Chapter 52: The Blood and the Cold

Chapter 52: The Blood and the Cold

The disease was in him.

Valdemar felt it crawling under his skin. A horde of bacteria sailed his bloodstream in an attempt to infect the island of his heart. The blackened fluids that had transformed Bertrand into a monster spread like a puddle of oil on clear water.

Valdemars body was no fertile ground for conquest. His will inhabited each cell of his body. His organs were a self-aware conglomerate. He didnt particularly need any of them to live anymore, so they could focus their resources on fighting back the infection. Valdemar was born from the black blood; it was simply a matter of assimilating this sample.

By taking on the sins of others, you have opened yourself to darkness.

But the black blood was more than a plague. It was a vector between man and the divine, the part and the whole.

Valdemar showed no hint of the conflict within himself to others. He stood alone as Marianne moved to her retainers side.

I Bertrand looked around, his hands trembling. He had recovered his human form but not his wits yet. I remember the rat man and and the black

Its alright, Bertrand, Marianne comforted her retainer as she helped him get back on his feet. Hermann tossed the vampire his scholarly robes to protect his nakedness, revealing his own reptilian glory for all to see. You are home.

Shes struggling to hold back tears, Valdemar observed. Marianne had struck him as stone-faced when first they met, but now he understood that she was quite the emotive person underneath. After so many sacrifices we finally achieved a victory.

This changed nothing.

The voice in his mind had changed. It had grown deeper, clearer, and multiplied. The voice of Shelley reverberated with that of an old man and the ceaseless chittering of countless vermin. A billion mouths spoke with hideous unity.

The black blood reveals what lies within. An inner beast grows wilder. The evil within is magnified. Valdemar sensed an otherworldly presence peek through his eyes when he looked at Bertrand. This man spent his unlife suppressing his hunger for blood. Merciful Ialdabaoth only stripped the veil of deceit he had cast on himself.

Besides Hermann, who was checking up on his canvas in preparation for the Painted World ritual, Lord Bethor alone did not tend to Bertrands woes. Whereas Liliane checked up on the vampire and Iren helped him stand, the Dark Lord instead eyed Valdemar with an unreadable gaze.

He knows whats happening to me, Valdemar realized. Was Lord Bethor considering whether he should strike him down where he stood in case he fell under Ialdaboaths influence? Or did he trust the summoner to prevail on his own?

Does it matter? He cannot stop what is to come. You feel it, dont you? The end is here, the time is now.

Valdemar might have burnt the hedge maze to cinders, the air smelled of rancid fumes and putrid waters. A current of foul magic barely suppressed by Empress Aratras sorcery flowed through the ground beneath his feet. The great black pillar at the center of the institute breathed as if its blackened stone had turned to flesh. Ktulu was tenser than ever.

Valdemar glanced over the tall walls of the Institute and beyond the shield protecting Lord Ochs fortress. A tall pillar of crimson light had risen from the city of Pleroma and the terrible well at its center.

The seal binding Crtail was breaking down.

The dam holding back the tide of the Nahemoths power would fall sometime soon. The entire cavern would transform into a demiplane where the frontier between imagination and reality meant nothing. Madness would rule the waking world.

Worst of all, Crtail would follow the blood to his brother. Twins separated in the womb would become one again; one with their Father Ialdabaoth. The seals shall break and all of Underland would return to the Blood from which it originated.

And the mastermind behind this disaster would soon show his dreadful face.

We are rot and vermin, sang the swarm in Valdemars mind. We are the plague prophet of the red prince and the unholy spirit. We are the angel of the abyss. Men called us Aleksander, and Shelley, and so many names, but in truth we are Swarm. We are Hunger.

Images flashed through Valdemars mind. Visions of an old man with the Verney look the summoner had inherited, a cadaverous ghoul with red-rimmed eyes and rats crawling out of his mouth. The monstrous face of Shelley grew out of the back of the creatures head, laughing.

None of us were not worthy, the ghastly figure whispered as a thousand red eyes blinked in the darkness surrounding him. Our blood was thick and strong, but lacked the richness of a foreign world. But our work was not in vain. Your mother became the fertile soil from which the Red Grail grew.

Why? Valdemar muttered to the abomination. He wasnt certain if this dialogue was entirely happening in his mind or if the others could listen to his words.

Why?

Why serve Ialdabaoth? Valdemar asked. Whatever it promised you, immortality, divinity, a place at his side, its all a delusion. It will absorb all life in Underland into itself once it awakens. We will all become cells in a greater superorganism, unable to influence anything.

We know, the abomination that had once been his great-grandfather Aleksander Verney and Shelley answered without hesitation. Its bloody lips morphed into a toothless grin. Its eyes were eaten from within, leaving only two black pits atop a husk of hollowed skin.

Then why?

Why all this suffering? Why did his mother have to bear him and Crtail against her will? Why did so many have to die to create the Red Grail and bring about the worlds end? What did he hope to gain?

