Ascension

Ascension


Dark clouds obscured the pale moon as the wind howled across the hills. A dark hunched form struggled in the infernal wind, stopping and resting against the gnarled trunk of a long dead tree. Somewhere in the distance, wolves could be heard as they prowled the misty night for the unwary and the weak, but the dark form feared not wolves or any other natural beast of the night.
Smiling to himself under his dark hood he began his trek across the hallowed field towards his home, on the far outskirts of Galadon. Tall bleak towers of black stone waited for him as he returned from his quest.

"Too long have I been away from my studies." He thought as the castle came into view from between the thick banks of rising fog.

“At last I have arrived.”

He said that aloud though nothing alive could have heard his wispy voice over the howl of the October winds. When he was a young man returning from the war torn battlefields of Galadon, he found his mother in the arms of another man and his father dying, wasting away of some illness there was no cure for. In his despair for his father and anger at his mother, he had turned to the black side of magic in order to restore his father’s health. Necromancy was the only option left unexplored, but the cost was almost more than he could bear. His father’s cold corpse still roamed the halls and called for his fallen son.

As he approached the gates, shambling steps could be heard near the closed portcullis, and strange moaning sounds escaped the dark confines of the towers, giving clues to the haunting image of the tortured souls left as its dark retainers.

“Your master has returned!” he cried in triumph.

“Open the gates for the Lord of Strasigaard!”

Cold steel cried out as it grated against the ancient stone of the keep and the portcullis began to rise ever so slowly to allow him entrance. Dark forms materialized from the mist as the smell of his flesh woke them from their slumber.

“Blood.” This shallow word echoed and reverberated through the walls and the wind to reach his ears.

“Yes, blood my children” he said quietly and then quieter “but not for long.”

His hollow laughter rang through the night, the wolves in the nearby wood seemed to be answering him with their own laughter. Wasting no time he descended into the depths of his monstrous creation, where his grisly laboratory awaited his eventual return. He paused momentarily as his gaze fell upon his magical altar, carved from the depths of the Mont Dogon and decorated with the gory leavings of his research; the blackened stone was the resting-place for his vessel of immortality.

This vessel was once owned by a great king, carved for him by an ancient craftsman. It was an hourglass of spun gold and unbreakable glass, or so he was led to believe. It was intended to mark the last days of the king before he died, and as the sand fell from the top it ceased to exist, along with the life of the long dead ruler.
It was comical to the dark mage at this time to think that the object and chronicler of the king’s death would be the object of his own immortality.

“Tomas, Mikhail come to me my children” The Necromancer called as he caressed the morbid talisman tied about his neck.

A shuddering moan shook the walls of the room and dark mist began to filter in through cracks in the foundation, slowly congealing and forming into the likeness of two men. Tomas a former noble of some repute was thought to have died during a hunting expedition some forty years past. His dark hair and fair eyes, coupled with his large muscular frame made him a strikingly handsome individual. Mikhail was once the young son of a neighboring baron who was stolen from his own bed as he slept; red hair and emerald green eyes with a slight frame build for stealth made him an excellent companion for Tomas.

“Ahhh my boys I hope you were not lonely while I was away?”

Both young men graced him with their undying hatred blazing from their baleful eyes and canine snarls.

“Now now, no need to for that” he said smiling like a proud father at them both.

“I have it!” he said triumphantly, as he reached in and brought forth clenching a dark brown parchment bound in silver from the folds of his volumous robe.

“I have the ritual, and now I will be as blessed as the two of you.... but without the hunger with drives you so.”

“I have a very serious mission for the two of you; I want you to bring me a child, a female child. A waif from mixed bloodlines and born out of wedlock, surely those simple heathens have a few pieces of such trash burdening their lives, and boys, I do want her alive and completely unharmed.”

Both creatures, for that is what they were, not men, nodded they’re understanding and merged with the shadows of the room before they dissipated into nothingness. Meanwhile the dark magi began the preparations that would complete his ritual.

#

Tomas and Mikhail resumed their human guises once outside the castle walls, and walked the rest of the way into the local village with ravenous patience. A child the bastard had asked for. Though both were now creatures of the night, they still held onto enough humanity to quell at such a request. They knew mortals who entered the masters lair for any reason were never the same. His dark appetite and lust for carnage surpassed anything they were capable of themselves.

As they crested the last hill, the woefully forgotten village spilled out before them, sprawled out across a natural valley and nestled close to the winding river that supplied the village with most its food and income. Small fishing vessels crammed the low rotting dock, as all the fishermen were indoors once night fell. Only a fool or a vagabond would be outside on a night such as this.

Music and raucous laughter poured obnoxiously out of a building they knew was the local tavern. Fishermen drunkenly sang their bawdy songs of the sea, while wenches served them and pried their fingers from unwanted places. Tomas and Mikhail often hunted outside of this establishment and knew their particular quarry would not be found anywhere near, so they began to skirt the outer perimeter.

