[MUSIC]
After the arduous journey to create and deliver the artifact, I was eager to begin a more direct confrontation with The Awakened. As Grand Inquisitor, I waged my wars from the shadows, collecting information and influencing events, but as a vampire, I had a chance to face my enemy directly, a chance which came all too soon. From Keeva, I learned that some small pockets of resistance against The Awakened still survived in the ruins of the Thacean Empire.
She had approached one of them and given a premonition to an Ashen Priest. That priest, along with his followers, was sailing for the ruins of Ustilia. They would be allowed to land, and I would track them to make sure they found their way to us. I waited by the shores of the Silent Sea, concealed in darkness, until at last I saw a lone and battered vessel on the horizon. She'd seen battle recently. Her sails were ragged so that the phoenix upon them hung in tatters. Her hull was frayed.
I'm not sure what could have caused such damage, perhaps collision with rocks, but she was still just barely seaworthy. Then she ran violently aground, and a haggard crew of legionnaires scrambled across the deck, some working to lower a landing bridge. "We're taking on water! That landing breached the hull!" "Leave it! There's no time!" A centurion shouted back. At his shoulder was clasped a grey cloak, and along its back was marked the Thacean Phoenix.
"Did they follow us?" "Not with their ships burned." "Maybe they can swim." "Maybe. We'd better move it fast." The centurion said as he nodded to a large crate that was fastened with several chains. Four men hoisted the crate by its handles, while the centurion and two others descended the ramp ahead of them. In the rear, a pair of men followed, one helping to shoulder another whose armor was punctured and stained with blood. When all had disembarked, the centurion withdrew a compass.
"Due east, but that sulphurous fog. Can you shield it from us?" He turned to a hunkered man in priestly raiment, who nodded and held aloft a censer-flail that smoldered with sacred ash. As the band of survivors moved into the yellow fog, he parted around them, held at bay by the power of the ash. A dull thud sounded from within the crate, and a muffled murmur. But the men kept their eyes ahead as they moved. "It's quieter now." "It knows there aren't any others like it nearby."
"It wouldn't be quiet if there were." "Does it know where we're going?" "Does it know it's dead?" "Is it? You saw what it did at Stawarden. There's no telling what else it can do." "It can't stop an army." "You don't know that. We should have dropped it at the bottom of the lake." "Fire doesn't work. Why would water?" "Why would the dead?" "And even if they can kill it, what happens to us?" "Keep it down. We're close.
There..." A shrouded figure loomed silently ahead, pitch black against the yellow fog. They stood watching it, saying nothing. And the figure remained motionless, indiscernible within the shadows of its hood. At last, the centurion spoke. "We seek an audience with The Black Hand." The shrouded figure's head slowly turned to face him. "The drowned woman has guided us here. She said we would be given passage."
The mysterious figure began to drift closer with no sound other than softly clinking chains. "Centurion, that does not seem friendly." One of the legionnaires whispered. The centurion said nothing, and the figure drew ever closer. "Centurion!" The centurion drew his sword, and the two men at his side immediately mirrored him. The light of the blades stabbed into my eyes, even from the great distance from which I watched them.
"These blades are silver!" The centurion called out, and the figure slowed to a halt a few feet away. At this distance, its shroud seemed an impossible blend of fabric and vapor, neither fully one nor the other. Its hooded head moved towards the box and then back to the Thaceans. Slowly, a shrouded arm raised dangling chains, and the shadowy hand pointed deeper into the fog. The men passed verily, giving the figure a wide berth, but it remained unmoving, simply pointing the way.
The wounded legionnaire began to cough up blood. "We can't keep up this pace. He won't make it much farther." "Like hell, I won't." The centurion nodded to one of his men, who sheathed his sword and stepped around to shoulder the other side of his wounded comrade. A low, rasping voice sounded from the fog. "Indeed, he will not." The men halted, and the centurion poised his blade towards the sound. A stooped figure pulled itself along the ground on all fours.
Its emaciated frame was parked and marred with decay, and its sunken face stared up at the men with fleshy pits where I should have been. I knew this ghoul. Though of why he had come crawling out here, I cannot say, perhaps merely to vex me. "He is ripe with death, ready for plucking. Yes." The creature clambered slowly closer to the wounded legionnaire. "We can make it quick, almost painless." "Mind your tongue, ghoul. There's silver in these blades."
Falk ghoul grimaced and made a displeased rattle in its throat. "Friends, do not bring silver. No." "Nor do they eat one another." "Not yet." "What's in the box?" "This box and our message is for The Black Hand." The centurion answered, keeping his blade between himself and the slinking creature. It craned its skeletal neck towards the crate, frantically sniffing the air. "Smells fresh, like you, but sweeter." "Take us to the Black Hand, and you can see it for yourself."
