The Trouble With Clerics
Part 6. Beatriz's Story
Mariksen Manor, Barony of Mariksen.
“Y-y-you must go, milady. Th-th-the Baron cannot see you now.”
Beatriz Dominatore instinctively opened her eyes wide in a threatening glare at the apparently frightened butler of Mariksen Manor. She did not, after all, travel all this way to this forsaken Boldavian wasteland to be merely rebuffed by a sniveling skeleton of a man, she thought to her self.
She and Kassar Krinagar were tracking down the belligerent Ethengarian clerics in Glantri, the Ten Thousand Fists of the Khan. Finding that their old headquarters in Krondahar had been effectively eradicated by the past Prince Jherek Virayana IV, she and Kassar decided to split up to follow the trails of the two most active remaining sects: Kassar, of course, to his homeland Bramyra, and she to the farthest of the Boldavian territories, located in the eastern most tip of the Wendarian mountain range, the Barony of Mariksen.
But before Beatriz could impose her will upon the feeble manservant before her, she soon discovered the true reason behind the butler’s nervous fear.
“He is loose! The blood frenzy has take over!” screamed a bloodied Ethengar man who came running into the hall from nowhere.
The patter of feet, blood-curdling shrieks, and an inhuman howl filled the air. A few more Ethengarians flashed by in mortal terror. The butler had disappeared faster than his frail limbs would have seemed to be able to take him.
And Beatriz suddenly found herself face to face with the Baron of Mariksen—a crazed vampire, blood staining his bared fangs and hands.
Before Beatriz could deftly back away, the nosferatu lunged at her, knocking her backwards and pinning her against the cold stone floor.
With all her determination, Beatriz commanded, “Let me go, Signor Wutyla.”
For an instant, Sergei Wutyla’s grip of Beatriz loosened, a flash of sanity shone in his eyes. But Baron Sergei suddenly gripped his head in utter agony.
“No! Not Morphail! Not Tubak! Not you! No one will command me!” he howled, and tried to resume his attack. But Beatriz’s mental trick had provided enough distraction for her to drop her illusions and take her true form.
Sergei found his limbs and torso constricted in massive serpentine coils. His one free arm was caught in Beatriz’s grip as he aimed to gash her jugular.
As intended victim and unexpected prey wrested and struggled, a woman’s voice, surprisingly calm and confident, cried out into the hall.
“By all that walk in Tubak’s holy light, what manner of monster is this?”
The baron became distracted. He cried out one word, “Erega!”
“I call upon the power of the Golden Khan of the Sun!” intoned the woman cleric, raising a glowing disc on a broken chain of gold.
“Shine your holy brilliance into this darkness! Deliver us from the evils of night and shadow!”
The last thing Beatriz saw was the hall of Mariksen Manor engulfed in radiant solar light.
