[i:8d506d15e0]"Shine black the sun, shine blood the moon.
Gehenna is coming soon."[/i:8d506d15e0]
Book of Nod

Gehenna - When the eldest shall rise from their torpor and consume all, kindred and kine alike.

--

[b:8d506d15e0][i:8d506d15e0]Shal Ka Mense[/i:8d506d15e0][/b:8d506d15e0]

[i:8d506d15e0]"Our God..."[/i:8d506d15e0], croaked Cyrilynn's faltering voice, her eyes closed in prayer, [i:8d506d15e0]"He awakens!"[/i:8d506d15e0]

The eyes of the maimed one flickered, then opened. Twin orbs of fire burned with a deep crimson flame. Cyrilynn gasped in pain, her hands clutching her belly. The antediluvian was arising and his name was hunger.

--

[i:8d506d15e0][b:8d506d15e0]Switzerland[/b:8d506d15e0][/i:8d506d15e0]

Tromador lurched forward, losing control of his rho-car and protected only by the safety devices which stopped the fatal crash into the ground. He reached behind him for a blood pack and sucked greedily. It wasn't enough, it was nowhere near enough. He grit his teeth and turned back to the controls

--

[i:8d506d15e0][b:8d506d15e0]Tours[/b:8d506d15e0][/i:8d506d15e0]


Eveshka howled in feral rage, as her beast rose in her breast. Blood, she must have blood! No kine in range. No smell of blood, no craving. [i:8d506d15e0]"I am in control."[/i:8d506d15e0] She whispered, shaken by the sudden yearning.

--

[i:8d506d15e0][b:8d506d15e0]The Wilds[/b:8d506d15e0][/i:8d506d15e0]

The animal figure that had once been a man felt the sudden gnawing in his belly. It was a sign. Time for the hunt to begin.

--

[i:8d506d15e0][b:8d506d15e0]Shal Ka Mense[/b:8d506d15e0][/i:8d506d15e0]

The ruined nose of the ancient twitched and the dread eyes fell upon his Tzimisce priestess. Thick powerful kindred vitae flowed in her dead veins, the perfect repast. Their eyes met and her will crumpled like wet tissue. Cyrilynn knelt, at peace. She would give her unworthy life to the God and continue her existance as an insignificant portion of his soul. It was the perfect ending.

Fangs extended from the maw of the maimed one. Claws from hideous and burned fingers moved, spider like, about the neck of the Priestess, drawing her towards him. Roughly, unceremoniously, like a butcher with a piece of meat, he slammed his teeth into her neck and began to drink.

Deep within the subsumed consciousness, a spark of Cyrilynn yet remained. [i:8d506d15e0]"Not yet!"[/i:8d506d15e0] It screamed within her soul. [i:8d506d15e0]"Still work to be done!"[/i:8d506d15e0] It insisted. Cyrilynn blinked, all but drained of vitae and unlife. [i:8d506d15e0]"Julius."[/i:8d506d15e0] Came the simple whisper.

[i:8d506d15e0]"Julius."[/i:8d506d15e0] The word seeped into the hunger crazed mind of the maimed one. A familiar word. One with a special meaning to him. Important. His fangs withdrew and he threw the limp body forcefully away, out of sight, out of mind. As Cyrilynn lost consciousness, the God's baleful eyes turned to the gathered kine...

[i:8d506d15e0]"Priestess, wake up! Priestess! The Maimed One... what have we done to invoke his wrath?"[/i:8d506d15e0]

Cyrilynn didn't answer. Instinctually, her unliving body knew what it needed. Her arm snaked out and drew the kine to her and it was but moments until she was sucking on a dry artery. She released the limp body to fall to the floor and opened her eyes.

The grotto of Shal Ka Mense was now open to the sky, with rocks strewn about the floor, as though some power had burst through the stone roof. Dead, drained bodies lay all about like cordwood, some buried beneath the fallen boulders. Even as she left the cave, she knew, instinctively, what she would find. The village, now a charnel house. The dead outnumbering the living and those few survivors meekly emerging from their hiding places.

How typical, she thought, that Julius must have his own private Gehenna. How many more must die before he was done? How many more? [i:8d506d15e0]"HOW MANY MORE?"[/i:8d506d15e0] She howled to the sky. Yet still, still she could feel the call of the bond which tied her to him. [i:8d506d15e0]"Damn you Julius!"[/i:8d506d15e0] She spat the words. [i:8d506d15e0]"Damn you and curse you to all eternity!"[/i:8d506d15e0] Cyrilynn sighed. [i:8d506d15e0]"Assuming there are any damnations and curses left which you haven't yet inflicted upon yourself."[/i:8d506d15e0]

The ancient Tzimisce pulled herself to full stretch and hungrily eyed the remaining kine before her. She would be journeying again, to wherever her regent called. She would need her strength.

The rho-field crackled around the shell of the vehicle scorching the grass as George slowly recovered his composure. In days past, he would have hooked it's nav-comp into the local net and programmed a destination. Manual control had been not only irrelevant, but in all but the most remote areas, illegal. Today, of course, there were no local nets and he had little choice but to fly the advanced machine on his own. Another new skill he had been forced to learn, to adapt to the modern day. Looking at the destruction about him, however, his horsemanship might be more useful in the long run. No matter, the fuel cell powering the General Motors craft would last for a long while yet.

