Ravenfell Chronicles: Origins

by Brand J. Alexander

  The beast shook its head back and forth as if trying to clear its vision. It struck at the emptiness in front of it and almost toppled with clear impairment. Then it struck again as it turned slightly. It was as if the beast were surrounded and trying to destroy all the assailants at once.

  “You are still in control, correct?” the raven asked nervously.

  “Its mind is too clouded. I doubt it’s capable of focused thought anymore.” Beaumont had never felt such a complete lack of control before.

  “Spin. Spin. My kiss of death.”

  “With gnashing teeth and foulest breath.” The voices chanted to a haunting beat that Beaumont could almost detect beneath their cackling and the snarling of the beast.

  “So many masters to hold your fate.”

  “But which one’s death will your hunger sate?”

  The Mawgrithe moved in a circle slashing harmlessly at the air practically to the rhythm of the witchdoctors’ song. It faced Beaumont and the raven several times in passing, but its focus remained on whatever hallucinations stood before it.

  “Brute force is clearly useless,” the raven squawked. “I hope you have a better plan.”

  Truthfully, Beaumont didn’t. He had not had time to plot and calculate this encounter the way he managed others, and he had absolutely no idea what the witchdoctors were capable of. The laws of this jungle seemed to shift according to their whims, and even a demon under warlock control could be corrupted by their madness. What kind of practitioners were they? If only he could understand the source of their power, he might have a chance of countering them.

  “I do not know what we face. How can I plan anything?” he snapped. His helplessness stirred the demon blood induced rage within him.

  “Start by planning to live and work backward from there,” the raven suggested. As the bird finished, the Mawgrithe rotated once more to face them. Only this time, it locked eyes with the warlock. “And plan quickly,” the raven croaked as it took flight.

  There was no doubt that the demon was no longer looking at hallucinations. Its eyes held firm on Beaumont’s. The explosive rage directed at him was palpable.

  “Master’s pet is so upset.”

  “Tell it to sit, little warlock.”

  “Give it a treat.”

  “A birdy morsel, perhaps?” the voices joked back and forth.

  “Yes, give up the raven to live.”

  “I am a Ravenfell. I will not betray my heritage,” Beaumont countered.

  “Then embrace the savagery of death!” they screamed in horrifying unison.

  The Mawgrithe howled in unleashed fury and charged. In the absence of visual reference points, the span of emptiness between them felt immeasurable, and it was only increased by the anxiety stretched seconds as they ticked by in near slow motion.

  Beaumont still clasped the hilt of his demon-slaying dagger. It was his last resort when things went bad, the last tool of efficacy. Normally he would have numerous contingencies, but without preparation, he had nothing. That first small yet effective dagger was all he had to rely on now: that and the gifts he’d honed over a lifetime. There was a certain thrill to that, a surge of adrenaline at trying something he hadn’t calculated thoroughly beforehand.

  He brought the dagger forth from his robes and cast it at the Mawgrithe, driving it forward with the push of demonic telekinesis. He struck true in the center of the demon’s six eyes, and he heard a screech of pain from the beast, confirming his success. It was not enough to stop the momentum of the charge, however.

  Beaumont tried to step aside, shifting the Ravenwood staff to deflect the worst of the impact, but he was struck by the flailing bulk of the demon’s careening body. The jungle reappeared in a departing haze as Beaumont collided with the ground and rolled, but the Mawgrithe’s tail came down across his chest with crushing weight, pinning him to the forest floor.

  He reached for his Well of Corruption to enhance his strength and utilize his telepathy to free himself, but he’d expended nearly everything in his earlier efforts. The bottled blood he carried to refresh his reserves was trapped beneath the beast and beyond his reach.

  “The master bends before the pet.”

  “My pet is dead. Now end these games,” Beaumont snarled.

  “Dead?” the voice cackled madly. “Death is a cloak that hides us here. Nothing in this jungle is ever truly dead.”

  “Yet everything is dead! Soon, even you.”

  “Get up,” the raven croaked. “This isn’t finished.”

