Ravenfell Chronicles: Origins

by Brand J. Alexander

The pile of mutilated forms still twitched and convulsed in places, as if fleeting life remained in a few of his enemies. Although, as he peered closer, he was horrified to realize it wasn’t individuals trying to rise but parts and pieces detached from their whole, shifting and melding together. Flesh wove with unlike flesh in gruesome mockery of nature. It was building something new.

  When he rose, he was a mix of bird and man, life and death, woven into a being of stunning yet terrifying refinement. He wore a suit of ebony feathers, finer than anything Dorga had ever seen. However, that finery only partially concealed the twisted blending of the spirit creature’s individual parts. The face was a mix of raven beak and fleshless human skull, never clearly either. His hands were raven’s claws, sharp talons glistening dark, even under the shroud of shadows. But this strange being, rising from the carrion heap, was spirit as well. There was no defined substance to him, at least nothing permanent. It was as if his body flowed and swayed like a murmur of starlings.

  As the Raven King took his first lurching step in this new body, the laughter returned with resounding force. Dorga turned to the people of his village. Their faces had all gone slack, but their mouths hung open in haunting mockery. There was no one who could help him, now, not even his loyalists. And there was nowhere for Dorga to run.

  The first raven pecked its way free through Ivus’s right eye. Its beak skewered the orb from within, as its head squeezed out the socket with a screech. Another exited from the man’s open mouth. Its escape was cleaner but no less horrifying. Before long, ravens were escaping from the bodies of all the villagers, whether through mouths or holes pecked and torn through flesh. In mere moments, the vacated skins fell in tattered husks as their insides erupted in cawing feathers and fury to replace the laughter. The birds swarmed upwards from the broken vessels into the skeletal branches of the imprisoning trees above. And as they touched, the limbs shattered into a million flapping raven wings. The roar of their cries nearly brought Dorga to his knees.

  The ravens swarmed in every direction in a wall of wings and madness, yet more terrifying still was the Raven King. He’d grown more adept with his new limbs and was moving towards Dorga with increasing agility. He didn’t know where he would flee, or even if he could. But terror doesn’t ask such mundane questions before it decides a course. Dorga turned from the coming demon monarch and ran.

  The world compressed down to nothing but the endless tunnel of ravens and the Raven King stalking from behind. It could have lasted an eternity or a minute; the damage to his psyche was the same. Yet, however long passed, the change, when it came, was abrupt and startling to his fragile mind. After an indeterminate time, where the physical realm was given way to the raven’s insanity, a hint of substance appeared. Despite the fear of what stalked behind, Dorga halted.

  It was an old worn down post at the center of a crossroads, but its banality was so out of place, its existence here seemed more absurd than the hideous creature which chased him. He took a step forward warily, certain it must be a trap. Something unseen tried to resist him in the air, shadows attempting to coalesce to prevent his advance. His mind was assailed with a wave of frightening visions. Whatever stood in his way was trying to repulse him from this place, but he was too familiar with the atrocities revealed. They were the same images that prevented him from glimpsing beyond the veil when he trained with his father so long ago. Those fears were as nothing, now, compared to the true nightmares the Raven King brought down upon his life. And the king was almost upon him.

  The shadows shrieked as he pushed through the invisible barrier, but there was nothing more than scary visions to prevent his passage. Everything changed for Dorga in that instant. As full understanding dawned on him, he began to laugh near hysterics. He forgot all about the creature which chased him or the birds which swirled in a maddened vortex around them. He looked towards the wall of haze beyond the crossroads and into the realm of the dead. Everything he ever dreamed of would be his at last.

  As the strange machination of bird and man reached the crossroads, he didn’t attack or even make a move towards Dorga at all. He faced off against the haze as well with a look of grim self-satisfaction and spoke. Surprisingly, Dorga was able to understand the words the Raven King called into the nether. But then, he had finally glimpsed beyond the veil and could comprehend the language of death as if he always knew it.

