Becoming
CHAPTER I: A Visit to the House of Light
“Monster!” she cried and gasped, the strange pain growing in her body. The girl continued to claw at the ground, her nails filling with loose dirt.
The man, the thing, wiped his bloodied mouth and knelt beside her. “We cannot stay here. They are coming.” He lifted Caelen deftly, as if she weighed nothing. With his arms under her back and knees, he walked toward the village. The howls from the forest were louder than ever.
The village sentries at the borders, who had been alert under their helmets from the howls, suddenly gave way to sleep with a flick of the man’s wrist. He passed into the walled village untouched or even questioned.
Caelen's body would not respond to her feelings of urgency, to get away from this man, to survive. The girl was weak from her loss of blood and her entire body was limp. Yet she wondered, was she still under his spell? Before she could consider her question she was dropped upon a hard floor. Dizzy and blinking, she looked up at her surroundings. An arched ceiling with sculpted plaster sat high above her head. She immediately recognized this holy place as the village chapel, which her family used to visit every Day of Faith. The chapel’s doors were always open to those in need, at any hour, which is why she could be in it now. Orange candlelight flickered from ornate candelabrums, and beams of soft lavender moonlight filtered through the high windows.
“Where is your goddess, child?” the man looked over her, a shape that had a dark contrast with the building’s light arches from her view.
She only groaned in response. A great fatigue was taking her over, her heart beating irregularly. Her eyes lidded themselves. There was a feeling of ambivalence between peace and panic at the idea of dying. Then she felt a deathly cold hand tap her face.
“Not yet,” the pale man whispered, and Caelen was barely able to open her eyes. He grinned, revealing his sharp canines. His face appeared flushed and she realized it was from her own blood. His eyes were deep and dark, so much that she could not make out where his irises stopped and his pupils began.
“Can Iva`na save you from me?” he seemed to be taunting her. Questions ran through her weakening mind as she lay on the hard tile of the chapel floor. Why had he brought her here? To mock the gods? Why was he keeping her alive?
“You ask why I brought you here?” he said, stunning the girl with his knowledge. “First, listen. It is quiet, is it not? The fiends won’t follow me here. Those beasts have been trailing me for days! But no, they cannot match my blood – our blood! Second, in this house of Light, where is the goddess to save you? Quiet still, yes? She will never answer your pleas.”
The man took her by the shoulders and lifted her exhausted body to a sitting position. Her eyes slowly turned to gaze upon the magnificent stone statue of the goddess behind the altar. The fair Iva`na, Maker of Light and mother to all.
“Look upon your false deity with reverence for the last time! For soon you too will see the truth,” he chuckled and it lightly echoed through the chapel. His eyes went pale as he laughed, like she had seen once before, but they returned to their dark state after he had finished.
“And now, in this very place, the powers will come at my call and create the Thirteenth!” Of course the girl had no idea what the man spoke of, and her ragged breath was louder in her ears than his frantic, silken whispers. She groaned in pain and protest as he suddenly placed her roughly against the floor. He lifted his wrist to his teeth and bit down until a large drop of blood dripped from his arm and landed on the floor between them with a ‘plink.’ The silence unnaturally expanded as he brought it over the open wound at her neck. Caelen was filled with fear, confusion, and loathing toward the murderer and monster. Even more, it was almost as if all her weeks of dread had led up to this terrifying moment.
A minute passed in which the blood from his major artery, mingled with what he had taken from her, poured into the bite wound. Then it began to horribly burn. She widened her eyes as she watched the man grip his own wound and step away from her.
Black things started to swirl around her eyes as her heart beat erratically and her head spun. Unable to tell if what she saw was real, she shut her eyes. The pain was growing from her neck and spreading through the rest of her body, all the way to her gums and fingertips. Her body convulsed much like it did from the first pain of the bite. It felt as if something was trying to burrow or rip its way into her neck by way of the open wound. Somehow she managed to sit up and scream aloud, her eyes popping open. Misty black tendrils enwrapped her, but she could make out the statue of beloved Iva`na. The girl put all her efforts into staring at the pristine white figure while her body was violently attacked by the black force. Finally, it was too much to bear and she fell back against the patterned floor.
