For the Last Time and Other Tales

By Z.N. Singer

A new Vampire Lord is attempting to rise, but the organization founded to destroy his kind chooses to watch while another man destroys him alone.

A house owned by an unsuccessful inventor is possessed by a spirit that does what his inventions failed to achieve – with inhuman perfection.

A selfless female magi is approached by a beast who is supposed to be a man – is this the karma of magic?

And, perhaps most desperate and dramatic of all, Dr. Loonatik, former professional botanist, has snapped and will take over the world with his mutated thyme plants – unless the Hero(ine) Who Can Stop Thyme with his (or her) Chrome Weed Whacker of Dest-in-ee can save the day!

Four tales, broadly different, perhaps linked only by their superb quality, have grouped together, combining their powers in order to make you say, 'this was a good book!'. Resist if you can.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Z.N. Singer
• Release date: Dec 25, 2011
• ISBN: 9781465743695

Book preview

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For the Last Time

and Other Tales

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by Z.N. Singer

Copyright 2011 Z.N. Singer

Smashwords Edition

Sword stock used in cover courtesy of FantasyStock of Deviantart. Her work is available free of charge.

This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person,please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to Smashwords.com and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

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Table of Contents

For the Last Time

The Lord of Thyme

The Cooking House

Gentle Beast

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For the Last Time

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As Mardon had expected, the tracking part was easy. It was a simple matter of following the refugees.

His first encounter occurred as he napped by the crossroads. For those who had the sense to travel with little, their weapons concealed by the drabbest of cloaks, this was reasonably safe. But it didn't protect him from well-wishers.

Oy, old man! Wake up! You've got to wake up! You can't sleep here!

Most people took a while to sharpen up after they'd woken, but Mardon wasn't most people: he saw the man visibly start as his eyes opened and focused immediately as if he'd already been awake. He was an earnest, decent looking man, probably in his early twenties. Good. He shouldn't be being called 'old man' that way by people much older than that just yet.

Sky falling son? He asked mildly, once he'd determined that whatever threat had the man so flustered, it wasn't here yet.

This is no time for jokes old man, we've got a new Vampire Lord down east! He's taken several villages, ours latest, and he'll be advancing down this road soon enough if the last few days are any guess. You can't stay here, you've got to move on or they'll kill you!

Don't the Order take care of upstart Lords?

They're probably sending someone but who knows when he'll arrive? The vampire's too close already, it's too dangerous. Travel with us if you want, but you've got to keep moving the other way till then.

They''ll arrive, Mardon corrected, getting up. They don't believe in taking chances, sensible fellows that way. There'll be more than one. Best to finish these sorts right away. They get stronger fast.

All right all right, fine, great, two people from the Order, wonderful, now lets go!

East, you said? So your village, that he just took, it's down that road there?

"Yes, yes, and now we need to move down that road, there. Come on already!"

Mardon stretched, slowly; the movement swayed his cloak enough for the man to glimpse the weapons beneath: two long slim swords, nil on frippery and heavy with the wear of weapons whose quality of forging has outlasted several generations of owners, in unusually thick sheaths with an odd bit of catch-mechanism about the mouth, each accompanied by a dagger of similar design. Glints of light armor, meant to fully deflect a blow already partially avoided, also came through. Mardon held the pose a bit, valuing the silent communication it made, often so much more effective than argument.

Well, thanks for the warning lad. Zombies are pretty slow, even fresh ones, so if you keep a nice steady pace you should stay ahead. Now that was sensible advice you were giving, too bad I can't take it, but you'd better take yourse— His eyes caught sight of a harried looking woman with a child and he changed his words. Take your family and move along like you were telling me to. Don't bother worrying about me, it's not worth it.

But—I mean, okay, you're a warrior, I see that, but you're alone, really!

Like I said lad, Mardon said, turning down the road. Zombies are slow.

I'm not.

Commander—

No.

But—

No, I'm not changing my mind. I'm well aware of the facts, Stevens...but you're going to repeat them to me anyway aren't you?

"Sir, letting one unaffiliated man take care of a new Vampire Lord with such potential, it is most irregular! And dangerous."

Mardon may be unaffiliated but he's maintained good ties with us all his life, he can be trusted. And he's the best Master of the Discipline for hundreds of miles around. It's doubtful he'll fail.

"And since when are we satisfied with 'doubtful', sir?" The attendant – senior attendant, but attendant all the same – said with a highly unusual degree of feeling through gritted teeth.