Falk ghoul made its displeased rattle once more, sizing the Thaceans up for a moment, glancing verily at their blades. "Follow." It said begrudgingly and clamored away into the mist. Encumbered, the men followed the ghoul as best they could, often losing it in the fog ahead. But it would always return to guide them, sometimes pausing as if considering approaching, but always thinking better of it and moving on.
By its guidance, they came at last to the ruins of Ustilia and saw their ancient heritage taken by decay. The great corroded gates slid apart, and the Thaceans entered, moving within their protective bubble, brandishing their swords like blinding torches. The dead, like the fog, parted around the Thaceans, giving them a wide berth. All except the occasional revenant, who simply stood staring in silence, no matter how close the Thaceans came.
And so they chose to move around the revenants instead. High upon the withered tower top, the circle of liches smoked their sulfurous hookah and gave no notice to any of the commotion below. Led by Falk Ghoul, the Thaceans came closer to the ruins of the imperial palace. Outside its gates, they saw a swarm of ghouls tearing into the ground with their rake-like claws, displacing great mounds of dirt far more quickly than a team of men with shovels could. "They're making a tunnel." "Perhaps."
"To where?" "You did not share your secrets. We will not share ours." Closer to the palace, a formation of vampires drilled into clearing, mirroring the steps and fencing movements of their commander. Their preternatural movements flickered in and out of perception, sometimes visible, sometimes blurred to the naked eye of men. Sensing humans, they turned all at once to leer at the wounded soldier.
The men gripped their hilts tightly, moving as quickly as they could under the gaze of so many dead eyes. Falk ghoul led them to the palace itself, and the centurion gazed up at its full height. Perched atop the ruined parapets, a shrouded figure like the one from the outer fog, perhaps even the same figure, peered down at the humans, unmoving. And though he could not see its face, the centurion could feel the chill of its gaze upon him.
The inner darkness of the palace was lit by incandescent shades, which drifted away from the terrible silver and sacred ash. The men followed the ghoul until at last they came to the throne room, which was empty of the honor guard as per Keeva's premonition. The two soldiers carrying their wounded comrade laid him against one of the walls to rest, and those carrying the crate set it down with a thud. I entered behind them soundlessly. They never knew I was following them.
Amarax was there too, clutching the small black cage that held the wisp. There, at the base of the great pillar, N'Gaztak sat on his throne, expectantly. At one side of the pentarch stood Keeva, and on the other, the bestial vampire in bladed armor who I had come to know as Zorin von Sigstrand. Then Falk Ghoul clammered forward, addressing N'Gaztak. "We have brought the humans, yes.
May we taste of them?" "You may not," said N'Gaztak, his voice emanating from his fiery head, reverberating with deep power. "May we see inside the box?" "You may stay under silence." N'Gaztak answered, and the ghoul slinked over to the wounded soldier, who sat slumped against the wall, sidling up to him, and placing a finger over its own mouth in a shushing gesture. The box gave a quiet thump and a muffled murmur. "What's happening? I can't see anything."
A severed head tied by its hair to Lord Zorin's belt said to the vampire. "There is a box." Lord Zorin answered, gazing intently at the object in question. "You really have a way with words." "We are in danger." "Oh, please, please let it be the end." N'Gaztak leaned forward on his throne. "Do you think that silver will protect you here?" "The silver was to see us here. Your... soldiers might not have granted us an audience without it." The centurion said, eyeing the ghoul. "Very well.
You have your audience." N'Gaztak answered, leaning back on his throne. "I am Espen Rostad, centurion of the 12th Legion. These men are under my command." "Oh, what news of the mighty legions?" "They have fallen. We have held against the dead from the south, but we could not hold against the enemy from within... The crimson sign has won." "Has it? You would not have come all this way only to tell me of your failure." "You stood among the living once.
You know what it is to swear an oath to defend your people and to fail." The centurion spoke cautiously, and N'Gaztak regarded him in silence. "Your failure and mine share the same cause. I have brought that cause with me." Rostad motioned to his men, who heaved the crate once more, moving it forward and setting it closer to the revenant. "This is what happens to those touched by the crimson sign." The soldiers unfasten the chains around the box and quickly retreated.
"Behold, the new face of the Empire." The wooden lid slowly creaked open. For a moment, nothing stirred, and the whole room gazed into the inner black of the box. Then a choking, gurgling voice rose from within. "Crimson dreams, unconscious screams, the Leper King is crowned. It said, in a massive bulbous hand grasped the edge of the box, mottled with discoloration. "Crimson dreams, unconscious screams, the fate of man is bound. Crimson dreams, unconscious beams, a white knight fade to black."
