The Chronicle of Nemida: 2nd edit with quite a few updates

[Oni Koneko Damien]

Chapter 22:

"Oh gods, s'waking up!"

"Let's just run, c'mon an' git!"

"No! T'beast'll end us!"

"S'just a cat! Mebbe it canna' do't again!"

"Well I ain't gettin' et' by that thing!"

"Is eyes are open! Ef t'cat wun' et' us, 'ee will, jus' like Jaerohl!"

Nemida sat up and looked over to the source of the voices. Two rather filthy looking males sat at the
far corner of the cave, huddling frightened over a guttering candle. Laumas sat several meters away, staring at them impassively. "Who are you?" Nemida asked.

The two, their rather ragtag outfits and daggers gave them the look of bandits or ruffians, stared at Nemida with wide, stupid eyes, not replying. Nemida stood up, causing both to shrink even further into the uneven wall of the small cave, the only shelter Nemida had been able to find as lethargy overtook him in the midst of the storm, a sign that day was coming.

Reaching down to scratch behind Laumas' ears, "I heard you talking just a moment ago, so I know you can speak. Who are you?"

"W...w...wh..." one hazarded.

"Nnnnnnn...guh..." the other completed.

"Look, I'm not going to hurt either of you unless you give me a reason to. If this is your cave, I'm sorry, I needed shelter and no one was home at the time," Nemida sighed in exasperation, "So I'll just be on my way..."

"W...wait!" one stammered, "Take that bloody beast with you!"

Nemida looked down, "Laumas?"

"Ee'd jus' as soon kill us as lookit us!" the other all but yelled, clutching a greasy swab of cloth to his
forearm, it was stained by some dark substance that smelled slightly of copper.

Nemida arched an eyebrow incredulously, "Laumas?" he repeated.

"Iffin' that whatchee call th'beast," the first one said, "Jus' take it with ye if yer goin'! We jus' wanna get t'Bryll n'one piece an' not end up inside ye or yer demon-familiar's belly!"

"We dint mean any real harm!" the second said, "Jaerohl, Kahler here 'n me jus' had a good thing goin', pickin' spare coins off'n occasional travelers! We din't actually harm anyone, 'n now Jaerohl's gone!"

"Laumas," Nemida repeated, trying to figure out if there were actually refering to the diminutive cat which was now happily purring and batting eagerly at one of his bootlaces.

"Martin's tellin' th'truth!" the first one, Kahler, protested, they both looked near to tears, " 'N then ye mate came through here, an' brought 'is spawn with 'im! Jaerohl got et by th' walkin' corpses!"

"Laumas," Nemida said, then looked up, "My mate? Walking corpses?"

"S'right!" Kahler said, "Jus' a settin' o'th'moon ago, 'e comes through, jus' a-pale n'sickly like ye. N'then, the dead started walkin'! An' one day, they got th'jump on us, and Jaerohl...Jaerohl..."

"Ee got et," Martin finished for him, "An' now you come, with yer hellbeast...can't ye just let us be?
We're sorry fer thievin' an' stuff...we're tryin' t'get t' Bryll t'turn ourselves in an' account fer our sins!"

"Bryll?" Nemida said, giving the would-be bandits a once over. He thought quickly, there was a way he could pull this off in his favour. Bryll, according to the map, was the only town of any significant size in these parts, and it was more or less one night's journey through the passes. Perhaps there was a way he could bargain for shelter once he got there.

Nemida stood up and gave Martin and Kahler a smile that contained just a few too many teeth, "It is most fortunate you truly repent your actions, my companion here," he indicated Laumas, "may not have been quite so merciful had you not. As it stands, you will be accompanied by me to the town of Bryll, so as to ensure that you are not simply lying in an attempt to save your own hides."

Martin and Kahler gave each other a quick look of naked dread. Trying to stop himself from smiling too much, Nemida continued, "And if at any time, you attempt to flee the justice that is coming to you, Laumas will ensure you do not get far. Now, get moving, we have much ground to cover."

As the two pretty much fell over themselves getting out of the cave, Laumas skittering after them. Nemida reached down and swiftly scooped up the small bundle of grey fur before it could get far. He lifted the cat up to eye level, "Just what is it you did that made them far more scared of you than me? And while you're at it... what the hell did you do back in that temple?"

Laumas responded by batting the boy gently on the nose with an outstretched paw.

-----------------

Nemida stopped walking, giving the air a sniff. Flesh and blood, sinew and bone. Old and decayed, yet still moving. Just like in the village before, but this time stronger, infinitely more present. Laumas stared at the shadows of abandoned buildings. Everything was covered in a thick, close-knit mist, remnants of the storm now grumbling bitterly in the distance, obscuring mortal and supernatural vision alike. A door creaked some indeterminate distance away, but that was the only sound.

"This's'it!" Martin squeeked, his voice barely above a hoarse whisper, eyes squinting to see through the omnipresent mist that formed a ten-foot radius around the weak glow of the single lantern the two bandits carried, "This is how Jaerohl met 'is end! We'll not live t'see day again!"

Nemida drew the Indigo Void, a deeper line of darkness briefly imprinted itself on the already formidably blackened surroundings. A new sound crept through the mist. Shuffling footsteps, and the slightest exhalation of stale breath. Laumas growled at the noise, ears flattening against his head. Nemida looked back briefly at the two cowering bandits, "I told you I would bring you to Bryll to face proper judgment for your crimes. That includes getting you there in one piece, you will not die at the hands of these things, whatever they are."

More footsteps came. Whatever they were, they had the three bipeds and the one small quadraped surrounded and were closing in. Nemida wondered what they were. They stank of rotting flesh, seemed to be leisurely moving in towards prey that they must have felt was surrounded and couldn't put up any real resistance, and occasionally gave off an almost human moan that conveyed nothing more than a deep, mindless hunger.

Movement at the edge of Nemida's peripheral vision. He spun, there was something coming out of the
swirling mists. It was a slightly hunched humanoid figure, rags of cloth hanging off of dry, leathery skin. It *was* human, used to be. Now...milky, cataract-eyes gazed unseeing at Nemida and the bandits. Hands reached forward, clutching in a slow, eager hunger. The thing opened its mouth, revealing a set of cracked, jagged, rotting teeth, letting out a low moan that was echoed throughout the mist by a dozen other throats. It moved forward.

Nemida crouched down, ready to counter the thing's first attack. The creature, the human corpse, continued shuffling forward, it was now only twelve or so feet way. Nemida raised the staff, waiting for the inevitable strike. The thing continued shuffling forward. Nemida scanned its eyes for any intelligence, wondering what the creature thought, and how it intended to go about attacking them. The creature continued shuffling forward.

Nemida stood back up. He looked at the thing slowly shuffling towards him. More shadows were coming from the mist behind it, all moving at about the same pace. The thing was now only six feet away. It's jaws creaked and clacked together. Nemida's brow creased as he looked back towards the now petrified bandits, "Um...these are the things that killed your friend?"

"Et 'im!" Kahler wailed, "Et 'im alive, an' now we're next!"

Nemida buried his face in palm of his right hand. The left hand, holding the staff, moved forward, pressing the staff against the creature's chest. The decaying flesh split like rotten fruit, a couple splatters of jellied blood plopped on the dusty ground. Beneath the flesh was a slightly tougher layer of cartilage and bone that the Void found better purchase in. The corpse's forward movement was halted, and a corpse-gas belch was forced from its gullet from the pressure. It's hands, with chipped and yellowed nails, continued reaching forward, held over a meter away from any of Nemida's flesh.

Nemida gave another look at the bandits. Kahler was openly weeping now. Martin's hands were shaking so badly that the lantern was dangerously close to guttering out from the movement. Nemida indicated the corpse ineffectually flailing, easily held back by the dark staff, "This is what you're afraid of?!"

Several other corpses had ventured into the wildly flickering radius of the lantern's light. The closest was still a good six feet away. Nemida turned and gave the staff a light shove, sending the corpse on
the other end staggering back several feet. It overcompensated from the upset to its equilibrium, and staggered forward a few steps. Nemida gave a quick, short jab with the staff, directly through one of the milky eyes. The thing shuddered briefly, impaled through the skull, and then went limp.

"We're doomed!" Kahler wailed between sobs, "We're doomed!"

"Oh would you just shut the bloody hell up you moron?!" Nemida yelled back, "Look at these things, the both of you! A child could hold them off!"

The two thieves weren't listening, they now actually held each other. Nemida sighed, idly snapping the
necks of several more corpses with well placed blows. He noticed one corpse had nearly reached the twobandits. Switching the staff to his right hand, Nemida walked around and grabbed the thing by the back of the neck. "Look you idiots!" he said, shaking the creature slightly, "These things are about as dangerous as a dead dog!"

"Dead!" Martin whimpered, "Dead, jus' like Jaerohl! That's what we are! Oh please make et quick!"

Nemida hung his head, muttering a few words about how Jaerohl must have had no legs, it's the only way these things could have caught him. He gave the corpse he was holding a bit of a firmer shake. There was a liquid snap as the thing's neck broke and it went limp in his hand. Placing the Void upon his back, Nemida casually strolled about, easily grabbing and dismantling each of the reanimated dead. "You two are completely hopeless," Nemida swore as he finally dispatched the last of the nearly two-dozen corpses that had, for lack of a better word, 'attacked' them.

Martin and Kahler were upon the ground, shuddering and weeping, covering their faces.

"Hey," Nemida said.

Their only reply was to curl into even tighter fetal positions.

"Hey, lackwits," Nemida tried again.

No reply.

"Idiots!" Nemida said a little louder, giving Martin a gentle yet firm kick in the back, "Come on, let's get going, the danger has passed."

"It's starting!" Martin cried out in reaction to the kick, "Save yourself Kahler! They're feeding on me now!"

Nemida sighed. Was this plan really worth it?

[Oni Koneko Damien]

Chapter 23:

"This is the entrance to Bryll?" Nemida looked at what was essentially a large hole in the wall, filled with a slightly smaller wooden gate bound in iron.

"Y...yes," Martin said, still offering quite a few frightened glances behind him.

Nemida ended up forcefully dragging them along for a couple dozen feet before they finally got to their own feet. For the next several miles, they actually clung to him as the trio made their way along the mountain passes. They smelled worse than they looked, and judging from the bouquet of scents that made their way to Nemida's unfortunately sensitive nose, at least one, if not both, had ended up pissing the sad collections of stitched-together rags that passed for pants.

Apparently, in their terror, neither had seen the true extent of the undead's powers. Which meant they
remained obstinately certain the corpses would be back at any moment, attacking them with strength and speed that existed only in their fevered imaginations. After two hours, Nemida had managed to tune out their quavering voices.

Despite that, traveling had gone much easier and faster than Nemida had thought it would. As they got closer to the town of Bryll, the passes that were formerly occasionally barely wide enough to let two men abreast past, now widened into what looked like fairly often-used trade roads. Now they had finally arrived at the city gates, it didn't look all that impressive. The large gate was one of four that Nemida could see spread out along what looked to be a mile of curving cliff walls. The rocky barrier was riddled with holes, quite a few with balconies or railings built into them, displaying a number of colourful banners, a few ladders, and a couple of those complex-looking lifts.

"Is the city underground?" Nemida said uncertainly, remembering what happened the last time he had ventured beneath the land.

"Nay, is'on th'other side," Martin said, indicating the wall, "Protects it from attack...'cept by th'griffons, o'course."

"Griffons?" Nemida asked, walking towards the moderately imposing gates.

"Aye, lot o'trouble with them couple years back or so," Martin said, "Apparently some enchanter oo'could speak wi'them hammered out some agreement, an' now they keep mostly t'themselves."

"Who goes there?" Someone in a helmet atop the single balcony overlooking the gate raised a torch and squinted down at the three people.

Nemida had made sure his cowl was pulled up, so that the flickering torchlight didn't illuminate his
startling, unnaturally pale face. "A traveler, seeking shelter after many long days of walking!"

"Tis not the best of times t'be without shelter in these parts," the guard called back down, "They say
the dead walk the land again, and rumours speak of vermin to the south plaguing the good people of that barren land."

"My eventual destination is the south," Nemida replied, "But for today, I need to rest someplace safe, may I pass?"

"You sound like a northerner, what business would you have here?"

"As I said, I am only passing through, my business takes me much further south. I merely wish a place to stay."

"Who is that with you? They look like plague-victims."

"Two ruffians I had encountered on my way here. They wish to turn themselves in to face justice."

The guard leaned forward, looking at the two, who shuffled about nervously, "Wait a moment...Martin? Kahler?"

"Yessir," Martin replied sullenly.

"Aye," Kahler said unhappily, "Hullo Ainsley."

"Traveler, you're welcome in Bryll, those two have been an annoyance for..." the guard Ainsley's voice droned to incoherence as he descended from his post behind the gate. A moment later, their was a loud ratcheting noise, and the gate opened outward with a protesting creak.

"You didn't happen to catch a third one, did you sir?" Ainsley asked hopefully as he stood aside and indicated Nemida could pass. Several more guards, all clad in loose chain mail, came out, laughing in recognition as they placed the two into iron manacles, taking them into the cave, "These two were pests, but the ringleader, a fellow by the name of Jaerohl, was the brains behind them."

"From what I heard," Nemida replied, walking through the gates, "the one called Jaerohl had died at the hands of the walking dead."

"Hmmpf, a pity," Ainsley replied, pulling the gate shut behind him, "They were brigands, to be sure, but they only thieved and mugged, never killed. I wouldn't wish death upon him. Of course, were he
still alive, I'd wish a good deal of time in the stocks, which is likely what those two'll get."

Nemida walked forward, looking about curiously. The 'cave' only extended a couple hundred feet before going into the open air again. The torch-lined wall showed that the ceiling was about forty feet or so high, and quite a few doorways and smaller caves lead off this one. Some high enough above 'ground' level that many wooden stairways and balconies were also present here. Then Nemida walked out the other end of the cave, back into the outside night air, and into the city of Bryll.

A gust of wind from the indefinite space below whipped past, knocking Nemida's cowl back and revealing his pale face and paler hair. He didn't notice, if he had need of breath, the sight would have stolen it from him.

The entire city was built on and in the cliff face. It was a town turned sideways and stuck on the edge of a massive plateau. Every surface even vaguely approaching horizontal was used and built upon. And where none existed, people had built their own. Paths, stairs, ramps and walkways formed an interlocking maze of many levels a mile up and down the cliff-face and several miles in each direction. The smallest were rickety contraptions barely large enough to hold a single person, the largest were massive feats of engineering, giant planks of wood bound together with bands of iron and riveted in place along the plateau walls.

Some of the paths were built connected to the sides of the the wall. Others were almost free-hanging, both sides leading to a dizzying drop. An infinitely intricate spider's web of cables, lines, and netting seemed to hold the entire unbelievable edifice together. Hanging and entwined from every available line and surface were a million banners, chimes, and various colourful decorations, turning the cliff-face into a flickering, multi-hued explosion of torch-lit and lamp-lit colour.

"We don't get too many travelers who aren't regular visitors here, so I always relish the chance to see
someone's face when they see the town for the first time, no matter what that face looks like. It's breathtaking, isn't it?" Ainsley said, leaning casually against the railing, though a slight distaste for Nemida's looks was obvious.

"How the hell does it all work?" Nemida breathed.

"Trade, mostly," Ainsley replied, waving to a few late-night goes strolling down a walkway about twenty feet above them, "We're the only real connection between the Plains of the Broodmother and the badlands to the south, and a lot of stuff comes through both ways. We only enforce a minor tariff, and it provides more than enough to sustain the town economically. Even so, quite a few citizens maintain their own gardens and are damn-near self-sufficient."

"Gardens?" Nemida asked incredulously, looking at the sheer, barren cliff face and noticing its distinct lack of horizontal surfaces and loose soil.

"Take a look at the tops of the ridges," Ainsley pointed out, "You see the lifts there? You probably saw a few similar ones on your trip down here. They can take people and supplies to the tops of the plateaus. No one actually lives up there, as the winds and the rain can get unbearably vicious, but the land on top is capable of holding seed, and there is certainly no lack of both sun and rain here."

"Why are there still so many people out?" Nemida asked, "It's the middle of the night."

"We work hard, and we play hard," Ainsley replied proudly, "This town is under no ones' jurisdiction aside from the Mayor. We claim no allegience to any king, duke, earl, or baron. We have no true laws other than not to obstruct trade. You can find most anything and everything here if you look long enough, including everything you need to have fun late into the night," the guard gave Nemida a knowing prod in the ribs with his elbow.

"Like what?" Nemida asked innocently.

"Er, well..." Ainsley stuttered, then regained composure, the boy barely looked like a boy, more like something masquerading as a human. Either its attempts to appear human were masterful... or that really was just an inexperienced whelp under that frightening exterior, "You'll likely find out before too long."

Nemida looked around. There were several large structures, oddly shaped to conform to the dictates of
the mountainside, that looked like they may have been taverns and inns. "Do you know any good place to stay?"

"Actually, if you will allow me to indulge, the least I could do on behalf of the town of Bryll for your actions is give you a damn good room free of charge," Ainsley said brightly.

Nemida looked at him warily. His voice had raised in pitch, almost imperceptibly. Not only that, but there was something incredibly subtle about the guard's actions and demeanor, just a very slight change from before, perhaps even something as subtle and unnoticed as a very slight change of scent, imperceptible to most people. Either way, there was something about this Ainsley that wasn't fully honest, something quite indirect about the way he was acting.

