The Homunculus Knight

Chapter 49: Denial

“The followers of my creed can be divided into two broad groups. First are the outer circle, the craven and self-serving who follow this path only to save themselves from sorrow. These worshippers fear grief and seek the Reaper’s gifts, either to cut away their pain or protect themselves from ever experiencing it. Those of the inner circle are not so weak. We embrace grief for the truth it is and seek to help others touch that great thread that connects us all.” - Mater Rion of the Sickle Sisters.

Wolfgang sat in the center of a cold stone room, covering his ears with both hands and rocking back and forth. Circular, with staircases leading above and below, the room was just one floor in a castle tower. Myriad shelves and cases filled the chamber, each holding dozens of books or arcane trinkets. But Wolfgang paid no attention to these abstractions of his key memories and spells, instead he stared at the rough walls of the tower. A constant noise filled the room, filtering in from what lay beyond its confines. It was a terrible high grinding sound, like rock being cut or a fork being dragged across a dinner plate. With every passing second, the noise grew louder and with it cracks swam through the stone walls. Wolfgang was in the heart of his mindscape and helplessly watching as Countess Isabelle Gens Silva forced her way into his psyche.

Trying pointlessly to block out the eternal grinding of metaphorical masonry, Wolfgang bared his teeth in a horrible rictus, a low animal moan escaping him. He’s been pushed back into this final sanctum by Isabelle and was now awaiting the inevitable. Swallowed up by her darkness and slowly being squished like juiced fruit, Wolfgang was helpless. Soon the crack in the wall would grow wide enough and feelers would slip into his mind and ransack its contents. Drinking down his most precious secrets and discarding anything without value; leaving him a ruined husk worse than dead. When his body was finally destroyed, Wolfgang’s very being would be so damaged and drained, there would be little of him to face the afterlife. Demons and dark gods would tear apart the scraps of him, devouring all that Isabelle passed over. Wolfgang was facing something beyond damnation; he faced true ruination.

Shutting his eyes, unwilling to watch the widening cracks, Wolfgang thought about all the events that lead him here. Of his short desperate life, and only mildly longer and even more desperate undeath. Schemes and dreams turned to bitter ash in Wolfgang’s mouth as the monolithic truth of his failures crashed down like a falling mountain. Wolfgang sobbed: “I…I just wanted to be safe. I just want to be free!”

Curling his body closer, Wolfgang rocked harder, his voice a pleading moan. “I don’t want to die!”

As death and dissolution approached, Wolfgang found himself mired in an ossified emotion. Like so many others faced with their end and unwilling to meet it, Wolfgang experienced grief. He grieved for what would never be, for the loss of life and possibility. Wolfgang grieved for himself and knew no one else would. Drowning in those deep waters, Wolfgang’s essence splashed and flailed; attracting the attention of what swam beneath.

Somehow over the sound of Isabelle’s attack and his own blubbering, Wolfgang heard the creak of wood. Eyes snapping open, expecting his end to come, Wolfgang whirled about to the tower’s staircase and the noise’s source. Someone was descending the stairs, their footfalls making the old wood groan. Staring in disbelief, Wolfgang watched as a horribly familiar person came into view. Of average height for a woman with pale skin and dark hair; the intruder wore a black dress of conservative cut and ornate design. A veil of dark silk covered the top half of her face and she dripped with heavy jewelry made from jet and ivory. But despite the thin black veil and mourners' dress, Wolfgang recognized the woman. There was no mistaking the heart-shaped face and large eyes shared between her, her mother, and her daughter.

Finding his voice Wolfgang asked a question that he already knew the answer to. “Who are you? Why do you take my niece’s form?”

Reaching the bottom of the staircase, the mourner stepped towards Wolfgang and slowly lifted her veil. Despite himself Wolfgang sucked in a breath of horror at what had been merely hinted at before. Long ash stains traced the Iona-things' cheeks, marking the path tears must take; while her eye-sockets were empty, empty scarred pits that slowly wept ash. Smiling at him and revealing pale gums and fanged teeth, the false-Iona spoke with a voice raw from crying.

