A Covenant of Justice Read online

  “For such an hors d’oeuvre, I would gladly spoil a hundred dinners, a thousand!”

  “But, my Lord, while I would willingly do anything in my power to offer you that pleasure, I fear that such an act of generosity might also spoil my dinner—and I would not have you bear such a stain upon your honor.”

  “As always, you think too much of me and not enough of yourself, Madame. If it pleases you to climb onto my plate, I would not dream of stopping you. I will happily bear any shame, any disgrace, for such a treat.”

  “Ah, my Lord Dragon, you do me such honor, I shall surely swoon from delight. But, as you can see, my present attire makes such an act, no matter how much I desire it, impossible to implement. I lack the ability to make any move at all under my own volition.”

  “Gracious Madam, if you will allow me the honor of touching your esteemed person, I would gladly place you myself upon my plate.”

  “Oh, Great Lizard, as much as the thought of your touch thrills me, I fear that such an action might appear presumptuous and greedy, for you would leave little for the rest of my guests.”

  At last, the Dragon conceded the point and put on his most sorrowful expression. “I shall remain forever disappointed.”

  “Not half as disappointed as I,” Zillabar laughed in conclusion. “Eaten by a Dragon—who could wish for a more delicious death? You have me almost convinced to strip off this shroud and leap onto your plate right now. But, Great Lord, it occurs to me that you would not want to miss the entertainment I have planned for tonight’s dinner, an entertainment in which I must play a particularly important role. You will appreciate its elegance, of that I have no doubt.”

  The Dragon Lord bowed. He lowered his huge head almost to the floor, then raised it again and towered over all the rest of the guests. Their banter concluded, the Lady hissed at her attendants and they wheeled her around to the head of the table.

  Entertainment

  After the attendants had seated all the Lady’s guests at their places, the two elegant chairs at Lady Zillabar’s left hand still remained empty. The Captain of the starship and several of the Lady’s aides looked at the places with open curiosity. The Lady never allowed her guest list to unbalance her banquet table. The reputation of her hospitality, as well as the stories told about the sumptuousness of her sideboard, had spread throughout the Phaestor aristocracy; young Vampires all over the Regency aspired for an invitation to her table; so any gap in the seating arrangement, could only provoke curiosity among the rest of the guests present.

  Lady Zillabar waited until everybody had settled themselves, then nodded to one of her aides. The aide exited, and a moment later, returned with a very chastened-looking Sawyer and Finn Markham. The young Vampire led them silently to the empty places, directing Finn specifically to the chair closest to Lady Zillabar. The two brothers looked at the exquisitely dressed table and the array of lustrous guests, looked at each other with reluctant agreement, and sat down warily.

  “How sweet of you to join us,” the Lady said sweetly. “You don’t look very well, Finn. I do hope you have the strength for this little celebration. I would hate to have your discomfort spoil anyone’s evening. You will let me know if you begin to feel weak, won’t you? Thank you.” To the rest of her guests, she announced, “Gentlemen, may I introduce to you two of the very best trackers in the Regency, Sawyer and Finn Markham. They have provided many useful services and this dinner in their honor allows me to reward them in an appropriate manner.”

  While her guests applauded, she nodded to a pair of medical aides who had discreetly entered from the side. Immediately, they stepped to Finn’s side and while Sawyer watched in horror, one of them held Finn’s arm and the other wrapped a medical band around it and connected an intravenous tap.

  “You must promise me that you will eat well,” the Lady said to him. “I would hate to have a stain on my hospitality. And besides, if you don’t eat well, neither can I.”

  Already the servants had begun filling the wine glasses and placing delicately arranged trays of appetizers in front of each the assembled guests. Neither Sawyer nor Finn recognized any of the meats, and neither felt immediately inclined to ask for annotation. While the other guests helped themselves, both of the men kept their hands politely in their laps.

  The Lady Zillabar tsked in annoyance and nodded to the aides who waited discreetly behind the two brothers. Without further ado, the attendants spread cloth napkins on both of the brothers’ laps; and then, using a silver serving utensil, placed an assortment of savories on the golden plates in front of each of them. Still, neither Sawyer nor Finn moved.

