Blood Across The Ages
II.ii
N-ta reentered the world only to find that, in her absence, everything had gone wrong in the worst way.
Travelling here and there, with each new community having a problem with monsters to kill or people having been possessed by a most terrible hunger for human flesh, she longed for the days of old. Back in earlier times, before weapons made out of iron, she’d wondered just how many ghouls she’d have to kill to keep things stable. Now she realized those days had been a vacation compared to what was transpiring now.
The elderly man whose group had been going from place to place in desperate search for respite from the ever-increasing roves of vampires, werewolves, and cannibalistic humans, he painted a picture of a world gone mad. His words captured the mood perfectly, N-ta noted, not a day or two into each community they went to.
“Thank the gods above we found you,” he said. “My name is Povota, and we thought the world was at an end.”
“Rethif really laid to waste the peace we fought for,” N-ta had said. They’d stopped in a village where a tenth of the population, some hundred people, had been turned into vampires. She killed them all.
“You’ve given us hope,” a young woman said. She caught herself. “Oh! Where’s my politeness? I’m Vontiro.”
“You were once a vampire,” N-ta stated. It was not a question.
The dark-haired woman nodded. “Ah! Yes,” she replied. “Povota was able to channel his energies into saving me. Although his magic is nothing compared to yours.”
“My magic’s not the problem,” N-ta stated, peering within herself. “These monsters exist because they drew upon that damned gemstone.” She drank and ate with them and waited for her words to settle within their minds. “I was trapped in that stone for dozens of lifetimes.” She let out a relieved chuckle. “About the only reason I regained my senses was two reasons: first, I did not have a body in that gem, and second, I consumed two of your cattle.”
Vontiro and Manilga, her sister, cringed a moment as they thought back to the bloody scene. The reddish demon-like aura swirling in the air like a bloody mist, then engulfing the oxen who let out a horrific groan, only to vanish into a skeleton. The pale, emaciated, ghoulish form of a tall, gaunt woman emerging from the congealing mist, abdomen engorged, revealing N-ta as the food digested and the figure regained hale and hearty flesh.
“Yeah,” Manilga uttered, swallowing some wine to stifle the memory in its tracks. “We are grateful indeed.”
Povota leaned in. “This is truly an auspicious occasion,” he said. “You may not be at full power, but you can still help us out and I believe we can help you.”
“It will take me quite awhile to restore my body to the balance I had before,” N-ta explained. “We cannot count on help from Boshamta until I figure it out.”
“But,” Vontiro said, hope in her voice, “you will eventually be back in balance?”
“Yes,” N-ta affirmed. “But until then, we travel. At each location, new enemies will have to die.”
“We’ve been studying Boshamta,” Manilga stated, “and based on what we figured out, they are notoriously isolated, unwilling to interact with the regular world.”
“Yeah,” N-ta agreed. “We would reveal ourselves to small groups of people or individuals, and only after getting to know people would we invite them to live with us.”
That evening, she slept in a bed for the first time since being sucked into a gem. It wasn’t much to discuss; it consisted of a woven sack filled with plucked feathers and it was rough to the touch, even with the fur on top, but it felt heavenly to a woman who only knew two thousand plus years of ever-increasing hunger.
When the sun poked through the entrance to the hut she slept in, her eyes poked open. Its distant heat piercing the chill of the morning air brought a smile to her face. For once, she could feel a sensation other than hunger and agony. It reminded her of the curse she now had to fight against. Vampires came to be because her power increased its magical might, but did not sate the hunger. At first, someone drawing upon her power would inherit her healing, which kept the feeling at bay. But as time progressed, they would feel a despairing need for the vital energies contained within living flesh and blood. Since the easiest way to accomplish this was to drink blood, and they were not exactly like N-ta, their teeth expanded to become better at piercing flesh to draw blood.
Their aversion to the sun vexed her, until she spent a few evenings thinking about it. The fact was, inside the gem, she could not experience the sun’s rays, and it was the life-giving orb in the sky that made life possible. As such, it burned them because of her being denied it. If only it killed them outright, she thought. That would have been more useful. Instead, it only made them agonized and in pain, not physically but mentally. They grabbed themselves and shouted, scampering away from it to the shadows.
Her time in the gem had radically disrupted her internal energies. Her flesh had to get used to the magical power once again. She found herself having to relearn basic mystic abilities she’d used without thinking before.
“Can you teach us how you do magic?”
Povota’s question broke the monotony of traveling across the plains that separated the far east from the far west. They had crossed out of the mountains a week earlier and the deserts of the central area of the continent had just ended. The grassy plains had come into view. Out here were some of the palest people N-ta had ever encountered.
