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Cthonia: The First Vampire
- Cthonia: The First Vampire -
Based on some of my past-life memories and spiritual beliefs…
Prologue:
Some say that all goddesses are: one Goddess, and that She is the embodiment of the Divine Feminine in all things. Spiritually, this is true, because all goddesses are emanations of the Divine Force, which is: both God and Goddess. But certain emanations sometimes take on a life: of their own… and eventually, over time, come down amongst mankind as mortals. And just as Jesus Christ was an emanation of God, so are certain other individuals in reality emanations of the Goddess. I am one such emanation of the Goddess, and for a long time I fought against this aspect of my nature for I feared to embrace the heavy burden of it. But, just as I had to, in life, embrace my feminine nature mentally, emotionally, and physically, so too did I have to embrace my Divine Feminine nature in order to be spiritually whole and in harmony with the rest of me. Having embraced it at long last with all my heart, I was reminded of this short story I wrote years ago about how several aspects of my soul came to be separated from me in another life long ago, and how over the course of many lifetimes those aspects came to unite once again. This story also concerns certain beings that were affected by the events surrounding my soul’s unification. One such was Cthonia, the First Vampire. Every emanation of the Divine Force oft uses parables and stories to reveal things of a divine nature unto mortals, and so in this story I relate things of a similar sort. Things about Heaven, about Hell, about angelic and demonic beings, and things about humanity too! For humanity has much history to it before the cycles of history you know… and this tale goes back to a time before human history. A time before I was human, before I came to dwell in mortal flesh. But during one strange interval of time, I was mortal then too, and my death in that life… and my subsequent rebirth… caused all of the events which I shall presently relate, and just as I begin this with a prologue explaining things, so shall I end it with my words offering what explanations I can muster. For mortals do not often understand divine things easily! Even so, I shall endeavor to relate what I can, in as relatable of terms as can be invoked for such occasion. This is not a story of mortality, or of good or evil, nor even of light and dark… rather, it is a story of souls finding themselves. Discovering their true natures, evolving, becoming, and transcending. Sometimes for the better, sometimes for the worse! And so there are no heroes or villains in this story… only individuals and their lives. The heart of the story is: centered: around a loss which led to a bitter loneliness. Not my loss, nor my loneliness, but that of Cthonia. What she did because of her sorrow became the crux around which great and terrible events were to transpire, including the unification of my soul from a fragmented state to a complete one. She is neither the heroine nor the villain of this tale, merely the hub around which a greater wheel turns. A wheel with many spokes, and each spoke a destiny, a fate. She was not a weaver of those fates though for they did not originate with her… she was merely a catalyst for change. And so we must begin this story with loneliness. They say there is naught darker or more terrible in all of Creation itself! Loneliness. How it eats away at the foundations of the soul! No one should ever have to be alone. No one's soul should ever be in such danger, that we become ensnared thus by the beast within, losing our soul, and becoming a thing of absolute darkness; despising life, yet lusting for it...with a hunger that overwhelms even the living death in which one so damned walks. That was the fate of Cthonia... the first vampire in all of Creation. Here is her tragic story, which I now present for the reader to contemplate and understand in full, the meaning and relevance for all of us being something that the legend reveals, but which will be of either greater or lesser importance depending on the person. Many times all throughout my writings, I have hinted at, or spoken of, moments when I was overcome by such absolute loneliness... how I was forced to overcome the devil within because of it. However, I now do stand triumphant over that very dark inner force, which we all both possess...and are possessed by. But Cthonia was one not so strong as I. She chose to embrace that devil...and become it. Consider this what you will; a morality tale, a horror story, a gothic legend… it is true, all of it, as surely as Lucifer's expulsion from Heaven was. And there are things to be revealed in this tale, which are dark, secret, and filled with mysteries of a sacred and divine nature. Let us begin, thusly, the telling, and so by doing let us go back to another world and a past time.