  The Lady’s most personal attendants now began to tend to her needs. One held a delicate goblet to her lips, allowing her to take just the faintest sip of the bright pink wine it held. The other placed a tiny sliver of blackened meat in the Lady’s mouth. The Lady chewed delicately and swallowed. She glanced to the servant and he placed another tiny sliver of meat on her tongue.

  Sawyer and Finn exchanged a glance. Finn looked tired and haggard, but he held himself upright, refusing to let his weakness show in front of the Lady. Sawyer merely looked horrified. Whatever the Lady intended at this banquet, she could not possibly plan to let either of them survive. Not for long.

  The Lady noticed Sawyer’s expression then. She cocked her head curiously. “I fear that you have lost your appetite, Mr. Markham. Perhaps the chef has failed to prepare the food to your liking?”

  “Uh—no, no. I don’t doubt that your chefs have done their very best, Madame.” He pushed his plate away distastefully. “I just find it difficult to eat meat of such an uncertain ancestry. I can’t help but wonder which of your former guests provided these particular savories.”

  The Lady’s smile barely flickered. “You have such a remarkable way of looking at things. I confess that my palate has become so used to the elegance of my table that I often forget how others might perceive the fare served here. No matter,” she said. “As long as your brother eats.” She shifted her gaze to Finn and her eyes grew hard and cold. “You will eat,” she commanded him. She nodded to the servant behind Finn, who picked up a fork, speared a fragment of something dripping in red sauce and held it up in front of Finn’s mouth.

  For a moment, Finn thought to resist, but the attendant held something to the back of his neck and he gasped in surprise. The fork popped into Finn’s mouth and out again just as quickly. The attendant had obviously done this before. The next time the pale boy held the fork before Finn’s mouth, he did not hesitate. He took the food quickly. Finally, reluctantly, Finn took the fork from the servant and began slowly feeding himself.

  “Good,” said the Lady. “Very good.” The other guests at the table had watched this entire proceeding with elaborate interest. Now, they too resumed their meal.

  At the end of the table, the Dragon Lord enthusiastically plucked maissel-fish3 out of an especially reinforced bowl with his bare talons and plopping them happily into his gaping mouth. They looked like dead mice dipped in pond scum: soft, shapeless, and generally unpalatable. They also made terrible, disconcerting croaking noises. The Dragon Lord didn’t seem to mind. He enjoyed eating them live. Sawyer almost felt sorry for the maissel-fish; then he reminded himself that these fish had very likely come directly from the Old City detainment4 and he decided that they deserved what they got.

  Sawyer turned back to the Lady. Her personal attendants had now begun feeding her some kind of squirming thing from a bowl of squirming things. He didn’t want to look, but he couldn’t look away.

  “Yes, Mr. Markham?” she asked.

  “I—uh, hope you won’t think me bad-mannered—”

  “I would never do that,” the Lady interjected sweetly.

  “—But if I might presume to ask a favor of you. As you know, my brother suffers from a condition resembling tertiary blood-burn . . .”

  Lady Zillabar’s laughter froze the words in Sawyer’s throat.

  “Oh, you poor dear.
You have my profoundest apology. Of course, I should have explained this to you earlier. Kernel d’Vashti lied to you both. No antidote exists at all for your brother’s condition.” To the rest of her guests, the Lady explained, “Once again, you see the problem we have with humans; they accept the wildest tales unfailingly. They always believe what they want to believe instead of seeing what actually lies before their eyes.”

  Before Sawyer could push his chair back and leap to his feet, Finn’s hand came down on his arm and even though Finn no longer had the strength to hold him in his chair, Sawyer got the message and restrained himself.

  As if she hadn’t seen this exchange between the Markham brothers, Lady Zillabar turned her attention back to Sawyer, “Besides, my dear, even if such an antidote existed, I wouldn’t dream of offering it to your brother. It would spoil the taste.” She added something in her own language, a command to her servants. Immediately, one of the attendants next to Finn bent to the intravenous tap on his arm and opened it. His dark red blood began sliding down the tube and into a silver goblet.

