Chapter 12

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The training of the chosen cultists, or of the few people who, for whatever reason, were not Morvanites and found themselves among trusted mortals (as far as vampires were capable of trusting the living), necessarily included the basics of warfare. Not everyone was taught how to fight and kill thoroughly, but everyone was given the basics.

The requirements for close servants were much higher, and their education was taken seriously. Even the young Lesika knew how to carry out guard duty, knew how to choose the right place for an ambush, and, very importantly, could bring a vampire out of a daytime sleep if necessary with a high chance of staying alive. So it was the servants who were on duty during the day - their lords sleeping off, preparing for the night ahead. Though it could not be ruled out that some of the guardsmen were quietly awake, with or without their commander's approval.

Waking up a few minutes after sunset, Caché was fed by Sobire and checked her pre-packed bag one last time. The unknown beckoned and stirred. The sorceress anticipated her encounter with the ancient mysteries and was a little wary of failure. She knew about her shortcoming, about the excessive enthusiasm, reaching mania of thirst for new knowledge, but she could not always control it. Methodical preparation helped to cool her head. So yesterday Caché sorted out the artifacts that could be useful and put them in a certain order, feeling at the same time contradictory feelings. What they will meet in the abandoned ancient temple, no one knows. To be exposed to unnecessary danger was not desirable, at the same time, the more artifacts they would need, the more difficult the task would be and the more information could be obtained.

There were no problems with the first part - getting into the facility - just like yesterday. Only they had to spend an extra half an hour monitoring the humans. Fortunately, they had not been seen last night, and they had left no traces, so the guards did not seem alarmed. The priests were quiet, too. No new traps appeared, and the vampires, observing moderate caution, climbed into the excavated temple.

It is more accurate to say that only one central passageway was free from the ground, the low walls were still hidden under a layer of soil. The complex itself did not look big on the outside - most likely, it did not make a majestic impression even at the best of times. But inside, the unknown builders managed to surprise their parishioners.

"At least three underground floors," Reggie habitually determined. "What kind of walls are there to keep out our senses?"

"It looks like regular marble," Caché looked closely. "Maybe there's something under the cladding."

They approached the section of the wall with the outer slab that had fallen off and made sure it was plain stone. The power wasn't felt; it was most likely that something had been bricked inside during construction, something that interfered with the vampire's senses.

"The mosaics are interesting," the magician said. "The frescoes, too, and it's a shame they've faded."

"The fact that the Saints took much from Arcota is not news for a long time. The symbolism is almost the same."

"Yes, but they have always claimed to have accepted the doctrine only from the light incarnations. But here, take a look for yourself."

Reggie glanced at the long drawing, the centerpiece of which was a stylized symbol of Darkness, aka the letter "M" from the ancient Sylvian alphabet, and shook his head regretfully.

"They'll probably talk their way out of it. They'll say it's a temple of a different confession or something else."

"Оh! I hadn't thought of politics."

Carefully choosing where to step, the vampires surveyed room after room. They didn't bother to clean the excavation, but they wiped the dust off many of the floors to get a closer look at the drawings. Caché stopped periodically, crouching down, sketching something in a notebook, trying to copy the signs as accurately as possible. A sense of pulsating energy drove her forward to the lower floors, but for now, she held back.

The first underground floor was a common hall, where services had once been held. There was nothing of particular interest to the vampires there. There was a traditional altar, two massive statues of guards in the form of half-human half-beasts with traces of fire at their feet, and some well-preserved paintings on the walls. Obviously, there were many other things here before, in any case, the mounts on the columns were clearly intended for something massive, now stolen.

The second floor consisted of six rooms, three of which were clearly of a domestic nature. Here Caché was stuck for an hour, painstakingly redrawing the sacred text carved on the wall. That is, she could not read it; the alphabet was unfamiliar, outwardly resembling the writings of Southern nations. Judging by the number of marks in front of the embedded slab, the priests had also paid special attention to the inscription, examining it not only by conventional methods. The vampiress did not risk using magic.

But downstairs, on the third floor, which consisted of only two small rooms, there was something that amazed everyone.

"Unthinkable..."

