Cicero part 8: Louis' story: Part 1
Light, how fickle, protector of the living, illuminator of truth but abandons us all at death no matter if you keep moving or not.
Louis Nyctari watched the evening’s rays shine through the cracks in the curtains like deadly golden spears; while many vampires found the sun’s gaze repulsive due to its corrosive nature on their kind, Louis had marveled at its beauty his entire life. Ironically he had never bathed in its warmth being a pure blood vampire; not much interested the Nyctari Lord, he had been rich all his life and therefore nothing material brought him considerable amounts of pleasure. On the other hand this deadly adversary, this antithetical bane that had been present since his birth was the one of the most beautiful and intriguing things he had ever seen.
“What an elusive and torturing pleasure. Life, at its most despotistic, again proves it only becomes more spiteful in age; a vampire…in love with light.”
The tenebrous silhouette stepped into the light, spiting Louis and souring his mood. The figure didn’t show any emotion in his tough, clenched jaw but the trained vampire could see the glimmer of bemusement in his cold eyes. His long coat brushed against the curtains as he slowly walked towards Louis, shifting his weight from his right to left leg leisurely. The stalking jaguar kept his unwavering, unnerving gaze on the old vampire, but to the Lord it was all too familiar, and no longer held the effect it enchanted upon others.
“Oh yes, life at its most malicious, how about a raven in love with a little dove?” Retorted the old vampire, he revealed no emotion either, however the twinkle of humour in his eye mirrored this jaguar perfectly. While Louis Nyctari had the appearance of a strong war-hardened man in his mid-fifties he could remember wars fought between long-past empires; the fall of Kings and Emperors and the destruction of his own slight sanity in the lengthy night-ridden years of his cursed life. “Yes I learnt of your little escapade. You can’t hide all of it under that black hood of yours.”
Cicero might fool the others with that masquerade; but he’s only the old, miserable fool, he really is, to me.
“Do you know the problem with vampires? You’re always looking for secrets and other hidden lies in the dark, and in doing so, miss the truth in the plain light of day.” Cicero walked up to the desk Louis was sat at, towering above the seated Lord.
“What are you doing in Santa Somabra? You’ve killed a Nyctari cousin, stolen a surveillance company and God knows what else you’ve been up to. I’m not going to act against you but I won’t be able to interfere if any of the others find out…you’re playing a dangerous game.”
Cicero turned to gaze out of the window to the astonishment of Louis; he had never known him to break eye contact with his conversational recipient. “After spending my whole life in the dark, it’s time to step out into the light, despite its misgivings this is the only way to live with my destructive state. And for once I’ll know that I’ve actually done something even if it’s the name of some forsaken city.”
Self-sacrifice, it wasn’t the first time Louis had seen him take on an honourable task but what was he taking of? And was he actually talking of sacrifice?
Louis had learnt from a young age that whoever this enigmatic and surreptitious man was, he hid it, beneath a myriad of masks and masquerades; he wasn’t what anyone saw and he was far more and far worse than anyone could imagine…
Light, how beautiful, its eternal presence gave Louis obstacles for the games he played around the huge palace of his home. While many of his father’s friends stared in awe at the golden furnishings, the carved covings and the intricate architraves; Louis found the ways the tiny trickles of daylight seeped into the vampiric refuge a cause for constant wonder. He loved jumping, ducking and running in-between the thin streams of corrosive sunlight which had brought him to his father’s gallery on that fateful day.
His lithe, fast, athletic legs jumped past a pillar of deadly brightness before skidding to a halt by his father’s golden, inlaid, double doors. Inside he could hear the whispers of his father’s councilors as he pressed his ear to the decadent doors. “You could escape, travel to Florence with little Louis; the Nyctari have got an iron grip over their peasants after the plagues they sent among them. Travel through the sewers and catacombs out of the city; then a barge will…” The anxious and vexed advisor was interrupted by the swift and harsh tones of his father that normally signaled instantly to the scared eight year-old that he must be left alone.
