The Ascension and the Grail

[tinhuvielartanis]

More on "Sui Generis."


Managing a rasp, Nissius’ said:  “Cadmus, don’t do this.  Let me live and I shall show you even more wonders of the natural world and the hidden realms.  You need me still.”

I softened my look and released Nissius then, and I cupped his face with my gore-covered hand.  “Do you honestly believe that I need you?”  I asked him gently.  “I have been touched by the Apostate.  My inheritance is complete, old man.”

With that I closed my eyes and I drew on every memory I had of Nissius’ delight in my physical agony.  The mark of the angelic came over me, for I heard my teacher draw in his breath and murmur words of wonder.  I still held his face in my hand as I pulled upon the energies at my disposal.  With one word, “poena,” I transferred all of the suffering I had endured over the past twelve years on to Nissius.  He was held aloft on the tips of his toes by the intensity of it and his rabbit squealing commenced again.  I stepped away from him and watched Nissius as he broke his own body from the writhing, and still he moved, attempting to escape the years of horror he had created.  His eyes burst from the pressure of his keening, and his throat bled freely from the wounds I had previously inflicted. 

I stooped down and studied Nissius once he finally fell to the floor, twisting and howling in pain.  Sensing my closeness, the old man reached out to me.  For help?  For comfort?  I do not know.  I took his hand, allowing him to squeeze it in desperation.  When he seemed to calm a little, I whispered in his ear, “These are the fingers that delighted in peeling away my flesh.”  And I broke off his digits, one after the other, tossing them to one side, for they were of no use to Nissius any longer, nor to me.  Taking his other hand, I did the same with it, and I then watched the old man paw at the air, spattering blood all around him.  His cries were much louder now, so I took out what was left of his throat, but suspended his death so I could watch in silence for a while.

I crouched nearby, drawing from Nissius the energy of his suffering.  I learnt that the art of agony was almost as much food to me as was the Blood.  It was a way in which I could enrich myself by way of Human nourishment, when no vampires could be found.  After a time, I again approached my teacher and brought my face to his.  My mind touched his and found there only the primal instincts to flee and hide.  My predator was my prey now. 

“Little rabbit,” I whispered against his cheek.  “Your fox has come for you.”

Nissius bucked against my body, this time not to invade my person, but to escape my presence.  His efforts in vain, Nissius tried nonetheless, but he felt my thin frame against him still and he succumbed to the inevitable.  I rent his flesh from sternum to groin, tearing his torso asunder to behold his organs.  In a moment of rare passion, I buried my face in the pools of blood before and partook of human blood for the first time ever.  At first the taste and sensation were both heavenly, and I felt I might bathe in this wonder for eternity.  Eternity was brief that night, for my body rejected the alien elixir, and I expelled the blood onto the face of my master.  Had I been capable, I would have laughed at Nissius’ comical attempts to clear his nose and mouth of the gore so that he could continue to breathe.  He blew blood bubbles and seized up while I lay, cramping, beside him.  The pain of drinking human blood was something I wouldn’t ever experience again.  I felt as though my body were imploding in its haste to be rid of this poison.  I purged myself of blood and bile, and I moaned from the intense pain of this rejection.

Eventually the pain subsided and I returned to Nissius, who was ready to die.  Reaching into him, I ripped away at his vital organs, sundering them from his body one by one.  I could hear the screams in his mind, the screams that no longer passed through his ruined throat.  I delighted in his horror.  I relished every mad cackle of agony that passed along his primal mind.  In the mess of his entrails I bathed myself, giving the madness over to my true master, the Apostate. 

It didn’t take very long before Nissius stopped moving and I could feel his warm organs begin to cool in the cradle of death.  Nearby, I saw Nissius’ dagger, the one he had used on me so many times in my life.  Picking it up, I washed the dagger in Nissius’ entrails and began scraping the hair off my head.  Closing my eyes, I let this act be my final initiatory act into the Arts of the Apostate.  I shaved my head and slicked my scalp with the cold blood of my former master.  This was my first night as a priest and my libations flowed freely in this subterranean chamber.  I was sanctified and brought fully into the power that had always been mine.  I was prince, beast, angel, and priest.  And my work was just beginning.