[i:045f49663e]"Something has woken up!"[/i:045f49663e] Observed A dryly. [i:045f49663e]"A being of great power to affect you so."[/i:045f49663e]

George nodded. The last time he had felt such a presence had been at the arising of one of the forefathers. He didn't know which one. Word had reached him through Inconnu channels. It had affected every kindred around the globe. A warning, perhaps, of the destruction which was to come. If a warning it was, then this could only be another portent, for good or ill, time would tell.

[i:045f49663e]"Where to then?"[/i:045f49663e] He wondered out loud.

[i:045f49663e]"France, obviously."[/i:045f49663e] Answered M.

[i:045f49663e]"France?"[/i:045f49663e] Queried George.

[i:045f49663e]"The world has been burned, Georgey boy - but you can't burn a firebird."

"You think she made it?"[/i:045f49663e]

M shrugged. [i:045f49663e]"God knows. It's a direction. If she's dead or elsewhere, you can always carry on and see if anything is left of London. Eddie maybe."[/i:045f49663e]

George nodded and put his hands to the controls. The rho-car lifted once again into the air and headed in the direction of Tours.

The settlement had long since been abandoned. The ruins scarred by Nuclear and Biological fallout were harsh and unforgiving monuments to a dead age. Plant life had taken firm control of the structures, coating the walls and the pools of oily water with a thick, clinging vivid green mould that seemed to pulse and creep with every passing second. Scurrying from beneath this slime canopy, were small rodents. Rats or mice, mutated by the various agents prevalent in the air, but remaining distinctly rodent-like. They would peer out from their dens before seizing a passing insect in their tiny jaws and crunching it greedily.

And yet, in this horribly bountiful pocket of nature’s persistence something remained of the machine past.

The sound travelled up and among the dripping branches of the Green, drawing furtive glances from the rodents. And disturbing a cloud of small insects into the air. It was a whirring, hum that could only have come from something artificial.

The sound got louder, closer, until the source became apparent.

The object stood just under three feet. It rolled on small treaded tracks. It’s roughly cylindrical shell was adorned with various tools, some broken. It’s head was a domed turret complete with an array of detection apparatus. It bleeped and whirred as it surveyed its surroundings, unaware that it was without purpose.

It was a Zenith class mech. A small home defence and assistance unit. Armed with a low yield energy sling, it would have in the past patrolled the grounds of its owner. The simple intelligence behind the blinking lights was unaware that its owners were long gone. But the fuel cells longevity determined that the little machine would carry out its task until it was unable to do so because of damage or simple decay.

The beast that had long forgotten to be a man crept through the canopy of green, stalking the strange sound. He had heard such things before and they meant prey were near.

However his memory had been proven fallible by the emptiness of the buildings and the lone mech trundling along.

He scaled the roof of what appeared to be the town hall, and watched the curious object rolling into the distance.

He sniffed the passing wind, growling as the scent came to him in faint, hungry waves. Then, taking one last look at the valley he’d reigned over, he took to the skies. Beating the air with vast powerful wings, his four clawed feet tucked under his belly as he flew towards the coast.

Something was happening, he could feel it. And against his animal instincts, he wanted to find out what, rather than run away.

There was a lurch in the world around him. Nightmares of a world long since gone, left to dreams and the written word, suddenly ground to a halt, and there was a momentary inner struggle as the ancient struggled to awaken, applying all of his indomitable will to the movement of his muscles.

A hand, shriveled and dessicated by hundreds of years, suddenly made a fist, and the skeletal body sat up on the pedestal it had been lain upon, throwing a burial shroud lain lovingly upon him aside before tearing the water rotted rags from his body and stepping into the waist deep water that surrounded him.

[i:5a9da0142e]What had awoken him?[/i:5a9da0142e]

[i:5a9da0142e]What had so forcefully pulled him from reliving the nightmares of an age long past?[/i:5a9da0142e]

Eyes, bloodshot from centuries of sleep, roved the room, taking in each and every book that still floated in the water, the leather and vellum of the works the only things that had kept them from being completely devoured by time, yet none, waterlogged as they were, were in a readable condition.

[i:5a9da0142e]It didn't matter.[/i:5a9da0142e]

Halting steps brought him to the black sarcophagous on the wall, his hand reaching for it, then withdrawing, as the corpselike creature remembered what that particular one contained.

[i:5a9da0142e]Don't look at it. Better not to see that.[/i:5a9da0142e]

A few more steps and the almost the last of his once formiddable strength brought him to the one he wanted, and with a weak push, he removed the lid, revealing the crimson baubles within, scores of the small items had been left to him by Cassandra, and, in that moment, he was grateful indeed for the blood magics she had come to learn as he began placing them in his mouth.

As the magically stored vitae trickled down his throat, regeneration was immediate, skin bubbling and smoothing, muscles that had long since whithered with time bulging and straining at the skin as whithered veins accepted the nourishing fluids. His eyes slowly began to lose their bloodshot color and his hair took on its original luster as he at last tossed the final one aside.