  Beaumont sensed the Mawgrithe’s essence depart, fleeing the body in wispy trails of power. But it didn’t vanish back to its hellscape home. Something powerful took hold and reformed it. The beast materialized into an ethereal replica of its living form.

  “I can’t budge this thing, and I’m out of demonic essence,” Beaumont called, but he knew it was useless. He had lost the battle. “Flee back to Hildey and tell her what happened.”

  “You refused to sacrifice me. I owe you the same,” the bird replied as he alit upon the demon’s imprisoning tail. “Besides, this jungle would never allow me to escape, and Hildey would pluck my feathers one by one if I returned without you.” The bird pecked fiercely at the thick Mawgrithe hide, tearing the demon’s flesh apart as the beast’s body reformed in a swirl of glowing haze nearby. The black beads of demon blood rose to the surface and trickled down onto Beaumont’s face.

  Beaumont desperately caught the closest drops with his tongue, sipping every ounce possible. It wasn’t much, but the Mawgrithe’s corruption was immense, and it flowed fiercely through his body. A fiery rage grew within his well. He pushed with his returned demonic telepathy, attempting to free even a single arm, but he was still too depleted.

  The raven continued jabbing the thick hide ferociously. The trickle grew, and Beaumont’s mouth filled with the salt tang and searing rage of demon’s blood. Power returned in a flood, remolding his body with traits of the fallen demon. His telepathy surged with strength, and the tail flipped violently from his body.

  Beaumont stood cautiously testing his injuries, then he hastened to the head of the fallen brute and yanked his dagger free. As he turned to face the reformed ethereal Mawgrithe, their eyes met, and it howled in challenge. Fueled by the demon’s blood and rage, Beaumont howled back.

  He tried to focus on the problem at hand through the maddened essence of the Mawgrithe, but all he wanted to do was destroy. This was the reason he rarely used Mawgrithe blood for his workings. The very essence of the beast was madness and destruction, and it consumed him with the same desires.

  Yet, this ethereal Mawgrithe was something different. He did not know how to vanquish a demon in such a state, and his mind wasn’t clear enough to come up with a plan.

  Beaumont lashed out with his demon telepathy, but it passed through the Mawgrithe harmlessly. He raised a wall of Hellfire, and the creature scoffed with disdain as the witchdoctors cackled in accompaniment. He drew from every skill and mastery in his warlock arsenal yet still could not sate his need to destroy.

  The jungle pressed in closer as if in anticipation of his fall. The stifling presence of something dark and chilling caressed his skin with eager desire. It wished to embrace him and make him part of this mysterious land. He tried to resist, snarling at the oppressive touch in demonic rage. Yet a part of him welcomed the icy touch, opening hungrily to its presence like his well drew from a demon’s corruption. The dark fragment from his birth awoke more powerfully than ever before.

  Beaumont had not yet had time to consider the implications of the recently revealed secrets about himself. He had always known about the strange black fragment within him, but without understanding its source, he was unable to deduce much. But now he understood, it was a piece of death itself, a fragment of the Netherworld. Like the world beyond the veil, the fragment within him was drawn to the essence of death. Through that sepulchral shard, Beaumont could feel death all around him. It made up the jungle and everything within
it, including the reformed essence of the Mawgrithe.

  The beast charged with a roar, its tusks lowered to impale the warlock who dared summon it, or perhaps to impale his soul and obliterate his entire being. Beaumont knew too little about such things, thanks to Hildey’s insistence that he ignore the magic of death. But he knew enough about his family’s history to understand the basics.

  Beaumont felt more vulnerable than ever before. He didn’t have an elaborate plan to grant his usual confidence or even a full understanding of the forces he faced. It was like when he first practiced the Common Arts. All he had was the knowledge learned from books and a theoretical grasp of what should happen.

  He recited a chant to repel dark spirits, but the Mawgrithe barely flinched. The dagger slipped through the beast’s hazy form impotently. Each line of defense fell in a successive blur of desperation. There was only one thing left, though he had no clue what he was doing.