Life.

Darkness swallowed the world.

Once more Valdemar stood alone on the cold surface of Ialdabaoths stone skin, under the faint light of the Whitemoon. The terrible planetoid that had haunted mankinds nightmares and deprived it of its sun grinned like Lord Ochs skull. Its rocky surface changed into the Mask of the Nightwalker on Valdemars face: an unending spiral of death and infinity.

Open your eyes.

Valdemar saw through the Whitemoon and the baleful constellations.

He peered beyond the light and saw the tentacles wiggling behind, the eyes and the flesh festering at the heart of shining stars. Each of them was a fragment of broken light, cast down from a realm of brightness.

The Pleromians believed the stars were evil. That anyone watching under the sky exposed themselves to their malign influence.

They are all alive, his great-grandfather declared. His words echoed with the despair of someone who had seen too much. All Strangers.

The Pleromians had been right.Updated from novelbIn.(c)om

Life and lights were Strangers to this universe. An infestation from another realm.

Space was death. It was cold and ice and lifeless stones wandering a barren expanse without ends. It was the opposite of lifes corrupt warmth and chaotic movement. It was the utter sterility of nothingness, the perfect order of death.

And when the darkness gazed at the stars, it could only feel hate.

The universe despises us.

The void hated the life that had despoiled its emptiness. The universe yearned to return to its original state, to the lifeless expense it had once been before the Strangers and the stars infected it. It sought to extinguish all warmth and light until only barren rocks and darkness remained.

So the void fought back.

Valdemars sight expanded further, beyond the solar system around which Ialdabaoth orbited. He gazed at the sea of darkness and the ships of stone sailing it: malicious asteroids looking for inhabited planets to crash on; clouds of cosmic dust and ice large enough to blanket the light of stars, and rogue moons roaming the cosmos searching for warmth.

Some were so large that they made the imprisoned Ialdabaoth look like a small moon.

Their numbers are beyond count.

One day, the universe would know peace again. Even if it took a billion years the darkness would never stop yearning for the peaceful coldness of death.

Valdemars sight shrank, back to Ialdabaoth and the Whitemoon. Two soldiers fighting in a conflict spanning all of existence.

This is the War in Heaven.

Once more Valdemar stood alone on the cold surface of the world. His ancestor Aleksander faced him, now a man again. His eyes were blackened with forbidden knowledge and the madness of someone who had seen too much. A human-faced rat stood on his shoulder, his eyes a malicious shade of red. Shelley.

Our existence is an error, Aleksander Verney declared. His voice no longer echoed with that of a festering swarm, but with the cold certainty of a true nihilist. Our survival is meaningless. Our time is limited. Ialdabaoth and the Strangers are on the side of life. Our side. The Cold will turn us into dead things and then nothing. If Ialdaboath does not wake up, the spiral of death will drag us ever closer to annihilation.

Well get him to the infirmary, dont worry, Liliane reassured Marianne.

Iren smiled as he helped Bertrand move by putting the vampires arm over his shoulder. Its up to us, the supporting actors, to make sure the leads can shine in the spotlight.

There are no leads nor supporters, Valdemar replied. Everyone matters.

Never said that friend, Iren replied with a smile that implied otherwise. But all we can do right now is pray that your plan succeeds.

Do not pray, doppelganger. Lord Bethors eyes were cold. Think.

Iren knew better than to talk back to the Dark Lord. He and Liliane carried the dizzied Bertrand away from Valdemars sight to take cover in the Institutes bowels.

Hermann turned to his colleague and friend. Valdemar, if something goes wrong My art collection is yours to distribute. If possible I would like for my work to go back to my people.

You will not die, Valdemar replied. I wont let you. But I appreciate the faith you put in me.

It is not faith but trust, my friend. Hermanns claws trembled with a mix of fear and anticipation. At long last we shall make our Painted World.

The Nahemoth will be freed sometime soon, Lord Bethor said as he looked at the walls. Its herald is already here.

A quake hit the Institute. A second followed and then a third.

Footsteps,Marianne whispered.

The plague prophet peered over the walls with his thousand eyes.

A hooded cloak of flayed wererat skin covered a festering mass of vermin assembled in the vague shape of a human visage. Rats and mice formed the bulk of them alongside dismembered bats. Their skins were stitched together, their tails were interwoven like a cloths fibers, their mouths chittering with hunger.

Shelley occupied the center of the foul tapestry of the swarms grim visage. The wererats face was twisted into an expression of rapture, the unbridled joy of a martyr enjoying the pain of unholy rapture. The familiar had returned to his master at last.

This was a preview of the fate that awaited all life in Underland. The individual subsumed into the whole. Flesh stitched into a grim singularity of moribund flesh.

Aleksander Verney had returned from the dead in his masters image.