  The brothers watched in fascinated horror as the servant closed off the tap and brought the goblet around to where the Lady Zillabar sat. The young Vampire held the cup to the Lady’s lips and she drank from it eagerly. When she had finished, she licked her lips appreciatively, until finally, another servant approached and delicately touched a silken cloth to each of the corners of her mouth.

  The Lady Zillabar sighed. “Ahhh. I enjoyed that.” She looked at Sawyer and at Finn. “Finn, thank you so much. Truly, a delicious experience. I intend to have you share all of your meals with me. Oh, do have some more wine. I would like to get wonderfully drunk tonight.” She turned to the rest of her guests. “Would anyone else like a taste?”

  Dinner Thoughts

  The Lady’s guests began to laugh then at the delicate irony of her words—indeed, the whole nasty situation had a certain baroque charm. Only a Vampire could appreciate all the nuances of pain in the situation; only a Vampire would want to.

  The Lady knew that the young Vampire males would whisper among themselves for months, spreading the tales of this evening’s merriment. They would talk of the blood-red shroud that left the Lady helpless and vulnerable and they would stimulate themselves to frenzies of lust as each of them imagined what grotesqueries they might perform if they could have her in such a helpless circumstance.

  They would repeat her every word among themselves. They would laugh at her jokes and allow themselves to experience delicious thrills of envy and desire. And yes, of course, all of them would hunger for an invitation to her table. All of them would want to taste the blood of her next victim.

  The Lady smiled at the thought. She wanted exactly this kind of story whispered among her admirers. For one thing, it would drive d’Vashti insane with rage and lust. She wondered how long she could keep Finn Markham alive. The idea intrigued her—how long would it take to drive Sawyer Markham mad? She would have to drink sparingly of Finn to make it work, but the enjoyment would certainly justify the restraint. Yes, she would give the appropriate orders immediately after tonight’s meal concluded.

  At the opposite end of the table, the Dragon Lord did not share the Lady’s enthusiasm. He had enjoyed his earlier repartee with the Lady as an amusing conceit, a harmless flirtation wherein each of the partners gently tickled the other’s sensibilities.

  This shameless display of unrestrained blood-lust, however, he found extremely distasteful. Perhaps the Vampires found sport in the malicious taunting of the prey; it made him queasy. It reeked of dishonor. His progenitors had trained him to kill his meals quickly and cleanly. Additionally, he had always believed it the lowest form of dishonor to eat criminals. At least, in public. Destroying the distinction between criminals and prey befouled the prey and diminished the meal. It insulted the service of the one and exalted the other. No, eating the wrongdoer did not constitute an appropriate form of punishment. And it implied that the eater’s hunger had grown so far beyond control that he had abandoned all pretense of dining as an art.

  That he himself had only quite recently devoured an appallingly large human criminal did not affect this judgment at all. He could justify that matter easily enough in his own mind. That particular human had tried to escape, and he’d had to personally track her down. Once a Dragon enters into the pursuit of a fleeing animal, all the ancient Dragon instincts come boiling straight to the surface of his soul. The hunt cannot properly conclude until the Dragon has eaten the heart of the hunted. In such a situation, any arbitrary distinctions disappear.

  Once having eaten the heart, the Dragon may also partake of the rest of the flesh, if he so desires. In this case, the Lord of the Dragons had indeed desired. He had sated his hunger three times before abandoning the corpse to whatever predators waited in the dark red gloom beyond. . . .

  Nevertheless, this situation wore a different face. To bring the criminal to the table and partake of his blood as a delicacy offended the Dragon Lord. Additionally, to taunt the prisoner for the entertainment of one’s guests—well, maybe Vampires found amusement in that. Dragons did not.

  After considering this matter for some time, the Dragon Lord at last came to a decision. He rose from his chair and excused himself from the table. The Lady barely noticed, so enraptured had she become with her jest. She did not see the Lord’s grimace of distaste as he turned away and stamped heavily off to his own part of the vessel.

