Shadows & Sorcery #208
This S&S comes to you live from the grave, because our devotion to pure frostbitten darkness never wanes, not even when it’s suddenly 26℃ outside which is more than my wee self can manage. That’s why, this week, I deliver a triple bill of vampiric speculation. One is an idea I’ve had for a while finally given form, one came outta nowhere, and one is based on a supposed real life of piece of Eastern European vampire lore I thought was so weird I had to use it somewhere.
Last week’s S&S was three tales of lost magic, a knightly Ship of Theseus problem, and strange meteorological phenomenon you should definitely check out if you missed it or just got here!
Also, don’t forget, every single story set in the Demiurge world now has its own section you can peruse at your leisure PLUS every single edition now has Previous and Next buttons at the end, making it easier than ever to binge S&S.
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This week, a summons is made and a being of the Ancient Defilement comes forth, we hear the tragedy of the Crypt of Vampirism, and we stalk through the darkness of a Blood Tower…
Ancient Defilement
The summons had been set out. But the five figures, huddled under the thick beams of a meagre cottage in a sparse woodland, did not pray for it to be answered. After all, it was a vampire they sought to bring to their doorstep.
It came from the vast stretches of the northeast, a land they say stretches into a stark, lonely infinity: a shadow upon the backs and in the blood of a nameless tribe. Around the edges of an old kingdom did they ceaselessly pace at first, and then under the shadow of town walls, and then slowly into homes, and then into bloodlines. Only between the lips of lovers in the dark, and from the memory of grandams before the fireside, was it ever whispered: they had not fled, they had been driven out, never to return. That they were responsible, was all that was ever said.
It was just a feeling. A presence. It made the head turn as if a name had been called. The five looked to each other, and then to the child in the cot who lay terribly still. There was only a moment’s hesitation before one of them took a faltering step forward, unlatched the door, and drew it aside.
It had once been a thing of the vastlands, a fragment of grotesque, exotic rumour passed down third hand between lost travellers, public house patrons, and ill-advised scholars. It was a thing that happened in other, stranger lands, the price of a dark deed that history made sure never to forgive. But now, it seemed as if it had sprung up ex nihilo amidst the dark mountains, shadowed valleys, and labyrinthine forests, so at home in the brooding minds of the heartlanders was it.
“You...” came the word like a dry rattle from its throat. “For what is it you have called upon me?” It was not especially tall, but for all that, it loomed over them. It was dressed in the frayed, understated finery of two centuries ago, the kind which only appeared in portraits and old books. The bones seemed to protrude, but the flesh was full, if not slightly sagging. The eyelids were heavy, the brows sardonic, but the eyes passed with something like a softness.
“Here...over here,” came the trembling voice of a parent with eyes ringed black with worry.
Some of them were lonely, pallid shapes, the ragged sheets they wore to their shallow, unceremonious graves ever fluttering in a wind which was not there. Some still bore the marks of what had been done to them in their final moments, or sometimes, what they had done to themselves. Some still partook of the delights that had led to their early graves. Some yet danced in their wedding raiment amidst the graves, whether they were both dead or not. The vampire was an affliction of the flesh with countless conditions from which to arise. This one bore no mark, no stain, nor gave into any particular inclination. It had been, and continued to be, a black magician.
Candles flickered, but gave off no light, dancing like points in the veil of night. Only the bloodless face of the child, and the hands of the vampire, showed from within the darkened chamber. Words were spoken under a dead breath. Authority was invoked. Signs were made upon dustings of ash from black flames that burnt in places that had never seen sunlight. And then, it was as if something passed, and a small, light cough issued from the bed. The vampire then turned across the dusty wooden floor, duty complete.
“Thank you,” came a sob from the bedside.
“Do not thank me,” it said, looking back. “Payment has already been tendered, and shall be again.”
“Wait,” said one of the five, a younger one, with bright eyes and firm stare. “You know...we are not of the blood of old.”
It made a sound like a sharp intake of breath, and held it for a moment before speaking, though it did not look at them. “I act at my discretion, as has been my right since was struck the bargain of old. Perhaps...” it drew out the word, “it is within my interests to see the hamlet’s continued existence.”
Perhaps, they thought, but did not say, there was something more.