The last, was to cover his nude body, and to do so, he reached up, opening a hidden compartment just out of reach. Pulling out the stainless steel safety chest, he turned the combination on the lock expertly before opening it and pulling out the clothes stored inside, he put them on before he turned to the black coffin that he had previously chosen not to open.

[i:5a9da0142e]"This one is for you... both of you,"[/i:5a9da0142e] he said, his voice a mixture of pain, sorrow, and fondness, before he walked to the exit, his pantlegs soaking themselves, and, with a single, powerful push, knocked the rubble blocking it away, to emerge in a world that he had seen destroyed.

As the dim light filtered into the crypt, a single shaft, slightly brighter than the rest fell upon the brass nameplate at the base of the sarcouphagous, revealing letters carved, not by chisel or heat, but by claw, and nearly unreadable, partially corroded away by time as it was.

[i:5a9da0142e]Here lies Hav.. and Ca..andr... Together, may they rest, for..er[/i:5a9da0142e]

((shit, this is coming along nicely :D :shock: :D ))

((Wow! This is really the first IC thread I've read in quite some time! You guys are so extremely talented! I miss this! Anyway I can possibly jump in?

((Open to all, just keep to the main theme of doom, gloom, and destruction in a Mad Max sort of way.))

The door to the chapel creaked open and Eveshka saw a cloaked figure sitting hunched over on a bench silhouetted against a roaring fire coming from the enormous fireplace.

"I knew you would come here Little Firebird," said a relatively deep but still feminine voice in tones that could have been seductive sounding had the situation been a little bit different. "How long have you slept, my love?"

"Do I know you?" asked Eveshka pulling back the hood of her traveling cloak to reveal her more or less beautiful features. They had still not returned to their former earth shattering radiance.

"Have you forgotten me so quickly?" asked the voice with a depressed sounding laugh. The figure still would not reveal herself. "Well, no matter, I'm sure you will remember me soon enough. I've brought you a present. "

The figure stood up and slowly, very shakily, turned . She held something beneath her billowing black cloak. There was no doubt this was a she, the figure moved in much to feminine a way. The woman was a scant 5' 2" or so tall.

"It is time you rejoined the path of [i:31c483c701]Humanitas[/i:31c483c701] Eveshka Semenovna Shuvolov. Only love can defeat the Evil out there. Love, Eveshka, and this," she said, and held forth a bundle wrapped in black silk.

Eveshka took it and unwrapped it. It was her old Dread Rapier and Main Gauche. But they were both different. No longer was the rope work on the basket a matte black, nor was the blade. Now the blade was a brilliant silver that was so shiny and polished that it appeared to be transparent. The basket and cross guard were a vibrant gold that was radiant as to illuminate the room like a torch.

Eveshka held the blades in one hand and reached out with her other. She placed her hand into the empty area where the woman's face hid in shadow. She pulled back the hood far enough to see the alabaster skin and ruby lips she had kissed so many times before. The lips formed into a grin that was separated for a brief moment by a forked tongue licking pearly white teeth. The woman pulled back her hood and let it her cloak fall to the floor.

There stood Khemintiri, dressed in form hugging and very sheer Egyptian garb.

"I've missed you Evey," she said, drawing her in for a kiss.

Eveshka was overcome by the sight of her former Mistress, Regent, and lover. She plainly had missed her as well, or, she had plainly missed companionship, for she gave herself over to Khemintiri without a blink of an eye, letting the ancient Setite, envelope Eveshka in her arms.

[i:d1090460d9]"You are in real trouble you know..."[/i:d1090460d9]

The voice belonged to a child but the entity using it was ancient having existed before such a concept of time had been imagined. But more to the point, it should have been dead, at least as far as such a concept existed for it.

[i:d1090460d9]"Dead... Thats an amusing thought coming from someone whose heart stopped beating somewhere near Troy all those years ago... how is Karl by the way... Oh thats right you killed him in York didnt you... And your adoptive family praised you for it and sent you to the City that we met..."[/i:d1090460d9]

The feminine voice taunted her as if they were in a school playground and it was the bully that knew all her secrets and would reveal them to any that would listen...

[i:d1090460d9]"But... Talking of your heart... I see you replaced it with the one you stole from me... You could not resist its allure could you... Thats why I was so fond of it... So many would give all they owned and even what they did not to secure it... And you thought you could simply pick it up and walk out of hell with it?... Not that you seem to have travelled all that far... Do you appreciate how hot magma is?..."[/i:d1090460d9]

If she could she would have opened her eyes, but that was impossible for the moment her Auspex was still dimly aware of the crushing pressures and searing heat that were but mere inches from her face, separated by unnaturally cold ice with a crystalline structure that would make diamond envious, ice that trapped her immobile like a fly in fossilised amber protecting her but also keeping her trapped, a prisoner of her own magic.

[i:d1090460d9]"But its so ironic..."[/i:d1090460d9]

The voice taunted, clearly finding her situation most amusing.