“No you don’t understand! My brothers have already been executed by the amassing crowds, if they capture us now they know how to kill us! One slice from those terrible guillotines and we die. After the Bastille was broken into we were left with hardly a slither of a chance. If I left with my son they’d…”
Suddenly the door opened outwards under Louis’ weight causing him to tumble into the room under the worried gaze of the councilors. “Don’t start jumping at shadows Vicomte. Don’t forget we’re the stalking predators of the night." A silky smooth voice condoned the wizened vampire, who had leapt from the boy at his accidental arrival; before turning to the embarrassed child.
She was the most beautiful person he had ever met, with a long mane of crimson curls that jostled around her shoulders as she moved. She wore a black corset that was tied with scarlet cord giving it the appearance of a vicious and bleeding claw wound. A long flowing skirt made of coal coloured silk covered her lower half, and finally to finish off this dark aura, she wore a black silk hood over her head. Her face seemed to have the unnatural elegance of the undead but still held the glint of wondrous life in those large knowing eyes. She smiled playfully at the blushing boy before returning her gaze to his father.
Louis’ heart raced as if he had been cornered by some giant jungle cat as she walked with the accentuated prowl of a stalking jaguar towards the tightly knit circle of advisors. Their eyes did not flicker from her attractive figure as she neared, but it was his father who broke the incredible silence. “Maharet you wish to escape Paris?”
She looked lazily around at the luxurious office before replying in sweet but indifferent tones, “The art and culture of this city was engaging while it lasted, however it seems I have outstayed my welcome and this rabble of revolutionaries bore me.”
Louis’ father nodded before replying in strict serious tones. “Then you will accompany my son out of the city and take him to Florence, I am sure the wealth of culture my cousins provide in Italy will be quite amiable for you.”
She replied quickly and with a hint of humour laced in her lovely tones. “I’m not used to being ordered around but for the sake of the child I will make sure no harm comes to him. I must have the map of the sewer systems however…” She held out her left arm in anticipation; gesturing for the boy without concentration with her right hand.
Reluctantly, Louis’ father handed the secretive and treasured map over. “You will be rewarded, my son is my heir and therefore a Nyctari Prince and next in line to the vampiric French seat of power.”
“Which is slowly disintegrating around us, I notice.” She replied, rapid as a rapier and with the sudden sting of its steel bite.
“Father?” Louis asked slowly and unconfidently.
“I’m sorry Louis, I know you don’t understand but I need you to go to our cousin’s in Italy for a while. Remember you have powerful blood, you are a Vampire Prince don’t let anyone forget that.” He kneeled to face his son speaking in hard but calming tones, easing a little of the stress Louis had felt. Then he rose as quickly as he knelt. “La Purezza del Sangue.” He uttered before being bombarded by the councilor’s mirrored chant; then they strode towards the door.
The exit opened before they could leave and in strode a tall, armoured man; without weapon from a glance and calm as if he had entered his own home. In a flash his father drew his rapier pointing the blade towards the intruder’s chest. Soon Louis realized the eccentricity of the man’s attire; on his chest was a thick cotton jacket with a collar that dramatically sprung up to hide his neck; on one shoulder he wore an enameled silver pauldron with intricate carvings covering it, this was accompanied by the same style silver great helm and gauntlets that protected his entire forearms. He wore a pair of ‘loose slops’ which had been out of fashion since the 1600s, Louis thought; while his footwear consisted of two brown leather boots that folded over themselves in a rugged fashion at the top. A black cloak was attached at one shoulder covering one side of his extraordinary outfit with the golden emblem of a rose stitched faintly into the fine velvet.
“What is your purpose in my house?” Louis’ father’s voice rang throughout the palace, in a controlled but forceful tone.
“I have come for the map of the sewer network so I may escape the city.” The man replied in a tone as forceful as his father’s but without its controlled aspect hinting at a dark malice.
“And what makes you…” His father’s rising anger was cut off by the intruder’s own sharpened fury.
“You are in no position to question me.” He shouted his voice now full of that cold, terrifying fury and malice; suddenly a wave of spine-chilling ecstasy passed through Louis like the high of some incorporeal drug.
