Writer's Notes: This is a vampire character, created for a Dark Ages chronicle that roughly followed the timeline of the Transylvania Chronicles.
The crunch of horses' hooves on dry leaves, the creak of leather and jingling of the bridles betray movement in the dark woods, then stop abruptly.
"Good evening, sir. May I ask the honorable member of the Gangrel clan the opportunity for such as we to share your fire? It would mean a great deal; we are weary from traveling. "
There is the rustling of heavy cloth and the thump of gear as the newcomers settle down--the querelous voice of a tired child mutters for a moment, and is soothed into silence.
"You wish a story in payment? I regret, sir, that I am no inventive storyteller--and what stories I was once told in my infancy have long since fled in the intervening years. "
A growling mutter in the darkness.
"Very well, since you will accept no other payment, I will tell you mine own story--such as it is--and you can judge it for yourself as to whether it is an equitable repayment."
"Although I cannot really remember for it myself, I have been told I was born in Macedon, at my family's ancestral lands. Though I do not expect you to know it--no one does anymore--the Psellos name was an old and distinguished one in the great Holy Empire of Byzantium, and my earliest memories are those of being taught the necessities deemed the first son of such a house. I was taught combat from the time I could walk, and my education was started in the classics of antiquity, in strategy, and all the other things deemed appropriate for the flower of young nobility. The path of my life seemed as straight and as clear as an arrow, and I grew confident, believing as I did that I stood in the full light of God's favor.
Unfortunately I soon found out how wrong every assumption of mine had been.
A small revolution started, as so many do, among the soldiery and nobility around Constantinople against the Holy Emperor, whom they believed should be replaced with a wiser man from their own ranks. I was too young to know the details; I merely know that my father had the lack of foresight to pick the wrong allies, and the Psellos name was crushed under the trampling feet of Imperial authority. All of the men of my family died--including my father. I, my sisters and my mother were all sold as slaves--divided up as possessions along with everything else that the family had claimed as theirs. I was nine years old."
The figure shifts uncomfortably, then resumes its earlier motionlessness.
"I must have been a rather attractive child--I most certainly was a very angry one. I was dragged kicking and howling before the slaver, insulting him at great length in the most profane vocabulary I had learned from the man-at-arms who had been my teacher. I can only guess how this sealed my future; the slaver most likely assumed I needed to be rendered. . .more docile. . . in order to fetch the best price. I must give him his due, for he certainly wasted no time. The very next day, the stinking man who was his partner came--the gelder. With casual and efficient brutality, he severed my manhood in a couple of swift strokes, and staunched the wound with fire as I screamed. The line of Psellos, which had endured for three centuries, ended that day in the scraps of my torn and pathetic flesh that were thrown to the mongrel dogs to devour.
The slaver was wrong. I did not become more docile--if anything, this final insult and humiliation put the final temper to my rage. This proved to be nearly deadly to his well-being when I managed to attack him with a stolen knife one week later, intending to return the favor he had done me. I was weak and fevered, and failed in my task. However, I had effectively ended the slaver's dreams of selling me at great price as a noble's boy-toy. I had proven to be too dangerous. He sold me instead as a common soldier-slave, for a mere fraction of what he had hoped to gain."
There is a long silence, as the storyteller stares into the fire. He gives a brief, ironic chuckle.
"You may find this hard to believe, sir Gangrel, coming as it does from someone of my clan, but my anger was much nearer to the surface back at that time. My rage seemed to have no limit, and even the vaunted military discipline could not keep it from spilling over to destroy anything it could--my master, the other officers, the other slaves, even myself. I will bear the marks of their attempts to beat it out of me until I am ash. You must realize, that it was not bravery that kept me from submitting to what they wanted--I simply did not care what happened to me anymore. Compared to that great emptiness inside me, the beatings were nothing, the threat of death was to be desired. It is entirely likely that I would have ended my existence in just that way--a recalcitrant slave so useless he was flogged to death.