[i:d1090460d9]"That spirit inside that heart of ice you stole... He trapped himself in that crystal prison you call your heart to escape the oblivion that befell his mortal form.... Over 3000 years he was there... I let him out into a shell time to time but they all eventually failed him as his hosts overeached themselves in underestimating me and what I sought... You of all people should know the fates of the ones that heart touched... And now... You use his power to trap yourself in a crystal of your own... How many years do you think have passed now?...."[/i:d1090460d9]

[i:d1090460d9]"However did you find yourself in such a mess"[/i:d1090460d9]

She had often mulled this over in her mind, she had been awakened from sleep to fight in a great war, one that had needed her skills as a spy with unique insights into the ways of the Eastern Kindred. She had done her duty for House and Clan, her sword tasting the vitae of friends as well as foes as betrayals were unmasked and crushed by the secret police or frontline Commisars the Astors had openly become among the Tremere during the war.

Finally she had been on a flight leaving England before it had been sent to the bottom of the ocean, when a mortal fighter jet escorting her plane with damaged control surfaces due to exposure to the epic forces that had consumed the once green and pleasant land, collided with the plane over Italy, the pilot had tried to pull up out of the resulting dive but they had plunged straight into Mount Etna. She had mere moments to think of a way to survive this, the freezing crystal in her heart could protect her from flame and sunlight but this exposure was far more direct and a more direct response was needed by the magics protecting her.

She allowed the magical ice in her heart to surround her like a marble made of diamond, surviving the impact and destruction of the plane as the alloys of the plane were melted and crushed by the intense forces of the Volcanic magma chamber, her self made survival bubble caught in the subterrenean currents of liquid rock she drifted away from her crash site, those that knew her presumed she was destroyed in the crash, the very means she used to save herself isolating her from those that could sense her, even if they could locate her they could not reach her...

And so the years had passed, so many she had lost track, it was she imagined much how the wraith in her crystal heart must have felt those 3000 or more years, she sorely wished she could talk to him, to have any form of communication with something, but he had been strangely silent ever since she called upon his power to form the ice...

The child's voice purred, changing its tone, using the one she remembered the owner to use when it was trying to offer people things...

[i:d1090460d9]"The world has changed you know... When we last met you were such a slave to duty.... What if I told you your House... Your Clan... Were all gone and forgotten... That you no longer have masters to report to... Or friends to betray... What if I told you that you could be free to do whatever you wished... What would you say... If I offered you a way out of this frozen tomb of yours..."[/i:d1090460d9]

Morathi stirred her weakened pyschic reserves, more than aware how her involuntary imprisonment had limited her powers or drained them in attempts to be heard. Her mind answered, she remembered full well what this creature was and how dependable its offer of help could be... But On the other hand... How many other offers of help had she had in this prison of ice...

[i:d1090460d9]"I... Would ask.... Whats in it for you... Sulphur?..."[/i:d1090460d9]

Sulphur's voice faded as if leaving her, Morathi despite her feelings towards the demoness suddenly found herself fearing a return to her isolation....

[i:d1090460d9]"You really need to ask?...."[/i:d1090460d9]

The voice faded, the demoness' laughter echoing in the crystalline prison as it left her to consider, the voice was right, she knew full well what the price would be.....

Hunger travelled north and death ran bloody red in his wake. Where kindred or kine walked in his path, they fell. Pale drained corpses left to rot upon the ground where they lay. Always unquenched, ever starved, Hunger moved on.

The Mediterranean had changed once again, in the wake of the cataclysm. The basin which had once held a sea was now a salt marsh, the drying land heralding the start of a new Postdiluvian age. Perhaps in another ten thousand years, young kindred would fear the Diluvians and have forgotten that Antediluvians ever existed. This meant nothing to Hunger as he hunted amongst the rotting hulks, cathedrals of rusting iron that had once been great ships trading across the lost ocean.

North, ever North until Hunger reached the small lake, the remnants of the Black Sea. A stone here, a half glimpsed imprint in the ground there. The remains of an ancient settlement, it's barely discernable form once again exposed by the receding waters. Hunger had been here before, many millenia ago. Images flickered through the twisted mind. The master he had served, desperate sad and haunted eyes, tortured by loneliness and twice as tortured by the salve to that loneliness. The dancing girl, the dark eyed beauty he had once recognised as the other half of his soul, lost now, lost and gone forever.

Hunger satisfied, the Maimed One threw back his head and howled his grief. A warped, insane grief that bound up his losses with the consequences of his actions. An ear rending bestial shriek, travelleling the world upon a wind of pain. Those who could hear, hid in fear. Those too far to glean the sound, stayed by their fires and watched, guarding against something they could scarcely perceive.

The scrape of hard-soled feet on rusted steel brought the harpy fully awake. Not that she wasn't already aware. The wardings she'd learned from her master, and had set in motion before sleeping, had informed her of her situation long before this point. Her further skills as a trained killer and spy, as well as the heightened sense of smell, told her that the intruder was a young female of around twelve years; an advance scout of a family unit. And in need of a good bath.

