2. Chapter 2

Chapter 2

Z en dressed and bunched his sheets into a ball. Curfew wasn't an issue if an acolyte finished their chores, so no one would care that he was up, but sneaking outside the temple after dark would be deeply frowned upon given the attacks, and he got frowned upon plenty.

Thankfully, the washing room was near a side door only used for milk deliveries in the mornings, and Zen didn't run into anyone in the halls. Once he rid himself of the sheets, slipping into the alley should be—

Zen skidded to a stop as he barreled around the last corner, a few short strides from freedom, only to finally meet someone— two someone's, currently heatedly embracing in the washing room doorway.

The acolytes tore apart with a gasp.

It was common for members of the order to take each other as lovers, whether men like these two, women, or mixed, especially acolytes, young and ripe with worldly passions. Pleasure was only considered a sin if sought selfishly or across racial barriers, but pleasure shared was honor to the Sun God.

The walls weren't thin, but Zen had often heard his brothers and sisters crying out for their god—or whoever was evoking him that night.

The pair scurried off to find another corner, barely containing their sneers at being interrupted, specifically by Zen.

He wished he could say he was thankful that being a darkling meant no one had ever approached him for such things, but he wished someone would. He wished that once, just once, someone other than a foolish elven boy, Father Lewis with his disciplinary strikes, or a man only real in dreams would touch him without recoiling.

Instead, everyone was like Jorgen, no matter how most tried to hide it.

Lewis said bed without supper, but he'd said nothing about ale.

Zen flung the sheets into the washing room and tore out into the night. The neighborhood tavern was only a few buildings down, well worth the risk of braving the streets. He would receive his fair share of scathing looks from patrons, but at least the barmaid pitied him.

Rosie was a quarter elf. Most people pretended they didn't notice, but Zen had a keen eye, and his first time in the tavern he'd stared at the way the edges of her ears came to a slight point. She'd pulled her hair forward to cover them, but when he smiled and bowed his head in apology, she'd softened.

Now, she gave him an ale for ‘donation' every time he came in.

"Rough night, Zenny?" Rosie asked, passing him an overflowing mug when he sidled up to the bar. Even only a few weeks ago, he would have had a long wait to get her attention, let alone a drink, but the monster attacks were becoming more regular, which meant less people out after dark.

"Rough everything," Zen muttered. "Thanks, Rosie."

He downed a third of the frothy libation in a single gulp before looking around. A less than packed bar didn't mean the tavern was empty. Many of the tables were full, and the din was still raucous enough that listening for individual voices would have been impossible—for a human.

Zen kept his hood up, but a few revelers had noticed him with visible glowers. He liked being here regardless. Like the market, the crowd and the noise drowned out his loneliness.

Just like the ale.

Taking another drink, Zen closed his eyes and let the voices wash over him.

The blacksmith was complaining about needing an extra shipment of forging metals. The caravans kept getting attacked and it was affecting business.

A bitter housewife had snuck out after putting her babes to bed, knowing her husband was off at some other tavern, possibly at a brothel, and so she complained loudly to anyone who might offer sympathy.

A young couple was whispering in the corner, trying to have a private, sweet moment that once might have taken place amidst a midnight stroll or in a dark alleyway, but now the streets were too dangerous, and they both shared rooms with siblings back home.

One of the guards off duty—

"Another day in this shithole? I want to hunt vampires!" an unfamiliar voice drowned out the rest, low and gruff and likely inebriated.

"We only just arrived," a second said, trying to hush his friend with a jovial tone. "We can leave tomorrow. Get our bearings first, restock supplies—"

"Did you know Daxos has seen a fifteen-percentage increase in monster attacks just this week?" a third broke in, as if the other two weren't in mid-conversation. "My Wizards Academy map updates paranormal activity automatically. Isn't that genius? A master wizard invented it. Mysterium? Mysterion…? Mystere—"

"We should be gutting fangers by now!" the first cried with the bang of a tankard upon their table.

"Without supper and a drink?" the second tried again. "My friend, you'll be no use against a vampire lord, let alone his minions, if you charge onward on an empty stomach and without a good night's rest. We're on a quest. Don't you want to do this right?"

"It's not even only vampires and werewolves, you know," the third continued about his map. "There are fiends and hags and who knows what else roaming these lands. We must be right at the barrier's edge."

"You see!" the second attempted to connect his pleas to the third's ramblings. "We're in the right place. If we treat ourselves tonight and rest well, we'll have that lord's head before another fortnight."

Zen had to turn, unable to merely eavesdrop anymore. He'd heard plenty about the monster attacks, but nothing about a barrier, or a vampire lord that the creatures served. Ale in hand, he strode forward—only to stop when he saw who the voices belonged to.

None of them were human.