"Lady Cache!" Reggie had to put his body behind the black flame that was blazing in the bowl, stepping forward in front of the bewildered wizardess. "Wake up!"

"What? I'm fine! Do you see?! Can you see?!"

"I see it, but I don't understand what it is."

"Unbelievable..." The mage arched her head slyly and stared at the fire as she poked her sergeant under the armpit. "We thought they'd disappeared. Maitre will be delighted!"

"Lady Caché. What. Is this?"

"Part of an aspect. Or an elemental spirit, if you prefer," the vampiress straightened, stepping to the side to bypass the sergeant. The frantic expression was gone from her face, though the feverish glint in her eyes remained, so the man didn't interfere. "They disappeared shortly before the Plague, suspected to have perished by ceasing to receive nourishment from their native plan. How had he survived?"

"Was there something supporting him here?" Reggie suggested.

"Most likely..."

A deep and wide brass bowl, over which a ball of flame the diameter of a human palm danced, was exactly in the middle of the room. At a distance of half a meter from it, enclosing the bowl in a hexagon, stood square columns of carved figures, made of material unknown to Cache. The magician stepped closer and looked closely at one of them. It was the same writing as the one on the slab on the floor above. Some kind of sacred language?

The whole room bore traces of humans, some of the artifacts the priests did not take away and they continued their work. The vampires tried to stay away from them. Nevertheless, Caché carefully pushed the couple aside, having previously memorized their location to establish her own. Lady's excited state was reflected in the wide smile on her lips and the quick, honed movements of her hands, which placed the instruments at their calculated points with surgical precision.

Reggie watched her carefully, not interfering. Sojour was in the next room, redrawing the writing on the walls, while the rest of the guardsmen stayed upstairs for emergencies.

"It looks like a prison," muttered Caché to herself after half an hour. "Or some kind of cage. It keeps the spirit asleep and prevents it from disintegrating. But how?"

The magician put some of the artifacts aside, took others out of her bag, and began to arrange them around the columns, muttering quietly to herself. Then she moved her hand from top to bottom, wrote something in her notebook, moved on to another column, and repeated the procedure. She stayed a little longer at the third one, checking something of her own.

Things were happening so fast that Reggie simply didn't have time to intervene. Caché herself didn't notice how her hand crossed the invisible boundary of the cage just a little, literally with her fingertips. Here she was, concentrating on the sensations, tracing the power currents within the supports, waving her palm in the air. And suddenly - the flame rushed forward, instantly pulling into the tiny piece of skin!

The mage was thrown backward; she twitched and wheezed, stretched out with her hand against her chest. Her eyes rolled back, and her mouth fell open, frozen in an ominous grin.

"Sojour"

The sergeant dropped to his knees beside Caché and piled on top of her, wrapping his arms around her back. Briefly, he threw to a subordinate who ran in:

"Stimulator!"

He immediately pulled a wide-mouthed vial from his belt purse, pulled out the cork, bit his vein, and dripped blood. He shook it and poured the mixture into the vampire's mouth. She did not react to the elixir; after a few initial convulsions she froze in stony immobility, and now resembled more an elaborately carved statue than a conditionally living creature.

"What happened?"

"She trespassed, the fire soaked into her," Reggie answered briefly. He thought quickly about what to do next. "Let's go. You carry the wizard. Tie her up, and I'll clean up."

Carrying a wounded vampire in a coma is dangerous. The undead instinctively reaches out to suck the life out of the nearest source, ignoring any interference. They might even claw at another vampire if they feel the blood in him. The vampire's body was always bound with special ropes, including a gag in its mouth, before dragging its wounded companion anywhere. The ropes did not guarantee that he would not break free, but they did buy him time.

While Sojour bound the mage quickly and carefully, Reggie, pulling on his special gloves, quickly stowed the artifacts in his bag. His features sharpened, revealing a quiet rage. He wanted to curse Cache for ignoring safety precautions, the priests who had no idea why they were invading an abandoned temple, and himself for letting his guard down. As if for the first time works with magicians! After collecting the artifacts of Caché, he quickly and carefully put back the items of priests, restoring to the millimeter the former situation, then with the branches taken from the forest erased the traces of his knees and feet. If they were lucky, the wizards would not realize that someone had been down there, and would attribute the disappearance of the spirit to natural causes. Or their own actions.

