My mind flew through the memories of the next fifty years I spent training with Master Isbalaen, we trained every night, gradually gaining hours of physical resistance to the sun's rays, using the shadows and protected houses.
Years of practicing different arts with all kinds of weapons, it was a new universe, regulated, measured, with a logic behind each movement, not like all the battles I had lived when I was human that now seemed like child's play to me.
During those years I also learned that what I felt, what made me foresee the movements and what was going to happen, was the gift of prophecy that our lineage had bequeathed to us. However, I was unable to read my master's actions in advance.
"Because the gift does not work with you, Master..."
"Well, for three reasons, the first is that I am more powerful than you and as powerful as the gift is in you, it will take many centuries before you reach the level where you could reach me and predict me. Then because I'm myself protected with my own gift of prophecy, I anticipate your anticipation."
I was left thinking about what seemed more like a play on words.
"And what is the third reason?"
"The third will be your training during the next few years, although you will have to discover that on your own, but it is the art of seals, do you see all the symbols that are carved on this stone floor and on the wood of the walls?"
I nodded like a child who finally discovers the why of things, and the answer to the questions he had asked himself for many years.
"While we are in this room, in this house, no gift of prophecy, no magic or spell can scrutinize what we do here inside, sit down, the time has come for me to reveal to you the second power of our lineage"
I learned many other things, but fighting, using my gift and using my seals focused my attention so much during the next century that I almost forgot about the world, only the philosophical precepts of the Justicars were what illuminated the routine of all those years.
The times that I had to feed myself, the master controlled me to the point that he selected a victim who was a criminal, I never fed on any other type of humans other than those marked by the master.
At the end of my second century of life, I knew the great master Athod, and master Seth, my master's brother. I also began to relate to other offspring of both Seth and Isbalaen himself.
Although my memories flew through the years to a point of conflict, our nest was then in what is now called Normandy, in a large cave deep in a forest. More than ten offspring were gathered together, another clan of vampires had been entering our territory committing all kinds of atrocious crimes against the villages in the area.
I did not know it, but those people were the Arcani, my master gathered the ten offspring who had gathered together.
"Listen to me well, just as our lineage has the gift of prophecy, now we will face another ancient lineage and another very dangerous power, the power to control the forces of the elements through arcane rituals called spells"
"Can they summon fire?"
"Fire, air, lightning, you have to be careful with them"
"How do we face that magic, master?"
"The only way we can do it boy, by anticipating their actions, now go and slaughter those bastards"
Many of our people fell to the Arcani's elemental energy attacks, but in the end we managed to prevail over a group of more than fifteen. We only left one alive as the master had asked us before the attack.
The master approached the Arcani, his eyes shining with resolution and power.
"Well, you can choose, if you tell me where the rest of your clan is, you will die quickly, otherwise I will make you suffer in countless ways and if you still do not speak, I will drink your blood and obtain your secrets and those of your lineage"
Diablerie was one of the first great taboos declared by the vampire council after being formed a couple of centuries later, drinking the blood of a vampire from another clan was a mortal sin, if the victim was weaker, it was most likely that they would obtain precious memories and secrets. But if he was stronger and managed to survive the poisoning, he could steal some of the powers of the other clan's legacy. Although, this was very, very difficult and required a lot of preparation to avoid dying in the attempt.
There were many other wars, against the monstrous Nosferatu and their enormous power and strength and their use of the powers of darkness, with the Bathory with their illusory magic and their scientific knowledge that was beyond their time. However, with the latter it was easy to reach an original pact between both clans with a vision of justice and destiny that could coincide on many occasions.
However, if there was a strange, absurd clan, and we could not know if they would be friends today or our bitter enemies tomorrow, they were those sons of bitches from Southern Europe called the bruyhja, a chaotic gang that did not pay attention to rules or hierarchies, their powers to control other animals, even to transform into them, were prodigious and unpredictable.
It was in the Iberian Peninsula, my teacher after some centuries became interested in the Roman conquest of those hostile territories, and it was an Iberian leader, Viriato, who after waging war against Rome for a long time and fleeing was finally executed, but he did not die, before his heart stopped breathing my teacher saved him.
That gave me time to explore other cities, really the Roman civilization, so perfect, so modern attracted me, and I went to Tarragona in search of those laws and customs. However, the story there became complicated, and by those strange things of fate I found myself surrounded by werewolves, fighting back to back with a Bruyhja master, Acadio Torme.
All those adventures would be too long to tell, although while my mind was in the phylactery I relived them all.
My mind raced as memories of the times came flooding back, my brother Viriato's early years, my first offspring of my own, the travels with Grandmaster Athod. The time of the war against the Inferni, and how we finally brought them under the rule of the council.
And finally when I was not only allowed to set up my own nest, my own offspring and take complete control of a territory. Until the fall of Rome to the barbarians I was there, emperors, wars, I lived it all first hand, and then it was time to go back to Britain. The Romans were gone, the lands were in chaos, and I saw the opportunity to settle down and give my offspring a safe place to gain strength.
It was two of my first offspring who encouraged me to go to the islands again, Merlinux and Arthurus, they died a century before I settled, another northern clan came along with the barbarian invasions and the war was bloody. By the time we managed to convince the great masters, it was too late. But even so we rebuilt that kingdom of justice that those two madmen dreamed of, and we settled down, spreading out across the land.
But that review of my life not only included battles and learning, but also all the women I seduced during those millennia, all the orgies I participated in, especially in Rome, all the sexual exploits I performed with my vampiric powers. More than the war, what I would miss the most if my conscience remained active for centuries would be sex. How could I live centuries of confinement with myself without that escape valve?
Luckily, when my memories of the moment in which they betrayed me reached me, my mind and conscience vanished. The rest were centuries of emptiness.