The black cloud hangs low in the sky over Drisdak, spewing forth a raining fountain of ivory snow. Ominous and oppressive, the cloud broods, relentlessly churning in the waning light. By all accounts, the cloud should have passed away long ago. Indeed, by most accounts the cloud should never have formed. But form it has, and above Drisdak it stays, stubbornly refusing to give ground even when all the land around is enjoying the remaining days of a pleasant autumn. It draws its strength from the Sea of Sorrows, pulling up moisture and wind from an alien current the fishermen refuse to name. Never before have the waters of the sea been as troublesome as they have of late, claiming more in life and cargo than the worst and most foul season. Indeed, it is as if sea and storm have found common purpose together and now strive as one against the city.
But storm and sea are mindless things. They have no life, no soul, no reason to wish harm. They are what they are; born to live and die with the dictates of nature. It is not they who wish harm to Drisdak, but their master.
Buried under snow, a long forgotten road runs north from Drisdak. The devoted pilgrim can follow it to the abbey of the priests of Drellenor, but that is not its end. Though its path is tattered and overgrown at spots, it can be followed deep into the Kirshtar Forest, that ancient woodland once known as The Forest of Shrouding Mists, a place of legend and myth and monsters most fell. There the tangled trees grow strong and reach spidery branches toward an unforgiving sky. Day in, day out, they shroud the earth in darkness and protect the preternatural fog from its enemy the Sun. In the heart of that darkness a fortress looms, long forgotten by the minds of men. Rahmin Muirdra, the Guardian of the Night. It is in that citadel that the wind can find its lord. It is in that keep where the storm bends knee.
While Drisdak lies helpless beneath the scourge of ice, here, at the castle, winter is still waiting. If one were to search, perhaps, one could find a patch of white or two, along the side of the road by a group of muddied hoof prints. Of course, it would not be wise to linger long. Of all the forest, this place gives birth to the darkest rumors, most of which are far more pleasant than the truth.
In the distance, the sun is setting. The golden lord of light has marked another day and wearily sags beneath the rosy sky. His vigil is at its end and the second watch must start. But alas for men, the moons are ill-disposed toward mortals. In the castle above, in its highest tower, something is stirring. As the final glow of the sun fades into the night, a figure cloaked in darkness approaches the window and takes a look outside.
I have lost my faith, it seems; in Life, Creation, the gods, and men—all those aspects of that treacherous estate which mortal man has deemed to call existence. Perhaps, given what I am, I should not be concerned with matters such as these; but the soul does ponder of its own accord.
There was a time, once, so long ago, when things were different; a time of truth, conviction, and moral purpose. A young lad given to the fancies of battle, I felt the call of War and sought out its glorious challenge. Many weapons did I wield, many talents did I bring to bear; but no weapon, no talent could surpass that which I bore within: total Adoration. I knelt in the fullness of reverence before the feet of my god, he whose voice echoed like the sounds of trumpets, he who was the most blessed saviour of my wayward soul. Devotion to his whims, loyalty to his cause—these were the foundations of my life, my existence. Morgulan! Morgulan! A thousand years have passed since I last saw the vision of your face, a thousand years since the glory of your name spread throughout this vile world. In the fullness of time, it seems, all things must come unto their end; but that should not have been the destiny for the man who made himself a god. Where are you, traitor? What of your divinity now, deceiver?
You left me. Abandoned. A grim sentinel bound to an even grimmer fate. Left to rot, ensorcelled to the confines of a single room for five lonely centuries of utter solitude. Five hundred years. That is how long it took to break my faith; to grind my trust to ashes, my love to hate, my devotion ... into blasphemy. If the Sun should turn red as blood and sink forever; if the moons should be rent asunder and their broken shards rain upon the earth; if the blood of nations should well up beneath my feet to pool before me as a gift of penance; still would I despise you with every measure of my being. A hundred thousand painful deaths is a fate too kind for you. Do you hear me? I call to you Morgulan, wherever you may be. If my voice can penetrate to the lowest depths of Hell, may it reverberate through your skull for every day that Lubrochius receives his due. The Guardian of the Sceptre has thrown off his shackles, nevermore shall he be your slave.
Nevermore.
No god nor demon shall receive my praise; least of all, will a mortal man. A man. Is that not the ultimate mockery! My liege, my god, was mortal. Nothing more than a man; raised up, glorified, deified as the Lord of Battle, the Master of the World. Hah! The only master this world will ever have is He who wields the Scythe ... And that one, yes, that one, kneels to me.
Words cannot describe the anguish that I feel, the raging fury that will not die. I gave everything to you; my wisdom, my skills, my prowess in battle. In the end, I even gave my soul. I became what I am out of loyalty to you. I sacrificed mortality for the honor to serve a god and I was repaid with the bitter wine of slavery. Five hundred years I waited, five hundred lonely years bound to the sceptre in the recesses of my keep, bound to an incomprehensible existence inside an isolated room with nothing but books to keep me company. I waited until the day came when all would be made aright. The day of your return, Morgulan, the day when Lubrochius would release you from your tortures in that black pit in which he lairs. The day when we would once again rise up to conquer and subjugate all that lives.
The day came.
And then it passed.
I still waited, of course, the ever loyal servant. A year did pass, perhaps even two, yet still, I waited. In truth, there were few other options for me in my state—a slave not in body, but a slave in soul. I had spent so much time contemplating the glories of our reunion and the honors of my service, it never occurred to me to consider the unthinkable. I had books to read to sharpen my mind, but books do not give one drive—they could not provide a life for one who did not choose to live. Indeed, my servitude had left me bereft of will and bereft of thought. I could not comprehend an existence in which my master played no part. Everything within me had revolved around you, and you had left. Now I was alone, aimlessly adrift on the ocean of eternity.
