13 - 1 [Fool] Monstrum And The Tree Cursed To Die That Did Not

The wild beasts of the Dry Sea shall also meet with the myllahim, they who howl,

And the wild goat shall bleat to its companion;

Also the night creature—laylah yst’svar—shall rest there,

And find for herself a place of rest among the host of black.

For, in the bones of a long dead place, a husk tree hath sprouted to reach the Heavens.

It shall be struck down as the Sundered Tower—Shinar Babillim—that it is.

Desire not, o’ thee that listens, of the Power of God.

Wrack and ruin await those that lust beyond their stature.

-The Book of Ish’ Aya, Holy Scripture of the Cult of The War Prophet.

The Exorcist - 4th of Mead’s Tap, Year 1125 A.E.

Fin came back to the inn in the evening.

He had written a note for Eiden and left it atop his chest, yet when he returned he knew that the boy had not read it.

The letter was still beneath the elixir, the distilled and purified mana stored within the corked and wax-sealed glass flask. It seemed the lad had not taken up on the recompense left behind.

He was a once-denizen of the Undercity; Eiden did not expect gifts of any kind, so why would he look for such?

The lad had eaten the food at least, so his corporeal half was satiated. The problem lay with the spiritual; his subtle body had been transformed and transfigured and so it incurred higher mana expenditure, even when not performing any sort of exhaustive magicking.

And, by the look of the mageling’s aura, the boy had spent himself from both ends of the candle. Spirit and bodily fatigue were inextricably linked due to the First Law of Sympathy: As Above, So Below

Eiden needed a bit of elixir different only to the Exorcist in the fact that it was a lesser amount. Magickal food was needed for the spirit of a magicker, fundamentally so.

Hence why the room he shared with his apprentice reeked of a particular spiritual vitriol; the Aspect of Hunger. The lad had substituted the vital elixir he so very needed for the paltry, and comparatively mundane, essence of fire.

Spirit starvation coupled with Eld-made-bare upon the shell of his soul; it makes a fetor nigh blinding to my auric senses.

Like the sweat wrung dry from the skin in a break of stress, or vinegar straight to the tongue. It reeks of animosity through and through, of basal beastialness itself.

The boy’s constitution of subtle and gross had been endowed with an affinity for the attribute that was hunger; vampyrism tended to be blessed with such a curse. This spiritual stench would only grow stronger the longer Eiden went without properly feeding himself.

For tonight, the lad would be fine, but the Exorcist would stay with him the whole day on the ‘morrow to nip any bad habits in the bud.

The difference between vampyre and blood magicker proper was but a fine line, afterall.

Though, Fin much preferred comparing the dichotomy to a knife’s edge rather than tight-rope. Falling off the tight-rope would be cripplement or instant death while treading the knife’s edge would always bear a scar to the sole, independent of success or failure to endure.

By the end of his thoughts, the Exorcist did not know any longer whether he spoke of the underside of the foot or the alma kord’atio.

“Oi, laddie; here, catch.” Fin said as he opened the door with a grin.

A bottle, stoppered with cork but not wax-sealed like the elixir, flew throat over arse; end over end.

His apprentice caught the bottle by its neck in his left hand with ease, Eiden’s sharp reflexes showing themselves. With the ongoing spiritual-physical metamorphosis that was sure to be happening to the boy, his prowess would only increase further.

Even without the Trials that exorcists went through to augment both body and spirit, the lad would be a force to be reckoned with. And as Fin imagined the end product of both vampyrism and Trials-induced power, he practically salivated; such boundless potential was intoxicating for a being so focused on the accruement of power.

For a creature created by itself, climbing the ladder of its Path to reach its End; its Tehlos; death or divinity.

Ruminations flitted through the Exorcist’s mind twice-over faster than a mortal’s speed of thought.

A Lilithuan-vampyric consitution, yet without any of the superficial curses that usually come with such.

The leeches coming from the bloodline of the Nighten Fowl had not just the deep, basal hunger that came with their nature, but also possessed banes that had been struck upon Lilithu—the Devil Beneath the Willow Tree Herself—by the gods.

It was a spectacular example of monstrum; to show and remind others to fear transgression.

Sins of the Mother set upon Her offspring profane through sympathy of the blood. And such was just a handful of their thousandfold stigmas:

Bodies of running water ate at them as did acid.

