First day of the 12th month, 220 years after Thacea manned the Deadhaus Gate. Of course, it wasn’t called that when the Thaceans garrisoned there. It was the World Gate, so named for its arches that formed a pair of hands clasping, the symbol of Malorum. The structure was an artifact of a civilization that fell long before the Ustilians rose to power. With its original purpose lost to time, it became a monument for architects and scholars; its titanic doors lay open for millennia.
Only after the fall of Ustilia, after the rise of Deadhaus, did those doors swing shut, closed from the north by those that the Ustilians called to for aid against the dead… and then they were trapped. I set out from Ft. Zaestra after the wretched dawn had passed. The liche tells me that traveling only by night slows my progress, but it can damn well wait for me. The empty fort provided me shelter from the light of day, and then, at dusk, I set out further south than I had been in all my life.
Fort Zaestra is the southernmost territory of the Thacean Empire… was the southernmost territory. Ironically, It provided a much better barrier against the dead than Deadhaus Gate, which they seemed able to pass, even in great number, though I know not how. They do not go by sea, nor have they ever mounted a direct assault on the gate itself. The only sign of their coming was the mist.
Where mist suddenly formed, we could be sure their numbers were hidden within and that they would soon pour out of it to attack the nearest settlement. But single agents could appear anywhere in the empire without warning. As for the Thaceans, none had ever managed to travel south of the gate and return in my lifetime… at least, not alive. The corpses of Thacean agents sent south did sometimes reappear among the dead, marching north as one of them.
And southern voyages by sea were similarly doomed. No vessels ever returned, except those that gave the southern coasts so wide a berth that their spyglasses could discern nothing. The southern provinces were essentially cut off from any possibility of intelligence, half of the continent of Isoth a land of the dead… my destination. I saw Deadhaus Gate long before I reached it. My preternatural sight could discern its features even from great distance in the dark.
Beneath the clasping hands of the arches, the doors stood shut as walls of carven stone far taller and wider than any structure fashioned by Thaceans or Ustilians. One might have thought them a sheer cliff face, if not for the perfectly vertical groove that bisected them. The closer I came to the base of the gate, the more I had to crane my neck to find the top of it, until at last I stood at its base and could not see the arches without stumbling backward.
I was utterly insignificant next to this structure. Thankfully, on this side of the gate, a set of winding stairs had been carved into one of the mountains between which the gate stood. It is how the Thaceans were able to access its inner chambers, and how I would access its arches. In life, I would have been quite unwilling to ascend the narrow steps, yet even though I knew they could do me no harm in death I was still unsettled by the prospect .
“If I fall, I will simply start over,” I told myself. But I did not fall. I willed myself to move, and the blood propelled my legs, setting my feet perfectly upon each step without me even looking at them. I was reminded of the way a cat moves, the way its back paws land exactly where its front paws were on the preceding step, always perfectly in place without looking. Several times I paused, unable to stop myself from second guessing my movement, from thinking that I had to be more careful.
But the halting clumsiness of my ascent was entirely the product of my own mind, my own thoughts, still unable to comprehend what I am capable of. It’s like that game that children sometimes play, where one will stand behind the other, and the first must close their eyes and fall backward, knowing that their friend will catch them. And even though you may trust the friend behind you, it is still so difficult.
Your eyes urge you to open them, your neck tells you to turn and check, to make sure your friend is still there. You check again, and again, close your eyes, start to lean back, but your leg shoots out behind to catch you. Every fiber of you tells you that you cannot, must not let go… but then you do. You’re falling; your stomach lurches; you will strike the ground; you will die! And then your friend catches you. You’re both laughing.
Now it’s their turn, you insist; they must know the fear you have known, and you delight in their hesitation, in the power you hold behind them. You could step aside, if you so choose. You could destroy them… Except now, there was no other standing behind me as I rose into the mountainous reaches. Trust me, the blood soundlessly said to me. I will not let you fall. I turned my gaze upward. Still so much distance remained, but this distance would allow for an experiment.