  “I am the Raven King, and I’ve come to fulfill my bargain, dead thing.” The surrounding shadows surged at this proclamation.

  “What have you done, you stupid petty bird? You’ve doomed both our worlds,” a disembodied voice rose from the wall of gloom.

  “Father?” Dorga’s voice intruded. “Is that you?” He wasn’t sure why he bothered to ask. He already knew. Perhaps, he just wanted to see if the old man would respond to the son he tried to have murdered.

  “Please, son. Turn back now. Go back through the doorway and lock it behind you. Never look back again.” Even as the father’s words spoke concern, the murk began to writhe ominously around the crossroads.

  “It’s too late for that, father. I’ve already learned too much. Everything you taught me is suddenly made clear. The power you refused me all these years is mine at last.”

  “The Netherworld saw the depth of your evil long before me, son. And they’ll destroy you to prevent you from taking these secrets beyond their realm.” His threat was weighted by the building shadows.

  A cold, maddened laughter met his warning, but this new madness was calculated fury. “Show yourself, father. I wish to look into your eyes as you watch me become everything you worked so hard to prevent. I’m a failure no longer. And I’ve come to return a lifetime’s worth of favors.” Only silence greeted his demand. “Do you forget the lessons you taught me, old man? Cause I haven’t. Our souls are bound through blood. You cannot hide from me. If I summon, you must heed my call.” He lifted his hand towards the wall of shadow beyond the crossroads and beckoned, forcefully.

  The darkness stirred in resistance, but like a bubble rising to the surface, the old shaman’s spirit materialized from the haze. The blue spiritual light of his essence flickered in distress as he was ripped from the embrace of the shadow realm. The affront at such a violation sent a shockwave through the haze of the Netherworld, and other ghostly figures began to amass and roil around the crossroads, their agitation growing with every second. Yet, despite the threats made, the spirits didn’t advance, as if they were leery of challenging this mere mortal.

  “Destroy me if you must, to sate your foul soul and its numerous grievances. But you won’t leave this place, Dorga. The Netherworld is protected by greater spirits than you can imagine. They’ve protected the veil since it was first created. They won’t let you go free to threaten the balance between worlds.”

  “You mean the Guardians?” Dorga offered with contempt. “Yes, father. Those little secrets you held back, I found them in other places as well. I know much more about this world than you ever shared with me. And now, thanks to your bargain with the Raven King, I have the power and understanding to use that knowledge.”

  Dorga felt them suddenly as if they were shielding their presence until that moment. Or, perhaps, the threat he posed had finally reached the level to draw their attention. There were perhaps a dozen of them, so ancient the burden of ages seemed to weigh on existence in their wake. They took no form, not yet, simply hovering on the edges of shadow, while lesser spirits swirled around them. The Guardians rarely, if ever, directly intervened unless they had to. At least, that’s what the legends said. Some claimed they created the Netherworld to protect the living from the vengeful touch of the dead, who were jealous of what they left behind. But whether creators or simple guardians, they were powerful beings who oversaw passage through the veil between worlds.

  “They come for you, Dorga. Your games are over.” Even as the spirit of his father spoke the words, uncertainty quivered through his essence.

  “They may be powerful. But they
are spirits, nonetheless. And thanks to you and the raven, I am now spirit-blessed. My will can affect the dead.”

  “Hah!” the spirit shaman exclaimed. “You prove yourself the terrible student with your ignorance. This is the world of the dead, Dorga. A spirit holds more sway than the living here. And spirit-blessed or not, you are still very much alive.”

  “Thank you, blessed tutor. Now let me teach you something I learned in my journeys your puny ambitions could never have dreamed.” Dorga closed the distance between them. The spirit attempted to meld back into the shadows to escape, but the bond of blood held him firm. “Our blood is the same. You will go nowhere.” When he was close enough to stare directly into his father’s dead eyes, he smiled smugly. “Not all spirits are equal,” he admonished. “Some are much more valuable, even more so to a lowly spirit-blessed human. Nothing is as precious as the soul of one who commanded spirits in life. That power over others is carried in their essence, even after death. In your essence, father. And I’ve come to claim my inheritance.”