The giant horror was a living mountain taller than the Institutes walls. Its hood reached close to the ceiling of stone that overshadowed the entire Domain of Paraplex. Shoulders appeared as a hand of stitched rats lifted a scepter of bones thick as a stone tower. The tip was shaped into the form of a cross where the Lilith had been nailed with black spikes. A weapon she had been, a weapon she would be.

We are Swarm, the vision had said. We are Hunger.

The abomination flung its scepter at the Institutes shield with a shriek that shook all of Underland.

The magical barrier collapsed in a rain of crimson dust alongside a chunk of the stone walls. The Knights unfortunate enough to stand on fortifications were swept aside. Qlippoths that had battered helplessly against the barrier immediately moved into the Institute.

A thunderbolt bounced off a hundred of them and turned them to dust. Empress Aratra floated into the air and vaporized a hundred more monsters with a wave of her hand.

Lord Hagith teleported where Aleksander had shattered the walls and grew in size himself until he covered the hole with his body mass. Lady Phul and the transformed Lord Ophiel struck the demonic swarm from above with spells. Lord Phaleg banished Qlippoths back to their realm with his summoning expertise.

The Dark Lords had the situation well in hand.

Lord Bethor, unwilling to leave all the glory to his associates, snapped his fingers. Space cracked with a bolt of crimson lightning and a mighty creature appeared behind him. The creature was thrice the size of a carriage beetle, a mighty behemoth of blackened scales. Long raven wings supported its lizard-like body. Crimson eyes peered at Valdemar with inhuman intelligence.

Impossible Hermann whispered in shock and awe. Marianne didnt say a word, but her widening eyes betrayed her surprise.

Even Valdemar struggled to trust his own senses.

A dragon.

A young one, but a dragon all the same.

As for the way Lord Bethor had called the beast to his side Dragons werent creatures from other worlds. They couldnt be summoned like Qlippoths. It could only mean one thing.

A familiar.

Lord Bethors familiar was a dragon. Somehow, Valdemar strongly suspected that it was related to the one whose corpse rested beneath the Dark Lords tower. Its spawn perhaps?

We will deal with the vermin, Lord Bethor said as he leaped on his dragons back with supreme confidence. Bind the Nahemoth and prove us wrong, Valdemar.

The Dark Lords steed took flight in a cloud of ash and dust. The dragon breathed fire at the plague prophet the moment he came into range. Hundreds of charbroiled rats fell off the creature, only to be immediately replaced.

Amazing, Marianne said as Lord Bethors mount dodged a swing from Aleksanders mighty staff. Simply amazing.

Ktulhu, Valdemars familiar blurted. Its summoner sensed an undercurrent of jealousy in his partners voice. Ktulhulu!

But where is Lord Och? Marianne asked with a frown. I dont see him.

To Valdemars confusion, he realized that she had a point. The ancient lich wasnt among the Dark Lords confronting the swarm nor the creatures flooding into the Institute. Lord Och had vanished when his demesne was besieged.

Has he been destroyed? Valdemar couldnt believe it himself. Knowing the lich, he was probably preparing some kind of foul play. Are you finally springing your plan into action, my teacher?

Valdemar didnt have time to wonder.

The world snapped.

Valdemar sensed it. Something in the very fabric of reality had broken. An invisible cog holding time and space together had dysfunctioned, creating a subtle breakdown in the machinery of the universe. An invisible force rippled through the air, the stones, the flesh and the soul. For a split second, nothing visible happened.

A moment later, madness ruled the world.

The air turned purple. Pictures of screaming faces and broken hands formed into the Institutes walls. Yellow fumes erupted from the ashes of burned trees and Qlippoths in maddening shapes that bent the mind. Eyes opened on the Institutes black pillar, atop which blue brains grew alongside trees of neurons and tendrils. Space bent and twisted into crooked angles and twisted turns.

The Institute was turning into a demiplane of madness.

The Nahemoth is freed, Hermann rasped as his hands brushed against the Painted World. Its its here.

Valdemar sensed its approach. A black hole in the fabric of reality opened above them as a terrible horror manifested through; the shadow of a malformed, stillborn child the size of a dragon. Black tentacles erupted from his pale skin and his jaw opened to reveal a hundred sharp teeth. The Nahemoths wail chilled Valdemar to the bone.

I hear you Crtail, the summoner thought as Marianne immediately moved in front of him. She couldnt protect him from that creature. Among mankind, only a Dark Lord could hope to defeat a Nahemoth in single combat.

But Valdemar had made friends in strange places.

Valdemar removed the mask from his face and sprayed it with his blood. The vile artifact let out mist where the unholy fluid touched it. The dark force which had gifted Valdemar with it had taken notice.

Come, Nightwalker. Valdemar slammed the mask against the ground and poured his magic into it. May the Cold freeze the Blood!

The Mask of the Nightwalker shattered into splinters as the spell took effect.

A dark shadow rose from the remains and the world became cold.