"I'd rather not intrude on your good graces..." Nemida began cautiously.

"I won't hear of it," Ainsley said jovially, "You're a bit of a hero for what you did, and I insist you accept this as a show of gratitude on behalf of this city."

So there was no way to get out of this in a civil manner. And no way to tell if this was anything more than simple paranoia on Nemida's part. He relented, "Very well, I accept."

-----------------

"Are you certain it is him?" the wizened looking gentleman asked Ainsley while pouring himself another glass of wine.

Ainsley stood at attention in the richly decorated foyer, "Yes sir, I didn't recognize him until he removed his cowl, but he matches your description. Inhumanly pale of hair and skin, youthful of features, and gaunt of frame."

"Good good," the gentleman said amiably, "And you led him to the correct room, so that he could be properly observed?"

"Yes sir," Ainsley repeated, eyes forward, hands pressed firmly against his sides in a disciplined manner, "It proved even easier than expected, for he had brought two wanted ruffians with him, I convinced him that the hotel room, free of charge, was a show of gratitude on behalf of the city."

"The city, yes," the older man, silver-haired and with a noticeable paunch showing beneath his obviously expensively tailored doublet, "My city. Brought in ruffians did he? Obviously plans to infiltrate from within, I see."

There was a brief hesitation on the old man's part. An eye twitched uncertainly, "It's my city, he'll soon see that I am at the advantage here...not like then...no, not at all like the other time."

"Sir?" Ainsley asked, maintaining all proper decorum.

As if a switch had been hit, the older man straightened up and smiled again, "And as for these ruffians he turned in?"

Ainsley nodded ever so slightly, "They have been delivered to the holding cells, awaiting your decision
of punishment, as were your orders regarding all arrests. I presume you'll want them placed in the stocks for public mockery, sir?"

The gentleman's eyes narrowed suspiciously, "You presume? And what gives you that right?"

Ainsley's face did not budge an inch, "My apologies sir, I was merely trying to anticipate your decision to further streamline the..."

"You have no right!" the old man exploded, wine glass dropping and shattering on the floor, "You follow orders and you do NOT presume to think for me!" The man's voice reached a fever pitch now, "This is MY city and you are a part of MY city, so you will follow MY orders! Is that understood?!"

"Yes sir," Ainsley replied, showing a remarkable amount of self-control, "I apologize for overstepping my bounds, sir."

"Good then," the gentleman said brightly, another switch had been flipped and he was once again smiling amiably, "I shall see to the ruffians myself, and to our new guest. For the moment though, I have other matters to attend to. You are dismissed, Captain of the guard Ainsley."

As the blonde-haired guard turned with military precision and marched out, the gentleman walked back to the pantry, grabbing another glass and pouring himself some more wine. "My city," he muttered, "You brought me revelation, fiend, but now you are in my city, and I'll show you who is in charge here," he took a sip of the wine, "Yes, we'll see. I am a king here, and soon I shall have my queen."

Ainsley was intercepted as he marched across the courtyard by both the house servant and the grounds keeper. "What transpired?" the housekeeper asked nervously.

"He's quite obviously mad," Ainsley replied.

"But he's our mayor," the house-servant protested, "he's Sir Ghoroni, he's the heart of this..."

"He'll be the death of this town if this madness continues," Ainsley cut off the tremulous servant, "I know of your love for him, and I understand it hurts you to see him like this, which is why I want to see and end to this madness as much as you. But I love this town as you love him, and I will not see it fall because of him, you hear me?"

"E'er since those days ee went missin'," the groundskeeper muttered, "Takin' sick e'er since, is a'feared of the sun somethin' vicious, an' now is madder than a crooked hat."

"Watch him," Ainsley told the two, "See if you can find the cause of this, or at least some way to stem this madness."

"What're ye intendin' t'do?" the groundskeeper asked.

"I aim on finding out what this newcomer in town knows," Ainsley replied, walking out the front gate and onto the walkway, "The mayor somehow knew he'd be coming, I think he's related to all of it."

[Oni Koneko Damien]

Chapter 24:

The room was indeed nothing short of extravagant. Nemida marveled at the full bed, an actual soft mattress, several chests of drawers, curtains on the windows. Movement drew his attention. There was some sort of window to another room, and someone in that room. Nemida moved forward suspiciously, trying to get a better view. At the same time, the other occupant stepped noiselessly into view, crouched down and seemingly ready to spring. Nemida froze as the other occupant did the same. Neither moved for a full five seconds.

"Who are you?" Nemida asked. As he did, the other figure's lips moved, yet no sound came out. Nemida noticed that not only was its hair white, but there was a long dark staff strapped to the figure's back.

Nemida slowly stood back up, and watched the figure do the same. He stared in amazement, realizing that the window was in fact a mirror, something he had heard of, but never seen. He reached forward, watching his reflection do the same. He touched the tips of his own fingers, feeling the hard press of cold glass. He had never seen his own face before. He understood now why so many people reacted the way they did to him. He looked human enough, two eyes, a nose, a mouth, fairly youthful features. Yet everything was pale and drawn, as if the skin were just slightly too tight, and vaguely translucent. Occasional deep blue veins visibly traveled beneath the flesh, and the eyes, though containing the definite spark of life, stared with a cold, inhuman intensity.

By visual appearance alone, he was indeed a monster.

The door opened, drawing the boy's attention. In walked a girl, bearing a tray with some fragrant tea, a bowl of soup, and bread. She was pale-skinned, not nearly as much as he, but certainly a shade lighter than most of the people Nemida had encountered so far. Without a word the dusky-haired girl set the tray down and proceeded to kneel by the bed, eyes downcast.

“Who the hell are you?” Nemida asked, testier than he had intended.

The girl's eyes didn't rise, “I am the room servant, master.”

“Master?” Nemida was confused, “I'm not your master, I think...”

“This is your room, is it not?” Demure, not confrontational. Not daring to question, but rather seeking reassurance from an authority.

“Yeah, I was given this room for the day.”

“Then, as I am the servant assigned to this room, you are my master.”

Nemida's brow furrowed, “So you're a servant to whoever stays in this room?”

“I am your servant for as long as you are here,” the girl said, she looked to be about the same age as Nemida, “I cannot speak of others who may have been here, for they aren't here now, you are, thus you are my master. I am trained to serve in any way you see fit.”

“So... you're a slave then?”

“I have been told that is a vulgar term, but one that people will use to describe one like me, yes.”

“Were you captured or something?” Nemida asked, “Did you get forced into this?”

“It's always been like this, I know of no other way to be,” the girl looked confused. She stood up, her silken outfit whispering with the motion and took Nemida's cold hand. Even though her movements remained smooth and casual throughout the entire process, Nemida could all but smell the repressed fear, the slight hesitation to the cold, dry nature of his skin as she delicately led him to the bed and sat him down. She knelt before him, starting to pull off his soft shoes, “I will be here for whatever you may wish for, anything at all that I can provide is yours for the taking.”

Nemida shook his head. Unliving or not, his body apparently had memories of lust, his mind had memories of the types of people who had attracted his attention so much shortly before his... death. She was not lying about her training. Her voice, her movement, all of it was designed to inflame the desire of almost any male. Nemida understood the kind of power someone like her could wield. Even if she called herself a slave, her figure, the way she moved, the way she spoke, could make almost anyone a mere puppet in her hands if she wished.

But then again, Nemida wasn't exactly anyone. Humanity was still within him, at least the warm memory of it, influencing his thoughts and actions. But there were other things there too. A cold touch of death, however brief it may have been, altering his physical form, yet also giving him a slight distance to observe and react to outside stimuli. And something else, something which had surfaced briefly back at the carnival. Something that growled and raged, it also wanted to react to the presence of this female, to do things that Nemida could make a decent guess as to the purpose of, but still wasn't sure if he had actually done such things before, in that gaping hole where his memory should be.

Nemida gently pushed the girl back, “No, wait, listen. Don't you want to escape from your slavery? What kind of life is this for you?”

“It is the only life I know...” the girl started, trying to lean forward again.

“Yes, I know that already,” Nemida said, leaning forward himself, “But you have great skill in seduction. You don't have to be a slave, you know. You could do incredible things in the world and choose your own fate, all you have to do is escape from this.”

“Why would I want to?”

Nemida blinked, “Why? ...What do you mean? Why wouldn't you want to escape from this? You're a slave!”

“Yes, it's what I've lived with my entire life,” the girl replied, “It's what I was taught since birth. It's what I know better than anything else. I've seen a lot of people, a lot of different lives. Many of them are dangerous. The poor man who must fight for his food and a warm place to sleep, miserable in his poverty. The rich prince who lives every moment in great fear of family ambitious for the throne, associates envious of his power, and enemies desirous of his land. Here I'm safe, my owners provide me with food, a place safe from the cold and rain, and safety from the depredations of ruffians both rich and poor.”

Nemida's reply was cut off as the girl leaned just a little more forward and kissed him, an exotic tasting tongue darting quickly across his lips. “Why would I want to leave this?” she whispered.

The boy licked his lips, feeling almost drugged by the after-affects of that kiss. He tried to regain some sense of composure, "Be honest... I could feel the fear coming from you... at the way I look... at what I am..."

"What you are is human," the girl insisted, running a finger along his collarbone, "This establishment serves people, thus if you are receiving its services, you are a person."

Nemida ground his teeth together. Quite a lot of his physical and emotional state was telling him to stop the conversation right now and attend to... other things. He fought for control, “But, you don't really believe that, do you? You have to serve me whether you want to or not... you're not free. Is the safety really worth it if you don't have the freedom to pursue your own choices?”

The girl smiled, extending a thin, pale ankle. It had a thin band of steel around it, “From what I've seen, we're all slaves. Just because they don't wear marks of ownership as obvious as this one doesn't make it any less true. The poor man is a slave to his position in life, to the needs of food and shelter. They are his masters, they dictate his every action. The prince is a slave to his aristocratic heritage, to the demands of the mob he rules, to his duty, but above everything else, to his fear of losing his position of power. I am a slave, but I know what I am a slave to, and I am okay with it.”

“Even when...” Nemida, despite his lack of any need for oxygen, gasped as she nibbled gently on his lip, “Even when... you... you have to do things like this for whatever guest comes in here?”

“We all have to do things we don't necessarily want to in order to survive,” the girl replied, pushing him down on the bed and crawling on top of him, “When I may not be attracted to the person I may be serving at the time, the knowledge that my actions ensure my comfort and survival give me all the willpower I need,” She leaned down over Nemida, running a finger up his arm, “And besides, you wished for honesty, master. In all honesty, I think you're kind of cute, even if you're a little pale. To do something fun with you... something that you obviously want, and I want too, isn't that reward enough in itself?”

Nemida may have agreed, he might have disagreed. It didn't matter then because he had come to the realization that the woman had successfully proven that he could be made a slave to his own desires, and all it took was someone skilled enough to pull the strings to claim possession of him. From the actual window of the room, far away from the mirror in the corner, two glowing green-gold eyes watched the figures intertwined on the bed.

--------

“You don't breathe when you sleep.”

Nemida sat up, looking around in alarm. “You... you were with me the entire day?”

“Yes master,” the girl said, “Well... mostly. I had to attend to my own needs a few times, but I always made sure that you remained undisturbed.”

“And you weren't alarmed by the fact I wasn't breathing?”

“Well, aside from when you talked, and the occasional gasp you gave when excited, master, I had already noticed you didn't breathe, long before you fell asleep.”

“And you didn't find it odd?”

“It isn't my place to question the personal habits of my master,” the girl said, head lowered, “I'm certain you have your reasons for it.”

Nemida stood up, donning his shirt with no small amount of embarrassment, “Well that does make you practically unique among the people I've met so far.”

“What are master's plans for this evening? So that I may better serve him?”

“All right,” Nemida said, rubbing his head, “First off, I'm not your master, my name's Nemida. I'll be honest, this whole master/slave thing is kind of embarrassing.”

“My apologies, if it is your wish, I will address you as Nemida...”

“Secondly, maybe other people who use this room get a kick out of having a subservient little girl here to do their bidding. Yes, you did get me to do things that I'm not certain I should have, but please, you're not my slave. I don't own you, I didn't train you or anything like that, so please stop treating me like I'm your god or anything like that.”

“If it makes you feel more comfortable, if it's truly your wish, I will treat you more like I treat any other.”

“Well, I would feel more comfortable if you just treated me... I don't know, like someone equal to you, only with respect if it's earned. And finally, my plans for this evening are to leave. I've got a long road ahead of me. I'm still offering, if you want to come with, I can help you escape from all this.”

“No,” the girl replied.

Nemida sighed, “Fine then. But I have a hard time believing you. Just because everyone is a slave to something doesn't make it any less wrong. You said yourself, you're not...” Nemida waved his hands around vaguely, “...physically attracted to every 'master' that comes in here. Yet, because of the position you're in, if they want you to do something, no matter how degrading, painful or humiliating, you have to do it, and act like you're enjoying it. It's still wrong, I refuse to believe that's a way of finding happiness or comfort.”

“And what would you know about it?” the girl replied, her voice suddenly firm, eyes burning.

“Really? What would you know about happiness and how to find it?” the girl repeated, now standing in front of him, “When I first saw you last night, you were tense, on edge, ready to jump at anything. You're uncertain, lost, unknowing and frightened. You still have that now, but it's a little less ever since you simply allowed me to help you forget about your fears and uncertainties for a while. Sure you look weird, but it's hardly the worst I've had to deal with. And it isn't just you. Almost everyone I see out there has looks that are much the same. Afraid, uncertain. The only ones who don't really seem that way are those under the bliss of opium or those who are completely mad.

“I serve those that come here. I find ways to make them forget that which ails them, if even only for a night. While it may not be permanent, or truly help them find any sort of lasting happiness, it is still happiness of a sort, causing harm to none but me,” the girl ripped off her shirt, causing Nemida to bite his lip uncertainly, and turned, showing a series of thin scars running up and down her back, “These are the marks of fear and stress in others. They release that when they come here, either by thrusting a part of themselves within me, or by lashing it out upon my broken and bleeding flesh.”

The girl turned back, still topless, and advanced on Nemida, causing him to stumble back towards the wall, “And maybe there's something wrong with it, but that makes me happy. Because I'm helping some people find happiness, even if it's the momentary happiness of a temporary state of oblivion, in a world that is anything but happy. So... Nemida... don't you dare tell me that what I do, or what I go through is wrong.”

“I'm... sorry,” Nemida replied.

“Don't be sorry,” the girl replied, “You are my master, and a master has no need to apologize to his property.”

“But I'm not,” Nemida said, “And neither is anyone else who comes in here. You are the one in charge in here. Yes, you might do what they tell you to, whenever they come in here. But you dictate what they tell you to do through your actions, to bring them towards their own happiness, even if temporary.”

The girl sighed, “I don't see things exactly the same way, but I'm glad you sort of understand.”

“I do wish you best of luck with whom ever may come here next,” Nemida said, “even if it didn't work this time.”

“What are you talking about?” the girl asked.

“Your, I guess I should call it a technique, works well on people. I discovered something unfortunate last night. I felt lust, desire, a burning need to have someone like you, to do the things I did, just like I do while seeing you the way you are right now. But no happiness was achieved through it, not even a temporary one. I am still with the same worries and uncertainties I had before. There's something in me that makes me different, I'm not human.”

“Don't say that, you are human, it doesn't matter what you look like,” the girl replied testily, “You fuck like one, you're cold most of the time, but everyone gets cold from time to time, your eyes have something different in them... but who in the world has the same eyes as everyone else? You don't breathe, but so what? A man can hold his breath, and who am I to judge just because of that? Most of all, though, you still have the same reaction to me as any male would.”

“No,” Nemida replied, “Well... yes, but that's not all of it. I don't know what it is, it's something that's happened before, it takes a lot to keep it from rising to the surface at times. No matter what you might think... I'm not human. There is a human side of me, but there's something else. It wants you too, but it wants to do so much more, it wants you as a possession and a slave, hell, maybe even as food. I think... I think the only reason I didn't do more than I did to you was because the human side in me was just as attracted to you as that other thing, so it won out in the end.”

“I'm glad you have that sort of self control.”

“Yeah, I think I'm going to be needing it, but I have to get going now. Thanks for, well, the companionship I guess.”

“No.”

“No?”

“No, you can't leave yet.”

“Why not?”

“Ainsley, the guard captain stopped by earlier today. He said that the 'special guest' was to stay until the mayor could meet him and thank him in person. I guess that means you.”

“Stay? Even if I didn't want to?”

“Yeah, that's what he said.”

Nemida sat back down, pondering. “Well, I doubt they could forcefully keep me here, but then again, I am rather curious as to what the hell's going on. By the way, what is your name? Because I'll be damned if I'm going to call you 'slave' or something like that.”

“Caelia, and... well, I'm hoping you can find out what's going on, because quite a few of us really want to know.”

“Why? What's been happening here?”

“No one knows for sure, but everyone suspects something. It's those zombies or whatever, they're the cause of it, or whatever caused them caused it. The mayor, he's a good man, I've had the pleasure of his company a few times,” Nemida didn't have to ask what she meant by that, he could guess well enough, “Just a few weeks ago, he suddenly took ill, and hasn't been the same ever since. Ainsley says he has gone mad, trying to control everything and only coming out at night. And now these corpses come out and start attacking and eating people. Sure, it might look normal out there, but people are really scared, and the mayor hasn't done anything about it.”

“So what is so special about me?”