“I remained in Rome for a few more years,” Cadmus continued.  “During this time, I would go out into the countryside and hunt down Vampires, bringing my prey back to the Apostate’s catacombs.  I knew he watched as I dispensed with my prey.  His approval washed over me in waves of inexplicable dread.  As reward, he would send me human souls to absorb, so that I could function in the outside world without much suspicion arising at my inability to express.  I was content to remain in the Holy City forever, but something unexpected occurred that forced me out of Rome, wandering, hunting for a power unlike anything I had ever felt before.”

“What was this power?” Kelat asked.  “From whence did it come?”

Cadmus narrowed his eyes, choosing his words carefully.  “It conquered the Vampires somehow.  They fell silent all around the world.  Even the Apostate was affected by this mysterious force.  He insulated himself in the tombs and towers of his stronghold, no longer wishing to witness his child priest grow in strength.  It was hunger that compelled me to enter the world, searching for Vampire Blood or the cause of the Vampires’ retreat.”

“And….did you find the cause of it?”  Kelat asked with as little concern in her voice as she could muster.  What Cadmus was speaking of surely had to be the affects of her grail.  When she cast the cup into the Earth, her people tumbled into hibernation.  Only Kelat, and apparently Cadmus, remained awake and wandering the Earth.  And, once Kelat retired to dream the reasons for her people’s sudden sleep, Cadmus was alone. 

“At that time, I was too hungry to solve such a mystery.  Your kind was almost  impossible to find in your long slumber and the Blood I found was stale and stunk of death in stasis.  The Vampires’ dreamtime was my age of famine.  When the Crusades were ordered by the Apostate, there was a stirring in the East.  It pulled me, as it did all those of the Blood.  I had long left Rome in search of food and now I turned my eyes to the East.  I wandered the steppes and followed well-worn paths of trade, seeking out this undeniable force.  My eyes turned to Jerusalem.”

Kelat sucked in a sharp gasp of air.  It was her grail Cadmus had felt.  There was no doubt now, for Jerusalem was Kelat’s territory.  The Hebrews knew her and her Blood family as the Lilim.  It was in Jerusalem Kelat had fashioned the chalice and it was the holy ground of Jerusalem into which Kelat had cast the chalice.

Cadmus’ eyes narrowed at her reaction to his account.  She knew now that he was aware of the chalice.  Had she deduced the rest? 

“Did you find it there in Jerusalem?”

“No.  It had already been taken out of the City of Peace and it was coming to Europa, so I remained cloistered in the sanctuaries of the Apostate, feasting on the Vampires who were now awakening with the unearthing of this mysterious vessel of energy.  I waited and watched, and I glutted myself on the Blood of the newly-awakened Upyr, just as they feasted upon the squalid human animals who were subject to the Apostate’s iron rule.  And, when the Apostate loosed the Black Death upon the world, the sense of hopelessness and terror fed my spirit as the Blood fed my body.”

“The Apostate made the Black Death?”  Kelat whispered, and Cadmus nodded, the look on his face one of beauteous worship.  “Why had I not seen it?”

“What does it matter?  There’s nothing you could have done.  That age was completely in thrall to him.  All the misery flowed from Rome and all the glory was funneled therein.  In his own way, the Apostate is the Master Vampire, drinking from the font of abundance until all that’s left is an empty shell and his unquenchable thirst.”

“When did you find the source of energy that pulled the Upyr?”

“I returned to Gaul and found there a secret coterie of Templars who had escaped the wrath of Mother Church.  They held what they thought to be the Cup of the Christ, the Holy Grail.  Their bodies were thin, frail, and fraught with cuts where they had taken their own blood to sacrifice to Christ’s cup for, in the sacrifice, the blood underwent transfiguration and became eternal, just as the Holy Spirit is eternal and incorruptible.  They brought out the sacred chalice to show me and it was then I knew I had found that which had such power over Vampirekind.  I laid hold of the relic and told the enslaved monks that I was an envoy sent by Mother Church to take control of the brotherhood and guide it on its predestined path of righteousness."

Comments

[falkenna.livejournal.com]

I realized today that I didn't comment at all, once I re-read and decided against my original tweaking criticism. I really like the description of Nissius's death, I think it hits just the note you're looking for.

[tinhuviel.livejournal.com]

Writing this yesterday gave me a lovely little dream last night. You were in it by proxy. I'll be posting it shortly, so stay tuned.