Chapter 3: The Universal Question
(Friday, April 24th, 2015 E.A., Four days Post-Incident)
Rowan sat cross-legged in the center of an arcane circle, etched in chalk on the floor of her study. The circle was as wide as she was tall, and filled with all manner of mystical symbols. Six candles surrounded the circle, placed at each point of a six-point star. A seventh was placed before her along with a plate of incense. The incense created a haze in the room that hung just below the ceiling, filling the room with the distinctive heavy scent.
Surrounding all of this were Rowan's pets, sitting on the floor, bookshelves, the desk, or in the case of her pet dragon Zeus, just outside her circle. The black dragon held a small container in his blood-red claws, looking up at Rowan expectantly.
"Remember, Zeus," she told him as she lay her arms on her crossed legs, appearing to prepare to meditate, "use the smelling salts only if something happens, and you need me." Zeus nodded. The little dragon was her first pet since enrolling at Ravenwood, so the only one she trusted to handle the task with maturity. "Alright, I would tell you all to get away, but I'll doubt you'll listen, so… hope you like the cold."
Rowan closed her eyes and inhaled deeply before her head slumped down. The incense in the air began to condense as the temperature dropped in the room, and the candles blew out as if a gust had rushed through the study. But there was no wind, only the chill of Rowan's transition into the spirit realm.
In truth the candles, the chalk circle, and the incense were all unnecessary rituals for Rowan. Since her infancy, the born necromancer would transition between the realms randomly; often frightening her mother senseless when she was found stone-cold on the playroom floor. The local shaman had suggested the use of smelling salts to revive her, claiming that it was the only scent pungent enough to traverse the boundaries of realms. Rowan knew it to be true, but it wasn't the powerful smell that would rouse her, only curiosity. Eventually she was trained to recognize the smell as a signal from the mortal realm to return. The smelling salt signal also helped solidify the façade that she merely had a problem with blackouts, a lie told whenever it happened around guests.
In time, she learned to control it, but until then she'd never left the family estate much. The past three days following her unexpected transformation and murder of Dakota felt like a flashback for that very reason. She had taken quickly to calling her new form the 'Angel of Death', inspired by the lustrous black wings acquired in that form. Those wings were the only thing she liked about the Angel. The transformation into the Angel of Death was as inconsistent and sudden as her transitions had been, and the smelling salts were ineffective in reversing the change. As a result, she had spent her days since the fight locked away in her mansion, fearing the consequences should she change on a Marleybonian street.
It wasn't the problem of public backlash that scared her, though; she never really cared about how the Canines of Marleybone viewed her. Rather, she was scared of her own actions in that form, because she called it the Angel of Death for more than the wings. During her transformed state, she constantly felt and fought with the influence of Death within her mind, his magic pushing at her mental barriers, seeking control. Temptations to kill, to torture, to injure and maim even her own pets would tap at the back of her mind, prodding and urging her into horrific actions.
Her pets had survived so far due to the combined efforts of her strongest companions; Zeus, who worked with Henry, her butler rat, to keep the pets in other parts of the house when she changed; Shadow, her black hound, who followed her constantly, trying to use his own Death magic to influence her actions; and Morgan, her small nightmare horse, who patrolled the mansion grounds and tried his best to keep her from leaving.
When she wasn't the Angel, Rowan spent her time either in the study desperately searching for answers, or wandering the house, wallowing in depression. It was unusual for her, as Rowan was always known as the cold-hearted member of the group, keeping firm control of her emotions. But she took Dakota's death rather hard, hating herself for killing the innocent dragon. It didn't help that she was an animal lover, and that Dakota was Zeus' friend.
On top of that, she had nearly killed Talon, a man that -while she may not have loved as much as he wished- she did still care for deeply. He was her first friend, and always there for her in the war against Malistaire. But if the rest of the gang had not intervened she would have taken his head, then and there. She grew disgusted with herself whenever she thought back to that night.
While the studies had been fruitless so far, Rowan was beginning to notice a pattern in the transformations. Her periods of depression corresponded rather closely with each change into the Angel, leading her to believe that her emotional state may play a role. It wasn't a far-flung theory, as Death magic was tied to the emotions; particularly fear but also the emotions of the grieving process. Anger and depression could be as easily manipulated with Death magic as fear, though fear was more frequently incorporated in spells. Death himself had a history of manipulating the emotions of mortals, often for his amusement but on rare occasions to accomplish some mysterious desire. It wouldn't surprise her if Death was manipulating her emotions, taking advantage of her weakened control to exacerbate her emotional turmoil. It made her condition more difficult to deal with on her own, and more dangerous as well.