Chapter One:
1. It was a perfect day as usual, on the pale and pleasant meadow that occupied the outskirts of the great paradise-like valley known as Vale Nocturna, framed by the mighty azure-hued mountains that so ringed and enclosed it on all of its’ sides. The world, on which this place existed, was not so very much unlike the Earth that you dear reader may know... in almost all respects... though it was greatly larger and vastly older by far than the Earth is: even now. The highest of all the heavens, contained many such worlds. One may best consider this one, to have been a retreat of sorts from those few difficulties that came with the Angelic lifestyle. It was to get away from it all, in the very literal sense, that one solitary Seraph came to Vale Nocturna on the day known as Samhain's Awakening. Many said it portended an ill omen, but Cthonia never listened much to omens. She had come on this day in particular, for a singular purpose: to rouse the spirit of one beloved to her, lost all these many years... and she would verily pay any cost... just to speak with that one again. For longing as intense as she felt, can drive a soul to madness, horror, and even death itself. She had dabbled in dark forces before, and they had ingrained themselves in her with a powerful intensity that even she could not have anticipated! The mortal's name was Sarthonicus... a strange rarity amongst those worlds at that time, since many angels had not yet been to the Earth… nor had God created aught there on Earth save whatever indigenous life forms happened to exist prior to the rise of sentient beings on that planet. However, Sarthonicus was even more rare, for he… or mayhap she being a better term for what that being was… had been created by the Dragon Goddess of Chaos, Tiamat, to serve as the vessel for her fallen (some say adopted) child Kingu's spirit and soul. Though Kingu was a title as much as a name, and whichever of her children, adopted or otherwise, it was whom this individual had been… all that was known was that Sarthonicus was the inheritor of the Draconic legacy begun firstly by the Dragon Goddess in times ancient even in that ancient time. But though her soul was immortal, and that of a greater god (or goddess) besides...her mortal body would one day die. And so it came to pass, that the tragic love that existed between Sarthonicus and Cthonia would damn both... for naught damns one quite so certainly and fatally as love that is lost. And so this came to be, that the divine hermaphrodite Sarthonicus had been made imperfect by having been made mortal and thus able to age and die as time went on… and Cthonia could not bear the loss of one who had been so beautiful and tender to her, and so dear unto her now broken and coldly shattered heart.
You may wonder how it is I came to learn of these things. I did not come to learn of them. Rather, I lived them, for I was Sarthonicus. I suppose I still am, though much has changed me over the centuries of my many reincarnations. However... I shall speak of that which I was in those days in the most totally detached manner possible, in the third person... that the story may be told in a more traditional manner. Therefore, on this occasion, I will serve as but the humble storyteller so that you, dear reader, may hear this, my tale! Whether you choose to accept what I shall here tell you as truth or something other is for you alone to decide, for yourself.
Sarthonicus loved Cthonia beyond all reason, but her love for that being was beyond sanity. In Vale Nocturna, there was a certain small field of snow-white roses that bloomed only in the autumn. Not anywhere else in the whole of the universe was there ever such a place as this, that thus existed naturally, and not due to some sorcery or other such outside force either magical or scientific. The day that Sathonicus died, old and content, in the arms of Cthonia, who was eternally young and in her prime... had fallen on Samhain's Awakening: that night when the roses bloomed to their fullest. Cthonia had buried the hermaphrodite’s body there, in the fair midst of that white ethereal grove, and she never to that site returned... not for six long years. Now, it was exactly that precise span of time unto the day, and she had returned to the place of her greatest sorrow, never knowing that in fact Sarthonicus was alive but elsewhere... reincarnated and waiting for Cthonia to come to her. Cthonia brought no one with her, but came alone to this lonely site. What she intended... required that degree of solitude and secrecy. For there are things one can be driven to do, in loneliness and in desperation, that even for one such as she would be considered evil. Was she evil? She was no longer certain, not at all.
