Note: This chapter has changed as of June 9th, 2006. Shortened and reworked. For anyone wondering, it starts where the very end of Underworld Evolution ends off...please do read and review...
Prologue III : Child of Cinders
2002 A.D.
Two days later...A bridge stands broken beneath rays of sun and the dark shadows of a crevice.
Caught in the wonder of a child, she turns, hand trembling…
…shivering with awe and dread as the light warms her calloused fingers.
A single flicker o' fear before her lips are hushed by the slow tears falling from sky's edge...
Dawn touching streams and snow about her watchful face so carefully…
...so very lost as she blinks unseeing beneath the forgotten star…
Embraced by a hybrid sun of wolves.
Hope is on her lips.
Life is in her chest…
…while below…
Two eyes burn beneath the castle ruin as breath passes through a mangled form.
A strange feeling as the air touches her ashen skin. A storm building within the darkness.
But the creature…small and light. She pushes a single palm against the stone.
And pits her tiny strength against a rock of a thousand years. Pushes…pushes…
…until…the wall caves upon the ground.
And cloaked within darkness, once more she crouches naked…
Laughing with delight as cinder and dust smear upon the gold of her hair
…giggling through tears falling bitter from her ruthless eyelids…
Viktor is dead…
Amelia is dead…
Markus is dead…
…and with the death of three…
A sharp intake of breath…blue eyes widening above the grounds…
…a seal is broken.
The raven of shadow grows stiff in his arms, her trained gaze shifting to the grounds below…
Searching through the torrent of death being chanted like a ghost beneath the rock.
"Michael…" she breaks, her lips opening in shock. The horror in her chest as an unleashed demon begins to leach through her mind, roiling the blood of her past, demanding she join the flank of madness as first among soldiers…
…but seeing no evil, the sun by her side touches her black feathers softly,
trying at once to soothe night in the face of the dawn.
"Sele…" he whispers.
"…GO!" she snarls, the raven grasping his hand to throw their unwary bodies from the damaged wood,
flying with her sun of wolves as the world begins to collapse, dragging them down beneath the stone-swallowed tears of sky,
The true birds of morn darting above death…
…as the entirety of a long-forgotten castle crumbles into darkness,
Walls crashing upon the ground, bridges falling through chaos
and the stones of an empire surrendering to the mountain spine…
Crumbling in the space of thunder to be swallowed by the mere below…
…the surrounding waters swelling in the wake of utter ruin.
The birds are fallen.
And with a final ripple, the ancient home of Viktor, the abandoned tomb of William,
and the breath of two warriors sacrificed to the demon below...are gone.
Washed upon the shore, cinder lies crooning over a raven in slumber.
Humming, she twists her prey's neck between claws of silver
And washes black feathers ripped from its head.
Finally...
Satisfied with the work she has made, the girl laughs in delight
and raises her claws to be carried from the Northern Shore.
The raven takes her on its wing...
And a blood-wrenching cry pierces the morning sun
As the waking child born of cinder and dust...
...begins to scream.
...o...
...o...
Miles away…
A lycan twists in the darkness, gasping silently as if in a dream. Unnerved from the voiceless scream still echoing through her subconscious, she rises from the ground, stealing down a wall in the pitch black of day, steps darting and shifting until she finds the one she seeks…
Aeduin…the Second Knot.
Wrapped in his layer of sleep, she knows he lies curled beneath the rock and stone of their den, hidden from demons by the safety of silence and claustrophobia. But sniffing persistently, she finds the gap near ground and crawls on hands and knees below the rock, careful of pebbles and gravel, but easily circumventing the gaping holes that might lead another, less knowledgeable traveler to a twelve-story fall. Finally at his side, she shakes the slumbering Aeduin awake, her hand leashed across his mouth, the claws of her left hand and feet binding him against any unconscious struggle.
Any who would sleep below ground during the darkness of day must be either very foolish or very trained in their silence, being able to wake, breathe, struggle, and fight without a hint of noise. The Two of Knots represent the latter end of this dichotomy, however, Urith, still playful as a pup at times, prefers to cut her companion's circulation off while suffocating him.