That dangerous unpredictability was the reason for Rowan's use of these ancient, mortal rituals to contact the Spirit realm. If she couldn't reliably stay her blade from the throat of her pets as the Angel of Death, there was no telling what Death may do to her body when she parted from the corporeal vessel. The rituals therefore became necessary as a safeguard against the risk she was taking by crossing over, even though they were not foolproof. She was getting swiftly agitated by her worsening condition and futile research, though, so a little risk was worth taking.
It was time to get the answers she sought directly from the source.
For her pets, the transition into the Spirit realm seemed uneventful. The room had darkened and frost clung to the air, but it was otherwise a bland process. That was not the case for Rowan.
When she closed her eyes, Rowan continued to see the world around her, but not through her corporeal eyes. It was her spirit that observed the world now, hovering above her slumped, abandoned body. She could see her snow serpents looking at her with an eager curiosity, wondering if she would move again, and her death scarabs settling down to wait for her return.
It didn't last long, however, as the world began to dissolve, absorbed by the spreading haze of the incense. Before her eyes the world was engulfed in the gray mist, shrouding everything. Thunder rolled across the haze, and flashes of lightning pierced the gloom to illuminate her face for the briefest of moments.
The fog subsided quickly, dispersing to reveal the Spirit world around her. Once the haze had completely cleared, she found herself on a dirt path at the entrance of a forebodingly gloomy forest. She knew what it was, of course, being –technically- a native of the realm. It was the Forest of Wanderers, the first step in the journey to the afterlife for the Spiral's dead. Each soul that died was brought to its entrance, and guided through by a servant of Death. The forest was, however, the original labyrinth, with enough twisting passages to keep a soul lost for eternity.
The journey through the forest was not a pointless one though, for with every step taken the life of the departed soul would be judged. The guide served to ensure that the soul remained in the forest for only as long as necessary to pass the Final Judgment, which would determine the resting place of the dead. It also served to deter unwanted visitors, such as heroes seeking glory and adventurers on some foolish quest. For such a visitor, death at the hands of a Deer Knight was merciful.
But Rowan wasn't going to need a guide to get through the forest, because turning around revealed that she wasn't at the entrance. Rather, she had arrived at the exit of the forest, facing an iron gate. The gate stood on a mountain road leading to a castle that towered over the realm, ivory white and imposingly beautiful. Two pathways diverged from her road to the left and right of the gate, close enough that should either side of the gate open, the path on that side would be inaccessible.
Unsurprisingly to Rowan, both paths were blocked by the open gate. One had to merely look through the bars to see what lay beyond them, and Rowan belonged on neither path. To her left, the path winded down the mountain slopes to a valley of emerald grass and vibrant flora. It was the Valley of the Peaceful, or what most cultures referred to as heaven. The path to her right rose upward, climbing up the slopes of a steep volcano. She knew what waited at the end of the path; it came to an end at the peak, overlooking the volcanic crater that was home to the Pit of the Wicked, more commonly known as hell.
The path she cared about, however, was open to her, and so she made her way through the rocky mountain path that led to Death's palace. She'd only been walking a short time before noticing that she wasn't actually walking; she was floating. Until now, Rowan hadn't taken a look at herself, but now that she did, it became apparent that she had become the Angel of Death. Yet she did not feel Death's calling, nor had she been emotionally tumultuous before crossing over; she felt entirely in control right now, yet she was clearly not herself.
"Well…" Rowan mused to herself, rotating one partially fleshed hand as shadows danced over it. "That's interesting." She pushed it to the back of her mind, another question to ask her creator upon her arrival, and carried onward.
The sky of the spirit realm was eternally cast in the shadow of night, so only starlight lit her path, but she had no trouble seeing the wide road ahead. She was as accustomed to the darkness as the other children of Death, so thought nothing of the night sky. Her mind was entirely focused on the twin spires of ivory that pierced the horizon, practically glowing against the midnight backdrop.
The palace was indeed a sight to see, a monument of beauty in a realm that seemed unfit for it. Its ivory color was not a polish or paint, as the castle was constructed from bone. Each brick was carved from an individual bone and they were held together with a paste made from bone meal. This might lead one to believe that the castle was structurally weak, but each wall had a stone core beneath the bone, giving it the necessary stability. The castle was meant to be a symbol, proof that there was beauty even in death. In Rowan's opinion, the goal had been reached, as it looked amazing from afar, gleaming in the moonlight.
