Taint

1 - Awakening Shadows

In the shadowed heart of the Abyss, where malevolence took form in twisted rituals and whispered incantations, Malachai, a demon born of darkness, watched as the Shadowthorn clan wove their sinister legacy into the very fabric of the ethereal realm.

And he couldn't stand it.

Everything smelled like shit. His father, the venerable Lord Umbra, swore up and down sulphur and brimstone were pleasant smells, but Malachai had taken a few trips topside and knew better. The Morts had a name for that smell, and it was shit.

"Fuck, Dad, do we have to use so much of the sulphur shit?" Malachai tried to cover his nose with his robes, but the skin of the dead did little to mask a god-damned thing.

"It's that or slay ten thousand mortal children while they sleep for this ritual, Kai." Lord Umbra stayed focussed on the incantation, crouched over a midnight-flamed bonfire that glimmered in his pitch black eyes. "And you made it abundantly clear I wasn't to do that for at least another hundred years."

The Shadowthorn clan had ruled over the Abyss for thousands of years, keeping alive the dream of once again returning to the surface and dominating the Morts through ritual, sacrifice, and the burning of shit that stunk like shit. Once a century, Lord Umbra would do something terrible and unleash a plague, or get everyone mad enough to mass market kill each other, which brought around a smiting from above. The cycle had repeated infinitely, before Malachai was born, and showed no sign of stopping.

"I don't know how you expect to subjugate anyone if they're all dead already, Dad." Kai stepped back from the circle. "Enslavement, any of that shit. What the hell's your plan?"

Kai's mother, the Lady Elanizia, rushed to her husband's side. "Kai, please, your father knows what he's doing."

"Kai, quit fucking around!" The youngest Shadowthorn, Kai's younger sister Sharla, who had only sprouted horns this last Samhain, punched him on the shoulder. He staggered back. Sharla's third parent was a full-on minotaur, and she could punch really hard.

"I'm not saying he doesn't know what he's doing, but how long have we been trying to get back up there?" Kai rubbed his shoulder. God damn minotaur blood.

The black flames flickered, and Kai couldn't hear anything. He sensed his father probing around inside his head-one of the many less-than-fun party tricks Lord Umbra liked to trot out whenever he felt so inclined.

Do not test me, boy.

Kai tried to clear his mind, but Lord Umbra had been plundering minds for millennia. Invisible hands plunged deep into Kai's conscious, pushing past long-dormant scars and forgotten memories to where Kai kept his secrets. Umbra scraped at the shell Kai had placed around his secrets but could do nothing to break that wall. It was a good thing Lady Elanizia had taught Kai a few things, too.

You will rule once I am gone, boy, and there is no cost too great for what we must achieve.

The fog lifted, and Kai could hear again. Lord Umbra's mind-dives always left him shaken. He bowed his head and rejoined the circle.

"That's better, Malachai." Lord Umbra opened his arms wide, and the flames exploded with power. "Let's show them the meaning of fear!"