Twisted aberration of nature pulled itself up from the box. Its once human form now warped beyond recognition. Vaguely human flesh, threaded with a web of crimson veins, stretched tightly over a mound of watermelon-shaped nodules, each adorned with its own sleeping face. This bloated mass was its entire upper body, save for a pair of spindly arms, unbefitting their enormous hands.
The creature rose higher from its resting place until it towered above the humans and the dead, on top of legs that had fused into a flesh-toned stock. A sleeping face on one of the frontal lobes opened its toothless mouth. The gurgling voice poured out of it without moving its lips. "Crimson dreams, unconscious screams, the wall begins to crack." Nagastak's powerful voice came hushed.
"What are you?" The head that had spoken jerk to face him as well as it could from within its fleshy restraints. "Ah, I see the corpse of Lucian Armin. But where has the corpse of his wife?" The fires of Nagastak's head flared brighter for a moment, but he remained seated. "You will know in time." "A mighty house is built on hatred. But you can't threaten me, corpse. I speak with the voice of one one greater than us all." Keeva started at this, but said nothing, gazing intently with white eyes.
"The Age of Seven Suns is in twilight. The Black stars of Islirith awaken. And with them, the Crimson Dream." All at once, every face across the aberrations bloated form opened its eyes, all milk white with blindness. Every mouth spread wide in unison, emanating a deep chittering that reverberated throughout the chamber.
A field of crimson light exploded from the aberrations, painting the room in red, and vain as tendrils began to grow from the box, snaking over it and onto the floor, radiating outward. As the light washed over me, the terrible chittering bore into my mind, driving out all coherent thoughts, stabbing into my consciousness like barbed hooks. Though I tried to release my form as mist, I could not change.
I could see the other dead recoiling under the psychic assault, but they were each still able to control themselves. High alone was utterly paralyzed. While the dead recoiled in the crimson light, the humans fell to the floor, clasping their own heads in agony. Then Keeva leaped forward, rising into the air and shrieking in an ancient voice that was not her own. [SCREAMING]
From her, a countervailing field of distortion pushed the crimson light back, making the throne and floor waver as if underwater. The chittering and the shriek crashed against one another. For a moment, the chamber stood as if torn across two different worlds. But Keeva's power waned, and the crimson light drove the watery distortions back. Slowly at first, and then all at once drenching the throne in red, causing the banshee to dissolve into wisps of scarlet smoke. "False power.
False prophecies, now basking the glory of--" "I've heard quite enough of that." Lord Zorin bolted forward in a blur too fast for eyes to follow, whirling past the aberration and appearing on the far side of the room in a fraction of a second, his blade drawn and coated in blood. The eyes of the head that was speaking rolled back as its face slid off its nodule, severed in a single stroke. "Useless, your feeble powers are..." Lord Zorin flickered again, appearing on another side of the room.
Once more, the speaking head's eyes rolled back, and its face slid off. This time, the tendrils that were spreading across the floor ensnared the vampire lord. Snaking up his legs with alarming speed, dragging him to the floor. "Yes, crush him! Kill the vampire scum!" The head on Lord Zorin's belt cheered the tendrils on. Lord Zorin thrashed in his binding so quickly that he became a blur, but could not lose himself. "This light, I can't change."
He said through gritted fangs as he was completely entangled. "Those who do not dream have no place in this world." Amarax drifted forward, the green shell of necrotic energy crackling around him. He opened the blackened cage, freeing the wisp. But before it could flee, he clutched the air with his skeletal hand, and it was frozen in place. Then, with a twisting gesture of his other hand, he pulled a shade from nearby and forced it towards the wisp.
The two spirits spiraled around each other, resisting proximity by some fundamental law of magic. But Amarax bent this law. The spirits converged, merging in a burst of light that birthed a massive ball of blue flame inset with an agonized face of pale green. Amarax rotated his skeletal palm to face the aberration, and the fused spirits rocketed forward, howling in anguish and crashing against its swollen body, setting it ablaze.
Many voices shrieked in pain as the creature thrashed in the flames. Many of its eyes boiled and burst in the heat. Then the flames began to recede. From top to bottom, they were extinguished, moving down the aberration and into its tendrils so that the spreading web of veins cascaded with blue light, driving it away from the center. Amarax raised his hand again, but quickly found himself snared and dragged down, no longer able to command his spells.
Now the entirety of the chamber was threaded in a web of veins, and the roof appeared as if open to an otherworldly sky, streaked with twisting red vapors, and flecked with blackened stars. N'Gaztak's armored body sat bound by the tendrils to his throne. "Do you see?" the aberration said, sweeping its spindly arms towards the alien sky. "Yes, I see, Your ilk sent this in motion, your god, scheming in secret since ages long past." "Truth at last!" "The betrayal." The fires of his head brightened.