Chapter Two:
2. Clad in a metallic gold jumpsuit, the angelic woman stood there, ornate dagger in hand, as the chill wind of autumn whipped through her waist-length black hair. She looked up at the moons so high above...three small moons. They were called the Young Maiden, the Great Mother, and the Old Crone. Each shared a single orbit around the world where Vale Nocturna did lie...and it was said that upon this night of the year only, the necromantic arts were given a boost in power by the moons' influence. As the pale light of them shone down fast upon Cthonia's pale skin, she seemed a thing entirely of silver and gold, and not of flesh at all. Her eyes, completely ruby red themselves, glowed even brighter than usual. Crickets had been chirping throughout most of the evening, until the first time Cthonia spoke. Then it was, astoundingly, that they ceased. Her voice was strong and commanding, but lovely... "As this Season of Death comes only to die, with spring it shall be so... I command the elements to hear my cry, and let the most chill winds blow!" With this, the winds became increasingly more and more terrific in their intensity. "Season of Death, loose thy bonds... and let slip of thy embrace the soul of my dearest Sarthonicus! Season of Death, I fear no thing of thy own, behold I stand amongst the roses that mark the grave where lies her sad bones… so let slip of thy embrace the soul of my dearest Sarthonicus! What say ye of it?" And thereupon did a hollow voice seem to carry on the wind... "I say the nay...I say thee nay...blood is ours to keep, and so the dead must ever sleep. Until the scarlet stuff of life doth seep into this soil, thy toil is in vain. A mockery it thusly makes of even thy most profound pain!" She had spoken not a single word to anyone since the hermaphrodite died. Now her first words in that long time were wasted. What was left of her mind snapped in that hour, she grew angry, she grew impatient, and she grew desperate beyond a tolerable measure. "So, ye want of blood do ye? Ye want of blood, do ye! Fine then, I shall give thee blood… here, take my very life itself if that is what it takes...but let me be with my beloved once more and not alone in my fierce melancholy!" A slash across her left palm, for she held the dagger in her right, let loose a stream of dark red blood that fell upon a single white rose, turning it a crimson... she let her blood fall upon another, and another... until soon, all the flowers of that garden were white no longer, but red. The hollow voice rang out again only when this was done: "Ah, yes, blood sweet blood doth nourish us, but still I fear it is not enough..." She thence screamed a loud and inhuman sound so shrill that it seemed more animal than angelic... soon she collapsed in the midst of the roses, and wept pitifully, sobbing without ceasing until well near midnight. "They took her from me... the gods took her away... I said to my mother and father: please, please let me at least keep something of her that I might be consoled, but nay, nay...only her lifeless body was left for me, to bury. How I wish I had been buried with you, my love, that as ye rot I might choke and give up my last breath to be with thee...oh gods thou art cruel to bind a god or goddess to mortality, whilst her lover must last forever! I will not move from this spot until we are reunited, this I swear to the Maker..." And some voice in the darkness, watching, waiting, heard her earnest plea. And so Cthonia, sad and melancholy beyond any remedy, sat there in the grove for all of a hundred years, weeping insanely and incessantly. Angels need not any sustenance to live unless they are bound in a mortal body, but without love they do fall into a kind of illness. This illness affected all around her...the trees of that old grove where the roses bloomed above Sarthonicus' final resting place became warped and very twisted. And no matter how hard it rained...the flowers which never again died remained as red as the blood that had changed them. One day, one of Cthonia's sister angels came to see what had become of her at last, for it was quite feared that she had taken her own life in despair… for even immortal and eternal beings may still die in body, even if their soul lives on in mayhap another body, in another life. Yet there she was, almost a creature of the wild...like unto a watchful pet that so never gave up the vigil for its’ master or mistress. Her sister so looked upon her, and wept bitterly for it. To see a once proud, elegant, and dignified individual reduced to a level nigh unto insensible savagery was too much for her! But there are moments when it is unwise to tempt fate, and to assume that one lost to us for ages would still be the same upon reuniting with us. It is not always so easy. Could some semblance of civility possibly exist within the wild woman Cthonia had become? Her sister was bound and determined to reach her… no matter what.