Daylight nipped at their heels, hounds of sola hungry for their rotten meat, as did the beacon of the Albine Moon blind their eyes profane no different than staring straight at noonday sun. Theirs would be the domain of the lonely dark, rendered unto lesser beasts, scared of White.

Religious imagery, no matter from which realm or creed, was twice as effective as it should have been even when not imbued with Divine Ethos. They flinched from the gods, for from Them they were repudiated.

Silver, be it the mundane or magickal kind, cut their superhuman hide and left their flesh to rot as it should. For the Dead were to be as such: dead. Gold, too, was anathema as noble metals—those of lesser chemical reactivity yet greater magicking potential—were bane to the Kindred. It was a given as divine reliquary, idols and statuettes and images and amulets, were wrought of such; karmic bond took hold, transferring godly repudiation by mere association thereof.

Salt, garlic, wood of wowan, and much, much more joined their long list of allergens. The world itself was poison to them and so they wandered, cloaked by the Veil of Iron and Lightning and unwanted for their vile thirst by even the very earth they trod upon. Relegated to the night and the dark of voidmoons, they scurried like rats and cockroaches.

Each separate-yet-compounding divine-disease set posthumously upon the Lilithuan line of vampyrism was done so to make it wither. Yet such was not enough, for even the combined efforts of gods did not stop the tide of undeath that was the progeny of Lilithu.

Only neophytes cast aside by their sires were easy pickings, as older immortals usually had enough tricks to offset—if not entirely nullify—the weaknesses of their kindred kind. Weak at second birth, they were.

Power shackled by inverse and opposite inability; bonds shed layer by layer through millenia.

And as Eiden had not succumbed in neither soul nor death, he would not carry even a smidgen of the superfluous banes that came with having the enhanced physique and spiritual constitution of the Kindred—basal hunger notwithstanding.

The Eld in that regard had been carved into his bones; it were not some pair of fetters to be thrown off. It was transfiguration proper, only without any strings attached therein to puppet him.

But anchorage left behind where chains were once made to bind.

The bonds of karma sown would not weigh him down, the Forfend talisman protecting the lad from any future attempts at sympathetic bondage.

The long link of Transference—the passage, nigh as contractual as the inheritance of familial estate, of Eld from sire to progeny and so on and so forth—would end with him. From the lad, the bloodline of the Nighten Fowl would not spread.

It would cease.

He would have his cake and eat it too in regards to magicking talent. Yet such payment had not been worth the price, for the cruelty of the Fates knew no bounds, deep as the unfathomable depths upon which the Underworld was erected thusly.

Everyone the lad cared for, his kith and kin, had been cruelly snuffed out.

Nay, that would’ve been a much better end.

They had been slaughtered.

And he, forced to bear witness of their defiled remains for some monster’s entertainment and diversion from coming death.

That which preyed upon the predator had provided the impetus for such a massacre.

In trying to save innocents, the Exorcist had condemned them just the same. The outcome was drenched in eironeia, or irony in the tongue of the Keds.

Though Fin knew the guilt was not his to carry—the burden that of the Lilithuan progeny instead—it was no easy feat to dispel emotion without utterly smothering the damned thing in the cradle.

One could not rationalize themselves from an irrational position.

At least not when they held so dearly to the vestiges of the dying light that was their humanity. Part and parcel was the bitter, choking fruit of conscience to the condition of Man.

“What’s this?” The Apprentice asked, oblivious to Fin’s ruminations. Unknown to the lad were the thousand-thousand thoughts just beneath the surface of the Skein of Man before him.

Unknown to him was what stood before him.

“It was to be what you were to drink tonight,” said Fin, good-natured reproach and careless commiseration flavoring his words, “but now it will be left for tomorrow. It’s a minor sedative to help with sleep.”

Fin gestured with a shake of the head, his sharp, bird-of-prey sniffer pointed toward the chest by the foot of the lad’s bed.

“That elixir over there has a bad effect on slumber. Makes it hard to fall asleep with the high kaffeine content and whatnot.”

Eiden lifted a brow and turned his head like the pup that he was. Fin let out a small harumph in response, though he did so not by due of frustration proper but instead from the small amount of good humor that still dwelt unsmothered in his soul.

