EPILOGUE
Wolfgang’s eyes snapped open as consciousness crashed into him. Flinching, at the expected bite of Scapino’s knife Wolfgang realized his torment was over. In fact, nothing remained of the injuries suffered during the ill-fated ambush. He felt no pain, no phantom itch speaking to missing parts, no terror, just soothing warmth. Eyes focusing, Wolfgang realized he was submerged in dark sticky fluid, his naked body lying against polished metal. Uncurling from the fetal ball he’d become, the Black Fly groped out with shaking hands, trying to identify where he was. The smooth rounded sides of his new container brushed against twitching fingers and Wolfgang drank in a mouthful of the warm liquid. New energy and life filled him with every drop of blood.
Eventually one of his hands parted the blood’s surface and found the lip of whatever held him. Withered muscles strained even with the glut of ichor to power them and it took Wolfgang terrible effort to pull his head into open air. Blinking away red droplets, licking what rained down his face, Wolfgang realized he lay in a bathtub, its copper stink practically invisible beneath the overwhelming aroma of fresh blood. Trying and failing to clean his sticky face, Wolfgang felt something patter against the top of his head. Looking up, he found the source of his rejuvenation. Three human corpses dangled overhead like ghastly chandeliers, their throats slit, emptying their life into the tub. Even now, the pale husks dripped their final contents onto him.
“Strix really are fragile, aren’t they? It took two weeks of such luxury to heal you.” Spoke an oddly familiar voice from nearby. The cadence and accent was Scapino, but the tone and pitch were not. Wolfgang finally cleared his eyes and scanned the surroundings, looking for his savior. A short, burly man with practically no neck sat on a stool next to the tub. A ragged cooper’s cloak hung about his shoulders and Scapino’s green mask covered his face.
Looking past this new form of his rescuer, Wolfgang realized he was in a posh bathing chamber, complete with tall mirrors, wash basins and every other acutremont available to the wealthy. But in the dingy light of candles and cracked glowstones, the room’s poor state became apparent. The mirrors were spotted, while water stains and mold showed on the floor and counters. In fact, Wolfgang could clearly see in the dust where he and the fodder for his regeneration had been dragged into the room.
Finding his words, Wolfgang spoke in a reedy voice. “Where have you taken me?”
Scapino stood from his three-legged stool and gestured about dramatically. “The Manor of the Kunras family, whose last members dangle above you.” squinting at the pale corpses, Scapino amended himself. “That or whoever was squatting in their manor, wearing their clothes. Honestly, considering the shape of things, it could be either option.”
Resisting the urge to let himself sink back into the warm blood’s embrace, Wolfgang tried to be more specific. “Where is Kunras Manor? What city?”
The smile on Scapino’s face was audible. “The site of your previous triumph, of course!”
Strutting over to what Wolfgang now realized was a shuttered window, Scapino threw it open and gestured out at what lay beyond. Shakily, Wolfgang climbed from the tub, blood dripping from his nakedness as he stepped onto the stained tile floor. He knew what awaited him at the window but still needed to see with his own eyes. Shuffling forward, Wolfgang was greeted by the stink of rot and ruin, of putrefaction and pestilence, of soot and sorrows. Reeling from the stained air’s reek, Wolfgang only then noticed the noise filling the bathroom along with the smell. At first he thought it was some low but constant gale scratching at the manor, but as Wolfgang’s ears came unclogged of blood, he knew what the sound was. It was the groans of ghouls, thousands and thousands of ghouls.
Stepping to the window, Wolfgang looked out across the corpse of his greatest victim. In the months since he’d last been to Harmas, much had changed. The wretched deaths and subsequent reanimation of so many plague victims had curdled the Aether. Gone was the metaphysical melodies of a living city, in their place was a blanket of miasma. Soaked in that layer of arcane corruption, Harmas’s once austere but impressive structures were now beset by rot.
Stone cracked, wood warped, while the plants and trees that should have grown wild without management were withered and sickly. Aside from this accelerated decay, the signs of more mundane violence were painted across the city. Burned husks of stores and homes neighbored crudely fortified businesses whose doors and windows were smashed open. Old stains and splintered bones upon worn cobblestones testified to grisly deaths. An overturned cart partially blocked one street, its contents long spilled and the only sign of its horse a gnawed upon spine sitting near the front axle.