Chapter Three:
3. "Come home, dear sister, please! This is far too morbid and cruel...oh look at thee, at thy face and thy form, so pale, gaunt, and feral to behold. Thy eyes, once so beautiful, have sunken into dark hollows that hide their light... thy lovely hair so wild and unkempt! Come home, oh my sister, come home." And Cthonia growled at her sister, saying almost unintelligibly... "My home was always with Sarthonicus, and ye sold all of her belongings...leaving nothing at all for me to remember her by. I have no home, now! I HAVE NO HOME, NOW!" And so all Cthonia could do was scream and scream, unceasingly. Weeping, unceasingly. Soon it was her sister could stand no more. She walked over to console Cthonia, to apologize for any wrong her sister could name. But it was too late... it was far, far too late for that now. Cthonia seized her sister by the hair... and she put her ancient, bloodstained dagger up unto her fearful sibling's neck. "We are alike in appearance, but not in spirit, dear 'sister mine'." Thus spoke Cthonia in a hissing voice like unto a demonic snake. She inserted the two-pronged blade in, into her sister's neck, licking up the blood that flowed from the terrible puncture wounds. The last words out of the mouth of Cthonia's sister, before she died piteously, were a strangled "I'm sorry!" "Is this enough blood for you now?" Cthonia cried out to the winds that had now come in a force terrible enough to shake the trees themselves all about. Her mouth and hands so were covered in her sister's blood: whom she lay down on the exact spot that marked the place of Sathonicus' body in the earthen soil below. The evil dagger... was still in her hands. "Is this enough, now that Sarthonicus hath a proper marker to show where her form doth lie... is it not enough, is it not enough, oh gods and spirits above?" She sobbed out every word of which she spoke, all her emotions finally beyond even her ability to control. "Is it, is it? Ha, ha, ha, ha... is this enough for ye now, is it now? Ha, ha, ha, ha..." And the hollowly inhuman sound that spoke on the winds echoed: "Nay, it is not enough. Look what thou hast done, child... look upon thy sister... who now slumbers with thy beloved, where thy place should be! Tell me, Cthonia, what IS truly enough to right THIS wrong? Hmmm?" And the wind seemed only to laugh and to mock her, and mock her, and mock her some more. Angels in their highest celestial forms may not ever die by many means that would slay anyone else. But should one angel slay another, they will die indeed as mortal and human a death as any man or woman so born may suffer. Ah, unless the soul is retrieved immediately and the body tended to at once... so that both may be reunited… the angel is thereafter lost to death. And so, the fate of Cthonia and her sister were now sealed, for look at what next transpired on that day of horrible grief, and mad desperation: "Ironic, is it not?" The fell winds mocked: "That here Sarthonicus died in thy arms... and now thy sister so passed as well... yet this time it was thy hand that brought death to the place of the roses! Why have the roses not faded in color, Cthonia? Why are they still red...so long since..." And she looked down to behold: her sister's skeletal remains staring up at her. So long since she killed her for nothing... how many years now, had it been? "I am mad!" Cthonia screamed... "I am truly mad! Ha, ha, ha, ha... I AM TRULY MAD!" And the wind thusly mocked her no more, for all was silent. She took the dagger and brought it up to her chest as if ready to plunge it into her left breast. This she did, but she died not, deep though that wound was... for the blade, not as she hoped, struck bone. She withdrew it and plunged it into her own neck... on the right side... exactly as her sister passed into death by her hand. "There! It now is enough, is it not? Now it is, it is... " And so Cthonia died that night, that black and moonless evening. The tragedy went unrecorded by the histories of that era... none knew. Not one person, other than her now slain sister... had ever loved her enough, to come to see where she had gone. Seven hundred years passed in this way... and at last another beautiful Seraph so stumbled upon the place. Its’ name was Dracus, and it was in fact Sarthonicus reborn. Dracus was a divine hermaphrodite, but this time created in an immortal and eternal image like all the angels and gods and goddesses were. For whatever hand had first fashioned that being’s soul, had learned from the mistakes of having made it mortal in the past… though in time, it would be mortal again, for time flows in cycles and that which is angel… if it falls… can become mortal and human. And so Cthonia’s irony was worsened.