“Long, long ago, a woman buried her children and husband on the same day. As she filled shallow graves with cold dirt, she made a simple plea that no one should ever have to grieve alone as she did. That was the first prayer offered to me, and one I’m here to honor.”

Every muscle in Wolfgang's body was tense with terror, both instinctual and learned. “What do you want?”

Slowly walking towards him, her gown rasping along the floor, the false-Iona reached out with a pale hand as if to cup Wolfgang’s cheek. A sickle materialized in the entity’s hand, flowing into existence like a curling snake. The sharp edge of the dirty rust-spotted tool lay upon Wolfgang’s throat but did not cut him. Staring at the hand holding the sickle and then the face it borrowed, Wolfgang made a small, fearful noise.

Pressing the sickle’s sharpness to Wolfgang’s neck, letting its slightly warm and sticky edge push upon his skin, the being whispered. “Collecting a debt.”

Despite his inevitable death at Isabelle’s hands, Wolfgang still pleaded with the horror before him. “I created the plague and unleashed it perfectly! Countess Gen Silva’s survival was not something that could have been predicted! Even with her cure, it will still end many lives and bring about much loss! Surely I’ve paid back your help many times over?!”

The sickle’s edge started to bite, and Wolfgang barely avoided flinching. Still whispering, the entity spoke. “Grief is the final and truest expression of love. It is loss in the most profound form and those faced with it must drown in it or deny the truth. Which will you choose, Wolfgang?”

Trying not to agitate the sharp edge kissing his neck, Wolfgang said. “Neither, I paid my debt to you!”

Smiling like a starving shark, the Iona-being replied. “Denial it is then. You deny your doom and the loss of self, even though you’d started to grieve it not a moment ago. Now tell me, what would you give to escape this grief, to deny it and its cause totally?”

Staring into those empty sockets, Wolfgang understood what this was, what choice was being offered him. Shutting his eyes, Wolfgang spoke the terrible truth. “Anything.”

Voice suddenly heavy with hunger, the entity purred. “Good, now who am I?”

Forcing himself to look at the Goddess before him, Wolfgang whispered. “The First Widow, the Edge of Eternity, the Heart’s Hollow, the Reaper of Sorrows.”

The Goddess of Grief slowly pulled her sickle away from Wolfgang’s throat. A few drops of thick black blood stained the blade. Looking at the onyx ichor, the Reaper spoke. “I took a piece of your soul when we made our deal. If your plague achieved its full potential or you delivered the homunculus to me I would have given it back. You did neither, and instead face destruction from an insurmountable foe. But I can offer you victory for the price of servitude. Surrender to me, Wolfgang, and I will save you. Serve me Wolfgang, and I will reward you. Become mine or I will destroy you.”

Unable to find his words, Wolfgang felt despair build within him. All his struggles to be free were coming to naught. Perhaps oblivion might be better than eternal slavery to a master far more dangerous than Voivode Igori. Reading his thoughts, the Reaper said. “Freedom and safety are delusions. No matter how hard you try, you’d never ever achieve them. But serve me well and I will let you bask in those delusions. Choose me, Wolfgang; deny the inevitability of your end, deny the grief you feel, and deny the truth of freedom.”

The shadows in Wolfgang’s mind grew darker, and he tasted ash in his mouth. He could feel something pressing on the edge of awareness; the mask of Iona was tearing, revealing what lay behind it. A sense of unfathomable emptiness itched at Wolfgang, of dead stars and dying worlds, where nothing grew and what existed awaited an inevitable end. He heard keening wails from a billion mouths and tasted an ocean of tears. Wolfgang felt the sharp pain of sudden death, and the deep ache it left in its wake. In that horrible moment he knew grief, how it stretched across time and space, uniting all in a single terrible truth of loss. Wolfgang witnessed this inescapable fact and did what he always did when faced with such things, he denied it in a fool's effort to change reality. But just as all who live in such a state, Wolfgang knew in his deepest self the truth he sought to escape.