  He opened himself up to the dark fragment within him in the same manner that he drew from his Well of Corruption—accepting and embracing it as a part of him. Instead of the fiery rage of demon’s blood, Beaumont felt his soul clutched by an ominous chilling dread. It was nothing like the violent fury of corruption. It was slow and inexorable, dragging him down into oblivion.

  It was a different fight than what he achieved as a warlock, but his path to power had forged his mind into a resourceful tool. His warlock instinct told him to fight, but a whisper of his ancestry reminded him that death was inevitable, and only by looking beyond the veil could it be mastered. Death was already a part of him, by blood and by circumstance of his birth. There was no reason to fight.

  As he accepted it, the dark fragment opened like a portal for the offering of demonic death as the Mawgrithe’s tusks collided. It devoured the demon’s essence completely—the beast’s spectral form dissipating into the void within him.

  Beaumont could feel it pass through him and into some other realm, cold and uninviting, yet somehow familiar. As it did, the gaping maw of the dark fragment seemed to feed from the spirit, drawing the essence of its death into the warlock’s soul. A thrilling icy chill raced across his flesh in response as black flames rose from his hands.

  “Beware!” a voice called. “Child of death.”

  “You draw attention to yourself.”

  “They will find you.” The maddened voices suddenly sounded nervous.

  “Show yourselves,” Beaumont demanded, testing his control of the flames in his hands, preparing to unleash their fury inquisitively. “I merely seek to hide from death.”

  “A noble pursuit,” one chattered.

  “We have hidden from death since the Netherworld was formed.”

  “But you, Ravenfell. You can never hide from death. Death resides within you.”

  “You have opened the gates. The Guardians will come.”

  “Enough!” Beaumont roared, the Mawgrithe blood still fueling his rage. He directed the black flames from his hands at the demon corpse, testing their effectiveness. Like hastened decay, the body melted beneath the onslaught, skin to rot to desecrated soil. The jungle sighed almost passionately, welcoming such forces as akin. The canopy drew closer, and the vines seemed to thicken and grasp tighter.

  “Show yourselves, or I will let these black flames devour your precious jungle.”

  “Death feeds this place, Ravenfell. Unleash your gifts, and it will devour you.”

  “Leave now. Before your birthright brings an end to us all.”

  The jungle awakened with monstrous intent, driving the intruders back to the boundaries. But Beaumont was not intimidated. He had mastered some of the most powerful demons in existence. Besides, he had a new gift at his command, and he was only just learning what it was capable of.

  He sent a wave of black flames into the oppressive foliage, shriveling leaf and vine with a putrefying assault. But as the jungle withered, the death it released fueled the surrounding forest to grow faster and deadlier.

  He raised a wall of Hellfire to shield himself, but the corruption from the Mawgrithe blood was already fading. Their heat dwindled quickly to smoldering ash.

  The spare blood vials he carried were crushed when the beast pinned him to the ground, so he couldn’t recharge his Well of Corruption. His only option was to draw from the dark fragment in his soul. But how? Unleashing death had only strengthened the witchdoctors’ realm. Unless he could draw its power away as he did with the Mawgrithe’s spirit, he realized. He willed the fragment to open like a gateway once more and felt the dark emptiness embrace him.

  The jungle tried to withdraw, but the void within hungered powerfully. The very substance of the witchdoctors’ realm began to shred in howling agony. Fragments of trees and insects unraveled into the shrieking spirits that wove their existence.

  “We will not go,” the witchdoctors cried.

  “The other side must never learn our secrets.”

  “Vanish into death we must. Drum the spirits, brother. Summon them to hiding.”

  “The rhythm calls the spirits. Now weave the shield to hide us from the eyes of death.”

  The jungle retreated, ebbing away like a tide, as the spirits that made it heeded the thrumming beat of a haunting drum. The melody was just barely enough to escape the draw of the warlock’s dark fragment.

