Ravenfell Chronicles: Origins

by Brand J. Alexander

  “He will find you, eventually,” a somewhat familiar voice intruded on the raven’s nothingness. “And he will extinguish every single spark of life to do it if you make him.” The speaker materialized suddenly within the emptiness.

  “How do you live, dead thing?” the Raven King asked in shock. “I saw him eat you as I should have done when we first met.”

  “Dead thing I am. But not the one you think. Although we share something in common.”

  The raven, reduced to his bird form at the moment, looked curiously at the newly arrived spirit. He didn’t question how it got there. Although, it concerned him a bit that he was found. It was the ghost of an old man with a striking similarity to the dead shaman. He held a resemblance to Dorga as well, just a bit. He was neither.

  “Blood,” the Raven King answered. “You share their blood. Then how is it that he hasn’t devoured you? Surely, he can command you with ease.”

  “I am older and much cleverer than many of the other spirits. I’ve avoided his detection so far, although if the boundary collapses completely, he will find me soon enough, I imagine.”

  “Why come bother me, here, in the middle of nothing, during the end of the world?”

  “Because I cannot watch one of my blood murder so many innocents and not do anything. And because you cannot stand to watch it either. Whatever beast you are, I sense some sort of heart within you, darkened and shriveled as it might be.” The raven cackled out a laugh at that but didn’t confess to the sliver of empathy he did, in fact, feel.

  “What good would such a feeling do me if there is nothing I can do to fix it?”

  “But what if there’s something we could do? Together. To stop it.”

  “I trusted your kind once. The other dead thing tricked me with his bargain. He deserved what he got.”

  “But do they?” The spirit’s intention was clear. “Do they deserve to die for my grandson’s mistake?” The Raven King didn’t answer. “I would make a new bargain with you, Raven King. But this time, I will make clear all of the consequences. For the price I ask you to pay will be much more binding than my kin’s meddlesome games. If you would do this, it will remake you into something even more than what you are now. And I cannot be certain what that will be. Or even if we’ll succeed. But there’s a chance.”

  “Do I get anything at all out of this bargain?” the Raven King inquired. He was uncertain whether or not to trust this human spirit. However, it never hurt to hear what the reward might be.

  The old man smiled slyly. “Would it help if I told you, you get to eat me?” The raven gleefully prepared himself for negotiations.

  It was there in the place between the worlds of life and death that the Pact of Founding was forged. They bound their bargain with the essence of the Raven’s Fel and sealed the magic’s name in remembrance to the new family bloodline founded from its agreement, Ravenfell.

  The old one claimed to be one of the first shamans, first among man to speak with the dead. He devoted his life to protecting his people from the forces of death, for there was no veil in his day to bind the spirits beyond. And the two opposing forces conflicted often. It was only through the research and mastering of mystical arts, he and other learned ones, like himself, were able to join with a few wise spirits and split the realms for the good of both sides.

  He passed his gifts and knowledge on through generations, so his descendants could teach the spirits of his people to seek peace and find their path across the veil. He always knew the knowledge he granted could be used for great evil should it fall into the wrong hands, though. He prepared for that contingency among his descendants. The Guardian spirits were part of that safeguard. All of it was gone now, however. He failed to prevent Dorga from becoming what he now was. Because of this, the old spirit was willing to give his very essence up to undo the mistake he set in motion, long before the Raven King ever considered being anything more than a peculiar raven. To do so required the Raven King’s help, and he plied him with the absurd notion, he should make up for his own part in this debacle.

  When both were at last in agreement, the spirit explained his plan in more detail. Then, he bound his very existence to the bargain by allowing the raven to devour his soul as agreed. Like Dorga, the Raven King had now consumed a spirit who could command other spirits, and as he drew the ancient force into his body, he felt himself begin to change even more. His powers and understanding of the worlds around him expanded beyond what he ever thought possible. Yet, these were not simple gifts. A price was required by the pact.

