The three men round the corner up ahead, moving with considerable haste and speed, hoping for escape. They will not make it.
On the ground before me, I see the rose. It is burning. Weakened by age, it is succumbing quickly to my powers. It will take but a moment more ... there. It is done.
A smile spreads across my features. Only ashes remain where once the flower blocked my path. White ashes. They are spread across the door stones like ... A fleeting image springs before my mind. Reaching out with my thoughts, I grasp it and pull it to me. Although long ago, I remember; indeed, I will never forget the Ritual ...
I stood before an archway much like this. All about the path ashes had been spread. I remember walking forward through them, through the Arch of Necrosia, into the Chamber of Damnation. It is so strange, how I often have no memory of such distant times, but this I remember clearly. It seems no more remote than yesterday, certainly not the thousand years of truth. Yes, I remember. There were bones in those ashes. Small bones. Children’s bones. Six young boys and girls slaughtered for me, for the rite; their skeletal remains crunched beneath my feet as I walked. That was the last time anything ever marked my passage with such noise.
I remember the hunger. Seven days and six nights I spent, swearing off both food and drink. My desire for nourishment had grown so strong, I thought nothing could ever surpass it. Looking back, I realize that that hunger was but a paltry shadow, a dim omen of the hunger with which I must now contend every day of my existence. I remember the ritual bath, soaking for hours in a tub full of oils while slaves knitted robes of black.
I remember Zarina. I had loved her once, adored her even. Sometimes I still do ... until I contemplate her treachery. At that time, however, she was my goddess. Alas, she could never be mine; she was a queen and I but a humble servant. The altar, that was her place in the forbidden rite, that was where she waited. I remember her hair, black as death throughout her life, framing her face like a shadowy cowl. She watched me as I approached. Her serpent green eyes seared into my heart. They marked me. Changed me. Consumed my soul. She carried the obsidian chalice in her hand, the one filled with the infants’ blood. She placed it on the altar as I stepped up, then she gave me the great black knife while the others, the six men and six women, my first victims, were led out in chains to kneel before me ... like cattle being brought out to slaughter.
Zarina began to chant and the priests of the Black Circle joined her, lighting the incense. The smell ... yes, I remember that too: strong and pungent, it hung in the air and clung to my clothes. It was with the incense that I started to change. Zarina felt it too. She dipped the small metal sprinkler in the chalice, then cast blood upon my brow. It fell like rain. Red and sweet. I remember the taste as the first drop trickled past my lips, so sweet, so glorious, filled with so much life and power. I took the knife, then, and relieved my mortal victims of their useless lives. Their blood I collected in the chalice of Death, letting it fill the obsidian cup to the brim. As the incense flared anew, I brought the vessel to my lips and drank, pouring the blood of eighteen mortals down my throat to fill my stomach, to fill my soul. On the altar beside me, a devoted priest slew a single wolf and bat, while above, black clouds grew in the heavens until all was consumed in darkness.
Zarina spoke. The final words were uttered. I scrawled the Oath in ashes and my transformation was complete. I became what I am, and what I am, I shall always be.
Lucian val Drasmyr, Lord of Death and Darkness, Guardian of Morgulan’s prize.
Drasmyr (Prequel: From the Ashes of Ruin) Page 27