Pruin, the month of frost, 11 days, 221 years after… after what? What is Deadhaus? What is death? Is it a state of being? Not a binary state, for while one may be living or dead, so too may they be undead, which seems to be neither. Perhaps it is a path along which many wander? With what I have now seen, that seems more likely, but I cannot say for certain. I begin to suspect even now that I know nothing. When the light of El’Sabayoth’s messenger faded, control of my blood returned to me.
Of all the materials and forces I have encountered in my time as a vampire, that being exerts the greatest influence over my cursed blood--seemingly able to command me--as if my blood recognizes its authority above my own. And, given that it was able to divert me from the child and the prisoner, even the agony of my thirst bows before the servant of the Gold.
With my blood under my own power once more, I fled through frozen fields and rime-encrusted forests, more silent than the falling snow, which no longer melted against my flesh as it did in life. Yet neither does the cold cut into me as it once did, for I am colder still within. Only when feeding, or before the sun, do I know any warmth, as scorching judgement, or maddening elation. At length I found the river that I sought and coursed its waters to the outskirts of the Dregs.
To those that lay huddled in their hovels, my embrace would have been a mercy… or perhaps that is simply what the blood wishes me to believe. I shudder to think that it may be influencing my thoughts in ways that I cannot perceive. By the sign of the Knight I knew my way from the city. Its starry steed charged near to the horizon, to the west, and I followed. When I came at last upon the skeletal pillars, I found that the liche’s circle lay in snowy ruin.
Tables were overturned, devices shattered. The bodies that were once bound to the pillars were strewn about in various pieces, as was the body of the liche. Its skull protruded from the snow, grinning up at me, as if to say I was too late. I stood in silence for a time, gazing down in to the eyeless hollows of my enemy. “One less monster in the world,” I said at Last. “Have you already forgotten what I taught you?” a familiar voice echoed within me.
“You survived… there was a wraith!” “So I’ve learned.” “It attacked us in the depths. Falk-Ghoul revealed you to save us.” "Irrelevant. We must prepare the Conflux.” “But…but you’re in pieces!” "Irrelevant. We must prepare the Conflux.” “But…but you’re in pieces!” “A former vessel is in pieces; I endure.” “How…” Then I remembered what Amarax had told me about the destruction of liches. “… it did not find your phylactery.” “It found five of them. There were six.”
“Why keep them so close together? Doesn’t that make you more vulnerable?” “They were not kept together. A wraith is a fragmented being. It can exist in many places at once.” “But how did it find them?" It found the fragments of my soul to itself. That blinding light to where the other fragments lay hidden. “Your phylacteries… but not the sixth… why?” “Because that fragment of my soul is intertwined with another.
The wraith did not recognize it.” “Another…” Suddenly, the circle vanished from my sight and I stood in total darkness. A pair of blue-green lamps ignited from the black, illuminating the face of the liche as I remembered it. “Yes, Alaric… another." “You cannot mean…” “I suppose I should offer you my thanks.” “I did not agree to this!” “Your consent was not a component of the spell.”
“I could destroy you now… if I'm your last phylactery, I could walk into the sea and cleanse your blackened stain from Malorum!” “That would be a most selfless act, so I’m rather assured of my safety for the moment.” “Damn you to hell, Amarax!” “There are many realms, young Alaric. Which one is hell, I cannot say.” The darkness of my inner self receded, and once more I stood amid the snow-strewn ruin of the liche’s circle.
“To some travelers, this world could be hell, and what is paradise to them could drive us insane.” “I spit on your philosophizing! I will not aid you a single step more until you extricate yourself.” “Then we’ll be keeping each other company for a long, long time.” “I will go to the Darklight Enclave! I will tell them where you are hidden!” “Dissolving in the sea would be a far less painful fate than what the wraiths would do to you. They feed on suffering as you feed on blood.”
“So help me, Amarax, I will find a way to separate our souls.” “How about a trade?” “As if I could trust you!” “And why not? I kept my end of our first deal. I gave you knowledge in exchange for your aid.” “While concealing the true nature of our binding! God knows what else you’re not telling me.” "Do you mean to claim that you keep no secrets from me?” This time, I had no reply. “There are strange gaps in your memories that I can neither account for nor access.