She was still conscious. The blackness was slowly fading away, dissipating, but she had the odd feeling it was exiting the world by entering her wound.
Caelen felt herself being grabbed under the arms and dragged backwards. There was a shout of a man’s voice, recognizable as the local priest of Iva`na.
“Wait! Stop!” He must have seen the bleeding girl with the suspicious man, for his face was absolutely horrified when Caelen met his gaze. A hand reached forward in the air above her, in the shape of a claw. Sickly purple and green energy shot forth and coiled around the priest’s ribcage. She longed to call out to him, but he fell to his knees, clutching at his chest.
The vampire continued to drag her out of the chapel, apparently weakened by his own loss of blood.
She could not remember much after that point. Whether she was put to sleep or her mind simply shut down, she didn’t know.
Images of the night returned to her.
“Will I die?” she heard herself whisper.
“Oh, no. You'll live forever,” the vampire responded over the chorus of wolf howls.
CHAPTER II: The Thirteenth
Opening her eyes, Caelen immediately reached for her throat. The wound was healed, but there was dried blood everywhere, which had stained her simple blouse. The pain was all gone from her body. Then she touched her face. It was cold and hard. When she lifted her hands to her eyes in the darkness, she saw that they bore long and sharp nails.
The smell of dirt and must brought her attention to her surroundings. She sat up and looked through the darkness. It was the dead of night but she could see as if the suns were shining. Half destroyed stone walls stood around her in the shape of a box. Debris and weeds were strewn about the turned earth.
Caelen shook her head and bit her lip – too harshly. She winced as her own sharp teeth tore at the flesh. She tongued the spot, then opened her mouth with a frown.
“I am alive?” she asked herself in a timid voice. I cannot awake or even die from this wretched nightmare?
“Who is there?” a tiny whisper that much reflected her own graced her ears from a far corner of the darkness.
It made Caelen nearly jump out of her skin, but she scanned the ruined house again. She stood and slowly stepped forward. Bright, icy blue slivers appeared where two crumbling walls met.
“Don’t come closer!” It was a girl, but her unnatural eyes shone brightly, like Caelen’s attacker had.
“I wont hurt you,” Caelen replied as calmly as she could, feeling no threat from the feeble voice. She reached ahead and her pale hand touched the girl’s arm. As she leaned over the flinching child – for she appeared younger than herself – there was a noise of footsteps. Someone was approaching. Both the girls looked up.
“Twelfth and Thirteenth, you must come now to the Circle.”
A great energy pulled at Caelen from that voluptuous woman’s voice. She tried to fight it, knowing immediately it was the same pull the monster had used on her. Then this too was a monster. The smaller girl followed the voice and Caelen rose after her, almost wanting to protect her. She stumbled over loose foundation toward the source of the pulling.
A woman stood over them, tall but rounded. She wore the same cloak, bearing the emblem Caelen recognized. Her hair, wrapped in a bun, must have been powdered to match her skin and gray eyes. Her appearance was ghostly but amazing. When she turned and walked away without greeting, the two girls followed, gaping.
It dully rang through Caelen’s mind that the crumbling houses and buildings they were passing by were the Ruins of the Lost, once a settlement of New Ghelinfal and only hours away from her home. The ghost town was said to be haunted only by night, and all who approached it never came out.
When the white woman stopped before an archway, so did the girls. They stood before an open courtyard. Vines covered most walls around it, and the nearest building looked like a monastery for the true devotees of the Light goddess.
Out of the shadows stepped eleven figures, each with a girl around her own age. Some were held at the shoulders while others seemed to be in a trance. Every girl had pallid skin. Another figure came from behind Caelen and clasped her shoulders, shoving her nearer to the center of the space.
“Ahh, Odran, you are too eager,” echoed a deep voice in the night air.
