An Artic Front

[D`Nar Vel`Dynn]

D`Narr nods politely.

"Very well. I will see you away and then make my own way out of here."

[Stormfollower]

Their voices returned to him in an instant. The dead were anxious to have their stories told. But what could he do? He was only one man and to tell each of these stories to those who needed to hear them would be impossible. Even though they could impart their messages with the non-time of the afterlife he still would have mortal time to tell their tales to their kin. They asked too much from him and he let them know that in all probability their truths would never be known by any but him. Now he knew their anger and sorrow, these spirits were trapped behind the veil between worlds and had only his small window to communicate clearly with the mortal realm. His cynicism with life grew deeper with each new tale.
What Remis did not know, could not know, is the myriad of other souls who sat content behind that veil and would never attempt to speak with him. He was only getting the worst souls stories with which to empathize. He was out of balance once more.
He led Tajer deep within the sewers to the place where he had secretly entombed his former master. Hopefully, he thought, she would find its ambiance sufficient to cause her to rest. Then she would be his.

[Stormfollower]

Once they had reached the secret crypt he led her in. Once a secret burial place for a high official and his family, Remis had since cleaned it out. Now his former master lay entombed, secured within an elaborate sarcophagus in the center of the chamber. Around it four other less intricate sarcophagi lay open and empty.

"Here we are Tajer. Make yourself at home while I prepare for our journey to fame and fortune. It has been so long since I last rested." He smiles at her and lays himself down in one of the empty sarcophagi.

"I trust this place will be sufficient for you while you wait. Once we have sent another clear message to my father we can set about growing you your new army."

[Xar'Zith]

She looked around the crypt with interest, running her fingers along the sarcophigus as she passed them. She smiled lightly at the mention of fortune in fame, but they did not matter to her. She was already wealthy, and fame was of little consequence to her. She did however snap her attention in his direction at his last words.

"What new army?"

[Stormfollower]

"The army of lost souls..." He seamed surprised "your father spoke quite clearly about it. I thought you knew." Remis sat upright in the sarcophagus reclining slightly on one one thin arm. "He wishes for you to return your race to its former glory, something many have tried since his time and failed at. If you wish you can speak with him directly yourself..."

Remis smiled an easy smile, his former gauntness gone now the fullness of his chiseled features looking remarkably handsome in the flicker of the torchlight. "Perhaps before we send my message to my father you would like to send one to yours?" He tilted his head now and narrowed his eyes in the way one does when trying to truly understand something. His face grew more serious.

" I can take you there if you wish it... through your dreams... if you have them."

[Xar'Zith]

She watched him sprawled out in his chosen 'bed', her dark eyes still admiring the transformation despite him not being a race she normally found attractive. She raised an eyebrow at the mention of her father then laughed.

"My father was a half-breed Remis, he is your own half-brother, born from the same womb even. And he was dead centuries before you were even though of. But he was nothing like me."

She moves closer towards him like a cat, all grace and confidence. She wears only a blood red robe of the finest silk embroidered with ancient dracon runes around the neck that plunges down into a sharp V to reveal her ample cleavage. The robe reaches her ankles but is slit up the front to the top of her inner thigh, with only fine chiffon bridging the gap to give her some modesty.

But her manner was not seductive. Instead she stopped right beside him, close enough to sense the warmth of his body, but she met his eyes.

"I cannot dream Dreamspinner...tis one of the less desireble side effects of my nature. And I have no desire to speak to a man I barely remember. So why don't you just tell me what you really want?" Her voice was soft, undemanding.

[Stormfollower]

He seamed very dissapointed over her revelation about not dreaming. He had assumed all intelligent beings must dream. What else would a mind do while the body slept. He surmised that her dead body must be in a state of perpetual sleep and her every move must therefor be an act of sleepwalking. He had always had trouble with the dreams of sleepwalkers. He shuddered a bit at the thought. Her absence of rot disturbed him.

Remis looked at her now with morbid curiosity. "So what does that make you then? Would you not be a slave if not of pure blood? That is my understanding of the dynamics of dark elven social structure. But I guess you keep that trait more successfully concealed than some of your other more obvious ones." His laugh is a mimicry of hers as he gives her a once over with his one good eye.

He raises the eyebrow over the patch that covers his right eye as he pulls a secret lever which seals the room with a thick stone block.

"Protection against intrusion...We will be quite safe in here. There are also some very potent glyphs etched on the walls of this place, I am sure you recognize a few if not all of them." His hands fold over his chest as he lays down and closes his eye.

"You could never rule over a group of Abyss Elves could you? There would need to be proofs of lineage, would there not? But a coven of Sanguine... Well, that would be something."

[Xar'Zith]

"When your mother is a Princess it is easy to gloss over the details. Among our people the father of a child is often unknown, and Jetam looked enough like my people to pass as one fairly successfully most of the time. With my mother being a specimen of the purest blood you will find, it was easy to conceal the truth."

She watched the solid stone door slide into place, then turned back to him. She considered him, wondering why he seemed to think she was obsessed with power. Stormfollower's warnings came unbidden to her mind, and while she understood them, she was also confident in herself. She was not sure of the extent of his power, perhaps he could make her dream, but her advantage was in him not knowing her for who she was. To him, she was just a Sanguine, a vessel of the power he wanted. She had spoken openly of her gifts before, but not of the curses.

She gave a little shrug and turned around, pulling herself up onto the other sarcophigus. She even lay down but then lay awake. She was not in the least bit tired.

[Stormfollower]

Remis, om the other hand was very tired. Even though he had been physically invigorated by the opposing forces of Cerissa and Jetamio, mentally he was spent. All the tales of the dead that had come to him after that moment had taxed his mind once more to the breaking point. The pressure of their anger weighed heavily upon him and their force pushing him ever closer to that brink. Sleep came to him almost immediately.

