Beaumont had expected a beast of frightening proportions, something to make him tremble and quake in paralyzing fear, yet this creature was merely unsettling. His miscalculation made him uneasy, however. He prepared for Terror based on what he knew about her. But if he was wrong…
“Terror is never something you can anticipate,” the demon’s chilling raspy voice declared knowingly. “Terror draws its icy touch up your spine before you even know it’s there.”
“You can hear my thoughts?” Beaumont inquired. That was certainly something the lore failed to mention, and it changed a lot if true.
“I can taste your fear,” she hissed as a serpentine tongue flicked across her lips, testing the air.
“I do not fear you, demon.”
“Your doubt is sweet on my lips. You fear what you can never escape, yourself,” she replied as she slid towards him. “You fear that your plan is faulty. You fear that you failed before you even began.” Once more, her tongue flicked out, and her eyes rolled back exultantly from what it found.
The demon’s prescience about his concerns made the task of overcoming her much more difficult, but he was not defeated yet. The raven helped show him how resourceful he truly was, even without plans. He just had to adapt to the changing situation.
“If you can sense my fears,” he began. “Then you can taste what I fear more than even you? What future fate could force me to face a demon such as Terror.”
This demon was not a raging force of primal fear as recorded, at least not for him. She was cunning and perhaps even interested in him. Otherwise, she would have destroyed him already for daring to summon her. That meant there was a chance she could be reasoned with. Could fear and terror truly be reasoned with?
“Your quest is a subject of many fears from many sources.” She cast a glance outside the ring at the raven and the witchdoctors with a knowing grin. “Fear of retribution. Fear of returning to irrelevance.” Her glance returned to the warlock with interest. “Fear of justified blame.”
“If you know that much, then you know why I summoned you. You understand what I seek,” Beaumont insisted. He still wasn’t certain what her game was. Every demon has particular motives. Terror was no different.
“You wish to command me,” she answered with certainty. “Isn’t that why all warlocks summon demons.”
“I wish you to bring terror. I wish you to unleash yourself upon civilization. I do not seek to command if such is not required for the task to be completed.” Perhaps the Lady Katerina was right. If he could bargain with Terror the way the Raven King did with everyone else, maybe he could gain her aid without a contest of wills.
“You would slander my name, warlock. No. There is only one way your kind earns the right to compel a demon. You must withstand my corruption.”
“Very well.” Beaumont understood the implications. It would be much worse than what he originally intended. He had expected to face off against her wailing cry and unleashed power. He planned to resist her primal terror. But this demon dared him to accept her essence willingly and try to survive.
“If you fail, you will be mine,” she crooned as she walked the perimeter of the summoning circle. “You will forever serve Terror in this world.”
“I understand the price of a warlock’s failure, demon.”
“No,” a woman’s voice called from outside the ritual.
“Ah, I see you, my dark child,” Terror called. “You have so much power to bring fear. Yet you cling to your own. I taste it. I taste your fear. Can you bear to face it? Can you stand out there helpless while I take him? Will you watch, or will you close your eyes?”
“Stop it,” Beaumont demanded, infusing his voice with demonic compulsion. “This is between us. I am the one to be tested. Show me your vision.”
“Then drink of my blood, warlock. You know the ritual,” she hissed, raising her pale crackle-skinned wrist to him.
Her blood was like ice as it trickled down his throat, chilling his insides with clenching dread. The burning fury in his Well of Corruption was smothered by its presence. His magic withered away. Beaumont would only have the power of his own being in this fight. Although, he could already feel the essence of Terror spreading out in frigid tendrils through his soul.
Even as Terror enveloped him from within, Beaumont held the stare of her demonic eyes defiantly until her lips parted in agonizing contortions, and she let loose her primal scream. His defenses crumbled in an instant, and the demon’s essence consumed him.
There was no chance to overcome the invasion of his soul and direct it towards his Well of Corruption like he had done with every other demon before. Terror’s corruption was primal. Such corruption was already a part of him. The demon’s essence merely amplified the fears and anxieties that existed within Beaumont. And there were plenty.
This was not a contest of mastery but survival. Beaumont knew his only hope now was to secure the baser essence of his being and prevent the terror within him from destroying it. Although, how he would manage that was still a mystery.
The demon’s pale form melted away into a true nightmare, revealing the many true faces of Terror. The summoning circle was gone, replaced by scenes of Beaumont’s most private torments.
The walls of the cavern home beneath the Ravenwood crumbled as hordes of undead mole creatures tunneled in. Hildegard tried to flee. Her magic had been spent buying time for Beaumont to reach the Mad Witchdoctors. They swarmed her in a maddened, hungering frenzy. The old witch’s ancient flesh was no match for the gnashing incisors. She died cursing his name. Ravenfell Curse.
That’s not how it happened, he insisted within his mind. She wasn’t torn apart. I saw the body. I spoke to her spirit. But a nagging concern lingered. He wasn’t there when she died. She could have cursed him with her last breath, and he would never know.
The proud Raven King fell from his high thrown, cruelly stricken from the sky. His power was gone, lost because of his connection to humans, his greatest weakness. Ravenfell Curse.
