Blood Wraiths

Rats. More rats. Their noises drew him again from his dreams. Would they nibble his bones? Reduce him to dust as surely as a stake through his heart? They swarmed over his arms and legs, pulling at him with claws like tiny needles, puncturing his dried, papyrus skin with small, razor-sharp teeth.

Hoon shuddered, wishing that he could scream, but his throat and mouth would not work. His awareness fled into the darkest corners of his mind where his thoughts spun and sped in looping spirals. Hunger. Hunger. Hunger. The demon-vampire wished for death to free him of it. All of the organs in his nude, gaunt body had shriveled and dried out like wooden husks within the paper of his skin. His cock looked like a brittle twig where it lay against his thigh. His ribs stood out, his sinews and his bones lay bare. Yet his undead soul could not flee its casings.

Four thousand years since he killed her, give or take a few centuries. Six thousand since he and his two younger brothers, Isranon the Dawnhand and Waejonan had fled the wrath of Willodarus the God of the Woodlands and Wild Creatures. Waejonan had slain the god's sylvan granddaughter, Melorien: claiming it was an accident. Hoon and Dawnhand believed Waejonan, and followed him into exile on this continent out of love for him, where they took wives and settled to build a kingdom. They had thought themselves wise and worldly: in the end they had been foolish and naïve.

Gylorean Galee, Willodarus' lover, had been their teacher and their betrayer as she led them into their betrayals of each other. She made Waejonan the first of the sa'necari, necromancers of great power, remorseless hemovores wielding all the abilities of the undead and cursed with their appetites. And he was her favorite. Brandrahoon, as he was called then, she made the first of vampires, demon vampires, the Lemyari. Only Isranon the Dawnhand had questioned her and refused to become something she wished. She came to hate him. At her urging, Waejonan had killed him for it.

Once there were three brothers… Once there were three brothers. It became a litany in his head. Every race and nation had some version of their story and it all started out the same, 'Once there were three brothers: Brandrahoon the vampire; Isranon called Dawnhand, speaker to spirits; and Waejonan the Accursed, first of sa'necari. And they killed their middle brother and forced his descendants into the darkness.'

Had there been any moisture left in his body, Hoon would have shed a tear to think of it. Too late he knew what Gylorean Galee truly was: the sa'nekaryiane, the Mother of Damnation, a fallen hellgod that always returned to her god box where she waited to be released again upon the world… he had unwittingly been tricked into freeing her and restoring the fullness of her power. Now, she held him captive.

He and his brothers had not known that sa'necari could get into people's minds and make them do things they would not otherwise do. They had not known that vampires could do such things. Hoon had only been a vampire for three years when Amalthea helped his brother murder his children. They had not really understood what it meant to be a vampire or a sa'necari in those days, for there had been none before them to teach them such things. Hoon had not known, until a year ago — no, longer, a year and a half ago, it was hard to think clearly — that Amalthea had been innocent, that Waejonan had taken her mind. He had not told Timon. It was terrible enough that one of them had to live with such guilt.

Oh, she had betrayed Hoon's bed without a single misgiving, but she had not slain their children of her own free will. Amalthea wanted immortality and Hoon had refused to give it to her. He suspected his wife had been sleeping with his brother long before Dawnhand died, before he, himself, died and rose undead. But the children —

The rats came again, bringing his thoughts from the past to the present. Each time there were more of them than before. The fact that he could not see them made it worse. They swept over him, their claws making holes in the parchment his skin had become. Oh, to be able to scream!

To scream without stopping and release his anguish! Then they were gone once more.

A tiny corner of Hoon's mind knew that he was slowly going mad. However, most of the time, he was simply lost in it. His thoughts turned and twisted, weaving through webs and spirals of lore, tales and stories, memories, visions, nightmares until nothing matched and he could no longer tell one from the other. There was no sun, no moon, no stars, only dancing flames — it burned, but the colors were wrong, white hot brightness and burning blues that seared his eyes. Buildings taller than he could ever have imagined possible, hundreds of stories high simply collapsed, folding down into themselves, leaving blackened shadowshapes against the skies like haunted memories of their presences. People fleeing, screaming — people in swarms thicker than ever he had seen in the greatest cities of this world — their sheer numbers incomprehensible. Then suddenly they were simply gone — flashed out of existence and their shadows-gods of hell, what was this? Their shadows remained against the walls of the buildings like ashy paintings. Fires raged in other parts, but most of the city, which sprawled as far as the eye could see, was leveled.

Hoon sensed the presence of divinity, dark divinity and it drew him. He heard it cursing and crying out for its box. Its bloody box. The twisted creature was female, clawing at the earth — not the earth, the ground, sheathed in some hard surface and pulled up a chunk of it, exposing dead dirt beneath it.

A demon, its long fangs glinting in the shimmering hell-light of the radiation, stood over the creature, dangling a box on a chain. Its horns curved and straightened in constantly shifting patterns while its body flowed like crystal waters up and down as the changes slid along it, colors and shapes, electric patterns, glistening wet, now jewel tones, now pearl, never twice the same, except for the fangs and the box. "I have it, Gylorean."

She writhed in his grip, snarling. "Give it. My godhood."

He/she/it extended his/her/its hand, catching the creature's throat and controlling her easily. "Not yet. It will do you no good, my daughter, until you have someone with both the power to open it and the tools to work the proper rites to enable it. And you must be properly prepared to receive it. I know what they did to you."

Gylorean Galee stilled and the demon relaxed its hold. "What do I do?" Galee asked the demon.

"First I must pass you into undeath and then you must create a nekaryiane and have it create a new living body for you."

Gylorean spat. "I am geised to aid my accursed husband."

Contempt oozed from the demon's voice, "He did not specify when. They have fled west. The war goes against him. Tamikan is slain and her newborns have been thrown to Tala's moonwolves. They devour them even now. Londar lies dying beneath the claws of Willodarus's gryphons. Aroana has slain his sons. Bellocar stands at bay on the escarpment and Davera sends earthquakes and volcanoes. Torrundar rages among his forces with thunder and lightning. Badonth is a terror with his flaming sword. Nerindalori ravages the seiryn with tsunami. Let us begin and then hide yourself. Emerge to subvert their people, daughter. You will have only a few gifts. Use them wisely. In time you will find your way back to your godhead and vengeance on both sides."

Galee bowed her head. "I am the Glistening One and I will be a god again."

The demon seemed to smile, took his daughter in his arms, and sank his fangs into her. She laughed as she died.

GODWAR CENTRAL

Blood Wraiths