Veridian Shores

Chapter 35 - Let Dead Gods Sleep

Revan wasn't wasting any time. The next night the vampires of Clan Tempest assembled at the base of the main complex, in a chamber armoured like an ancient bomb shelter, back before the sky had been scorched. Dozens of meters across, it had been built around a truly titanic excavation sight. The stink of oil and earth hung in the air, and shovels and steam-cranked machines littered the perimeter. A large railed balcony had been erected to ring the site and it was filled with Clan members.

Gliss joined them, staring down at what the scholars and archaeologists had dredged out of the past. Right in the centre of the mess of mud, metal and machines sat a truly enormous sand-stone hexagon, fully twenty feet high and half that in width. Its outer surface was a mind-bending miasma of intricate murals and runes, carved with stunning detail to millimetre perfection by artisans long since lost to the voids of history.

Some were dedications and benedictions, written in a variant of Vampyr so impossibly old that she could barely make out a handful of words despite her training. Others looked more decorative, interlocking swirls of fire-darkened stone that coiled their way down the flat surface of five of the six sections of its exterior. The sixth, the one that now faced out toward the assembled vampires, was a door.

Although not as large as some of the ludicrous specimens she'd seen during her time in Veridian Shores, this one was infinitely stronger, impregnable to any and all of Clan Tempest's tools that had broken lesser artefacts. That strength had been the catalyst that sent her to Veridian Shores in the first place. The Keystone was their last resort, the last option they had to unlock the secrets of a time lost to myth and consigned to fantasy.

"Hard to believe it's real," Garven murmured, leaning on the railing alongside her with his eyes fixed on the tomb. "You know, when they dug it up, I thought Revan was just chasing ghosts."

"Me too," she replied with a rueful smile. "But I guess we should have known better than to doubt him."

"I guess so." The other hunter shook his head in amazement. "And then when they sent you off to Veridian Shores alone ... I thought we might never see you again; never get this thing open. It would all be for nothing. And now you're back and you brought the Keystone. It's like a dream."

"We don't have to wake up from this one," Gliss told him, leaning over and giving him a playful nudge with one shoulder. She looked around the room, taking stock of the forest of expectant faces. No-one was excluded. Hunters, artisans, historians – they all formed a wall of flesh around the tomb, eyes boring inwards with an unmatched intensity, a gathering centuries in the making.

Her gaze drifted back down into the excavation site, where a small group of vampires stood, those who would actually perform the opening of the tomb itself. In their centre stood Revan, conversing in hushed tones with the heads of his research team, half a dozen of the oldest, and more importantly, smartest vampires in the room. He'd smartened up a little for the occasion, wearing a black shirt and iron grey waistcoat above charcoal trousers and a set of shimmering black shoes. The sleeves of his shirt were rolled up, however, buttons open at the throat, and in one hand he held a pile of papers which he glanced at every few seconds as he conversed with the advisors.

The final preparations.

Gliss clasped her hands together, leaning forward on the rail and watching intently. One of the researchers approached with the cloth-wrapped Keystone held reverently upon a blood-red cushion with golden trim. Normally Revan wasn't one for ceremony, but if there was one night in all of time that he might change that stance, it was tonight. He faced the holder, clasping his hands together in front of him and inclining his head.

She could hear him muttering prayers in Vampyr, benedictions to the lost ancients of their race, beings that faded from prominence thousands of years ago. Now, Revan was going beyond even them, reaching back into the very first steps vampires had made out into the world of the human race. Beside her, she felt Garven's Aspect trembling with a mixture of excitement and fear. She suspected her own felt much the same to those around her.