They set up camp. She waited until they’d killed boar and poured water into wooden cups. The best time to learn, she knew, was when students were not hungry.
“I’ve had hundreds of lifetimes of men to learn this,” N-ta began, “so what started out as just thoughts…” she gestured at her head, “eventually became an art.” The good news was, most of them had the mystical energies within them. The few that didn’t might need help, but the rest might take to it easily. She stood up and thought of a metal spear. “just thinking about it, as I’m doing now, isn’t working.” She held her arm back in throwing position. “I have to bend the power within me into the proper shape.” She broadcast her power a bit, so the mystically inclined among them would sense it. “Magic is a harsh master, and you have to make sure you tell it just the right information.” The power congealed into its proper form, and before their very eyes, a fine metal shaft with pointed tip materialized out of a glowing mass of light.
She let it fly, and it buried in a tree. A moment later, it vanished, and the energy returned to her.
“Wow!” Povota cried.
Vontiro gasped, hands going to her mouth. “By the gods…” she uttered.
“You sensed it, right?” N-ta asked. “You felt the energies?”
The group nodded. “You truly possess the magics of the gods!” Povota declared.
She shook her head. “No,” she rebutted. “I just have a great deal of experience.” Sitting down, she put her hands together where only the fingers touched. “There are different kinds of magic. The one I’m most familiar with is Goblin Magic.” In the space between her hands, a jagged vine of dark violet energy convulsed in circular and oblong patterns. “After all, it’s the basis of my eternal life. This allows people using it to change stuff into other stuff.” Before their very eyes, a faint glow overcame her body and her flesh lightened and her eyes became wider apart, and larger. Her nose thinned and moved. She looked very much like a woman from the northwestern lands where the snow fell. When she spoke, her voice was lighter in pitch but still harsh in tone. “Such as when I shape change to better fit in.”
“Most of what we do,” Manilga explained, “is healing and curse-banishing.”
N-ta nodded and dispelled the swirling mass of energy vines in her hands. In its place, a glowing white orb of string-like magic smooth in texture spun around in a loose orbit around an invisible center point. “White magic,” she explained. “The primary effects are the undoing of damage. It literally works wounds rapidly in reverse; the stab is unstabbed, and the disease pulls back in infection. Curses are poisoned by white magic because it literally borrows on holy power.”
“What about Red Magic?”
Vontiro’s question brought up memories in her mind of training with Wukong and she resisted the tears coming. “Red Magic,” she declared, effortlessly recovering, “is a combination of the holy power with the Black Magic of the Earth. It allows you to travel great distances by opening holes in the air connected only by magic to far away places. It also gives you the ability to summon creatures from your imagination or from some far away place by remembering them.” She saw a wild boar off in the distance. Jolting to her feet, she jerked her hand to the ground. A puff of reddish mist dissipated outward, and the grazing beast stood inches from her. She summoned a sharp blade to her hand, and in one smooth motion, drove it down into the skull of the beast. “Like so.” She used magic to remove the usable meat from the boar and dispose of the remaining corpse. With a series of gestures, the meat became encased in a dark greenish aura. She noticed them staring. “Oh?” She pointed at the hovering mass of meat. “This is Green Magic. It has to do with time, and I confess I don’t mess with it much.”
“Oh!” Manilga realized. “So, you’ve sealed the meat in a moment in time so it won’t spoil!”
“Precisely,” N-ta said, handing it over. “Put it in your sack. It won’t spill blood onto anything while it’s been stilled.”
Over the next week, she taught them what she knew and could get across in the trips between villages. They practiced, and by the time they reached a village where a river provided fish for the community, they could serve as amateur students of the craft.
Their first interactions with vampires came shortly after. One of the last wielders of the gem had hidden away in caves and stalked the communities by the shore of a lake. “Tread carefully,” N-ta warned, as she cast a spell on them to hide their presence. She knew it probably wouldn’t be perfect, but she had to give it a shot. She kept her senses open, weaving her way through magical lines of power that indicated where detection spells had been cast. Her allies followed her path, and her senses led them on the right path.
The darkness encroached on all shortly after entering, and only her ability to detect magic revealed the location of bats so as not to disturb the calm serenity. A moist fog hung low in the cave. She weaved her hands gently as she stepped, distributing low levels of magical power outward, feeling like faint hairs for dangerous traps. One of her hairs touched something.
“Down!” she cried.
The air whooshed past as an invisible blade slashed right above where their heads were.
“I don’t know who you are,” A male voice said, in a baritone with an accent she’d never heard before. “You should have stayed out.”