A middling spark that persevered against the sea of iniquity that sought to extinguish it. The horrors that one witnessed walking the Path of the Exorcist were no simple things; hence, most of his branch of the Order excised the dying vestiges of their humanity to better resist the dark.

A breath later, Phineas responded, his tone lecturous and yet slick. He broke down his explanation no different than a mundane chemist might distill the required reagents for a given reaction.

Simplification obfuscated the whole truth a bit, but such was enough for now. Introductions need not be entirely correct, for they were but stepping stones to true knowing.

But replaceable wood.

But anchorage left behind where chains were made to, in future, bind.

“Kaffeine is what’s in kahveh that makes it give a man vigor. It is the component responsible for such effect and was extracted and put into the elixir-potion.”

“Why’s that?” Eiden asked, his incessant curiosity showing its neverending teeth and greed for knowledge.

The lad exchanged the draught of anaesthesis for the elixir as he aired his question. With the other concoction left atop the chest, he gazed into the thick-and-vibrant-red, homogenous liquid sloshing around in the wax-sealed vial in his claws.

Silver-scarred, sharp fingers wrapped tightly around the elixir’s throat in threat to wring the glass like the brittle bones of a hare should it fall in escape.

Those were quite a set of talons, filed for the purpose of becoming weapons if Fin observed it rightly. Sacrosanct shamir and other abrasives used for the filing of nails were not found in the Undercity.

The lad had used of the marmon stone where Arvenpyre citizens proper would have had access to parchment of sand and glass; civilized tools that did not incur risk of ripping nails root and stem from their beds.

The discomfort of dragging oneself across grit rough-hewn took no small amount of inner grit in turn.

Not that Eiden had possessed the “privilege” of choice; he had simply to make do lest death chance upon him unawares. A weapon that would be always at the ready, and oh so difficult to part with, was a boon to any gangman in the Hells-On-Earth of Arvenpyre’s underbelly.

Previous lack of liberty and self-determination aside, the lad had an inkling—an aptitude bordering on the affinicious—for the exorcist’s Path, it seemed.

He would need such, too.

Lest he become what the Order hunted.

The difference between vampyre and bloodborne magicker proper was but a fine line, afterall. Cut from the same hame, the same cloth, they were.

For the vibrant red made vicious even of gentle men.

“To explain why the powdered druggae of kahveh is put into the potion, I must first explain what this potion is; how it is made, its uses and whatnot.”

Eiden nodded vigorously as he sat cross-legged atop his cot.

His right hand rested on the wooden bedding frame while his left hand choked tightly the elixir’s bottle as if it would bolt on him given the chance.

Were it in its raw and unprocessed state, the Exorcist would not have doubted such an occurrence.

“An elixir is perfected mana,” Fin continued, “called al-iksir by the Turchians and the powder xerion by the Isles Akae.”

The Exorcist spoke the name of the Archepelagian Sea-People with his homeland’s accentuation; instead of saying “Ah-Kay” as a Kedweni man might, he pronounced her coalition of city states “Ah-Gai-Eh” as was wont of those hailing from the Mediterranean Realms.

Fin did not expect Eiden to have the focus nor want to learn about Akaea proper, so he just explained that it was “those sea-faring folk in the East that like their wine”, leaving much unsaid and left within the catacombs of ken that were his mind. That askance sentence all but dripping with stereotype and the Kedweni pronunciation provided were more than enough to get the lad to understand of what people Fin spoke.

Wine and Akaea went hand-in-hand, afterall.

The Exorcist continued, voice like the elevated scholars they called maesters here in the Exiled-King’s Land. A vestige of the old tongue Vitaen, meaning a master of some craft or set of arms, and as mere mortals could not dare to achieve true mastery, they were usually some sort of mage; the modern Keddish word for a user of magicks having the same root as that of said distinguished intelectuals.

Gods, how it was hard to remember all the new speech Man wrought by the tenyear or decade alone. No matter that Fin’s psyche was no longer housed in the rigid and unbending matter of a brain but instead dwelt in a matrix of substance insubstantial of his own making, the sheer amount of linguistic drift—the tendency for language to change—he suffered through in his long and unnatural life was a straining burden.

Even for one that thought not with an organ of frail flesh and gellationous fat but instead through the immortal soul itself, the ken was begging to drag him down with all that weight.

