The snows of the last few days had abated, thankfully. The drifts still piled high as Sulis dug her way through them. She dug through them alone, struggling against the numbing cold that had infused her lower body. Even through the thick woollen coat and trousers she wore. She’d bartered some seal skin boots from the refugees for all the good they did. Apparently, the castle’s main river connected to some northern sea now. Too far from New Orleans almost certainly. And there wasn’t even the guarantee it was her original reality. Sail out into that and she could be having tea with Eleanor by Thursday. Laughing at her own joke, a sure sign of madness, Sulis checked her hair tie and groaned. Frozen, like most of her hair. Shivering, she looked up the snow-sheathed shelf that wound its way to the top of the mountain. Could have put the memorial somewhere sensible, somewhere reliable. Somewhere that didn’t freeze her boots off!
She reminded herself that being difficult was the point. A reminder she resented as she crawled over a slush-sodden boulder that had fallen into the path over the last century and a half. She could stand for it to be less difficult.
Her eyes moved to look back at the castle, smiling to herself as she took it all in. So far from her troubles, it was beautiful. Though perhaps she should renovate it. A more compact design, bigger gardens. But she needed the heart to do that, and her idiot self hadn’t accounted for any of this. One stupid reactionary decision, centuries of grief. If ever there was a better summation of her life, she’d yet to find it. Maybe she should visit Xiao Tien and learn some restraint. Her genderless sibling had mastered the art of procrastinating for decades over the smallest decisions. Still, probably what philosophers got up to instead of drinking. She remembered Voltaire. That insufferable git. She’d never met a man she agreed with on so much yet hated so passionately. Astute, incisive and witty. Smarmy and arrogant. The French weren’t sending their best.
As she looked up the craggy cliff she had to scale, the sireless remembered who she’d been during that period. The very picture of a rakish rogue, hosting elaborate parties where the brightest minds she could find were in attendance. Looking back, it felt less like a display of wealth and power. More like a desperate search for anything more meaningful than hedonism. Her plans for the USA had blown up in her face, her grand vision for a vampire haven in tatters. A crossroads she’d been at many times, even during the Norse invasions. She sighed. In the end it was all like herding cats. With that in mind, she began to climb.
Just like Clara, she’d refused to stay in that bayou for long. Like a plague, she eventually became an endemic part of the USA. Attached to its DNA like the ancient viruses in every cell of humanity. If she was going to find some comfortable sense of self, she’d have to reckon with that part of herself. Resolve the paradox Ansa had spoken about so often toward the end of their relationship. Much like everyone else, there was a very simple choice to make. Fortify herself and her life or spend it in exhausting empathy.
With a grunt of exertion, Sulis flexed her whole body before flinging herself onto the protruding lip of the cliff’s edge. Curving her legs around, she eventually slipped over the peninsula of stone into the cold snow of its gravelly floor. With a bitten lip, she slid onto what passed for terra firma this high up.
“Still got it,” she complimented herself with a huff as she took a moment to rest. Taking the wineskin Sybil had packed for her from the satchel at her hip, she took a long sip of blood before almost gagging. Sure, options were limited in those trying times, but did it have to be the worst male blood they could find? She hoped they’d feed those in the crypts like she asked. There was no practical way to feed Deliah, at least not without a rubber hose, but the others could be spared starvation. She fought her tiredness as the final dying rays of the day hit her elevated position. She wasn’t sure how long it was going to take to convince Puck. So her idiot backside had tried climbing a mountain with admittedly even weak sunlight. She added ‘stubborn’ to her checklist of confirmed traits. It wasn’t a surprise but still, nice to have something to cling to. Though she was quite liking the notion of being the engineer of her fellow sireless. Sam the diplomat, Safiya the traveller, Xiao Tien the philosopher and Ivar the lunatic. Well, that wasn’t exactly fair. There was a definite reason for his territorial nature.
Suppressing another yawn, she swivelled to her feet in defiance of the dusk. Oh, the absolute irony of her almost falling asleep before sunset. As she walked into the evergreen trees that protected the hideaway, Sulis was content with her choice of location. It wasn’t the peak which was grandiose and just asking for weathering. But it wasn’t easy to get to either. And Mora did love nature. What better way to honour that than surrounding her memorial with life? Though the sireless’ patronage of the Fulcrum flew in the face of that somewhat. The dead, lording it over the living. Though none of them thought of themselves as dead, it was technically what vampires were. Straddling the line between living and dying with every drop of blood they drank. Maybe that was why Mora had refused to become one. Or maybe she was afraid that having claws would make every problem look like a scratching post. If that was what she believed, the expert in killing things with her claws couldn’t disagree. Politics were tedious, tenuous and totally worthless. It was much easier to rule through fear. Until you trapped yourself in your façade. Until someone was brave enough to call the charade for what it was. Whoever she was now, she was content to leave that behind. Maybe help her fans to get the message this time. She giggled to herself as she finally came to an area not slathered in snow. Sigrun’s head would probably explode if ordered to make a democracy.