But those details were secondary to the truest sign of Harmas’ death. For those abandoned and gore-marked streets and buildings were not empty. Shuffling throngs of corpses milled about, drawn to the moans of their kin, creating a never ending current of wandering dead. Just from where Wolfgang stood, he could easily see a hundred ghouls trudging down the road in pursuit of prey, real or imagined. The rotting parade moved at a steady shambling pace, its members a study in all of death's forms. Bloated husks wearing brown-stained night clothes walked alongside mauled men-at-arms, whose rusting armor clanked with every dragging footstep. Children bereft of limbs or organs struggled to keep up with their larger fellows, finding comradery with the more maimed members of the procession crawling along the ground. The eldest of the ghouls were easily identifiable by the withered nude forms; bodies desiccated but preserved by the very miasma that rotted the surrounding city.
Watching this danse macabre, drinking in the stories hidden in every corpse, Wolfgang smiled. The black lumps visible upon so many of the bodies testified to his genius, of how effectively he’d killed this city. Staring out at the unending corpse parade, Wolfgang could scarcely imagine what it must have been like mere weeks or months ago when these bodies were fresh grinning ghouls. How quickly must have things fallen apart as every victim of the plague rose up an undead berserker? Defending against the growing swarm would be near impossible as the contagion wormed its way through the soldiery and spread anew in every shelter or safe zone. Wolfgang wondered how long did the Temples stand? Harmas had only five compared to Vindabon’s great ten, but surely they must have put up a fight.
It mattered little in the end. The plague’s potency along with the other complications Wolfgang and Spymaster Arici set in motion made sure of that. Cut off by its ruler’s paranoia and left to fester, Harmas died the worst kind of death. Its end was slow enough for suffering, but fast enough to prevent salvation. Now, the city’s husk was reanimated and set forth as Duke Umbria willed it, a weapon to crush Crowbend Castle and with it all the Southern Marches. But what the Duke wished now mattered little to Wolfgang. He had other benefactors now, ones who wouldn’t waste his talents on ill-planned expeditions like what nearly just killed him. Still, his current location raised many questions. Why had Scapino and his fellows brought him here? Normally he would assume they sought the Broodmaiden, but it had been Pater Epulo himself who helped Wolfgang summon and bind the potent faerie. So, if this ‘troupe’ didn’t seek the plague’s heart, then what did they wish of him?
Something soft smacked into the side of Wolfgang’s head and he whirled about, nearly toppling over thanks to his withered limbs. Clutching the moth-eaten towel Scapino had just thrown at him, Wolfgang got the message and started wiping the blood from his skin. His masked savior spoke then, voice dripping with wry amusement. “You can jerk yourself out the window later; we’ve got business to attend to.”
Ignoring the crude joke, Wolfgang managed to scrape off, and mop up most of the blood. A bucket of cold water and another towel later, he was getting dressed in musty but well-fitting clothes Scapino scavenged from red night knows where. Pulling at his cuffs, Wolfgang asked. “What sort of business?”
Scapino was standing before a large floor-length mirror, staring into its spotted reflection. Approaching him, Wolfgang examined himself in the looking glass but realized it was pointless. The mirror was silver-backed and showed merely an empty suit animated by some invisible force. Finishing the final adjustments to his clothes, Wolfgang watched the empty suit mimic his actions. Such mirrors were practically unheard of in the Duchies, the nobility eschewing the infamous marker of their nature. So, considering this novelty, it took Wolfgang a moment to notice Scapino’s reflection.
A shout of panic escaped him as the Black Fly jumped back, tripping over his own legs and landing with a crack. Eyes wide, he stared at the mirror and what awaited him through the looking glass. Scapino wasn’t missing, like Wolfgang was, or more accurately, he was replaced. Instead of Scapino or his empty clothes, the mirror showed a writhing mass of ash compressed into humanoid form. Layers of undulating soot moved atop and through each other in a weaving dance. Wolfgang thought he saw occult sigils and fell runes in that pattern but couldn’t be certain with the ash moving so quickly. The form in the mirror was indistinct, a blurry outline that changed height, weight and even proportion constantly. Aside from its substance, the only constant part of it was the face. It wore a duplicate of Scapino’s mask, a smiling green visage leering out at the world with fell amusement.
Scapino turned around, but his reflection didn’t. Eyeing Wolfgang with dry humor, the creature said. “I see you are familiar with my kind. Well, it seems the Voivode didn’t skimp on your education, at least.”
Ashborn, Scapino, was Ashborn, a chimera of vampire and demon living in twisted symbiosis. As Wolfgang watched, the Hellkyn in the mirror faded away, replaced with Scapino’s empty clothes, leaving no sign of its insidious presence. Recovering himself slightly, Wolfgang struggled to his feet, eyes never leaving the hybrid. He knew what an Ashborn could do and what sort of person might enjoy such an existence. The comical pretense Scapino put on suddenly went from mildly annoying to deeply disturbing in Wolfgang’s estimate.
