WA's
history of vampires - part I
written by Angel, October 2003
The demons - Lillum,
they were called - were created to serve the fallen angels. They weren't really
considered demons, though. More like slaves. Their blind existences combined to
one appalling theme: they were instruments of torture for those souls within the
Lower Realms. They unquestioningly obeyed the ones who owned them.
Most
Lillum weren't trusted to walk through the mists and on the plane of earth. They
were creatures of darkness; they had to exist in darkness. In the caves of the
Lower Realms, they could find their sustenance, feed off the pain of the living,
and torture the souls unfortunate enough to spiral to their depths.
Diseis was different. Diseis found favor in her lord; he handed her the
key to the word "Famine," and told her to go forth, to the Outer Realms. If she
could prove herself, she could become a prince beneath him. She would be free.
He warned her, as she left, that she must never touch the flesh of a human. They
were the children of light, and to break their flesh was to invite suffering
from the Light Above.
Diseis climbed from the Lower Realms, and sprouted
her way to the fields of the Myst. There, she placed her hand on the ground, and
the roots of every plant dried up. The stems wilted, and the flowers fell in
withered petals, blanketing the ground.
Delighted with her new gift of
Harvest, Diseis traveled the lands, creating a famine so great that many humans
died.
One night, Diseis was traveling through a field north of life's
cradle. Its wheat had been choked with weeds, and her fingers rooted the vines
of poison around each stem. A lone farmer had slipped from his house in the
early balm of the evening, staring wistfully at his dying crop.. He had been
there for several hours before he spotted her form, bent over a stem of wheat as
if she were breathing away its life with her own cold breath.
Diseis
smiled. She slipped over the dying stems, seductive slant of black hair
cascading down her shoulder. The man backed a few steps to his door, but as he
thumped against the wood, he finally paused, paralyzed at her beauty.
"What are you?" he whispered. She didn't answer. Something drew her
close to his side, and she made her first words to a human an offer, with a
murmur to his ear.
"I will make you the richest farmer in all the land..
if only you will serve me. I will make your crops return. I will bring you and
your family prosperity."
"What are you..?" he asked again, staring at
her fearfully. But the desperation welled in his eyes like a thousand choking
weeds. He nodded slowly. "I.. I will serve you.."
Diseis withdrew her
hand over his crops, and they flourished and grew. For miles around, his farm
was the only one that would produce any food from the ground; he was indeed the
richest man for miles around.
After many years her lord, pleased with
Diseis' work, granted her the title of Prince of the Harvest. Triumphant and
free, Diseis returned to the farmer to call in her debt.
The farmer
bowed before her when she came, anxious to repay her for her kindness. He asked
what he could do. Diseis only smiled, and brought him through the mists.
Taking him to the Lower Realms, she protected him as she carried him
through her home. There, he served her faithfully as a human for seven years,
catering to her every whim, without once fearing her presence.
Diseis
reveled in his worship. But she wanted more. Curiosity had edged around her
eyes, inexplicable and haunting when she watched him... What was so alluring
about the human flesh, that her lord made it untouchable? Coming to him in his
sleep, Diseis touched him gently.
"I need you, Ryas."
Ryas
stirred, and picked himself up, bowing and ready to do her bidding. But to his
surprise, her nails dug into his arm, tearing a piece of his flesh away. She
stared at it a moment in bland curiosity, blood dribbling down the torn
fragments... When she bent forward, the blood itself seemed to greet her tongue.
Her eyes opened. The demonic spell broke. She blinked, as if she
couldn't believe what she had done... All the suffering, pain, remorse, sorrow
she had caused; all the lives she had tainted; all the destruction that came at
her hand. And at another's bidding!.. What mindless creature was she, who
couldn't follow her own commands, but imprisoned herself to listen to another,
obey another, who had never given her anything she hadn't already had?
Diseis was outraged. It were as if a veil had fallen from her eyes, and
she suddenly and for the first time saw the stark truth. Ryas cowered slightly
backward - the first time he had feared her - sinking against the wall as he
stared. But she calmed herself as she watched him.
"Ryas. Forgive me.
Thank you for your service." She rubbed the missing piece of flesh back against
his arm, and the tears mended themselves. It wasn't the flesh her prince had
kept her from... It was the blood, tainted with the ancient knowledge of Good
and Evil.
Diseis wasn't sure what to do. She was still a prince.. but
she served another, free, yet not quite free. Alone. She was utterly alone. No
other demon knew, now, what she knew, save the Destroyer himself... No wonder he
had kept them from such a tasty prize.
After many nights, Diseis felt
something not right within her. It was a change she couldn't quite grasp; his
blood still tainted her lips, her tongue, created a desire within her to have
its knowledge again as slowly, the veil began slipping back before her eyes. She
ran to Ryas, and demanded another draught, which he willingly gave her.
The addiction grew, until one night she drank so much from her servant
that he fainted against her. The blood of Knowledge had made him old, since
then... His mortal form was withering away. And she had just as well signed his
death sentence. The body slowly fell into a deep torpor.
Fearing many
things as he lay dying against her, she panicked. She wasn't sure what to do.
Her nails dug into her own flesh, pouring the blacker liquid through the wound
she'd made in him... And through his mouth, when he didn't respond.
Ryas
slowly opened his eyes. Something darker was there... Something she hadn't seen
from him. He knew her power. He wanted her blood. His jaw clenched against her
wound, drinking in the black liquid, until she couldn't stand it anymore. She
flung herself backward, growling angrily.
Ryas bowed on his knees,
begging forgiveness. But after a few moments, he changed. His fingers locked
against the floor, and twisted against the rocks; his teeth clenched.. a few of
them elongated.. the darkness poured from his eyes. She watched him curiously,
wondering if this was how mortals died. She had never witnessed their death.
"Ryas.." had her blood killed him?
Ryas writhed against the
floor, and finally was still.
"Ryas..." she said again. She knelt and
turned him over slowly, staring at her faithful servant in some confusion.
He opened his eyes slowly. They were a strange, yellowish color similar
to her own. Had she... created a demon? Had she learned the secret the
Destroyer had kept from them all these years?? She smiled slowly.
A hand
reached down, clasping around his arm to help him up. Ryas stared at her, and
then at the room around him, as if he'd never seen them before. Finally, his
lips parted.. the tips of two, small canines protruding just against his lower
lip.
"So... this is how you see the world..."
Diseis and her
abomination would have been destroyed for their disobedience. But she had indeed
created a monster; Ryas was like a demon, except he still possessed his soul.
They couldn't kill him within the Lower Realms. Diseis' lord banished them from
the Lower Realms forever, and all their children - no child of Ryas or Diseis
has ever been able to walk through Hell's gate.
Diseis called herself
the first of their kind. She has not been seen for over four thousand years,
though it is said she made at least two more childer before she disappeared.
[the stories on this webpage are the intellectual property of mutedfaith.com,
copyright 2003.]