  Along the way, he stopped to address the ambitious young Captain Lax-Varney. “I do not want any Dragons at all assigned to Lady Zillabar’s section of this vessel. Do you understand?”

  “Sir?”

  “I want no tales circulating among my Dragons. What they don’t see, they can’t discuss. Keep them all away from the Vampires’ part of the vessel. If you fail me in this, I will eat your heart.”

  “Yes, my Lord.” Lax-Varney hurried quickly off to give the orders.

  Sawyer’s Vow

  When the Vampires finally returned them to the cell with the others, Sawyer experienced a curious surge of emotion. He felt glad to see this tiny cramped cabin again. He felt happy to finally escape the Vampires’ presence and return to the company of men—even men he had betrayed.

  The lingering wake of his emotional reaction puzzled him—and troubled him as well. Why should he feel anything for these people? He could only assume that he had become emotionally confused by the effect of Lady Zillabar’s meticulously nasty treatment. He glanced around—

  Sawyer saw the looks on their faces—Lee and Three-Dollar and Tuan—and caught himself abruptly. Despite his rising fear, he asked the question anyway, “What happened to Drin and Tahl? Where did they go?”

  “The Vampires took them,” said Tuan. He added with quiet fury, “They said that . . . that Drin and Tahl would not return to us, but not to worry, the rest of us would join them soon enough.”

  Three-Dollar put a hand on Tuan’s shoulder, comforting him as much as holding him back. He looked past him to Sawyer. “Do you know anything about that?”

  Sawyer started to answer, but then—he couldn’t help himself; the vision of the Lady’s table, heaped high with platters of pale flesh, rose unbidden in his thoughts. He felt suddenly vomitus, and barely made it to the sink in time—

  When he straightened again, shaken and pale, he held up a hand to ward off the others’ attentions and returned silently to his brother’s wheelchair. He looked ashen.

  Sawyer busied himself with Finn, helping him to his cot and covering him with a blanket. He ignored the questioning looks of the others and bent worriedly over his brother. Three-Dollar quietly pushed him aside and laid his hand on Finn’s forehead. “He looks drained,” he said.

  “You can’t imagine,” Finn groaned.

  Three-Dollar didn’t answer. He peeled back the stocky man’s eyelids and peered intently into his face. He took Finn’s pulse and he looked at his tongue. Finally, he examined Finn’s arm and discovered the marks left by the in
travenous tap. “I thought so.”

  “She has to kill us,” said Sawyer. “She can’t let us live to bear witness of her crimes against the Charter.”

  “So? What do you care?” asked Tuan bitterly.

  Sawyer met his accusing gaze. “I don’t know—” he admitted with a catch in his voice. He indicated the TimeBinder. “Why should he care about Finn?”

  “Because I do,” answered Three-Dollar without looking up.

  “Well, then maybe I can learn to care too—”

  “And why should we believe you?” Lee-1169 retorted.

  “Don’t believe me. I don’t care if you do or not. I’ll act the same way no matter what you believe.” He swallowed hard. “I won’t let this crime go unavenged.” But his words sounded hollow and ineffectual.

  “Blankets,” said Three-Dollar abruptly. “We need blankets to wrap him in.” He pushed Lee away. “Go get every blanket in the cabin. Now!” To Sawyer, he ordered, “You, get me some water.”

  The attack came upon Finn like a storm, sweeping across him in flashes of sudden hot chills and icy fevers. The sweat poured from his body until the sheets grew sodden. He shook and moaned and clutched himself in pain, writhing back and forth upon his cot. His flesh turned cold to the touch. They wrapped him in blankets and held him close, trying to push their warmth into his body by sheer strength of will alone. He wept in their arms, a shell of himself; his ashen-gray skin turned blue and pale. He fell so weak he couldn’t even lift his head to the waterbag.

  Sawyer climbed onto the cot next to his brother’s and wrapped his arms around him. He began to weep in great heaving sobs. Finn remained powerless to resist, but his frantic eyes revealed how terror-stricken he had become. At last, William Three-Dollar and Lee-1169 gently pulled Sawyer Markham away from his dying brother. “He needs to rest—”