"The brutal degradation." The burning spread downward, consuming his armor. "Pain eternal." "It reforged me." He strained against his bindings. It burned away the impurities. He rose, snapping through the tendrils, and the aberration gurgled in disbelief. Still facing his opponent, the N'Gaztak reached down and gripped the handle of a massive war maw. As he hefted it over his shoulder, I saw at last the purpose of my long quest, for the head of the maw was the three-eyed face of the Hollow Maw.
Though its long mouth was open, the N'Gaztak lifted it as if it were weightless. The revenant ascended the steps to his throne, consumed in fires that pushed through the crimson field. "Impossible! What are you?" The many faces shrieked. A hundred tendrils darted up to coil around N'Gaztak's arms and legs, but he tore through them, moving steadily forward. "I am the Black Hand of God."
The revenant declared, swinging his maw in an arc that collided with the deformed flesh of its target and sunk into it as if it were made of jelly. The many faces howled, and the spindly limbs flailed as the massive form of the creature began to distort, bending like light through heat. From the head of the maw, the distortions rippled outward, until at last the entirety of the aberrations swirled as a vortex, spiraling into the weapon. With it, the crimson field receded.
The tendrils were torn from the chamber, and the chittering faded away with the echoes of so many screams until N'Gaztak stood alone. Slowly, his fires receded. Keeva reformed herself then, stepping over the floor of the throne room as if slowly bounding along the sea floor. Two of them looked at the head of the hammer for a time, in silence. "It can't escape. Gwyneth has it now." "Then with this, we can strike down their leaders." "To silence the Crimson Herald is a great feat."
"The Corpus Artificum will inscribe your weapon. It will be made stronger." "And what inscription is earned from striking down this creature?" The voice of Amarax echoed in all our thoughts. "The Sonata Of Shattered Dreams. It can lend you the voice of his Islirith for a time." Just then, Rostad stirred feebly on the ground among the bodies of his men, who lay scattered about the fallen censer-flail, which still held the sulfur at bay but could not protect them against the crimson light.
Each of the Thaceans was dead, their faces frozen in horrified screams. But Rostad yet lived, for he had clawed out his own eyes. Whatever horrors The Herald had visited upon the Thaceans, Rostad had spared himself from them. N'Gastak approached the crumpled Centurion, his armored boots stomping across the throne room. "I thank you, Centurion, for showing me the cause of my failure. Though you are a wretched Thacean, you may leave with your life."
He turned away from Rostad and approached his throne. "No." Rostad's voice, hoarse and wavering, rose up, and the revenant stopped. "No?" Nagastak's fires flared. "Let-- let me serve." "To what end? Your empire is beyond redemption." "It can't be saved, but it can be avenged." "You know not what you ask of me, mortal. The path of vengeance is one of eternal suffering. I will not set you on it." "Let him!" I spoke up at last, and the revenant turned to me in surprise.
"He will serve you loyally, as he did his nation." "You vouch for this man?" "I do. I owe his grandfather a great debt." "So be it. If you do not have the sense to flee, then you will have your vengeance. If you can endure it..." "Am I to be turned?" "I have little use for a blind mortal. We will remake you." The revenant sat back on his throne. "Into what?" "Hmm... Do you have any magical talent?" "He does not."
"Then you are denied Lichdom, and I cannot fabricate the kind of injustice needed to bring you back as a revenant." "We could feed him. He looks quite hungry. Yes." "Is that what you want, Centurion? To be made into a ghoul? You're already missing your eyes." "No, don't do that to him." "What is wrong with ghouls?" "Everything?" "A wraith, then. You are strong enough to endure the ritual." "What ritual?" "You don't want to do that. Trust me."
"You asked for this man to serve us, and yet you refute every service." "There is always need in the Shambling Hordes for more reanimated." "You will not strip him of his mind, nor will you torture him or reduce him to a gibbering ghoul. Surely there must be some other way." N'Gaztak leaned forward on his throne. "Very well, then, Thacean You will turn him." "Me? But I don't know how." "You will be instructed. He is your responsibility now."
I turned to look upon the eyeless face of the Centurion. Could I lay my curse upon him? Could I give to him thirst without end? He would ask me to, for Thacea's sake. I know it, but he would not know what it was he asked. N'Garstak was right. Still, I would try to explain, to warn him of what lay ahead. If still he chose this path, then no. I cannot evade the truth of this. I would say that such an act would damn me, except for the fact that I am damned already. Alaric the Damned.