With one last glance down, I resolved to keep my sight off of my feet, no matter how much my instincts told me to look. For these were the instincts of Alaric von Beller, and Alaric von Beller is dead. I rose soundlessly, almost fluidly, as easily as I might stroll along a smoothly paved street. The experience of vampirism is often like being a passenger in one's own body, propelled by reflex more competent than conscious endeavor.
“Faster, then,” I said, and the blood surged so that I began to run, to sprint upward along the narrow outcrops of the stones. I felt the night wind rushing against me in my speed, sometimes buffeting me from one side or another, but the blood rearranged itself within to counterbalance my body against the wind, even as I ran. “Faster.” The stairs began to pass in a blur. My sight could no longer orient me, but I did not need it to.
My body bolted ever upward, back and forth along the winding path, perfectly balanced, then all at once it stopped, and the ground was so very far below, for I stood upon the great stone hands of the gate. I was untired by my efforts. My breaths came slow and steady, but only because I consciously commanded them to. Now I turned to face the south.
I crossed the arches, left behind the tunnel that led to their inner chamber, where the gate could be controlled, and stood at the edge, gazing out across lands I had never seen. There were forests. There were streams and hills and dells. Much of what I could see appeared only as uninhabited wilderness. But farther south I spied the peak of Mt. Sterling and, nestled in its shadow, the faint flickers of so many torches. But this would mean… this could not be.
According to my study of Ustilian history, there was once a trade city at the base of Mt. Sterling, the city of Jelrass. But how could any city have survived south of the gate? Did the dead hold it? “The dead do not keep Jelrass,” the voice of the liche echoed from within my mind, startling me from my thoughts. “How can this be? How did they manage to resist?” “Resist? Oh no, dear Alaric, there is no resisting death.” “Then… they have allied themselves with Deadhaus?” “Allied?
An alliance is held between equals. Jelrass survives because they pay the tithe.” “And… what is the nature of this tithe?” “Their dead, undamaged, and a portion of their living.” “They sacrifice themselves?” “Oh, don’t sound so righteous. How many times have you declared that you would bear any sacrifice if it meant the survival of your people?” “That is completely different! I chose only for myself.” “Some of your servants would beg to differ… if you hadn’t killed them already.”
“Those were accidents! I would not have--” “Yes, yes, Alaric the Just.” “Have you contacted me just to mock me, liche?” “To instruct you. The river you see there is part of the Jelrassi Triad. Follow it, but avoid the gates of the city. It is stipulated in our contract that so long as the tithe is paid, we shall not enter Jelrass.” “Our contract?” If you enter that city, you will be attacked on sight. And I am contractually forbidden to intervene.
It would be an ignominious end for the Grand Inquisitor to be destroyed by cattle.” “That is how you see human beings, as cattle!?” “This is a much kinder fate than what awaits them north of the gate. Regardless, you will follow the river until it meets the triad, then follow the next river west.” “And then?” I thought, but there was no answer. The liche had receded into my subconscious mind. I gazed across the darkness to the glinting torches in the shadow of the mountain.
The river that I was told to follow did not run into the gate, but neither was it far from its base. I peered down at the treetops that lay so far below. There were no mountain steps on this side of the gate. “I made it up here without looking,” I told myself. And then a thought occurred to me. I turned away from the great precipice, though still remained perched at its edge, and closed my eyes. “I am the only one I can trust now. There is no other.” And then I let myself fall.
For a split second, my stomach lurched into my chest, and I felt the cool night air rushing past me as I plummeted. Then the strangest sensation I have ever experienced began to overtake me. It began in my chest, a reflexive impulse to take in air, not out of biological need, but something else. And when I exhaled, it came as a deep sigh, and with this sigh poured swirling mists, So I had taken on in.
And these mists continue to flow as I continued to sigh far longer than the capacity of my lungs should have allowed. I could feel the cool, damp swirling from my mouth, pressing against my face and shrouding my head, swaddling my falling body in mist. And still I sighed as my fall flowed, as my coat and skin and flesh and blood began to dissolve. But there was no pain.