Very mature…
In the darkness, Aeduin rolls onto his back, slipping through her iron grip, blindly facing her as she moves her palm from his mouth, giving him space to breathe. Searching, he takes the hand in his own, and calmly begins signing words upon her palm.
"I was dreaming…"
Her fingers tighten in the darkness, and she answers, taking his left palm as he holds her right. The signs come quickly…the product of almost four centuries of silent days.
"Of what?" She signs, running a thumb lightly across his wrist to indicate a shrug.
He raises her smaller hand to his mouth and blows on it. The dream is trivial and not really worth speaking on…but laughing (a short flick on her pinky finger) the Second Knot slowly signs out the words of his dream.
"Birds…flight. I think I flew in the dream, but only for a moment. There were many stones…large and heavy. The stones brought me down and I sank through water to the bottom of a sea…"
"We have already sunk to the bottom of earth…" She breaks through his words, her nails growing an extra centimeter to scratch lightly across his palm in irritation. "Nowhere left to go now."
"Perhaps…" He grips her hand for a moment, pausing, and then signs again. "…but in the dream, Urith, I swam up from the water…and I was alone. The birds were gone…and my wings had fallen." Tapping a claw pensively against her palm without breaking skin, he ends his words with a dull flick, expressing a pensive sigh and the need to speak on other matters.
"Tell me…" He shrugs, thumb running across her wrist. "…why do you walk during day, Urith?"
A simple question…but her wrist lies dead upon the stone, Urith silent, her fingers locking up as the lycan by her side waits patiently, knowing she will speak when ready. Sheltered as they are in darkness, floating upon the stone, their hands bound upon each other, it is as if the two foot space above their heads could stretch for eternity into the sky, save for the scent of enclosure and the stale air moving through the tunnel. Many minutes go by in this dark hole of rock, their coffin of stone…and still she stares into the darkness, thinking to herself without speech. Thinking on what her eyes have seen…
"Valhalla is almost finished, is it not?" she asks, sniffing the stale air they have grown accustomed to…so much so that journeys above ground have a strange odor about them. As if too much life exists in the air above.
"Yes."
"And how many could sleep within its walls, Aeduin?"
"Many." He answers, and then… "Why?" His palm wonders, turning face-up between thumb and index finger, tapping once to indicate confusion.
"I had a vision…dark." She says, her hand forming a fist and shaking twice upon his palm for the last word. Immediately, feeling the symbol "dark" against his skin, Aeduin's hand rests in silence, waiting until she has told all…
…and she does. An hour of silent speech, recounting on his palm the horror she has seen in her dream. The scream she still hears echoing through dawn.
The vision she has seen.
Viktor is dead…
Amelia is dead…
Markus is dead…
…and with the death of three…
A seal is broken.
An unknown creature has been loosed.
A disease with no apparent cause that spreads through bite and blood…
Sweeping through ranks one by one, she decimates immortals as they slaughter one another, unwary of her nature,
Their sleepless minds caught in a waking madness through which mothers stab their own children as blackouts come to an end.
Prowling through streets, unable to burn the itch from their skins and pelts,
Groups on both sides declaring war on madness, waging this grave crusade against all those infected…
Steering their gaze sideways as self-preservation has them exterminate friends…family…and loved ones.
Slaying them swiftly before mortals can suspect the one word immortals have kept silent for so long…
Plague…
A dissonance of lives changed in the blood of a single bite…
Slouching creatures whose bodies smell of mold and decay…
Death ravaged, rotting arms torn off, their eyes infested…
Indeed, it is best to kill these putrid creatures in their madness,
Best to end their misery before sordid mad-eyes could feast off the blood of immortals, vampires and lycans alike.
For in a fortnight, once the rot had ravaged their bodies…
…if a creature of mad-eyed rot could survive long enough…
Their soul would die…
Their memories would die…
…but worst of all…
The blood would cease within their veins.
And empty, they would rage on…these maddened fiends,
Stronger than hybrid, lycan, or vampire…
These fatal demons of the Underworld who had no memories of their past.
No mind for their future. No thought for their present.
