Rigor Mortis

Chapter Nine: Retroscope

The weeks passed in a blur, with each event being as nondescript as the next, with only night acting as a veil between dismal days. Vorador had escorted Moebius and myself back home to the Citadel and things resumed as though nothing had happened. I attended my magical studies and poured everything of myself into them. I mastered each enchantment, every hex... anything that the instructor threw at me, I learned, devouring every scrap of lore like a starving man at a feast. I occupied myself at every waking hour with studying and practice and soon I was at the top of the class. I didn't care one bit. Being the head student meant nothing. It was a by-product, a side-effect of my busywork. I merely did not want to have time to think about anything else.

My new status did not ease my situation with the other students, however. They still whispered and pointed; they still avoided me like the plague. Now, though, horror mingled in their gestures, repulsion tainted their glances, and to be honest...I was beginning to like it. I felt like a wretched ghoul, an abomination of nature, as I sat in class drinking up their fear. How utterly inhuman, to be angry at oneself for not feeling bad about enjoying such a pleasure! To know the sin and not stop! Apathy had settled in my spirit alongside this new aura of loathsomeness...ah, the beauty of being numb!

I saw very little of Moebius in class. He seemed to somehow have excused himself from such things and I did not care whether he was there or not. He seemed to be occupied with more ...interesting tasks. I did not know the nature of his 'independent studies' but he seemed to be on the verge of something exciting. He would pore over complicated diagrams that he had rendered the night before and claim to almost understand them, as though he hadn't written them in the first place. I grew used to his erratic behavior and ignored his constant pacing while I worked on whatever formula I was assigned to master. He mercifully never brought up the Vassurbunde incident. He instead seemed to politely waiting for me to speak of the horrid thing, God only knows why...

I was in class, one day, having been paired up with another student in order to decipher some runes. They were ridiculously easy, but she seemed to be having some trouble, probably due to my presence. Though I inspired fear in everyone, I never did it on purpose, so I tried to help her as nicely as I could. All I knew was that her name was Avelice, she was from Stalhburg, and she had hideous eczema. She would have been gorgeous, but for the scabrous patches covering her face and arms. All the rest she covered in dark heavy clothing and what she couldn't clothe, she hid with her flowing red hair. And she acted as though I were the repulsive one!

"It's 'Saramood'..." I said, finally beoming impatient with her ineptitude. I pointed at the faint symbol on the page we had been assigned. "See the sloping arch? That means it's from the pyrogen family."

"...thank you..." she murmured, with her eyes eternally downcast, and scribbled in her notes.

I shifted in my uncomfortable chair. I wanted so much for class to be over so I could go see Moebius and ask him what he was creating. I was curious, to say the least, buthad beenafraid to ask. The Timestreamer's explanations could get a bit...esoteric.

"Mortanius?" she asked, and I involuntarily quivered. It had been a long time since any female had even said my name.

"What?" I snapped, without meaning to sound so harsh. She visibly flinched and I felt bad.

"I...where did you go for so long?" she asked with a quavering voice. "Were you sick?"

"No," I replied, wanting to end this conversation right now. What a wonderful time to start wanting to be sociable!

"Oh...did something happen back at your home? I know they let Erich out to go see his father. He had consumption," she rambled on, "His dad I mean. Erich didn't have consumption."

"No," I said again and she blanched at the tone of my voice. Moebius had told me that it was preternaturally deep, especially for my age. I never noticed, but it must have had some sway, because she didn't speak again for the rest of the period. When it was time to leave, she scrambled out of the room as quickly as she could. I gathered up my books and walked down the hall, not even realizing that I was watching her. She seemed so small for one so tall...she scurried like a mouse. Our destinations must have been close in proximity, because we were traveling down the same hallway. I saw a group of girls, obviously her friends, meet up with her. There was chatter and laughter, but from where I was walking, it seemed as though she didn't join in with them. I would have continued down my way, but I overheard a snatch of their conversation over the din of voices.

"So, Leper, did you get your work done?" one girl asked of her casually. Avelice nodded, not even flinching at the horrible name, as they began to walk together.

"How was it working with Mortanius?" another girl asked her, "Did he try to steal your soul?"

"Don't be rude, Clarice!" the first girl, obviously the leader, hissed, and then asked, "He didn't...did he?" Avelice shook her head. "Whew! I'm just glad you were paired up with him, Leper! It saved us from having to work with him."

"He was nice enough..." Avelice nearly whispered.

"He'd be nice to you," another girl stated, "You're the closest thing to a corpse in the class. He probably thought you were pretty 'cause your skin's all rotten. Familiarity, you know?"

Avelice said nothing and I grew furious. Why wouldn't she speak up? Why wouldn't she defend herself? Before I knew it, I had approached the gaggle and somehow managed to stare every one of them dead in the eye. All laughter and talk ceased as I stood before them.