It was like being a spoon of sugar stirred into tea as if my body, my blood, even my cold, for all comprised of innumerable grains of matter that were forgetting themselves. Yes, that's it. It was like forgetting. No more form, no more structure, no bulk nor heft. It was like letting go with the last of my thigh. Once the last of my form dissolved entirely into a cloud of mist, drifting slowly downward in the dark.
And though I had neither eyes nor ears, my senses remain to me, for they are no longer governed by physical structure. It is the blood that senses the world around me. The blood now spilled, suspended in vapor. As I descended, I saw the rivers that would lead me to generous and veiled myself toward it. To my surprise, I felt my vaporous form impelled through the air. It was a meager propulsion, but I was unmistakably drifting at an angle.
Now, as I passed through the canopy of the forest, I felt its many leaves and branches slipping through me. It felt almost like swallowing them, feeling their passage throughout my body, but without taste, without pain. Then I heard and saw the river running below. Found myself drifting toward it and strangely enough, felt no repulsion as I had before I near water. Very well, he said. Blood is not afraid.
It's a neither am I. And the cloud of me sank low until it came to rest upon the surface of the river, or rather suspended just above it. I filled myself towards the shore and found that my form obeyed so somewhat languidly by my inhuman sight. I saw the fish that darted below the surface, seemingly unaware of my presence to them, to any who watched. I was but a fog rolling across the water, and at last that fog came to rest on the banks of the river swirling in place.
"I wish to return", I thought, but nothing happened. "I do not wish to be fog!" I thought again, but still I remained as mist. Part of me was increasingly troubled by this predicament, but I was resolved not to worry without an impulse from the blood. But what if I’m stuck this way forever? The thought crept unbidden into my mind. How shall I avenge Thacea as a cloud!? The liche! Perhaps it would know how to fix me. Liche! I focused on the thought. Liche! But it did not answer.
I had no choice but to drift onward, to follow the river and seek the solution to my form in person… so to speak. And so I did. Sometimes I followed the river along its banks, Sometimes I drifted over its waters simply to experience the strange sensation. Any directions that I moved felt somewhat like falling, albeit slowly. There was no sense of gravity in the ways that I am accustomed.
It was more like lying in a body of water, floating without weight, drifting this way or that on eddies of thought. And though my form had no physical proportions, such as a front or back. I did feel a sense of innate direction from my field of vision, which was unchanged. My sight was made front or where I was pointed. If it can be called that, if I wish to see what was behind me, my sight would turn and then that would be my front.
Ultimately, I fear my words struggled to capture the experience of this bizarre power. I did notice that the forest’s canopy was at times reflected quite clearly in the waters below me, but never the mist that comprised me. Strange. At length, my drifting took me to a clearing in the forest, and I saw the river flowed beyond into a confluence of waters that formed a great moat, the Jelrassi Triad. All along the outskirts of this moat, battered hovels sprawled in silent destitution.
The Dregs, they were called, both as a name for themselves and the people that dwelt within them. And beyond the moat, behind fortified walls, was the largest settlement of the Ustilians outside of the capital, the city of Jelrass. It was a tiered city. Its widest ring, the Commons, was once a hub of trade and commerce… perhaps it still was? Above that, the Promenade was where the nobles dwelt, and the Acropolis above that was for the Lucent Temple… to think that one still stood.
Surely Deadhaus would not have allowed that. As much I wished to investigate, to see firsthand this missing piece of history, I felt it was far too dangerous. Perhaps the people of Jelrass would think nothing of a cloud of mist floating about their city, but what if I changed back suddenly? The liche seemed to believe they had the capacity to destroy me.
I’ve no doubt that is tied to the source of Jelrass’s wealth. Mt. Sterling, in whose shadow Jelrass lies, was so named for its deep silver veins. I recall reading that Thacea had tried to turn Jelrass to their side against the south, but lost contact before they could broker an alliance. Their silver would have been of great use for the empire. Still, I had to move on.
For I, like the Dregs, could only gaze upon the glimmer of the city at a distance, rising like a layered cake, forever out of reach. I kept near the tree-line at the edge of the clearing, skirting its perimeter until I found the river that flowed west from the triad. Once more I followed the winding waters, though I knew not where they led. The liche had given no instruction past this point. The river led again into forest, and the shape of Jelrass was shrouded by the foliage, though Mt.