It’s almost as if I’m being blocked from them by magick… but you don’t know how to do that.” Still I said nothing. “I know the mark of Empyrean. You are out of your depth, fledgling… but I could help you.” “Help me? You couldn’t even help yourself against a wraith!” “Suppose I had destroyed this one--the others would soon know of it. The cost of destroying them all would be far greater than the cost of reconstituting a vessel.” “Could you destroy them all?” Irrelevant.
True power comes from the ability to plan ahead, not to destroy. You would do well to remember that. “But won’t they discover your trick? Won’t they come for both us?” “In time, yes, which is why we must spend what is left to us wisely.” Realizing the peril that I now shared with the archliche, I saw no choice but follow him for the time being. “What must I do?” “Gather the remains that are scattered here. Take a portion of them to the points I show you.”
As he said this, I beheld the ground illuminated by a configuration that I knew was not truly present. This image was being transposed upon my vision through magick, a circular arrangement of eight smaller circles, with a ninth in the center, and spiraling lines between them all. “Nine Ancients, nine magicks, nine Pillars, nine realms.”
Nine pillars… pray tell me… in what fevered dream of a gibbering imbecile is a monstrous spider considered a pillar?” “Words and names can carry more than one meaning. Each of the nine Aspects of Magick flow through Malorum, who is also called the Twisted Mother. Her children, the Pillars, are the ultimate manifestations of these nine aspects. They are at once titanic engines of magickal energy and living, thinking servants of their mother’s will.
Even the smallest shard of their bodies can generate overwhelming energies of its aspect.” “You still might have warned me it was a giant spider… or at the very least you could have warned me of the Clatter-clack.” “The what?” “That damnable creature in the Writhing Dark.” I felt a shifting within my mind, like cold fingers running behind my eyes. “That is a Nameless Worm.” “The ghouls said it was a Clatter-clack.” "The ghouls live in a hole, coated in vomit.
These creatures are called Nameless Worms because of their infusion with the Nameless Aspect of Magick. They were much smaller once.” “By the way, Alaric, there are giant worms and spiders underground--maybe keep an eye out for those!” “We don’t have time for this. You should be gathering the remains.” Maybe I could gather them better if Falk-Ghoul didn’t have to melt off my hand to save me from a giant worm with no name!” An echoing sigh resounded from my thoughts. “This is true. Allow me.”
Suddenly, and beyond my control, I drew in a deep gulp of frozen air and released it in a sigh. Mist poured from my mouth, enveloping my body, replacing my flesh until only mist remained. Then, no sooner had I become mist did I feel a suction of air from within my center, and the mist came swirling into it. This suction became my lungs, my throat, my mouth, drinking in the vaporous form I held only moments ago, condensing once more into flesh.
All of the muck and bodily fluids from the mound were gone from me, and my hand was restored, as if it had never been missing. “You could have done that the whole time!?” “Only with my primary soul in this vessel.” “I am not a vessel!” “The wraiths will be on their way soon, Alaric!” I redoubled my efforts, now able to gather the frozen remains with both hands, and Amarax instructed me where to place them. “We must always begin on the left side. These are the Aspects of Chaos.”
“Why must they be first?” “Because order arises from chaos.” “Can’t order also fall into chaos?” “Yes, but chaos is always the beginning. Start at the second circle from the top; this is the Abyssal Aspect. It is the black womb of precreation, the domain of the Sun Eater. Its energies weave curses and drink life, just as S’sa-Naraj drinks light itself. In this circle you must place any eyes you can find, six if possible, and make sure you leave them pointed at the ground. Let them see nothing.”
I did as I was instructed, plucking eyes from the severed heads that sprouted from the snow and turning their lifeless pupils downward before placing them in the circle. As I did this, the circle faded from my sight and was replaced by the winding sign of a serpent, and light receded from the sign, darkening its boundaries. “Now, to the right side. These are the Aspects of Order. Again, the second from the top; this is the Celestial Aspect.
From coldest dark came burning light, the domain of the All-Fire. Its energies smite the foes of El’Sabayoth just as they empower those that serve him. Here you must place a heart.” Though the limbless torsos nearby were frozen solid, it was nearly effortless for me to break through one of their ribs and seize an icy heart. As before, when I placed the frozen organ where it belonged, the circle faded, this time replaced by a circle of spears, radiating outward.
The snow around this sign melted; the heart sparked into flame and crumbled to ash, and my blood bade me come no closer to it. “Now the topmost circle on the right. This is the Necrotic Aspect, for once light was born into the universe, so too could it die, and death is the domain of the Weaver. Necrotic energies gnaw away at all that they touch, withering even mountains to dust over time... but not the servants of Allalmawt. Here you must place the skull of my former vessel.”