The memorial itself had been carved into a cliff face at the end of a ravine, offset from a waterfall that had frozen over in the endless winter. Sulis sighed with relief, kicking her boots free of snow as she climbed the small flight of stone steps into the cave itself. Pillars carved with spells and curses had been erected to hold the roof, itself carved into Romanesque arches to keep it standing for centuries. Strewn about the small room were the artifacts Sulis could salvage from the cave where her family had fallen. If the witch could ensure blood didn’t spoil, these sacred items sure as hell wouldn’t. Some were figurines Rella had used to teach anatomy, the ragged burned remains of her tent serving as a tablecloth. Briefly, Sulis moved to her own little shrine. Her fingers slid over the ancient wood of her father’s bow, her mother’s knife. Hanging above them, Owun’s amulet glimmered in the dim light. She sighed softly her eyes gentle as she remembered his final words to her. That he did not forgive her. She allowed that ancient pain to ache before steadying herself. Even after everything she’d done, she remembered her parents fondly. She missed them.
“I don’t think I’m entitled to regret either, Owun,” Sulis spoke in a tender voice. He wasn’t with her, he couldn’t be. He’d died peacefully, having expelled the resentment and hate he felt for his sister. “But I want to be more than that. Than this. I look for joy in my life until now and I don’t see any. No fulfilment, no contentment. Just,” she paused, trying to cohere her thoughts. It was almost there. “Just an emptiness.”
She groaned and reared away from the shrine her hands pressed to her face. That wasn’t right. She was in love. Didn’t that bring any joy? Fulfilment? It had, she supposed. Back when she had Fulcrum on one hand and polite society on the other. Was it guilt? Was that why she couldn’t embrace them as she used to? Then that was stupid! They loved her because of her, they’d said it often enough.
“Spirits are you going to sort this out this century or the next?!” Sulis cried with frustration, pacing through the memorial with a hand on her forehead. “You had an outburst. Locked yourself, three clergy and a goat in your castle to solve this. It’s beginning to sound like a bad joke!” she ranted, gesticulating wildly as she went. “Okay the goat wasn’t me,” she corrected herself while sitting on the floor to stop herself having an aneurism. That was one pain she could do without. “So, I order my underlings to do things without caring how it gets done. They murder and enslave people to carry out my orders knowing full fucking well I hate slavery. I get angry but they’re useful, so I don’t kill them. I lie to the people I love. I go on centuries long battles with my own conscience. Hey maybe that’s the solution, no conscience no worries!” the almost manic sireless suggested to herself sarcastically. Oh what fun it would be to have her ice-cold Vikingr self back. For about a decade then she’d be back in the booze and blues box. “I am both way too young and way too old for this shit. Who am I, Mora?” she asked the statue of her love, rendered in beautiful detail. She’d hired out a sculptor for an entire year, searching the whole of Venice for a woman who looked most like Mora. Had to offer her blood to get her to sit for the artist. Oh crap, she was in London too.
“An idiot,” a new voice grunted from behind the statue. An inexplicably Irish masculine voice that came from the mouth of a black cat, peeping his head around the statue.
“Yup, sounds about right” Sulis agreed. She leaned back with her palms flat against the floor, sizing the cat up with a critical expression. “A bit blasé for you isn’t it, Puck? What happened to the nets and long ears?”
“Had to give it up” he answered with a flick of his tail, dropping from the statue’s dais. “Children kept trying to pet me. So I made myself a black cat, thinking their superstitions would keep them off me. No luck. So I come to Mora’s memorial to get some peace and quiet. Then some chaotic disaster walks in and starts talking to herself like a mad fuck,” Puck explained pointedly before nestling his purring head against the crook of Sulis’ arm. She smiled, running her fingers over his ears and back with a fondness in her eyes. “I missed you, y’lunatic” he chuckled warmly.
“Missed me enough to steal my castle’s fucking piton?” the witch questioned dangerously after allowing the minute to pass. But even that had a playful edge as the cat bizarrely held his paws up in surrender.
“The second Ansa showed up I yanked that thing right out of there” he relayed with a smug expression. “I don’t know if you’ve seen your ex since popping out the box but she’s probably safer without the ability to traverse the infinite.”
“I want to say you’re full of shit, but I did briefly meet her” Sulis conceded with a concerned expression toward where she imagined the exit archway was. Not like it was moving without someone’s say so. “I reckon the woman I loved is long gone. All that’s left is wishful thinking” she surmised, eyes flicking to the castle as she remembered Caravaggio’s words. “But she’s not here. You can give me the piton back.”
