had lost track of it at sometime in
his long history, maybe in Germany when Hitler tried to take over the world or sometime
soon after that when he went into the swiftly changing Russia – he knew he would have good
hunting there, just as he had known he would have it in Germany. Anywhere there was
brutality he was there, hunting, avenging deaths avenged long ago.
One more would not hurt, and a dozen more would never return Idriates to him, nor Shenna
or Benote. He had tried to ignore those strange men and women with the glowing aura. He
had tried to ignore them, and found that task as impossible as killing them all.
Thonos sat in his chair, and looked out at the garden and smiled a sad smile. America had
been such a nice dream, but now he was here as well. And tonight – yes, tonight, despite
everything, he would once again venture unto the shadow.
Tonight he would go hunting once more, and there was no telling where his hunt would take
him.
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| The Malavide - Chapter Three |