“You’re done feeding on the people of the villages,” N-ta commanded.
A faint ball of light emerged above the man. He wore woven fabrics of a fine quality, obviously enhanced by magic, and his fingers bore fingernails of a metal quality. Obviously, this was due to more magic.
“By the gods,” Povota cried, as his warriors drew their blades. “Disgusting.”
The man’s mouth had the crust of dried blood beneath his lips. A sickening sneer painted itself on his face. His light-brown hair hung to shoulder level. A scar went horizontally across his throat. He’d fought enough attackers that the wound had been ingrained.
N-ta did not hesitate. Before he could speak again, she hurled a magic spear at him, which he deflected with a hand coated in aura. He leapt from his perch and struck at her with clawed fingers. His sharp metallic nails slashed a few loose hairs as she ducked. She drove a fist into his gut, but he curved backward to lessen the blow, impacting an elbow to her temple in the process. She withstood the blow and kicked out, catching his left knee.
Vontiro and Manilga pulled fire magic into their hands and struck. N-ta ducked and the fireballs struck him in the chest, scorching his clothes and flesh, and causing him to close his eyes at the bright light.
N-ta summoned an energy blade and slashed, but his neck bent backwards with his torso as he dodged. He recovered just in time to hit her in the neck with a strike that pierced her throat.
She gasped and pulled back just as a hand slash came for her. Her throat healed and she grabbed his hand on the return stroke and pulled him close. Her forehead impacted his and he reeled.
Povota held out two hands and a lightning bolt shot out, striking the vampire in the chest.
As he stumbled, N-ta drew back, summoning a metal spear, and let fly.
The vampire recovered his eyesight and dodged.
His dodge came up short.
The spear pierced his head, ripping it clean from his torso, and nailing it to the rear wall of the cave.
As the light spell faded away, a faint thump indicated his body had hit the ground.
“By the gods,” Vontiro said, summoning light and scanning the cave. “Entire hunting parties have died at his hands.”
“These villages are in your debt,” Povota told N-ta.
“This is what we have to do,” she agreed. “Nothing else to it.”
“So,” Manilga cut in, “how do we get as good as you are?”
“Simple,” N-ta explained. “We practice.”
Over the next few days, she went even harder into the details of how to practice the arts of magic than she had before. Her body healed its mystical equilibrium at a remarkable pace. Perhaps within a few weeks, she’d be strong enough to be able to get her power back in balance enough to open a portal.
“So,” Povota asked in the next major population center they visited. “You’re telling me a vampiric cult has been enslaving women?”
The woman, a middle-aged mother, had lost two of her four daughters to the cult. What really upset N-ta was the fact that none of this was rare. Simply put, the curse of her hunger, caused by spending two millennia in a gem, had put an awful curse upon the world.
“I promise you,” N-ta stated, “we’ll get the children back.”
After spending four days gathering supplies and sharpening their weapons, they began the hike up the trail towards where they could sense the evil energy. The group’s magical prowess had improved and they fought with greater skill and determination. As the group moved on, they focused their enhanced senses much further.
The magical corrosiveness of the vampire aura became apparent for miles away. “By the gods,” Povota thought out loud, “how long has this been going on?”
“Probably for ages,” N-ta replied. “Based on what I know about vampires, they’re almost certainly based on the magical power that makes me, although not to the same degree.”
“What caused this?” Manilga asked.
N-ta gathered millennia of thoughts into a tale that could be told briefly. “There are three basic things that can happen when someone drinks goblin blood,” she told. As she spoke, the thoughts came flooding back, all the way back to when she was a young girl hunting in and by the jungles, on the plains & grasslands, and in the fields. She still remembered vividly the acrid taste of the creature’s blood in her mouth. The pain of a thousand needles being stabbed into every part of her still lingered in her memory, and she could still imagine how it felt when the creature’s blood started pouring mystical power into her. “The first is me, you gain magical power, although it is exceedingly rare. The second, you turn into a ghoul, those pale-skinned and long-limbed gaunt creatures, endlessly longing for food, devouring any creature in sight.”
“And the third?”
She turned to the holy man. “You simply burn to death,” she flatly stated. “Like my brother.”
“I’m sorry to hear that,” Vontiro said.
“It was ages ago,” N-ta said. “It doesn’t hurt the way it used to.”
As they moved on, the corrosive aura got stronger, and the group put their magical defenses up. At first, some of them wanted to protest but N-ta assured them their enemy already knew they were coming. “I guess we can’t hide our presence when we’ve gotten stronger,” Manilga thought out loud.
“Not really,” N-ta said.