The old Vampire Lord looked visibly shocked, something Louis had never seen in his only living parent. “You must be…quite powerful to be able to hide…”
“I don’t have time for your pleasantries, give me the map.” The warrior’s tone showed his insistence as he calmed down from his outburst; he then held out his gauntleted hand for his desired map.
Slowly Maharet took a step forwards, questioning the intruder herself. “Would you accompany the child and myself, Sir Knight.” The crimson lady asked in a courteous, polite and innocent voice as she stepped in his direction with the same stroll of a jungle cat.
“I am no knight, my lady, they are only false protectors of a dead code of chivalry. And why would I take the Vampire into my care?” The cold fury remained but it seemed he reined in his harsh tongue for the lady.
“It seems it isn’t an entirely extinct race, Sir, you honour me with your tamed tongue and a title; will you show the same honour to this child with protection?” She smiled half-playfully and stood hands on hips, one eyebrow arched; her every movement making Louis’ heart flutter.
He knelt, holding his right arm across his chest in salute to the two in silent answer to her question; his eyes cold and unmoving, staring into Louis’ soul.
A beautiful trill of notes escaped her lips like birdsong as Maharet laughed; quickly she returned to the lowered knight. “Well isn’t it lucky Sir, that I have the map.” She told him closely in humoured tones as she brandished the scroll for him to see.
His cold, steady reply parried hers like a rapier’s counter. “Please profane from naming me ‘Sir’, my lady. If you are short of words to name me then you may call me Scipio.” He got to his feet and strode from the room, his long legs carrying him across the office in the space of a few seconds. Maharet walked to the door leisurely as a house cat reluctant to follow its master, before stopping abruptly and turning to the astonished boy.
“Are you coming? It seems without a Knight I’ll need you to protect me.” She said in mock tones, the half-smile shaping her full ruby lips.
“I’m only eight…” Louis replied walking swiftly to the door, taking one last peak behind him at his sorrow filled father.
Little did I know that this was the last time I would see my father…
Light, how fickle, protector of the living, illuminator of truth but abandons us all at death no matter if you keep moving or not.
Louis Nyctari watched the evening’s rays shine through the cracks in the curtains like deadly golden spears; while many vampires found the sun’s gaze repulsive due to its corrosive nature on their kind, Louis had marveled at its beauty his entire life. Ironically he had never bathed in its warmth being a pure blood vampire; not much interested the Nyctari Lord, he had been rich all his life and therefore nothing material brought him considerable amounts of pleasure. On the other hand this deadly adversary, this antithetical bane that had been present since his birth was the one of the most beautiful and intriguing things he had ever seen.
“What an elusive and torturing pleasure. Life, at its most despotistic, again proves it only becomes more spiteful in age; a vampire…in love with light.”
The tenebrous silhouette stepped into the light, spiting Louis and souring his mood. The figure didn’t show any emotion in his tough, clenched jaw but the trained vampire could see the glimmer of bemusement in his cold eyes. His long coat brushed against the curtains as he slowly walked towards Louis, shifting his weight from his right to left leg leisurely. The stalking jaguar kept his unwavering, unnerving gaze on the old vampire, but to the Lord it was all too familiar, and no longer held the effect it enchanted upon others.
“Oh yes, life at its most malicious, how about a raven in love with a little dove?” Retorted the old vampire, he revealed no emotion either, however the twinkle of humour in his eye mirrored this jaguar perfectly. While Louis Nyctari had the appearance of a strong war-hardened man in his mid-fifties he could remember wars fought between long-past empires; the fall of Kings and Emperors and the destruction of his own slight sanity in the lengthy night-ridden years of his cursed life. “Yes I learnt of your little escapade. You can’t hide all of it under that black hood of yours.”
Cicero might fool the others with that masquerade; but he’s only the old, miserable fool, he really is, to me.
“Do you know the problem with vampires? You’re always looking for secrets and other hidden lies in the dark, and in doing so, miss the truth in the plain light of day.” Cicero walked up to the desk Louis was sat at, towering above the seated Lord.