  There were tasks required of the Raven King before his part of this bargain was done. For one, there were three more souls who must agree to the Pact of Founding before anything more could be accomplished. But, as the spirit promised him, as the Raven King fed upon the old mystic, he gained a sense of where these potential scions to the newly founded Ravenfell family line were hidden away. He would need their help if this plan was to succeed. The spirit's final words still thrummed with the energy of their pact, “Dorga has bound the worlds through a powerful tether to death. To win, you must build yourself a stronger tether to life.”

  ◆◆◆

  Dorga was a failure at many things growing up, but spreading his seed wasn’t one of them. His negligence and lack of devotion to anything without immediate value meant that he left many women and their unborn children behind, long before he ever developed a grudge, which would require him to return to exterminate them. Or course, by now, Dorga’s madness no longer cared about grudges. He was consuming souls simply for the purpose of collapsing the worlds of life and death upon each other and exterminating everyone. A stroke of twisted fortune, however, had led to three of his older spawn being beyond his immediate reach.

  Hildegard, Velga, and Eldrith were triplets, born from a drunken dalliance during one of Dorga’s earliest journeys. It’s likely he didn’t even remember the mother. Although, even if he did, the mother passed before the girls were even born. No one knows how long she was dead before the surgeon freed them, but her body was blue when they found her. The midwife claimed her flesh was stiff with rigor as he cut them free. She was also a huge gossip and a bit crazy, so the man who birthed them carried them away to prevent the babies from being falsely burned as witches. But, though he saved their lives, he discovered quickly, as they grew, his reasoning for doing so was mistaken. Born in such a manner, the trio couldn’t help but be drawn to darkness.

  They were young women by the time the Raven King appeared to them. Witches by reputation, they lived together in the woods, earning a living by telling fortunes and selling a love potion or two. Unlike their father, Dorga, the three were anything but cons in their choice of trade. They saw the dead as clearly as the Raven King and spoke with them long before they learned their own people’s tongue. Their gifts gave them visions on occasion, so, as he ambled up to their door in a less horrifying version of his earlier body, he found them waiting impatiently upon his arrival. He was hastened into the house with some scolding and forced to indulge in a strange steaming substance they called tea, for the first time in his existence. He swore, if he survived, he would never do such an unravenly thing again.

  They understood what was needed. Their gifts alerted them when the first disturbances shook the Netherworld. Between visions and communing with the dead, they already knew the story and had a pretty fair understanding of what the strange spirit creature required of them. They were to be his tethers to life. More than that, they were to be the shackles to the Raven King should he be corrupted by this new power.

  As the old spirit warned, the Pact of Founding wasn’t a minor thing. By joining, the three sisters would bind their family, for every generation after, in blood and soul, to the Raven King. It also bound him to them. It was a strange and convoluted set of requirements, but in the end, all that mattered is they couldn’t do what was needed without this connection. The blood of Dorga’s descendants was key to breaking through the madman’s defenses. Only by
signing on to the pact could they combine their assault into one swift fatal strike.

  The women offered their blood to the Raven King as the required tribute to bind them, and he gave to them his Raven’s Fel. The darkness of his black venom slipped into their veins but didn’t desecrate their flesh. They were forever immune as children of the Raven King, and that gift of death enhanced their already budding connection to the Netherworld. From that day on, Hildegard, Velga, and Eldrith would bear the Ravenfell name and all the powers and knowledge that came with it. It wouldn’t be until much later when they’d discover the responsibilities as well.

  Such changes are monumental, and it took a bit for the newly founded Ravenfells to adjust, but time was growing short. The boundary between worlds was breaking down rapidly, and once that happened, there would be nothing that could stop Dorga. So, when all were ready, the Raven King summoned his flocks in multitudes and opened his pathway to the realm of the dead.