It took me two years to summon the will to make a decision. Four more to enact it. Day in, day out I struggled, wrestling with the energies that bound me. Zarina was a skilled and mighty sorceress in her day, but even so, time does take its toll. Five hundred years proved a blessing to my strength, and a curse to the fabric of her spell—no matter how much care she had taken. Fiber by fiber, I severed its touch. Piece by tortuous piece, I unbound its core. It broke, at last, in a scintillating shower of vibrant lights freeing me from that horrible library that had become my cage. Exhilarated with my newfound freedom, I set about exploring an alien new world, a world without Morgulan, a world without my god.
I was five hundred years old in body, but little more than an infant vampire in mind. Drisdak was a much smaller city then, perhaps half the size it is now. They were not prepared for the likes of me, nor I for the sudden possibilities of my freedom. For weeks I fed, slaughtering humans at night and leaving their corpses to greet the day—subtlety was never an interest of mine, and I took no care to hide my presence. Unfortunately, the city realized it faced an insidious threat. Dubbed the Dark Shade of Drisdak, the Cloaked Nightman, and a plethora of other names that escape my memory, I realized I had made a mistake. A small group of men learned of my fortress and sought me out in the depths of the keep. After I slew them, I had to reevaluate my plans. If I continued, more men would come; eventually in numbers I could not quell. I had no wish to flee, but I knew I could not continue on my current path. Instead, I played possum, and went to sleep for a span of two centuries. T
he nightly killing sprees stopped, presumably because the threat was destroyed, and those in power, if they ever knew, forgot of my existence and my fortress. Since then, I have learned to take care; that is, until the guild of wizards became involved.
Now I am embroiled in a battle to the end. There can be no possum-playing this time, the wizards are too clever for that. They will hunt me until they know I have been destroyed and banished eternally to the dark regions beyond. Oh, how I loathe the day I ever set my eyes on that accursed wizard Arcalian. He disrupted my peace with empty promises, and then he turned around to betray my trust. I suppose treachery should not come as a surprise to me; I have been victim to the greatest of deceits. But quibbling about the past accomplishes little. Morgulan rots in the clutches of Lubrochius, and Arcalian I have sent to join him.
It is almost laughable, the fate that has befallen my former god. A traitor betrayed by an even greater traitor. I wonder what thoughts have comforted my god in his cage. His empire was collapsing and his end was drawing near. What can one do if one’s enemies are closing in and there is no way to escape? A cunning man will know the answer, of course, for it is the same ploy that I would later use. Of course, in Morgulan’s case, faking his own death would have done little to save him. Such was the fury of his enemies, they would have mutilated his body and made it a corpse for real. Then they would have paraded the mighty god around through the streets, like a common criminal to be scorned. No, he had to do better than that. He had to go someplace where no one would ever find him. So, rather than let his enemies send his accursed soul to Hell, he beat them to it and went there first of his own accord. A few rituals, a few chants, then he and his lover are off to patiently wait through the five hundred year sentence they so willingly took on. I wonder if by now he has realized the utter stupidity of his actions, the inherent madness required to make a pact with the Eater of Souls? Did he think Lubrochius could feel compelled to keep his word, no matter the charms that Zarina cast? Well, the two of them can rot together; the day of their atonement has long since slipped away. Never again shall I kneel to god or man (or demon, as the case may be). Never. I am my own creature, existing by my own whims. From now until the end of time it shall be as I will, I shall stand by myself against the toils of the ages, resolute in conviction, unyielding in manner; and utterly, totally ... alone.
Clarissa has fallen. Last night, I felt her die.
A thousand years of solitude ... then her ... now ... I am alone again. Vampires are incapable of love, or even that which mortals simply call friendship. But there is an emptiness within me, stronger than ever before. It fills the pit of my stomach and clouds my thoughts with its ache. She whined, she complained, she was a trouble all around; but she was a voice, a comfort to ease my loneliness. She was strong, immortal as I, a familiar presence to keep the solitude away. And far more stimulating in mind than any of my other pets. Wolves, bats, rats ... they cannot argue. They can communicate with me in the way of their kind, but their minds are far too limited to be of worth. Not a one of them would I ever call companion.
Clarissa was a brief, flickering candle in a thousand years of darkness. Now, she is gone; slain by mortal men. I too shall soon join her, if the wizards have their way. There is no place to run, no place to hide. As it did when I served Morgulan so long ago, battle calls to me and summons me to its glory. This time, however, I fight alone, for myself, and those things which I desire. This time, too, I have a weapon far greater than anything my soul has ever seen before. This weapon drives me forward, into the heart of the guild to settle this matter once and for all. It is this weapon which fills me with an unquenchable fire.
And I call this weapon Vengeance.
The figure at the window raises his arms as if in homage to the inimical sky. The air about him warps and bends, and in a moment he has disappeared. In his place, another shape now hovers; a diminutive shape born on small leather wings that hurtles upward. South he flies on the wings of a demon. Good and Evil cannot live long together. One must live, the other must die. Such is the way of things; as they are and as they have always been. Forward does the master fly, forward to his fate. He will come back victorious, or he will not come back at all.
Drasmyr (Prequel: From the Ashes of Ruin) Page 69