“Aside from the way you look? We don't know, that's the whole thing. Ainsley said that the mayor had told him to keep a lookout for someone with long white hair and dead looking skin. And you fit the bill,” Caelia said, giving a brief, guilty look.

“So you're in on this too, then,” Nemida said with a half smile.

“You ordered me not to lie... I was. I was to find out what you know about this. Nothing against you,” she said quickly, “I just want this whole thing done with, the sooner the better.”

Something occurred to Nemida, “Hey, those two idiots I hauled in here, Martin and Kahler, they said something about someone who looked a lot like me heading through here a few weeks ago. Said all the undead came right after them.”

“Maybe,” Caelia gasped, “Maybe it's... a wamphyri! I mean... you're human, but you look a lot like one, maybe the mayor mistook you for-”

“Wait, I'm not a goddamn wamphyri. I don't know what I am, but I know for sure I'm not a wamphyri.”

“Of course not, you're human. But from the stories I've heard, you look like one, that could scare a lot of people. But you don't act like the ones in the stories do.”

“So what do the stories say they act like?”

“Well... they are madness incarnate, they walk the night, the purifying rays of the sun burn them, and they feed on the life of others to create more of their spawn... oh no, what if...?”

“The mayor's been turned into one?”

“But... Master Ghoroni... he's such a nice...”

Caelia looked close to tears, Nemida quickly offered a comforting arm around her shoulder, “Let's not jump to conclusions. Maybe he had a run-in with the wamphyri, which is why he's sick, and now he's extra alert for attacks by any others, and doesn't want to alarm the townsfolk?”
An absurd justification, to be sure, but it seemed to work for the moment.

“I... I hope so,” Caelia said, hugging Nemida back, “He's a good person, something like that would never happen to him.”

“Don't worry, we'll get to the bottom of it,” Nemida said, wondering what he was getting himself into.

“I'd like to get to the bottom of you,” Caelia replied, her voice dropping an octave.

“What?” Nemida blinked, looking at the girl who now stared back up at him with sudden intensity.

“Explore everything of yours,” the girl said, twisting and falling to the bed with him, “and claim it as my own.”

“Caelia,” Nemida sputtered, trying to stand back up before a lithe arm wrapped around his neck and yanked him back down, “...wait, what about...”

The girl pinned him to the bed, straddling the boy and cutting off his protests with a firm kiss. This was not the demure, passive-aggressive of last night. That was a soft, gentle, passively manipulative approach, wearing away resistance until the 'victim' voluntarily gave in. This was an invasion. Nemida felt that the more he fought back, the more he would be forced into it.

It felt good, that couldn't be denied. Were this the approach that was used on him last night, he would have just as readily given in. But now... this was wrong. He had had a little time to acclimate to this Caelia girl, and now this just didn't feel right. She was not at all moving or acting in the same way she was before. The movements were strong, self-assured, dominating. But they weren't her own, it was almost like someone else were using her body and voice.

It was then that Nemida saw the strings behind her, attached to her limbs and neck. Thin filaments, little more than taut spiderwebs, softly reflecting the moonlight in a way that suggested that Nemida could only see them because his 'vision' wasn't restricted to purely physical objects. With a grunt, more effort going towards denying his body's natural reaction to this sort of movement and pressure than going towards the actual motion he underwent, Nemida flung Caelia off him, and swiped a hand through the ghostly strings.

A very faint pressure, and a sudden release. Caelia's taut form suddenly relaxed as she gasped and fell onto the bed. “What was that? I couldn't... I could see, but couldn't stop myself, it was like...”

“Something was controlling you,” Nemida said, looking out the window. Was that glimmer a translucent string, reflecting the moonlight as it was withdrawn, or was it just a random dust mote? “Wait here, I'm going to see if I can catch who's doing it.”

Nemida jumped on the sill and looked outside. Downward was a dizzying drop into an inky void. Somewhere indefinitely below came the sound of a waterfall. From above came the sounds of footsteps clicking rapidly away, several people in shoes with iron soles? Nemida judged the distance to the edge of the roof, a missed jump would mean a very long fall.

Caelia watched the black-clad figure disappear over the side of the roof. She leaned back in quickly, grabbing the wall for support. It was something she had never gotten used to, living at such a dizzying height. Steeling her nerves, Caelia ran down the stairs to the common area of the in, “Ainsley! Sir Ainsley!”

The man stood up from the bad. Quickly taking note of the disheveled nature of the girl's clothing, he reached for his weapon, “What happened? Did he...?”

“No, no! Not that at all! Something happened though,”

“What?"

“He's gone outside after something. Something took control of me and made me,” a slight hesitation, “er, attack him. He broke the control, and he went out after it!”

“Impossible, there's nothing on that side of the building but the gorge, right?”

“He went over the roof, leaped there, right through the window.”

“My god, so he is a...”

“He denies it. I don't know if he is or not, but I think he truly believes he isn't.”

“No matter, we can't let someone like that loose within Bryll, I'm going to have to take care of this,” Ainsley went for the door.

“Sir Ainsley!” Caelia shouted.

“Yeah?”

“Don't kill him, he's not the one responsible for all this.”

Ainsley took a deep breath, “No promises.”

---------

Nemida grabbed one of the taut ropes and pulled it tighter. A second later he jumped, using the rope's own tensile strength to catapult up across the next two rooftops. He hit the ground with a roll and dropped into a short alley. Without a pause he sprinted out, crossing a long bridge and looking over the maze of ropes on the left side, seeking an ideal spot to jump off from. He had nearly caught up with it! He could almost smell it now, or them. Yet, despite the sound of multiple feet, he was strangely sure it was just one entity.

“Halt!”

Nemida paid no real attention to the voice, he was nearly on top of the thing, all he had to do was find a place to jump off and...

“You! Halt!”

Wood splintered by Nemida's hand. He looked down to see a quivering quarrel sticking out of the woodwork. He looked back up. He was surrounded. Nearly a dozen guards, half armed with short spears, the rest hefting crossbows, probably the best weapons in this sort of environment. Wildly waving about a sword with this many load-bearing ropes around was a recipe for disaster.

“What?” He said impatiently, drumming slightly extended fingernails on the wood railing, he'd lose the thing at this rate.

“You're under arrest! Hand over your weapons, now!”

Nemida looked back over the side of the bridge.

“Now!”

“Bloody hell,” he growled and removed the staff from his back. He was to hold this staff or risk losing everything he was, Lex had told him. He wasn't certain he could avoid half a dozen crossbow bolts at once, no use risking his life, so in this case he was pretty certain he was screwed either way.

“Wait! What's going on here!” Nemida looked up, now seeing the same man who had escorted him here, “What are you doing with this... man?”

One of the guards covering Nemida stood up and addressed the Ainsley person, “This thing is under arrest.”

“For what? Under whose orders?” Ainsley asked, incredulous, “I had him under watch at the Palisade Ledge Inn.”

“Mayor Ghoroni,” the man replied with a smug look, “For the crime of being a wamphyri, stalking the citizens of this town in the guise of a human.”

[Oni Koneko Damien]

Chapter 25:

“What is the matter my dear Lex?” Belial asked with a mocking grin, “Are your feet cold?”

Lex shivered and spat. Like the blood that sporadically oozed from the now perpetually re-opening wounds on her feet, her spit quickly froze to the jagged, icy path the two of them walked on. “Come along,” Belial said amiably, giving a sharp tug on the chain attached to her collar, sending her stumbling to bare knees, which themselves were promptly torn open by the icy ground, “We must make haste if we are to meet your beloved in the wastelands.”

Lex cried out as pain shot through her knees and palms. She had almost gotten used to the numbing daggers that stabbed into her frozen feet with each step she took, Belial must have noticed. The burning needles that went through her knees and palms as they ripped themselves open on the dirty splinters of ice served to re-awaken the pain in her feet, bringing her back into the almost intolerable realm of agony the demon had carefully maintained around her for the past several days.

“Still, I often find myself wondering what pain truly feels like,” Belial chuckled, watching Lex failing to hold back the tears of suffering as she shakily regained her feet, “It is both such an incredible, lifesaving motivator for you mortals, yet at the same time an incredibly punishing Achilles heel. If we had more time, I would love nothing more than to simply find out how far mortal tolerances for those kind of stimuli can go, the knowledge could be useful. You, of course, would be the primary test subject.”

They stood on a bridge made of pure ice. It wasn't the season for it. Even though the mountain air was pleasantly cool, the ice was already melting, steaming off into oblivion. The bridge extended across a steep crag carved into the massive plateau. The journey had been this way for the past two days, avoiding the narrow, treacherous passes for a trip directly across the shattered plateau's surface. The wintry demon had wasted no opportunity to continue his sadistic efforts to release even more pained reactions from the girl, making her stand outside as the storm lashed her nearly naked form back and forth.

She now looked almost utterly different from the woman who had taken the white-haired boy from that abandoned cabin, an eternity and nearly a month ago. Hair that was once bright and vibrant now was tangled and matted with dirt and blood. Clothes were tattered remnants, hardly fit any more to qualify as even minimally concealing. A body wracked with marks and wounds. Some semi-healed to ugly scars, most still hanging open, or re-opened, weeping congealed blood and pus. Downcast eyes, one nearly swollen shut, looked deep in the canyon. A pair of cracked and bruised lips opened, “B...Belial...”

A shaking hand reached up and weakly gripped the side of her iron collar. “Our... our pact...”

“The terms of our pact have been kept to my dear puppet,” Belial smiled, azure hair whipping about in a dashing fashion, “I have given you ample opportunity to sabotage my plans for your dearly beloved, you have just failed to take them.”

Lex gripped her collar, her entire arm shaking with the effort. She snuffled a clot of mucus and blood into her nose and then spat it out, an ugly, animalistic noise, “Yes... it's fulfilled... thus... it's over...”

“What?”

Lex' hand ripped away from her neck, taking with it a good chunk of the collar she was wearing. The metal, in the space of a few seconds, had rusted completely through. With a smile that was almost serene, the woman allowed her shivering, left leg to simply collapse, falling off the side of the ice bridge. “What are you...!” Belial started as her form disappeared from view.

He looked over the side, watching the body fall. Something shot through the canyon below, a winged form many times the size of a human. An avian head and wings on a leonine body and tail. A pair of talons the size of human arms snaked out and carefully plucked the falling body of Lex out of the air before the griffon tilted and raced away, out of sight in the twisting gorges. Belial blinked slowly, his thoughts inscrutable. “She... used me. Even after all that, she used me.”

A jaunty smile crept across the man's face as he straighten up. He offered a brief nod in the direction the massive bird-creature had disappeared in. “My hat is off to you, mortal. Using me to keep an eye on your little fetish until you got back among allies.”

Whistling a merry tune, Belial turned and continued down the icy path, continuing south, “It doesn't change the fact that he belongs to me.”

[Oni Koneko Damien]

Chapter 26:

“Let me see those shackles,” Ainsley demanded, striding purposefully into the cell.

“They're fastened perfectly well, I checked th-” the corporal sputtered, standing ineffectually in his way.

Ainsley straightened to his full height, moving the smaller man aside by pure force of willpower, “I'm not taking any chances with this one.”

The captain of the guard made a show of double-checking the iron shackles that kept the boy's wrists above his head, and his ankles firmly against the wall. As he did he leaned in close to whisper, “Please find out what you can, those weapons of yours are safe.”

“Yes, good work corporal,” Ainsley said, straightening back up, “This monster is not going anywhere.”

“Very nice Captain,” a friendly, elderly voice said, “But I don't believe you were authorized to be involved in this.”

Ainsley straightened up, “Sir, Mayor Ghoroni, my apologies, I was asked to keep watch over the-”

“I believe we had a talk about taking too much initiative, and the line between good thinking and insubordination,” said a bent, wizened figure as it padded into the cell, “You are dismissed, Captain. Tomorrow evening, though, you will report to me in regards to disciplinary measures that obviously need to be taken.”

A sharp intake of breath. “Understood sir,” Ainsley said. Always the professional, even when faced with blatant threats.

“You are also dismissed,” The mayor addressed the corporal, “I wish some semblance of privacy with the prisoner.”

“Sir,” The corporal asked, “are you sure that's w-”

“I do believe I had just gotten finished talking to the good Captain about soldiers who have trouble following orders,” The mayor said with a dangerous smile.

The corporal wasn't stupid. He saluted smartly and marched out. The mayor turned and looked at the boy on the wall. “As for you, it seems things have changed since last we met. I now quite definitely have the upper hand.”

“What the hell are you talking about?” Nemida asked.

“Isn't it obvious?” The mayor replied, sidling up to Nemida, “You're but a prisoner now. A prisoner in my cells, in my town.”

He grabbed the boy's hair and yanked his head back roughly. Streamers of spittle whipped across Nemida's face as the old man screamed, “MY TOWN! MINE!!”

Then a pause. Eyes widened in disbelief, the mayor let go of Nemida's hair. “You're not him! You're not the one! Who are you?!”

“You're Mayor Ghoroni, aren't you?” Nemida asked with bared teeth, “The senile, psychotic bastard who's driving this town to self-destruction?”

The mayor had a glass of wine in his other hand that, up until a moment ago, he had been supping from. Now, a look of rage passing over his aged features, he smashed the glass across the side of Nemida's face. Nemida cried out in surprise and pain. Blood oozed slowly out of a dozen lacerations, many with shards of glass still embedded in them. The skin was dead, the blood beneath sluggish with the lack of a heartbeat to propel it. Thus it would never bruise and swell under the burning coat of wine now dripping down his neck. Had Nemida still been alive, though, his face would already been swollen and inhuman from this strike. The mayor looked down at his cut hand and frowned, taking out a handkerchief and wiping it off.

“No, no, I see it now,” He said calmly, “That is something I obviously have not yet mastered yet. But I will! That was a dastardly trick to play, you made me destroy one of the family glasses with it. Changing your appearance, you're trying to send me even deeper into madness in a desperate attempt to save yourself! I know how you operate! You already know well enough of our madness.”

“Would I?” Nemida asked, grimacing in pain as the wounds slowly began to seal themselves shut, forcing chunks of glass out to tinkle quietly to the dirt floor below.

“Don't think your games will work with me, Wamphyri!” The mayor screamed, stamping back out of the cell. A second later he returned. Nemida saw through bloodstained vision that he carried with him a stout, wooden club with iron rivets nailed through the shaft, “You made me into you! You took my life, to you I was just a victim walking along. Little did you know, I was the mayor! I was a Ghoroni! I was too strong to simply raise as one of those shambling things out there when you were done!”

“Perhaps you were underestimated,” Nemida said carefully, keeping a wary eye on the club.

“Of course I was underestimated!” Ghoroni smirked back, “But now you'll see! You took my sanity when you took my life. But that's just the way of things like us, isn't it? We take life and we take sanity! Well you'll see! You failed! Even if I can no longer watch the rising sun, you will! Oh yes you will!” The club was raised.

“Wait a minute,” Nemida started, “Maybe there's something that could b-”

The club slammed into his leg, eliciting another scream as bones shattered beneath it. Nemida tried to stagger, tried to fall over, but the shackles wouldn't let him. Shock and pain weakened him and he slumped against his chains, his other, unbroken leg unable to hold his weight up. The movement caused splinters of bone to move together, bringing about another pained cry. Shivering with exertion, he managed to push himself back up by his one good leg, removing most of the weight from his broken one.

“Well now, not so smug anymore, are we?” The mayor asked.

“Fucking... psycho...” Nemida started before the club slammed into his chest. Several ribs sounded like they cracked under that pressure.

“Enjoy your last night, fiend,” Ghoroni said as he walked casually out of the cell, “My queen and I shall far exceed you in power, though you shall not be around to witness it.”

The door to the cell block slammed shut. For a few minutes Nemida was left in silence. Tears streamed down his cheeks as he tried to avoid writhing in agony. Despite not needing to breathe, he had the strong urge to suck in air so he could cry out in more pain. Better thinking won out, and the realization that taking in air would involve chest movement, and more grinding of broken bones, kept his lungs still. More glass tinkled on the floor as his facial lacerations fully sealed themselves, expelling the last of the foreign objects. For another twenty minutes there was no sound.

A sudden crack and another cry of pain as Nemida's knee re-set itself. Something stirred in another cell in response to this. A hesitant voice spoke up, “Hey... hey, y'okay?”

“I just...” Nemida spoke slowly through gritted teeth, “...got beaten... with a club... I'm not... okay...”

“Hey, wait, arnchee th'one who got us into this mess in the first place?”

Nemida's eyes opened, “Hey, wait, I recognize your voice now. Kahler?”

“Yeah, yeah, s'right,” a snicker from the other cell. It didn't sound that happy, “S'too bad yore in here with me now, eh? An' it sound like y'ain't got much longer t'live, eh? Guess t'wasn't such a good plan, eh? Bringin' us here so's ye could be jailed too?”

“Where's that other one who was with you?” Nemida asked, “And it was your idea to come here first. If I wasn't with you, you'd be zombie food by now.”

“Dint make no difference fer Martin!” The voice cried out, “Ee's dead anyways, ain't he?”

“Dead? How?” Nemida asked.

“That monster of a mayor, that's how!” Kahler screamed back, nearly lapsing into tears, “I saw it meself! Came here and killed him, slowly, made me watch too! An' right when poor Martin passed away, an' he did a fair bit o' screamin' afore he did too, let me tell you... right when 'e died, that unholy bastard sucked his soul out!”

“He did what?” Nemida asked.