She sat up slowly and lazily spread leathery membranes in the confines of the abandoned hulk's upper command room. There was enough space to fully extend them, but no way to launch or fly, the only drawback to an easily defended crash pad. The taloned toes made [i:bbeb3dfc55][b:bbeb3dfc55]*ssskkkrrrriiiikkk*[/b:bbeb3dfc55][/i:bbeb3dfc55] noises, fighting for purchase on the pitted floor as she raised clawed hands to the ceiling and twisted her torso smoothly. Looking as if she had all the time in the world to make her way outside, she stretched, deliberately posing for the watching eyes.

[i:bbeb3dfc55]"Oh, good!"[/i:bbeb3dfc55] Cyrilynn purred as she casually brought her eyes to the widened, innocent stare that peeked around the opening, capturing it, [i:bbeb3dfc55]"Breakfast is served."[/i:bbeb3dfc55] Her ribbon-thin tongue flicked out and moistened emerging fangs.

**********************************

Dropping the limp form in her grasp onto the ship's open decking, the Tzimisce sprang upward on powerful haunches, snapping open bat-like wings to scoop air and climb rapidly. Soaring on warm currents from below, she lazily circled the marooned freighter, watching to see if her recent meal would be rescued, and was rewarded for her expended time. The nearly depeleted body was whisked away into the cargo area and she sincerely hoped the little one would recover over time. Children were very resilient creatures and this particular morsel was like a fine heady wine. It had taken all her discipline to avoid draining the scrawny human dry at the first taste of her blood.

She looked to the horizon, in the direction her bond seemed to want to pull her toward, and spotted another decrepit and rotting cargo ship. They seemed like a dotted line that lead northward, to her master. However, it was the broken and discarded bodies that were the evidence of his passage and left her with no doubt that she was heading in the right direction.

Recalling much of what she'd learned about this region, when Julius had laid his compulsion on her, she realized that she was seeing the remnants of freighters that had traversed what was once the Black Sea. Taking goods to Odessa and bringing other products back to Istanbul. Her path was the second most well traveled sea lane of its time and the main one stretched to her right. Glancing in that eastward direction, she could see even more vessels laying like scattered dominoes.

Grinning to herself, she realized that the path she was following was much like that of a fast food chain. All [b:bbeb3dfc55]she[/b:bbeb3dfc55] had to do was grab her meal on the wing, as it were, [b:bbeb3dfc55]IF[/b:bbeb3dfc55] Julius had not managed to devour all of it! Due to the fact that these ancient relics provided shelter and protection to the humans that had survived the holocaust, both from the ground [b:bbeb3dfc55]and[/b:bbeb3dfc55] from the air, as well as from the elements themselves, there were still bound to be clusters of humans huddled in many of them. She hoped.

An updraft teased at the tips of her membranes and, finally free of the stifling cavern she'd been tied to for an eternity, she lost herself in the sheer glory of being aloft. Having shed many daily cares and woes, she allowed herself the delusion of freedom as she slid from one current to another, often diving from one height into another column of warm air. Then climbing back up to repeat the manuevers with another updraft until the game palled.

Yet she was always drawn forward and, as she began to tire, the search for the next rest stop started to occupy her attention. Sharpened eyes and vision began examining the surroundings for signs of passage or habitation. The ground was cracked and dried and there was little vegetation, beyond clumps of stubborn grass or low scrub bushes, growing in dusty soil. She shrugged to herself. How the mortals managed to exist in this wasted land was a puzzle she had no interest in trying to figure out. After all, beyond her next feeding, what did any of them mean to her?

A demented shriek sounded on the higher winds and reverberated down the psychic cord that bound her to the shattered mage. At once, she lost altitude as she clapped hands to her ears, not realizing she was driving nails into her own scalp. The trickling blood and the ensuing pain awoke her to her peril, just in time for her toes to clutch at a metal crossbar on a lone spear of steel thrusting upward from the deck of one of the ships. Her wings frantically back pedaled, creating a mini windstorm. It was a near miss, as she wrapped her arms around the pole's sides and tried to keep from ending upside-down, like a bat at rest.

*********************

It seemed like hours that she huddled there, eventually seated on that precarious perch, her ears covered once more. Shivering in misery and dread at the condition she knew she would find HIM in. More long years of servitude with a creature she could simultaneously curse and cherish. She licked up preciously expended blood tears that trickled from aching eyes as the geas settled, once more, on her shoulders. [i:bbeb3dfc55]"Damn it, Julius,"[/i:bbeb3dfc55] she screamed back her defiance, [i:bbeb3dfc55][b:bbeb3dfc55]"LEAVE_ME_ALONE!!"[/b:bbeb3dfc55][/i:bbeb3dfc55]

George stood, as Eveshka had, within the precincts of the cathedral. An ill wind had ushered him inside. A wind which carried a whisper of pain, as though some distant soul's suffering were being blown about for all to know. Eve had been here. However faded, the unmistakable hint of her perfume lingered. Though it had perhaps been centuries since she had worn any, the scent of her was just enough to be detected by the senses of an old kindred. Old and tired.

