The Violet Dusk

[Chained One]

A pair of roses watched it all.

A pair of roses hewn from earth and magic, paired in black and blue, whose stems bore the memory of a freezing, merciless grasp and whose petals weathered crimsons taining beneath the heavy glare of brilliant, burning eyes. They were eyes that burned no more to trouble the folk of Myrken Wood.

There might have been need of braving the orphanage reposessed by the government, seized by the struggling remnant of the Violet Dawn, if there were not certain memories offered freely to the bearer of two unique items that had been witness to blood and ceremony, to oaths and the demonstration of true faith in a false god. There had been a number, the two metal-wrought serpents had offered in secret, sibilant hisses; a number who had drank the blood of their leader on the path to enlightenment and spiritual autonomy. It was blood that was spent for such times as this, when things grew more certain in the passing of the Ashfiend and Vraal.

It was blood for the retaking.

In the dead of evening he ventured forth from a small hut in Myrkentown, ferryed within through crates and smugglers, and with some ease without the need for light, air or water. In the crushing blackness the serpents hissed and writhed and confessed certain secrets, certain forbidden knowledges and treasures, certain enticements of true power. For living or dead, men sought one thing in all their forms: to be their own god.

The house was abandoned in the midst of darkness lounging across the sky, just as the serpents had seeded that same dark expanse of bleak horizon within Valinor's heart. A swift and grim shadow, he bore down the narrowed tunnels of the Hollows to the township just beyond, to an outlying ramshackle house that squatted where the distinctions between middle class and poor blurred and bled together. A swift blow for a window, a bold and perverse invasion, and a terrible reckoning for the residents who had sold their possessions for this house to live in with one another. Beneath a descending ever-scarlet blade they lost even that in the same breath as broken prayers and realized horror.

The spending of life ended as it began - with the ponderous tolling of a deathly chain whose dry links echoed into the neighboring avenues even as the smaller, cloaked and hooded darkness dissipated into the larger one that sprawled across the sky as evening.

One evening and five murdered in a communal house belonging to the Violet Dawn. Brutal and swift, with the cradles of blood torn free by disgorged mouths, hearts consumed by some sweltering sickness that walked and killed and left the slain behind.

A pair of roses watched it all, hewn from earth and magic, christened in blood.

[Cinnabar]

There are certain areas of Myrkentown where the denizens do not inquire too closely into one another's affairs; where the residents have an unspoken agreement not to look too closely at their neighbours' comings and goings, not to ask too many questions or pay too much attention. Those who keep to themselves are left to themselves, and gladly so. Easier that way. Less complicated that way.

A broken window is hardly remarkable. The absence of a few people in a neighbourhood where tenants are often in the habit of fleeing when they cannot pay their rent barely even registers. So it's a while before the brutal murders come to light, before the house's stillness registers with those who live nearby. Before several days in the summer's heat mean that someone finally notices the smell.

The miasma eventually exceeds even the area's normal wealth of unpleasant odours, prompting a nearby neighbour to peer through the recently-smashed window, waving aside the fat flies that buzz lazily from within, and identify the source of the stench. As his eyes adjust to the gloom of the house's interior and indistinct, uncertain shapes resolve themselves into the butchered and contorted remains of the house's occupants, there is a moment of stunned silence before he doubles over and adds the acrid tang of bile to the sickly stink of decay from within.

Once the victims are discovered the officers of the Constabulary are soon on the scene, Street Constables keeping the small crowd of wary onlookers at a distance while Detectives venture into the charnel house itself, camphor-soaked cloths clamped over their mouths against the stench. The condition of the bodies is noted and recorded, the point of ingress inspected, notes made of the footprints and strange, scraping smears painted across the floor in now-dried blood. The bodies are swathed in sheets of sturdy canvas and removed from the scene, hauled away on a covered wagon to be properly interred. Meanwhile the spectators watch, and murmur anxiously among themselves.

- just like before -

- all of 'em, jus' slaughtered like cattle -

- 'e's back, I tell ya, tha's the ghoul's work -

- thought they got rid of 'im, the guv'nor an' all those soldiers -

- not again -

Rumour and speculation fills the narrow streets and alleyways of the Hollows, accompanied by an inescapable and oppressive sense of familiarity, of history repeating itself - the forced entry into the victims' very home, the grisly slaughter found within, the senseless brutality of the killings. This feeling of reliving the worst days of the Ashfiend's reign of terror prompts a certain anxiety, a certain wariness as word of the murders spreads.

