(Artist Unknown)
Eyes on the vibrant red leaves, Isobella kicked at a fecund stool. Not the one, she told herself, not the right color. King Magus had thick stems, wide hoods; this one, short and fat, wilted under her boot in a puff of spores.Her little quest was proving more frustrating by the hour. The moon overhead sailed in its pallid galleon. It crested high, then slowly, with agonizing ticks, sailed to the mythical Yellow Tower guarded by old Fobius, archer of the gods. And still, no King Magus. Under each tree she rifled, under each wet bank of moss did she toil. And still…nothing.
The old wretch, that mother of witches, had truly cursed her that night so long ago. It was the King Magus that would bend the space between the living and the dead into a common space, a land of both the living and the dead–which if obtained, would give her access to the undead prophecies of Maribeth.And she needed Maribeth now more than ever.Two nights ago she stood outside the lighted rim of a village, watching a man. Cursing in his daily labor, the smith–acting as woodsmen–brought in a cumbersome load of firewood for an old woman, woman disabled by the many years she had survived by the graces of the gods.
“Thank you, Asher,” the old mother smiled, and it was a gummy smile, a smile of black gums and shattered fences. “What would these old bones do without you?”
“Worry your head not, Mother Gibbens. You are loved by all. You birthed many of us, you fed many of our stomachs, it is the least we can do in your waning years.”
Mother Gibbens nodded, accepting her sentence. Indeed, the years had been good to her, just as her children, who in good health, spawned many like this master smith who now brought wood to her in the prelude of yet another winter.
Asher made the fire under her hearth in the maw of a crucible he had constructed himself many years ago when yet a boy. He labored carefully, each stick of wood an act of will, an act of love. And as this display ripened, so Isobella, invisible to mortal eye, watched at the old woman’s window. A slow strident tear rode Isobella’s cheek. Why had this scene not been her own destiny? Why this undeath? Why this long forgetful history–some remembered, some forgotten–suffered in the cold of the weak light of dusk?
She had lingered far too long at the warm window, her tears taking her down to the depths of sorrow unforgettable. “What?” Asher growled, suddenly aware, suddenly erect as the door of Gibbens shut behind him. “What is this foul air I sense?”
Vampire.
Isobella knew the word well. It meant many things to mortals. For instance, in the North where the trollkin dwell, it was a curse issued as they died; in the South, it was a question amongst the jungle tribes when stumbling upon a corpse long rotted. Vampire? As in: Did a vampire do this to one of us? And still, amongst the devil worshipers of nameless, fetid dungeons, it was an orgiastic wish most devoutly coveted by many a cult leader.
“Make yourself known, dark one!” Asher cursed, hands griping the axe at his side. “Come forth and confess your presence. I will be merciful and swift!”
Isobella, her stay overly ripe, turned from the window, her long black dress fluttering like the feathers of a dreary, forlorn raven. Not now, not here, not again, her psyche whispered. I cannot, I can never, I will never be hypnotized by mortal kin again….”
Once again, the night accepted her as one of its own, dusting off traces of her non-existence, step by step, undead breath by undead breath….