“I…I won’t be your slave, but I will serve if you help me” Wolfgang whispered

The Reaper laughed, a noise like glass bells breaking. “You’ve skipped anger and moved directly to bargaining; how perfect. No, Wolfgang you won’t be my slave, you will be my tool. Take my hand, take my offer and know you will never have to grieve yourself as you did tonight.”

Staring at the pale hand offered to him, Wolfgang asked. “What are the terms?”

The entire tower shook then and something cracked as Isabelle’s attack found a breach. Wolfgang recoiled as his mind creaked under the force assailing him. Watching him with those empty eyes the Reaper said. “You aren’t in a position to bargain, dear fly. But know this, I see your potential, and would not waste it. Become my scythe, my harvestmen, and I offer you the chance to rise above Igori, above Isabelle, to no longer fear anyone or anything except for me.”

Slowly, Wolfgang kneeled before the goddess and took her ringed hand. Shakily, he kissed the signet ring she wore and said. “I will serve.”

Letting Wolfgang rise to his feet, the Reaper smiled. “Good, now it is time for your first task. The one I’ve meant for you from the moment Epulo and Scapino put this piece of me within your mind.”

Eye’s widening, Wolfgang tried to speak but found he couldn’t. The Reaper held up her sickle and kept speaking. “My dear fly, I hope to sculpt you into a destroyer, a true master of ruination in my name. But before that can come, another role must be fulfilled, one you’ve played admirably. The role of poisoned bait, the type used to catch dangerous prey.”

Wolfgang suddenly understood why his memory had been twisted. He’d been groomed for this, wound up like a clockwork toy and set upon a path the Reaper wished for him. The Goddess arranged matters, so she’d win no matter how the game proceeded. It had been a tiny nudge, just enough to send him scurrying forward towards this confrontation unprepared. The board was set to ensure Wolfgang barely won or barely lost, both of which outcomes benefited the Reaper. If he was victorious, then she’d claim the Homunculus and Alukah for her own, but if Wolfgang were to lose even with so many advantages, it meant his foes unleashed their hidden knife in the form of Isabelle. Who, despite all her genius, was in some ways incredibly predictable, and would never squander the opportunity Wolfgang’s defeat presented.

As all of this crashed into Wolfgang, the Reaper slashed him with her sickle. Parting his clothes and revealing his chest scarred with the mark of House Tyto. His body didn’t respond and, Wolfgang could only watch as the goddess slowly carved another mark into him. Unable to scream, Wolfgang felt the fever-hot sickle cut a likeness of itself upon his very soul. As the horrible edge pulled free from his essence, Wolfgang knew what had been done. The chains Igori put upon him were shattered and replaced with stronger bonds of divine make.

Admiring her handiwork, the Reaper nodded and said. “Now, it's time for the finale of your old role. You’ve played the bait, now play the poison and when it is done, arise as my champion.”

Before Wolfgang could ask what she meant, that horrible sickle lashed out again and slit his throat ear to ear. Clutching at his neck, Wolfgang watched as ash poured free in a great flood. Spraying out in impossible volumes the horrible gray dust covered the floor and soon buried Wolfgang’s feet. Frozen, unable to do anything but watch the mad discharge, Wolfgang tried to understand what metaphor or meaning the ash had.

Then, as if in recompense for its myriad failures, his overtaxed brain provided him the answer. He’d not understood why Natalie kept her distance before. Multiple times she’d been in a position to literally tear him apart with her bare hands, but never did. Even when Isabelle took control she’d fought from a distance, not coming close enough to touch and floating over the ash stains he’d left in his path. Something about vampire ash hurt the Alukah, and the Reaper was using him as a source of it.

The goddess’s empty eyes met Wolfgang, and she shushed his dry gurgles. “Don’t worry, you won’t die. I just need a little of you to water the other seed I’ve planted. Now just relax, let me work and when you leave your mindscape you’ll know what to do next.”