Beaumont was only a baby then. There was nothing he could do to stop what happened. Yet the dread remained. It was all his fault.
The fallen king, a greatly diminished bird, followed Beaumont through the veil, convinced by a warlock’s arrogance. But as the dark-robed figure parted the veil and pushed the raven through, the Guardians crooned with joy and tore the bird apart. They thanked him for the fall of the Raven’s Fel. They would rule in the raven’s stead because of him. Ravenfell Curse.
It was their only hope, Beaumont reasoned. If they did nothing, the Guardians would unmake the veil, and death would spread across the realm of the living. It was not arrogance that drove him to this plan. It was desperation. And the raven agreed. But still. What if?
Hazy faceless figures died cursing a wailing baby for being born. They were the first to call him Ravenfell Curse. They were the first to fall because of him.
What could I have done?
Katerina wept with great racking sobs over the fallen remnants of her charges, cursing him between gasping breaths. He wanted to comfort her, but he feared that his failure had broken any chance for such a connection. As she turned her tear-streaked face towards him, he saw the rage of blame in her eyes. “You swore to me,” the words left her trembling lips to strike his heart with savage brutality. Ravenfell Curse.
Beaumont never realized half the fears lurking within his soul, but one by one, they rose up to torment him. Each forced him to face realities within that those fears kept him from looking at. Every fear he managed to accept took a toll and left its mark.
There was little hope of bringing his essence through unscathed. Yet Beaumont preserved as much as he could and worked to mold the unescapable changes through his acceptance.
Scene after scene played out, yet Beaumont endured.
◆◆◆
The familiar feel of the raven’s claws on his shoulder brought Beaumont out of the visions of terror. Somehow, he managed to survive them. He knew tha
t he was forever changed, but there was little time to assess the damage.
If the raven was with him, then the circle was broken. Terror was free. The sudden clenching fear enveloped him. Everyone was in danger.
“Where is she?” Beaumont exploded as he jolted back to reality, scanning the smoldering remnants of the ritual.
“Peace, warlock,” the raven soothed. “The demon has departed.”
“Then, I failed.” A vision returned from the onslaught, threatening to drag him back down.
“Nonsense,” the raven croaked. “You subdued that foul creature and bent her to your will.”
“I did what?” All Beaumont remembered was struggling to survive.
“She was impressed by your resilience, Ravenfell,” Katerina’s voice offered. There was a hint in her voice that the witch shared those feelings. He felt her soft hand take his and urge him to his feet. “When the beast realized that you would survive her assault, she agreed to your bargain. Said it was bound in blood.”
He knew the truth of the matter even as she said it. He could feel the fragment of Terror hidden deep within his Well of Corruption. She was a part of him now. They were bound.
“The beast will take flight when you call her,” the raven added. “Claimed that you would know how.”
“I do,” Beaumont answered confidently. Then he turned his attention to the demon imp slinking around behind the witchdoctors. “Ixgol, I need you to report to my wardens at Dark Hold. Inform them of my orders. When Terror rides the wind, throw open the gates of Dark Hold and unleash them all.”
“Yes, master,” the imp replied obediently, then vanished in a flash of Hellfire.
“Time draws short,” Beaumont announced. “Corvus, have you settled on the right location?”
The warped raven spirit nodded. “I can describe it enough for you to take us, I believe.”
“Then, we should depart. The longer we remain, the more chance the Guardians will track us.”
“What did you send the imp to do?” Katerina inquired as she took his hand in preparation for the phasing. “What is Dark Hold?”
He smiled cunningly back at her and replied, “It’s where I keep all my pets that I never told your goddess Hildey about. Most of them aren’t well behaved, and she had a thing about the furniture.”
Chapter 14:
A Tomb of Ages
They sought a place of pervasive death to hide the workings of their spell, and Corvus’s vast research provided brilliantly. He called it a tomb of ages, though there was not a single memorial stone to mark the grave of thousands. It was a natural tomb, a place where geography and natural forces collided to bury centuries of unfortunate lives in layer after layer of death.
“In my efforts to cross the veil, I studied the places where it was thinnest. This was perhaps the most pristine of them all,” Corvus announced instructively. “Flashfloods, melting ice walls, even a few plagues. A confluence of disasters has seeded this land with more death than it can contain. Dig around. Some claim there are more bones than dirt below.”
The land in that spot sank into a hollow like the puckered scar left by a ruptured cyst. The boulder-strewn ground was mostly barren, stripped away by the frequent calamities. No seed dared sprout from the blackened earth beneath the stones.
“Is this enough death for you, dark lady?” Beaumont asked with a shriveled smile. The essence of death was so thick he could see the misty essence swirling along the ground in a haze. Strange lights danced and flickered randomly all around, spirits lost and searching.
“I could grow an entire forest of darkness with this,” Katerina marveled.
“Let’s start with one tree,” the raven interrupted from Beaumont’s shoulder
“We must find the right spot,” Beaumont cautioned. “For the gateway to work, everything must be properly placed.” Once more, he was designing a new spell from scratch, beginning with the most basic formulas of the Common Arts to create the framework.
“We should seek the nexus,” Katerina offered. “The place where the essence is strongest.”