Managing to stand up, Wolfgang asked. “Why have you brought me here? What do you want?”
Looking at his nails with all the mock indifference of the street performer he pretended to be, Scapino answered. “Lots and lots of reasons, which we’ll go over during the meeting. But as for me personally; I want to be free, something I think you can empathize with. That desire is actually what unites this little cabal you’ve found yourself dragged into.”
Glancing around the bath chamber, wondering who or what would be meeting them in Harmas, Wolfgang pushed for more details. “What sort of freedom?”
Moving his head with exaggerated exasperation, Scapino gestured wildly. “The only kind that matters! Freedom from time, from death, from all the pesky pesky consequences this ill-bred universe tries to place upon us. Now, we can discuss that later, but the rest of the Troupe is waiting for us.”
Before Wolfgang could ask, Scapino pulled a long sliver of glass from his sleeve and jabbed it into the mirror behind him. Great cracks spread out from the shard, fracturing the looking glass into a dozen pieces. As Wolfgang watched, the silver melted into the cracked mirror, its sparkling material flowing into fractures, filling them with eerie too-white light. As the glow spread each of the broken pieces changed, no longer did they show the moldering bath chamber but strange and terrible masks.
There must have been more than a dozen of the sculpted faces, each reflected in a section of the mirror. No bodies lay behind each of the masks, they simply hung in empty air; stage props awaiting their next direction. Wolfgang’s eyes danced over the visages, drinking a red-faced miser; next to who was an ebony scholar with fat cheeks. Nearby was a leering cousin of Scapino’s own mask, colored brown with an avaricious expression to contrast the Ashborn’s mirth. Elsewhere a pair of oversized glasses sat upon a turtle-shell green face that twitched constantly; contrasted by the perfectly still white dove head next to it. Among these motley visages, only one was familiar to Wolfgang, the pallid death-mask of Pater Epulo.
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Spreading his arms wide, Scapino bowed with all his usual dramatic flourish. “Ladies, gentlemen and miscellaneous members of our esteemed Troupe! It is my honor to call upon you all this dark night to introduce a talented Capitano with the potential to move beyond such a disposable role.”
Stepping to the side, gesturing for Wolfgang to come forward, the Ashborn continued. “I bid welcome to Lord Aloyius Tyto Wolfgang! The Plague-Sower of Harmas, Black Fly of Gens Suillia and now warden of the infamous Isabelle Gens Silva!”
Standing before all those empty masks, feeling the cold gazes of so many monsters upon him, Wolfgang felt worse than naked. He felt flayed, his every strand uncoiled and examined. Leaning in next to him, Scapino spoke into Wolfgang’s ear in a mocking stage whisper. “I’m sure you won’t disappoint us.”
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It was a well-known truth among members of the Ivory Towers that, with enough time and not enough oversight, every Magi’s workspace will come to resemble the inner workings of their mind. For Preceptor Rellim Hardspade of Vindabon’s archaeology department, this was especially accurate. At first glance, the Preceptor’s office resembled that of any other academic allowed to nest in the same space for more than two decades.
Overstuffed bookshelves and document cabinets pressed against each other, all waiting for the weakest among them to burst apart in a shower of paper and parchment giving the survivors much needed room. Maps, sketches, and seemingly incomprehensible diagrams filled much of the walls not blocked by the before-mentioned furniture. While a large and rather time-worn desk dominated the room’s center, its surface fittingly an archaeological dig of documents, trinkets, and academic sundries. All of these features blended into a morass of banality that the uninformed or incurious might dismiss with a glace; much like the Magi responsible for them. But with a little inspection, the true implications of the room’s contents would come to light. Of all the papers and parchments filling the room, very few were written in standard Western. In fact, over three dozen languages and scripts were represented among the ink-marked mounds. Of those languages, maybe a quarter were still spoken; but Preceptor Rellim could read all of them.
Short, bespectacled and slightly portly, Rellim was in his native habitat, sitting in his high-backed chair and pouring over a scroll thick as his arm. Midnight had come and gone some time ago with only a now empty pot of tea testifying to Rellim noticing this fact. Alone in his office, the Preceptor traced the archaic characters upon the scroll, deciphering this copy of a translation of a copy the best he could. A deep frown was digging itself into Rellim’s forehead as he read and reread a particular passage.