"Horrible...you're all so horrible..." I said.

"W...what?" one stammered.

"She may have some kind of condition, but she is no leper," I continued. "Have any of you even seen a leper? Could you imagine the pain and the torment and the sadness that a leper experiences every day? No, of course you wouldn't. You're all too high-born for that. Fate is apparently on your side." I stepped closer and felt a surge of hot energy prickling my skin. I loved the way they were looking at me, and the feeling of power that rushed over me.

"Leprosy would be suitable for one such as you. Then your outside would be as ugly as your inside," I said. I reached out to the trembling girl, seemingly paralyzed with fear, and I ran a finger across her warm, perfect cheek. She screamed instantly at my touch. Together, in a maddened herd, they all fled, with their cries echoing down the hallway.

I turned to glance at Avelice. I didn't know what I had been expecting, but her expression was not what I wanted. She looked at mewith a mixture of confusion and frightfor a moment, and then turned herglanceback down the corridor. A second passed and she made her decision. She ran down the hall after her friends and inexplicably, I felt a pang of regret.

I stood, frozen in place, recoiling from the waves of energy flowing across my skin. I had felt this before and I knew that I had done something terrible...I began trembling. I couldn't seem to catch my breath and I stumbled down the corridor. I felt nauseous and my vision was blurry. I needed to see Moebius at once! I needed to tell him that I had done it again!

I found him in his tiny, clutteredroom, sitting upon his bed with his eyes closed, swaying gently to a rhythm only he could hear. I plowed through the stacks of books, papers and trinkets he kept strewn about and called out his name, finally winning his attention.

"I wouldn't worry. You summoned up some necromantic energy, but not enough to do anything, except to scare her out of her wits. Good for you," he said.

"H...how do you know about all that?" I demanded, clutching at my chest. It felt like my heart was about to burst!

"I usually look back instead of forward," he replied. He led me to his bed and bid me to lie down. "I'll explain later. But now, tell me."

"Tell you what?" I demanded.

"I'm not sure. Tell me whatever you came here to say," he said and I grew angry. I watched as he fiddled with a small piece of quartz upon his battered desk, as though he didn't care about my plight. I glared at his carefree smile. Every time I asked him anything, he would never give me a straight answer, if he gave me an answer at all! He was always so evasive and I was damned sick of it! I nearly moaned, as another wave of nausea hit me.

"You know why you feel ill, right?" he said after a brief silence.

"No Moebius," I growled, "Tell me. Enlighten me as you so love to do,"

"You make yourself sick," he continued, sitting on the end of the bed and patted my boot, "You refuse to come to terms with your own identity and thusly, you sicken yourself."

"I'm in no mood for metaphors!" I yelled.

"Neither am I," he hissed, changing his mood in a whipsnap second, "I am absolutely tired of having to ease your eternal insecurities! You are the Guardian of Death. The magic of the Pillar you protect not only allows you to tap into its power...it has shaped who you are, from the day of your birth. It has twisted and molded your mindset and your personality. It has made you who you are."

"We've had this discussion already," I said.

"So why won't you embrace it?" he leered, "I'm sorry, Mortanius, but fate has given you a ghastly role. You have the ability to reanimate corpses, to soothe the souls of the damned and I don't know what else. Embrace it, instead of being afraid of it or hating it. If you live in constant dread of 'the next incident', it'll happen again. And again."

"It was all my fault...Vassurbunde...everyone died because of me..." I sighed and turned away from his burning gaze.

"Yes it was," he agreed.

I was stunned at what he had said. It really was my fault. I wanted him so badly to tell me otherwise but no...Moebius the vicious snake finally sank his fangs into the vein. I turned back around to stare at him. He shrugged and smiled.

"I'm not saying you did it maliciously," he continued, "but the fact remains that you raised your grandmother from the dead, and in turn she bit your father. It was your ignorance that allowed him to be treated as though he had some kind of mere flesh wound and it was naïve carelessness that allowed you to forget about him when you left to go live at the Citadel. If you hadn't been born, none of that would have happened. If you hadn't existed, Vassurbunde would still be a thriving, happy little town."

The wall of apathy and numbness that I had so carefully built up over the past weeks was toppled in an instant. I was ashamed at the tears that welled up, unbidden into my sight. I couldn't stop shaking and I didn't even bother to smack away his arm when he put it over my shoulders.

"I want to show you something," he said. Sniffling like a damned brat, I nodded and followed him. From a closet filled with a frightening amount of papers and boxes, he carefully pulled out a small, but thick cauldron. It was made of rough-hewn stone, and runes that I could not identify were crudely carved around its circumference. He retrieved a pitcher of water that had been sitting on his desk for some reason, and poured the contents into the bowl. From a box shoved underneath his bed, he procured four tiny red candles and ran a match underneath each one. When the bottoms were properly melted, he stuck them onto the cauldron like the points of a compass. He lit the wicks, sat back and waited.