“What are you doing in Santa Somabra? You’ve killed a Nyctari cousin, stolen a surveillance company and God knows what else you’ve been up to. I’m not going to act against you but I won’t be able to interfere if any of the others find out…you’re playing a dangerous game.”
Cicero turned to gaze out of the window to the astonishment of Louis; he had never known him to break eye contact with his conversational recipient. “After spending my whole life in the dark, it’s time to step out into the light, despite its misgivings this is the only way to live with my destructive state. And for once I’ll know that I’ve actually done something even if it’s the name of some forsaken city.”
Self-sacrifice, it wasn’t the first time Louis had seen him take on an honourable task but what was he taking of? And was he actually talking of sacrifice?
Louis had learnt from a young age that whoever this enigmatic and surreptitious man was, he hid it, beneath a myriad of masks and masquerades; he wasn’t what anyone saw and he was far more and far worse than anyone could imagine…
Light, how beautiful, its eternal presence gave Louis obstacles for the games he played around the huge palace of his home. While many of his father’s friends stared in awe at the golden furnishings, the carved covings and the intricate architraves; Louis found the ways the tiny trickles of daylight seeped into the vampiric refuge a cause for constant wonder. He loved jumping, ducking and running in-between the thin streams of corrosive sunlight which had brought him to his father’s gallery on that fateful day.
His lithe, fast, athletic legs jumped past a pillar of deadly brightness before skidding to a halt by his father’s golden, inlaid, double doors. Inside he could hear the whispers of his father’s councilors as he pressed his ear to the decadent doors. “You could escape, travel to Florence with little Louis; the Nyctari have got an iron grip over their peasants after the plagues they sent among them. Travel through the sewers and catacombs out of the city; then a barge will…” The anxious and vexed advisor was interrupted by the swift and harsh tones of his father that normally signaled instantly to the scared eight year-old that he must be left alone.
“No you don’t understand! My brothers have already been executed by the amassing crowds, if they capture us now they know how to kill us! One slice from those terrible guillotines and we die. After the Bastille was broken into we were left with hardly a slither of a chance. If I left with my son they’d…”
Suddenly the door opened outwards under Louis’ weight causing him to tumble into the room under the worried gaze of the councilors. “Don’t start jumping at shadows Vicomte. Don’t forget we’re the stalking predators of the night." A silky smooth voice condoned the wizened vampire, who had leapt from the boy at his accidental arrival; before turning to the embarrassed child.
She was the most beautiful person he had ever met, with a long mane of crimson curls that jostled around her shoulders as she moved. She wore a black corset that was tied with scarlet cord giving it the appearance of a vicious and bleeding claw wound. A long flowing skirt made of coal coloured silk covered her lower half, and finally to finish off this dark aura, she wore a black silk hood over her head. Her face seemed to have the unnatural elegance of the undead but still held the glint of wondrous life in those large knowing eyes. She smiled playfully at the blushing boy before returning her gaze to his father.
Louis’ heart raced as if he had been cornered by some giant jungle cat as she walked with the accentuated prowl of a stalking jaguar towards the tightly knit circle of advisors. Their eyes did not flicker from her attractive figure as she neared, but it was his father who broke the incredible silence. “Maharet you wish to escape Paris?”
She looked lazily around at the luxurious office before replying in sweet but indifferent tones, “The art and culture of this city was engaging while it lasted, however it seems I have outstayed my welcome and this rabble of revolutionaries bore me.”
Louis’ father nodded before replying in strict serious tones. “Then you will accompany my son out of the city and take him to Florence, I am sure the wealth of culture my cousins provide in Italy will be quite amiable for you.”
She replied quickly and with a hint of humour laced in her lovely tones. “I’m not used to being ordered around but for the sake of the child I will make sure no harm comes to him. I must have the map of the sewer systems however…” She held out her left arm in anticipation; gesturing for the boy without concentration with her right hand.