It was now near on five hundred years since Malkav had infected his mind. The blade which had struck him down in York should have been his end, he reflected. It would have been a kindness. Eve had awakened him, however, and so half his unlife had been spent in the constant company of the others. The creations of his madness. Deep within the tormented mind, the Tromador of old lived on. The sharp Ventrue intellect with the quick wit and cunning guile. On the surface, however, the voices were ever present and no matter how hard he would fight against them, always their influence would twist and distort his intentions. Even his achievement of Golconda, the peace of mind which bought his entry into the Inconnu could not quiet them, simply allow acceptance of what he had become. A demented excuse for a Ventrue, as much of the moons clan as the kings.

With the curse had come the blessing. The ability to touch another's mind. All too often he had used this to impress his nightmares and madness upon some poor unfortunate. The voices clamouring to live in others, as well as himself. At need, however, gentler touches could be employed. If Eveshka had recently been here, then perhaps she was close. George's eyes filled with sparks, giving off a sickly green glow, "the eyes of chaos", the physical signature of the Malkavian prank which had broken him. Carefully, he broadcast the mental call. [i:c31dededfa]"Eveshka!"[/i:c31dededfa]

War…

The slopes of the mountain that was once known as St Helens echoed with the sounds of conflict, trees that had been devastated centuries ago had since been replaced with new growth, and it was over these the battle was being waged...

In the aftermath of the military, political, and finally natural cataclysms that had hit the region the surviving human population had split up into separate camps, each with their own views on survival, and sometimes these views came into conflict with each other.

One faction was the survivalists, those that had prepared for the future, stockpiling weapons, tools, books of knowledge and other resources useful to survival. The mutual need to survive as a community ironically united the offspring of the loners, isolationists or otherwise forward thinking people that had prepared for an uncertain future. This community had the knowledge it needed to bring humanity back to where it had once been… It just needed raw resources… Resources like timber…

The opposing faction, by comparison had adapted to their new environment and attempted to act in balance with it returning to the ways of the native American tribes, members of the first faction sometimes referred to them as ‘Tree-Hugging Hippies’ though even they had long since forgotten what a Hippy was, the term had been passed down and had stuck. This community believed that all things had spirits, the trees, the birds even the mountain which was rumoured to be the lair of a destructive spirit of flame and destruction, a spirit that was growing in anger at the abuses of the ‘Smokers’, the name they used for the survivalists and their practice of using fire to fuel their way of life. They called the mountain ‘Louwala-Clough’, the ancient name passed on by the descendants of the Klickitat tribes. A name which the ‘Smokers’ books of lore would have translated as "smoking or fire mountain" if they had a care to translate it.

The ‘Smokers’ always laughed off their warnings not to offend the spirit in the mountain, but eventually laughter was to be replaced with threats and violence as they found the ‘Hippies’ to be attempting to foil their efforts again and again, sabotaging equipment, stealing tools...

Things were drawn out into open conflict when the mountain started rumbling. The survivalists consulted their books and concluded it was just the stirrings of a mostly dormant volcano and probably of little threat, let the craven hippies think it was their fire spirit shaking the walls of his home if that made them happy…

But as they soon learnt the ‘Hippies’ were anything but happy, incensed by the lack of respect for nature and fearful of the increasingly more severe tremors indicating the fire spirit’s fury they took more direct action. Centuries of hunting with spears and bows made them excellent and stealthy hunters. At first it was hit-and-fade attacks, the aggressors vanishing into the woods they sought to defend. Then it was more aggressive as in response to the reprisal raids of the ‘Smokers’ more overt pitched battles were waged. Finally both sides had thrown everything they had into one battle to settle the issue once and for all in the shadow of the mountain…

****************

[i:a48ef78a89]“I trust you have decided to take up my offer of help then…”[/i:a48ef78a89]

The voice was smug, knowing she had few other options, mentally Morathi bit her lip and made the choice, accepting the price that would come…

[i:a48ef78a89]“Yes…”[/i:a48ef78a89]

[i:a48ef78a89]“Don’t be like that… I made you this offer before remember…. I even gave you a taste of what could be yours, surely you remember that… It really is a good deal… Both for you and for me…”[/i:a48ef78a89]

The voice paused remembering that Morathi had seen the other side of the bargain then too, the price. It also sensed she had somehow worked out that if the childlike voice could have taken this bargain elsewhere it would have…

[i:a48ef78a89]“Well… Ok mostly for me… But you will learn soon enough there are perks to the deal… I’ll free you of your fetters… No more House and Clan… No more need to hide what you are… You could lord over the mortals as a goddess… Take your rightful place as the ruler not the ruled…”[/i:a48ef78a89]

The voice whispered seemingly closer now…

[i:a48ef78a89]“This may just tingle a little bit….”[/i:a48ef78a89]

Tingle proved to be an understatement, Morathi felt the energy flood into her prison shell, filling her crystalline heart displacing whatever remained of the wraith within that had not been used to form the unnatural ice, replacing it with a core of flame that started to thaw the magical ice but then her consciousness was seared by the white hot heat of Sulphur melding with her spirit and she felt her body slowly transform into the new combined entity she had agreed to become….

