7673 bce, The Infernim.
Cary grumbled to herself as she tapped the lock on the massive stone door with her finger. In response to her will, her flesh slid into the mechanism, pressed the tumblers in, and rotated the lock.
“I should make Guyarl do this himself, don’t know why I’m taking the risk.” She had to get the words out before she opened the door, otherwise she might give herself away.
Sliding under the door would have been as easy as taking a nap. And if the seals had been a little looser, she might have tried it. But even her body had limits to how thin she could turn before she lost cohesion. The thought sent ripples though her body as she sealed her mouth and padded into the room.
Flickering light greeted her from sconces situated around all eight sides of the room, each one right in the center of its panel. Below those sconces sat bas reliefs depicting vimina of all types, from the flying castle variety to the humble roadsters that puttered along over cobblestone paths.
The carving on the interior of the door showed the destruction of a massive island, complete with escaping vimina and other mortal means of flight. What happened in the realm mortals amounted to exactly nothing in Cary’s mind. Time could pass and die until the end of all things and the coming of the Boundary for all she cared.
Only two things mattered at the moment. One, the possibility of finding a fixative for her body, lay somewhere within this old vault. The other, not being caught by the owner of this place, came a close second in Cary’s mind.
To that end, she shifted her feet into soft furred pads, and focused on lightening her body so she could glide over the stones without the whisper of movement. For her color, she picked something mottled with grey and blacks, praying to the Fell Gods that she wouldn’t lose control of herself here.
The fixative, assuming it was in the chest in the center of the room, would solve that problem entirely.
Ignoring the rest of the reliefs about the room, Cary padded up to the chest in the center and examined the cover. Arcane runes covered the box, meaning that the owner was most likely a spell caster. When she saw Guyarl next, she’d stuff one of his blow holes with wax over that omission.
But Cary could handle spells and the demons who cast them, no problem. As long as she cowered a full realm away, properly hidden by enemy sorcerers. After this job, she might even be able to afford the latter.
Smacking her lips, Cary examined the chest without touching its surface. Any decent security spell would trigger from mere contact. But the worst effect would come when the lid opened. Cary had a solution for that: the seams of this chest were nowhere near as close as those on the door. Why the owner of this treasure would protect their door better than this chest didn’t occur to Cary.
Thinning out her hand as much as she could without it splashing agains the dais the chest sat on, Cary reached under the lip. Feeling around took concentration, but she discovered a small vial in the chest, just the size of a ripe fig. With a flick of a sharpened fingernail, she snipped the wax stopper off and chased her hand into the liquid.
When this worked, Cary would reach the next stage of her evolution. Her arm quivered at the thought of what she could steal when her transformation had no chance of failing randomly. At first the liquid in the vial felt cool to the touch, like the runoff from the arctic snows.
But then it began to burn with the ferocity of power that sent massive lightning-like jolts up Cary’s arm. At the first hint of pain, she lost control over her form and she resolved into a mostly cohesive mass of jelly. Throwing off bits as she wriggled, her arm drooped and slapped against the surface of the chest.
Flame chased with screaming skulls poured out of the runes on the chest. At once, Cary knew she’d activated a dangerous True Rite. Bracing for her death, the magic instead washed over and into her body, adding its mass to the increasingly painful surge from within. This was not how a True Fixative should have felt, but the mysterious fluid had already merged with her substance, changing her from within the chest to without.
Unable to withhold her screams any longer, Cary’s gelatinous form burbled and squealed in pain, emitting a sound few other creatures this side of the Boundary could produce. When her rattlings tore the chest open, it exploded with shards of black smoking metal, which were themselves carved with fiery orange skulls. They screamed with a howling that set Cary’s mind on edge as they swarmed into her body.
More and more power merged with her form. As it did, the tide within her bubbled and roiled. Cary was certain she’d found her termination in this box, cursing Guyarl and his idiocy as she grew and boiled, Cary accepted her end.
And then like that, the pain and surging stopped. At once, Cary’s body stabilized and she turned into the shape she’d always envied, that of one of the Carnal Host, a Temptress of Flesh. At once her translucent skin turned from pink with green bubbles to royal purple chased with flecks of gold. Her hands elongated until lovely little talons rested on the ends. Her feet turned cloven and capped with gold.
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Feeling her face, Cary found smooth skin and elongated ears, along with a pair of curved horns. At her back flapped two dainty bat wings that matched the purple and gold of her scaled tail. It ended with a wicked barbed stinger. Cary felt powerful and strong for the first time in her life. Taking a few exploratory steps, she found that her form didn’t waver in the slightest.
After so much commotion, she held her tongue rather than shout her triumph. Whatever had been in that vial was even better than the fixative. And Cary was glad to have consumed it.
“I should think you would be.” The carving opposite the door she’d walked into slid open with the grinding of stone against stone. “That was certainly not a fixative. Rather it was something of my own design. I am glad you liked it.”
A hooded figure stepped into the room, the light pooling away from its writhing shadows as it moved. As it moved, the door behind Cary slammed shut, the seals closing to keep her locked within. The figure flung an arm out from its side and Cary flinched instinctively.