  Dorga plunged his hand into his father’s chest, clasping the ethereal heart of his existence.

  “You were always so consumed with guiding death into death. You never once considered the true order of nature and the power it offers. Death has always fed life. And despite all you’ve tried, I still live, father. Your death will feed my ascension.”

  Dorga drew his father’s essence in, the power of death racing up his arms in waves of black flames and infusing the energy into his soul. He felt himself grow stronger as the man who raised him was consumed. He felt the Netherworld recoil at his defiling act. For probably the first time since the boundary between worlds was established, this side of the veil felt fear.

  Perhaps, if the Guardians still maintained human concerns of mortality, they would have taken Dorga’s threat more seriously. But for beings as ancient as the Guardians, the thought of oblivion was unthinkable. They foresaw the danger he posed to the veil but never considered the danger to themselves. And that misstep was their undoing.

  He began with the lesser spirits hovering in panicked circles around the crossroads. They were weak and confused, which meant they were easy morsels for his new gift. They fought the compulsion initially, but his will, imbued with the spirit of a shaman, was more than they could resist. One by one, the glowing blue specters were fed into the roiling deathly black flames and incorporated into Dorga’s rapidly expanding powers.

  By the time the Guardians struck their first blow, it was already too late. Dorga had woven a shield out of the lesser spirits in preparation and deflected the attack dismissively. As if by command, the smaller spirits scattered into the shadows in an attempt to deprive him of his fuel. But, by then, he was already moving on to larger, more satisfying targets.

  ◆◆◆

  When the Raven King saw Dorga devour the soul of his father, he felt jealous he hadn’t done it himself first. When Dorga began to consume the surrounding spirits, he couldn’t help but laugh at the manipulative dead things getting what they deserved. But when the first of the ancient Guardians coalesced in dark swirling fury against the invader only to shatter at the human’s touch, his mistake suddenly grew starkly apparent. What had he done? All that remained of his clever trick was an overwhelming need to escape and forget he ever encountered the dead shaman or his son.

  His path back to the realm of the living remained, but it would only return him to Dorga’s village. If he had any chance of escaping, he would need to hide his tracks and vanish completely. The rules of the veil still held, though, despite the losing battle of those who maintained that order. He couldn’t open a new path without first closing the original. Unfortunately, his melodramatic and quite noticeable portal was unlikely to vanish without drawing attention. Once more, it seemed, his cleverness was his undoing.

  The Raven King tried tentatively to bend the passage closed, slowly, so as not to be noticed. Yet Dorga was growing in power much too quickly from his feast of souls. Two of the Guardians were fueling his life force already. Part of their control over the veil must’ve been granted in the process, for he sensed the subtle meddling almost immediately.

  “Oh no, little bird,” Dorga’s voice echoed through the nether. He was facing off against three of the ancient spirits, not even bothering to look the Raven King’s direction. “I confess, I owe you a great deal for driving me into this place. But you know too much about these secrets to be allowed to live.”

  The Raven King gave one last attempt to close his passage in a sudden swift surge, but Dorga’s will prevented him. With one hand, he raised a shield of wailing specters against beings almost as ancient as time, and with the other, he cast a chain, woven of imprisoned souls and lashed together with black flames, to tether the physical realm to the Netherworld. All attempts at severing the link proved futile. And for once, it was Dorga who was laughing at the Raven King.

  “I admit you are powerful, little bird. Yet spirit-blessed or not, you are still just a bird. Your spirit is weak compared to a human’s. And my human spirit has feasted on the souls of thousands.” The entire Netherworld quivered with his pronouncement. “There is no escape from Dorga the Great!”