"I've never set a vampire lord to flames," the first said, a heavily muscled half-giant, that even while sitting didn't look quite as tall as other half-giants Zen had seen—not that he'd seen many. The man looked only as tall as Zen, but twice as broad. His skin was like deep red cherry wood, his head bald, though his face sported a thick black beard. His nose looked as though it had been broken more than once, and above it burned bright amber eyes.

His clothing was simple, a tunic and cloak with dwarven-made armor, though his arms remained bare, sporting so many scars that Zen assumed he must have similar marks everywhere on his body. A large great-axe rested against the table beside him.

"Say, good fellow, are you interested in my map or my friend? Coz you're starting to stare."

Zen jumped. It was the third who had spoken, with a book open to a two-page spread of a shifting map as though the typography were alive. He was shorter than his friends, but tall for his species, given that his round head, protruding ears, and bulb-like nose proved he was at least half-gnome—that and the bright blue swirl of hair sticking nearly straight up from his head.

He sat in his chair cross-legged like a child, his feet in sandals, and his outfit more that of a monk, though the books attached to his hips and spilling out of a bag on the floor spoke of being a wizard. He had darkly tanned skin and hazel eyes, and for as slight as his form was, he seemed to have very compact muscles beneath his clothing.

All three were looking at Zen, their words halted. It was the second, still seemingly jovial, who kicked out the fourth chair at their table and gestured to it.

"Rest yourself, stranger, if you're going to stand there and gawk. Are we being too rowdy?"

This man's lineage was easier to pin down, a half-elf, disarmingly handsome and tallest of his companions. He looked like a knight from a folktale, his long fiery-red hair not at all windblown like a normal traveler, with fair skin, eyes that sparkled brilliant blue, and only a tiny scar through one eyebrow that marred his otherwise perfect form. He wore elven armor and a sword at his belt, with a shield and short bow laid beneath the table.

They were a true adventuring party. Zen had seen some come through Daxos before, but never any like this—never any that hadn't been made up almost entirely of humans.

"Think he's dim?" the half-giant said, picking up his tankard to down whatever ale remained.

"S-sorry," Zen stuttered, unused to conversing with strangers, let alone three at once, regarding him without scrunched brows or an obvious desire to get away. "May I… really join you? You wouldn't mind?"

"We have the seat, don't we?" the half-elf said. "I'm Khel. This is Mortimer," he gestured to the gnome, "and Dante," he said of the giant.

"Your robes say you're a priest," Dante regarded him as Zen inched closer, "but you look like a child. What are you, sixteen?"

"I'm twenty," Zen corrected. "I came of age this year. And you all?"

"More child than us." Mortimer chuckled. "We're midway to thirty. Well, Dante can add a decade to that, but we love him anyway." He grabbed his own tankard to clatter mugs with the giant, who belched loudly and laughed with him.

If the half-elf was twenty-five, then he was no different from any human at that age, but Zen didn't want to point out that gnomes, even half-gnomes, were notorious for not reaching adulthood until forty.

Zen slid into the open chair, between the gnome and the elf and across from the giant, feeling as if at any moment this perfect picture of queerness would shatter.

"And you're all… half?"

"Half what?" Dante grinned with a near manic glint in his eyes. "Half feral? Half mad?"

"Half elf, gnome, and giant," Khel affirmed, "but it's unfair to assume the other half of Dante is human. He's actually half giant, half dwarf."

"Truly?"

"Which explains a lot," Mortimer muttered.

Dante knocked mugs with him again, but since Mortimer was no longer hanging onto his, the tankard upended and spilled its remaining ale all over the table. Mortimer righted it, but after adjusting the book on his lap to keep it free of any spillage, he didn't seem to care about the mess.

"I'm Zen." Zen moved his own tankard away from the growing puddle. "An honor to meet you all."

"Zen?" Khel repeated. "Is that short for something?"

Zenos.

But no… no. That wasn't his name.

"Just Zen."

"What's with the hood?" Dante asked. "We're indoors, and it's dim as fuck in here."

"I…"

"I'm sure the riffraff are more so staring at us." Dante made an exaggerated motion around the bar, and there were indeed many eyes pointed their direction.

Maybe the glowers Zen had noticed before weren't only meant for him.

"They've been ogling since we arrived," Dante grumbled. "Is it a crime in this town to be half?"

"No," Zen answered, lowering his hood with care, and taking note that the full sight of him didn't seem to bother anyone at the table, "but it's never needed to be a crime to be something other than the majority for people to hate or attack you for it."

"No truer words." Khel smiled somberly, while gingerly mopping up the spilled ale with a rag he'd pulled from the pack at his feet as if cleaning up after his friends was common course.

"You speak from experience," Mortimer said. "You're a darkling, after all, and there haven't been dark elves in this kingdom for centuries."