I wrenched the grinning skull of my enemy from the snow and placed it in the circle, and there was revealed the symbol that is marked upon the moon, and a brief image flickered in my thoughts of red hair and pale skin. “Across from this circle, its counterpart, the Psychic Aspect. From death, there is rebirth. The earliest life was simple, but across eons of death and rebirth, sentience arose, and with it, dreams, the domain of Islirith. Psychic energies can inject the mind with nightmares.
If they are strong enough, the nightmares can be made manifest. A head must be offered here. It needn’t be whole, but the brain must be intact.” Taking one of the now eyeless heads from the snow and placing it into the circle ignited the sign of a mad eye, which stared into me. "That eye is following me... when I move over here, it turns..." “Pay it no mind. Now we must invert the path of flesh, as above, so below. Second from the bottom, on the right, the Arcane Aspect.
From dreams come hidden knowledge, and with it the ability to create. The Arcane is a domain of esoteric thought, of patterns that repeat themselves, that build themselves. Many are the creations of this domain, as many are the sides of Ohm. We’ll need a brain here, but you’ll have to shape it so that its lines are straight.” “And… how… would I do that?” “I fixed your hands. Use them.”
Taking up another of the eyeless heads, I bore down upon it with my grip until its skull cracked, then picked away the pieces to reveal the blackened brain within. I scooped out the putrefied organ and took it to the circle. “So… I just…” “Think of it as clay. Make its edges straight.” “Could you not have made these preparations in advance?” “You’ll have to forgive me; I was being torn apart by hundreds of chains.”
I sighed and knelt in the snow, reforming the boundaries of the brain as best I could so that they were square. When the offering was sufficient, a pattern of many sides was illuminated, and its light traced through the wrinkles of the brain. Very faintly, beneath the softest patter of snowfall, I heard a gentle thrumming that seemed to pulse in time. “Into chaos next, across from the Arcane, is the Nameless Aspect. The true boundary of knowledge is not ignorance, but that which is unknowable.
This aspect, like its Ancient, has no name. Its energies are volatile, unpredictable. I do not use them, unless I must. You would be wise to avoid them. Here must be placed tongues, however many remain." As it was, only two tongues remained. I snatched the icy slabs of flesh from mouths that no longer needed them and tossed them into the circle. As I watched the luminous horns ignite, I felt something stir within my blood… something familiar, yet forgotten.
“Now, bottom left, the Temporal Aspect. In time are three things, all that was, all that is, all that will be, each fragmented across the temporal flow. So too is the Ancient of Time shattered, as is its realm, existing as fragments in places and times beyond counting. Its magick can bend seconds into years, or perforate centuries so that they empty themselves in days. To this circle, two hands must be given.”
As I dropped the pair of hands into the circle, I saw them slow as they fell, never coming to touch the ground, only to hang suspended above the luminous symbol that formed in the circle’s place. “And here, at the end, there is only Uorou. They are their own realm, and they are many, but all of them are one. To them belongs the Alchemical Aspect, an aspect of change, through which one thing may become another. We need blood for this circle” “These bodies are too old…
and they’re frozen.” “Your blood won’t freeze.” “I can’t extract mine. It moves away from wounds.” “I can suppress that. Use your fangs to open your wrist.” “Fangs?” “Yes, Alaric.” I reached into my own mouth, feeling the shape of my teeth. The liche was right. These were not the canines of a mortal, but hideous, needle-like daggers. “Be quick about it. Your blood has an absurd amount of magickal energy--it is not easy to suppress.” I stepped to Uorou’s circle and brought my wrist to my mouth.
A cold shudder passed through my body. “Now!” I bit down, and for the first time since my death, I watched blood spill helplessly from a wound. It trickled down my arm, but also spattered onto the snow, and was itself shaped into the sign of a wave. Once more, a cold shudder passed through me, and the blood upon my arm flowed back up into the wound, knitting it closed from within. “Step away from the spilled blood--it will try to return to you,” Amarax warned me, and I obeyed.
With each of the outer circles filled, only the one in the center remained. “The Primordial Aspect of Magick is at once destruction and creation. It is the soul of Malorum herself… the soul of all unconquered worlds. Its voice is raging fires and howling tempests. Its words speak of retribution. But before this circle is filled, you must connect the symbols, each aspect to its counterpart, and each to Malorum, through which all flow.” “Connect them how?” How “Bones.