His tired mind reached out to find a dream. As he could not dream himself he would often project himself into others dreams just to have had some place for his mind to go while his body rested. He had hoped to be able to steal the mind of Tajer in a dream so that she would give him the gift of vampirism in the real world but as this would not be the case he would have to be content with another dream until he could figure out a different way to get her to give him what he sought. It was not always about controlling their real world bodies. Sometimes, like tonight, he just needed to dream. This night it happened to be the dream of a young baker in her house far above them that he found. She dreamed of a boy she had known long ago and of a summer they had spent together. Remis was quick to usurp that role and was soon plying her story in his own wicked directions.

[Xar'Zith]

It was summer, and she was outside in the midday sun, its rays beating down on her face yet not causing any discomfort. She was also nowhere near the sewers. With a start she realised she must have drifted off to the stoney silence and Remis' breathing. She cursed the fact that tonight of all nights, her latent ability had manifested itself, evidently due to the close presence of such a strong Dreamer which had strengthened hers.

She closed her eyes to will herself awake, but a scream of horror shattered the silence. She spun round to see a young woman running blindly towards her. Tajer reached out to stop her headlong dash and held the woman with her strong hands. The woman was taller than she, and looked down upon her Dark Elven captor with a mixture of fear and wonder. The Tier'Dal were seldom seen in these parts. Tajer looked beyond her to see Remis heading towards them with a maniacal grin on his face.

The Tier'Dal almost let go of the woman in her surprise, but then decided to play along. She was not sure if Remis would think she was a figment of his own twisted fantasy, or if he would recognise their common gift that she had little control over.

So she grinned madly back at him, allowing some of her inner nature to shine through her eyes, giving them an eerie reddish glow. She then turned her attention back to the woman who now began to struggle against the Sanguine's iron grip. With a seductively dark smile at Remis, she sank her teeth into the womans neck and drank heavily. It did nothing to nourish her for it was only a dream, but she kept her eyes locked on Remis's as she drained the woman dry. Finally the woman fell limp in her arms, and Tajer let her fall.

Her lips and chin were covered in blood, dripping onto her chest and running down into her cleavage, the slick dark liquid glistening in the sun on her dark skin.

[Stormfollower]

Remis watched as the woman fell to the ground, her lifeless form crumpled like a discarded doll. He thought Tajer was a unique twist he had added unconsciously to the dream, he sometimes did that, especially when free form dreaming. Free form dreaming was about as close to a real dream as he could achieve and it gave him a great comfort of some normalcy.

Remis now realized something had gone distinctly different in this dream. It had ended much too quickly. He had wished to toy with the girl much longer than this. Perhaps his tiredness of mind and eagerness to disturb her sleep might account for his brevity. Yet now she was dead in her dream she should have awakened in that instant ending the dream for both of them. Now that she was perished, her mind in its ultimate distress should finally be realizing the whole scenario had been a dream. There was the sense that she had left the dream yet how could it still be progressing?

He clamored to think of why this was happening. At first he thought it must be from his revelations with the tales of the dead, but then he thought it must have more to do with his desire to become a vampire. He thought he had finally crossed that hurdle that had prevented him from forming his own dream. It was a strange sensation to this new dream world but now he had began to dream alone he was going to go along with it.

He moved closer to Tajer shifting from the form of the womans old friend-gone-mad into his own body somewhat idealized by his dreaming powers. He brought himself within a hair of her face and exposed his neck preparing for the transformation.

[Xar'Zith]

His warm scent filled her nostrils, inviting her. She reached up her bloody hands and touched him, nibbled his neck softly but did not break the skin. She felt him tense in her arms, preparing himself for the unknown, and she pulled back. She held his achingly handsome face in her hands, smearing him with blood in the process, and held his eye.

"To become like me, you must die Remis. My bite alone cannot change you."

[Stormfollower]

His eyes narrowed. This is not how he had willed it. It appeared to him his lucidity was slipping. He looked up at her pleadingly trying to assert his dominating power over this dream yet it appeared to him to be unfolding of its own will. He did not realize that it was Xarzith who was controling her own actions within their shared dream.

"I will die if I do not become like you. I must have the gift!" He willed her to drink and tensed once more.

[Xar'Zith]

Tajer pondered the situation for a moment. Naturally, she could not Turn him in a dream. Her real self lay still as death and did not move. But maybe if she 'Turned' him here, he would wake up thinking he was Sanguine, but could the illusion of his dream carry on over to his waking self? How long would it be until he realised he was still mortal?

His pleading gaze looked up at her. He had already lowered himself to his knees, yet his head was still level with her chin. She felt a strong compelling urge to do as he wished, and she even leaned forward as if to do so. But she realised in time that it was his will trying to determine the out come of the dream. Instead, she whispered in his ear.

"Then you must wake up. It does not work here. Nothing you can dream up here can compare to the real thing."

She let him go and backed off. She spoke the truth, wether he would believe it or not. Then her image shimmered into nothing, the last sign of her being her smile, beckoning him back into the waking world.

She bolted upright. She touched a small orb of coldlight in her pocket, igniting the magic in her blood that bound it to another. Then she slipped off the sarcophigus and went to Remis. She stood over him, watching to see if he would follow her. She wondered if he would make a good son to her.

[Stormfollower]

The dream dissolved away from Remis and he was left awake with the realization of what had actually happened.

"You tricked me!" He hissed

"Your powers of dream control are just as potent as my own it would seam. No one has ever been able to resist my will in that realm!"

Far away in the streets of Halas where Stormfollower stood with Mujburra the other orb of coldlight became warm within his cloak. He put his hand to it and saw the location where Tajer now stood over Remis

"It is my son, he is not well...not right in his head. Now I know where he is I must go to save him."