In seconds, the room was filling with ash and Wolfgang was coming close to being buried in it. But even as the gray waste threatened to swallow him whole, he realized the tower wasn’t shaking anymore.

Natalie swallowed down a dry lump and felt suddenly exhausted. It was the type of deep hollow exhaustion she normally felt in the wake of crying or other emotional storms. Shoulders slumped, Natalie stared at where the ash monster and Isabelle had been. The power she’d just used had been an utter surprise, but the emotions accompanying it were worryingly familiar. That type of murderous, domineering arrogance usually whispered to Natalie when she was hungry. A little bit ago it hadn’t whispered, but screamed with her voice. But this time, the darkness hadn’t been howling for blood. It wanted something else which aligned with Natalie’s own desires. To make the ash monster submit or die.

Bawling her hands into fists, Natalie shut her eyes and started to leave her mindscape. She didn’t know what happened with Wolfgang or Isabelle and had no more time to waste, even in her internal world. But before she could, a terrible sense of wrongness accompanied by a deep cracking sound met Natalie and she gasped as another familiar horror touched her soul. Spinning about, she saw the willow tree and how part of it was split open.

Cursing wildly, Natalie ran to the enchanted ice and paused mid-stride as the damage became clear. She’d banished the ash monster before it could reach the frost willow, but that hadn’t been enough. The willow’s trunk was partially fractured, as if a lightning bolt grazed it. Within the crack, something dark and hungry waited. The taste of old blood suddenly filled Natalie’s mouth, the coppery tang evoking painful memories and inhuman pleasures. Licking her lips, trying to banish the phantom sensation, Natalie forced herself to examine the congealed shadow still thankfully trapped within the tree.

The umbric form of the Rabisu reminded Natalie of marrow visible in a poorly split bone. Lacking shape, it was merely a dark stain within the tree, now partially uncovered by whatever Wolfgang did. Uncertain how active the first vampire was, Natalie crept closer, watching the shifting darkness now exposed to her open mindscape. A very large part of Natalie wanted to simply leave her mindscape and try to help her friends, but a mixture of growing wisdom, deep-set fear, and learned paranoia stopped her. If she rejoined the battle just for the Rabisu to attack, then all would be lost. Time flowed faster inside a mindscape, and Natalie hoped the relative minutes she could pull from factual seconds would be enough to determine how bad things were.

A pulse of nameless dread flowed through Natalie as the Rabisu stirred. Echos of emotion reverberated from the tree, the psychic discharge of a mind coming awake. Baring her fangs, Natalie pushed against the sulfuric rage, bone-gnawing hunger, and worst of all, ash-bitter grief that flowed from her ‘parasite.’ The hibernation Master Time forced upon the first vampire was over.

Shaking her head, trying to discard the cloying flickers of the Rabisu’s mind pressing into hers; Natalie glanced behind her at where the ash monster had been. An idea started to take shape but before it could become recognisable, the willow groaned. Natalie watched in horror as a long pale arm stuck out of the crack in the tree, its spider-web of black veins visible beneath papery-skin. Claws of sharpened obsidian dripped from the arm’s fingers, and Natalie recoiled, remembering how those killing edges felt. Laboriously, the arm groped along the edge of the cracked ice tree; reminding Natalie of a heavy sleeper’s questing gestures upon first awakening. With a sound like cracking glass the claws sunk into the willow’s trunk and started to cut. The movement was slow and ungainly, more akin to a sick animal's scrabbling than a person’s focused efforts.

A voice bubbled up from within the tree, its tone both sensual and sickening. “My son, you killed my son!”

Desperately, Natalie reached for her throat, hoping the stigma there would offer some kind of protection. As her fingers brushed the holy mark a surprised shriek escaped Natalie. The Maze of Moments was impossibly cold, its ornate lines burning like arctic winds. But that wasn’t what frightened Natalie, it was what she felt moving beneath the stigma. A fast panicked pulse raced beneath her fingers, and with it, the very veins of her neck writhed like serpents. Breathing so rapidly she’d have passed out if still human, Natalie yanked on the top of her dress, pulling the imagined fabric away and revealing her shoulder and chest. Black lines snaked through her flesh, following the paths of blood vessels in a steady march of corruption.

