What is that?
Spice and night wind from exotic harbors, a hint of green sap and the faintest stinging touch of mortal alcohol. Sense-impressions flooded the fractured mess his brain had become, layering quick and deft as a master painter’s brush—a glance from wide dark velvety eyes, brown curls fragrant as cedar bark, a soft musical murmur he could almost,almosthear.
The bartender drew breath to shout at a ragged scarecrow standing spellbound in the doorway; the wanderer’s attention fastened upon that stocky mortal, who wisely swallowed whatever he had been about to say.
Marvelous, wonderful clarity. The smell was intriguing, enchanting, wonderful. Yet more than that, it peeled away a thick layer of accreted dust, sharpening every visual edge and burnishing the entire room from its slumped, wheezing music-maker—jukebox, that’s what it’s called—to the glistening blue-black flies under hanging lanterns abuzz with galvanism, thespotted mirror behind shelves of liquor to the worn, dust-creased boots of tired mortal males. Quite a few curious glances settled upon the wanderer; he wondered if his cloth were too anachronistic for even simple country folk used to keeping their opinions to themselves.
Layered against that beautiful, phantasmal perfume was the more-familiar intruder’s scent. Perhapsthatwas why the trespasser lingered? But if so…
Well, you will simply have to kill him. Not a difficult task. His gaze roved the tavern’s interior, marking every living thing, and the mortals would never know how close they brushed against death that night—a feast before battle was always tempting. The golden thread was a frail fence and enticement all at once, drawing him away from such dangerous pleasures.
She—the scent was unmistakably female—had lingered here for a short while, dyeing the air with beauty. A shudder passed through his frame; he turned, allowing the constant whistling wilderness-breath to sweep the door closed. Let this clutch of mortals live another night; there was time and enough to drink the entire continent dry if necessary.
Later. Once he had run the most important prey of millennia to ground, and disposed of whoever now held her.
Following a single auriferous thread, the wanderer stepped into the road, loping easily along painted yellow stripes. Buildings blurred to either side, and he plunged past the frail glow modern mortals used to hold back the night.
Remember, remember, he chanted as he ran—almost unnecessary, since the evaporating waft of delicious scent waxed and waned, yet thankfully never quite disappeared. No attemptto mask at all, though the trespasser’s spoor was intermittent, showing some recognition of elementary safety measures.
He could not tell if the strangeness was in his own looming unreason or the trail itself. Stars overhead sang to themselves in high tinkling voices, a yellow moon leering, gazing upon the earth’s teeming face with interest but no mercy. The trail veered, plunged into the mouth of a gorge, and only the angry reek of recent death stopped the wanderer from leaping straight into a rusty tangle of mortal iron.
Not that it could have harmed him; his hide was ancient, more durable than daylight. But had he been so foolhardy his clothes would have been reduced to shreds.
Now the wanderer could not remember what he wore, or whence the garments had been stolen from. A question literally immaterial; when he met the bearer of that wonderful perfume, he would no doubt seem a bit odd. What mattered was getting close enough to fill his lungs, let the fact of her presence sink in so he could think clearly for a few moments. The constantly fracturing mess inside his skull would coalesce, and he might even be able to remember his own name.
The intruder to this territory had been less than cautious; this, the wanderer could understand. With that lovely, enticing, magical fragrance filling nose, brain, branching vein-channels, it was a wonder either of them had been able to run without stumble-staggering like new foals. No trace of whoever had killed the trespasser, which meant the valuable prey’s protector was old and canny—and yet, they had let her slip away?
A sanguinant did not use their greatest treasure as bait. Never, never. It was simply not done; he knew that, as he knew little else about this confusing present time. So, a bauble slipping from a powerful grasp, temporarily adrift until reclaimed? Perhaps, yet her trail led from the gorge as well,stillwith no masking.
How was it possible? The wanderer was missing something crucial, and would most likely die as he challenged another archaic, powerful sanguinant for the prize.
If, that was, a creature like himself were capable of true-death. Was it accuracy, hubris, or further insanity to have doubts upon the matter? He had, after all, survived the fire.
For once, remembering that terrible event did not distract him from current surroundings. Slipping between the whispering speed and nearly invisible mistform at places which seemed ideal for ambush, he was more alert than he had been in… oh, two centuries, at least?
How long had it been, precisely, since the quaking riven earth, the walls of flame breathing like living creatures, the agony as their caress swept over him, robbing him of any claim to logic or sense? He knew not what day it was, what year according to which calendar, or even what this mortal country now named itself. The language of its inhabitants eluded him at the moment as well, yet the scent was working upon him in tremendous fashion, for he dimly sensed what he was missing. Great gaps torn in his knowledge, his reason, his veryself, and he could not entirely blame a city soaked in flames.
Those who lived long became as stone, physically and in all other ways. Unless…
Unless you are strong enough to kill the protector of that scent. Why do they not mask her? Such a simple precaution.
A cold, rational,sanethought, one he clung to as he ran.
He veered down a gravel side-road, which widened to a small, irregular trampled space abutting the green skein of an aestival-vanished creek. The metallic scent of water was barely a drouth-choked trickle, and a large rectangular shadow loomed. The shape was possessed of wheels as well as two large night-blind eyes watching him, curiously insectile, glossed with starlight.
Ah. Glass, front-facing.Along the thing’s flanks were irregular hints of golden glimmer.
Candlelight? Here?
It was a camping vehicle, he realized slowly, halting at the very edge of what had to be a place for locals to park when the creek was high enough to hold fish, or dabble toes in a cool flow. The scent was very strong; she had been resident some while. That realization peeled another layer of insanity from his encrusted mental processes, and the resultant jolt was almost as pleasant as the great gripping lungfuls of golden-brown spice he took in greedy gulps, waiting for her protector to show.
Nothing. The night wore on. His senses, muffled by age and madness, whetted themselves with each new draught of scent. The distant murmur of her voice was just as he had imagined, a soft sweet song capable of enticing any sanguinant into the whirlpool, onto razor rocks. A desert wanderer would follow that whisper over the sands until the carnivorous flame-spirits feasted upon his bones; a fur-clad steppedweller would ride every horse he possessed to foundering in pursuit.
Inside the vehicle, her muffled laughter, edged with something… anger? Disdain? He could not tell. The wanderer, now invisible even to those of his own kind, was patient. Each soft, controlled breath, freighted with her magnificence, was whetstone to a rusty edge. Perhaps he could gather enough sanity, enough flexibility to fight effectively when her guardian appeared.
Yet why,whywould any sanguinant announce her presence like this? Did they not grasp the risks? Impossible. Even a fledgling knew to conceal, protect, jealously shield such a nonpareil.
Unless… was she alone? Which made no sense either, for who had meted out death to the trespasser? One ofherkind didnot engage in combat; it was simply unthinkable. No sanguinant would ever allow such madness.