Sterling always remained visible. Sometimes I drifted into trees out of curiosity, only to feel them slide through me, if they were thin enough. I simply rolled around the wider ones. The land and river began to rise uphill, but drifting up along the slope was as effortless as falling, which made me wonder. For a time I paused and focused my will on moving straight up, toward the stars, but this produced no movement.
So I am in fact bound by gravity as mist; it’s just a more relaxed contract than when flesh. At the crest of the hill through which the western river flowed, I saw an unusual sight. Three towers rose from the hillside, each arching toward a center point so that their tips almost met. I was reminded of the construction of the crucible. But as I drifted closer, I saw their strange shapes, not towers at all, but columns… spinal columns.
They were of greater width than three men could encircle with outstretched arms, and taller than two houses stacked together. Even closer, I saw their color, faded brown and gray splotches, though mostly white, as bones bleached by the sun. To each skeletal pillar, a dead man was bound by ropes, hanging upside down, legs together, arms spread apart, and the skin of these corpses was carved with intricately interlocking geometry.
The roughly circular space within these pillars bore similar markings dug into the dirt, and these grooves ran carefully around an arrangement of occult devices beyond my learning. All of this macabre scene was lit by the blueish light of a Will-O’-Wisp that drifted slowly through the air as if tracing the paths that were carved into the ground below. And then I found something else.
Another corpse was suspended above the carven ground, centuries old, a shriveled husk wrapped in sorcerer’s raiment. One arm, stunted and deformed, clutched to its chest; the other hung at its side. It hovered, unmoving, and gazed upon a table laden with scrolls, but as I drifted nearer, it slowly began to turn. Its head, unsupported by ligaments, lulled to one side, and the eyeless hollows of its sunken face peered into me.
Now I looked upon the one who had haunted me for so long in the flesh once more… my enemy. “Alaric… why are you in mist form?” Its thoughts echoed in my mind. “I don’t know!” I thought back. “Well, it isn’t necessary.” “I can’t turn back! I am trapped like this!” A breathless sigh echoed from my thoughts. “What triggered the transformation?” “The fall from the gates.” “I told you not to go anywhere near Jelrass.” “And I did not. It was the fall from Deadhaus Gate.” At this, the liche paused.
By our connection, I could sense its confusion. “You mean to say that you have been in mist form since… hmm… curious.” “What? Why? Can you help me?” “I can. Come this way.” Its skeletal hand dangled to the side, gesturing to the center of the circle. At this distance, I could better observe its unnatural movements. Like me, this creature was not propelled by any rational biological mechanism. What little tissue clung to its bones was blackened and desiccated, incapable of movement.
Instead, it was as if its body was being moved by an outside force, a corpselike marionette suspended from unseen strings. I drifted slowly near to where it wanted me to go, but paused. “What is this? How will it help me?” “We can dispel this transformation by extracting its fuel. It’s quite simple.” “What does that… can’t you just tell me how to change back?” “A vampire’s power is wielded by instinct, by reflex. It cannot be taught.”
This revelation, though frustrating, was in keeping with my own experiences thus far. Seeing little other choice than to wander Malorum for eternity as fog, I drifted into the center of the circle. The liche’s marionette arm swung toward me; its skeletal fingers unclasped and began to tremble, and the air between us pulled tight with unseen power. I felt a sensation of falling from within, of falling without movement.
“Is this… going to be painful?” “Oh yes,” and all at once streams of blue light began to pour from me, striking the grooves below and illuminating them. It felt like terrible cold, like icicles digging into me, stealing my strength. More gouts of blue escaped me, overspilling the grooves so that the entire floor was illuminated, and I heard the bones of the liche’s hand began to rattle in their furious trembling.
Then the streams that had come pouring from me were shown to be but the cracking of a great dam. I felt it stir within me, something I cannot quite articulate, a deep well of… potential. Blinding bolts of blue erupted from me, a scream, my scream; I fell to my knees--my knees! My physical form was coalescing inside the mist, and the bolts were flung from me into the skeletal pillars, into the corpses hung there, illuminating the carvings on their flesh.