Among the lowest of Myrkentown's denizens, among the beggars and urchins and cripples, a darker rumour circulates, a tale held to originate with a vagrant who'd been bedding down in an alleyway nearby: that the Fiend's ghost stalks the streets still, despite the efforts of Myrken's heroes to put an end to him, to trap his soul with bonds of potent sorcery; cloaked and hooded, and wrapped in the chains used to bind him and bearing a blade that still drips with the blood of those he has slain. Most dispute it with a laugh that is not entirely convincing, a drunkard's story, a tall tale born of too many mugs of cheap ale or rough liquor. Preposterous! They put an end to the ghoul up in the mountains - my sister-in-law's cousin was one of the soldiers there lucky enough to return with his life, an' he saw the Ashfiend destroyed, disappeared in a puff o' dust. He's gone, it's a fact.

Nevertheless, in the nights that follow there's a tendency for doors to be more firmly barred against the darkness, windows more tightly shuttered despite the stifling warmth of summer nights. The local Militia posts experience a small surge in new recruits, and officers of the Constabulary's Night Watch are more heavily armed as they patrol the dark streets.

[Inajira]

"You there," came the bold voice that echoed with authority through the near-midnight darkness. A lowered visage entertained the briefest stern setting of dark lips as he hoped that he was not the one being targeted by such a voice. It was the voice of a guardsman or constable, and therefore the voice of trouble. But experience has a way of shifting one's emotions appropriately, of weighing pros and cons in a heartbeat, and settling one into the necessary rhythm to survive.

"Citizen, halt!"

So he did as the footsteps soon came upon him. Inajira raised his pine-green gaze from beneath the poor concealment of his earth-toned hood. He offered an eyebrow raised in polite surprise while one corner of his sun-kissed mouth quirked inquisitively. A calm and gentle surprise stole across his features, seeking to steal the truth from this pair of gray-clad constables.

"Yes, what seems to be the problem?"

The pair studied him with careful eyes, noting boots yet bearing the muck of dried earth, of a belt affixed with a spade in miniature and other, curved, sharpened instruments all having signs of recent wear. Fingernails bore the grime of clay and soil which shifted as he adjusted the partially filled sack settled across his shoulders.

"What is your business being about at such a late hour? Are you unaware of the murders, the danger?"

He caught the concern mixed with trepidation, suspicion, and watched as desires to search his person and possessions flickered across that hardened countenance. He offered placation in a soft smile.

"I was, and a sad business it is too. But I am often about at these hours since I arrived here. I'm a herbalist you see, and I find that many ingredients are best preserved when harvested at such late hours. I know, I know," he raised a forestalling hand, "it smacks of witchery and whatnot, but sometimes the pagan folk have some kernels of good wisdom when it comes to such things, yes?"

"I've heard of him," the other lawman interjected politely. "Came here some weeks ago, and he's not the build to do what we saw done. Still," he offered in a warm sternness, "I'd advise you to be about your business swiftly for your sake, citizen."

"Many thanks," he offered, offering a nod of understanding before turning and being on his way. He felt their eyes upon his back, watching him leave, one of them probably wondering if they had just let the killer go. Size or not there might be magic involved, and a man's stature said nothing of his sorcerous means. Still he kept his pace measured, practiced, occasionally shifting the burden upon his back.

There were other things to distract him, and they began to as he made his way towards the gate.

Such as what mess the Chained Lord had gotten him into, and when he could be expected to have to smuggle the murderer out.

[Ascendant]

We hear them breathe..

We feel them move..

A forced breath,the sound of intaken air forcing its way into Valinor's echoing thoughts increasingly twisted into serpentine designs.

Set us loose.

[Sorrow]

Beneath the veil of darkness broken only by those stars that shine brightly enough to pierce the midnight gloom of heavy clouds, a hooded figure moves. The subtle whisper of fabric follows on a welcome breeze that stirs humid air to new life, and draws the scent of death to nostrils that flare beneath a low drawn cowl. Steady fingers touch the jagged edge of a broken pane and skirt the corner of ill-used walls.

"I will show you hate." A promise is muttered to the winds as the shadowed form departs the ruined home, bound for another dark street within the walls of Myrkentown.

[Chained One]

It was an interesting predicament that he found himself in. The chained figure had been bound by unearthly links over a decade ago. His first excursion into Myrkentown had been with the promise of sweet power, and even know he felt the serpents' stirred pleasure with the hearts blood that they had torn free from being captive beneath jealous bones and viscera. The home that housed him occasionally stirred with live overhead, above a cluttered basement whose shadows and neglected items served one without a need for food or sleep quite well.

I am a prisoner now, he confessed to the twin silver serpents wound about his elbows. As his thoughts found theirs the creatures stirred from their slumber and began to slither their way down the length of his forearms. Valinor's eyes moved beyond them to the paired roses upon the floor, near his booted feet, each the expression of some witch-creature's world that, at least briefly, pictured the Ashfiend as an apparently central figure.

We are your instruments...

Valinor raised one arm, draped in chains, regarding the serpent there with eyes lost to the darkness beneath an aged hood. The serpent regarded him plainly, scarlet eyes glittering with the reflected darkness that composed the bound wraith, enslaved by the Ashfiend's memory that reached yet beyond his magical grave.

