[center][img]https://media.discordapp.net/attachments/617914243760783381/663101259418566666/thumb_khvresh.png[/img][/center]Khvresh had thought it dusk-time, the vampire's dawn; when they should have been rising, and relishing, and readying for a new, dark hour. He saw now that he was wrong. An afternoon blue still blazed outside; only, as the light sprawled through the mouth of the cave, it bent, and trembled, and shifted to a quivering purplish-red. It grasped toward Shah-Cthaumaphon, and sank into his shape. At his edges he shimmered like a mirage splashed over the distant sands. But past the silhouette, further, deeper, every spark of light disappeared and was devoured, as if the night sky yawned open and drank the stars.

This sentient abyss came in the shape of a man, or its nearest approximation of one. The spirit's hands were too long and spindly for his arms, his arms too long for his torso, and so on, from his vestigial neck to his vestigial feet.

"G-greetings, my lord."

Shah-Cthaumaphon unfurled, patiently filling that whole side of the cavern with his presence. His claws gripped at two opposite walls, and his back arched over the stalactites above. 

"What brings you from your travels?" asked Khvresh to the countenance in the ceiling. He dreaded the master's scorching gaze, although the master had no eyes; he dreaded the thunderous resounding of the master's voice, although he had no mouth.

"UUUUUUUUNPAID ... YOUR DEBT, UNPAID ..." This warning shrieked not through the cavern; but through the Caurgasts' own skulls, both of them who beheld him. It bounced off bone and shivered through the pluck encased within, for the spirit spoke without lungs and tongue.

Khvresh wondered where Lornhir slunk off to; what she wished to say but dared not. He, in kind, dared not turn around to search for her.

"Soon!" he cried. "As soon as we can. The time hasn't been right."

Like a flame emits heat, the black flames snaking from Shah-Cthaumaphon's black shoulders reeked of cold as he slithered near. Cold. Centuries of vampirism had deadened flesh which once remembered the sensation. To be reminded now, with such malice that dwarfed even his own ... Khvresh shuddered.

Then the terrible howling returned to his thoughts: "PPPPPPPPPPPPROMISED ... SOON ... ALREADY, [i]SOON[/i] ..."

"I know what I said." Khvresh wondered whether, if he were to strike toward the [i]edimmu[/i], he would hit meat, bone, jelly, ooze, anything tangible and concrete; or shadow, nothing more. Whether that evil cold would infect him and crawl up his arm like a blight. Whether Shah-Chthaumaphon could eat a clawed hand like he ate light and warmth. "We will give you everything we owe, and more. But we require your patience, my lord."

"PPPPPPPPATIENCE ... FINITE, PATIENCE ... GUESTS ... SQUANDER ..."

"Yes," said Khvresh. "Patience. You will have what you are owed. On my oath."

"OOOOOOOATH," said the [i]edimmu[/i]. "VAMPIRE ... PROMISES. OBSCENE ... HONOR ... BLASPHEMY ..."

But what else could he say? Khvresh only watched, and waited. Was this the end of their bargain? Immortal, timeless, both of them, and yet this restless spirit couldn't wait another forty, fifty years? While the Caurgasts replenished their strength, and gathered their allies? Seconds felt like hours. A minute felt like a century; until finally, Shah-Cthaumaphon decided that he had more pressing business somewhere else—or, perhaps, that his vengeance could wait another year. He drifted toward the mouth of the cave, where the light stoppered and clogged as it was pulled into his darkness; then, he vanished into the sands beyond.

The mortals called them Balba Yemeq. The [i]edimmu[/i] used an ancient, long-forgotten name: Limtulkku. The sands, either way, were no anathema to him; the master wandered freely under the heat and the light, even if they forced him to take a subtler form. But something bound him to the cave. Something made him need the Caurgasts, just as much as they needed the shelter he had provided to them.

But Khvresh would remember these injustices and injuries when he escaped this wretched place. When he had servants and slaves and an army again. When he had reclaimed the estate and restored terror to his realm.

[i]You will get [/i]exactly[i] what you are owed, wraith. Oh, yes. Mark my words.[/i]

"Brother." Lornhir had rushed to his side, and begun pulling him away. With Shah-Cthaumaphon's departure the afternoon light could  leak into the cave once more. The rays had burned Khvresh's hand, and most of his leg, while he nursed old fantasies. Foolish. Foolish. They both looked down at the raw, weeping sores now running down his flank.

"I'm all right," said Khvresh despite the sting. He grasped Lornhir by both her ears. They kissed with heat and with longing; for each other, and for things they had lost along the way. "But I cannot heal without ..."

"Blood," Lornhir remarked. "Right. I'll leave at first dark."

"You are so good to me. Even when I have been so cruel."

"For father's heir—for my [i]prince[/i]—anything."

They kissed again.