Crypt of Vampirism
Lamentations rose high into the night, despite the field of slain enemies before them, for the champion had fallen. It was to the fire he went now, to be consumed, and scattered, and lost. The clan looked at the body. Even in death, he seemed merely in repose. He still held about himself an aura of might and grace. But the way of putrefaction was not theirs. To leave this one, the greatest of them, to rot and be naught but yellowed bones, was as unthinkable as the loss had become. They tried to console themselves, to say that, aye, he would be all about them now, in the air they breathed, in the sky which looked upon them, and yet...
As the sun climbed to its third crest, a gaggle of youths burst into the yurt of an elder, exclaiming they had found something incredible. Lost in the pipe smoke, reverie unspoiled by hard choices, the aged one rose slowly, shaking her hand, bidding them slow down, slow down, speak one at a time. They got there in the end, after interrupting each other multiple times, and nearly being escorted away by the vanguard: something had appeared just outside the village, like nothing they had ever seen. It was a blessing. A gift. An answer.
As the dusk sent its roseate light across the old lands, a stray beam was cast into a curious rent in the earth. It had a short, gentle earthen slope running down into pallid, dappled stone, which ended in a perfect recess. It was into this they lay the body of the champion whose flesh, starting to sink and sag, had, it can only be described, filled back out. True, he wasn’t up and walking again—they knew that could never be so, but the decay which had begun to close about him had not just halted, but reversed.
In time, new champions arose, new lands were conquered, enemies were slain, friends were made, and for each untimely demise, a new crypt opened in the earth to receive the honoured dead. And none of them decayed. Their visages, and their legends, remained alive for each new generation to gaze upon, to know the time of legends was never far away.
And soon, it was not just the great warriors, sages, elders, or even admired rivals who took to the crypts, but the regular folk too ceased to take to the flames, knowing their kin could always find them close by. For the crypts had grown in kind, whole tendrils cast out, often right under the mud brick dwellings of the burgeoning city, so the people, great and small, could find their ways into the holy subterranea, and walk in the twilight for hours at a time, seeking out their own resting places as much as they did ancestors and heroes. And when there were many deaths, as seemed to happen more and more often, with the plagues and battles and the general weakening constitution taking greater and greater tolls, the crypts would suddenly open to welcome their new tenants, native-born, foreigner, even the hired mercenaries which had become a welcome fixture of the city.
Indeed, it was the sellsword militias which bore witness to the culmination. They did not live in the city walls, and in fact only ever sent small retinues into the barren, more than half-empty streets to report to magistrates or collect their pay. They didn’t like it in there, and made sure to spread the word. Sure, the veterans were called paranoid, but orders were orders, and those who disobeyed to take advantage of the strange, sickly citizens, came back either to be dismissed, or in profuse apology. It was they who saw it happen, when the city finally went quiet, when even the rare few fires ceased to be lit in the night, when, come the lurid dusk, the entirety of the earth below opened up—opened up, no less than three score warriors swore—with teeth, and swallowed the city and the people it had been slowly sucking dry with the promise of an untarnished eternity.
Blood Tower
“DO NOT PRODUCE LIGHT”
The signs were plastered in their scores in a dozen tongues across the squat portal that led into the depths of the blood tower. One of the thieves gave a low chuckle, and removed with great care from a pack by his side a long stalked mushroom whose pale yellow pointed cap suddenly flared to life amidst the twilight of the antechamber.
“Fire’s the real problem, lads,” he said as he held up the fungus in its little packed ball of soil. “Vampires don’t go for swamp or cave lights like this. Them signs are just to scare folks like us off!” he ended on a confident little laugh. Aye, he was confident. For him, this was a thrill. The real gain was what it would do for his name. But the other two, they shared a look, and both resigned themselves to refuge in their guide’s confidence. It was all they had left now.
The gateway was left ever so slightly ajar, just enough for them to slide it back open and make away. It was the only way in, and the only way out. Their guide hadn’t expected to be long, though. In and out, with a blood tower treasure each in their possession—more than enough to curry favour with whatever underworld authority they wanted, and would sell for more than enough coin. The fungus light, as it crept along the bare, square-hewn hallways, was not exactly promising, though. No alcoves, no recesses, no chambers, nothing so far, just wide, flat, ascending steps to new flagged corridors. Every single surface was streaked with old brown stains.