"What are you doing?" I asked.

"I'm showing you what you need to see," he grinned and asked me to shut the door and the curtains. I did so, and when I came back I wasamazed to see that white smoke was now billowing over the surface of the water. Moebius waved his hand over the water and to my surprise, I saw the water glow faintly. He leaned in closer and motioned for me to do the same.

"Show me...what I want to see," he whispered and for no reason at all, I shuddered.

I peered in at the water and as the smoke parted, I saw the face of my mother. She was smiling sweetly, as I knew her. The scene unfolded before my eyes. I saw that she was sitting at the desk in my father's study, carefully writing out a letter. I could see that her fine dress was tattered and torn as though she had been in a battle with a beast. Then I noticed that the study was in the same sort of disarray. The drapes were hanging from the rod above the window and the wallpaper was shredded as though someone had been clawing at it. I saw that all the other furniture in the room had been pushed up against the door in a great heap. By this blockade stood three servants, each covered in blood and one had a horrible wound as though a large portion had been taken out of her neck. She was lying upon the floor, gasping, while her eyes bugged out of her head. She was going to die soon.

"We've got to do it now, Sarah, before she turns into one of them things out there!" one servant was screaming at the other. She was brandishing an iron poker taken from the fireplace. The other servant was crying hysterically and clutching a pair of tongs. She would shriek every time the door pounded and hunker down, holding her head.

"But we can't...it would be wrong!" she was saying, "You can't actually want to cut off her head!"

"Why not? It seemed to work on the other ones!" the first one demanded and turned to my mother, "Missus Isabella, tell this ninny that we've got to do it!"

"It really doesn't matter," my mother replied dreamily and continued to write.

"But Missus! Oh, hell, who am I kidding? You're far gone..." the servant replied, "I say we try our luck with the window. I know that they're everywhere out there, but I'd rather try than get torn to shreds in here. The door's nearly broken."

"Good luck then," my mother said quietly and did not look up as the serving girl hurled herself out of the window. The moaning coming from a hundred throats pealed out from the courtyard, followed by a shriek and a series of ugly wet sounds. The pounding at the door continued.

My view changed from omniscient to limited to over my mother's shoulder and I could see what she was writing. Her letter ran thusly:

My dearest son,

If you should ever read this letter, then you will be able to guess what has transpired here. I believe this unusual plague will have spread to the far corners of Nosgoth and the symptoms of those who suffer from it will not be new to you. I have been infected as well, and I wish to spend my last moments as a human being thinking of you. I feel glad that you are safe amongst your beloved vampires at the Citadel and the only thing I regret is how your father and I sheltered you from the world. I am afraid that you will see that which we wanted to hide from you, the ugly side of society. The world is a cruel place, full of hates and prejudices but you must not let the mire drag you down. It is so easy to give into your fears and your hate. It is easy to doubt others but it takes a true noble to believe in others. I feel that you will grow strong and do good things for Nosgoth as one of its Guardians. I am proud of you and I think that with your incredible mind, you might even discover a cure for these unfortunate souls. I only wish that I could see you one last time. But I do not want you to feel any remorse for what has happened here. You must not let regret for not being here consume you. Instead, look to the sky, look to the future and do what you can do now, rather than what you could not back then. I am feeling faint now, so I will go to my destiny, born as a human and facing it as one.

Be glorious,

Mother

With the letter finished, she smiled, sighed and closed her eyes. I heard the door crackle and splinter and there was a great clatter as the pile of furniture began to topple. I saw the undead horde storm into the room...and everything went black.

The surface of the water was as it ever was, smooth and sparkling. It took me awhile to get my bearings. I was sitting alongside Moebius in his room and the things that I had seen had happened nearly a month ago. I wanted to cry more, but I had nothing wet left in me. I looked over at my friend, who wore a grim expression on his face. He met my gaze and I could not tell what he was thinking. I gave one final shudder and sighed.

"Will you help me?" I asked him. He nodded. I wasn't sure what I wanted help with, exactly, but I felt as though I had an enormous obstacle in front of me. I was going to have to climb it...and soon. Moebius rose to his feet and pulled up the cowl of his robe.

"You can stay here if you still don't feel well," he said.

"Where are you going?" I asked.

"Janos is coming home today. I have some things I want to ask him," he replied. I could tell from the look in his eyes that he didn't want me to come along. I said that I would sleep here and he was satisfied, walking away with the air of someone going off to battle. I slept well for the first time in a long while and when I awoke, it seemed as though all hell had broken loose.