  The Raven King had no clue if it would work or whether he would survive, but he was a stubborn bird and refused to submit to a human, no matter how terrifying and powerful. It was true that he couldn’t close the passage he created between worlds to make another one. But there was a bizarre possibility he was only beginning to consider, now that the risks far outweighed what certainly awaited him if he remained. He didn’t know where such a trick would take him, if anywhere. But he was a raven, and curiosity was part of his very substance.

  He didn’t close the entire path between places, this time. Instead, the Raven King directed his will at closing the part of his path, immediately surrounding himself, banishing that segment of his creation, which contained his peculiar body from existence. Dorga sensed the change and turned from his battle, but he was too late to halt it. One moment, the Raven King was standing at the edge of the crossroads, and the next, the space around him collapsed, folding inward and banishing the spirit creature into the void between worlds.

  “Fly away, little bird,” Dorga taunted. His laughter echoed throughout the gaping emptiness of the Netherworld. The Guardians were destroyed, the lesser spirits scattered to the shadows. His new power was unrivaled. “I control the boundary between life and death. There is nowhere you can hide from me. I will find you, Raven King, even if I have to tear the veil to shreds to do so. You will pay. Everyone will pay.” He was marching along the howling chain of tortured souls as he spoke, following the path back to the village where he was born. “Everyone who ever laughed at me, they will all pay.” For once, the laughter which followed him was his own.

  Chapter 7:

  A New Bargain

  The Raven King hovered within the emptiness of the void, safe for the time being from the nightmare he inadvertently created. Normally, a bird, such as he, would rarely consider the plight of anything beyond his own wellbeing, but he was a changed creature after everything he had been through. He understood too much of existence and had grown fond of too many things within it, by then, not to care that he may have had a part in its undoing. Although, what could a peculiar raven do to correct the cataclysmic destruction that his pride unleashed?

  He still had his tricks and the secrets of death at his disposal, but Dorga the Great was a being beyond anything the world had ever known. His control over death was unrivaled. He knew to go head to head with that supernatural lunatic would be suicide. Yet, he strained his mind throughout his exile for anything that could help. Unfortunately, there was very little the raven’s talents earned him in the end, beyond a lonely perch in the void with a grand view for the end of the world.

  Dorga returned to find much of the nightmare he experienced was all an illusion of the Raven King. A faction of his people still lived, and they were quite startled when he stepped out
of the nether into the very center of the village before them. He wasted no time correcting the bird’s oversight. Dorga made no attempt to bargain with their mortal forms regarding his supremacy. He spoke not a word, as he stripped them all bear of flesh with the defiling touch of death and captured their souls for his amusement.

  The shaman’s son was a wave of death as he worked his way across the land, settling old grudges, decimating entire villages that once turned him away, and always gathering the spirits of his victims to add to his growing might. His list of those who wronged him was extensive, but his wrath was swift. And every life he took, he called out to the one at the very top of that list.

  “One more soul closer to finding you, Raven King.” His voice, by then, was such that it carried across both worlds and the void between. Even were the raven not watching it all unfold from his little bubble of nothingness, he would have heard that countdown. He didn’t know what purpose the souls served, but he understood what it would mean for him, eventually.

  When the list was expended, and all that remained was his elusive avian prey, Dorga changed tactics. He began to gather the bodies of his victims as well as the spirits and used them to form a monstrous temple of flesh and bone in his honor. Its very presence defiled the land around it for miles, killing everything in its reach and feeding his power to new heights. Every death expanded the blight further, feeding more death into it in an endless cycle.

  Like the Raven King unwittingly taught him, Dorga gathered a great multitude of spirits together at a single fixed point within the physical realm and bound them as prisoners until their essences beckoned for the beyond. The Netherworld responded hungrily to embrace so many of its own, and the boundaries of reality began to untether.

  “You can only hide between worlds if such a place exists, little bird.” Even as Dorga spoke, the protective void around the Raven King shuddered. “I will bind death to the land of life and strip the veil away forever.”