While Rellim’s almost supernatural skill for languages, particularly dead ones, was a large factor for him gaining Preceptorship, it wasn’t the only reason. His obsessiveness, the bane of many students, had helped push his department to new heights. It was that trait that had him pouring over a crude copy of what he hoped was accurately transcribed northern proto-qabian poetry while recovering from the plague. This was just another step in a long meandering journey he’d started when a red-headed vampire thrall scribbled down her impressions of a forgotten tomb. Rellim did not know how close he was to this quest’s conclusion, but as he journeyed deeper down the aardig’s burrow, the more he feared what might greet him at the end.
At first, the Preceptor had simply wanted to know why Annoch was slumbering beneath the Dragon Tail Mountains of all places; being so far from his home. But careful reading of commentaries upon the Book of Miracles, along with translations of stele rubbings, pointed him to a deeper mystery. While Annoch the Binders presence could be explained by the ur-vampire simply fleeing his mother’s defeat by going as far away as possible; the torpor Lord Glockmire found him in was harder to puzzle out. While no Rest-bringer like his father or siblings, Rellim was familiar with the mechanics of undeath. One did not last as an archaeologist on Vardis without understanding that despite the past being dead, it often reanimated under the right circumstances. So he knew vampires entered decade or century long torpors to either heal from near-mortal wounds or to wash away the fog of ages such a long unlife spawned.
The obvious answer, and the one Rellim almost settled on, was that Annoch suffered battling the Seraphilim arrayed against him and his siblings. Yet this didn’t explain the mosaics in Yara’s drawings. These weren’t crude wall paintings but elaborate murals that must have taken considerable time, effort and resources to make. Annoch hadn’t hidden himself in some hole hoping to outlast the Seraphilim but nested in a grand tomb prepared by legions of servants. A conclusion supported by what little detail Yara captured in her sketches. They showed a bloody warlord, presumably Annoch himself conquering and ruling a petty kingdom in the Dragon Tail Mountains.
So if Annoch hadn’t been maimed by the angelbloods, then had he simply tried to sleep away the clutter in his mind all such an ancient experience? After pouring over scraps of old Imperial military reports, Rellim found a brief mention of the region that became Glockmire. Of how iron legionnaires conquered and ‘rectified’ a tribe of cultists worshiping a Redcap. While he couldn’t be certain, Rellim could guess this ‘Redcap’ had been the slumbering Annoch. Soldiers trained in fighting the Fae would see what they expected to see, after all. With this in mind, it seemed possible a group of lead-fisted legionaries might have accidentally saved the entire continent by killing those tasked with waking Annoch at his torpor's end. Which was exactly the sort of coincidence the Pantheon favored.
Reading between the lines of later documents, Rellim found plenty of signs that even with the original tribe destroyed, Annoch's presence was still felt. The imperial fort erected in the mountain pass would quickly gain a reputation for its discipline problems and shocking rate of attrition. On two separate occasions, there were failed mutinies that ended in decimation and ugly executions. While the small mining settlement attached to the fort was subject to near constant Veneficium inspections to root out fell magics. Rellim wondered in some ironic way if the later duchy rulership of what became Glockmire and the harvesting of the Alukah’s power had actually helped mellow what had once been a truly cursed place.
The Preceptor had been about to formally document his findings and shut the proverbial book on this enigma when he finally noticed the old scroll he now perused. It had been buried among the texts collected from the tower archive and at first seemed only tangentially related to Rellim’s research. The scroll contained a variety of poems and songs from roughly the time and region of the Rabisu. Rellim suspected the librarian had added it to the pile of reference texts he’d requested on a whim, or in hopes of making the collection of tomes seem bigger. No matter the reason for its presence, this old and poorly translated collection of forgotten words now recontextualized much of Rellim’s work.
Mixed in with the scroll’s prose was a gruesome tale of filicide and matricide. At a cursory glance, this story seemed a mere ghost poem nestled between its more palatable kindred; and that is probably exactly what whoever compiled this scroll thought it was. Rellim could imagine some poor scholar who could write proto-qabian tasked with copying dozens of loosely connected texts onto this single scroll for safe keeping. Their inexpert eye mixing in a profound outlier out of sheer ignorance. As it took someone like Rellim who knew both proto-qabian and zutic votive script to realize the ‘poem’s true nature. It wasn’t grisly prose, but a very literal account of events.
Over and over, Rellim read this testament, trying to comprehend its full meaning. The recorded tale was of the Rabisu, her rise, and fall. That much was indisputable, matching the Book of Miracles and other more… precise texts the Temples preferred to keep locked away. But unlike those accounts, this version offered another reason for the Alukahs defeat and Annoch’s flight. Just as they turned on their mother, the nine original vampires betrayed each other at the worst possible moment. Descending into paranoia and fratricide even as the Seraphilim and their allies hunted them one by one. Instead of uniting against this common enemy, each of the Alukah tried to direct the avenging host against their siblings.