“S'truth!” Kahler cried, “Swear't! He leaned in real close, that mayor did, and as Martin's lettin' out 'is dyin' breath, th'mayor breathes in all deep like, an' he suddenly start's lookin' healthier, and Martin's skin all tighten's up slightly, like sumthin' was sucked outta him. An' it was his soul! I know 'twas!”

“We're the only ones left?” Nemida asked.

“He'll come back fer me, I know't!” Kahler wailed, “He ain't gon' do nothin' with the girl down the hall!”

“Girl down the hall?”

“Yeah! I hear her screamin' up a storm whene'er he goes t'see her, must be doin' somethin' right terrible with her. But I hear 'er, she ain't takin' nothin', she screams 'n curses 'n spits on 'im the entire time. And he's screachin' 'bout her bein' his queen, and she dun' take none o' it. He's savin' 'er fer somethin' special!”

The cell-block door opened. Footsteps. A second later, thick keys rattled in the door to Nemida's cell. Nemida squinted his eyes against the sudden influx of torchlight. He heard something whispering in his ear. He thought he heard a soft feminine voice say the words, “You will suit my purposes, if you can survive.”

The gruff voice of Ainsley interrupted the hallucinatory words with his own, “Come on.”

Nemida was unlocked from the wall, though his shackles remained on, restricting both arm and leg movement. He fell limply forward before regaining his feet with the help of the guard captain. “Wait,” he said weakly, “I heard...”

“No time,” Ainsley said, “Mayor says to bring you out to the Viewing Ledge now.”

Nemida looked behind him, but all that was in his cell were a couple of spiders, crawling along the wall he was pinned to, robbed of their overlarge prey. Ainsley leaned in close, “If you've got something up your sleeve, pull it out soon. Crowds are gathering, and the Mayor says there's going to be a public execution of a monster.”

[Oni Koneko Damien]

Chapter 27:

The dull clang of sledgehammers interrupted the passioned speech given by the mayor. Despite it, he continued relentlessly. What looked like a crowd of at least several hundred had gathered around one of the largest flat spaces in the entire town of Bryll. Nemida tested the shackles, silver plated oddly enough, for the umpteenth time as the sky to the west continue to turn progressively lighter shades of purple. He had to marvel at the workmanship, specially designed to take advantage of this natural outcropping. It was almost like a natural amphitheater built directly into the side of the cliff.

The only difference here was that if any actors accidently stepped too far offstage, a two mile drop to the jungle below awaited them. As for Nemida... well the brightening sky spoke for itself. The mayor was delivering his speech from inside an ingenious contraption. It looked based off the same concept that the massive granary lifts to the plateau surface, far above. Except in this case it was more of a giant crane, holding aloft what basically amounted to a room-sized box, closed on all ends except one. The box was held above the dizzying drop, the open end facing the cliff face, the crowd of people, and the rocky outcropping that two guards were busy hammering Nemida's shackles to with a giant steel spike.

“...and though we face a dark time, with the dead rising and preying upon the living,” Mayor Ghoroni continued, “Like it does to the sky behind me even as I speak, the sun shall rise yet again, to brighten our hearts, bring us hope, and burn away that which would threaten us!”

Even given the situation, Nemida had to give the mayor credit. Even if a psychotic wamphyri, he did know how to play a crowd. Over the past hour, as more and more came to see the execution, the mayor had done such a good job of demonizing the white-haired boy, Nemida almost wanted to hate himself. Granted, the mayor did so from a hanging box which, coincidently, would protect him from the suns first rays. But everyone could obviously see that he's but an aging man, trying to run the town he loves in the face of adversity and sickness. Trying to save it from things like that horrible demon currently shackled and waiting to be purified by the sun once it crests the horizon.

Nemida saw the captain, Ainsley, in the crowd of jeering townsfolk. He looked rather helpless and pathetic there, to tell the truth. Near him stood that girl, Caelia. Of the two, she looked far more pissed at this turn of events. “Hey! Ainsley! Caelia! Guess what? The mayor's exactly what you feared he might be. Even better, he's got a-”

“Silence, demon!” Mayor Ghoroni shouted in a resonant voice as Nemida's guards delivered a few swift kicks to his face. “As you see, good citizens of Bryll, the demon's lying tongue will not be allowed to sully your minds with his evil and treacherous thoughts. He is the one responsible for the plagues and death you have faced! And, as I have led this town through other more natural threats, I will bravely confront and overcome this unholy evil as well!”

Nemida was grabbing the side of his face with one shackled hand, “Do you bloody mind?! I was trying to have a conversation wi-”

Another kick sent him sprawling.

Slightly disoriented by the blow, Nemida looked up. He saw the cliff face come to a sudden end about one hundred feet up. The top of the plateau. The top twenty feet of the cliff was splashed with sunlight, and it was creeping steadily downward. Nemida could feel a strange double-sensation. Lethargy settled over his limbs, telling him that the day had come, and it was time to rest, away from the light until night had fallen again. At the same time a tingling panic raced across his skin, warning him that he was exposed and quite vulnerable.

The sun was now only fifty feet away. The mayor's speech was wrapping up. Nemida guessed that he would likely seek a more durable shelter of his own once the 'execution' was finished. Nemida could see, even from a good twenty paces, a touch of exhaustion on the man's dead eyes. Apparently wamphyri needed sleep during the day as well, much like whatever the hell Nemida was.

The line of sunlight was twenty feet away.

Nemida dimly heard the voices of Caelia and Ainsley, trying to tell the townspeople not the believe the mayor. From the sound of various jeers and taunts that pretty much overshadowed their voices, they weren't having a whole lot of luck. “Don't bother,” Nemida said, “If these people want a demon, I'll give them a bloody demon.”

Ten feet away, a minute, maybe less.

“Does the condemned have any last words before he faces purification?”

Nemida looked up. Oh wow, the mayor was actually going to go full tilt on this theatrics thing. Once Nemida had seen the set-up, his initial plan had been crude and haphazard at best. But one thing after the other turned what started as an idea for basic survival into what would likely be a grand demonstration, and a hell of a lot of fun... provided he lived.

Nemida looked up, the sun was just about to strike his hair. He ducked low to the ground to give himself a few extra seconds to speak. “Mayor Ghoroni, that was an incredible spectacle, you had everyone convinced. But you forgot one slightly important fact...”

The mayor had done his job entirely too well. The entire crowd had gone completely silent, so every word rang crystal clear through the improvised theater. The mayor was nonplussed, “Oh, and what last lie do you wish to state before you die?”

“I'm not who you think I am,” Nemida smiled, this was where it all came together... or fell apart terribly, “I am not wamphyri.”

The mayor smiled. A condescending gesture, like a parent to a petulant child, “The burning of your flesh suggests otherwise, fiend.”

He wasn't lying. Smoke was already rising from Nemida's skin as the sun caressed it with its searing beams. The pain was rather terrible, but it was just more of what Nemida had been dealing with all night long. He could feel the terrible, wrathful energy, filling him far too quickly to be expressed. His spirit could not process that sort of energy the same way truly living creatures could, so it overflowed and charred, threatening to burn him down to nothing.

But he wasn't helpless. Even if he couldn't usefully process the energy for his own consumption, he could still bend it in other directions. For now, he focused it on the bindings encircling his wrists. The crowd gasped as the silver began to glow and steam, far worse than what his skin was giving off. The metal slagged, softened. With a small tug, Nemida was free of his constraints. The mayor had leaped to his feet, causing the cubical contraption to rock dangerously, “Guards! Stop him! Kill him!”

Nemida's two guards advanced slowly, uncertain about this new development. Nemida wasn't, the burning pain had returned once the metal had melted off him, the energy once again had no place to go. He had mere moments to do this right. The first moment was spent delivering a firm blow to the gut of the guard on his left. The man made a 'whoof!' noise, stumbled backwards, and fell over the edge of the rocky outcropping.

Since the wind was knocked out of him, the poor bastard couldn't even scream as he began his two mile fall.

The second moment of time was spent racing several paces forward to the edge of the rocky outcropping. The other guard was smart enough to stay back after seeing the fate of the first. By now the crowd was realizing that there was something terribly wrong with the demonstration. The demon wasn't supposed to be escaping, was he?

The third moment was spent leaping across the open space between the outcropping and the boxy thing hanging in the air. The look of shock on the mayor's face was priceless as Nemida landed messily on the floor next to him, causing the box to swing about haphazardly. The surprise was great enough that Nemida was back on his feet before the mayor could react. Despite the raging inferno licking at his nerves from the overexposure to sunlight, Nemida quickly gained the upper hand and knocked away the dagger Mayor Ghoroni attempted to pull on him. The two briefly wrestled back and forth, causing more instability, nearly pitching both over the edge of the box to the vast empty space below.

Nemida ducked under a wild punch. The thing inside him was now aching for combat. For a brief moment, he gave in to it. With a delighted snarl he snatched the mayor's outstretched arm and lifted the paunchy man directly above his head. With little more than a grunt he threw the older gentleman outside the box.

Pandemonium broke out in the crowd as a screaming mayor landed among them. Pandemonium turned into a rioting panic as Mayor Ghoroni's skin blackened and charred before their eyes. Within the space of five seconds what was once mayor was now a flaking, burning cadaver, mewling and crawling in desperate, blind circles, seeking a shade that was not there. Five more seconds and nothing remained of the good mayor but a small pile of smoking ashes.

Carefully keeping his balance in the dangerously shaking box, Nemida straightened up. He opened his mouth to deliver a fitting line to the crowd, something perfectly theatric to fit with everything else that had happened so far today. All he had managed to say was “There-” before the knife sunk into his back.

Nemida howled in pain and turned sharply. The house-servant, having loved Mayor Ghoroni for pretty much as long as he'd known him, pulled the dagger out and gave a howl of his own. Normally an inoffensive old man, the sight of the one he loved dying in that fashion drove him into the deepest ends of rage. Raising the dagger, he charged the wounded Nemida a second time.

...and was stopped in his tracks. Even as blind-berserk as he was, even as injured as his target was, the old man was no match for Nemida. Thin hands, still covered in burn scars, encircled the man's wrist. Before he could pull back, Nemida whipped him around, tossing him outside the box as well. The house-servant flailed about as he fell. He managed to catch one of the load-bearing ropes of the box as he fell. Unfortunately, he caught it with his dagger, slicing cleanly through it as he fell out of sight with a scream.

Trying to ignore the numbing pain of the deep stab-wound in his shoulder, the insistent ache of his burns, and the waves of lethargy threatening to overwhelming, Nemida straightened up again, trying to deliver his witty retort to the cooling ashes of what was once the mayor. “There-”

The second and third load-bearing lines of the cube snapped, weakened by the house-servant's final swipe. Nemida's single word was the last thing that hung in the air as ropes, box, and Nemida himself plummeted towards the trees two miles below.

[Oni Koneko Damien]

Okay, minor delay. After thoroughly checking two separate hard-drives, four different back-up email folders and a couple cd's worth of files, I seem to have successfully misplaced a chapter. I'm guessing I just failed to save it when I was finished. Thus I must delay posting the rest until I can do a proper re-write.

[Oni Koneko Damien]

Chapter 28:

Caelia crouched at the edge of the viewing platform, staring into the dark jungle below. She had remained in this position for nearly an hour now, her eyes never leaving the greenery below. A large hand wrapped gently around her shoulder. Caelia looked up to see the towering form of Sir Ainsley. He looked down at her with care, “You've been here a while.”

“I... I didn't expect things to work out like that,” Caelia's eyes drifted to the torn and broken rigging, the only remains of what was once the mayoral observation box.

Ainsley nodded sagely, “I don't think any of us really knew how things worked out. Half the town is asking the other half what the hell just happened. The other half is busy trying to hunt for wamphyri. I've just started trying to look through the mayor's sealed files and finding... lots. And the rest of the time is spent helping the guards stop the mobs from killing anyone without a tan, with eyebrows that have grown together, with oddly shaped fingers...”

“He fell, right down into the jungle. He could have just escaped and gone on his way... but he stayed behind to help us out. And now the town would hang him instead?”

Ainsley nodded, “Look at it from their point of view. A lot of them haven't even known of the mayor's sickness. All they know is that this inhuman looking creature was dragged in, out of the blue, and it attacked and killed the mayor. Yeah, it was kind of weird how it worked out but-”

“That 'inhuman creature' saved us all!” Caelia hissed, standing up and grabbing Ainsley's collar, “I... I don't care if he's human or not, he obviously had a heart!”

A mollifying hand was raised, “Easy, easy, I didn't say I agreed with it.”

The girl's grip loosened. She looked away angrily, “I'm... I'm sorry, it's just... he probably survived, right? I mean, those trees would have broken his fall, wouldn't they?”

“I don't want to give you false hope, hon. Nemida probably died shortly after what used to be the mayor died.”

“Well ...shit,” Caelia sagged to her knees again, looking at the stones beneath her with a helpless frustration.

The guard captain looked at the younger girl uncertainly. He knew what she did, what she voluntarily remained a part of. He had even offered to buy her and then set her free. He had saved up and put away nearly a year's worth of wages for whenever the need may have arose, it wouldn't probably have covered the cost to gain full ownership of her. She still refused to let him do that, repeating that this life allowed her to do more good than anywhere else she might go or anything else she might do. Ainsley regarded her almost as a sister now, having helped her through many trials, and relying on her support during his own. It wasn't the first time he had seen the hope fade from her eyes, but that didn't make it any less painful to watch.

“Listen, you should probably go back to the inn and get some rest,” he said encouragingly.

“I'm fine where I am,” came the dark reply.

“Please?” Ainsley asked, “I'd feel a lot better if you could get some sleep on this, you look more than exhausted.”

“No,” Caelia replied stubbornly, “Master Tomas said I could be out here. He said that since the boy never actually checked out, he's still technically registered in my room, thus I should remain with him, or where he was last seen.”

“Listen,” Ainsley offered, “If you go, get some rest, get something to eat... I'll stay here and keep watch.”

Caelia's resolve wavered slightly, “Are... are you sure?”

“Just please get some sleep hon, you look terrible.”

“You let me know if he's alive, won't you?”

“I promise.”

Ainsley watched as the girl hesitantly left before shifting his own gaze to where she had been watching before. He wasn't lying, he fully intended to make sure she was the first to know if that thing, that boy came back. Maybe the kid was a wamphyri, maybe he wasn't. He acted far different than what Ainsley expected a wamphyri to act. Hell, he had acted worlds differently than the afflicted Mayor Ghoroni. But even if the kid turned out to be an actual wamphyri, Ainsley wouldn't know what to do. Caelia seemed to like him, which was surprising.

The captain of the guard knew well enough what his adoptive little sister did for a 'living'. To call it 'slavery' was a bit of an exaggeration though. Technically, she was the 'property' of Tomas Parrik, brothel owner. Once Ainsley had gotten to know the girl who had served him food on several different occasions there, though, he had taken a much deeper interest in her well-being. There was a rather terse conversation between the guard captain and the brothel owner, illuminating the facts that if it was discovered that Caelia was being mistreated, or that she was about to be sold to a traveling merchant, said brothel owner may find that several of his vitals have suddenly gone missing, and find them later mounted on Ainsley's pike.

Caelia actually seemed to like the boy, and according to her, he certainly didn't mistreat her. This was rather stunning, she didn't make a habit of actually liking the people she provided... services to. Pitied, maybe, but never actually liked.

“Hey, you, why the long face?”

Ainsley's head snapped back, zeroing in on the sound of the voice. Someone was lounging one of the larger walkways, sitting in the crotch of a huge trestle. Shadows prevented him from determining who it was, but the voice sounded familiar. “Who goes there?”

“Silly man, all that armor is weighing your head down! Or maybe it's an invisible visor, covering your eyes, don't you recognize me?”

“L...Lady Lex? Is that you?”

A light giggle came from the shadowed person, and the figure dropped to the ground below with a lithe grace, “About time you came to your senses Mr. Ainsley person sir.”

The guard immediately dropped to one knee, “My apologies, Lady, if I had known you were coming I would have prepared a proper-”

“Oh stop being silly,” the girl admonished, stepping out into the sunlight with a limp, “You look like you're dealing with enough already.”

“...a proper, er... proper,” Ainsley's eyes finally got a good look at the figure in front of him, standing with her hands on her hips, “...good god, my Lady, what happened to you?”

Lex stood resolutely, but a slight shivering in her frame betrayed the energy it was taking for her to remain upright. A crude blanket, obviously hastily grabbed, had been thrown over her shoulders, but it did little to hide the state of the woman. Bruises and welts formed a patchwork of recent agonies on her skin. Many strips of quickly torn cloth were wrapped tightly around several portions of her body, each sprinkled with blooming spots of red and brown. Even so, it was obvious there weren't enough bandages to cover the extent of her injuries, as gashes and sores still abounded on her flesh. What few clothes she had left were all viciously torn, leaving the once beautiful body beneath almost wholly exposed.

“Oh quit peeping!” Lex said with false modesty, making a show of wrapping the blanket tightly around herself and wincing in pain at the motion.

“My... my Lady,” Ainsley quavered, stepping forward to help, “You need help, you're... my god, you're terribly wounded...”

“I'm perfectly capable of taking care of myself,” she admonished, “I didn't come here to be nursemaided by a lug like you... not that there's anything wrong with that.”

“Then,” Ainsley hesitated, not sure how to proceed with someone who looked like they were about to collapse. Yet, the last time he had met Lex, he learned quickly not to try to go against her wishes, “... er, what can I do for you? And... could you please at least tell me what befell you, what caused this?”