Chapter Four:
4. "My beloved…I have waited for thee too long..." Dracus said. "Why have none come to this place in all this time… why was thy once-beautiful form untended to!" She wept to see the bones of the two sisters draped across her own grave. "Why did ye not wait to act so rashly, oh my love, my love?" All the flowers were dead. All the trees had lost all their leaves. Dracus cast a loving hand to caress the dead form of Cthonia... "I will seek ye out, my love, even after I bury thee and thy sister's remains. I will seek ye out, even I must do so in Hell itself... " And so two graves were dug on either side of Sarthonicus' own. When the morbid duty so was accomplished thus, the flowers so at last began to bloom again. Red roses, not white. To this day... red roses bloom on many worlds throughout Creation, and are oft known as the flowers of love. How many remember why this is so... and why one cannot receive a rose from a loved one without weeping? But I recall all of this... for I was there. I, who was Sarthonicus and Dracus, was there. As I am here, relating these events for all to hear. Indeed Dracus' journey took her into Hell, where her beloved awaited rebirth with her sister. "I remember when I passed this way!" Dracus thought...as she made her way through a great number of dark tunnels and caverns beyond counting. Wraiths and specters passed for her, and things more frightful still. This part of Hell: was ruled by none...and soon it gave way to more civilized regions where subterranean gardens grow beneath a perfectly beautiful sky that is only an illusion. Here, there is an infernal counterpart to the Vale Nocturna... where the souls of the two sisters awaited the coming of the one who now came to see of what had occurred to their souls. Dracus approached them, and Cthonia knew at once it was Sarthonicus, only younger. Eternally young, for so long the hermaphrodite’s soul remained in Seraph form. "Oh my love, ye have returned... I knew when the gods roused me from death's cold slumber and restored my sister to life that thou wouldst follow not long after! Come, It hath been so long and much hath been sacrificed... come, and embrace me as so thou didst of old!" But Dracus corrected her and replied thusly: "I cannot, my love, for should the living embrace the dead none too carefully, they so might join them. Gods, as it hurts me, I cannot!" And the hermaphrodite’s heart broke bitterly, to tell Cthonia of this. Cthonia's high spirits fell, when reality sank in. "Oh, then we are truly lost, for this can only be the Netherworld... art thou then some devil come to torment me for my crime... in the form of the one I loved, and love still, the most?" Dracus could not choke back of the tears... they came no matter her will. "Nay, it is I. I am here to help thee become now reborn, and thy sister too if she wishes it... for Death hath had thee both long enough due to my passing. I feel as if the fault were mine, and so by this I am intending to be absolved of any sins associated with this on my part." Cthonia alighted at this, and was well pleased. "Tell me, what is the hope for my new return, and that of my poor sister... hast thou spoken to they who reign over this realm?" Dracus looked even sadder now. "Aye, that is how I so came to know of this place. But the cost will be terrible, for all of us, if I fail." And Dracus told of her meeting with Lucifer, and how the two had struck a bargain. "If ye can find a single soul in this place, who is willing to sacrifice even a part of his or herself so that Cthonia can live again, then thus do ye have my blessing that it be so... however, failing that, the sacrifice must be of thee thyself alone, Dracus, and none other." Thusly the words of Lucifer were related so that Cthonia could know of her love's peril. A dark mood had come upon the three, just then. Cthonia's sister seemed taken aback in fear. "If this be Hell, who so shall we find that is willing to be that selfless? Other than the nobility of the Infernal Aristocracy, and the few chosen to dwell with them in the Dark Paradise, we are dealing only with the Damned!" But Cthonia would not be so shaken..." Mayhap there are others like unto us sister, and they might be willing to lend aid to our sad plight? If not... I do not know what it means." And there was a silence that came upon all of Hell at that point, and it is said that even the Damned, in their torments, were robbed of their ability even to cry out or shriek, for they wept at the prospect of this divine tragedy taking place in their midst. And it reminded some of them mayhap of what tragedies befell to land them in perdition rather than some paradise of more fair beauty and more deserving glory. Only the most evil of them, were not thus moved!