“Hierophant Daigh, you are awake,” the man behind Caelen uttered. Her heart sunk at the sound of his familiar soft voice.
“I am,” responded the deeper voice. A red mist appeared and twirled in the very center of the circle in which the figures stood.
“Hail!” the figures said in unison. It was a mixture of men and women, all wearing the same dark cloaks with a strange symbol over their hearts.
The red mist took on form as it moved, until it was gone. Only a man in elaborate robes stood before the gathering. He skin was pasty like the rest, with bright blue eyes and wavy brown hair to his shoulders. He looked about forty, but Caelen couldn’t truly tell.
“Bring her forward, Disciple,” he spoke with the same voice as the echo, which by itself sounded bottomless.
Caelen shouted in protest as the one known as Odran, the monster and her attacker, pushed her before the superior robed man.
“Hierophant Daigh, she is the Thirteenth. The final.”
“Indeed,” said Daigh and he narrowed his eyes down at Caelen, who was a relatively short girl. With inhuman speed he clutched her wrist and spread his cold hands over her palm. She growled and tried to pull away, desperate for any gain of control she could manage in her situation.
“Let me go!”
“I think not,” replied the robed man calmly as he traced a crease in her hand. “You are to come with me,” he said abruptly and dropped her hand.
Some of those gathered began to speak in objection. “But we have not yet performed – ”
“Silence! Do you doubt my judgment? This is how it was to be!” his blue eyes flared into a chilly turquoise as he glared menacingly around the circle. He put one hand in the pocket of his robes and spoke again to Caelen, “If you will not follow me willingly, I’ll drag you by whatever means possible. And I know how much you hate our spells.”
The girl peered around at those gathered, loathing every one of them. If she looked upon one of the other girls, she saw a reflection of herself.
“If the others do not cooperate during the ritual, kill them,” Daigh said, as if it were a mundane order. He strode out of the courtyard and into the monastery, one hand still in his pocket.
“Wha-what!” Caelen shouted and turned to face the smaller girl she had met before, but Odran was pushing her inside.
CHAPTER III: The Hierophant
“Please, sit,” the robed man said, too civilly for the situation. Caelen remained standing and trembling before a large wooden desk in the dusty candlelit room, filled with ancient scrolls and books. Odran had shut the door to leave the two alone.
“You can’t kill all those girls!”
“Oh, but I can, my little dove. You will see how easy it is to kill.”
“Monster! Monsters, all of you!” she blushed indignantly at the pet name.
Daigh chuckled in response, but there seemed to be little humor in his manner. He took his hand from his pocket and placed a small vial filled with a dark red liquid upon the desk.
The girl was ready to crack, to break down and weep for her recent misery, but she bit it back with help from her outrage. She tried a different approach, ignoring the vial for the present time, though she had a horrible feeling she knew what it was.
“Who are these people? Who is Odran? He told me he was ‘Antraen’s Legacy’.”
“You ask important questions. Allow me to explain. After the foolish Empress of Ghelinfal destroyed our most great leader, Lord Kellen, there was a vacuum of power within the Order of the Violet Eye. It was not until I came forth with Antraen’s teachings first-hand that there was, well, order within the Order,” he laughed humorlessly.
Caelen opened her mouth to question Daigh, but he held up a pale hand.
“It was I who was taught by the immortal necromancer, I who communed with the dark gods and performed the rites. I had great power from my Master Antraen, but there was one thing he never taught me. I asked the only gods who have ever listened. ‘Make me immortal as the elves!’ I cried out. They demanded much, but I gave them all.
“I brought the blessings and the curses from the old world. Yet if it were not for the great necromancer, I would have none of this knowledge.
Gathered here now are my fellows, the true followers, the true descendants of his power! So you see, young one, we are all the Legacy of Antraen. Even you.”
At this, he picked up the vial and unscrewed its golden stopper.
“What does this have to do with me?”