"Let's go," he ordered as he left the room. "Did you clean this up?"

"Yes, it's all clear. All that's left is a sweep."

"Go upstairs, I'll do it."

Throwing the wrapped mage on his shoulder, Sojour silently ran upstairs. The sergeant neatly all traces, took one last look around the hallway, making sure that nothing more could be done, and began to climb the stairs as well.

He wanted to swear.

* * *

The Mistress of the Night Taleya paced the corridor, her gloomy visage causing those on her way to bow in hasty bows. It wasn't that Celesta had punished anyone in the past for no reason - it was just that the cloud of angry energy surrounding her was an indication of her irritation. No one wanted to cause her displeasure inadvertently.

As soon as she entered the laboratory, all present knelt on one knee. Only Hustin remained standing, scrutinizing the records made in the dungeon of the temple, and Caché was still lying motionless on the table.

"Report, Reggie. What happened out there?"

The guardsmen had just returned from the last parking lot, having warned her through the mirror of their imminent arrival. Celesta was swamped with other matters, so she was a little late. She listened attentively to the report, scanning Caché cautiously in passing and glancing at the silent Hustin. As nice as she was to the younger mage, she was no child of hers. Hustin was more deeply affected by what had happened.

"That's enough," she interrupted the sergeant when she understood the basics. "Sobiré, do you feel anything?"

"Cold and heat at the same time, Mistress Celesta. I'm hungry all the time, Mistress Celesta. Very much so."

The maid's voice sounded tired, sad, and a little surprised. The latter was because she hadn't expected the almighty head of the undead to remember her name. For Celesta, with her trained memory, keeping the names of all significant figures in her head was not difficult. At one time she had feared that after a certain threshold she would begin to forget past events, but so far there had been no sign of deterioration.

Where the cold and hunger for food came from is clear. Caché's body is draining energy, using the master-servant connection. Why is there no attempt to pounce on people, and why is she lay still and unmoving? The vampiress spent three days in the carriage, lying in a special box in the bottom, and not once did she even twitch. She only drank blood because she was force-fed, literally poured down her throat.

"Hustin?"

"First we have to get rid of the spirit," the warlock took off his notes and threw the notebook on the table. "I have no idea where the elemental spirit came from in the temple, but the description matches perfectly."

"Did you ever meet them?"

"Once, back in my first life," the young-looking vampire inadvertently reminded her of his age.

"How do you banish him?"

"That's just it, I don't have any ideas. The spirit itself is weak, unable to resist. The problem is that it's stuck to Cache's subtle body core, and it's literally dissolved all over her energy. I have no idea how to put it back together. So we'll clear the core, but then what?"

After another close look at Hastin, Celesta, too, began to calm down. If the situation was hopeless, if the mage did not know how to get the chick out, he would be much more worried. If he was generating ideas, it meant that he was intuitively certain that he could get the offspring out. Even if he doesn't know the exact way.

"Get up," she ordered, glancing at the vassals and servants. "Reggie, don't blame yourself - it's not your fault. Cache is no longer a girl and is responsible for her own actions. Sobire, you can tell the other servants not to worry. Your lady will be cured. Now go, all of you."

Barely three people left in the lab, she turned to Hustin.

"Do you think it makes sense to get into her consciousness? Just to see how damaged she is?"

"It is dangerous. We don't know what to expect from a parasite."

"A parasite?"

"In the temple, the spirit must have been asleep. The priests came, woke him up, he began to lose energy quickly, and soon he would have dissipated. But that's where Caché stepped in. The spirit clung to the first suitable source of power."

"It doesn't work," Celesta questioned. "If he's sucking the energy out of her, why is Cache not trying to replenish it? She wasn't attacking the people around her."

"Most likely, the spirit doesn't let her. He can't take the body himself, but he doesn't want to give it back to the hostess either."

"So he's weak now?"

"I guess so," the mage said with some doubt. "Okay, you're right. We should go in. It's the smartest thing I can think of. Let me back you up or something."

