Adept (The Essence Gate War, Book 1) - By Michael Arnquist Page 0,185

hand in a beckoning gesture. Bellimar stiffened with a grunt as he was lifted from the ground by some unseen force. Amric started forward, one hand reaching over his shoulder, but Bellimar stopped him with a warning look. The warrior let his hand fall, and he watched in helpless frustration as the vampire’s rigid form, suspended several feet in the air, drifted over to the black-robed Adept.

Xenoth clasped his hands behind his back and tilted his bearded chin upward as Bellimar floated to a halt before him.

“Fascinating,” he murmured. Then, louder, he said, “Do you know what I see before me, vampire?”

“I can only guess,” Bellimar said through clenched teeth.

Xenoth chuckled. “I see a corrupted being, caught on the knife’s edge between life and death, held there by a powerful enchantment. This is marvelous work, intricate and thorough. This could only have been accomplished by Adepts. Do you recall when this was done to you?”

“As if it was yesterday,” Bellimar hissed.

Xenoth met his eyes and gave a slow, grave nod, as if processing some sobering bit of information he found there. “Yes, indeed,” he said. “It is no secret that my kind have visited this world over the millennia, when the occasion warranted. You must have drawn considerable interest from my ancestors for them to devote such special attention to you.”

“Your kind forced this torment upon me,” Bellimar snarled. “If not for their interference many centuries ago in the affairs of this world––in my affairs––I would have cast all the lands beneath my shadow.”

“Ah, that would be it, then,” Xenoth said with a dismissive wave of his hand. “They were merely protecting their investment.”

Bellimar hesitated, taken aback. “Protecting…? What investment?”

“The spread of Unlife, if left unchecked, can eventually taint the core energy of a world, like a parasite in the water supply,” Xenoth replied. “This world had to be allowed to ripen unhindered.”

Amric went cold at the man’s words in a way that had nothing to do with the cooling night breeze. Allow this world to ripen? For what purpose? He could not see Bellimar’s expression, since the old man was still hovering and facing away from him, but the Adept was studying that expression with piercing intensity.

“Does it soothe your anger to know that there was little nobility in what they did?” Xenoth asked. “No, I thought not.”

“What they did was leave me in torment for more centuries than I can now recall,” Bellimar spat in a venomous tone, “cut off from my powers and afflicted with a hunger that I could no longer satisfy. They layered crushing guilt and conscience upon my existing curse, and amplified my suffering a hundredfold in so doing.” His voice faltered and dropped to a near whisper. “And I cannot say any of it was undeserved, given my crimes.”

Xenoth’s laugh was a harsh, pitiless thing. “Wretched, foolish creature,” he chided. “You continue to delude yourself, even after all this time. Do you not see? The Adepts dampened your connection to all magic, that much is true, and somehow they managed to do it without ending your existence. A fine, delicate touch, that. However, while you could no longer tap your sorcerous powers, such as they were, your vampiric affliction was also suppressed. But that is all. Any quaint sense of morality that emerged at that point, any penance that you believed you had to pay, was your own.”

Amric saw Bellimar stiffen at the man’s words.

“I see you do not fully believe me,” Xenoth said with a chuckle. “Consider another point, then. The enchantment imposed upon you should have lasted a century or so at most, and yet you say it has lasted many. Why do you think that is, vampire?”

The Adept let the words hang there for a long moment, remorseless and still as a coiled serpent, even as Bellimar hung in the air before him.

“You know as well as I, vampire. Your own will, your own tenuous access to Essence, is sustaining this curse––as you call it––now.”

Bellimar gasped and hung his head, shaking it in silent denial, but Xenoth pressed on. “Can you not appreciate the irony? Some part of you is convinced that you deserve this suffering, and so you maintain it all this time, with increasing effort on your part, without even being consciously aware of how you are sabotaging yourself.”

The old man raised his head and stared, mute and helpless, at his captor.

“There is no need for your continued suffering, however,” Xenoth continued. “The enchantment is ages old and