Newsgroups: alt.pub.dragons-inn From: penny@agora.rain.com (Penny Hutchison) Subject: [OFFER] The Offer He Couldn't Refuse ('Kan/Vampire) Message-ID: Date: Sat, 21 Aug 1993 06:05:27 GMT [ADMIN] This post was written 60% by Andrea Evans and the rest by me. Little Rat appears courtesy of The Dreamer. This takes place after Nireen has taken Daril home and is sort of around the same time as the GATM thread. Kadrys sauntered up the winding path leading to the Lighthouse. This time, rather than fly he had taken the opportunity to walk, much as Jameson would have done. The fact that his path had skirted Low City was in his mind as much a point in its favour as the reverse. He was in no immediate hurry this evening, and he had quite enjoyed the exercise, and the chance to pick another dialect of gangslang out of the mind of a particularly rash knifewielder. Somewhere in the Stilettos' number was an unsung poet: some of their swearing had been rather witty. But the diversion had been brief. Mostly, as he walked, he was left to his own thoughts, and this suited him just fine. His mind's eye was focused on Jameson. On what she had told him of the battle with Mar, a battle she had fought with both 'Raelf and ar'Elya. And on the dire consequences of that battle for Jameson, and for her friend Dariel. Now, with Dariel back in Nireen's care, he felt the need to have a quiet talk about these things with his 'kan friends. He moved up to the red metal door, which as usual swung silently open as he drew near. As he entered the courtyard he saw two children, a girl of about ten and a boy a few years younger, sparring with each other, using flexible staves with brightly-colored padded ends. They broke off, and the girl fired a quick grin at him. "H'llo. Reelya said ya'd be here soon. She wants ya to gwan upstairs." The boy blinked at her. "She never said nuthin' t'me!" The girl smirked at him "Well of _course_ not, numbnog! She said it t'_me_! Said it wuz _secret_. So there!" The boy grinned combatively, grabbed his stave. "Numbnog! I'll show _you_ who's a numbnog!" And the two of them went back to their enthusiastic sparring, forgetting all about the new arrival. Kadrys looked up, toward the main building at the far side of the courtyard. High overhead, silhouetted against the deep soft blue of the evening, the grey granite tower loomed. All of its windows were dark and empty, with a single exception. One window was full of light, shedding a warm and somehow enticing glow into the deepening night. Moving on nameless impulse, he flicked into batshape, rose in that fragile form into the night, wings reaching for the cool evening air, climbing toward the welcoming opening in the stone, the warm brightness spilling outwards. He darted in through the window, his slipstream fanning wide the curtains that draped the opening. He dropped back into his trueshape in a midair split second, before his feet could touch the ground. The scent of mimosa and clove tickled his nose. He turned and there behind him was a woman in skin-tight purple silk, the sheath dress trimmed in gold thread. Her straight black hair hung halfway down her back, dropping forward to conceal one eye. The incense smoke wafted from a long-handled ivory pipe with a tiny bowl. "Kadrys. Good evening." She smiled wickedly. "I have a ... proposition I'd like to discuss with you." He looked her up and down, lingeringly. The connoisseur never rushes his appreciation of a true work of art. A slow leer spread across his face. He drew a long breath, reaching for her scent as deliberately as if she were some exotic orchid, drawing it deep within himself. The fragrance of her: a perfume perfectly blended to reach a hotwire into the depths of the animal brain. Mingled with the sinuous fumes from her pipe: Insidious as Tehn-ha oil. As addictive and at least as perilous. He exhaled, a soft, lingering sigh. A satiated sound, echoing with the answers to his unspoken questions. The lids lowered over his eyes, giving his lean face a strange, brooding, waiting cast. She extended a slender arm in a languid gesture, graceful as a dancer, stroking him under his chin, coaxing him into following. A lazy smile in answer to her gesture, and a willing accompaniment to her movements. She led him up the ramp into a room filled with plants, a sandy beach in the center. It was lit by a soft blue moonlight. A few strides took them to a pool of silvery light, six feet across, and a step into the pool took them to the top of a hill. Before them in the moonlight was a castle, medium sized. "This is my private place. I've told it to accommodate us." She led him through the door into a room dominated by a huge marble stair that led up, and a floor tiled in different colored semiprecious stones. At last he drew another breath, released it in a question. "What is all this?" For a moment the black-haired temptress was gone, and ar'Elya's auburn tresses fell across silver eyes. He saw something in them that stole his poise. The image was of a man who had survived immense temptations without becoming a saint or going mad, who had never betrayed his true soul despite countless coercions to do so. "Have you ever thought about being a father?" At that word, he dropped his gaze. He stared at the jewelled patterns of the floor, unable to meet the shining mirrors of her eyes. "I... I put it from my mind. I have _had_ to. I would have given almost anything to be a father, to bring new life into the world, with Imariye'..." A faint sigh that breathed of ancient regrets, before he resumed. "After my death, she would not marry, despite the urgings of her superiors. Her decision could easily have blocked her advance in her priesthood, but she did not care. The fact that I could never give her children could not change her mind. In this not even her goddess prevailed. Imariye's faithfulness to me, her refusal of other suitors was a scandal that haunted her all the rest of her days. But this..." He directed a long stare at ar'Elya. His black eyes seemed to fill his face, giving him a strangely vulnerable expression. A look as soft and dark and easily wounded as a doe's. At last, he husked into the silence, "Are you offering what I think?" "I can't give you children, but you can, if you will, help me to make a child. Will you give me from yourself? I would be greatly honoured for you to become part of my family." Terrible, the trust of that moment. In her request; and in the answering openness of his expression, his refusal to hide the vivid reality of his uncertainty, his fear. "But, 'Raelf told me that when he consumes another creature, that nothing is left afterwards." "Oh, no, you would remain. What I would take away, I would also leave behind. Duplicated, the way the body copies the twists of matter that tell it how to knit itself together. Kadrys, I would never diminish you. And I would not take your curse with me." Ah, how close this struck to his heart. A shuddering breath, drawn and released in words. "I don't understand." "My mate is a very physical person. He consumes the whole physical being when he eats someone. He doesn't have to, of course. But it's easier for me, I interact without destroying." A faint frown. A struggle for understanding, feet light on unfamiliar ground. "So you want to - copy me. Or parts of me. Without my curse. For your child. And this is... something like being eaten. Yet I will survive the process. Unaltered, undiminished from what I am. Yes?" A slow nod. And the single, certain word. "Yes." A moment while the world stood still. And then, finally, the breaking of that silent stasis. Kadrys, bowing his head in answer. And, soft, the answering word. "_Yes._" [ADMIN] This article and all characters except Little Rat are copyright 1993 by Andrea Evans and Penny Hutchison. Little Rat is copyright (1993) by The Dreamer. Kev is copyright (1993) by Stephen Hutchison. All appear by permission.