The shell of the magical ice cracked then imploded inwards as the crushing pressures finally triumphed falling away as a new gestalt entity of flame swam into the womb of fire that would soon give birth to it anew…

****************

In the midst of the chaos of battle the sudden stillness that fell upon the combatants was unsettling as if all had heard the same whisper at once. The ground trembled as all eyes turned to the peak of the mountain just visible through the recent tree growth. The lull was suddenly broken as all on the field of battle seemingly sank into a shared madness, everyone became a foe and it was every man for themselves. Soon the land was stained red with the blood of brothers and foes alike as utter carnage ensued the mountain in the background growing ever more vocal in its fury…

A growing lava dome had formed inside the crater left from the 1980’s eruption, fuelled by the increasing pressures in the magma chamber. As something was given birth deep within the mountain’s core this dome burst open violently as a large scale pyroclastic flow of unprecedented magnitude was unleashed, reducing the height of the mountain by another 1000 or more feet…

Down on the battlefield a second pause came about as the madness suddenly vanished as soon as it had come, all looked in horror at what they had done then in growing horror at the sight of the fiery clouds expanding at terrifying speeds from the mountain destroying everything that lay in their path. Above these clouds of doom a spray of magma could be seen being hurled into the air, droplets of fire raining down upon the mountainside. All but one, a single droplet of flame hung in the air suspended by some supernatural force, if the observers were closer they would have seen that it had a woman’s form with wings of flame, but even not seeing it all realised this was surely the spirit of fire that had been rumoured to live in the mountain, and it had awoken to revenge itself on the mortals that had awoken it.

Sulphur smiled inwardly as she fed upon the recognition and the forced belief in her divinity that her rebirth had produced, feeding until the witnesses were obliterated in the destructive wake of the pryoclastic flows, the forests the battle had been waged over now looking as if a nuclear strike had blown them over and transformed them into charcoal in an instant…

It was good that mortals could still recognise a demon as a thing to worship even after all these long years her kind had been forced to lurk in their prison only able to escape via misguided rituals by cults of infernalists that often all too late realised the demons were all too real. Or to sneak into the minds of the insane or brain-dead as shadows of their true selves.

But this was as close to a true rebirth as could be hoped for after her near destruction in New Orleans all those years past when a rival demoness had betrayed her by giving the vampires lured to her realm in a misguided attempt to rescue one of their own the one blade that could hurt her in her own domain, she could still feel its icy touch as it had plunged through her back wielded as the last act of a vampire turned mortal once more.

Sulphur frowned at that memory, landing and slumping to her knees in recalled pain of her betrayal at the outskirts of the destruction near the main settlement of the tribal peoples where the women and children and those too old or injured that had not been fit to fight in the final battle dropped to their knees in awe of the creature of flame born of the mountain, sensing it was angered or hurt by something and mindful not to provoke it.

Yes she had been betrayed. Given a form once more, Sulphur found herself remembering more and more, drawing upon Morathi’s own memories of that night in New Orleans and Hell. One of her own kind had betrayed her, perhaps had even survived the cataclysms and was out there waiting for her rebirth.

Sulphur inwardly cursed, realising she was being too overt, too overconfident. She needed to bide her time learn more of this new world, and build up her strength which was dependant on the power of belief mortals gave to her in the absence of that of the creator she had turned her back on. She needed to cultivate a following, build an army with which to rule uncontested.

Such an army would need a figurehead, one that the entities that recalled Sulphur were unfamiliar with, someone with guile and a strong sense of duty…

The folded wings of flame retreated into her back, golden hair darkened and turned raven black. Skin that looked like molten metal cooled and took on a pale but very human tone and quality, eyes glowing orange with an inner fire cooled and were replaced with emerald green. Eyes that took in the awestruck natives surrounding her with confusion as a personality reasserted itself once more…

Morathi blinked in surprise as the natives started worshiping her as some sort of avatar of the fire spirit, the braver ones hoping to appease her with gifts of fine animal furs to cover her nakedness, and rare beads and feathers to adorn her hair. The one time Victorian English lady slowly being transformed into some sort of tribal princess, too confused by her own rebirth to resist…

[i:a48ef78a89]“Enjoy… But don’t enjoy yourself too much…. Remember… You still owe me….”[/i:a48ef78a89]

Sulphur’s voice whispered in her mind as Morathi allowed herself to be pampered by the surviving natives before retreating to lurk in the crystal heart radiating the warmth of infernal fire instead of the chill of the grave…

Khemintiri and Eveshka lay snuggled together on the floor covered in heavy fur type blankets. They had done little else but indulge themselves in pleasureable acts denied them for 400 years. If this was what Eternity would be: making love to Khemintiri, drinking her vitae, and worshipping her and being worshipped in return, all in the confines of this last bastion of beauty in the world.... she could deal with it. The two had used their combined thaumaturgical powers to somewhat restore the grounds. Whether it was Chimerstry or real Eveshka had no idea, nor did she care. There was colour in her world and she was again beautiful and with someone as beautiful; that was all that mattered.

[i:a46965a051] "EVESHKA!!!!!!" [/i:a46965a051] came a call one fine day, or night, it didn't really matter as the sun refused to rise. Eveshka was sitting sideways in a slightly battered Empire style chair reading Eugene Onegin in Russian. She looked up from a now very long dead Pushkin's verse. Khemintiri who was busy putzing around with some papyrus scroll looked at her.

"What is it, lover?" she asked.