Guyarl flew past her into the room, his furred matted with black blood as he shook on the floor. He mewled from the spot where he’d fallen. “Sorry Cary. It’s nothing personal.”
The black shrouded figure snapped its fingers and Guyarl lay still. “Silence, slave.” Guyarl stopped twitching or moving in the least. With an eery silence, the shrouded sorcerer approached Cary. “You on the other hand, are encouraged to speak. How was the experience of absorbing my creation?”
Cary opened her mouth to tell the shrouded man off, but her intended words failed to come out. “It was excruciating, but I think I absorbed a portion of the magical protections on your warded chest.”
The man’s empty sleeve rose up into its hood and he nodded with his whole body bobbing forward with the effort. “I see. That is especially interesting.” He floated closer to Cary and examined her from head to foot. “I see you chose the form of a Temptress. How banal. They are incredibly common next to your ilk. A Formless One, and unfixed at that.”
His sleeved twitched together as if they clapped in glee. “You were a thief? Such a common occupation for one such as you. And a pity your partner chose to warn me of your approach. Though you would have been destroyed the moment you encountered my real wards, if I’d so chosen. Regardless, you now serve me, slave. And I think I have something a little different in mind for you…”
Weeks of torturous experimentation followed. By the end, Cary had grown to fear her master, Elelele, more than anything she’d ever encountered in her short century of existence. With an furious gesture, he would mold her into something with only nerves on the outside and drop her into the hottest portion of the Infernim. Only after a few months of that treatment did Cary realize he did it not just out of curiosity, but because he enjoyed the timbre of her screams.
No matter what deprivation or destruction he chose to inflict upon her, Cary’s pitiful existence continued. At the end of nearly a year, Cary had been thoroughly broken by Elelele. She served him his meals, along with tea, all while wearing whatever form he chose for her. Thinking that her life would persist that way forever, Cary had accepted it early.
Then her real training began. Though he never permitted her to attempt to use magic on her own, Elelele forced thousands of formulae upon Cary’s mind. Through endless repetition and practice, he honed her into a instrument of recording and observation. As he brought her into a new room, he expected her to draw it perfectly or sculpt its likeness in clay after only a few second’s viewing. She recited lengthy tomes, many meaningless to Cary, who was only expected to memorize and reiterate the sounds.
This went on for almost a decade, by the end of which Elelele seemed satisfied with her performance. At the end of those tens years of deprivation and instruction, Elelele ordered her to take only her Temptress form and that of a Caryatid. He loved his puns.
After that day, Cary’s master would sell her statued body off to various buyer, with no more instructions to Cary than to observe all and report back to Elelele when he invoked her. She would change hands a dozen times, each new owner completely unaware of Cary’s true form, of her true nature. And then one day her master would call her back.
Cary passed eight thousand years this way.
* * *
October 7, 2005 ce.
Teresa Marcus-Olren sweat on the birthing table. Her hair stuck to her head and her limbs trembled at the birth pangs. Twins, the midwife had said twins, but Mother Greybill had other suspicions. She’d said the birth would be traumatic, for mother and daughter, but no mention of a second child.
Pushing those thoughts out of her head, Teresa following the breathing pattern the midwife insisted upon and waited to push, knowing that the labor had already gone on longer than it should have. If not for the enchantment Greybill laid on the midwife, the woman would have insisted they admit Teresa to the hospital.
Those thoughts didn’t help her panic either. Soreness and exhaustion raged through her body, made her tremble with each short breath she took. Something felt wrong in her midsection, she just knew it, but the midwife refused to speak of whatever the problem was. And there was so much blood.
Hours more passed by and Teresa slipped in and out of consciousness. As she did, the Viewing came upon her. In a flash, she knew she would not survive the birth of her only child. She further knew that the babe had already consumed the life force of her brother. By the time Teresa brought forth the baby girl, the little one would consume Teresa too.
Flashes of a life flicked before her like an old style slideshow. Raised under the cruel hand of Mother Greybill, Teresa’s chid would know little joy, at least in her early years. With the last gasps of her power flooding out of her body and into the miniature vortex at the opening to her womb, Teresa reached out and committed a final crime against Fate and Destiny.
She warped the future with her Sight, entwining another’s destiny with her daughter. The threads grew so close to each other that Teresa’s had only to pluck a single skein, her own child’s. It was as simple as spilling salt.
With that final act of mercy and hope, Teresa Marcus-Olren died.
The baby screamed as her mother’s heart stopped. Cynthia Greybill hobbled over to the wrinkled little bit of flesh. “Clear her lungs, sever the cord, and give her to me.” Power flashed out of her eyes and mouth and into the reluctant midwife’s face.
Following the orders, neither the midwife nor Cynthia paid the least bit of attention to the withered corpse that fell onto the table following the child’s birth. Opening her robe, Cynthia slit the midwife’s throat with a red-handled blade, forged for this purpose and let the crimson fluid shower over her and the baby.
Her — Emilia’s — first sip of milk came from a stranger’s breast, mixed with the blood of her mother and the maid who delivered her. Cynthia cackled at the child as she sucked hungrily at the mix. “You will do great things, child. And I will expect even greater from you.”