A village came into view after another half hour of walking. The fields had dozens of graves in straight rows, with small piles of stones marking the head. On each stone was a single stripe of blood. The sun hung overhead, and a few villagers were tending the fields. A young man, no older than twenty, put down a wooden implement and turned to stare at the group. His face had the soft, smooth surfaces of innocence. Then he clenched his teeth to snarl at them and they saw his extended fangs and the façade broke.
“Hello,” N-ta said, approaching. “A pleasure to meet you.” She stared into his eyes and could tell he hid his true intentions.
“What, by the gods, do you want?” he asked.
“Rumor’s been going around of women and children being enslaved,” Povota said. “We’d like to clear the matter up.”
“Clear the hell off!” he cried, leaping backwards and landing near the entrance to a stone and wood building.
“What’s the ruckus about?”
The booming voice came from the entrance, as a large man with a red-streaked long beard emerged from inside. He stood a full head and shoulders above the boy, and his arms were as big around as a man’s head. Out of the entryways of the surrounding ten structures emerged no fewer than fifteen people, each one bearing the extended fangs indicative of the corrupt magic that had bled out of N-ta through the demonic magic of the gem.
“Seems like you’re outnumbered,” a middle-aged woman said, lifting a stone about the size of a fist and crushing it in her grip.
“Before we go all out,” N-ta advised, “your magic is a corruption of mine. My hunger affected the magic that went into you, and that’s why you exist. Do not try to bite me, my blood is far too potent for you. You’ll die immediately.”
“Liar!” cried a young man. He appeared beside her in a puff of dark violet mist. He latched his hands around her neck and bit deep, taking a long draw of her blood. Pulling back, spilling red on her shoulder and his tunic, he cried in ecstasy. “Oh! This magical power is…!”
A black flame engulfed him at once. She pulled forward and delivered a swift kick, throwing him back and away from her friends. He let out a piercing scream that got cut off as his body turned to ash in a matter of moments.
“KILL THEM!”
The large man’s deep rumbly voice issued throughout the village square and fourteen people pounced. Her battle companions drew their magical power into shapes of light, either stabbing or projectile implements. Fireballs issued and scorched skin and fabric. Swords of light clashed with metal blades.
“You’ll be killed this day by Bavatin!” the large man shouted, throwing his huge arms at N-ta, each punch leaving a shockwave in the air.
“You talk too much,” the former tribeswoman cried, ducking beneath his punches or pulling to the sides. He fights like an enraged beast, she thought. She’d seen the large horned beasts, who ate the grass of the grasslands, and used their weight as their primary form of attack. His thrusts and strikes had much more movement than the large creature, but the general idea was the same. She had to outmaneuver him.
She ducked beneath a swing that went clear over her head, and drove her foot into his knee, and his leg bucked backwards. “You…!” Bavatin cried, driving his foot forward. She leapt backwards.
He launched forward and struck out, and she latched his right arm under her shoulder. With a swift twist, she broke the elbow and the shoulder joint. The cry that echoed caused her to smile. Her leg struck at his side, throwing him sideways, through a stone wall.
At the same time, Povota had his hands full. Two men and two women surrounded him and lunged. He leapt, using magic to land out of the group. A quartet of fireballs struck, singing hair and knocking them off balance. He saw one come towards him and he summoned white magic, and the reaction between it and the vampiric magic in them caused skin near the contact point to necrotize. A young man screamed as his flesh turned black and rotted away. His allies attempted to stop the priest but a well-placed fireball exploded the vampire’s head. His corpse fell to the ground.
“White magic!” Povota cried. “They’re especially weak to white magic!”
Vontiro did a forward flip, as her opponent flew past her, unable to stop his blade swing mid-strike. She landed, turned around, and clasped both hands to his temples. A massive burst of white magic later, and his decaying corpse fell.
Manilga destroyed three vampires with a careful burst of fire to the inside of their mouths. She regrouped with her allies.
N-ta pushed aside a strike and shattered the leg with a kick. Bavatin screamed and collapsed. “You shouldn’t have fought back,” she cried, driving a burst of white magic into his head. His body collapsed.
The group, having diminished the vampiric numbers considerably, rounded on the remaining six.
“I’d recommend giving up the women and children,” Povota commanded.
“Alright!” a young man pleaded. “Please! Just don’t kill us!”
“That’s better, Manilga commented. “Now show us where they are!”
“This way,” the young man said, gesturing.
N-ta saw what was coming. “Wait!” she cried.
Manilga had moved forward, into striking range. The man wrapped his arms around the woman. He pulled down with his fangs.
“No!” Povota shouted, throwing forward a ball of white magic.
It struck the man and he died in an instant.