In the art of working with other people's minds, Hustin lagged far behind his mistress, but he could spot the threat and pull it out in time. The preparation consisted in tying Caché to the table (strangely, she was not fixed earlier) and ordering the assistants to bring two victims in half an hour. The mages had a cubbyhole underground, where they kept expendable material for experiments - the trash caught above, which no one would miss. For ideological reasons, they tried not to steal decent people, though Celesta suspected that sometimes people were caught. Usually, cultists were assigned to catch them, though, and they were zealous about their duties.

They also locked the doors better so no one would break in.

By "no one," Celesta meant Latham in the first place. The Captain, Bodyguard, and mere right-hand man quite rightly did not wish her mistress to expose herself to unnecessary risk. A ruler doesn't have to do anything herself, her duty is to give the right orders. There are servants for everything else. The problem is that, as recent events have shown, personal power is still crucial in vampire society. Besides, specialists of her level simply weren't available. A flaw, by the way.

Breathe in. Breathe out. Set up.

Cashé's consciousness was unlike anything Celesta had ever seen before. It was as if it had the thinnest of threads, blue almost to black, long, without beginning or end, disappearing into a gray mist. Touching them burned at first. In the old days' Celesta would not have been able to move on, so densely intertwined were they. Now she grunted incredulously, twitched her shoulders, and walked, ignoring the obstacles running through her body.

It didn't take much time to find the conditional center, the point of focus of the personality. Much less to figure out what was going on in it.

The space looked like an endless room filled with multicolored mists, the walls of which moved away as I approached them. Exactly in the middle, in a hollow covered with green moss, lay a transparent egg covered with a kind of frozen lava drip. Thick ropes emanated from the lava, gradually disintegrating into the very threads that had given Celesta some trouble at the beginning of the journey.

Mistress stepped closer. The petrified substance pressed against the cocoon that protected Caché's personality, but it lacked strength. Through gaps in the streams Celesta could see the face of the hapless mage, she lay with her eyes closed and, judging by her absent breath, in a trance. At any rate, that was how the older vampire's mind interpreted Caché's current state. Well... It was good that the girl hadn't lost herself or turned into some kind of monster, which would indicate mental damage.

Now, inside, Celesta once again considered the possible consequences of her actions. By all appearances, the plans did not change. The threads stretched through the younger one's energy, and there was no telling what their destruction would lead to. But the parasite, which for some reason appeared in a static form, is clearly unnecessary in this feast of life. The Mistress had met similar ones before, and she had dealt with them simply and understandably.

Power and will. The energy invested in the order and the clear formulation of the task. Nothing else is needed.

"Get lost."

A verbal formulation makes it easier. Though one could do without it. Lava shuddered, trying to resist, but she couldn't resist the incarnating concept and vanished, disappearing forever. Celesta looked displeased at the unraveling ropes, not planning to go anywhere, and curled her lips a little. So, we'll deal with the problems in sequence. Now we should finish with the awakening of one fascinating person.

Mistress tapped the shell, mentally transmitting the order to awaken, and immediately came out of the trance. It was unpleasant to be in someone else's mind the moment it changes state, unpleasant and dangerous.

The first thing she saw in the real world was mad, bloodshot eyes and a grinning mouth. Caché was tearing at her, eager to grab her throat. A clichéd reaction for an exhausted vampire.

A good sign in their situation.

"Hush, girl," Hustin slashed himself on the wrist, exposing the wound to the chick. "Hush."

"I can't help noticing that your descendants have inherited their progenitor's intemperance," Celesta said with a frown as she watched Maitre feed Caché his blood. "Passion is good for a scholar, but only up to a point. Perhaps we should adopt the ways of the late Tyran's upbringing?"

Now, in private, when the crisis was almost over, she could tell Hustin what was troubling her. First of all - dissatisfaction with the slovenliness of the magician.

"Already. It doesn't help much. I'm inclined to regard what happened as an accident," the Elder answered briefly. "Which doesn't mean she won't be punished, though."

"That's good to hear. Try putting her through a cleansing ritual - that way there's a chance the energy won't mutate completely."