The brothers had heard stories growing up. The kind that stuck around. Everyone had been taught that a body left in sunlight woke up again, but wrong, if a cunningfolk didn’t get to them, or they didn’t get a blessing. But, did they know, an older boy had told them on a retreat, that vampires could grow so big that one day one of them could eat the sun? There had been times, years after the fact, when they stayed awake, just to make sure the sun did come up. One of the boy’s first lovers had said, with a genuine tremble, sometimes vampires came back only for their family. A friend they had never seen again said vampires were around them all the time, at market, at temple, walking and talking just like anyone could, secretly marking you for later.
A great crash shuddered throughout the entire tower—heavy motes of black dust fell in dense sheets, and the sound left the ground itself shaking as if struck. The brothers darted back, but their guide stood rigid, and turned slowly after a moment.
“They know we’re in here, we need to be quick. Come on.” He strode ahead, leaving the brothers in shadow. All they could do was follow.
The stone had continued to thrum lightly, and a kind of damp warmth had begun to permeate the air. The stink of a butcher’s midden, only a faint trickle and easily dismissed, had grown into a miasmatic wall. The younger brother couldn’t contain his frustration any longer.
“You,” he hissed, “said there was treasure in here, but we haven’t seen a thing yet—we haven’t seen tombs, we haven’t anything!”
“Leave then,” said the guide, half looking back. “Go ahead,” he turned, “you won’t make it without me.”
“He’s right,” said the older brother, “but we didn’t know about this. Where are all these burial goods you told us about?”
The guide sighed.
“Clearly they have them moved to some central chamber, which can’t be far. Do you want to move or not?”
The looks they gave demanded more.
“What, do you expect guards? In here?”
“Not guards we’re worried about,” said the older brother.
“Vampires whither out of sunlight! Why do you think they seal them in here?” He began to walk then, and called out from the little circle of light in which he stood. “We’re completely safe—look.” As they followed, from the steps above, the first rivulets began to show, and the guide let out a laugh. The brothers did not. “So now you know why they call them blood towers, lads,” came the guide’s cheery tone. “Keeps them busy. See? No reason to worry.”
The brothers had more than heard stories growing up. It had happened some short time during the preparations for their passage rites, delayed to be held together. The younger brother had been out with friends on a lazy high summer afternoon, not a care in the world, exploring the world just beyond the bounds he’d always known. As the day had wore on, his older brother had been sent to fetch him. He found his brother in a clearing in a golden field of wild wheat, approaching a figure which stood silhouetted in purest black by the blazing disc of the summer sun, asking if they were okay. He had run, breath shuddering, clamping his hand over his younger brother’s mouth and dragging him away, uttering a string no’s as the figure turned with the lethargy of a great beast awoken by the smell of food, showing its maw of long, bared teeth, and widening eyes.
The only thing a vampire hungered for more than the sun which had awoken them was the heat of the flames men often tried to burn them with. After that, it was blood.
The walls wept in scarlet from secret channels high up, gutters collected and trailed their run off to floors and steps below, and streams ran down the center of the passages. Above, they found that chambers now began to open up. The guide threw in light to each one with rabid excitement, though each one merely showed great oozing pools on the floors, and long, thick trails leading from them.
“Close, we’re close,” he said, almost just to himself.
The sound of their footsteps was hard to discern from the falling patters of drops and sloughing streams of blood. If what they heard were even their own footsteps at all. The metallic, rotten stench had started to become unbearable, and none of them could stop from coughing. But this was what drove off the most daring before them, the guide assured as clambered up a short slope, uttering half-spoken certainties before he stopped, and all but slid back down the path on the tendrils of flowing blood, breath hissing between clenched teeth. He stepped back into the two brothers, who had just come up behind him.
It was a pale grey thing, gaunt and sunken and naked, sitting against a wall running with dark blood, long tongue licking oozing blood trails as they fell. The second the fungus light touched its flesh, its head darted to the side, slack maw working, its chest heaving with desperate breath. Teeth began to show from behind ragged lips.
Had hands not grabbed them by the shoulders then the legs amidst jets of white hot fire, the brothers admitted before the councilor that they wouldn’t have survived. Their gratitude was, of course, eternal. But what of the third of their number, asked the younger brother. The councilor didn’t say. The older brother knew, and wouldn’t say either. He’d seen it, and he would see it in his dreams for the remainder of his life.