Reluctantly, Louis’ father handed the secretive and treasured map over. “You will be rewarded, my son is my heir and therefore a Nyctari Prince and next in line to the vampiric French seat of power.”
“Which is slowly disintegrating around us, I notice.” She replied, rapid as a rapier and with the sudden sting of its steel bite.
“Father?” Louis asked slowly and unconfidently.
“I’m sorry Louis, I know you don’t understand but I need you to go to our cousin’s in Italy for a while. Remember you have powerful blood, you are a Vampire Prince don’t let anyone forget that.” He kneeled to face his son speaking in hard but calming tones, easing a little of the stress Louis had felt. Then he rose as quickly as he knelt. “La Purezza del Sangue.” He uttered before being bombarded by the councilor’s mirrored chant; then they strode towards the door.
The exit opened before they could leave and in strode a tall, armoured man; without weapon from a glance and calm as if he had entered his own home. In a flash his father drew his rapier pointing the blade towards the intruder’s chest. Soon Louis realized the eccentricity of the man’s attire; on his chest was a thick cotton jacket with a collar that dramatically sprung up to hide his neck; on one shoulder he wore an enameled silver pauldron with intricate carvings covering it, this was accompanied by the same style silver great helm and gauntlets that protected his entire forearms. He wore a pair of ‘loose slops’ which had been out of fashion since the 1600s, Louis thought; while his footwear consisted of two brown leather boots that folded over themselves in a rugged fashion at the top. A black cloak was attached at one shoulder covering one side of his extraordinary outfit with the golden emblem of a rose stitched faintly into the fine velvet.
“What is your purpose in my house?” Louis’ father’s voice rang throughout the palace, in a controlled but forceful tone.
“I have come for the map of the sewer network so I may escape the city.” The man replied in a tone as forceful as his father’s but without its controlled aspect hinting at a dark malice.
“And what makes you…” His father’s rising anger was cut off by the intruder’s own sharpened fury.
“You are in no position to question me.” He shouted his voice now full of that cold, terrifying fury and malice; suddenly a wave of spine-chilling ecstasy passed through Louis like the high of some incorporeal drug.
The old Vampire Lord looked visibly shocked, something Louis had never seen in his only living parent. “You must be…quite powerful to be able to hide…”
“I don’t have time for your pleasantries, give me the map.” The warrior’s tone showed his insistence as he calmed down from his outburst; he then held out his gauntleted hand for his desired map.
Slowly Maharet took a step forwards, questioning the intruder herself. “Would you accompany the child and myself, Sir Knight.” The crimson lady asked in a courteous, polite and innocent voice as she stepped in his direction with the same stroll of a jungle cat.
“I am no knight, my lady, they are only false protectors of a dead code of chivalry. And why would I take the Vampire into my care?” The cold fury remained but it seemed he reined in his harsh tongue for the lady.
“It seems it isn’t an entirely extinct race, Sir, you honour me with your tamed tongue and a title; will you show the same honour to this child with protection?” She smiled half-playfully and stood hands on hips, one eyebrow arched; her every movement making Louis’ heart flutter.
He knelt, holding his right arm across his chest in salute to the two in silent answer to her question; his eyes cold and unmoving, staring into Louis’ soul.
A beautiful trill of notes escaped her lips like birdsong as Maharet laughed; quickly she returned to the lowered knight. “Well isn’t it lucky Sir, that I have the map.” She told him closely in humoured tones as she brandished the scroll for him to see.
His cold, steady reply parried hers like a rapier’s counter. “Please profane from naming me ‘Sir’, my lady. If you are short of words to name me then you may call me Scipio.” He got to his feet and strode from the room, his long legs carrying him across the office in the space of a few seconds. Maharet walked to the door leisurely as a house cat reluctant to follow its master, before stopping abruptly and turning to the astonished boy.
“Are you coming? It seems without a Knight I’ll need you to protect me.” She said in mock tones, the half-smile shaping her full ruby lips.
“I’m only eight…” Louis replied walking swiftly to the door, taking one last peak behind him at his sorrow filled father.
Little did I know that this was the last time I would see my father…