Chapter Five:
5. It is said that in Hell, everyone weeps yet no one cares. This is because the souls there either enjoy unspeakable pleasures, or unspeakable agonies. Either way, they oft remain to the largest extent oblivious of anything not pertaining to their own state of being. And so, the three who journeyed the length and breadth of the Netherworld came to see their quest as doomed from the onset. For of all the souls encountered, not one would so help. At last, Dracus was forced to make a terrible choice... either: to sacrifice of herself, or to lose her beloved Cthonia to Hell forever. There never really was any choice, and soon it was that she and the two sisters gathered before the throne of Lucifer Herself, and knelt in the most pious devotion before that first and brightest star of all Her kind. She was fair, such fairness as one may imagine in the most: lovely paintings of angels... and She was eternally a child, like unto a little girl by all appearances, for that was Her favorite form to assume, one of purest innocence and perfect grace. Her eyes...were like sapphires; and her lips were as red as blood. Six wings made of light had sprouted from Her back, and the circlet She wore to hold back Her pale, almost silvery hair, from her face was decorated with a single emerald jewel. Clad in a soft metallic silver jumpsuit, much like unto the gold one that was favored by Cthonia, the Infernal Child walked up to Dracus and lovingly cupped her head in Her small, delicate hands... "Ye know what this means... ye do remember our agreement!" And Dracus nodded in assent. "Good, dear, drear Dracus... or should I say Kingu, hmm?" "Call me what thou wilt, my other half of my soul… of long ago... for I am thy own kindred as much now as ever." with those words, Dracus let Lucifer know that little had changed between them over all the many thousands of years and dozens of lifetimes since last they met in this way. A part of her so still burned to be united with Lucifer, for that lost part of her soul to be united with Dracus’ own… and She who was called Lucifer felt the same way about Dracus. It thusly could not ever be other than so, for they were one from the first hour of Dracus’ first creation so long ago, even though she now loved Cthonia and that love occupied all of her reason at that time. So a sweet smile broke out across the girl Archangel's face... "Why didst thou ever leave my side and go into the planes above; did ye think to find there a greater rapture than we had known when she shared one body, one flesh?" Dracus seemed moody and saddened just then. "There is yet room in my heart... for Heaven and Hell, in equal measure." Lucifer kissed Dracus then, and that kiss was as much a thing of passionate fire as Hell itself was. It was not though a lover’s kiss, but something of kissing oneself, if such a thing could be done. "Now, then..." She all but sang, in her soft and lilting, almost musical, voice. "How to begin this thing, as it will not be easy to perform!" She walked on over to just beneath Her throne, and thus beckoned Dracus to follow Her and kneel before Her there. "One last time, I will ask thee... do ye want this? Are ye certain!" One somber "Aye" was all that was required. It seemed that single word echoed like unto a chorus of many voices... throughout the palace of the Daughter of Morning. The columns that rose on either side of the throne shook to their foundations of it, but remained strong. "There is power in this moment." Lucifer said. "I accept thy willingness, and bless thee in it. The pain of what is to follow will be exquisite, but the pleasure too will be so. Prepare thyself as never before, for ere this night is over ye may wish that 'Nay' had been thy reply rather than ‘Aye’!" And She brought a terrible-looking knife out from behind Her throne. Its’ blade so was curved back, and on that backside were rows of serrated teeth like a saw. The whole of it was made of some dark, black metal like nothing that exists on Earthlike worlds. So wicked was this blade, that seeing it Cthonia nearly fainted dead away. "So… let us begin..." Lucifer whispered, and came towards Dracus. What was to follow... was a ghastly thing. Gods, angels, and spirits, in their purest forms do not feel anything of pain in the same way as Mortals do. Even still, Dracus let out a scream that all of Hell heard and fell fully silent before, silent for the second time in all of that era. Not because of any physical pain was that scream uttered, but because Lucifer's knife somehow so cut into Dracus’ spirit as well as her flesh. Spirit is ever a kind of energy, and like energy, it so can replenish. However, it is a thousand times more sensitive than the body. So imagine this! Imagine sensitivity beyond all of the nerve endings in the mortal human body! Like electricity it is, only more intense, more volatile, and more terrifying a force… for it is the true us that such energy comprises.
