It has been said by a certain ancient religion that "the sins of the father shall be visited upon the son." I know not of the veracity of the rest of their teachings, but in this one respect, they certainly got it right. I, of all people, should know.
I was born to a family of Chelaxian nobility, to an aging father and his child-bride, a girl of lesser nobility barely old enough to be presented at court. My father had spent most of his life amassing wealth and power, and only in the twilight of his years did he pause to consider what would happen to his legacy after he died. Like many men of wealth and privilege, he was so absorbed with his own self-importance that he couldn't fathom a world that wouldn't remember him once he had gone the way of all flesh. So at the age of sixty-two he made plans to ensure that a piece of him would survive through the ages. He would father a child.
For this express purpose he made a bargain with another noble family to secure their young daughter in marriage. It was a short engagement—barely a month passed before the betrothed were wed, and then the vile old man began in earnest his reproductive endeavor. Shortly thereafter his young wife grew great with child. Her pregnancy was a hard one, for evidently even in gestation was I ever the villain. Eventually I was born, though not before ushering dear Mother off this mortal coil. Father was not overly distressed by her passing, for she had served her purpose and given him a son—an heir with which to carry on his line and secure a small measure of immortality.
As my boyhood progressed, my father made every allowance for my comfort. For certes he doted, but it was the same way that a savvy banker might dote upon his latest investment. To him I was a work in progress, a monument to his greatness that would need to be slowly built up over time until I was a shining beacon to proclaim all his grandeur. But it was with a distant hand with which he guided me toward that destination. For the most part my life was a revolving door of nurses, tutors, and maids. I received the best schooling, the best etiquette instruction, the best of everything money could buy.
As I grew into adolescence, my father's disdain grew as well. I had not turned out to be the perfect carbon copy that he had anticipated. I wasn't studious enough. I had no mind for numbers and figures. Laughter and wit were my favored tools, not the stylus and abacus. Power and money were simply a means to an end—not the end itself. He grew angry and frustrated, more and more so until finally he gave up on his impish son and began to search out other means of prolonging his legacy. By this time he was seventy-five winters old, death a constant shadow stalking his every move. He grew desperate, delving into ever-stranger realms in his all-consuming search for eternal life. He tried elixirs and balms, prayers and spells, but for all his coin and influence, death was one thing he could not bribe or bluster his way out of. He grew desperate, mad with desire such that to skirt the grave he so feared he almost would have sold his soul to the Devil himself. But that he could not bring himself to do.
Instead, he sold mine.
He made contact with an underground cult of Urgathoa and—no doubt with a considerable "donation" to their cause—secured their help in the performance of a ritual that would finally achieve his wish for immortality. They would transform father dearest into an embodiment of their god, a creature untouchable by the sands of time. They would transform him into one of the walking dead. But in order to enact the vile magics involved, a blood sacrifice was required. But it could not be just any sacrifice. It could only be the blood of his very own progeny.
I was naught but seventeen when it happened. I had spent a night carousing with some less than reputable friends of mine. Truly, this had become quite the nightly occurrence, so it was hardly a difficult task for the Father's agents to track my movements. They waited until I was stumbling home through alleys of Riddleport, too preoccupied with trying to keep my balance while dodging puddles of horse piss to notice the robed figures skulking behind me. I remember a flurry of movement, the sound of sandals slapping upon the cobblestones, and then a flash of pain before the darkness swam inward upon me, and all was black.
I awoke to a strange, murmuring chant. Opening my eyes, I found myself strapped to a strange slab of stone, an altar of some sort. My shirt was gone, chest naked and pale in the wan torchlight. Around me were half a dozen black robed figures, cowls pulled low so as to conceal their faces. It was they that were chanting. One stepped forward, the bowl in his hands full of a foul smelling, sulfurous concoction black as the Devil's own heart. Dipping his finger in it, he began to paint my chest with it in an intricate design. I could not see what it was, for I was secured firmly to the altar and could hardly move a muscle. When he was finished, he stepped back and rejoined the others in their dolorous dirge. Then another figure came forth. He was dressed in black robes like the others, but even with his hood pulled low as it was, I would have recognized my father anywhere.
I cried out to him, pleading him to rescue me, but at that moment the hooded figures renewed the chant. My voice was drowned by the fervor of their voices calling out to the heavens in a language foreign to mine ears. Suddenly there was a flickering of light, and a pain unlike any I'd known before blazed through my chest. It was with ungodly horror that I realized the pattern of that black ichor traced upon my flesh was alight, burning with a cold blue flame. My senses were awash in pain, nostrils filled with the scent of my own charred flesh. The louder I screamed, the more the flames intensified. I struggled and thrashed so hard that I dislocated both my shoulders, but even that pain paled in comparison to the fire that seared the inner reaches of my very mind. And still the robed demons maintained their chant. My father produced a wavy-bladed dagger and approached my side as I writhed in torment. He held it aloft, poised over my chest where the ring of coldest flame still danced. There was not even the barest flicker of remorse in his face as the blade stabbed downward. Then, I knew nothing.