Each word more plaque upon his Atlus stone.

“We of Vitaen origin khristen—anoint—this substance as the ‘philosopher's stone,’ or in the heartland tongue proper, ‘lapis philosphorum.’

“Though in this case, the elixir is in liquid form instead of a crystalline solid as it usually is upon creation. For, what you hold in your mitts has been refined further still. Some would call that drinkable elixir an ‘ambrosia’ or ‘neckter,’ since it is potable and ready for consumption.

“You see, elixir is essence taken and purified from the Material that may be consumed to enhance one’s spirit. It is an augmentor of magicks. An aphrodisiac for the soul, if you will; it gives vitality and virility to the subtle body.

“Needed traits for faster accruement of spiritual prowess. Training in the magicking Paths requires not only personal dedication and discipline, but also some amount of extraneous—outside—help from other practitioners; no man is an army and all that.

“You followin’ me boyyo?”

The brown-haired, brown-eyed guttersnipe gave him a nod equal parts ‘aye, captain!’ and ‘get on with it!’

Fin did not let the smile reach his lips.

With the general aura of understandment radiating from his apprentice, the Exorcist continued. Such was not reproduced in superficial auric contractment and peristalsis—the ebb and flow of one’s aura—but instead through a subtle channel of the Spiritual.

By the links that bind nigh all—causality-made-fibrous or karma as said by those of Qyra—the lad’s spirit thrummed a tune of anticipation, sympathetic thread vibrating in resonance propagated by the medium of liquid ether; the interstitial humor of the Living Universe.

Beneath the muscle, further than the bone, drenched in blood ephemera and amidst the sleeping mind of reality itself, the Exorcist divined emotions from the Psykein Skein.

He beheld the songs sung by the spirits of others, unknown to themselves all that they may broadcast like a hungry fisherman with a family to feed. The sound of base intent itself—of what any given person felt—but errant bard-haggle heard on the tavern corner to the auricle metaphysicka of the Wolf That Weaves.

It had taken Fin a century of dedicated effort and enduring work for even an askance gaze into the demesne of Empathy, of reading the vibrations borne upon the harp that was the Psykein Skein; one of the many realms-without-and-within wrought of causality-made-fibrous and whose very constituent extraplanar cloth was moored by the minds of others.

Eiden, in frustrating and nigh-emasculating contrast, had come to possess this ability no older than two score in age and without a lick of previous magickal practice or need thereof. Fin’s first waking moments with the lad had shown as much, the guttersnipe probing at the spirits of others and even his own, piercing further afield than the threshold of aura superficia.

Tapping into minds proper and deep for their raw emotions as a sugar-seifarer does to collect the sap of trees of mapolder.

A natural gift; a knack or talent, in the vernacular.

Sorcerers, the Exorcist thought with only a smidgen of frustration and envy, cheats, the lot o’ them.

“In broad terms,” the Aged Man continued, his tone not betraying his many branching and simultaneous mental processes, “think of elixir as the ashes left behind by a fire that can later be used with the fat taken from livestock to make soap.

“Though the alchemicking process for making elixir is much more complex and intensive than saponification, this mundane craft is very much similar nonetheless.

“The elixir is the lye of ash and you are the fat; slowly but surely made different and purer through the power of the substance sorcerous. You become like soap, in an albedo-spiritual reaction called leukosis in Vitaen.

“Or, to quote your countrymen and make this magick drivel understandin’ to ya: whitening.

“Not dissimilar to using urea to brighten the teeth or vinegar to remove any stuck plaque, the impurities of body and spirit both will be shed.”

The Exorcist’s next sentence was spoken in a downright turbid manner; all teeth and spittle, like.

His voice resonated in the back of his throat nigh akin to a stomach’s hunger-growl. In between the buzzing background noise of the Pyskein Skein, a note strung itself out of place, taking precedence in atonality.

“But scale falling from slag so that steel may be wrought properly into the form of a magicker’s desire.”

With a cough from lungs that needed not a breath, the Exorcist veiled whatever bit of presence he exuded before continuing his explanation. His aura no longer greyen omen o’ storm on the horizon to the middling and rudderless ship that was the child before him.

Such was the difficulty that master magickers faced when interacting with near-mortals: just being caught up in his own words, Fin had unleashed but a smidgen of his changed spirit. Not enough to materialize a Shroud proper, but more than enough to scare pissless any without the ability to read his intent.