However, she wasn't here to sight-see, so she pushed open the intricately carved doors to the castle, gliding through the entry hall towards the throne room. Unlike the building's exterior, granite was the chosen material for the interior structure, with obelisk pillars holding up the ceiling that gave the hall a semblance of a graveyard. Her path to the large, imposing doors of the throne room was illuminated by skull-adorned chandeliers that swayed in an absent breeze, sending shadows dancing around her.
Rowan pushed through the doors with all the grace and poise of a woman furious, the whale-bone obstructions slamming against the wall.
"And to what do I owe this pleasure, child," came a whisper reminiscent of a winter breeze.
The voice originated from a man at the far end of the throne room, cloaked in black and seated upon the rotting stump of a once thick and strong tree. Strangler vines had grown thick around the stump, forming the arms and back of Death's throne, and behind his seat of power the obsidian coils of thorny death vines could be seen, tangled in a dense bush.
The entire throne room was likewise adorned, the obelisk pillars of the entry hall replaced by towering thorn vines and hollowed trees formed from the vines of strangler figs. The granite floor stepped down into hard, barren dirt, sparsely populated by stones and various fungi.
"Oh, I think you know full well," Rowan snapped back, her voice infrequently echoing around her. The shadows enshrouding her danced at her displeasure, transitioning her flesh into white bone and back again.
"Perhaps I just wish to hear you speak it, in that melodious voice of yours," Death responded as he rose from his throne, an action that parted his silken black cloak to reveal him fully. His figure was like that of a man emaciated, flesh clinging to his bones. His skin was dry and scaly like desert clay, while his hair was an oil-soaked black cap upon his skull, gleaming with grease in the candlelight. Strands clumped together to fall down beside his pointed, sunken face, which flashed Rowan a mocking smile.
His attire was no more appealing than his body, as the cloak that covered him was fastened to the skull of a deer upon each shoulder, their snouts running down his biceps and large, imposing antlers jutting away from him. Vines twinned around his legs and arms, nearly concealing the skeletal limbs. Around his protruding pelvis was a black leather belt to which a single strip of black silk was attached, falling down to his calves and protecting his privacy.
"I'll believe that when your sister likes your wardrobe," Rowan retorted, getting a grimace out of Death. "Now, Pluto, I believe you have some explaining to do…"
"You know only my family uses that name," Death grumbled.
"And do you not consider me your daughter?" She asked back. "Answers. Now!"
"Questions usually precede answers, silly girl," Pluto replied coolly, taking a single step towards Rowan. "If an answer is what you seek, you must first ask a question." Rowan snarled, green eyes glowing with malice and magical energy, but a moment later gathered herself and sighed.
"Very well," Rowan replied with a little more calm, though still glaring at the king of the dead. "If you want my questions, I'll just give you the lot of 'em!" Rowan forcefully spread her wings, hands motioning over her body. "What is this, and why is it happening? Why has it continued happening even after I stopped calling upon my deepest Death magic? Why can't I control when it happens?" She pointed an accusing finger at Pluto, her tone becoming more fierce and frustrated. The Lord of the Dead did not waver, only watching her with a cold stare. "Why are you in my head trying to control me when I am in this state? Why is it that every single piece of necromantic knowledge throughout the history of the Spiral is so useless to me that I have to come here to get these answers?" When she seemed to finally finish her tirade, Death merely smiled, bringing his hands together behind his back.
"Ah, of course," he mused, "the universal question. The question that all sentient beings must ask at some point in their existence; why," he smiled again, though no friendly smile could ever truly form on that face. "Allow me to start by answering your last question first." He walked towards her slowly, as if time had slowed down around them and he had all of eternity to reach her. "Your studies are fruitless because you are the first of your kind to wield necromantic energy of this level. Many necromancers of ancient times have wielded Death magic as powerfully as you, but you," Death continued his slow pace, extending a hand to gesture at her, "you are unique. No undead of my creation has ever held your power; only the demons I command."
"If no undead has ever held this power before, then why now? Why me?" Rowan asked, her stare remaining unyieldingly cold.
"Because you are not truly undead, Rowan Skulldreamer," Death declared, "you grow like the living, feeling as the living feel, existing as they exist." Death held out both hands now, curling his long, sinuous fingers as if holding a ball in each. "You lead a dual existence, as both living and undead, and this gives you more power than any necromancer or undead creature." Death finally reached Rowan, and began slowly circling around her, making her uneasy.
"How is that possible?" She inquired, eyes following him. It seemed like such a paradox of existence, to be alive and undead at the same time.
"Your stillbirth, my child, is the key," Death explained. "Each child carries with it the magical energies of the mother when born, along with their own. Although you were born dead, your mother's energy lingered within you. When I resurrected you I encased that Life energy in a shell, preventing it from dissipating as it normally would. Your mother's innate Life magic made it particularly potent, allowing your body to feed off the energy source for years, growing as any living being would."