My recollections of what happened next are hazy as best, for truly it seemed more like a dream than anything. I was spinning as if ensorcelled into a vortex that dragged me ever downward amid a torrent of wailing voices. Suddenly all was still and the anguished cries faded to a dull murmur. I found myself faced with a towering man in black robes. At first I thought he was one of the cultists that had performed Father's ritual, but as his image swam closer, I saw that it was not so. This man's face and arms were that of a corpse, pale and shrunken, rotting in places and putrid to behold. But his eyes were alive with blue flame, and he held in his hands a scythe such as those the peasants used for the reaping of their grain. He spoke in an earth-shattering voice, so loud that I feared that my head would split asunder under the weight of those words.
"Kneel and tremble in fear, child of the House of Artineum, for thy own sire hath rendered thee unto me. But it is I, your new sire, that hath ushered you into this world anew. I am your father now. Thou art branded with my mark, youngling, and my seed burns within your heart. No longer shalt thou be known as Cyril of the House of Artineum, but Cyirl, son of Urgathoa!"
Even as he pronounced his doom, the vision was already fading. Dimly I was aware of ascending the cyclone, rising upward until the black enfolded me once more.
I awoke suddenly to find myself a reeking hole. There were bodies around me, putrid, rotting things all jumbled together like a giant's playthings. The echoes of dusk were still in the night sky, and I could hear the sound of spades striking earth above. With aching slowness, I clawed my way out of the pit and onto solid ground. The gravediggers threw down their shovels and ran for the hills, convinced that one of their recent charges and risen in undeath. And in all honesty, I suppose they weren't that far from the truth.
For several long minutes I lay there, gasping for breath as I gazed up at the sky. For a moment I wondered if the past night's events had even happened at all, but then I felt it—a cold, gnawing sensation in my chest, like a dagger of ice lodged between my ribs. I raised up, looking down at my chest to see the mark of Urgathoa—the pattern the cultist had painted—emblazoned upon my flesh in the form of a raw, pulsing scar.
I do not know why I didn't despair more than I did then. Perhaps I was in shock, or maybe I still held out hope that my death-bound vision was a dream after all. But for whatever reason, I found the strength to go on. One of the gravediggers had hung his mantle on a nearby tree and left it when he fled. That I donned, and thus enshrouded did I venture back into the city. I knew that I could not go back to my father, for though the vision still seemed a dream, his ritual sacrifice was etched vividly in my mind. So instead I made my way to the homes of one of my wayward friends, a man by the name of Jax. It was slow going, and hard. For though I was still among the living, my body was much weakened by my ordeal and, too, it seemed as though winter's breath was blowing through Riddleport's streets though it was but late August. Eventually I made it, only to collapse upon his doorstep and once again fade into unconsciousness.
Jax found me that morning. He took me into my home and nursed me to health. It was a long and arduous journey, but eventually I regain some semblance of my former self—though, that ever-present chill and the weakness in my bones prevailed. Jax repeatedly asked what had happened, but I was loath to tell him, for how could he believe me? I hardly believed myself. I did persuade him not to let news get out of my return. I was sorely afraid that news of my survival would get back to my father, and that I could not allow. I feared him now more than ever. In life he had been a powerful man, not one to be taken lightly, but in undeath he would have been more powerful than I could ever have imagined. I did not know for certes if he had attained his goal of immorality, but I knew that to be discovered would be certain death. I resolved to lay low and entreated Jax to keep me as long as he could. He, of course, agreed.
Soon strange talents began to make themselves known in me—spells-like powers I had not known before and even a touch that could confer the chill of the grave. I tried not to think too much of them, convincing myself that it was some latent magical talent in my family tree that had just now made itself known, but I had suspicions that it was more that that. Jax did too, I believe, but he never broached the subject. Instead he encouraged the use of those powers, taking me along with him on various excursions into the city's sordid underbelly. Jax worked for the local crime syndicate, and some of my abilities came in handy during the execution of his duties. Though I initially made my disliked the business, eventually I began to bask in the glory of it. The sense of power it evoked within me—when my very touch was enough to put the fear of God in mortal men—was intoxicating.
I did not realize how much I loved it nor how much it changed me until the day of my confrontation with Jax. He said that I could no longer stay with him, that I was unwelcome in his home. He stopped short of admitting it, but he was afraid of me, as were many of his associates. To them I was a rabid dog—useful, yes, but just as apt to bite the hand that feeds it. The knowledge of that perceived betrayal sent me into a rage. I was only aware of what I had done after Jax—the one man who had stood by me since my abandonment—lay dead at my feet. It was then that I knew the dream of Urgathoa was not a dream at all.
The revelation of what I had done—of what I had become—hit me like a leaden weight. I sobbed, I cried, I called out to the rest of the gods for absolution, but all were silent. There was only the dull, cold ache within my chest. Then and there I made the resolution that this thing inside me would not conquer me. It would not be my master, nor would the infernal father that had claimed me. But news of Jax's death by my hands would spread. Riddleport was no longer a safe place for the likes of me. With a heavy heart, I gathered my belongings and what gold in my possession and booked passage on the next available ship leaving port. The ship was bound for Sandpoint, but forsooth I did not care which of the four corners of the earth to which it took me. I simply wanted to put as much distance between me and my past as possible.
But in the end, it mattered not. For truly, the reach of a father such as mine is long indeed.