“The dark heart of the land,” Beaumont suggested. “A fitting place for our new home.” The last was spoken to the gnarled black root in his hand. He could still feel a remnant of life within the Ravenwood staff. The essence of Hildey’s sacrifice was nearly gone, but he swore to see it reborn. All his preparations were in place. All that remained was to enact them.
“Who is that?” the raven called from his shoulder.
A hunched shambling figure was working its way across the rugged landscape, dragging something behind him.
“Ah,” Corvus chuckled. “The cursed gravedigger. A tragic tale.”
“What is he doing here?” Beaumont demanded. “We can’t have complications.”
“He is harmless,” Corvus offered. “He has been here for as long as I can remember. His primitive tribe once camped nearby, but like with all life in this cursed land, they were taken by a disaster. That brute is the only one that survived.”
“Why does he remain in a place of such tragedy for him?” Katerina inquired.
“He is convinced that he is cursed. As the last survivor, it was his duty to see his tribesmen put to rest. But death dwells too close in this place. Things that die here do not stay dead. No matter how many times he buried his kinsmen, they kept rising. And the poor fool just buries them again.”
“You’re right. Tragic,” the lady replied.
“It wasn’t just his kinsmen who rose. Both beast and man rise frequently here. After a time, one rotting corpse became no different than another. He buries them all, but the toll of his duty drove him mad. He was dead long before any of us were born, yet still, he walks these grounds, burying the bodies of those who rise.”
“So, he gathers corpses and bones and inters them?” Beaumont asked with consideration. “I suspect it was a body he was dragging? Which means he doesn’t just bury them anywhere. He has a place. A boneyard.”
“The essence of death feels strongest in the direction he was heading,” Katerina suggested.
“This cursed gravedigger has concentrated the death of this place by his madness. He has already done part of our work for us. I say we follow and thank the poor undead fool. Perhaps he has a few friends who can help.”
◆◆◆
The cursed gravedigger’s boneyard was exactly that. The ivory adornments clanked and rattled beneath their feet as they crossed the ground. No place was spared from the clutter.
Immense boulders dotted the landscape in every direction, likely deposited by the great sheets of ice that had long since receded. The encroaching stones and the shadows they cast made the bone filled hollow feel enclosed, like a tomb. Beaumont couldn’t help but imagine the creature had chosen this spot for that very reason.
“It is perfect,” the Spirit Weaver declared as they arrived. It was the first thing either of the ghouls had said in quite a while.
“Perfect for what?” Beaumont demanded. “You have aided us a bit, I confess. But you have yet to tell me what part you will play in this.”
“This is the place we will reweave the veil,” the witchdoctor declared dramatically.
“Once you reclaim it, of course,” Death’s Drummer added.
“If you want that to happen, you will assist in my spell.” Beaumont didn’t use the demonic amplification of his voice, but the heat of command was there, nonetheless.
“We have always intended to,” the weaver answered, then cackled. “Did we not make that clear?”
“We brought a gift of death for your new home,” the drummer added. He removed a small crockery from his belt and popped the bone cork at the top with a devilish grin.
Two small spiders, glowing green with demonic venom, skittered out and went dashing across the barren ground.
“Araxxis the Spider Queen.”
“And Aranax, her consort.”
Beaumont nearly commented that they were too small to be the same beasts, but befor
e the words could reach his lips, the arachnid forms began to swell. As the spider pair skittered away, they continued to grow to their original size. He had no clue how they managed to retrieve the pair but doubted they would be forthcoming if he asked.
“She goes to establish a new nest. A new generation,” the weaver declared.
“I assume her venom will add to the death of this place,” Beaumont commented. “But I will need more assistance than that. I need workers. Time is running out, and there is much to be done. You clearly have the power to control your own corpses. Can you do the same with the others?”
“You wish us to wake the dead?” the Spirit Weaver asked with interest. “They hardly rest as it is.”
“A steady beat to call them home,” the drummer chanted. “Bring spirits back to flesh and bone.”
The two witchdoctors began chanting and playing their ghastly music in what Beaumont could only imagine was a ceremony. Whether it did what he asked was still unclear, but the fiends were once more lost to their madness. He could only hope for the best.
“Perhaps this gravedigger can help?” Katerina suggested.
“I was thinking the same thing,” Beaumont declared.
“Good luck,” Corvus commented. “He and his people were rather primitive, and that is being kind. Language was new to them then. Death and madness have only made it worse.”
“I need help wherever I can get it. Besides, this place is his home. I should gain permission before I remake it.”
They found the hunched old corpse prying into the ground with a stick, digging a grave for his current burden. The pile of bones and leathery hide near his feet were unrecognizable, yet the brutish undead treated them with great care.
A few scraps of hide clothing hung across his desiccated frame, but the creature had clearly lost any sense of decency, if it ever had any, to begin with. The truth of Corvus’s description was evident in its eyes as it glanced up upon their arrival. The mind behind them was primitive, little more than an animal in understanding and quite mad. Yet as the cursed gravedigger, it had clearly displayed duty of a sort and compassion. There had to be something human about it still.
Ravenfell Chronicles: Origins Page 25