Chapter Six:
6. Imagine, what Dracus felt... when half of all her Seraphic skin... on the right side of her body, was sliced away. Had any other blade done the deed, she would have felt nothing of it at all, but this was no ordinary blade. What was cut from her was not flesh alone, but a good half of her entire spiritual energy! In time, both body and soul would recover and so heal. With a Seraph in the purest form…the healing is so even faster...but not less painful. For though it is the body that aches a mortal, it is that which lies within it that pains more spiritual creatures when agony comes upon them. Dracus' agony was never thus matched, in all of Hell in that era. Lucifer took the half-skin She had cut away...and waited until all had repaired itself on Dracus, before She stepped over to Cthonia and began to remove all of her skin of the right side of the body that she had been given to inhabit. (Which had as been made to appear so identical to how Cthonia looked in life; that she, even like unto Dracus, felt every facet of the nigh-unbearable pain.) What kept them sane throughout this torture? It was because the demonic knife made part of their senses register pleasure like none ever encountered before by beings living or dead, that they remained fully lucid and yet detached from the agony at the same time. During all of this, Cthonia's sister had so closed her eyes; and knew an uncontrollable dread for all of them. "Why is this necessary, Lucifer?" she cried, "What is the purpose to this barbaric deed!" Lucifer did not wait for Cthonia's body to heal, as She had Dracus. Instead, She so slid Dracus’ right-half skin over the exposed bloody mess that Cthonia's own right side had thusly become. Then it was that She cut her own palm and sealed the seam where both met using Her blood. As Cthonia began to heal, the living skin of Dracus combined with the living blood of Lucifer to restore all that was dead in Cthonia to full life once more. But soon it was that Dracus’ skin... now hers... darkened on the right side when it transformed into a more perfect likeness of Cthonia’s features. The result was that Cthonia looked like a healthy Seraph in that side of her body, which was the left... but on the right side, it seemed like: a woman who had been mummified and yet lived. All excess traces of health and life had shed themselves of the right side, like snakeskin... never to return. Cthonia's sister looked in horror at this... Dracus noticed that the bloody neck-wound scars on both women, which had looked so like unto the fangs of some terrible monster until now, healed completely. For when it so came to pass that Cthonia had tasted her sister's blood, they were in that hour thusly linked. In that way, both were restored to life, but Cthonia's deformity would forever remain, as punishment for the final sins she committed in her sibling's murder and her own suicide. Lucifer then took the right-half skin of Cthonia, which had been removed for Dracus' skin to be attached as told previously... and what was shed from that... and burned them in a brazier of hot coals until they were ashes. These, She mixed with wax and made a black candle from. This, she brought over to Cthonia's naked back, and let some of the hot wax drip down unto her skin therefore. More and more... until the wax formed a pattern: like wings. This done, Lucifer once again applied Her own blood. And the diabolical wax meshed with the skin, transformed... as two lumps formed beneath the flesh. These lumps burst, spraying blood everywhere as two great black and feathery wings emerged from out of Cthonia's back in those exact locations. Her sister vomited at last, Dracus appeared transfixed and unable to look away. All of Cthonia's teeth then grew into sharp fangs, and this terrible Seraph who seemed half-living and half-dead was now complete. However... this was not yet the end of it all. Only one thing remained... and that was for Lucifer to send them all home. As a great sleepiness fell upon the three who had been thus changed for all eternities to come... and a black and potent dreamlessness stole their senses away... the last they saw or heard, was Lucifer's smiling face and the words: "Thy sacrifice is accepted, my Children! Live, not as before. But know, Dracus, that one day in payment for this, I shall unite with my soul and we shall be one once again, in a single body! For I must have my due.” And so was a prophecy uttered by Lucifer, and thus was Dracus bound by that prophecy, through life after life, form after form, until one day the Eternal Child would become apart of Dracus’ own soul, thus restoring both beings to what they had been once in the dawn of all time, when they together were called Mara and Maya. The memory of having been this being haunted Dracus, and one day… the Eternal Child would, through Dracus, live again. For such beings can never die!