Eyes wide, unable to take them off the sight, Natalie watched lines of ink cover one breast and work their way along her arm. Finally, looking back at the tree, Natalie felt sick seeing how her own disfigured limb matched the one scratching at the ice willow. Thrusting out her yet untainted arm at the Rabisu, Natalie screamed. “NO!”

That horrible voice, so beautiful and utterly disgusting, spoke again. “You took my son; I will take you. Deny this truth no longer, usurper. Surrender to me and grieve for all you’ve lost. For my story is eternal and your flesh will be how I write the next chapter.”

A second hand formed out of the clotted darkness and joined the first, scratching at the ice, while a third found purchase on one of the tree’s branches and pulled. Now Natalie could see more of the Rabisu, of the form it wore for her now. No longer did it look like a queen of the damned or Isabelle’s doppelgänger, instead it was a spider, one crafted from human features. Eight hungry faces in the place of eyes glared out at Natalie above oversized fangs dripping with liquid death. Multi-jointed limbs capped by clawed hands scrabbled at the ice while an abdomen formed from a heavily pregnant woman’s torso was barely visible within the ice.

Staring at this horror, trying to fight down a scream, Natalie’s cracking mind latched onto a childhood memory. Of Barnabas brutally swatting a spider, much to Wilhelm’s complaint. Her dad didn’t mind spiders, since they hunted the various six-legged banes of a chef. Barnabas held a different view, claiming anything that ate its parents or its young was jagged. Somehow that half-forgotten moment came to Natalie then, and with it came inspiration.

Forcing herself to meet the vampire-spider’s gaze, Natalie said. “I know you regret what you did. I know how you became the first vampire and why the sun doesn’t burn me. Queen Eresh, you murdered your children and were then murdered by your scions. But not before feeling remorse for what was done, and earning mercy from the very Gods who cursed you! Please, I didn’t want to consume Annoch, but there was no other way! His mind was gone, but his power needed a host! I’m not a usurper of your scion, but his heir; I’m your grandscion! Don’t continue this cycle of kin-slaying, don’t squander this chance!”

The spider stopped its movements, and then a noise came from it, a melody that cut at Natalie’s nerves and made her flinch away. It was laughter; the Rabisu was laughing. “You actually believed the Gods? They lied to you, usurper. I felt no such remorse, nor was I betrayed by my children! I let them consume me so I might protect them eternally! My blood, my power, is why you can face the sun! You are unworthy of my sacrifice, of my love! Die vermin! Be extinguished and surrender your flesh so I might avenge my brood!”

So much malice was packed into the words, Natalie actually stumbled backward as if a gale had struck her. Stunned, Natalie watched the spider claw at the ice, its fat bulbous body wriggling against the breaking tree. “No… that’s-”

Cutting her off, the Rabisu proclaimed. “You think they wouldn’t lie to you? That death himself would speak to you as an equal? Foolish girl! You are but a piece in a great game, existing to be prodded forward as your Master demands! But he’s been outplayed, and now you are to be sacrificed as other pieces take the initiative!”

Hesitation, doubt and the deep terror of the betrayed filled Natalie as the spider squeezed free from the frozen willow. Finishing her interrupted thought, Natalie whispered. “That doesn’t make sense…”

Finally pulling itself from the tree, the Rabisu shrieked. “Denial at the very end! You pathetic little parasite, fade away and know your legacy will be one of grief and sorrow!”

As despair closed in upon Natalie and the spider approached, a stray thought itched at her mind. Parasite, an oddly specific word choice and one Isabelle seemed insistent upon. It was the only way the former countess referred to the Rabisu, and at the time Natalie assumed Isabelle was just being obtuse. But now, as an ur-vampire came for her, Natalie remembered Isabelle claimed to be mostly ignorant about the Rabisu. Natalie also knew Isabelle hated being wrong and would never commit to something unless she was certain; be it a magical ritual or a name. In fact, Isabelle wasn’t the only one who refused to name the spider monster Rabisu, Master Time himself called what Natalie now faced a mere parasite. The Tenth God also said to not believe her lies…

Snapping out of her confused panic, Natalie spat a word. “Goatshit!!!”