The Exorcist was no man, his spirit feeling not the same as such but instead alien.

For he had pounded the mettle of himself into the sharp shape of a blade; he himself, to the very core of his being, a weapon wrought for war.

Not for war in and of and only itself, but for the greater good; death was simply a means to a, quite literal, end.

Still, the minds of others saw not this subtle distinction, instead only feeling that which was before them:

Naked steel unsheathed, pressed against the throat in threat to draw blood.

Thankfully, the boy did not bolt away, instead simply raising his left brow. Eiden had Awoken by auric suppression, afterall; initiated into the magicking world by a Liluthuan progeny no less.

He would not run after having witnessed the Aspect of Hunger incarnate.

Famine-made-into-flesh had scarred his soul and spirit twain, made it callous such so that further attempt by the same source would not work as before.

Scars did not feel as doth unblemished skin. They were bereft of previous perception and sensitivity; made numb and unfeeling and callous.

An apologetic smile from Fin was met with a reciprotory grin bereft of the upper-left, first premolar. The Trials would fix that imperfection right an’ easy.

“Simply put: the elixir ye hold in them mitts will give yer subtle body a boost of strength temporarily and will also give ye lasting power too.”

With gloved fingers cupped on scratchy chin, the Exorcist gave himself a nod.

“Aye, now with all of that explanation outta the way, we can end your questing properly and rightly.

“Simply put, kaffeine—the vital component of kahveh—is added so you can make the most of the elixir’s effects as it is darn expensive to make. Only royal alchemists make this substance sorcerous in King’s Kedwen.

“The powder taken from the kahvehan drink gives both mortal and mage a sharper focus; vigor and compunction and alertness. Important qualities for utilizing every last drop of elixir with utmost efficiency, being as precious as it be.

“Not a grain of a gram wasted and all that.

“As a cognitive enhancer—a mind-druggae—kaffeine takes the place of a particular phlegmatic humor, washing away the waters of fatigue like monsoon upon forest dross.”

The lad’s once receptive posture turned in on itself, much like a turtle-rabbit or armadehu, upon hearing of the royal origin and high-brow caste of the elixir in his hands.

Eiden’s brows shot up as did his ears follow like a hunting hound having heard of tantalizing prey. His eyes were saucers and his jaw hung agape.

And then, like a counterbalance atop a scale to make the weight equal, his lids narrowed. They narrowed with the weight of suspicion and caution borne of strife unsought yet still found nonetheless.

As the boy looked into the viscous and all-but-glowing red of the elixir, he asked in a quiet and small manner, unbelieving in tone and downright shaky like a drunk-house with no legs.

“Yer givin’ me… but why?”

The Exorcist smilled a gelt smile, a thing neutered by the hands of loathing and sorrow. Hatred for a world where a child would look at a gift with suspicion instead of gratitude. Melancholia for a lad that thought himself not enough to deserve such endowment.

If only he knew that the particular concoction in his hands were ten times better than anything a Keddish man could make.

Not even ten ransoms of Solohmon Himself would be enough, not to mention the comparatively paltry war-coffers of King’s Kedwen.

The Exorcist spoke with a soft voice, yet the skin of his spirit turned as opaque as mountain stone. For he did not want his apprentice to witness what lay within; his soul waited in frustration for the power to end all monsters, be they supernatural or simple and mortal man tyranical.

It was a blade that beckoned to be unsheathed, to sing the song of naked steel and wage war against all that made others needlessly suffer.

It was the remnant of a man once mortal, a flaw left behind in the wake of the Trials. A frail spark that burned brighter against the encroaching dark and omens o’ doom.

It was his ungelt soul.

“Eiden, it matters not why. You are my apprentice; my charge; my ward. Only the best is good enough.

“Now, if you find it hard to sleep tonight, ye can take a sip of the draught of anaesthesia ye placed atop the chest. But not too much, we need to leave some for the ‘morrow. No more than enough to wet the tip of yer tongue, lest you won’t wake till the end o’ year festival.”

Fin give him a more genuine smile and then a nod before he took off his leather gloves, carrying them in his mitts.

The Exorcist went to his side of the room and unstrapped his oathbinder and crossbow, going through the motions of routine to maintain his equipment.