"Tromador," said Eve with very little emotion in her voice. The last time she had seen him on a mountain top in Greece before he had gone off to do whatever it is his squirrely Venkavian mind had decreed he should do. She was disconcerted. She wondered what he would want or how he would be in a world that had "moved on," to plagerize another long dead writer, Stephen King.

A strange sense of peace and contentment had come from the Toreador Firebird's mind. One totally at odds with the devastation George had witnessed. The world had all but ended, yet Eveshka seemed not to care.

[i:f53633bad5]"It's like you told her last time."[/i:f53633bad5] Suggested M. [i:f53633bad5]"Mad as two balloons."[/i:f53633bad5]

[i:f53633bad5]"Shut up for once. I need to think."[/i:f53633bad5] Growled George. [i:f53633bad5]"You see, the problem with being insane."[/i:f53633bad5] M carried on regardless. [i:f53633bad5]"Is that you don't get to choose moments of sanity. If I want to be terribly distracting and make lots of noise, I will. Remember it's all in your mind. It's not my fault, I can't help it, it's your fault, your fault, your mind, your fault, la, la, la, la, la, la, la."[/i:f53633bad5]

George glowered and shook his head. A scribbled something onto his parchment and showed it to M, who chuckled. [i:f53633bad5]"Maybe if we make him really angry, we could have a little fun."[/i:f53633bad5] Offered P.

[i:f53633bad5]"[b:f53633bad5]ENOUGH[/b:f53633bad5]"[/i:f53633bad5] Shouted George to the empty air. [i:f53633bad5]"Can you not see that the world is toast. Baiting me is going to get you dead too. Figments of my imagination or not, I die, you die."[/i:f53633bad5]

[i:f53633bad5]"Yes, but being as you're a hopeless basket case."[/i:f53633bad5] M continued. [i:f53633bad5]"That would surely imply..."[/i:f53633bad5]

George threw a rock at M. As M didn't really exist, it just passed straight through and clattered onto the flagstone floor. M gave him a hurt look. P grinned. A scribbled furiously. [i:f53633bad5]"Much anger in this one."[/i:f53633bad5] Quoted P in his best Yoda voice.

The truth of the matter, as George knew only too well is that they would not, perhaps could not, ever be silent. The only time they would give him any peace is when they got their own way. Successful manipulations, if he gave in to their twisted desires. The reward was peace, for a time, until their thirst for chaos once again clamoured from the depths of his psyche.

None of which was getting him any closer to Eve and the discovery of how she could be so... unaffected by the state of things. It seemed she had taken up residence within her old palace, perhaps it, like the cathedral, had survived intact. George once again climbed into his rho-car for the short drive to the seat of Eveshka's old domain.

In his time with the Inconnu, Tromador, like all his peers had picked up and passed on a trick or two. Whilst he himself had little skill with chimerstry, he had learned to see through the more basic illusions. A little concentration and the great palace faded away. The plush residence into which Eveshka had received him amounted to little more than a few rocks. Against one of the more well preserved walls a rickety lean-to had been constructed, beneath which Khemintiri lay, in a bed of little more than filthy straw and sackcloth.

[i:f53633bad5]"Would you care for a little wine, George?"[/i:f53633bad5] Eve was saying, offering him some brackish water in a dirty and cracked china teacup.

Eve herself did not look well. For that matter, neither did Khemintiri. Whilst Eve had regained most of her former beauty, the pair had been feeding exclusively upon each other, their combined blood pool now dangerously low.

[i:f53633bad5]"Not just now thankyou."[/i:f53633bad5] Answered George. [i:f53633bad5]"Getting stuffy in your old age are you?"[/i:f53633bad5] Replied Eve, pouting a little.

[i:f53633bad5]"Look, Eve, I know we didn't part on such good terms, but you know I never stopped caring about you, you do know that don't you?"[/i:f53633bad5]

Eve's face took upon a note of seriousness. [i:f53633bad5]"What is it George? You need help? The voices still plaguing you?"[/i:f53633bad5]

[i:f53633bad5]"No... Well, yes... but... Eve, what the hell is going on here?"[/i:f53633bad5]

Eveshka looked concerned. [i:f53633bad5]"I don't understand, Trom. What are you talking about?"[/i:f53633bad5]

[i:f53633bad5]"You do know that everything you see is illusion, that you are..."[/i:f53633bad5]

The look on Eve's face said it all, clearly she had no idea. The myth she had created for herself was now as real to her as George's companions were to him.

[i:f53633bad5]"Mad as 17 balloons."[/i:f53633bad5] Offered M, unhelpfully.

George sighed. [i:f53633bad5]"This is terribly unhealthy, love. Try not to hate me too much, but you, both of you are going to have to face facts before it's too late."[/i:f53633bad5]

[i:f53633bad5]"If this is leading up to some childish Malkavian stupidity, then you might as well just leave now."[/i:f53633bad5] Said Eve.

[i:f53633bad5]"If only..."[/i:f53633bad5] Said Tromador and as his chaos green eyes met hers, he entered her mind. [i:f53633bad5]"See the truth Eve, see what you are doing to yourself."[/i:f53633bad5]