From: hutch@ibeam.intel.com (Steve Hutchison)
Subject: [DQ] Week 13 - Kadrys: Let's Tryst Again ...
Organization: Intel Corp., Hillsboro, Oregon
Date: Sun, 8 Nov 1992 07:57:07 GMT

[ADMIN]  Due to circumstances beyond my belief, I'm currently the only
DQ'er who has access to a posting environment.

This is posted for Andrea Evans.

-------

A light which obliterates every visible object in a single actinic flare.
   *** Don't look. The charm artifact. What did they call it? The PCD. ***

       <<BroadBandEMRScan.Activated>> ... <<EndScan.DataArchived>>

A hum at once shrill enough to surpass ears able to listen to the cries of
bats, and deep enough to make the air in his lungs shudder.
   *** Why can't I ignore it this time? Damn, it's not using charm ***

       <<UltrasoundScan.Activated>> ... <<EndScan.DataArchived>>

The sharp cold scent of the darkness that lies between the stars.
   *** How can it smell like that? I'm not getting this from my senses ***

       <<SensoryTestPacket.Downloaded>> ... <<SensoryTestPacket.Received>>

The burning agony of his first sunrise.
   *** Aaaah! It's entering my mind! ***

       <<SensoryTestPacket.Uploaded>> ... <<Connection.Established>>

The dizzying rush of swooping through the night, borne on dark webbed wings.
   *** It's reading my memories! ***

       <<DataUpload.Initiated>> ...

The richness of blood, filling his mouth and coursing hotly down his throat.
   *** GET OUT! DAMN YOU, GET _OUT_ OF MY MIND! ***

       <<DataSearch.Initiated>> ...

To an external observer, nothing might have appeared amiss. Bathed suddenly in
the light and sound of the Tan-Ru probe, Kadrys simply halts and stands
quietly. Only the air of forlornness given to him by his wide, empty eyes,
hints that he has not chosen to pause for a moment's rest.

       <<DataSearch.Completed>>
       <<Playback.Initiated>> ...

After so long underground, the starlight was so beautiful. Kadrys had loved
the night since he was a child, but never before had he seen it with the
vision of a vampire. The sky glowed with the most wondrous depth of blue:
richer than a royal sapphire, subtler than the sheen on a starling's wing.
Only the blind or insensitive could call it black. In the soft light it shed,
the streets showed themselves to him as clearly as if it were cloudless noon.
And the stars... They thronged the heavens. As he gazed upwards, he almost
felt as if he could lose himself among them... Shining multitudes that
staggered his understanding. So many more than he had ever been able to see in
life. But at last he lowered his eyes from the heavens. He would find no
answers there.

He shifted his leaning stance just outside the gates of the Lady's temple. The
ceremonies inside celebrating the restoration of the Pearl had finished: the
distant music and the sound of voices and hymns had fallen into silence. One
by one, the lights in the temple faded as those living there, and their
guests, the other Pearl Questers, retired to their beds. Kadrys had seen as
much as he could. As much as he was _allowed_.

Earlier that evening, when the others had been welcomed into the gates by the
assembled preisthood, he had of course tried to enter the temple grounds with
them. He had been brought up short by a wall of invisible force. The brief
contact jolted through him like white flame. He had staggered back a step,
panting with pain, only to see his shock mirrored in the eyes of the priests.
They did not need the glimpse of fangs his gasp had revealed, to know what he
was. As one, they turned their backs on him, trained questioning eyes on
Imariye'. "It happened while he was helping us recover the Pearl!" she cried.
"He _died_ to restore it to us! He has been a true companion ever since!" The
other questers raised their voices, supporting her pleas, but they might as
well have remained silent. "The Lady has judged him," said the High Priestess.
"If She had accepted him, as you say, he would not be unable to pass our
gates. Undead are vile beings, the antithesis of the Light and Love we hold
most sacred." She turned to face Imariye'. "Daughter, it is known that you
were pledged to this man. Now that he is slain, you will of course not be
permitted to wed." Ignoring Imariye's frantic protests, the priestess turned
to face Kadrys once more, touching her crystal star pendant which flared in
warning. "In response to our daughter Imariye's pleas, your unholy life has
been spared. Do not expect such forbearance again. Go!" she cried, putting
forth her power to dispel him.

He had perforce turned his back on the brightly lit Temple and, numbly, walked
away, following his looming shadow into the night. The sound of Imariye's 
muffled sobs tore at his heart. His face was twisted in grief, though his eyes
were somehow empty of tears. However, soon afterwards he found himself
retracing his steps, powerless to deny his desire to be near her. By the time
he returned, the party had retired into the Temple, and he could hear the
opening chants of the ceremony of Consecration, which would grant Imariye' the
powers and status of full priesthood. The ceremony which would bind her to the
Order beyond breaking away...

...But now, the music had faded, and only a few lights still flickered in the
Temple dormitories. It was all over. All of it. His hopes, his marriage plans,
his dreams. His love. All as dead as he was himself. So why was he still bound
here, still staring with dry, burning eyes at the Temple windows? Why?

'Why?' Imariye' asked herself for the thousandth time that night as she moved
restlessly round her room. 'Why can he not enter? How can She have rejected
him, after the price he has paid in Her cause? There were times that if he was
still a man, with no vampire abilities, we would all have been doomed to fail
in Her quest!' In her agitation, the familiar walls seemed too confining.
Imariye' opened her windows, stared up into the starry depths of the heavens,
summoning all the new powers that glowed within her, focussing them into a
prayer, a heartfelt plea to the Lady on behalf of her beloved.