Strip the flesh from them, break them into smaller pieces. There can be space between them, but not too much.” “Tedious work,” “And the lines must arc. No straight lines.” I sighed and set to my task with grim determination. “But why is flesh and bone required? What have body parts at all to do with Aspects of Magick?” Magic is meaning, made manifest, and like flows to like. Think of these offerings as analogical talismans.
There are many potential substitutes, so long as they hold the necessary semantic resonance. We continued our internal discourse as I worked, flaying frozen flesh from bones and snapping them with preternatural strength. “I don’t understand.” “What has a heart to do with the sun?” “A heart? It is red. The sun is sometimes red.” “That is a partial connection. If it was the only connection, it would be a poor offering.
The lesser the semantic resonance of its components, the greater the magickal energy required to cast a spell.” “A heart… may… live or die?” “Insufficient. You can do better.” “I don’t know the answer. Just tell me.” “There is not one answer, and the truth holds little value if it is simply given.” “You could give me a hint at least.” “The universe is a tapestry of symbols, and symbols hold many meanings. The sun is one of them. The heart is another.
What do these symbols share?” “This sounds like poetry...” “Yes, and what is poetry?” “Bah, I don’t want to understand!” Then, I realized as I placed the last of the bones, that I had seen the shape of this ultimate configuration before. Its materials were somewhat different, but this was unmistakably the same spiral as had been left by the wights. “This spiral… it was at Ft. Zaestra!” “It is a Nonary Conflux, a symbol in itself. Nine Ancients, nine magicks, nine houses,
nine spheres.” “What is its purpose?” “There are many. For us, it will rend the barrier between realms so that we may pass.” “How could the wights have known to make this? They are mindless!” “Likely the same way that you did… they were instructed.” “By whom?” “By whom, indeed.” To this I said nothing. “I could help you, Alaric.” “Then help me finish this damned Conflux.” “Not yet. Before the last circle is filled, we will need a lantern. Search the snow; there should be a cage, black.”
I dug about for a time, discarding various trinkets and occult objects until I dredged up a blackened cage that was all too familiar to me. “This?” “Yes, but its light fled from the wraith. You’ll have to track it down.” “The Will-O’-Wisp?” “Indeed. It fled to the north. It won’t have gone far.” I oriented myself by the sign of the Knight, putting him on my left before setting out, and the world rushed past in a blur. “How do you see anything like this?” “I don’t.
It’s reflex, remember?” “It’s disorienting.” “Oh?” I thought, coming to a halt. “Can’t your magick help you see?” “I wouldn’t s--” I bolted forward mid-thought, which cut the liche’s words short, then came to an abrupt stop some distance away. “What was that?” “I… said... there’s no--” Again I sprang from the snow, soundless, swifter than shadow. Amarax’s thoughts dissolved and a faint smile pulled at the corner of my mouth.
It had taken me some time to grow accustomed to the speeds of which I am capable, and that was with the blood guiding me. As a passenger in my body, Amarax must have felt as if he was being fired from a cannon when I moved at speed. He said little else as I sped to the north. Eventually, the white blanket of the forest floor was cast in soft blue light; a faint ringing sound resonated through the rime-encrusted trees.
The wisp I found orbiting the icy trunk of a large tree, and I stopped some distance away. “Alright, there it is.” “Now you’ve got to catch it.” “What? Why? I saw you point at it and force it to enter the cage before.” “Better that I conserve my magick for the journey ahead.” “Just take some of mine then.” “If I expend magick, it might be noticed. The shadows might begin to lengthen, and if that happens, the cumulative pain of our entire existence will be sheer ecstasy next to what follows.”
“Fine… I’ll just go get it then.” I leapt from the forest floor, arcing toward the wisp at tremendous speed, but then there was no wisp. It did not move; it simply ceased to be where it was and appeared somewhere else. I smashed face first into the icy tree and came tumbling down into the snow. “By the way, Alaric, it can teleport!” “I didn’t tell you to just leap at it like some kind of animal.”
“Alright, master liche… how do I catch the little blue ball?” “Spiritual beings are not bound by the same laws of movement as material beings. You are unlikely to capture one by movement alone.” “What if I did this?” I thrust my hand forward with outstretched fingers at the wisp, and a shockwave burst from me, scattering the snow along a path to the wisp and striking the tree it orbited with such force that the rime was blasted from it and fell around us as so many crystal shards.