The familiar scoffed at the idea, turning to find his way back to napping behind the statue with a flick of his tail. A tail his friend yanked him back into place with. He glowered at her as she insisted. She wasn’t joking or suggesting it. She wasn’t going to run away as everyone seemed to think she would. Deliah needed her before she starved to death. All were good reasons and all of them failed to change Puck’s mind. His paw batted at her hand, his tail wiggling against the fingers that held him in place.
“You know that soft heart of yours is going to get us all killed” Puck hissed as she refused to relent. She quirked an eyebrow at him. “You save Deliah, castle works. Grand. Then you go see the horrifying entity from before time and do whatever she wants because you don’t think past it.” He was insistent as he turned to face her properly. At least he looked somewhat empathetic rather than the usual dour stare she got from him. “That’s why you’re an idiot, by the way. Do you think Mora’d waste her time with someone evil?” he reasoned. Though probably in vain, Sulis gave his words some thought.
Sure, her first love had been kind. But she’d never loved the vampire. In fact, she was disgusted by it. She sighed then, looking between her legs at the cold grey stone. Humans with pointy teeth. Same struggles, same loves and despairs. Her mind was drawn to the park. Her conversations with Sam and Eddie. With Sigrun’s tools. Through the fire and mist of her life, she reached toward the black lake. Against her better judgement and with eyes shut tight, she broke her way through the thick ice that protected her from its influence.
The strongest memory of that time seared itself into her mind’s eye. The sensation of grass beneath her, the ethereal radiance of the stars above her. A world unpolluted by artificial light and choking smoke. A world rife with disease and blood. Ansa sat beside her, whispering sweet words in her ear. They’d borrowed a fur blanket from their sirelings. Better to keep warm while Sulis used Tallas’ influence to tattoo her love’s fingers with a look of intense concentration. The old woman remembered a fervent desire to protect her. The most precious person in her life. She remembered asking Ansa if she was sure, looking at the unresponsive woman.
Sulis flew back to the present with wide eyes and a panicked expression. She looked at Puck, who now sat on the left side of Mora’s statue.
“What the fuck was that?” she asked with a wheeze, surprise suffusing every syllable.
“Well you were remembering it wrong, so I gave you my recollection” the cat explained testily. She gave him a withering look, condemning him for editing her memories without permission. “Editing? If you bothered to watch that shite from time to time instead of running from it, you might see the whole story. Not just the bits you can beat yourself up over. You still murdered Leofric and his soldiers over this place. But you don’t regret that, so you don’t use it do you? Like I said. Feckin’ idiot.”
“That’s the most asinine explanation I’ve ever heard!” Sulis shot back with perhaps more venom than she’d intended. If he was going to bullshit her into feeling better, she wasn’t about to let him. But her darkest days were flooding her thoughts without his help. There was bloodshed, obviously. She remembered cutting her way through the Sky Father’s tribes. The men who came for them with spears, her hand offered to their women. And in time, those women awakened their new or kindly husbands. A tribe of her own. The first tribe. She remembered their yurts, their faiths and the safety of their stares. There was marauding and butchery, when wasn’t there in the neolithic? But as the glaciers receded and after Storegga took thousands, she remembered taking her tribe north to the cold and the dark. They built a broch around a tree and carved a throne into it. Her throne. They’d return to it every decade at least.
She didn’t understand as she held a shaking hand to her temple. She’d gone beyond the black lake now. Its waters, silt and ice had evaporated. She remembered her time in Egypt. Arguing with Ansa almost nightly and fleeing into the arms of a priestess. Her love had wanted Auset too, in the beginning. Fawning over her as a new member of the tribe. But that too soured to resentment. It hadn’t been an apocalyptic spat or great battle. One day, Sulis had simply left the encampment of her tribe and settled into Auset’s house.
“I wasn’t a good person back then,” Sulis insisted, her mind counting every bloodied notch on her axes. The battles alone would add ten, thirty men depending how bad.
“Does it matter?” Puck asked with a raised eyebrow. An impressive feat for a cat’s face.
“Yes!” she answered emphatically, almost argumentatively as she debated her friend. She was fully aware of how absurd it looked. “If I’m a better person now, I’m a different person. If I’m the same as I was back then I’m still the vicious tyrant I always was” she countered, gesturing with her hands as if explaining it to a toddler. “All of this is totally irrelevant to the fact you’ve got my sodding piton!”
“I could swear me, Mora, Sam and a decent shrink would tell you to change if it bothers you so much” the cat said sarcastically. It was true there’d been some variant of it knocking around since she’d gotten out of the coffin, and she was about sick of it.