A shadow briefly passed over Lex's eyes, frightening the guard with how purely wrong it looked there, “You are far better not knowing what had done this to me. The less you know, the less likely you are to seek it out. The less likely you are to seek it out, the less likely you are to die rather horribly at its hands. Understand?”

“Er... yes my Lady...”

“Lovely!” the perkiness was back in her voice already. It sounded genuine, yet frayed, as if her voice was about to give out with the rest of her, “My business here is with much less unhappy things. Yes, my business is with a certain boy who might have passed this way.”

“A certain boy,” Ainsley repeated slowly, having a gut feeling about where this conversation was going.

“Yes! Quite! He was quite the adorable boy, with the most lovely, pet-able white hair... although I guess he looked like he could use a good meal or three. He may have passed this way, heading towards the Vorian badlands. Or he may not have gotten here yet, I'm so sad I don't know for sure yet. I'm not making much sense, am I? You should see him dance, it's so pretty!”

Ainsley smiled at the girl's manner of speech, “His name wouldn't be Nemida, would it?”

The light of happiness in Lex's eyes was genuine, “So he was here?! Wonderful, oh so wonderful! And where is he now?”

“I... he...” the guard sighed, not looking forward to shattering the Lady's happiness. He gestured towards the observation platform, “He fell, likely to his death, just this morning.”

Lex tilted her head to the side, “Fell? This morning? I don't understand.”

Ainsley spent the next five minutes quickly explaining what had happened. At the end of it she nodded, her face rather serious for once, “So the mayor turned out to be a wamphyri? Awww... I thought he was such a nice old man... though I suspected he had naughty thoughts about me.”

“And that boy, Nemida, saved us all and gave his own life to reveal the mayor's corruption,” Ainsley replied.

“Did he now?” Lex said, hobbling carefully to the edge of the viewing ledge and dropping to her knees. Ainsley watched in confusion as the girl prostrated herself on the stone, her head just over the edge, suspended miles above the jungle below. She remained this way for several minutes, eyes closed, deeply inhaling through the nose, as if smelling the air. Finally she pushed herself painfully back on her feet.

Without a word she turned and hobbled away, waving off any attempts by Ainsley to aid her or follow her. Even as she disappeared, just as suddenly as she had appeared, Ainsley noticed the single tear on her cheek. The last thing she said to him as she left was, “He's still alive down there.”

---------

Cold, brackish waters licked the dark shore of the jungle marsh. The darkness of night had already fallen over everything, though the sun had not yet properly set. The cliffs to the east, miles high and shearing off the end of the jungle like a giant cleaver, had blocked the sun for the last several hours of the day. Not that it mattered much here at ground level, no daylight ever penetrated this far anyways. The trees, wide leafed hardwoods and gargantuan conifers, reached nearly half a mile above the ground and filled all the space in between with foliage. The perpetual twilight's only differentiation between day and night was the slightest lightening of the omnipresent gray mist.

Pieces of shattered scrap wood still floated uncertainly on the marsh's surface, the last remaining signs of the thunder and violence that had occurred earlier that day. The majority of the strange contraption that had fallen out of the sky had sunk, swallowed by a vast, uncanny depth for a pond that size. Several splintered pieces of driftwood, the shattered remains of an expensive looking chair, a large chest, nearly broken in half, and a single bedraggled corpse were all that was left. Most had already washed on shore, some had been picked at by those jungle inhabitants too curious to be deterred by the frightening events earlier that day.

A new shadow crept through the heavy underbrush, slowly approaching the gaunt corpse that had washed up on the beach. It wasn't a fearful approach, merely a cautious one, casting many glances around to make sure no other beasts had intentions with this body. A sleek gray cat slunk out to the minimal shoreline and delicately sniffed the mud-streaked, formerly white hair of the corpse. With infinite care, the cat hooked one paw around the figure's ear and pulled until the head fell to the side and the corpse's face was exposed. Picking the portion of skin least caked with mud, the cat began to vigorously lick.

Nemida's eyes snapped open. The first thing he noticed was the damp coldness around his legs and waist. He was lying half in the water, a black pond of some sort, reeking of decay and stagnation. He also noticed the harsh repeated abrasion on his face. Unconsciously a single hand reached up and stroked the sleek, gray feline licking him. The movement sent bolts of pain shooting back and forth through the boy's body, causing him to curl up in agony.

Confused memories of the past day tried to organize themselves in his head. He dimly remembered being marched out to that stone outcropping to stand judgment for what he was. Then there was something involving daylight, the memories grew confused and unclear here. There was a deep, scalding heat that cut straight to his soul, a horrible burning. And there was fighting. And then... a feeling of his insides being lifted upward. Falling, endless falling. Some crazed room he was stuck inside falling as well. Showing glances of a sheer rock wall, a dark, rapidly approaching jungle, the open sky, purple-streaked blue, and occasionally flashes of the sun, searing his already charred flesh further.

And then? Something involving pain, even more than had already come. The room breaking apart, shattering into pieces. Thick leaves and thicker branches striking him, breaking bones, pulverizing limbs. And then a flat, black wall, broken by the waves and ripples of dozens of splintered boards. And then the final impact, the feeling like his entire body had just been shattered like the box he had fallen so far in, after that, like the stinking waters, blackness.

Nemida cautiously moved his limbs. More pain, nasty and intense. One arm refused to respond. As he breathed in, pure reaction to the pain, more agony sliced through his chest. Whatever had happened, it looked like it would take more than just a day's sleep to work these injuries off. Laumas mewled in concern. Nemida forced himself up on one hand, trying his best to ignore the pain. He looked up at the trees above him, memories beginning to coalesce into something more meaningful, more cohesive. Had he really fallen through all that?

Even after that room, that observation platform for the undead mayor, had fallen through the trees, the foliage was unbroken. Was that how Nemida had survived the day? Were the trees truly so thick that the sun never reached all the way down here? Nemida looked along the shoreline, his neck cracking uncomfortably in the process. A few meters away sat the only other survivor of the wreckage. The boy tried to get to his feet and failed miserably, collapsing with a gasp of pain back in the mud. The pain clouded his vision, blurring it an angry red at the edges, yet that chest still stood out clearly. It felt like a weight on the local Tapestry, there in much more than just the mundane physical sense.

Not knowing exactly why, Nemida crawled and stumbled painfully over to the box. The lock was ripped free, the box itself on the verge of falling to pieces. Nemida used his good arm to lift the lid off, causing one half of the chest to simply fall off and sink back into the algae-infested waters. Inside sat a deeper shadow, next to it a jeweled blade. Nemida withdrew the Void and the Demonbane with reverence. The mayor had been keeping them close by after all.

Using the staff as a prop, Nemida forced himself carefully to his feet with a smile. He was alive.

[Oni Koneko Damien]

Chapter 28:

The night had many hours left to it. Nemida had managed to hobble to a fallen tree-trunk and clear enough of the sticky, damp fungous away to make himself a place to sit. For nearly an hour he remained there, moving only to swat away various large insects that came to investigate this strange newcomer. Laumas found plenty to entertain himself with, joyfully chasing and pouncing on the various flitting arthropods.

Still, Nemida couldn't shake the feeling that he and the cat weren't alone out here. Sure, this steaming jungle was filled to the brim with verminous life, mindlessly clawing ever-upward, devouring and being devoured without a second thought. But he remained certain there was something more out there, just beyond the edge of vision, regarding him, watching him, waiting for something. Nemida himself was waiting for his body to mend itself to the point that he wasn't in quite so much pain any more. After what was probably half an hour, he tested his shattered leg, and found it whole enough to walk fully upon.

A crash across the pond drew a sharp glare from the boy. A centipede, nearly two meters long, shuffled off into the undergrowth, vacating the rotten branch that had failed to support its weight. The creature looked none too appealing, nothing but segmented armor plates, creaking legs, and uncomfortably large looking mandibles. It wasn't what was making Nemida so uncomfortable though. He felt that whatever was watching him hadn't left yet, it wasn't the giant centipede. So what should he do now?

Try to find a way back up, of course. Laumas being down here meant that there had to have been a way down the cliffs aside from jumping off the side. So there had to be a way back up, right? Even if Nemida had to climb all the way. Cautiously he stood up. No unbearable waves of pain met this movement, that was a good sign. He struck off in what felt like the best direction to go, uphill. The trek was anything but easy. The undergrowth reduced visibility to absolutely nothing and slowed his progress to barely above a crawl.

Nemida knew from his training with Lex that he could use his own strength to climb the nearest tree, try to get above this rather nast level of undergrowth, and jump from trunk to trunk. But his limbs were still aching rather heavily, and he wasn't certain his injuries wouldn't re-open with the effort. So his movement would have to remain at ground level for the moment. As for when it came time to scale that mountain? Well... then he'd just have to deal with it. Here was a place he had never dreamed of being stuck in. He felt sure that all things considered, the cliff-side was probably less dangerous overall than this dark, stinking hellhole.

If he had need of breath, the boy would have sighed with relief as, after a short grind, the jungle began to clear out slightly. Enough so that Nemida could see and avoid the deeper portions of the marsh before accidentally plunging half a leg into the muddy waters. Eventually he came across a game trail that looked like it was heading in the same direction he was. This would make things a whole lot easier, even if the risk of running into something along such an obviously well-used trail was greater. At least here he'd stand a chance of seeing it coming before running directly into it.

He still couldn't shake the feeling that he was being watched and followed. Unknown things howled and shrieked in the distance. Unseen shapes rustled, clicked and hissed in the leaf litter as the boy passed by. Occasionally the underbrush would part enough that Nemida could look overhead and seen various dark shapes, shadows upon a black backdrop, flitting back and forth. This place was a nesting bed of life, that was without doubt. Nemida found himself wondering if perhaps that thing in the plains, the 'Broodmother' had originally come from a place like this. He wondered how old that demon was, the order it ruled like a puppet-master obviously had been around for quite a few years. Were all demons like that, then? Strange, incomprehensible things that could never show their true forms to people simply because people would be completely unable to understand what they were seeing?

Nemida attempted to wipe some of the moisture off his face, failing because his clothes were just as soaked as he was. At the very least, the constant brushing of the large, damp leaves had removed a good deal of the caked mud on his skin, in his hair, on his clothes. On the downside, it left him literally crawling with twigs, small leaves, seeds, and constantly plucked away small insects, not to mention completely soaked. Laumas didn't look too much happier, though his small stature helped him avoid the worst of it.

The smell of decay was omnipresent here. Nemida assumed that life and death followed each other and a furious pace here, and death, unfortunately, had the advantage of smelling a lot more than life did. Yet as he went along the game trail, the occasional smell told him the scent of rot was getting stronger as the jungle grew ever thinner. Finally the trail came to an end, as did the jungle. The trees came right up to the mountain wall, though they were much thinner here. Nemida's eyes, however, were drawn immediately to the cabin sitting at the edge of the large, interconnected marsh. Someone actually lived in this place?

Lived, yes, probably no longer living, though. The cabin seemed to be the epicenter of the smell of rot. The owner of the cabin likely died, with no one there to bury him or otherwise take care of the corpse. But that couldn't be right, Nemida realized. This place was literally crawling with things that would probably leap at the chance to devour a fresh corpse. If the owner of that cabin truly died, he would have been devoured rather quickly by the teeming insect life of this place. Or his body would have been dragged out and consumed by the larger things that Nemida had seen many hints of, but thankfully not encountered face to face.

A shiver went down the boy's spine. The feeling of being watched had increased tenfold here. It now extended far beyond just a gut instinct. Nemida couldn't see it, at least not in the mundane visual sense. The darkness had caused him to rely on his own inhuman senses to perceive glimpses of the local Tapestry, the way the trees, bushes, ground and other things nearby him coloured it, to avoid running into said obstacles. Here, though, the Tapestry was different. Nemida had experienced on several occasions what it was like to attempt to push himself away from the interwoven threads of reality. Despite what he had learned from Lex, his mind still was used to addressing reality as if that were all that was there. This must have been the way he thought when he was still 'alive'. It made seeing 'reality' from an outside point of view rather difficult as the concept of 'outside reality' was so foreign to him.

Here, though, he didn't even need to put forward his own effort to feel the threads of the Tapestry fraying and stretching. Something else here pushed and prodded the local Tapestry, many somethings. Nemida had felt this before, when he had watched the thing that had called itself the Broodmother appear. Then it had been undeniable, something huge pushing against the walls of reality and forcefully manifesting itself in front of others, using the body of a goat as a vessel for its essence. Here it was different. There were many things pushing and prodding against the walls here. But the Tapestry here was weakened, warped and sagging. The entire area surrounding the cabin felt like it was close to simply dropping away from reality, forming a connection to something else. And these things beyond the wall, like the Broodmother but smaller, were clustering around it, feeding off of something that was leaking through.

And here was that stupid boy, deciding to try and see what was going on, rather than leaving it well enough alone.

The cabin door failed to creak ominously as Nemida pushed it open, electing to give a half-hearted squeek instead. Still, a fear of the unknown prevented him from entering for a few seconds. The stench of rot was almost a physical blow, the way it him him. Putrescent meat and festering, bloated skin. Nemida decided the best course of action would be to avoid breathing for the next several minutes. Easy enough as long as he didn't forget to stop himself from unconsciously sniffing the air.

The darkness inside the cabin was complete for only a moment, and Nemida was certain he could hear something breathing shallowly, then everything was thrown into stark relief by the jagged bolt of lightning that arced across the sky. A storm was brewing, yet the weather was the last thing on the boy's mind as he fell backwards with a gasp, forgetting about his vow not to breath the diseased air inside this unholy place. He saw what was producing the stench, some of it wasn't quite dead yet.

The small cabin was sparsely furnished, with a single small, glass-less window that allowed the light in. There was no bed at all, a table, one chair, and a single chest in one corner. The walls were surprisingly sturdy, and were host to a row of rusted meat hooks. It was the objects on these hooks and the table that had driven the unneeded air from Nemida in shock. Two of these objects were still alive.

Biting his lip, Nemida advanced cautiously and gave a closer look at the one on the table. She looked like she was probably older than Nemida by a good decade or so, but it was hard to tell with the scarring, infection and stress-lines. It was impossible to tell her skin colour with any accuracy in the light, but what was there suggested it was quite dark toned. Her arms and legs were crudely lashed to the table, preventing her escape. Everything in between looked... Nemida was amazed she was still alive, as narrow a connection to life as she still had. She was quite nude, but Nemida found nothing attractive about what lay in front of him. Clawed, shredded, infected. Swollen and bruised, semi-sealed wounds leaked blood and pus onto the table. It looked like there were several bites taken out of her flesh too.

Nemida's gaze transferred to her midsection. Aside from her face, this was the only part of the body that had avoided the worst of the abuse, though it still had its own signs of extended agony. The boy wasn't exactly knowledgeable about the subject, but to him it looked like someone or something had forced itself on this woman in the most vile way imaginable, several times. Her lower abdomen looked grotesquely swollen as well. The smell was intolerable, Nemida was thankful he didn't have to breath. Sweat, shit, piss, blood, decay and infection combined to form something beyond anything he had experienced before. Continuing to remind himself not to breath, Nemida gritted his teeth and put his ear against the swollen belly of the woman.

Something shifted from within.

Nemida transferred his gaze to the only other breathing thing in here. Another woman was on the wall, impaled on the meat-hook. She looked even closer to death than the one on the table, fully unconscious, dark, blood-clotted hair obscuring her facial-features. Her belly was likewise distended, full of something that grew within her. The two other bodies, also on meat hooks, were already dead. One's abdomen was ripped hideously open, dripping innards on the cabin floor. The other's belly looked grotesquely deflated, dried blood caking the insides of her legs. Nemida began to see what was going on here.

Unsure whether or not he truly wanted to know, Nemida lifted the lid of the unlocked chest. A second later he let it fall back down with a loud crack. Whatever occupied this cabin didn't hunt for just women. The men it caught just served a different purpose, as the half-eaten limbs and trunks inside the chest showed. In reaction to the resounding slam of the chest's lid a loud gasp came from the table. One of the survivors was awake. Nemida jumped at the sound. He went to the table, looking down at the woman who was now hyperventilating fearfully. “No... no... it's okay, I'm not the one who did this to you... I can get you free...”

Nemida was babbling and he knew it. He had no idea how to approach this, he could even begin to think about how such a situation could come about in the first place. Still, the sound of his voice must have been far different than whatever had done this to this woman, for the tone of her breathing changed, becoming slightly more relaxed. Her voice was a cracked, rasping shadow of what it must have been as she began speaking. It was an incomprehensible babble of syllables, a sharp, flowing tongue that Nemida had no knowledge of at all. The tone was interrogative, she wanted something of him, repeating phrases in an increasingly desperate plea.

“Hold on,” Nemida blurted, working frantically at the windings securing the woman's wrists to the table, “I'll... I'll get you out of here...”

One of her wrists came free. There was nothing but a flicker of strength as she weakly clasped his wrist in her hand. Her palm burned with a feverish heat as she strained, slowly dragging the boy's unresisting hand to her throat. With that effort, the woman's strength gave out and her arm collapsed limply. She merely continued to breath, rasping out that same interrogative over and over again. Nemida realized what she was asking him to do, he knew that he had no other choice here.

The sounds of pained breathing came to a sudden halt as the boy's fingers wrapped around her throat. For several minutes he remained like this, looking the other way as the body shivered and the limbs twitched fitfully, the only resistance she had the strength left to offer. Before he had the time to second-guess himself, Nemida repeated the process with the one living one left on the wall. When he was done, he and Laumas were the only living figures left in the cabin.