In a high tower of the Temple, Kadrys saw a window swing open. Though to human
eyes it would have appeared as barely more than a speck of light, Kadrys had
no difficulty at all in identifying the slender form silhouetted there,
staring out into the darkness. The terrible, aching longing stabbed him
afresh. A desperate resolve possessed him. Come what may, he would try to
reach her. If only to say farewell.

Imariye' returned to herself, descending from her pleading contemplation of
the starswept heavens. Her new powers were telling her that something was
amiss. A feeling of eyes on her. She stared out across the width of the Temple
grounds, and her gaze was drawn to a deeper patch of shadow by one of the
gateposts. At once she knew who it was. Even as she watched, the shadow
detached itself from the gateposts and began to move. He was going to try to
come to her. He would force himself against that blazing barrier until his
body began to burn. In her minds eye she saw a image of what was to come,
brief as an eyeblink, terrible as a nightmare: Kadrys standing with his arms
outstretched to her, his body bathed in flame, burning himself to death rather
than be separated from her. Her whole being reacted instantly. She leaned out
of the window and in a single burst of glory, she released all the force of
her love for him. In a torrent it reached toward him, bursting against the
barrier that kept them apart.

Kadrys stepped into the space between the gateposts. It was like falling into
the furnace of the sun. His muscles spasmed, trembling uncontrollably under
the lash of agony. But he locked his knees and leaned into the unyielding wall
of force. His resolve was set. If he could not be with her, better to burn.

The next moment, the blazing agony began to abate: fought down and replaced by
a caressing warmth. Shuddering, he opened his eyes and, across the night, saw
the watching form of his distant love. He summoned all the strength of his
body and will, and directed it against the barrier. Attacked from within and
without, critically weakened, it fluttered and, all at once, yielded.

Instantly Kadrys staggered over the threshold and into the grounds. He looked
up at her window, and smiled, before melting into bat form and arrowing into
the air.

Imariye' felt the barrier collapse with the suddenness of a snapping wire, and
stood aside from the window as the flying shape hurtled toward her, flicked
past her and into the room. As she turned from closing the window behind it,
it shifted in a blur of shadow into the familiar form of the man she loved.
The only sound in the stillness was the rustle of her robes as she drew the
curtain, moved to place her back to the window, shutting out the night.

They faced each other in silence, Kadrys' eyes shifting from hers to the
crystal star that caught the candlelight in long glints. For long moments, the
silence and motionlessness stretched out. They both felt a new distance
between them. A distance made of the sudden, bone-deep realisation that both
of them were now very different beings from what they were when their love had
been born. Now a terrible gulf gaped between them: the difference between what
he had become, and what she had become.

And the next moment they moved with one accord. Imariye' rushed across the
room and Kadrys stepped towards her and gathered her into his arms. They held
each other in a fierce, tight embrace, locked together as if defying the world
to ever pry them apart again. "Ahh how I feared I would never see you again,
let alone touch you..." Kadrys husked. "Never _see_ me again?" asked Imariye'
in disbelief. "Well, with _this_ coming between us..." he muttered, hooking a
finger round the silver chain on her neck and hauling up the star from where
it was pressed between their bodies. She smiled softly. "Nothing will come
between us. See?" she asked as she slipped the chain over her head and put the
star aside. "What about your Goddess?" he asked, trying to make the serious
question sound light. "I ... have reason to belive She has smiled upon us..."
Imariye' replied. "Besides..." she murmured as she leaned into his embrace,
ran her fingers through his hair, "She is the Lady of Love... And _you_ are
the only man I can ever love. Now and forever."

Imariye' reached up and suddenly pressed her lips to his, kissing him deeply.
Startled, he wrenched his head backward. Her kiss had pressed one of his fangs
against his lip, and he tasted his own blood on his tongue for the moment it
took the tiny wound to heal. Passion rose in him and he burned to take her,
body and blood. He drew a shuddering breath, trying to rein in the rush of his
feelings, as he loosened his arms from her, stepped away from her. "Take care!
I'm so... I don't want to - lose control..." he growled, his black gaze hot
and direct. She gave a slow smile, looking deep into his eyes as her hands
moved up to the neck of her robe. "You won't lose control - not in the way you
fear. I know you better than that... I want you more than that..." she purred.
With a faint silken rustle, her robe slipped over her shoulders and fell to a
pool of white at her feet. She stepped out of it and toward him. All at once
his trembling, tense stasis broke and he swept her into his arms as easily as
if she were totally weightless. Soundlessly, he moved toward the bed, his lips
roaming her face, his fingers tracing lines of fire down the nerves in her
flesh...

       <<TAN-RU.STATUS.QUERY>>

       <<Connection.Established.Playback.Running>> ...

       <<TAN-RU.REALTIME.VISIBLE.EMRSCAN.DISPLAY.NOW>>

       <<Realtime.VisibleEMRScan.Displaying>>

The Dark Master laughed at the image the probe showed him. Another vampire,
extremely old, but still helpless before his power. One who was now (judging
by that facial flush and deep breathing, not to mention the more obvious
signs) lost in the throes of remembered lust: doubtless for someone long dead.
Too exquisitely amusing for words...
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