  “I’ve done it, raven. I have broken their defenses,” Beaumont announced as he proceeded after the retreating tide. Though the mantle of the deadly realm had fallen away, a more natural jungle remained, the scaffolding upon which the witchdoctors hung their elusive veil. The path was overgrown and treacherous, but Beaumont was determined to follow the retreating spirits back to their master.

  “You need to stop what you’re doing?” the raven croaked.

  “What do you mean?”

  “The Guardians approach. I can feel them forcing the veil.”

  Dark shapes appeared in the surrounding haze. They searched feverishly and ever closer, though something prevented them from spotting the warlock within their midst. But they were coming.

  “Death hangs close here. Close enough to touch you, Ravenfell,” the Guardians called as the shadows converged more directly upon his location. “The Ravenwood cloaks you still, but you gleam like a beacon. You have opened yourself to us at last. You belong to death.”

  Though Beaumont could see the dark shapes all around, he felt their presence drawing ever closer from within. Icy claws gained hold on the edges of the dark fragment’s gateway, forcing it open, pulling themselves through. He felt their touch upon his soul as the dark tendrils of the Guardians took hold. Then they began to drag him downward, into himself, into the death at the very heart of his being.

  He tried to push them back and close the portal, but he was too untrained, their mastery far superior. Like the Mawgrithe corpse withering before his black flames, Beaumont felt his soul begin to break down and disconnect from his body. There was nothing he could do to stop it, and the terror of such unfamiliar helplessness consumed him. In desperation, he did something he had never done before. He asked for help.

  “Help me, raven. The Guardians take me from within.” The words escaped his lips as the jungle began to spin erratically. He fell to the ground, but even as his head hit dirt, his mind continued to tumble into the darkness within his core, into death.

  Chapter 7:

  The Mad Witchdoctors

  Beaumont’s spirit rose through the darkness, summoned by the rhythmic beat of a haunting drum and carried on the wings of a raven. The black fragment consuming him fell away, ensnared within a veil of mist, feathers, and whispered secrets. He could still feel the hungering need of the Guardians on the other side, desperately trying to drag his soul into their world. But the clutch of the Raven King drew him away and cloaked him from their sight.

  As he returned to the world, he could hear the haunting jungle voices speaking around him.

  “You have given much to save him, raven.”

  “So much. Two souls
now touch.” The maddened chant was followed by laughter.

  “The raven’s fate is built from unintended consequences. Why should this time be any different?” the first voice offered mockingly.

  “Will you two cease your jabbering before I peck out your eyes,” the raven’s voice erupted. He was clearly frustrated, but he also sounded unexpectedly concerned.

  “Good host am I. To give the eye.” The second ghoulish speaker cackled insanely. The other joined in the merriment. “A rot it had. A worm or two. But still, I offer up to you.” A grotesque squishing sound followed and then a wet plop nearby.

  The noxious odor of his surroundings finally forced Beaumont fully awake. It was like boiling poisons and long steeped rot mixed together, and it hung in the air as a thick acrid haze.

  The source of the obscenity was clear in the glowing collections of pots and cauldrons cluttering the campsite, steaming with unseemly emissions. Corpses lay bloated all around in differing states of decomposition, and scavenging vermin skulked and skittered among the shadows feeding.

  “Ah, the Ravenfell is awake. Perhaps he would like your eyeball instead.”

  “Do you hunger, Ravenfell? Ravenfell?”

  Beaumont shook his head no as he sat up, and even more vehemently once he spotted the shriveled organ on the ground nearby. The eye wriggled in its detached state, confirming the suspected worm infestation. The raven, perched on a log nearby, even ignored the offering, and he willingly devoured the most revolting bits Beaumont could think of.

  “Where am I?” Beaumont asked.

  “A land of death in a land of death, hidden from the eyes of death,” a talking corpse replied. Its flesh looked partially mummified, yet it still was wet and slick. Whatever preservatives were used allowed the skin and tissue to remain moist and pliable.

  The witchdoctor wore garments of woven grasses and hung with strings of bones and animal parts. His face was hidden by an elaborately carved mask of wood and horn frozen in a horrific visage.