Daigh met Caelen’s green eyes. “You are one of us, even more when you succumb to the hunger that claws at your insides. And more, when I bestow you with my lover’s blood…” he trailed off and waited for her reaction.
It was probably what he wanted and expected. Caelen leapt back and bared her teeth in a way she never had before in life. Daigh grinned and held up the open vial.
“Yes, I do think you’ll make a fine high priestess,” he mused, and gestured for her to come back over to the desk. She did so, quite against her will.
“That’s not fair!” she cried after colliding with the edge of the desk.
“No, not really,” he said simply. “Again, do I have to make you?”
“You expect me to drink some woman’s blood!” Caelen wailed.
“I suppose that would be a yes,” he stood suddenly and moved so fast she couldn’t follow with her eyes. The vial was forced into her mouth by his hand.
“Think of it this way. You won’t be hungry at least until morning. You have more time to say goodbye to your cherished humanity.”
The blood she was forced to drink, to Caelen’s chagrin, was sweeter than any wine or drink. She thought of spitting it out, but it was too hard not to swallow as the Hierophant held her.
CHAPTER IV: The Lessons of Night
Over the next few months, Caelen learned of many things. The first was of the rising of the suns. The moment the first white rays peaked over the horizon, the girl fell in a dead faint to the ground, even if she had not seen the light. She had to familiarize herself with the nocturnal hours so she could get to a safe resting place in time.
The second lesson the girl learned involved the hunger. At first she didn’t understand. She begged the cultists for food, but instead of vittles they threw a human toddler at her. A massive craving to eat was consuming her as she looked at the helpless child in her arms. A tiny part of her wanted to scream out and protect the little being from herself, but it was quickly quelled by the smell of iron. Caelen broke its neck, unaware of her own strength, and consumed the young blood. After realizing the nature of her act she howled in guilt, remembering her dear little brother. It could have been him. I drank of the child’s blood! I am a murderer!
The girl was subdued after her early experiences, and took no opportunity to escape the grasp of Daigh and the cult. Slowly but surely, Caelen spiraled downward to the level of the other vampires; she was an evil creature. But hidden in the deepest layers of her mind, she began to devise a plan. She followed orders in return for knowledge. The erudite Daigh gladly taught her how to read and transferred every bit of information he had about the gods and the arcane to her, as she was the privileged young one to become the high priestess.
There were no records of the monsters in any ancient scrolls, so it became apparent that Daigh had been telling the truth. The only information regarding what Caelen had become was written by cult scribes. Some of it seemed fanciful. The unspeakable dark gods had imparted immortality upon the cult – for a price. Their very names appeared more as vague concepts than mysterious, and she wiped the page of dust to make sure she was reading it correctly.
Caelen tilted her head as the ink changed at the next lines, like it had been added later. The other gods, the gods that humans rarely discerned, were mentioned in the journal format.
It was exactly what she needed to hear.
To be continued...someday
Further developments:
- Caelen is trained to be high priestess of the cult while she hides her plans for revenge.
- The vial of old blood she drank gives her memories and dreams of the previous priestess (insight into the past).
- She rebels and destroys the Hierophant by fire (and perhaps poison). She splits off to form her own group that worships Iva`na, convincing some vampires to return to pseudo-moral practices of vigilantism within human society.
- Months later: Caelen is the head of the vigilantes while the cult attempts to spread vampirism wide across the country. When confronted by the wolf-people, the Kelvara, she makes a pact with them. Caelen reveals the truth about the Kelvara, the cult, and the vampires to the humans. Also, with her assistance, the Kelvara find and defeat the vampires. All those remaining, including her and the vigilantes, fall back to the shadows to become a part of history.
*~~~~~~~~*
Names:
Caelen – Not quite sure where this is from, as I used the name for a character a few years ago. It might be a variation of Caelan, Cailin, or Cailyn.
Odran - (pron. "ode + ran") All variants of odhra meaning "dark haired." Seventeen saints have used the name and Odhran, abbot of Meath, was one of the 12 devotees who accompanied St. Columba to
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