As they stalked through the shadowed side streets, between the hovels and shanties, a cold rain began to buffet them and soak the garments they wore. Hearing the mewling of an infant and the coddling responses of its mother the dark pair slinked their way, down a side street to a small thatch hovel; intrigued they eased towards the sound of their unsuspecting host.

The hovel was a small clay cottage with a badly thatched roof. Mesmerized by the stench of old diapers and the sweet perfume of blood as it raced its way through the veins of the living, Tomas and Mikhail approached. Through the window on the north side they could clearly see a pair of women leaning over a rickety crib attempting to pacify the child within. Both women were haggard and worn; the lines of age creasing their faces almost as much as the evident hunger that wasted their bodies.

“He’s been gone almost two weeks Mary he aint never coming back and you know it”

“He WILL come back, he promised! He did and little Jen expects him any day now!”

“You are a fool Mary, that man got just what he wanted from your baby girl and took off back to the city when his stomach couldn’t handle having a little one around no more. You should’ve made that curly bastard marry her as soon as you knew for shore she was gonna have to carry his seed.”

“Well all the same it’s a still a baby and he's crying for his ma. Lidy lets go”.

Picking up the babe and starting for the door, the women stopped to put on their shawls and cloaks to venture out into the rain. Tomas and Mikhail pulled back into the shadows in preparation for the hunt, canines elongating as the thrill and lust for blood took control of them and compelling them to froth with anticipation.

As Mary and Lidy exited the building they readied themselves to brave the fury of the storm building over their little village. White acrid lightning bolted across the sky and illuminated the area revealing the crouching form of Tomas.

Mary breathed in quickly preparing the scream, when Tomas’ wickedly sharp talons shot forward and impaled her haggard face. Lily turned to run and slammed into the chest of Mikhail just as he reached to for her. The cries that ensued woke the whole area though none were brave enough to leave their homes. Soon nothing could be heard but the screaming wails of the cold infant laying in the mud and blood where it fell, and then silence ensued once more.

#

The cowled wizard hovered over his prepared area, checking all his unholy instruments with absolute tenacity to detect any imperfection. A single beaker filled with some bubbling green fluid belched acrid smoke as it heated over the magic flame in its gruesome bone resting place. The remnants of some ancient beast’s skull was split and laid on its top to make a large bowl and a blown glass tube swirled its way from its center and hovered precariously over the fuming potion.

A large pentagram had been drawn on the floor by the mage’s hand and laid over with salt; a single black candle adorned each point and spit orange flickers across the entire room. In the center of the pentagram was the phylencantry, his vessel that would contain his essence while the price was being exacted from his body. Nervously he unrolled the scroll he had aquired on his quest, and he began to recite the lines over and over attempting to commit them to memory.

"This is it." he thought as he read the scroll to himself.

"At last, I will surpass my masters in both power and daring, I will achieve in one night what they could never do in a lifetime. I can become an immortal, according to the scroll I retrieved my body and my soul will last forever and my power will grow beyond all reckoning. My control over the undead will become innate, instead of forced by magic. I will become a dark god to exact vengeance on those who have wronged me, yes Galadon will suffer, their king will suffer as will my whore of a mother, who now stands at his side. Oh my father, stay strong just a bit longer and I will reverse your fate and we will exact vengeance together!"

At that particular moment he heard the soft footfalls of his minions, and the muffled cries of the child they brought to him. “It is time to begin!” He whispered breathlessly as his excitement got the better of him.

“Hand it to me Tomas.”

Tomas carried the babe to his master curled peacefully in his arms,unaware of its imminent danger. The mage reached down and grasp the child by its neck and raised it, wailing its protest, to examine it carefully. Gracing his creations with a smile of utter triumph and exultation he said,

“You have done well Tomas, Mikhail. You have done me a very great service. Now go and do not return until I call for you.”

Exchanging blank glances they both faded into mist and slid through the floor to their daytime resting places. The mage still holding the child in the air slowly set it into the strange skull bowl with its unholy umbilical cord feeding into the green noxious fluid. With a flick of his wrist he released the mechanism holding his dagger to his wrist and raised it high into the air, and plunged it into the bowl quickly finishing his grim business without as much as a flinch.

Slowly the glass tube running the length of the table filled with the grim red fluid from the grisly bowl, inching its way towards the potion prepared by the magi. As the blood reached his stand he reached and held the beaker, as the first drop careened downward into the mixture he pulled it away and brought it to his lips. Sighing and with a moments hesitation, he drank down the mixture and stood before his altar. He raised the silver bound scroll and read aloud the incantation, with perfect inflection and pace.

As the last word was uttered from his lips, green flame tentacles sprung from the five candles, piecing his chest and exiting his eyes, mouth and ears. Howling in pain and confusion, he fell to his knees as the tentacles of green flame whipped out of his body holding a transparent silvery image of himself, pulling it towards the golden hourglass container, which he had prepared.

He fell forward in victory for the spell was complete. He Jayden Dracul, last heir of house Dracul would ascend this night into the highest rank of undead. He would become a Lich.