He tried to tell himself that he had done a good thing here. That he had stopped the horrible pain the two survivors were in. It was true in its own way, he did stop them from hurting, and there was no way in hell he'd be able to get them to a proper apothecary from where he was. From the looks of them, there wasn't a 'proper' apothecary in the world that could help them, he had merely hastened the inevitable death. Giving something relatively quick instead of a long slide into further sickness, madness and probable starvation.

It still didn't make any difference here. In this place of death and sickness, of rape, terror and agony. There was no good here, there was no way of bringing good here. There were only varying shades of evil and depravity. Nemida shivered in the darkness, feeling like the atmosphere, the air around him, the literal stench of evil was clinging to him, infecting him just as these corpses had been infected with any number of hideous maladies before they passed on.

The door creaked, Nemida turned and crouched. Another flash of lightning and a bright torch nearly blinded him, now used to working in the complete darkness of this place. The shadows outlined by the sudden intrusion of light revealed a bent figure in the doorway, looking at Nemida with surprise. Rapid blinking brought things into more focus as thunder drowned out what may have been a question, or a threat, or just a meaningless babble of noise coming from the figure. He looked old, or perhaps that was the thick, tangled beard. His skin was all but invisible, covered by either matted hair, or an assortment of rags.

The man was filthy beyond belief. Somehow he made the stench inside the cabin even worse with his presence, lending a more foul, feral, unkempt smell to layer on top of everything else. He grunted in a questioning fashion, tilting his head and looking at the boy in confusion with red-rimmed eyes. Nemida tried to find something to say, but for the moment was too frozen with unexpected terror to do anything. There was something about the way the man was looking at him, something about the confusion and hesitant eagerness. Nemida watched things unfold in a disconnected manner as the man stumbled forward towards him. The man's movements were surprisingly quick, belying his bent, frail looking frame. In two steps the man lurched forward and bodily pressed Nemida against the table.

The man pressed harder against Nemida, growling deeply and tugging at the boy's clothes. It wasn't that which brought him out of his shocked daze. The man's other hand was trying to drag Nemida's wrist towards the now vacant restraint on the table, apparently seeking to tie him down like the woman before. That wasn't what knocked him out of his shock either. Something pressing against the filthy leather rags around the man's midsection ground against Nemida's leg. The boy realized the man thought, probably with his long white hair, that he was a woman, and intended to do with him what he had apparently done with these others. Yet even that was not what caused the boy to shriek and strike the old man away from him in terror and loathing. When Nemida was pushed back against the table, his back was pressed against the swollen belly of the woman he had killed just a few moments before. Something from within pushed back.

Nemida gasped in terror as the old man reeled backwards, trying to make any sort of sense from the situation. His mind was refusing to accept something like this could happen to him, to anyone. The man growled, a deep, animalistic noise, and charged the boy. Nemida found himself grabbed with unholy strength and run right through the wall of the cabin, falling to the unhealthy ground outside in a pile with the man. He caught just a whiff of the man's breath. It reeked with the same sickness and decay he smelled coming from the cabin, the occupants therein. Wasting no time, the man pinned Nemida's wrists above his head and once again began fumbling with his clothes. Nemida began thrashing as he realized the man still thought he was a woman, was still trying to force himself upon the boy.

He couldn't quite get his hands free, they were bent back at an angle that allowed almost no leverage. Even so, where did this creep get such strength from? Nemida could see the festering boils on his skin, not only was he hold, but he was obviously horribly diseased, and it looked like it was affecting his mind too. Nemida squeezed his eyes shut and delivered a headbutt, causing the man to fall back enough to follow it up with a knee to his groin. Nemida rolled away and came up on his hands and knees. He tried standing but was forced to stay where he was as his stomach contracted in pure rejected of what what happening, vomiting its minimal contents and a bit of blood on the ground in front of him.

A hand curled into his hair, yanking him back onto his knees. Nemida reached for his staff, the Void... and realized it had fallen off and now lay in the dirt a good three meters away. The growl that accompanied the gust of hot breath on the back of the boy's neck had no trace of humanity left in it. Nemida was twisted around to face the man, and saw that there was no longer a man there. His features had become bestial, his face lengthening and stretching into a deformed, lupine muzzle. The body had grown to nearly double its size, bulging with muscle and sinews, holding the boy easily above the ground. The rags had mostly torn away, revealing swatches of infected flesh. The beast's hair was patchy at best, pocked with mangy bald patches, ripe with boils and sickly cancerous tumors. The creature lifted the boy and threw him bodily into the pond.

Nemida's body jerked as he bounced off the end of a crudely constructed pier and fell into the dark water. For a minute he didn't know what the soft yielding objects he struck beneath the water's surface were. Another flash of lightning tore through the night and he saw all too clearly. Corpses, half a dozen of them, all tied to rocks and planted at the bottom of the lake. All of them in various states of decay, yet all undeniably naked, female, and pregnant. Nemida struggled his way back to shore, trying to tell himself all he had to do to escape this nightmare he had found himself in was to wake up.

He found himself lifted by the creature and slammed bodily into a tree-trunk. He cried out in pain as several parts of his body cracked loudly. A ham sized fist slammed into his chest, cracking several more bones in the process. Nemida cried, he actually found himself crying. He was going to die here, surrounded by death and helplessly subject to the sickened desires of whatever this diseased beast was.

As suddenly as it was there, the massive set of claws pinning his neck to the tree disappeared. Nemida heard another roar, this one quite different from the howl of the wolf-man that was attacking him. He looked up to see the thing... the monster, tangled with something else. It was gray and sleek, having a healthy pelt and wickedly curved talons. Nemida watched in disbelief as Laumas, now grown to something larger than a tiger, viciously attacked the wolf-man. He tried to get up to help, but only collapsed with another shriek as shattered ribs and vertebrae ground against each other. He managed to look up just in time to see the wolf-man get the upper hand and slam the cat's head against a rock. He saw Laumas' body go limp.

Something woke up inside him at that sight. Something that didn't care about pain or debilitating injuries. Something that gnawed for release inside the boy. It wanted to be let out, to kill and bathe in the blood of that which stood in its way. It whispered an offer in Nemida's ear, from the inside, an offer of death and release, of mindless joy and the glory of ripping one's enemies to pieces. Nemida saw the unconscious Laumas, now shrunken back to his normal size, picked up by the wolf-man. He saw the thing's jaws open, ready to make a meal of the cat. Nemida realized his goals, and the goals of the thing inside him were one and the same.

The werebeast lifted the cat that had attacked it, intending to fully enjoy its snack before turning its attention back to the now crippled girl it intended to further spread its seed with. The creature's mind swam with fevered hallucinations, switching deliriously between fever, pain, lust, hunger, and limitless combinations of all of them. To the creature's surprise, hunger was suddenly replaced by a sharp, overwhelming pain. It looked towards the source of the pain.

Nemida crouched in front of the creature, hissing in joy. His hair had become suddenly far more sparse and haggard. His skin had drawn back even more, losing the tiny bit of colour that had remained in it before, now looking positively skeletal. His arms had become gaunt bars, and his fingers had lengthened to foot-long segmented rods tipped with black, curving claws, now dripping with blood. The beastman's left arm now had a long series of deep gashes carved down it. It howled in anger and rage at this... this thing standing in front of it and attacked it madly.

The boy easily vaulted over the creature's assault and landed on its back. Digging in with cruelly curved talons, he opened is mouth wide, distending his jaw and revealing a row of sharpened fangs. These fangs plunged into the flesh of the wolf-man's shoulder. The monster howled and ripped the thing off its back, trailing several long strips of flesh behind it. The wolfman bit into Nemida's shoulder, hoping to kill him before the boy injured it any further. Nemida shrieked, not in pain, but in sheer delight at the violence. The wolfman was now confused and in pain. The boy's flesh had changed, now feeling more like steel bones wrapped in tough leather than anything else. Wrapping his arms around the beast's head, Nemida bit into its neck, gleefully chewing through skin and tendons. The werebeast now did its own thrashing about, desperately wanting nothing more than to get whatever this terrifying thing was off of him. Nemida fell to the ground, a mouthful of flesh, muscle and bone dripping down his chin. The wolfman turned and fled through the trees.

Nemida's mind was little more than a red blur. He could see the thing moving away as fast as it could. He could feel the burning urge to chase after it, to hunt it down and continue the joy he had felt before. Nemida ground his fingers into a passing tree-trunk, stopping his body even as it dashed after the retreating wolfman. Even then his legs strained against it, his lips pulled back, offering snarls and howls, the red fog in his mind raged at the boy's insistance that it stop fighting.

The internal fight eventually came to an end. Nemida sagged against the tree, exhausted. His fingers were back to normal length. His skin, though pale and taut, was still looking far healthier than it did a moment before. His hair was no longer a thinly spread field of mangy clumps. The boy bent over and vomited again, this time trying to remove that vile thing's diseased flesh from his mouth and gullet. Did he actually try and eat it?

Nemida looked at his hand. His fingertips were torn and bloody. The tree next to him had a deep handprint torn into its bark. Did he... did he really do all that? He cautiously felt his chest. Aside from a slight burning on his shoulder, where the wolf-thing had most recently bit him, there was no pain. No broken bones. Even the bite, which had initially torn deeply into his flesh, was now little more than a series of small punctures, arranged in a semi-circle around his shoulder.

With dazed footsteps, the boy found his way back to the unconscious cat. With care he lifted the feline. It mewled softly and offered a half-hearted lick. Nemida fell to his knees, tears coursing down his cheeks, at least Laumas was alive. He wanted to believe that what had happened was nothing more than a dream. His memories of it were certainly dreamlike. But the marks on his shoulder, the state of the cat in his arms told the truth. He had given into something inside of him, something powerful enough to reverse debilitating injuries in seconds, and outmuscle something several times its size, all for the purpose of engaging in more killing and violence.

Even without that evidence, Nemida could feel it inside of him. It growled and burned, looking for any excuse to come back out. What had happened there? What had happened to him? His thoughts were interrupted by another flash of lightning. The storm was nearing. Nemida looked up, beyond that cabin of terrors and to the cliff-walls beyond. He didn't want to spend any longer down here than he had to. The night was still young, and now that he even healthier than before, he wanted to get away. Before than thing came back. Before the thing inside him had another reason to come back out.

[Oni Koneko Damien]

Chapter 29:

“Sir! Sir!”

“What is it, corporal?”

Ainsley lifted the lamp, identifying the bedraggled figure in front of him. It was bucketing out there, quite literally. The high winds, thankfully, had died down around dusk. It didn't change the fact that this was a wretched night to be walking around a relatively exposed cliff-face.

“Griffons, sir! They're swarming and-”

The man's voice was cut off by the crash of thunder, a momentary blinding illumination of his soaked features.

“What was that?” the guard captain had to shout to be heard over the downpour.

“Posts three and four are reportin' them, half a dozen at least. They're-”

Another pause as lightning and thunder crashed again.

“...they're all attackin' something that's stuck on the walls, 'bout half a mile below town.”

A whistle pierced through the torrential downpour. Ainsley and the corporal immediately ran towards it, recognizing it as a call to arms. It came from the direction of the amphitheater. Ainsley ran into another guard coming from the other direction.

“What's going on here?”

“I was coming to get you, sir. There's one o' them griffons circlin' the outcropping, looks like it intends to land!”

“Shit!”

Ainsley made it to the amphitheater in record time for such a night. He only slipped twice along the way. A dozen of the guard were arranged around the perimeter, not quite certain what to do. Ainsley tried to ask what was going on, but his voice was drowned out in the thunder. Lightning turned a dark, cold smothering world into a brief tableau of blues and whites. Frozen for that second was a massive creature, balanced precariously on a ledge far too small to accommodate it. Twenty-foot wide wings were caught in a brief instant of beating down the shifting sheets of rain. Ainsley's eye caught a small bundle moving by its leonine and avian feet.

One of the guards had a crossbow raised. “No!” Ainsley shouted, forcefully pushing the weapon down, “We have a treaty to keep to!”

A second later all had to grab on the nearest railing or pillar for support as a sudden downdraft battered the entire amphitheater. Something between a squawk and a roar overshadowed the shoosh of rain and the distant thump of wingbeats indicated the creature was gone. Picking his lamp back up, miraculously still lit, Ainsley made his way carefully to the rocky outcropping. The bundle he had seen in the moment of thunder was now standing, carefully checking a smaller bundle of its own, a bundle that mewled pathetically.

Another stroke of lightning showed long, pale hair matted against the figure's cloak. Dead blue eyes stared with concern at the sodden cat that crouched tragically in the figure's arms.

“Nemida?” Ainsley asked, disbelieving, raising the lamp now that the lightning was gone, “You're...alive?”

“After a fashion, yeah,” the boy replied.

“Good god, you're soaked,” the captain replied, suddenly remembering himself, “Let's get you inside before you catch your death of cold out here, I've got a hotel room I think you might like...”


Nemida had found what he was looking for. Grabbing the object as if his life depended on it, Nemida wrapped the warm cloth around the soaked Laumas. Once the cat was securely bundled the boy turned back towards the door, ready to head back out, “Er, captain, I wouldn't be pulling you too much from your duties if I asked you for a favour, would I?”

“Well, no, I mean,” Ainsley wasn't quite sure how to start, “wait, where do you think you're going? Rest up a little first, and while you're doing that, would you mind telling me what the hell that was all about out there?”

“No time for that, something much more important needs to be done,” Nemida said, “could you lead me to the jail? I don't remember the way myself.”

“I guess, you're really intending on going back out in that weather?” Ainsley asked.

Nemida nodded and opened the door, not giving any chance for further argument as he bent his head to the wind and rain and soldiered out. Shaking his head at the insanity of it all, Ainsley followed him out the door. Catching up to the stalking figure, Ainsley shouted, “You realize that's the wrong way, right?”

“Oh... right,” Nemida said, turning and letting the guard lead the way.

“Listen, I just want you to know, you've probably saved this town with what you did. You've got me forever in your debt, and if you ever need a place to stay, all you have to do is ask.”

“Yeah?”

“But there's something else too. For the moment, everyone's on a bit of a wamphyri-hunting binge. And even though you saved the town, you still fit the bill a bit too much for me to be comfortable. So for now, I'm going to have to ask you not to do anything too dramatic, I don't want to have to contend with torch-wielding mobs.”

“Fair enough, I wasn't planning on sticking around long anyways.”

“So what the hell happened then? Last I had seen of you, you were falling to your death, and then you get escorted back in the style you did... amazing!”

“Long story short, I had a soft landing. I tried climbing back up here, your feathered friends interrupted. They were rather unfriendly at first, I was about to take another fall. Then one of them saw my sword, and suddenly they all decided to give me a lift back.”

“Sword? What sword? And are you honestly trying to tell me that you bleedin' climbed all the way back up here?”

“Only halfway, and this sword,” Nemida showed him as they continued to walk.

“Wait... I've seen that one before. The lady Lex used to have it, she gave it to you?”

The boy stopped cold, “You... know Lex?”

“Know her? She's as big a hero here as you, saved the town a while back,” seeing the look of confusion on Nemida's face, Ainsley continued, “A while back, there was trouble with those griffons, a little war of sorts was threatening to break out between us and then. She came by, has a knack for relating with animals, talks things out with them, however the hell they talk anyways, and we came out to an agreement. I don't mind saying, I'd rather not have a flock of those bastards attacking our town, she probably saved countless lives with that bit of diplomacy.”

“She does have a winning personality,” Nemida said, feeling a sort of homesickness for that forest-home of hers. Yeah, he'd stayed there about as long as he had anywhere else in the times after his memory loss, but that was the only place he had felt truly safe. It was the only place where there wasn't a large number of people conspiring to see him dead, used, or forcefully evicted from their perceptions.

The boy shook his head and started walking again. There was too much to do, too much about himself he still needed to find out. Even if he could somehow be at peace with the gaping hole where his memory should be, he knew that Lex herself would not allow him to simply stop searching. “What's happened here? I've been gone, what, two days now? The mayor's died rather spectacularly, that's probably caused a bit of an uproar.”

“We've got the council who are each taking a bit of the former mayor's duties among themselves. As far as the populace is concerned, like I said, everyone's a bit too willing to go on a monster hunt at the moment. I expect it will calm down before too long. I can say with certainty, though, that Caelia will be happy to hear you're alive. She was rather devastated over the thought that you were probably dead.”

“I very nearly was. I found I had reserves I didn't even know about,” Nemida replied, adding mentally to himself, along with a capacity for mindless violence and bloodshed, apparently.

“Although,” Ainsley said jokingly, “If you ever do feel the urge to explore the jungle below, a slightly slower but infinitely safer way to go is the spiral-stair we've built especially for that purpose.”

Nemida stopped a second time. “Spiral...stair? Then that's how...” he looked down at the purring bundle in his hands, “...so you came down to see me via that, and didn't have the decency to tell me about it when I decided to bloody climb back up the hard way?! And you rode on my back that entire time, if you hadn't saved my life down there, I've a right mind to make you walk the rest of the way.”

Ainsley didn't understand why the boy was talking to his cat, but figured it was just a quirk and decided to ignore it for the moment, “So, er, why are we heading to the jail exactly?”

“How many do you have jailed there at the moment?”