"I'm a rare exception. My robes protect me, but it doesn't soften the looks I receive from most in this city."

The gnome leaned forward over his crossed legs and unabashedly pat Zen's shoulder. "Good thing we're not from this city."

A pleasant shiver shot through Zen at the contact.

He had never met anyone like these people.

"What caught your attention to us then?" Dante knocked with his empty tankard on the table and waved Rosie over for a refill. "Our handsome faces? Or talk of monsters?"

"I know about the monsters," Zen said, "but what were you saying about a vampire lord? And a barrier?"

Khel hushed him with a wink as Rosie came over. She refilled each of their tankards, but when she hesitated at Zen's, since she knew he had no money, Dante told her to go on; they'd cover him.

"Put in an order for some meat pies as well, and whatever you have of bread and cheese for that one." Dante hooked a thumb at Khel.

"I don't eat meat," Khel explained after Rosie left. "And taverns don't tend to have the best selection of produce."

"You big cliché." Dante snorted.

"It's not because I'm an elf! That's a myth, you know," Khel said to Zen, "that elves don't eat meat. It's rangers who don't, because they swear themselves to an animal companion."

"You're not a ranger," Mortimer said, not looking up from where he was buried back in his book. "Not yet anyway. You're a paladin of the Sun God."

"You are?" Zen exclaimed.

Khel lifted his shield to turn it toward Zen, showing off a silver sunburst in the center identical to Zen's amulet. "Well met, brother. All the city guard in Spearsong are Paladins of Law, and I am honored to have been counted among them."

Perhaps that was why there were only stares and whispers from the other patrons instead of outright hostility. That sunburst afforded its wielder certain immunities.

But Zen was talking to an elf .

"I thought Spearsong was completely elven-run, and that all elves worship the Lord of Balance."

"Mostly true," Khel said, "but we're not quite that rigid. The Sun God keeps the peace by ruling over the guard, so that we show mercy, and the Twilight God watches over other things, such as the marketplace."

Dante guffawed. "Meaning the Merchants Guild can rob you blind and claim it's the will of balance!"

Khel and Mortimer chuckled too, making it easy for Zen to follow suit.

"Sometimes that's true too," Khel admitted. "Anyway, I'd love an animal companion someday. I left the paladins to pursue my path as a ranger. My mother taught me to use a bow, and to track, and to be one with nature. And she was my human half! It's said an animal companion must choose the one they bond to. Maybe someday a wolf will claim me."

"Or a badger." Mortimer smirked.

"Or a peacock!" Dante spouted.

" Both of which are noble, fierce creatures." Khel scowled, though the ribbing was clearly good-natured. "I'd happily take anything."

"Our new friend didn't join us to hear tales of Spearsong." Mortimer closed his book with a resounding clap. "But one closer to home, yes? Here in the Kingdom of Aerie? Do you truly not know about the vampire lord and his hidden fief?"

Zen remembered why he had been drawn to their table. "No."

"Even though a darkling is the hero of this story?" When Zen shook his head, Mortimer pounded the top of his book's thick cover. "No one appreciates history anymore. They all think it's myth!" He swung an arm out toward the bar.

"Tell me then," Zen beseeched. "What do they think is myth, Master Mortimer?"

"Morty, please," he said with a wrinkle of his nose.

"Morty then. What is the story?"

"Now you've done it." Dante snickered into his tankard, as Morty dropped his book onto the pile spilling out of his bag and unfolded his legs to dangle off his chair. "He's going to go and tell you ."

"Once, long ago," Morty began, hunched toward Zen and wildly animated, like telling a campfire story to children, "hundreds—no, a thousand —years ago, there was a human lord very near here, who ruled over a fief with its border neighboring Daxos.

"His lands were vast, including a sprawling castle and many villages and valleys. The humans of Aerie hated outsiders then. Well, more so than they do now. Half anythings were treated even worse than whispers and glares, but it was the dark elves who were considered evil and driven off. That much I'm sure you know, but the king demanded of all his lords that if they discovered dark elves after that, or darklings like yourself, they were to be killed on sight."

"All of them?" Zen felt his stomach drop.

"Every last one, out of fear for the Dark Goddess. The dark elves worship her, you know. And giants."

Dante grinned, and Zen couldn't tell if the expression meant he worshipped her as well or if he was only joking.

It was common knowledge that dark elves and giants worshipped the Lady of Chaos, but no one related to one of those races would ever admit the same, not in Aerie, where the Sun God High Priest in the capitol held power only second to the king.

"Now, this lord, a human named Gaian Seraph," Morty continued, "was a good man, honorable. He refused to follow the king's order. Over time, he even made a sanctuary for dark elves and darklings, for any halfs nearby, on his own lands. He built a wall, not only out of stone but as a magical barrier, for he was a powerful wizard, not just a noble with lands and title.