  It wasn’t surprising to see the madman on the other side. In this one place, at least, Dorga had succeeded in binding the realms. The world of life and death overhung each other in a tense rivalry. But the force of death was a hungry guest, and Dorga served it a buffet of endless delights. Life, without a champion of its own, retreated quickly before the onslaught. However, its champions were coming at last.

  What Dorga created was more than a temple to death. It was a cathedral manifested through and in praise of brutal cruelty and human suffering. The walls of this construct of nightmares looked as if he’d piled bodies to the sky, then melted them down to be reformed around the very bones of the earth to suit his twisted scheme. It was an obscenity of bone, blood, stone, and flesh mortared together with black flames and the blue glimmers of chained and imprisoned souls. And Dorga the Great stood adorned in shimmering robes of shadow atop the highest point. A howling blue shield of enslaved spirits surrounded him, protecting him from any who might challenge his power.

  “Did I disturb your nest at last, little bird?” The madman’s voice was like no sound heard on mortal earth. It reverberated through the essence of life and death like a quiver of anticipation. He was found out immediately, but the Raven King knew their arrival wasn’t the surprise in store for their enemy. Dorga’s control over this defiled realm was too complete to approach him unnoticed. “And what is this? You brought me human offerings? Do you come to bargain for your life, pathetic Raven King?”

  “I’ve come to finish what your father couldn’t. I’ve come to put down a creature too vile for either world and fix my terrible mistake,” the Raven King spoke eloquently in his new blended form of bird and man, and walked through the desecrated landscape, fearlessly, side by side the Ravenfell sisters. Dorga merely laughed at his audacity.

  “No simple mortal or spirit creature can stand against me any longer, Raven King. I’ve grown too powerful and feasted upon too many souls. But I appreciate you saving me the trouble of seeking you out. I plan to enjoy plucking your feathers out, one by one, just as soon as I eliminate your puny companions for daring to align with a primitive beast.”

  “As individuals, we may have been as you say. But together, we’re more.”

  “I agree. You are very much more. More bodies to feed my empire. These humans are made of living flesh, and all flesh must submit to the decaying touch of death.” Dorga’s strike took the form of lashing black tendrils as it fell upon the Ravenfell witches. Yet, no matter what shape he gave it, the power was still the same essence as the Raven’s Fel, and they were already inoculated from such things by the pact.

  “What trickery is this, raven? How do you shield them?” Dorga raged.

  “He doesn’t shield us, father. We shield each other together.” Hildegard stepped forward. She was the most fearless of the trio. “We don’t need to hide from your wrath beneath the wings of the raven, we’re Ravenfells, and we bear the raven’s gifts within us.”

  The three Ravenfell women left the spirit creature’s side and advanced upon the gruesome fortress, each seeking a point among the desolate landscape to bring their natural talents best to bear.

  Hildegard took a place by an old rotted tree. Despite all that had befallen the land, even dead, it stood against the plague of Dorga because its roots were founded in the enduring soil and stone beneath. It was the element she drew most power from. So, she bound herself there, to the forces of earth, from which all life arises and all death must return through decay.

  Velga could manipulate the forces of decomposition, and she found herself a place among the rotting carnage to build her connection to power. As the lingering remnants of life escaped through decay all around her, Velga gathered them to her to fuel her magic.

  Eldrith was a medium, able to channel spirits and draw from their knowledge and energy. She was drawn to the torment of Dorga’s enslaved souls. He held them bound with black flames in pools of writhing essence to draw from as needed. Her compulsion to free them of suffering drove her to seek them out and find a way to do so.

  Once in place, the three Ravenfells began the workings of their grand spell in unison.

  Dorga lashed out once more in frustration, a roiling wave of venomous death rolling down from his towering perch, but again his assault was impotent against the sisters. The raven’s gift held them firm against his greatest weapon. Dorga had grown much more powerful since his ascension, though. The essence of death wasn’t the only skill in his arsenal any longer. When he consumed the Guardian spirits, he took command of the veil between worlds, the limits to which were anybody’s guess. The Raven King’s plan took everything he learned from the eldest spirit into account, however, and had prepared for any contingency. It was Dorga’s connection to the veil he hoped to use against him.