They opened their eyes, their mouths, shining blue light, screaming with me, and as the liche held aloft its skeletal hand, all the light in the grooves and the corpses streamed to him, spiraling into his hand as a luminous vortex that flung his robes about as if in a storm. When the last of the light was consumed, the corpses lay still once more, and the liche lowered its hand.
“Most curious,” its thoughts echoed within me. “What in the name of the gods…” I began, now able to speak with my own mouth. “You said it was going to be simple!” “You should not have had that much magick in your blood.” “That’s what that was? Magick?” “It’s just a word. Mana, energy, power, truth. It has many names. Think of it as the potential for change.” “So… that is why I was mist? Because of this magick?” “Only in part.
It’s a kind of expression… if spells are words or phrases, then magick is the voice that speaks them.” “But I don’t know any spells.” “No, but your blood does, and the longer you exist, the more you feed, the more it will remember.” I noticed then, as I stood, that my left hand had returned. I opened and closed its fingers. No signs of injury. Then too I noticed that my body and coat were free of any traces of dirt. I had reformed clean and whole.
The liche watched my observations from where it hung above the ground, as well as from my own mind. “Mist is the medium through which vampires reform themselves. In time, you may take other forms through it.” “I’m quite satisfied with this one.” “It won’t happen by choice--not the first time. None of your powers will.” “Wonderful…” “We must begin our preparations now.” “I think you’re forgetting something!” I stepped back from the liche.
“I will not help you until you remove yourself from my mind.” “Oh, on the contrary… I have a counteroffer.” “There is nothing you can offer me more valuable than your absence.” “No? What about intelligence on Deadhaus, its forces, its structure, its weaknesses.” “You would give me this?” “In exchange for your cooperation.” This gave me pause. Why would it offer this to me? Did it intend to destroy me before I could make use of such intelligence?
Or was it so arrogant to think me incapable of acting on it. “Neither,” It said, reading my thoughts. "Then why is spying on me so valuable to be worth that information?" “There is so much you do not know, young Alaric, and long is the work that is set before us. I need to be able to access your mind so that we may coordinate our efforts.” “Even if it means destruction will one day come to Deadhaus, destruction set in motion by your hand?” “That will not come to pass.”
“You are arrogant.” “Do you want the intelligence or not?” “Very well, liche. You do have something to offer more valuable than your absence from my mind… your eventual absence from this world.” “Then the pact is sealed. You will aid us in exchange for knowledge.” “Let’s start with you.” “So be it.” “What is your name? What is your rank, if you have such a thing?” “I am Amarax, Archliche of Deadhaus.” “I don’t know what that means.” “Liches care little for hierarchy.
We are concerned only with knowledge. An archliche is one who has attained a great deal of knowledge.” “Are you the highest rank of the liches?” “There are other archliches. You can think of us as the highest.” “And how does one destroy a liche?” “It depends on how learned the liche is. For some, it is sufficient to destroy their bodies, and then their phylacteries.” “What is a phylactery?
How do I destroy one?” “They are vessels, ritual objects that serve as shelter for the soul, should it become severed from its body. To destroy them requires some amount of magickal knowledge.” “What do they look like? How would I know them?” “That is much more complicated. Liches go to great lengths to conceal their phylacteries. Some of us have more than one.” “How is a liche created?” “We create ourselves.”
“Explain.” “A sorcerer, a mage, a wizard, all just names for those that speak words of power. A liche begins when one such speaker attempts to prolong their life. They soon discover that each extension becomes more expensive, until the point that all the power in Malorum could not grant them a single day more. Death is immutable. It may only be prolonged, never prevented. And so the most dedicated speakers learn to amend their contract with death.