"It also allowed you to grow emotionally and spiritually, which is usually a handicap for undead souls. That is the key to your power; Death magic feeds off emotions. The undead wield Death magic as an extension of themselves, manipulating the emotions of others against them. But you, as a necromancer, can also manipulate your own emotions, using them to harm your opponent just as effectively."
"So I have the natural talent of the undead mixed with the versatility of a necromancer," Rowan reiterated, frowning. "Still doesn't explain the wings…" She hummed with a hint of impatience.
"This," Death gently stroked one of her wings, which flicked out in protest, "what you call the 'Angel of Death,' is your true form, my child. This is the form you would take if I were to place your soul into a truly dead body. The Life energy nestled in your core, the energy that sustains your body and allows you to heal and grow as you do, keeps your body at least partially alive. When you tapped into the Death energies that bind your soul and animate your body, you allowed your undeath to manifest." Rowan folded her arms.
"Well, that's all good and well but that doesn't tell me any-" she paused, sniffing the air. "Hold on a moment." In a flurry of shadows Rowan disappeared, leaving Death staring at the spot where she stood, dumbfounded. Had she just put him on hold?
When Rowan returned to her body, it jolted back to life and she inhaled sharply. She didn't really need to breathe, but it was a habit enforced on her at an early age, to further the ruse that she had blacked out around guests. After several years, it just stuck.
She opened her eyes and looked around the room, noticing her pets all huddled around the edge of the circle. Henry seemed rather distraught, and Zeus did not have the smelling salts anymore. He was trying to regain possession of the now open jar from her twin snow serpents, while a death scarab pushed an empty feed bowl into the circle.
"Really guys?" Rowan's shoulders sagged as she opened her palm in the direction of the fighting, the air chilling in the distance between them. The combatants froze, the offensive stench of the smelling salts now locked away in ice. "You couldn't find the food, could you?" She turned to regard Henry with an almost matronly gaze. Henry shook his head, whiskers twitching.
"Did you try the basement?" Henry quivered. "Still afraid, huh?" Rowan closed her eyes and shook her head. "Alright. But this is the only time this is going to happen, got it?" Her demand was stern, and Henry stood straight with tail erect, saluting. "Good."
She snapped her fingers absently towards the frozen trio, the ice shattering. "And you two," she growled, rising to her feet and stepping out of the circle to tower over them. She picked up the jar and closed it, handing it back to the small dragon. "Only Zeus is allowed to use this, is that clear?" The serpents looked at her for a moment, and then hung their heads.
"Any more of this, and I'll put you in the basement for a week, I swear it," she added, and they both shuddered. Her basement housed the mansion's furnace, which was haunted just like the house. She smiled at their compliant head shakes, then walked out of the room.
"Now, with that out of the way, let's feed you all so I can get back to business."
"Sorry about that," Rowan apologized as she reappeared before Death, "the pets needed feeding."
"And this is precisely what I hoped to avoid when creating you," Death groaned, folding his arms. "But no, my sister insisted that if you inhabit her realm like a living being, you simply must have a proper free will."
"Excuse me?" Rowan folded her arms in response, just a bit put off by his proclamation.
"Free will, you succubus! The one thing that all living beings have, and that the dead hold merely a facsimile of, is free will," Death elaborated with a hint of frustration. "You asked why I tried to control you when you were the Angel. The reason is because that was your purpose from the moment I created you. You were meant to be my emissary in the Spiral, overseeing my interests in the mortal realm, since I can only exist there for limited periods. And in order for that to happen, you simply can't have a proper free will."
"Oh really," Rowan growled, clenching her fists. "So I was right in thinking that you were manipulating my emotions, forcing me into the Angel of Death so I could be your little puppet." Her eyes burned with hatred once more. "Well you can take that idea and shove it up your anorexic ass, Pluto."
"Obviously," he replied with a face of stone, unmoved by her taunt. "However, it seems to be the most reliable means of ensuring you pursue your duties, since Gaia ensured my original method would be ineffective."
A thought occurred to Rowan, a thought that made her narrow her eyes at Death. She thought back to that time in which Mother Nature had struck the deal he spoke of, and how it fit into the timeline of recent events. Until that deal had been struck -granting her greater free will in exchange for Gaia ceasing her requests to extend the lives of her mortal lovers- Death had a habit of summoning her at will to give her a task, usually rounding up some troublesome demon in the Spiral, or dealing with a rogue necromancer. She had been acting as his little messenger reaper, spreading death at the command of her 'master.' That had stopped after the deal was struck, but Rowan had agreed to continue her duties –on her own time, not his- in exchange for a few more years of life for Kane.