Argon sighed. As a rule, he preferred not to punish that sort of devotion to duty even when it backlashed on him. It was hypocritical. And Stevens' frustration was understandable. The immediate and thoroughly orchestrated extermination of new Lords was one of the key policies that had allowed the Order to maintain its hold over the lands it had cleared and – for lack of a better word – occupied. As a rule, we are not. However, these are...special circumstances. I have discussed this with Mardon: the details are private and need not concern you or anyone else other than me. We will of course keep close watch on the proceedings, and I have already verified the availability of a Wind Contractor to contain the Lord's advance until help arrives if he fails. I'm sorry Stevens, but I'm going to have to insist that you be satisfied with that.

I—this is—

An order, Argon finished for him. Enough was enough. A commander did have to draw a line somewhere. Now please go back to work. Oversee the surveillance if it will make you feel better.

After a short, tight lipped pause, Stevens swerved about and left.

Argon sighed, and rubbed his temples. As a rule, using his position for personal favors was an abuse of authority he abhorred. But this was different.

Good luck old friend, he murmured. I've done what I can.

Zombies really were slow: it took him several hours of steady travel – at a Master of The Discipline's pace, which was significantly faster than a normal person – to meet the first group, and they had been heading his way.

There were nine; relatively fresh, probably from that man's village. He'd have chosen those as foremost scouts for two reasons, most likely. The first would be that while their bodies hadn't yet finished decomposing into their permanent half dead state, they would be relatively faster than their senior brethren. The other would be shock factor, of course: the psychological hammer of familiar mutilated faces gaping in wide, bestial, unknowing horror behind the hands that sought their throats. It was a sight that would still more than a few filled with that desperate bravery even the most timid can find when caught between life and death. And this was important because the truth was that terror was a zombies greatest weapon. Their fighting abilities were near nil: fodder troops of the lowest order. Beings made by vampires with the self-control to stop halfway through a feeding, they were victims robbed of even the mercy of dying, suspended halfway between life and death by the continued existence of their rent life force, half within themselves, half within their master. They had even less awareness than a beast, utterly lacking the thought or will needed to fight the compulsions their Master would lay on them. All they had left was the awareness that there was something they lacked: something the living around them had, driving them to devour their victims flesh in a hopeless attempt to restore themselves. And that same lack of life force rendered them slow and clumsy enough to be downed by any reasonably strong villager with a chair. They were single minded, hardly even cognizant of the threat of death, and possessed a grip as unforgiving as rigor mortis, but they had to reach you and grab you for any of that to matter, and only fear allowed them to do it. Even in groups, zombies were only dangerous to untrained people. A good warrior could generally handle five at a time. Any mid-rank user of any of the five magics would think nothing of fifteen. Fresh or not, there were nine of them, and Mardon was a superlative Master of The Discipline.

He stepped out into the road and threw back the head of his cloak, revealing his face but not his accoutrements. And waited. Just in case.

The zombies saw him, slowed and then stopped, shuffling restlessly while their master looked and judged from behind their thoughtless eyes. And then, slowly, with the shambling momentum of the dazed, the wounded, or the half-dead, the group moved as one towards him, gaping mouths loosing mindless moans as their fingers reached forward for the first grasp of warm, coveted living flesh, and the unattainable fire it contained.

Mardon sighed. He'd known it was a long shot. With an eye-defying flicker of movement he drew his swords, long graceful blades laced with silver, the metal magic users called the Balancer, which cancels the magic it touches, leveling the ground between those who can use it and those who cannot. Such well forged examples were expensive: these had been in the family for some time. He had intended to give them to his son.

Resigning himself to butchery, he blurred into their midst, swords a swift slashing web of death about him. A Master of the Discipline is a master of the body's true limits, someone who, through intense mental and physical training, has learned to tap into the extreme capabilities of humanity. What most could only find in an instant of terror, an uncomprehending moment, The Discipline can use at will, and over time, train yet further.

Nine humans would have fared little better.

A vampire is, fundamentally, an addict to life-essence. Which, in turn, is best described as the source to vitality, the product, which we all use throughout our lives and which mages use directly in their spells. Vitality was meant to be used and restored: life-essence is not. Only Life Attuned Psychics can touch it, and the first to do so became the First Vampire. A vampire can still be made anytime a psychic is foolish enough to try and drink life-essence, but by and large a vampire comes into being when an intended zombie finds in himself, or herself, the capacity to refill the terrible void left within. With that first drink that saves him from half-death, he is forever enslaved to the life-force of humans. Because that forbidden, concentrated taste of life creates an immediate and overwhelming need that eclipses every addictive substance known to man. At first, they try to fight. But in the end the Thirst always breaks