To her surprise, the spider stopped, its jerky movements coming to an unnaturally fast halt. Eyeing the perfidious creature before her, Natalie said. “You’ve been tricking me this entire time! You… you aren’t the Rabisu, you’re something else!”

As the words left Natalie’s lips she became more certain of them as her reasoning bubbled free in a half-formed tide. “Master Time wouldn’t need to lie about the Rabisu, nor would it make any sense for the original bearer of the curse to be resistant to the banes. Isabelle said she’d tear you from your throne; an odd threat to a deposed queen. That, on top of all her vagaries, makes me think she knows what you are, but isn’t willing to name you. Both a god and ancient vampire call you a parasite, what in the hells would make them agree on-”

Eyes wide, Natalie looked at the spider and slowly said. “What in the hells indeed... Wolfgang is trying to capture Cole and I… just like Scapino. Who was an Ashborn connected to a god of grief, and I’m not supposed to touch vampire ash, and… and… jag”

A dozen disparate pieces fell together and Natalie squeezed her fists so hard she thought something might break. “You’re a demon, a jagging demon inside of me trying to do… what?”

Again the spider laughed, but this time it wasn’t that horrible noise from before, instead it was achingly familiar to Natalie. In a voice she hadn’t heard in years the demon said. “For now? Distract you.”

As those words sunk in, Natalie screamed as she felt a part of her very being tear free. Clutching at her chest, Natalie fell to her knees, a sensation of emptiness and isolation threatening to crush her. Staring up at the demon, trying to understand what happened, Natalie watched as the parasite’s head split open and revealed a sight that made her moan in horror. It was her mother’s face, colorless, fanged and missing its eyes. Smiling, the demon spoke in her mother’s voice. “Clever, but not clever enough; putting together all the pieces they left for you, but at the worst possible moment. Making Death pay his gate debt for the stigma by keeping you ignorant was worthwhile, but the time for subtlety has passed, Natalie.”

Hearing this grotesque mockery of her mother speak was worse than anything Natalie could have imagined, and the meaning of its words was just another knife in her soul. Seeing the dawning horror in Natalie’s eyes, the spider explained. “You are right, I’m not the Rabisu, she is truly dead, torn apart just as Annoch and Johan are. But she was a useful mask, just as your mother is for Wolfgang. I must thank you and Isabelle for pushing him into my open arms. He will prove so useful in the years to come.”

Words escaped Natalie as she felt darkness press in around her. “You… you aren’t a Demon. But… but how?”

A mottled limb reached down and cupped Natalie’s cheek. “I’m so much more, dear child. I’m grief, I am woe, I am sorrow, I am the Reaper and I’ve come to harvest. As for how? Well, did you think devouring part of an Ashborn in service to me wouldn’t have consequences? A piece of Scapino, a piece I own, entered you, a dormant seed beneath notice, only waiting to be watered. Which you obliged with ash and sorrow from other vampires. Of course my rival tried to stop me, but he’s had debts to pay and other obligations. He couldn’t remove the seed, but stunt its growth, which dear Wolfgang was kind enough to help me fix. Now the crop is ripe, and ready for my sickle.

Somehow, Natalie found herself faced with a possibility even worse than the Rabisu unleashed; a Fell God taking her power and using it to spread grief and sorrow across the world. Feeling the hollowness grow in her chest, Natalie snarled. “Cole and Isabelle will stop you from possessing me! Master Time won’t let the Alukah’s power be-”

With a long clawed finger the Reaper of Sorrows silenced Natalie. “How arrogant to think you are the crop. No, Natalie, you are but the chaff; and Wolfgang has already started the threshing.”

And with those terrible words, Natalie descended into darkness.