"While it's said he truly believed in the cause of treating everyone equally, regardless of birth or worship, he'd also fallen in love with a darkling rogue."

Zen leaned forward to mirror Morty, utterly entranced.

"This darkling was a true hero. He'd roam the lands, helping smuggle people into the safety of the barrier, risking himself to help others who were hunted. But, as you can imagine, the king and the neighboring lords weren't happy with Gaian and his darkling lover. They couldn't penetrate the barrier, even with their most powerful wizards, but the darkling often ventured outside of it to do his duty and, as good as he was, one day he was caught.

"The king's men left his head at the edge of the barrier, and Gaian went rightly mad. He promised they would pay and that he would find a way to bring his lover back. To prolong his own life, it's said he turned to the Dark Goddess, and she made him a powerful vampire like none other, for he still had all his magic.

"Slowly his madness and his new dark powers cursed his lands and people. They're all monsters now, the few humans and other races remaining only raised to be cattle to feed his horde, as he continues to look for a way to bring his lover back and to enact his vengeance on this kingdom.

"They say the Sun God condemned him further, since the Lord of Law abhors vampires, and made it so that Gaian is a prisoner in his own barrier, unable to leave. Until recently , that is. All these attacks are signs that the barrier is weakening. Resurrected love or no, Lord Gaian will have his revenge, and it is already beginning."

Zen took in a loud breath, not realizing he'd been holding it. His hands were on his knees as he remained leaning forward, waiting for some sort of epilogue, but Morty simply sat back with a satisfied smirk.

"History, he says," Dante huffed. "Sounds like a ghost story. But it damn well better be true. There's nothing quite like a vampire's screams when set ablaze, or a wolf man cleaved in two." His rumbling laugh proved his chaotic nature. Maybe he did worship the Dark Goddess.

"It's real," Morty affirmed. "How else would you explain these attacks? And this book…" He looked down at his pile. "Um… one of these books, details the whole story. Mark my words, my darkling friend, your fathers and mothers, or whatever you call them, know this story, they just don't want to cause a panic."

The attacks had seemed so removed from Zen. Many people had been hurt or killed in recent weeks, and the frequency was increasing, but he'd been safe within the temple walls for so long, certain the danger would ebb, that he hadn't taken any of it seriously.

"Personally, I hope the lord and his people can be saved," Khel said. "Such a sad tale."

"The lord saved?" Dante sputtered with another bang of his—once again empty —tankard. "He's a vampire!"

Morty was distracted again, sifting through his bag, possibly looking for the book he'd mentioned that recorded the tale, but Khel puffed up his chest in assurance.

"Anyone can be saved. So says the Lord of Law. Right, Zen?"

Another devout, even as a half-elf, but Zen couldn't grudge Khel that when he seemed so genuine. "So says," he intoned, and then turned to Morty. "Are you a bard, sir Morty? You told that story chillingly."

"Just Morty, please," he corrected again, his voice muffled from half his face being buried in his bag. "And I'm merely a lover of truth. Aha!" He snatched up a new tome, this one bound in dyed black leather. "Also a wizard, of course."

He still looked like a monk to Zen.

Zen had so many questions, but it was then that Rosie arrived with the travelers' spread of food. Zen's stomach grumbled from the smell of it all, having gone without a meal since morning, and his hunger must have betrayed itself, because while Morty and Dante dug into their meat pies, Khel looked on Zen in sympathy and broke his bread and cheese to share.

Zen shouldn't. He'd been ordered not to partake.

But then he figured why not add another sin when he'd already piled up so many.

"Thank you." Zen bowed his head and began to eat with the others, remembering his refilled ale that he'd neglected while listening to Morty's story.

After several bites and long gulps from his tankard, he couldn't contain his curiosity.

"So… you hope to get inside this barrier before it completely crumbles? You may be right that the order knows about this. There is much that is kept secret to only a few high-ranking priests. Do you know where the barrier begins?"

"We have an idea," Morty said between sloppy mouthfuls of pie. "We'll find it."

"May I ask…" Zen trailed off, but when all their eyes turned to him, he was struck once more by their incomparable differences. "How are you traveling together? Are you all from Spearsong?"

"Technically, I'm from that kingdom," Morty explained, "but a small village near the Wizards Academy where I was trained. Dante was raised mostly in Underhaven, the dwarven kingdom in the mountains. And why else would we be traveling together? We're friends!"

The men clanked their tankards all together this time, three half-bloods in a land without compromise for anything that wasn't whole, even if times were better than they'd been a thousand years ago.

"But… how did—"

A piercing scream rang out so alarmingly from the street that the entire tavern hushed.

Zen felt the thud of his heartbeat—once, twice—and then another scream sounded, this time forming an unmistakable word.

"Vampires!"