  The creation of the veil was a combined effort of living and dead. The eldest shaman, while alive, and a fellowship of others like him chose their most powerful brethren and sacrificed them to create the valuable spirits necessary. As the chosen ones commanded spirits in life, they could do so in death as well. But as spirits, such a gift meant something altogether different. They could consume other souls and grow stronger. The shamans who remained sent thousands of the dead to feed the new Guardians, and as they grew, they wove the veil from their combined spiritual essence to part the worlds and forever separate the two sides of existence. In consuming the Guardians and their essence, Dorga gained more than just command over the veil between worlds. It was part of him, connected to his soul as surely as the spirits he devoured since.

  As he used the desecration to draw the two worlds closer together, Dorga directed his new power over the veil to bind instead of part. He wove the essence of death into the fabric of reality in an ever-expanding ring, consuming the living to feed the transformation and remaking the bonds of reality to heed his will. The laws, which bound and dictated life and death, were unraveling, and Dorga’s powers were quickly growing beyond a point where such things would matter if they didn’t stop him soon.

  It would take all of them to end it. Though Dorga’s power resided within the expanding force of his spirit, the Raven King couldn’t merely consume him as he did the elder shaman’s ghost because the core of his soul still resided within its vessel. His connection to the physical realm would have to be destroyed before the control over the veil could be wrested away. Yet, Dorga clearly foresaw this weakness and shielded himself with a barrier of spirits and a fortress of writhing flesh and limbs. And even were they to break through those defenses and slay his mortal form, it would do little good. As life and death overlapped here, the natural force, which draws the spirits out when their vessels expire, was gone. With his command over the veil, there was nothing to compel his soul to leave its body. They had to undo his work of warping reality before they could end him, and that’s what the Ravenfell witches’ spell was crafted to help with.

  Dorga didn’t wait to see what mischief they‘d devised. He brought the full force of his new powers to bear in an effort to crush them. He raised
an army of deformed and rotting corpses from the walls of his bleak monolith and sent them against the Ravenfell sisters. But these forms were already tainted by death and so had no defense against Velga’s powers of decomposition. She had a natural gift for speeding the recycling processes of nature, and it had grown. As the undead rose from the fetid earth, their flesh began to peel and melt away, the muscles’ fibers snapped and withered as they attempted to propel the bodies forward. Such extreme power was new to her since the pact, so her plague wasn’t a completely targeted assault. As the bits and pieces crumbled to the ground, coming in contact with Dorga’s nightmare constructions, the withering spread. Velga’s decay feasted with unimaginable fury, and it fed its mistress as well.

  It began as a vaporous mist, rising up from the rot. As clouds of the hazy substance formed, they trailed to where Velga stood. She had worked with such forces before but never this much or this potent. When she reached out and claimed it, the power surged up her arms and across her body in black flames, building in a torrent for release.

  Seeing his weapons of flesh reduced to rot, Dorga unleashed a host of maddened spirits, driven so insane by his torture they lashed out against all life with unthinking malice. And since the once protective veil now bound the worlds instead of divided, there was no longer anything left to blunt their attack. In this place, spirit could touch flesh with ease. The howling swarm of specters descended upon the sisters, but once more, a Ravenfell rose up to counter him.

  Through much of her life, Eldrith used her gifts of empathy to calm and soothe the spirits while they resided within human flesh. This ability also allowed her to sense the trauma and emotions of ghosts and sometimes fix the scars, which prevented them from crossing to the other side. She could draw them into herself, to allow them to speak with those they left behind, to mend those wounds. With the gift of the Raven’s Fel, her powers had also grown. Her understanding of these spirits, their worlds, and what bound them grew as well. Understanding the laws within which her ability worked expanded her mind to what was truly possible.