However, there was one scarred old veteran, too old to be afraid, and too experienced to allow my refusal to obey to stand, who managed to change that. John Anastasius put my destructive impulses to work through through an effective combination of challenging my ability, the whip, and appealing to the remnant of my pride. He changed my beginner's fighting skills into truly formidable ones--and channeled my rage into having me kill who the officers deemed I kill. Somewhere along those dusty, painful years, I learned discipline. And despite the risks I took, death did not come for me.
I had a definite talent for mayhem. This not only preserved me in the endless battles I fought for my military masters, but it allowed me to rise in the ranks, until I rivaled the officers themselves for authority and reknown as a commander of men. My fame allowed me to reach as high as one such as I could hope for--in 1045 I was transferred, and given a post as an imperial guard at the palace of His Holiness, the Emperor. It was a soft life compared to the one I had led thus far; but I was growing old, and even I no longer took such delight in slaughter. I put my experience and older, wiser, head to good use, and eventually rose again, to take command of the imperial guards of the Emperor's children. I resigned myself to living quietly for the remainder of my life, performing my slave's duties with emotionless efficiency."
White fangs flash briefly in the firelight as a fleeting grin briefly gentles the dark face, and a leather-gloved hand reaches out and gently caresses the touseled head of the child that sleeps next to him.
"You'd think by that time I would have stopped trying to predict what my future holds--I certainly seem to be bad at it."
"I had established for myself a quiet, calm existence. I kept my guards well-disciplined and efficient, and did not tolerate disobedience, emotionalism, or any sort of passion to disturb the order I had constructed around the imperial household. Everything had a place, and I ensured that it stayed there, not allowing the merest hint of the intrigues that swirled around me to affect my duties or myself.
As I began to know the imperial charges under my care, however, an unexpected thing happened to me. I watched them grow, and play--they came to me with childish confidences, and delighted in playing mischievous pranks on my soldiers. They often broke the rules of station, of imperial authority, as children do; and came to me with their hopes and their fears, their scraped knees and their dreams of great things that they could not tell imperial parents or preoccupied nursemaids. I tried to maintain the proper decorum, tried to shoo them away--but there seemed always to be one about, begging a lesson in swordplay, wanting to sneak into the kitchens, or dragging their latest pet or toy or ribbon about to show their captive audience. Gradually, these imperial children ceased to become imperial in my mind; and my heart began calling them *my* children. Something I had never thought to find, much less in the imperial palace. I grew older, of course, and some of the children had children of their own--but wondrously, they remembered "Ali", and brought their own children to see and be taught by me. In the meantime, there were always young ones being born, who wanted attention and mischief and sympathy; and since by that time they had crept into my heart like sunlight, I could not deny them."
A deep, resigned sigh.
"However, this world is not so kind to innocence. Once again in 1057 the imperial court erupted in revolutionary intrigue. The weakness of the reigning empress and her predecessors had led into disaster, and force of arms once again had determined the succession and started a new line of Emperors. This was most certainly not the first time this has happened, nor the last; and I knew that if I just kept silent and served the new throne instead of the old, my life and position would most likely be spared. My head counseled me thus--but I was betrayed by my poor foolish heart, that could not bear to stand by and watch the emperor's children--*my* children, be killed or sold as slaves because of their parentage. I quietly called in every favor, every debt, and every ally that I had made in thirty-odd years of military and imperial service, and gathered some guards who were like-minded and loyal to me. In the chaos of the coup d' etat, I quietly left the city in secret with all the royal children under my care and most of the household funds. We joined a caravan north, traveling (much to my distaste) as a slaver and his merchandise. We then traveled west and north, through Bulgaria and Illyria, up to the far northern borders of the Empire and beyond. The older children had heard tell of remote members of their family living beyond Rome, and encouraged me to seek them out.