“Because I’m not bothered by her. I’ve got enough regrets to sink the British Navy, but I wouldn’t change any of it,” she sighed with exasperation. “I wouldn’t have loved Auset. Without her I wouldn’t have Francheska or Livia. Or anyone I love today. And if I change, European vampires change. We’d still have been the nomadic murder squad we were,” Sulis spoke with growing passion. She pointed to the distant sea, where Queen Eleanor’s could be. “People died. We struggled. Some more than others. But I wouldn’t trade this world away for the alternative,” she added gravely. “That’s why, whatever that thing in the basement asks, I’ll do it. Because I owe it to the survivors. And I miss my world” the sireless concluded, her thoughts turning once more to her wives. Her memories no longer played like distant film reels through her thoughts. She could feel Livia’s hair, taste the food they shared. She could smell the burning of Rome and see its consequences with clarity.
Puck was silent for a time then, his feline features mirroring thought. At least that was what Sulis hoped he was doing. Even familiars could cast some pretty nasty curses. And that defiance might cost her. Though she knew him well enough to know when his eyes became haunted by an inescapable conclusion. He looked to her, ears flattened against his head.
“I hid it in Livia’s safe. The changed the combination to seventeen ninety” he confessed with a meaningful tone. The witch’s face turned to utter puzzlement as he seemed to give up. “I’ve got a bad feeling, Sulis. ‘Specially with that horned harridan involved. There’s something wrong with your world,” he whispered almost as if he were afraid something would hear him. The sireless nodded glumly, having sensed it herself. A constant spiritual drone that she’d passed off as a side effect of her stay in the coffin. But the moment she’d entered the castle it had vanished. Something had struck the spirits of her world like a bell.
“I’ll ask the Lady if she knows what’s causing it” Sulis suggested before waving a hand at Puck’s grave look. “Obviously not in exchange for anything. Sometimes she hands out freebies. Better to get people hooked, I guess,” the vampire suggested with a wry grin. One her friend chuckled at despite the dark situation. “I’m actually kind of happy to be called an idiot you know.”
“It fits at least, eh?” the old mog teased as he curled up on Mora’s statue. Sulis couldn’t resist rising to her feet, running her fingers over the features that had once entranced a stupid girl looking for eggs. She smiled tenderly, enjoying those nostalgic moments from her youth. She couldn’t believe she used to faint at the sight of blood. “For what it’s worth, she’s happy. Checked in on our behalf” Puck informed her after noticing her expression.
“That means more than you know” Sulis replied with a sad smile, retreating from the statue before sentiment made icicles on her face.
“It really doesn’t” he sniffed in response. “I told her you were trouble. And I was right, again. Though it’d be grand if you saw yourself through Mora’s eyes, next time you’re having one of your episodes.”
She let that one slide. Not just because it was a frighteningly accurate joke but also because it was funny. She did her best to suppress the laugh before changing the subject. She was an old woman after all, and she hadn’t seen the lovable fey in a while. His acerbic personality turned a lot of people away, but she appreciated his honesty. As he, hopefully, appreciated hers. And he had a great deal of opinions on not just her but her wives and their habits too. He was especially blistering where Livia’s safe was concerned. It was very telling that the most potently magical thing she owned was something that kept her valuables hidden, apparently. Sulis and the old mog talked well into the night, equal parts reminiscing and planning for the future. Puck unsurprisingly refused her invitation to the castle. At least while the children and cantankerous adults were there.
Unsurprisingly, he warned her against falling into Ansa’s arms again. There would be work when she got back. Hard graft that would make her feel like taking another spin in a mortal body. But she’d learned her lesson. While her first love was bigoted, a chauvinist and brilliant, she was paradoxically kind. The sireless made a dark joke about fixing her, only to get an eyeroll strong enough to flip mountains from the cat.
The two parted ways an hour before the dawn, the familiar noting how close she was to napping in the snowdrifts. Sulis promised to visit with fresh fish and tales, only to receive another farewell and a dismissive paw wave in return. Flipping him the bird, she began her journey back to the castle with information and advice aplenty. Way more advice than she’d actually asked for. And yet as she left the memorial, she found her reminiscing far less painful. It was probably that acceptance thing people kept banging on about. In her view, it was probably more to do with the fact that she could experience the good times. Gunnar and Francheska engaging in a drinking contest had been fun. Sulis had been called in as a referee only to sink far too much herself. Her wives, Ansa and she had all wound up drunkenly debating whether Marcus Aurelias had been right. About what, she didn’t quite know. It did end with them all sleeping on the tables. In Francheska’s case, face-down in the stew she’d been eating. Sulis focused her mind. A milkmaid had been involved somewhere.
Her face turning red from the cold, definitely the cold, the sireless swiftly kicked her legs under the rocky protrusion and began her descent. Another job found itself on the list as she looked back down the trail she’d cut through the snow. She needed to make this place easier to get to. Perhaps even child friendly so the refugees and their progeny could pay Puck visits. Constant, noisy, messy visits.