“Enough of this,” N-ta shouted, and cast magic. One by one, they died.
“Wait! I’m sorry!”
N-ta grabbed the woman by the throat. “Show me where they are!”
The woman nodded and pointed. “Come with us,” Vontiro said, holding a blade of energy to the woman’s neck. “And don’t try anything.”
They trekked through the village into a series of caverns nearby. A makeshift living space had been set up in the cave. The cries of ten women and nearly as many children told of bizarre rituals that had been conducted. The demonic sigils and altars set up in the back of the cave, with the darkened soot spots of fires burnt struck her as remarkably similar to the last time Rethif had been at work. Her old enemy was, however, not coming back to the mortal plane, and that meant that these vampire cultists had attempted to summon actual demons.
As the women and children joined up with her group, N-ta pulled the remaining vampire aside and held a magic blade to her throat. “Alright,” she insisted, “you’d better start talking.”
“My name is Morgana,” the woman said, her sweat soaked reddish hair strewn all about her face. “I…I was brought here by the big brute. He turned me into a vampire and he told us the demon we summoned would grant our wishes.”
“A blatant lie,” Povota declared.
“Yeah,” Morgana replied, “I see that now.”
“So,” Vontiro cut in, “how many people did you kill?”
Morgana held up her hands in defense. “I never killed anyone!” she protested. “I just did the magic spells that Bavatin told me to!”
“You lie!” Manilga shot back.
“She’s not,” N-ta corrected. “I can tell.”
“We got the women and children,” Povota asked, “so what now?”
“She comes with us,” N-ta replied. “I think she’s the key to unlocking the gateway to Boshamta.”
“Yes!” Morgana insisted, not having a clue. “I’m sure I can do that!”
“And if she can’t?”
N-ta turned to Manilga. “Then, she dies,” she said simply.
They returned the women and children to the village. After gathering some supplies as payment for a job well done, they packed everything they had and ventured off.
After camping by a creek, they bathed in the morning, ate some of their stores of dried meat, and moved on. The sun hung high in the sky when N-ta stopped them. They stood in a clearing with mountains off in the distance.
“Why are we stopped here?”
She turned to Povota. “Here’s where we open the portal,” she told.
“What do I do?” Morgana asked.
“Here,” N-ta said, clasping the woman’s shoulders. She pumped magical energy into her. “I’ve enhanced your durability with some magic. You’re going to bite me, and draw just a bit of blood.”
“But that killed the others!”
The former tribeswoman rolled her eyes. “That’s why I’ve given you some of my energy,” she insisted.
“A…alright,” Morgana said. She drove her fangs into the woman’s neck and drew.
N-ta felt the various types of magical energy in her body jostle and twist. She clenched her jaw to suppress the agony as her mystical energies fought to restore themselves to proper order. A moment later, she shoved Morgana away and collapsed to one knee. “N-ta!” Povota cried.
She held up a hand. “Not yet!” she cried. “Stay back!”
With supreme focus, she nudged each of the types of magic into a torrent that swirled in a proper configuration. A moment later, she felt everything click into place. She raised an arm.
“Now!” Povota yelled.
The others poured a bit of their power into her. All at once, she summoned the spiral of power to the apex of her body and pushed outward. The magic congealed and a loud pop preceded a black sphere opening in space.
A moment later, a perfect circular opening appeared.
“Yes!” N-ta cried, motioning. One by one they stepped into the entrance.
It collapsed behind them, leaving them in Boshamta.
“By the gods,” Povota uttered.
It was even more beautiful than N-ta remembered.
Giant structures shining in the light of a different moon stood all around them. Some residences hovered in midair, supported by magic. Magic users flew through the sky, walked along sparkling pathways, and wore garb more exotic than any of the others had seen before.
“Who goes there!”
They turned to see a group of uniformed warriors approaching. In front, a man with a mane of jet black hair and an elaborate multi-layered robe held a staff at his side. A confused look adorned his face for a moment.
One of the soldiers turned to him. “Merlin,” he asked, “who are these people?”
The mage and warrior stared at N-ta, before shock took his breath away and he nearly collapsed. “I…I can’t believe it…” he uttered.
“Sir?”
“I take it you’re the head of Boshamta now?” N-ta asked.
“You…” he uttered, “you’re N-ta!”
The soldiers looked from him to her with disbelief. “You…you mean she’s the woman of legend?” one cried.
“She’s the legendary eternal woman?” shouted another.
“Gentlemen!” Merlin cried. “This is a cause for celebration!”
N-ta didn’t know what was coming next, but after two thousand years trapped away, it sure was good to be home.