History According to Aegon Nightshade

Aegon Nightshade

Icon

Quote

"Dreams of Darkness are but reflections of reality." -- Aegon

Prelude: Berlin -- December 21st, 2042

I had barely spoken the words and reality was rent asunder by a darkness older than creation. I felt humbled to be granted a momentary sight of the unknowable and limitless Abyss. It reaffirmed my dark faith and inflamed my need to fully understand the dark truth that served as the underpins of creation itself. Please understand, I am not a monster, I just understand that the Abyss existed before creation as we know it. It exists now and without question, it will exist when creation finally burns. These are incontrovertible truths that I would be happy to discuss with you, save that they are also holy secrets, and thereafter I would either have to Embrace you or kill you. Its simply a matter of orthodoxy, after all the Abyss is my calling, my quest and my god.

Momentarily, my eyes stung from the brightness of the German night. With a few blinks, my sight adjusted and I found myself in a winter wonderland. Berlin. The very name conjures so many images and memories for me. Obviously, like everyone born in the twentieth century it makes one think of World War II and the Third Reich. But there is so much more to this amazing city than that and to make so much of so short a period in history is a disservice to Germany in general and more specifically, Berlin.

Nyx

I could paint a fanciful scene and relay to you the might of a Titan's strike and what that might feel like, but then I didn't feel a thing.

It all happened so fast, I was lucky to catch a glimpse of something larger than a man as it closed with me. I would swear that the giant appeared, literally, from nowhere. And even as he closed with me, I knew it was too late. Then...nothing, the absence of sensation. As a mortal youth, I had a similar experience with a skittish gelding and had awakened seconds later and a good fifty feet away. This was far more terrifying.

They say in that moment before you die that your life flashes before your eyes, but that isn't true because all I saw was darkness...for the longest time. Then, at first at the edges of my peripheral vision, and slowly sliding into my primary line of sight came the images of other people's lives lived in reverse. Ghost-like flickerings of 21st century Berlin, then other locations appeared with people all rushing backwards, undoing... everything. As the days and nights sped backward into months and then years, I understood that I was watching history unwind itself. Not something one expects to see when one has died.

It is indescribable and awe inspiring to watch all of history played backwards, as if I stood like one of the angels upon the edge of creation as God worked his will, a master artisan at the easel and I alone his sole audience. From the darkness beyond the ghost-light came the voice of a woman, at first the voice was unplaceable and yet hauntingly familiar, like something half remembered from a dream. Her words only subliminally audible as if felt rather than heard. More disturbing than the vibration of whispers was its unseen source which teased that primal human instinct to see what could only be heard.

Feverish with the need to know the unknowable, I called upon that most basic ability of Abyss Mysticism and inverted my sight. And it was if a veil had pulled from my eyes, the darkness gave way to sublime illumination. As I gazed about myself I perceived that I hung suspended at the heart of a storm beyond measure, like the Great Red Spot of Jupiter, the storm could likely have consumed Berlin in an instant and shortly thereafter all of Germany. In truth it was a tempest, a funnel cloud of infinite rainbow hues cycling counterclockwise at unfathomable speeds wherein piceous lightening arched between cloud layers of cerise pink, cadmium blue and dark tangerine.

As I glanced about myself, I saw that a swarm of ignis fatuus clung to me and upheld me above the towering top of the tempest. A look down produced intense vertigo, fear and gratitude. The churning vertigo made me want to vomit, but all I experienced was dry heaves for I was already empty. The fear was visceral, but there was no escape, only an infinite down into the heart of the storm. Raising my eyes to regain my balance, I felt only gratitude to the minute will-o'-the-wisps who upheld me from a fatal fall into the storm of history.

As I raised my eyes, it was as if I looked into the heart of the sun. Its brilliance so intense it left a palinopsia of afterimages that would remain forever. Unable to bear the pain of what I had seen, I returned my sight to the mortal spectrum and was granted the respite of darkness. The woman's laughter came to me not from the storm, but from utter darkness that exited above it. And while it was clear to me that the source was that Stygian dark which spoke to me, it did so through the shadow-motes which buoyed me.

'

'

'

Paris (Spring 1097)

I woke in my tent. Even before I opened my eyes I knew I wasn't alone. It was an undefinable feeling, something primal, instinct coded at the genetic level informing humanity that a predator is close. Without opening my eyes, I spoke to my visitor, the one who watched me in utter silence.

"My Lord? Forgive me if I do not rise. I do not believe I am capable. Have I been sick long? I have vague memories of something going wrong in Alexandria and then indistinct recollections of illness and nightmare."

{Theodoric} "Salivius, you were poisoned outside the Memory City, or so I am told, by a giant albino scorpion. Were it not for my Vitae, you would have died. Still, you have been abed for more than fourteen days. But, do not worry, my other servant has been looking after your duties while you have rested."

"Thank you my lord for your generosity, I am unworthy and will seek in vain to repay your kindness."

In the darkness of the tent's interior, I could not precisely see Theodoric, but I could see his shadow. His dark form came closer until it stood directly over me and then I saw the flash of a blade. In that second, so many possibilities passed through my mind, my liege could well have decided I was no longer worth his effort and waited until I was conscious just to kill me. But then there was the sound of flesh being sliced and cold, viscus blood spattered my face and I instinctively opened my mouth to receive this gift.

The feeding session seemed to go on forever and its took all my willpower to gag the vile black blood down and to swallow it. Then Theodoric was simply gone. I lay there patiently counting out sixty seconds against the beating of my heart and then leaned over the edge of the cot and barely found the chamber pot as all of Theodoric's black blood, bile and whatever they had most recently fed me came up in a rush. It was a noisy and unpleasant business, in my original mortal life, I had always hated vomiting more than any other symptom of sickness. This time however, it was much easier and afterwards, I felt a distinct sense of relief. I rummaged around near my cot until I found a wine-skin and washed the taste from my mouth. With effort, I nudged the chamber pot under the camp table and lay back to think.

If Theodoric ever realized that my body was rejecting his vampiric blood, he would almost certainly kill me.

It had not always been so. In the nights immediately after joining the pageant, I had been able to ingest the elder's vitae without difficulty. But over the weeks following, the black blood seemed to slowly sicken me and finally my body began to expel it. In all my years as a vampire, I had never seen or heard of such a thing and it produced such sheer unreasoning terror in me that when the blood would leave me, thereafter I would collapse in shivering terror.

To stem the fear, in my mind, I tried to reorder the events leading up to the attack on the temple of Ereshkigal. Despite my efforts, those memories seemed hazy as if I were remembering the events from more than one perspective. It made me uneasy with the thought that such a long convalescence could have been due to a brain damaging fever. I quickly dismissed the possibility, for if I did have brain damage, I probably wouldn't have had the wits to notice anything out of the ordinary.

---

---