Set us loose.

Alone, and in the dark, what choice did he have? It was a matter of time only, time best spent feeding the serpents, and therefore himself, with the power of blood freely shared by some nearly defunct cult.

"Begone," he whispered with the memory of lips, raising both arms overhead.

It was all that was needed to send the serpents into flight, their sorcerous nature stirred by the first droughts of recaptured blood, the pulses of men, women and children all dimmed as one with their communal drifting into sweet slumber. Their heartbeats chimed within them, the sibilant pair, which sped from the basement and fluttered their wings to take to the darkened, ebony skies.

He watched his instruments tear off into the evening before their silvery lengths were as small as the stars themselves, glad for their loyalty, their dedication to see him strong, their ability to help him surpass the Ashfiend's strength.

[Ascendant]

Sense, sight and scent were alive with the thrumming pulse of beating hearts, quivering in excitement and ecstacy, struggling against the burden of age, purring in the embrace of evening's slumber. The very air itself moved with the simple energy of the living, those living who had shared a last supper with the guru of the Violet Dawn. With outstretched wings and a stirred huner to reclaim what was theirs, the twin silver serpents sped across the evening sky and descended as vultures for carrion, as judgment upon the unfaithful.

Whether their faith had proven true or not was entirely irrelevent.

Paired they swept down upon a small and quiet house where man and wife dwelled after turning care for their children over to the orphanage. They could smell the sweet stink of their regret, of willful errors deadening and worrying those same hearts which called to them. Starlight caught the glittering length of metallic scales as they took in the squat structure's facade, probing windows and the spaces beneath doors before finding suitable egress through the length of the leaning chimney that gaped like an open mouth.

Steel shadows drifted down the vertical brick chamber, alighting softly upon the hearthstones beyond, and took in their surroundings with eager, glittering scarlet eyes. They could feel the rhythmic purring of hearts at rest, of ashamed minds blissfully lost to guiltless slumber and engaging dreams to distract from the shame they felt from themselves, each other, and neighbors alike. It might have been a passing fancy, or a desperate plea for help.

Now it had become a death sentence. With an elegant ease they took to delicate wings, finding purchase swiftly about bared throats and set the blades that topped their tails, miniature scimitars with single-sided blades, to swift and deadly work.

The sudden silence bereft of those thrumming hearts thundered against their senses, calling their blades and fangs to fleshy chambers where such organic treasures awaited, the crimson cradle of life and renewed blood - both removed as with the first five: a monstrous crudeness following such silent murder.

Sated, for the moment, and content to let the pair sleep the slumber of the slain, the pair gathered wings and strength, departing via their entrance and taking for the night skies.

[Ascendant]

Months ago, when the Ashfiend stalked the enigmatic Vraal, the guru and founder of the Violet Dawn along with the creator of an orphanage, the government had taken possession of the institution and its grounds. Those who wished to continue working there signed their names to an official book, marking their allegiance to the laws of men. They worked there still, toiling away to provide care and instruction to those who had nowhere else to turn, or those who did not find solace in the company of the hoodlums who ran amok within the nest of the Hollows.

Many slept within those stone walls nestled near the city wall. Many hearts pulsed in the quiescence of sweet slumber, intoxicated with dreams both awesome and awful, wondrous and horrifying. Each pulse sang to them, this murderous pair, that swept down upon the compound where the strange vegetables still grew, swiftly and bountifully, from a plot of poor soil centered in the compound's midst.

Beneath those steady pulses were smaller ones, more quiet ones, easily outnumbering the former. They rested in bunk beds and within smaller frames of young flesh and growing bodies. Such sounds sang to them, the paired serpents, who descended, silent death, from a midnight sky with the stars coldly reflected in spread, gossamer wings and metallic scales. Scarlet eyes found stirred ripples in their depths, chorusing with the hearts that called to them through stone and mortar, wood and nails, flesh and metal.

It took very little, save time at first. Many windows were left ajar in the face of summer heat. That time was little indeed compared to the benefit to come, paved with the dawning memory of life and flesh. One by one, the pulses began to grow still, both young and old.

One by one, and in murderous silence, each spark of life pledged to the Violet Dawn began to turn cold.

[Ascendant]

The morning proved to be a gruesome one indeed. There is no general bustle in the early morning of teachers rising, of children waking up and playing before breakfast and classes. There is no echoing shout of a youth being reprimanded. There is nothing save silence, until the matter is investigated by those officials who oversee the institution's operation.

It is a grim sight.

Teachers, tutors and children all found in their beds, each silent and still. Each remaining so upon attemtps to rouse them, each bearing marks of strangulation or a blade to the throat before their hearts were removed by a skilled, precise blade and guiding mind.

The orphanage is now a charnel house.