“Umm, well, there were the two bandits, but one's disappeared, so I guess just Martin's in there at the moment. I'm trying to go through the records, as the mayor began to keep very tangled accounts of who was and wasn't there. A lot of the isolation keys are missing too. Unfortunately there's also taxation records, town c-”

“So she's still in there, and no one really knows?”

“Who? What?”

Nemida let the guard captain unlock the door and followed him in, “Take me down to the cellblock I was being kept in, I'll show you.”


The ground here smelled like dirt, old dirt. A small hint of leather was layered on top of it, that of passing boots. Nemida got up and moved over to the next thick wooden door, the second of three in a row at the back corner of the cell block. He had been held in a cell in the main hallway, one of six. Beyond those was a t-junction that led to the three 'isolation' cells. Not even afforded barred windows. Nemida crouched and sniffed the dusty flagstones that went under the crack of the thick, iron-bound door.

Dirt, leather, but a good deal of blood and sweat layered on top of that. Nemida carefully put his ear to the door and listened. “This is the one,” he said, hearing a faint wheezing on the other side, “and it sounds like she's still alive.”

“How did you know about that?” Ainsley asked, trying all the available keys in the lock and coming up empty.

“Ghoroni, the mayor, kept babbling about some 'queen' he was going to have. That Martin fellow also said that Ghoroni went to these cells, and he often heard a woman screaming and cursing back here. Considering he was a psychotic bastard, I'm guessing the mayor was trying to torture whoever is in here into being his 'queen'.”

“Why?” Ainsley asked, standing out of the way as the boy motioned him to.

“From what I've been able to pick up so far, when a wamphyri is created from a mortal, their mind comes unhinged. Or maybe that's just what happened with the mayor. Either way, I think the mayor was convinced that by driving whoever is behind here mad, then she would become a wamphyri like him. I just hope we're not too late.”

“To stop her from becoming a wamphyri?”

“No, to stop her from going mad,” Nemida charged the door.

The first impact produced splinters and little more. Growling, the boy charged the door again. This time several good sized cracks appears in the door. Nemida stopped, leaning against the door for a second. Still fearful of this kid's power, Ainsley asked carefully, “Winded?”

“No, no, it's... something else,” Nemida replied.

Ever since he had voluntarily let it take over, Nemida had been having problems with the beast inside of him. He began to realize the consequences of that action were far more reaching than he had originally thought. It had risen to the surface... even if only for a moment, and tasted violence and blood, feasting joyfully on both. Since then it had been eager for more. It was nothing more than pure, brutal instinct. The urge to kill to survive, to avoid death. To gorge on the flesh and slaughter all competition so as to prolong one's own life. It was unreasoning and uncaring. Despite this, there was a feral cunning about it. It knew it could persuade Nemida into giving in to it in the right circumstances, and now the exertion in breaking down this door had caused it to stir within him.

He was more like that diseased, insane creature in the jungle than he wanted to acknowledge.

Making sure he had firm control over himself, Nemida charged the door a third time. This time, his shoulder went through. A few seconds of kicking and there was a hole big enough for both to get through. Ainsley raised his lamp, looking in horror at the various devices in the room. Most of them were bladed, made of a rusty iron. Quite a few had strange, brownish stains on them.

“She's back here,” came Nemida's voice, strangely dull and emotionless.

Ainsley's light fell across something that could have been a ghost. Shackled to a table, she looked far worse than even Lex had looked on the night that she had come back. “My god, she's so thin...”

“She's been without food for at least two days,” Nemida said, “Probably a lot longer. It looks like the mayor was trying to torture her into insanity. Do you have any water with you?”

“I know her,” Ainsley said, pulling out his waterskin and placing it to her lips, “She's sort of a traveling warrior, occasionally stops in town on her way somewhere else. She was here a few weeks back and then disappeared... I assumed she had just left, guess mayor Ghoroni decided to taking a liking to her instead. Goes by the name Arreah if I remember correctly.”

The water touched her lips, eliciting a reaction. The dried lips parted, and a swollen tongue reached out, seeking the liquid. Ainsley continued feeding her water until a few weak coughs escaped her emaciated frame, making her twitch violently against her shackles. Both Nemida and Ainsley caught each other trying to ignore the woman's nakedness. If she weren't obviously starved, her body would have been quite attractive. Her hair was fanned out on the table, some of it tangled in clots of dried blood. Most of it a deep brown, with patches an almost bright pink, the product of some sort of dye.

“We'll need to get these shackles off, and get her properly fed,” Nemida said.

The eyes opened at the sound of his voice. Deep blue orbs tried to focus on the boy. Consciousness was a fleeting thing here. “N...Nemida? You're alive again?”

“What?” Nemida asked, but the girl had already fallen unconscious.

[Oni Koneko Damien]

Chapter 30:

“She's still feeling under the weather,” Caelia said, “It'll be a short while before you can see her.”

Nemida bit his lip, fighting back impatience, “I know that someone's not going to bounce back from being starved nearly to death, but I just want to talk to her.”

“Yes sir, I told her that. She said that she's not feeling up to conversation yet, and that you would be patient if you really wanted to know anything.”

There was little noise as Nemida paced the room. Was the unnatural silence of movement another part of his undead state, or was it one of the many other aspects of himself that Nemida had received hints, but no true knowledge about? He didn't want to be so impatient, it seemed like now that fiery, raging... thing inside him was taking any opportunity, any lapse of self-control, to nip away at his resolve, send him into another maddened frenzy. It was far easier when his life wasn't at direct risk, but it was still there, its mere presence like a nagging itch he couldn't reach.

Finally, with an angry sigh, Nemida sat on the bed in his room. Caelia immediately sat next to him, softly running a set of nails down his back. The touch sent electric shivers running through his body. The boy's eyes closed, enjoying the sensation, relaxing slightly, just as Caelia intended. Something else inside him noticed this, felt the sensation as well. Its attention drawn, it quickly shifted focus, instead of attempting to aggravate his impatience, it teased at other feelings that were sparked by the sensual contact. Nemida felt it, was metaphorically slapped by a rapid series of mental images involving him and Caelia. They were brief and quick to fade, yet he remembered enough to hear her pained screams and the smell of blood in his head.

“I'm sorry,” Caelia said, withdrawing her exploring nails almost fearfully in response to the expression she saw cross his face, “if you're not in the mood...”

Nemida buried his head in his hands, “It's not that. I just... it's everything. I have no past, I don't know who I am or what I've become. I don't know what I'm capable of, and now I don't know if I can even keep control over myself anymore.”

“What happened, I mean, when you were down in the forest?” Caelia asked.

Nemida shivered, remembering what he saw. “There was someone down there, something actually. It wore the skin of a human, but it was anything but. When I didn't do what it wanted, it revealed its true form, some sort of diseased wolf-monster.”

“A werewolf?” Caelia asked, amazed, “You fought a werewolf and lived? They're one of the reasons no one goes into the forest down there. Every year we get a few explorers, few of them ever return... in one piece, anyways.”

“Is that what he was?” Nemida said, “He seemed sick with something, he had long lost his mind. He tried to do... something rather unpleasant to me, with me. He then attacked Laumas,” Nemida gave the purring cat a stroke, “After that I kind of lost my temper. I don't want to do that again, not around people who don't deserve to be hurt.”

“You survived, and that loss of temper probably helping you,” Caelia said, putting a hand on his shoulder, “I don't think you'd ever intentionally hurt anyone innocent. Even when fighting the mayor, in the sunlight, I saw you. You tried not to kill anyone except the mayor, it was only after they attacked you that you did anything in retaliation.”

“Intentionally hurting? No, I don't think I'd do that,” Nemida admitted, “It's the unintentional, mindless slaughter that I'm worried about, I ...what's that?”

The sound of voices raised in anger could be heard down below. Caelia could catch nothing more than the fact that a lot of people seemed rather disgruntled about something, and Ainsley was yelling back, attempting to disperse what sounded like a near-mob. Nemida could hear things a lot more clearly. There were a lot of voices yelling at once, but it was easy to hear the words 'monster' and 'wamphyri' tossed about rather liberally. Ainsley's replies were more to the tune of “Get lost, there's nothing for you here!”

“They're here for me,” Nemida said dully, standing up.

“Nemida, don't!” Caelia said, standing up with him and putting a restraining arm on him, “They'll try to kill you!”

“And if I stay up here, they'll try to kill you for sheltering me. I'm not going to have you, Ainsley, and Arreah die because of that mob. I would at least stand a better chance against them.”

Nemida left the room and descended the stairs, coming out into the pub floor, walking up behind Ainsley as he shouted, “I didn't ask any of you to like it! I'm telling you to go home or I will not hesitate to summon the rest of the guard to disperse you.”

One of the mob, an older woman, picturesquely complete with a pitchfork, pointed, “There it is! The wamphyri!”

“You were sheltering it, I knew it!” shouted another.

“We're not trading one monster for another!” yet another added.

“Quiet, the lot of you!” Ainsley roared, actually eliciting a moment of silence, “He's not here to replace the mayor! He was here to reveal Ghoroni's treachery to us all, and you would hang him for that?”

“He's a monster!”

“We can't trust that thing!”

“Kill it!”

A hand was put on Ainsley's shoulder. Nemida gave him a nod, signaling that the guard had probably done all he could. The boy walked forward, confronting the agitated crowd. “You want to kill me?”

Many shouts of assent met the question even before it was finished. Nemida nodded, as a long-suffering parent might do to a petulant child. “Then you shall do it as a proper mindless mob, in the street,” Nemida ran three steps and leaped out of the nearest window, shutter exploding outwards in a rain of splinters.

The mob's surprise only lasted for a second. Angry silhouettes paraded into the riveted, suspended street after him. They shook fists, shouted angry slurs and generally threatened, but all kept a wary distance, Nemida noticed. Good, they weren't truly ready for violence. The boy jumped up on the guard-rail and withdrew the Void. He jumped high through the air, spinning the staff over his head. The mob fell back as he landed, slamming the staff into the ground directly in front of them. Nemida looked up, knowing that what little torchlight remained protected from the torrential rain now glittered menacingly in his eyes, just for a little extra effect.

“Very well!” He stood up, voice bellowing clearly over the rain. He pointed the long end of the Void at the now discomforted crowd, “Let he who is not afraid to taste of death make the first move!”

There was a great deal of hesitation and shuffling of feet, along with a few sporadic, shouted threats, but no one stepped forward. Nemida spun the staff once and took a single step forward. Almost as one, the mob stepped back, “Lack you courage? You came seeking me, and you have found me! Now he who is willing to die for a chance to slay the monster you think I am, step forward!”

The boy smiled, showing an awful lot of teeth. The threats that came back towards him sounded even more half-hearted and feeble than before. Nemida could feel the rage inside him just begging for release now, but the gamble was paying off. The mob was cold and wet, they were definitely not having a good time. They could feel something wrong with the pale-haired monster in front of them, an almost palpable aura of barely-restrained violence. It weakened their already fragile resolve, none of them were really ready to die for this.

Nemida decided to press the bluff a bit further. He stepped forward a few more times, watching the mob give way in front of him, “Cowards! Dogs! None of you is fit to even dream of challenging me!” He waved the staff again for effect, watching eyes widen in fear and feet trip over themselves to get away, “Begone from here before your idiocy tempts me to make an example out of one of you!”

The crowd didn't need any more encouragement. Stragglers near the back were the first to break and run. The rest quickly dispersed, offering up a few promises of vengeance, warnings to get out of 'their' town, and notifications that they wouldn't tolerate his presence here another night. Nemida waited until the last of them had retreated, disappearing into the still torrential downpour. Finally he walked back inside. Ainsley looked the bedraggled boy up and down, “Was that really worth getting so soaked for?”

“I didn't want to ruin the inn just in case there was actually some violence,” Nemida explained, making a half-hearted attempt to wring his hair out, “Oh, and sorry about the shutter, I was going for dramatic effect.”

“You idiot, that was a risky move,” an unknown voice said.

Nemida looked up and saw Caelia helping the girl Arreah down the stairs. “You...”

“Surprised?”

“If I knew what to be surprised about, yes,” Nemida said, “Maybe you can help me with that.”

“What the hell are you talking about?” Arreah shot back, settling into one of the seats, “And while you're at it, what the hell are you doing here?”

“I, er, got held up longer here than I intended,” Nemida shook his head, “Wait, before you start interrogating me, who are you and how do you know me?”

“What?!”

“Look, you're the first person since Lex who's actually treated me like someone they knew. I don't remember you at all, but that's not saying a lot because I don't remember much of anything since before I woke up...”

“Lex sent you this way, didn't she? You're heading further south?”

“What? Yes, but how did you...”

“Shut up,” Arreah nodded, “Get over here, I want to check something and I don't feel like standing up at the moment.”

“What?” Nemida protested, but found he was already walking over to the woman. She looked ready to collapse, yet she remained awake seemingly through sheer willpower.

“You idiot, you're dripping water on me,” Arreah growled, prodding the boy to the side and then placing a hand on his head. For a moment Nemida felt an intense pressure on his forehead, far more than the woman's weakly quavering arm could have applied. “So it's true, you're no longer dead, but you're not properly alive either.”

“Well congratulations, I'd have thought the angry mob calling me a wamphyri might have tipped you off to that,” Nemida said annoyed, “And wait a damned minute, not even so much as a 'thank you' for saving you from that mayor?”

“Whatever,” Arreah brushed off the question, “Listen, you had better get going to see Mabel, I assume that's where you're going anyways.”

Nemida gaped for a moment, “No! I mean, I save your life, you tell me you know me, and now you expect me to just leave with nothing?”

“Yes.”

“Well to hell with that!” Nemida exploded, “I'm missing my entire life, all my memories before my death, and you, who obviously has some of those memories, are just going to brush me off?”

“Nemida,” Caelia warned, rubbing his arm.

The boy took another breath, nearly fighting back tears, “No. I'm not going to do anything violent. I guess I was just stupid for assuming that you'd show at least a little basic humanity.”

“You two should leave,” Arreah gestured weakly to Caelia and Ainsley, “I need to talk to him alone for a few seconds.”

Wordlessly the two got up and walked to the other end of the pub. Arreah indicated for Nemida to sit down. “Nemida, you've changed a hell of a lot since the last time I saw you. But you've remained the same in many ways.”

“Yeah, a pity you won't tell me about it, though,” he replied sourly.

“I understand how you feel about it. And hell, I'd rather like to tell you a little more myself. But I have to know, Lex sent you down this way, you spent quite a bit of time with her, didn't you?”

“Yeah, what of it?”

“How much did she tell you about your past, before you lost your memory?”

Nemida rolled his eyes, “Nothing more than a few hints, why?”

“Because I can't tell you about your past either. Look, she obviously had a reason for not telling you more details about who you were, even though you spent some time with her, right?”

“Yes,”

“And if you were to try and get more about it out of me, that would amount to little more than trying to weasel around her own wishes, right?”

Nemida shifted uncomfortably. The discomfort was only partially caused by his still-damp clothing, “Well, when you put it like that...”

Arreah laughed. A weak sound, but one that Nemida found strangely familiar, he had heard that laugh sometime before, “You're still as easy to emotionally tweak as you used to be. As much fun as it would be to do that again, I'm not going to. Don't feel bad Nemida, I understand how much finding out about your life has to mean to you, and merely asking someone who obviously knows about it for details is entirely justified.”

“But Lex didn't tell you about your past, and she had a reason for not doing that. I don't know what that reason is. Hell, I didn't even know you had come back to life until you saved mine. But I trust her enough to know that until I talk to her myself and find out what the hell's going on, it's probably for the best I don't tell you anything she wouldn't.”

Nemida sighed, hanging his head. He had been so hopeful, too. “Nemida,” Arreah grabbed his chin and lifted his head up, “I will point out that, yeah, it was rather stupid of you to expect basic humanity out of people. You saw the mob and what it was capable of doing. You are kind of a monster now, you will likely be hunted and persecuted by ignorant people no matter where you go. I only tell you this because I don't want to see you die... or die again. Don't expect anything but fear and hatred from people. If some show something different, great, be pleasantly surprised. But they're the exceptions to the rule. You will be hated, and if you expect anything more than that from people, you will be hurt by them.”

“Yeah, I've spent the past couple of months learning that,” Nemida said, “I just want to know why I got into this state in the first place.”

“I have to talk to Lex about that. I have to talk to her about a lot of things.”

“What do you mean?” Nemida asked, punctuating the question with a yawn. He realized his head was nodding forward.

“Get to bed you idiot, the sun's going to be up soon. You should leave tomorrow, I doubt that mob will be put off for long, especially if the weather gets nicer.”

It was a few minutes before Ainsley returned to Arreah. Caelia had gone off to see Nemida to bed. “So... anything you want to share?”

“No, not really,” Arreah said, “In fact, I should head off to bed myself. Got a lot of stuff to do tomorrow.”

“I... I'm glad you're alive. If I had known...”

“Don't worry about it,” she looked away, only partially interested, “The mayor fooled me as much as he did you. Said he had a monster locked away in the jail he wanted to show me. Coldcocked me from behind when I looked. Then again, had a lot on my mind.”

“Like what?”

“Things are happening. The mayor, and the thing that made him what he is, they are only part of it. The world is changing.”

“For the worse?”

Arreah looked up, yawning, “Good and bad are subjective to the viewer. It will be good for some, very very bad for others. And I think,” Arreah nodded towards where the boy had headed up the stairs, “I think he's going to be deeply involved with it.”