The wisp was gone before the shockwave reached it, now orbiting another tree. “For the Weaver’s sake, think before you act!” “Well, you weren’t telling me useful information, so I had to improvise.” “A wisp is a lesser manifestation of the Primordial Aspect, and like flows to like. That is why it seeks trees. It can feel the currents of its aspect flowing through them.” “I’m feeling another blast coming on...” “You will not--”
“Then you’d better start speaking plainly.” “The sign of Malorum, do you remember it?” “I do.” “Make it in the snow, large enough that you could stand within it.” I dug out the shape of clasping hands. “Now, stand in the sign and bury your feet.” “What?” “Your feet must be beneath the soil” “I don’t see how this--” “Just do it!” I sighed, scooped a couple of holes in the ground, and placed my feet into them.
“They must be covered by the soil.” Once more I stooped, this time to cover my boots, so that I was sprouting from the ground. “Now, take the cage and hold your hands toward the sky.” “Like this?” I asked, raising both hands above my head. “At an angle, a little lower. Good. Now… this will be risky… but…” A strange sensation spread through my gut, as if I were being pulled toward the ground, and at the same time the sign beneath me began to shine in the snow.
The flow of my blood within me became sluggish, as if it were growing thicker, and I felt my movements labored. “Don’t move, Alaric. Only the wind may move you.” “What’s happening?” “You do not question. You may only stand. Dig deep. Drink water.” “Wha--” “Think those thoughts. Dig deep, drink water. Say them in your mind!” “Dig deep, drink water.” Then I saw the wisp leave the orbit of its chosen tree and drift toward the forest floor. “Repeat it.
Don’t stop.” “Dig… deep… drink…water…” Even my thoughts were slowing, but the wisp was drawing toward me. “Dig… dig…” It began to orbit me, and I felt a strange familiarity between us, as if we recognized one another for the first time. “The cage, Alaric! Use the cage, quickly” My arm trembled against my effort to move it; I felt as if it would break. With agonizing slowness, as if moving in a nightmare, I brought the cage closer.
I could not have caught even a fat child at such speeds, but the wisp was unphased by my movement. I watched in slow motion as I intercepted its path with the cage, and the little door snapped shut behind it. The wisp flickered, suddenly realizing its fate, and though it pressed against the blackened bars, it could not pass them. All at once the light faded from the sign of Malorum, and a great tension was released from my gut.
I fell forward, catching myself on hands and knees, feeling like a strange sack of fluids. As I looked to my hands, a single leaf had emerged from beneath my right thumbnail. I plucked it, which made me wince in pain. “I’m not even… going to ask… what just happened.” My thoughts flowed so quickly that I had to pause between each few words. “There wouldn’t be time to explain… look.”
I could feel the direction Amarax wished me to look, and as I did, I saw the shadows of an ancient tree begin to stretch ever so slightly toward us. “Get back to the circle. Now!” A surge of energy rippled through me from within, and I felt my strength return. I was on my feet and rushing through the forest in an instant. As I broke out of the trees, the Knight charged the skies to my right. We reached the circle in moments, but I knew such increments of time were ages to a wraith.
“The center circle! Stab the Soul Prism into Malorum!” The shadows of the skeletal pillars began to lengthen, and a deep, stretching sigh emanated from them. The wisp began to rapidly ricochet within its cage. I cried out and drove the jade-like dagger of the Soul Prism into the center circle.
As it pierced the ground, I heard the shuddering whisper of the monstrous spider from whence it came, and pale green light rose from within it, dull at first, then brighter, until it shone as an emerald star, brighter than the moon. And as it brightened, I heard a sound that I had heard before, long ago, a low thrumming, rising in pitch. It was the sound of the Crucible being brought from a closed to open configuration, only this was far more powerful.
The pitch rose higher than the Crucible’s ever did, and then the blinding green light spilled out of the Soul Prism, arcing along the lines that connected Malorum’s circle to the others, and then the lines between them. The circles were each filled with pale green light in the same order as I had made the offerings to them, only so quickly I could barely distinguish the sequence.
Then the circle in which rested the skull of Amarax, the circle of Allalmawt, shone brightest of all, and its boundaries expanded, passing beneath my feet as they swept across the Conflux, devouring every other circle, every arcing line. And then I saw that I stood upon nothing, for in the space that once held the Conflux, nothing remained--no symbols, no light, no snow, no soil. Nothing… a hole in reality. And then I fell. -Alaric the Damned