And the deal, she realized, happened mere days before Talon went insane, torturing her and trying to kill Kane…
"You were behind all of it, weren't you?" She hissed, shadows coruscating madly around her. "You manipulated Talon's emotions to drive him insane after the deal was made, so he would push me over the edge and force me to unleash my inner undeath, relinquishing my free will for power. All so you could more easily utilize your little slave girl for your dirty work."
"To be fair, it wasn't all my doing," Death sneered, walking back to his throne. "After all, pyromancers are such an unstable lot. And you are hardly one to criticize me if I did; was it not you who played with his emotions as well?" He sat down with legs crossed, pleased with himself.
He was baiting her, and she knew it, but she couldn't let him get under her skin. That was going to be the key to getting control of this new power she wielded, to keep him from controlling her. She couldn't let him manipulate her like he did Talon. A smirk crept across her face as she thought of a way to turn the bait against him.
"What would you know of love, and the emotional play it involves?" She asked softly. "After all, your only experience with love is raping a seraph…" Death's sneer fell, and he sat straighter in his throne, black eyes gleaming with anger.
"That is not what happened, and you know it," Death responded flatly.
"Keep telling yourself that, m'lord," she mockingly added the title, giving a satirical bow as well. "But our actions concerning Talon are not equal by any means. And this Angel business will not be tolerated. I will not allow you to turn me into some messenger devil you send around the Spiral because you're bored, or somebody spoke ill of you, or whatever. I will find out how to control it, and I will find out how to keep you from controlling it." There was a resolution in her eyes so fierce that only a fool would doubt her words.
"And I wish you the best of luck in your endeavors," Pluto responded nonchalantly, leaning back on his throne. "Just remember, not even the Angel of Death is safe from me…"
"I'll keep that in mind," Rowan retorted, before turning from him to exit the throne room, shadows enveloping her.
(Monday, April 27th, 2015 E.A., One week Post-Incident)
Since her meeting with Death, Rowan had made little headway in controlling the Angel, or keeping him out. She was finding it difficult to stop thinking about her problems, which led to sorrow or anger and eventually, the Angel.
Tonight was a dreary, rainy night, which did little to help her mood, and she sat by her bay window listening to the rain as she read a text about emotional barriers of a magical nature. It was rather difficult to understand, being in Krokotopian; Kane would be better at translating it than her, but he wasn't here. And she couldn't allow him here, either. Last night a new temptation had filled her mind as the Angel; killing Kane.
It was a horrifying thought to Rowan, but wasn't all that surprising. Kane made a life goal of avoiding Death's calling, and he was arguably very powerful as a conjurer. Death had been eyeing Kane's soul for some time now.
But to have her be the one to kill him… The idea alone tore at her heart.
As she mused on the dark matter, she noticed a shadowed figure approaching her gate. At first she thought nothing of it; her frequent periods as the Angel and the ruckus that caused had led to several policemen approaching her place this week, all of them leaving shortly after. She wasn't sure why they left, though she could guess that it had to do with her house being haunted.
But this one was different, as a touch of Death magic filled her senses, along with sorrow and determination and longing. The emotions were a strange mix to her, but as she looked harder at the figure, she began to recognize large shoulder plates in the shadows, and the violet light of a magical weapon. She wiped the condensation off the window to get a clearer look, but by that time the figure had disappeared.
Rowan left the bay window with a confused expression, followed swiftly by an excited dash into the hallway and down the stairs. Could it be him? Henry tried to stop her from opening the door, but she brushed him aside easily and threw open the front door.
Rain cascaded off the porch roof, but she could still make out the street in front of her gate, and it was decidedly devoid of life as it had been all week. Rowan's shoulders drooped and she frowned, shadows beginning to lick across her body.
Morgan noticed the coming of the Angel before Rowan did, and dashed to the front of the porch, rearing up at her. The rearing was accompanied by a wall of fire sprouting in front of the door, urging Rowan back into the house.
Complying with a frustrated screech, she slammed the door. If that had been Kane, something had driven him off; likely Death, trying to worsen her mental state through complete isolation. But after a week of being cut off from her friends and sisters, she couldn't take it anymore. Running back up to her study, she took a roll of parchment and scribbled a note, placing it in a small jar before handing it to Zeus.
"Give this to Alia," she told him, opening a window so he could leave. "And come straight back with a confirmation note, okay? I want to know if she's coming or not so I can prepare." Zeus nodded and shot off into the stormy night.
It was time Rowan found out how the rest of the gang was fairing.