The fact that the obsession would not go away without consequences was understood by both of them. The changes were already visible, Cache was already different. She hoped that the process was interrupted in time and that at least she was still a vampire rather than an unknown creature with unclear powers and a blown-off roof.

"Caché. Caché!" Hustin leaned over the chick, "Look at me. Look..."

"Ma... Maitre..."

"She's awake," Celesta summed up dryly, noticing the glimmer of reason in the younger woman's eyes. "That's fine. I'll leave you two to coo. I'll see you tomorrow night with the report."

"Yes, Mistress."

Behind the open doors of the laboratory, there was predictably pandemonium. People and former people, regardless of their social status, are always curious. They want to be kept up to date, to know what's going on. To see something interesting in person, to share it with their acquaintances. And now, besides Hustin's assistant, who had brought two victims, the walls were supported by Sobire, five cultists, two guardsmen, four vampires from different branches, and as many as two heads of these branches in the form of Latham and Kalderan. Celeste beckoned for the latter two to follow her.

"Reggie had done everything right, but the worst-case scenario had to be assumed. The priests couldn't help but be alarmed to see that the main object of their research was missing," she turned down the seldom-used corridor so she could talk without being disturbed. "I'm sure they checked and found traces of vampires. The question is, what do they intend to do next? Or rather, no, not like that. Is there something left at the dig site that they haven't examined yet, or not? The Guardsmen and Caché discovered the spirit dungeon and went straight to it; it is quite possible they missed something just as valuable."

"Does Messena wish to send another team?"

"It's dangerous, and there's no point. They must have increased the precautions. Or they are urgently burying the temple back."

"I will try to find out through agents from the saints, Mistress."

"Yes, do that. Let's sit down here," she entered a room of unclear purpose, which nevertheless contained a closet, a roughly chipped table, and five chairs. There were many such rooms on the lower floors. "Let us consider what to do next. We have an event, a fact: the Order of Fire Saints is engaged in research of the dark aspect, and has managed to find an exclusive thing for these times. An elemental spirit. Hustin thinks it's left over from before the cataclysm. Is there any way we can use it?"

"Saints have climbed into abandoned dark temples before," Kalderan remarked. "Everyone does that. They don't advertise it, of course, but they don't hide it much, either. We can't blackmail them. Information about the Spirit seems far more promising. There are enough educated people among the priesthood who have read the old chronicles and are aware of the level of the civilization that collapsed. They understand the possibilities of accessing the elemental plans."

"The spirit has lost connection with its native plane."

"But the priests of the other orders do not know this. Besides, it is logical to assume that where there is one spirit, there is a second; where there is a second, there is a third."

"Right." Mistress leaned back, ignoring the uncomfortable back of her chair. "Then it's possible that we'll be accused of kidnapping. And, from a formal point of view, the accusation is fair. The other players might think we have the spirit, and we're trying to use it to get to a maternal essence."

"So the information about the spirit can't be used?" Latham half-affirmatively asked. "Do we hide it?"

"The priests are watching each other as closely as we are," Kalderan responded. "There's a good chance the information will come out."

Celesta stifled the irritation that was rearing its head again.

"It depends on how many people know exactly what was in the temple. They might be able to maintain secrecy. If there's a leak... We need to get it right. So that they believe our story and not anyone else's. Latham, visit Tar. Tell the Baron about the excavations and the temple, he doesn't need to know that our people have been inside yet. Kalderan, monitor any gossip among the leadership of the major cults. I'm meeting with Baron Sae in ten days, by then I need to know if I should bring it up in conversation."

After letting her subordinates go, Celesta sat for a while longer, putting her thoughts in order. By and large, nothing terrible had happened. It was just another unpleasantness, which could turn into a serious crisis, but was much more likely to end in nothing. And she wanted to make the best of a potential scandal.

Ideally, it would have pitted the largest Taleya churches against each other, and information that the Saints were experimenting with forces that had left the world before the Plague would have been a good cause for scandal. It's unlikely to work now. On the other hand, if it doesn't work for her, it doesn't mean it won't work for someone else. The King will surely not mind weakening an organization that actively supports the Chancellor.

Is it worth it? For just as Valier might prefer to weaken the vampires, as his ancestors often did.

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