It was a long, bone-wearying trek. The youngest child, Theodora--with the rosy cheeks and delicate smile, became sick with some illness I do not know. It wasted her away, despite my best efforts--she withered to a light husk as we traveled, and died quietly one night as I tried desperately to get her to eat. Thankfully, none of the other children sickened, though all became thin and worn after our two years of traveling. The other guards and I did not fare much better; two years of fighting outlaws, desperate beggars, and constant wariness took their toll on us as well, and in the end there were only three of us left. Close to the end, I could feel myself sickening as well; while I was fit, I was not young. However, I harnessed the rage which had served me so well before--I had led these children into the wilderness, and I was not going to die and leave them alone."
"We made it to Ravenna, where we had heard of the relations of my children residing. They did not precisely welcome such vagabonds on their doorstep; but they let us in, and welcomed us after they learned the identity of my charges. We were more fortunate than we deserved to be--these distant cousins had room in their household to spare, as well as connections to His Holiness the Pope, to protect the children from further retribution by the new Emperor. Once we were safely ensconced in Ravenna, I relaxed; and I could no longer hide nor fight the sickness which had been working on me for so long. It was very surprising, (though I am sure it was on the insistence of my children) but the master of the house brought in learned doctors to try and halt the sickness in my veins, though their efforts were futile. I was thirty-nine years old by this time, and lost the battle rapidly, old and tired as I was from my journey."
The storyteller stops briefly to bank the fire, checking the dozing horses before settling back down.
"It was at this time that there came a certain visitor to that house in Ravenna. It seems the story of our two-year journey had reached as far away as Rome, and this Romnus Lukios had come to see those who had made such a 'miraculous' trek. Oddly enough, he seemed to be more interested in visiting my sickbed to converse than to meet the children who had survived. Even more odd was the ineffable comfort I felt in his presence; I trusted him as if we had been battle-comrades for years, and told him things in my sickened state that I had never told another. We spoke of many things, he and I--soldiering and strategy, tactics and philosophy, loyalty and love. Finally, I told him what I could not even tell my children; my worry for them, and my concern over who would protect them once I was gone. I begged him to take this burden for me; but he simply gave me an odd smile, shook his head, and walked away without a word. Later that night he left with me in a litter--telling everyone that he wished to take me to Rome to visit the tomb of St. Peter, in the hopes that it would heal me. We did indeed go to Rome--however, I started on the journey still living, and completed it as one of the Undead."
Once again there is a furtive, white predator's smile.
"I am sure this does not surprise you, sir Gangrel; after all, any of our kind would immediately recognize what my Sire had been looking for. However, it did surprise me at the time. It was probably a good thing I had given up on God and my soul long since, or I might have been very angry. As it was, I was just relieved to be healthy again, and was overjoyed at the chance that Romnus Lukios had given me to remain in the role I had chosen for myself--as this adopted family's protector. My Sire was an excellent teacher and warrior, and he helped me navigate through the treacherous waters of immortal society. My return to my children was viewed as 'miraculous' and evidence of God's grace--some of the rumors circulating about my recovery became truly outlandish, featuring unicorn's horns, the Holy Grail, and the like.
In the intervening years, my children have grown, and married well in accordance to their station, and spread beyond even their Roman domain. I, in turn, have grown stronger; I still watch over them, rejoice and bless every birth, mourn every death, and protect them when necessary. Some believe I am the brother or cousin of the original Alexius Psellos--others who know more about me believe I am their family guardian, granted immortality by God in order to watch over them always. I will admit, there is a certain amount of vanity in it, but I prefer the latter explanation. Whatever their belief, however, I continue on, and will guard my chosen children for as long as I am able."
At this, the gloved hands settle protectively on the small sleeping form next to him, tucking in the blanket with care. They remain there in an unspoken admission of love and pride; and in warning to a fellow predator, whose eyes gleam across the fire.
"I hope that my poor tale has not bored you greatly, sir Gangrel. In any case, we shall be gone not long after sunset, and will trouble you no further."