[Oni Koneko Damien]

Chapter 31:

Nemida was on the cliff face, holding on desperately for his own life. Merciless winds tore at him, teasing him with the illusion that he could somehow remain attached to this wall by sheer willpower alone. Just like the angrily plucking talons of the territorial gryphons that had attacked him the last time he had attempted to ascend these cliffs.

He remembered what the guard Ainsley had told him about those creatures. About the trouble between them and the people of Bryll. About how, of all people, Lex was the one to resolve the differences. Their actions had made sense, then, though it caused Nemida to realize those huge things had a frightening intelligence. He remembered being stuck on the cliff face, in the driving rain. No longer able to keep climbing upward due to the combined assault of the storm and the massive creatures, he knew he was going to plunge to the depths below, or get plucked off and ripped to pieces by talons half as big as he was.

But neither happened. As one circled in, the downdraft caused by its flapping wings caused Nemida's robe to whip violently to the side, exposing the clothes beneath. Even in the darkness and downpour, the Demon Slayer glimmered like a dark, exotic jewel. At the sight of it the gryphon let out a great screech and turned away. It's cry was answered by a multitude of similar cries. Nemida found himself attacked once again, and there was no avoiding it this time. He was effortlessly ripped off the wall. He had expected to be torn to pieces in seconds, but it never happened.

Instead, the creature adjusted its grip so that Nemida hung comfortably, if inescapably in its grasp. They had then delivered him to the very same rocky outcropping he had fallen from so recently before. It wasn't until Ainsley explained things that Nemida understood what had happened. He realized Lex hadn't lied when she said that sword, the Demon Slayer, would save his life. The gryphons had recognized the sword, recognized that it once belonged to Lex. They must have figured Nemida was an ally of Lex's, and spared his life because of it.

Now Nemida was back on the cliff face, once again hanging on for dear life. But this time there were no gryphons, only a stale, dry wind. There was no storm, only angrily boiling blood red clouds overhead that stubbornly refused to release their contents to the parched land below. There was no jungle beneath, either. Only an endless expanse of twisted obsidian spires. “It's okay sweety, this Tapestry is only as real as you allow it to be.”

Nemida looked up at the sound of the voice. She was crouched on a small ledge just above him, clad in the same form-fitting, revealing garments he had always known her to wear. “Lex!”

She smiled down at him. Nemida lost himself in the warmth of her eyes. She reached down and caressed one of his straining arms. Nemida shut his eyes at the touch, the spreading of that tingling warmth, but a single tear escaped anyways and described a crooked path down his cheek. When he opened his eyes again, Nemida noticed the network of jagged scars on Lex's arms and body. They hadn't been there before. Lex stood up, “I'll do anything to save you, my beautiful, pasty boy. To save you from him.”

“Him? Who? What do you mean, Lex? Lex?! What are you doing?!”

She had walked to the very edge of the outcropping, looking straight down. She closed her eyes and smiled once more, and with a joyful giggle, jumped off into the open space.

“No!” Nemida reached out frantically to grab her as she fell past him. Without hesitation he jumped off the cliff wall, no thought except to do something, anything to save her. He had made it all of two feet when something grabbed the back of his cloak and slammed him back into the wall. Before he could recover from the shock he was being dragged viciously onto the ledge.

“You're an idiot,” Arreah said.

Nemida didn't listen, still trying to get to the ledge. He saw Lex's form shrink and disappear far below. “Let me g-”

“Shut up! She did that for you! We're all doing this for you, you twit!”

“Did what?” Nemida looked up, tears in his eyes.

Arreah's face softened for a second, “We're-”

The rest of what she had to say was suddenly cut off by the deafening crash of thunder. Nemida's eyes widened in terror as along with this sudden cacophony came a massive shard of ice from the heavens. Arreah moved quickly, knocking Nemida to the ground. The ice missed Nemida by mere inches, and instead impaled Arreah, pinning her to the ground through a massive hole in her chest. Nemida watched as the light of life drained from her eyes as she gave him one last look, her head sagging to the ground.

Within seconds her body began to turn an unhealthy gray. Skin dried and cracked as her blood froze in her veins. Nemida saw around her body, around the giant ice shard, further veins of ice exploring outward, seeking. Looking up, Nemida saw that there was someone entombed in the ice. It's harsh impact with the cliff-face had jarred a crack further open, revealing a frozen prisoner inside. A single frostbitten arm had worked its way out of the crack. Nemida carefully reached out and touched the hand.

It responded by grabbing his wrist and yanking him close to the crack. Nemida was forced to look inside. What looked like nothing more than a vaguely human-shaped shadow from the outside was revealed to actually be Mabel, emaciated, naked and frozen. She looked up at him with eyes half-dead, frozen open. “Nemida, beware of it.”

Nemida held onto the arm, trying to thaw it with a warmth his body was no longer capable of producing, “Beware of what?”

A nauseating wheezing sound as she summoned one last breath, “Beware the cold, the ice.”

“Why? What did this?” Nemida asked, but she was no longer moving, no longer breathing. A stifling numbness made the boy look down.

The veins of ice had reached his feet and now crawled greedily upwards, gluttonously consuming what little warmth was there. Nemida gasped and tried to step away. His legs wouldn't respond, already bound and frozen within the icy blue tentacles. He could feel something inside him already fighting against it. A raging, instinctual beast that wish only to fight and kill.

Nemida's eyes shot open. In panicked reaction, his legs curled up. He looked down. He was on a bed, still wrapped in blankets. Something warm next to him shifted and moaned slightly in complaint over his movement. He was entirely nude, he did remember undressing before going to bed. Caelia had said something about feeling far more comfortable sleeping next to open flesh, as opposed to binding garments. How had she talked him into doing this? The boy couldn't remember, all he could remember was that she had been awfully persuasive. He sat up, casting his glance about in search of something, anything other than blankets to cover himself up with.

“You had a nightmare,” Caelia said softly from her position in the bed.

Nemida shook his head, “I... don't dream. It's a part of being what I am.”

“You're lying. You woke differently than last time, you woke just like someone trying to escape the terrors of their own mind. Believe me, I've slept next to enough people to know what it looks like.”

“I wasn't lying,” Nemida persisted, “Ever since I became whatever it is I am, I have had one time that I've dreamed. And even then, it was only because it was something placed into my mind from without. It's true, something happened this time, but... I don't think it was a dream, can I have my clothes back?”

“What was the dream about?”

“It wasn't a dream.”

“It's close enough we can call it that anyways, so what was it about?”

“It was... a warning of some sort. People I care about, trying to warn me, trying to protect me from something... willing to give their lives to- why am I telling you about this?”

“Because I'm trained to get people to relax and be more open?” Caelia suggested, “Because I have no ability and no incentive to try and use the information for evil ends? Because it'll make you feel better?”

“You're really good at that... can I please have my clothes back now?”

“In a moment, you're really cute when you're self-conscious.”

“I'm undead, I barely look human even when dressed. I think I have a damned good reason to be self-conscious.”

“I think it's quite adorable, so shy and bashful. A rather human trait for someone who says they aren't human.”

“This is adorable?” Nemida pointed to his own skin, semi-translucent, marble-toned and flecked with blue veins. Stagnant blood that no longer had a heart to propel it through a once-living body, “I look like I should have been buried a while ago... I was buried a while ago.”

“You're still cute,” Caelia insisted.

Nemida tensed up as Caelia put a soft, warm hand on his back. Dry skin tightened at the touch, looking deceptively frail. “Why are you so afraid of human contact? You're not a monster, I've already seen that.”

"What are you?" Nemida asked, giving in to the touch, "I can hardly believe you're a slave, you're far too much in control for that. You don't act in any way like a slave. You were in on this whole plot from the start."

"I'm someone who tries to make other people happy," Caelia replied, tracing circles along Nemida's back, "Call it what you will, I prefer to think that I'm a slave to the needs of the world. I wouldn't change that for anything. Can't you stay for a bit longer?"

“I have to go,” Nemida said, standing up.

Caelia sighed wearily, pulling Nemida's clothes out from under the bed, “Yes... I know you do. Ainsley said the guards are already having trouble with vigilantes. It's for the best that you get out of here quickly and quietly.”

It was nearly half an hour later that a cloaked and hooded figure walked out of a gate built into the side of the mountain pass. Nemida pulled back his hood and looked back to the two figures that stood in the entryway. “Thanks again for... well... all that,” Nemida waved his hand.

The girl rolled her eyes, “You saved this town, Nemida. Even if those idiots out for your blood back there don't realize it, we do. We owe you, this town owes you, don't let anyone tell you otherwise.”

“You ever need a place t'stay,” Ainsley volunteered, “I'm obligated and more than willing to provide.”

“Thanks,” Nemida replied with a slightly embarrassed laugh, “Really, thanks. I don't know if I'll ever be coming back here again, though. I don't know much of anything except that I have to go further south.”

“Remember what I told you,” Ainsley said, “A couple miles south of here is the Dragon's Tail. It'll lead you out of these mountains. Beyond that is the badlands. Not a whole lot of cover during the daytime, but there's a few towns there... and I guess if worst comes to worst, it ain't too hard to bury yourself.”

Nemida bit his lip, wondering what else to say. Deciding that anything else at this moment would seem a little superfluous, he turned and walked away. A streak of gray fur darted out of the gateway and scampered after him. He had made it nearly a hundred meters before a voice called out of the shadows, “Hey, you.”

The boy turned and looked. Arreah reclined against one of the rock walls, “When you run into Mabel, say hi to her for me, 'kay?”

“How do you know her?” Nemida asked, “And for that matter, how do you know Lex? What is it with the three of you? Who are you?”

“We're some of the only people in this world who give a shit about you, Nemida. Take that for what it's worth, just know that it's not something you're ever going to come by easily here.”

“That just tells me a little of what you do,” Nemida countered, “It still doesn't answer my question: Who are you?”

Arreah smiled, “We're your caretakers. It's your blessing and your curse, now get the fuck out of here before you run out of darkness to travel in, Mabel's waiting.”

Several minutes after the frustrated boy left, Arreah turned and addressed the darkness next to her, “You're an idiot for being out here. If you've trained him correctly, he could have easily sensed you here.”

Another shadow separated itself from the others, wincing slightly as it limped closer to Arreah. “I just wanted to see him,” Lex said, “Make sure he's alright with my own eyes.”

“And if he took the time to look around and discovered you standing right there?” Arreah snorted, “What then, you emotional little twit? The silly little boy's already confused as all hell, seeing the girl he's obsessed with here, let alone seeing her all mangled and scarred up like you are, would turn him into nothing but a puddle of uselessness.”

“Is that... jealousy I'm hearing in your voice?” Lex looked inquiringly at Arreah.

“You're confusing me with someone who cares,” Arreah shot back, “All three of us need him for a certain purpose, and that purpose won't be accomplished by you two idiots playing at being lovers.”

“Belial wants him too, badly,” Lex replied.

“I know,” Arreah's face darkened, “And given the shit that's been going on in my territory, I'm almost tempted to believe that silly little story about him being a balancing point. Come on, we can talk about this in town. I get the feeling we're going to be on a long road, and I for one could use a good drink.”

[Oni Koneko Damien]

Epilogue, Part 3:

Several sets of crimson eyes looked inside the pub, watching the two females within talking. There was a chaotic babble of voices within the enclosed space. Most were relating stories and theories revolving around the former mayor of the town and what had become of him. Some believed he had been turned into some sort of undead horror, and had fallen in battle against another horror, both seeking to take control of this town and feed on the occupants within. Others claimed that this was a ruse, and he had been framed by the wicked sorcery of the other undead horror. Still others believed that the whole thing was an illusion, that the good Mayor Ghoroni was merely in hiding until a fatal flaw was betrayed by the horrid wamphyri who stalked him.

A forgettable minority believed that the other horror had no malicious intentions for the town itself, and had rid them of a great evil in the mayor.

Despite the cacophony, the possessor of the dull red eyes, all eight of them, heard the muffled conversation between the two foreign-looking females perfectly well.

“I envy you,” said the one with the pink-tinged hair, “I've missed that quirky little bastard as much as you, and you get the chance to poke around him much earlier than I do.”

The smaller, black-haired one offered a tired, lopsided grin, “Envy is for those who don't know enough to be glad for what they have. I may have got to play with him first, but I also got played with myself. Do you envy this as well?” the girl ran a hand up the network of scars on one arm.

“Do not make light of that,” said the first one, darkly, “His interest in this frightens even me.”

“Frightens you? Look at me! I was all pretty and lovable before I had to deal with that... that thing! And all to help the boy out! How can I be pretty for the pretty little boy now? All covered in icky scars and frostburned?” A petulant sniffle escaped, “I'd do it again too. That horrid monster has no right to be near my boy!”

“Your boy?” the black-haired one mused, “You're letting yourself get far too attached to him.”

“How could I not?” came the saddened reply, “He's so lost. A mind running left and right, back and forth, with no memory to sit upon and feel comfy. He didn't have his comfy-chair of memory anymore, and so he turned to me as his comfy-chair. And... well... I got comfy with him too. I don't want to see him hurt, he won't be hurt, will he?”

“I can't say,” said the taller of the two, “Mabel knows far more about it than I do. This whole... experiment was her idea anyways. I think it's safe to say he probably has a lot more pain to go through. We're talking about the frozen scourge, the one who took on the Order of the Broodmother, and while perhaps not winning, it's pretty obvious he didn't exactly lose either. Even all three of us together couldn't defeat him, only make his continued interference at the time more trouble than it was worth. If he's gotten an interest in our boy, there's not a whole lot we can do, not without Mabel's guidance.”

“But... but... he didn't take on the Order alone,” protested the smaller, “There was that other one. The chilly cold was balanced by the withering heat, and together they made those plains so unhappy.”

“What about the other one?” countered the first, “A demon with no history, no name? He pops out of nowhere and then vanishes just as quickly? How do we know he wasn't anything more than a collective delusion on the part of the residents of the plains? Unless this mystery demon shows up again and starts causing trouble, it's just not worth worrying about. I don't think it even exists, much less cares about our own interest, the boy.”

“I love that boy,” the second said petulantly.

“Yes, I know you do. You love him, just like you loved the one before him, and the one before that. Each time they died, or left, or were sent insane by exposure to the Void. Each time you were heartbroken, shattered. Each time, within a week, you were back on your feet, almost completely forgetting they existed. I know it's your nature to be a flighty little twit, but can't you at least comprehend that that's part of your nature, and stop acting so surprised each time it happens?”

“This one has experienced the Void, and has come back mostly in one piece. The black abyss has accepted him, just like I've accepted him into my heart.”

“Accepted? ...Are you certain?” surprise now coloured the first one's voice.

“Yes! Yes, quite certain! It happened after he manipulated the Tapestry for the first time on his own! He had dropped the staff, and then went on a trip into the Void! I ...had to pull him out, fish him from the black depths, I was like a fishing pole, a Lex-ie pole! But... but... he came back! And you saw, he's not broken. Well... not any more broken than he already is.”

“He manipulated it on his own? With no training?”

“Oh yes. He was so pretty when he danced, you should have seen it.”

“If he survives to see Mabel, I might still get the chance to. And now, hearing that, I'm a little eager to see for myself. Of course you tell anyone I said that and I will gut you and mount your entrails on a spike as a warning to others.”

“Why does she get to have more fun with him than we do? I'm jealous!”

“Because all of this was her idea. She's the one who started the experiment with him and his brother, she's the only one who knows where it is going, and how to get there. I trust her judgment on the matter, even if I think she's an intolerably domineering wretch.”

“Speaking of those wretched, intolerably dominant types, what has been going on in your little towns? Aside from a visit and unhappy abduction by that frosty baddie, and some happy romping with my boy, things have been quiet in my woods.”

“Little towns? You mean the kingdoms of Gurden and Coren? It's been rather chaotic as of late. A bit of a diplomatic hellhole, swords are rattling on both ends and I'll be quite surprised if outright war hasn't broken out before I get back.”

“You took time off to give news to Mabel?” the smaller of the two giggled mischievously, “That's irresponsible, leaving your little towns... er, kingdoms untended like that!”

“First off,” the first said patiently, “they aren't my kingdoms, I don't run or rule them and I have no interest in doing so. My only interest there is maintaining some semblance of balance between Order and Chaos. Secondly, my duties to the three, to us three, supersede everything else. The experiment takes precedence over everything else. Anyways, my concern isn't so much a possible war, but rather the causes behind it. I have reason to believe there is more going on behind the scenes than simple human stupidity and selfishness, and I don't want my investigations held up by pointless bloodshed.”

“Ooh, is there a story behind this? I'm tired and I hurt, I want a good story!”

“Oh shut up, I'm not your mother.”

“I don't care, give me a story!”

The owner of the glowing red eyes retreated from the window. The conversation had turned away from that which it was most interested in, and the further antics of mortals did not interest it any further. Eight multi-segmented legs climbed nimbly to the roof of the cliff-side structure, giving off a barely audible clicking. Pausing for a moment to stretch her chitinous legs, Korine made a nimble leap from the roof to the side of the cliff itself.

So the boy had transcended this layer of the Tapestry and survived? The creature licked its lips as its pedipalps briefly rubbed together in anticipation. That meant that he would likely be able to survive the rigors and dangers of the Dark. And the fact that he wasn't too physically repulsive meant that Korine's few remaining human emotions and drives found him acceptable as well. Tolerable in appearance, physically durable and spiritually resistant? He'd make a suitable mate after all.

All that was left, then, was to mold his mind until he was a proper puppet for her.

Korine continued to ascend the cliffs, heading south towards the badlands.