Only the insatiable hunger for blood which could never quench the emptiness of vanished souls.
Her hand lies dead on his palm, and for several minutes, Aeduin himself is quiet, still thinking on her words. Finally, he touches her face softly, knowing her thoughts…and takes the small hand in his own.
"You saw the creature?" he signs, tranquil in his words, but shaken to his core.
"No."
"But you still wish to give them slumber when the time comes…"
She pauses before answering.
Such cruelty the lycans have wrought upon the Two of Knots… Centuries ago, Gode had warned them of what was to come…she had warned them. And now, due to Lucian's malice, where three Knots were needed, there were only two…
…indeed, they could yield to vengeance. Kill the lycan master in his slumber. Desecrate his body and leave it for the demons below. Allowing no trace of the one who hounded them for the sake of a dead vampire. The one who stole Gode's body. Judging them worse than dead to the pack, for centuries, he hunted them with his warriors so two Knots might be banished from both vampires and lycans alike.
And yet…
"Yes." She says, her fingers closing on her last words, as if to say, it is decided. "…we will give the rotten hounds their slumber when the time comes…"
Aeduin raises an eyebrow, cupping her wrist with his index finger and thumb. "Such gentleness, Urith. Perhaps you grow soft in the darkness of this tomb?"
"Perhaps…" Urith smiles carelessly in the darkness, her nails grazing his palm. "…but all know there is a price to be paid for slumber, One-eye…"
"...and they will pay it." He finishes, returning her nail-grazing smile, stroking his claws pensively across her wrist before enfolding her small hand, letting their silent speech draw to a close.
Daylight stands…and they must rest for the night ahead.
Standing on the brink of catastrophe, the Two of Knots drift into sleep, their fear of the dark and demons burned from years of running beneath a non-existent sun, their humour now trained upon death and the gnashing of teeth.
...o...
...o...
But take note, all who hear beyond the black stratagems of Urith...
...the plague begins that night.
Immediately, the wolves of the pack seek life through Raze, the mourning second of Lucian,
while in keeping, the bats of two covens find leadership in ancient Miklos, first bloodseeker and advisor to Lord Viktor himself.
Within months, both groups have culled the first wave of disease, sweeping their ranks for any sign of resurgence…
…only to meet a second…
…and a third round of madness rocking the heart of order while throwing immortals through a year-long tragedy of slaughter before they find their wits.
For how can a race survive by slaying its own?
And so it comes that those infected buy their time from the demon's snare…
…allowing their bodies to be withered and wasted, while those blessed with power save their race in the static regions of hibernation where disease halts its track. As is their way, the vampires rely on Miklos and the ancient slumber of lore geared towards blood-sucking immortals of old. The lycans, however, are lost and scattered upon the winds. Desperate times dictate they must find their own way through the madness, turning, through a dull shade of irony, to meet the Two of Knots and their gift of science and hibernating slumber below ground. A truce for the sake of life.
All-the-while, the war continues, rulers of both species waiting on cures and blind hopelessness.
Vampire fighting lycan. Lycan fighting vampire. While from the day of a Death-dealer's seeming demise…hybrids are lost to legend.
But even as they stalk the upper reaches of the Underworld, saving the lycan hoard one by one,
the Two of Knots continue preying upon the one who might still save their hides…
…Lucian.
The alpha whose body remains trapped in eternal slumber, his conscience unwilling to wake for the sake of two fiends such as the Knots. The lycan master whose mind and secrets hold strong the long-lost key to the Third Knot's hidden body. A pattern lost since the day a vampire wife burned to ashes and a war erupted upon the face of immortal earth.
Indeed, without Gode…all is lost.
And as to the cause of this merciless disease?
…the blood-wrenching cry of this child of cinders.
This Cinderella of the wolfen clan...
She disappears laughing into the night,
Her mirth stretched across the wailing of husbands, wives, and children shot down,
Her song hidden from the Two of Knots…
...hidden from those who might seek to cage the beast.
And save for the hint of a blood-wrenching cry breaking free of stone on a mountain spine…
…no one knows who the beast was.