At first, Rellim thought this act of staggering short-sightedness was an attempt to exhaust the Seraphilm’s force; but the more he read and deciphered the subtext, the more the truth became clear. With each Alukah slain, the surviving siblings grew stronger. Not just in unlife, but in true death as well. Every time the armies of the living slew one of the nine, the destruction unleashed became worse. Corrupted wastelands, dripping with blood and curses arose from each destroyed Alukah. Fertile lands and prosperous cities turned into demon-haunted deserts and bone-strewn ruins by each ‘victory.’
This forced the living to change tactics, deciding to seal away the four remaining Alukah, an infinitely more difficult effort that would spare the heartlands of Qabsu more torment. Only Zisurr the Clever suffered such a fate, and the remaining three fled. Other texts told that Shama the Perverse, ninth Alukah, eventually met a similar end as Zisurr at the Sidhe’s hands, centuries later, but until Natalie Striga stumbled into focus, the last two Alukah were missing from the records. Now, that village girl held within her inconceivable power and worryingly little information about its potential.
That potential was what had Rellim so concerned, as he reread the scroll for perhaps the tenth time. Because despite being an average Magi by all standards of puissance, Rellim knew much about curses and could guess how the Alukahs grew in power as they decreased in number.
Liking his lips, Rellim spoke the answer aloud to make it feel real. “They become more like their mother, more like the original. They can draw upon the curse, being altered by it and…and”
“Altering it, yes,” said a bored voice from across Rellim’s desk. The Preceptor let out a shocked yelp and nearly toppled over his chair, bringing up a gold-capped wand to bear on the intruder. Sitting in the lumpy chair Rellim kept for guests and more often more books was a desiccated cadaver wearing heavy jewelry and fine blue robes. With an audible creak, the corpse raised one of its thin eyebrows.
Letting out a breath, Rellim settled back in his chair and put down his wand. “First Preceptor… how long were you sitting there?”
The Lych shrugged one shoulder in a noncommittal gesture. Resting his hands on the scroll before him, Rellim met the corpses' polished opal eyes. Archmagi Leonid Lupa could change his forms like most men did their clothes; and out of some strange tradition, he kept specific bodies for each Preceptor beneath him. So naturally Lupa took the form of some long-dead noble pulled from his ransacked tomb. Rellim guessed this appearance was some joke or commentary; but had long given up on trying to decipher its meaning.
Reaching out with a ring-encrusted finger, Lupa tapped the scroll, taking up much of Rellim’s desk. “I see you found the little secret hidden in this.”
Understanding how and why this odd text had ended up in his office, Rellim nodded. “Could she do it? Alter the curse of vampirism, that is?”
Steepling those same fingers, Lupa replied. “Theoretically, but much stands in the way of such a feat. Queen Eresh barely managed it with the Pantheon's assistance and look how that ended for her. Still, I’d wager Master Time has high hopes for young Natalie in that regard. The corruption Eresh spawned is too far gone to truly destroy; It's cut into the Beyond and can be shoddily recreated over and over by the desperate and damned. But just because the curse can’t be destroyed, doesn’t mean it can’t be lessened. I mean, look at what happened with the Werebeasts.”
Reaching out and collecting one of Rellim’s teacups, the Lych filled it with a gesture and sipped some dark brew. “Whatever happens with her, Natalie Striga is destined to have an interesting life. Poor girl. But she’s not what I’m here to talk to you about; I simply wanted to provide some context before moving onto the main topic.”
Reeling with what was certainly information some would kill for, Rellim asked. “Well, what is the main topic?”
Draining his cup, Lupa’s opal eyes flashed. “Her protector, of course. You are friends with him, correct?”
Lips pursed, Rellim replied. “Not long ago, I’d have simply said we were colleagues, but now… I guess we are. What do you want to know about Cole?”
The cadaver’s face split into a smile, revealing solid gold teeth. “He’s caught my attention, and I’d like to get another's perspective about him. Particularly if you’ve noticed anything… unusual about this Paladin.”
Rellim was silent for a long moment. Where could he start? Not much about Cole was normal. His size, his skin, his personality, his… everything was strange. But even if Rellim knew where to begin, should he? While he’d always had good relations with the Lych, Rellim found himself hesitant to speak about Cole. His father Philip's words echoed in his ear, ‘If it won’t die it will always lie.’
“What do you want to know?” asked Rellim, hoping to get a sense of what direction this conversation might take.
Still smiling, the Lych set down his teacup and replied. “Well, to start, have you seen him die before?”