They die, as they must, but their souls are unsevered from their flesh. They become wedded to death.” “You know… I find you much more forthcoming than previous interrogations with the dead.” “You mean the ghoul? They are barely sentient.” At last I saw a weakness in this creature, one that we once shared, for only a fool would underestimate a ghoul. “If you are so powerful, so difficult to destroy, why do you need my help at all?” “The enemy too is powerful.” “The Awakened.” “For the moment,
yes.” “There are others?” “There are nine great powers that have built nine Great Houses. Deadhaus is youngest among them.” “Who are the others? The Thaceans?” Abrupt laughter resounded in my skull, and the liche swept its skeletal arm in a jerking motion. As it did, the circle in which we stood was filled with lights. Many orbs marked with astrological symbols moved in circular patterns around a central orb that bore the mark of two hands clasping.
The Will-O’-Wisp circled along with the others, but the liche swatted it away, sending it higher, apart from the other lights. “Do you know what this is?” “The celestial spheres.” “Very good. Show me." I approached the outer bounds of the luminous orrery, to the orb that bore the mark of a ram’s horns. “Haruspex,” I said, placing my hands over the orb. “The Nameless God, whose house is Prodigium.” I moved to the next sphere, the only one comprised of shadows, rather than light.
It was marked with the sign of a serpent. “Coluber.” “S’sa-Naraj, The Sun Eater, whose house is Thon.” Along the next orbit was a sphere tinged red and glaring with the mark of a mad eye. “Vesania.” “Islirith, the Dreamer, whose house is The Awakened. The next sphere, brighter than the rest, bore the mark of many spears radiating outward. “Novisol,” I said, and my blood shuddered. “El’Sabayoth, The All-Fire,
whose house is Empyrean.” The orb beyond Novisol appeared as if composed from many smaller orbs. They bore the mark of a wave. “Inundo.” “Uorou. They are only Uorou.” The next sphere was no sphere at all, but a shape of light bounded by only straight lines. Inside this shape was a repeating pattern, itself made from only straight lines. “Laterum.” “Ohm, The Many-Sided, whose house is Machinarum.”
Two celestial spheres remained, and I moved to the one closest to the central orb around which the others drifted. The symbol upon it was the same as marked the surface of the moon, visible even with the naked eye. “Ruina.” “Allalmawt, The Weaver, whose house is Deadhaus.” I paused there, briefly. I felt a sudden sense of smallness. Even though I towered over these miniscule depictions of the spheres, I could not help but realize how utterly insignificant I was next to them in that moment.
These were not merely orbs that traversed the sky, they were symbols, each speaking to the other in some story I had only begun to perceive. At last I placed my hand over the two that clasped upon the central sphere.
“Malorum.” “Malorum, The Twisted Mother, whose house is The Pillars.” Now the liche waved his hand once more, and the spheres rearranged themselves into two arching lines above him with Malorum at their center, a halo of spheres that shone upon a desiccated face, casting its eyeless hollows into fathomless black. “Before this world was twisted into being, before there were any lights, there was eternal darkness… and in that darkness, there was song.
The Ancients called to one another across the black womb of precreation. They devoured each other, growing stronger with each sibling consumed until only eight remained. In the stalemate of their song, none could overpower the other, and so their songs rose until reality was torn asunder and the universe spilled forth in a cataclysm of time and light.” All at once, the orbs above the liche shattered, spreading like uncountable shards of glass and filling the space of the circle.
“The Ancients fled from the fires of creation. They used the last of their songs to open the way to realms of their own nature. There they reign as prisoner-kings, lords of their own domains, yet unable to escape… unable to sing once more. But still they may whisper, and their whispers may seep through the boundaries between realms, into the minds across worlds beyond counting. And those minds, aligned in great enough number, can sing. They can open the way.
That is the Ancients' War, the First War, and now, on this twisted world, our war.” The scintillating shards faded to nothing. For a long time I stood in silence, my thoughts reeling. “You said there were nine. You showed me only eight.” “Tlaquetlex, the Shattered, whose house is the Others. They will arrive in time.” “If… if the things you have told me are true… I do not understand how I can be any use to you. All of this is beyond me. I have only just learned of the Awakened.
My focus is on vengeance against them, not the fate of the universe.” “That focus is enough for my purposes, young Alaric. The Awakened are indeed an enemy that must be dealt with.” “Why? What difference does it make to you, to Deadhaus?” “For dreams do not die, and death does not dream, and so the house of each must meet in war.” Alaric the damned.