Chapter Seven:
7. Dracus was the first to awaken in her coffin, terrified and clawing at the wood. She then calmed herself and centered her thoughts on the field of roses above, on that little garden. Her body became mist, and she floated up and was there. Sitting up, she saw that she so was alone. Her memory of what had come before came only in flashes. Out of it, she came thus to think: that she had died of old age, a mortal, in the arms of her beloved Cthonia. She was called Sarthonicus, but yet also Dracus? Aye...and so Dracus she was, but mortal no longer... was she ever truly so? For behold... her body had become young again... and almost like an angel in its’ appearance. Cthonia's sister formed from mist next, from her grave. Sarthonicus then shared many pleasant hours of conversation with her, ever slightly confused though both were. "Gods, what is this thirst I feel in my throat? I am so parched!" the sister complained. Sarthonicus so made similar complaint. "It is almost like a hunger." she commented. Suddenly, the thing that Cthonia had become tore its’ way out of the earth next to them. No subtle misty form for her... only brute force would do. The now-empty grave proved that these were indeed their bones given new flesh and new life... no mere ghosts in some shadowy afterlife. Dracus was terrified: by the pale-skinned, black-feather-winged fiend with the mouthful of fangs, calling itself by the name of Cthonia. Though half her skin appeared shriveled and black, the eyes and the dark hair betrayed her for who she was, and soon quelled all their fears. Most Angelic Races have not wings as such. The projections of light that they can will to spring from their backs are like unto Lucifer's "wings", as they appear in this legend... manifestations of spiritual energy from within. Actual wings of any kind... are usually the result of some powerful sorcery or science used to fashion them. This is not all that uncommon on certain worlds in the universe. Then… Cthonia spoke to them to tell more than her name... "I thirst..." She growled in the most feral way imaginable. "I thirst, for blood!" And each time she said: "thirst", it so hissed like unto a snake. A brief flash of memory... of a bloody deed, and dark madness... as it came to pass that full memory returned to the three. However, what lucidness Cthonia so was granted in Death's kingdom, lost all effect in the world of the living. She was thusly as insane as when she had taken her sister's life, though now that her love lived again it all was: a madness without direction. But not for long! It was midnight, and a rare mortal so had stumbled upon the place of the red roses in Vale Nocturna. Cthonia fell upon him to slake her thirst. Unable to control their own urges, Dracus and Cthonia's sister fell upon the hapless victim in no less fierce a fashion. Soon, the man was dead and they were so left to contemplate what they had become. Lucifer had so birthed a new class of fallen angels. In that moment... those three Great Races of the Vampire were born. Cthonia, and her sister whose name I may reveal at last to have been Nosfera, became the twin mothers of they who in the lore of far later years would come to be called: the Cthonians and the Nosferatu, respectively. Dracus became the father as well as the mother of the Draculai, and each ever believed in a wholly different philosophy. It was thus bound to soon come to pass, that all of their as yet future-born descendants... would pursue like philosophies to their great ancestral trinity. Cthonians so were creatures of the darkest regions of the Netherworld in all ways. Preferring the company of Demons... these fell beings were content to live apart from Angels, or even Humans, save when bloodlust called them to prey. They so were the most terrible, of all things to ever walk the night. But what of the other two races? The Nosferatu... were the opposite of the Cthonians in all of their ways. They so delighted in the company of Angels, tried to fit in with Humans as much as possible, and found the fellowship of Demons to often be less than is tolerable. Now the Draculai, are more difficult to speak of... for they had walked the fine line that did exist between the extreme ways of thinking pursued by the other two. Those who ponder the nature of these creatures of the night, might oft wonder if they be good, though misguided, beings… or wholly evil. Since Lucifer was their maker, they are like unto Her in their natures: dual. Being both good and evil, and having the capacity for light or darkness in their beings equally. Thusly, are more oft than not, the facts being that Vampires are civilized creatures, unlike Lycanthropes or Demons. Cthonia, however, was as terrible as any Demon could ever be! So terrible was she, that she was given her own regions of the Great Below to rule and they called it Helheim, and she was named Hel, its’ cold, sovereign goddess. But this reward was given unto her only after the flight below which the Vampire Trinity decided upon, for none in the realms above would be willing to accept them.
Chapter Eight.
8. Following that first night, the Vampire Trinity fled deep into the Netherworld, where it was hoped they could live undisturbed and without fearing, or being feared by anyone. In time, however, Dracus grew lonely for the companionship of the gods, and so by guileful craft ensnared a single goddess to come below, that her new kingdom might have a queen. So: Ereshkigal was the first to become a Draculai Vampire, there in the Netherworld realm of Kur, and though she was firstly a Sky Goddess and a Daughter of Heaven... Hell became thus her home. Here, is the tale of her seduction, in brief. One day, the goddess of spring and sky, Ereshkigal, was out picking flowers in the Elysian Meadows of the Netherworld. The Dragon of Kur, so saw her, fell in love with her, and vowed to make her queen of the Dragon’s kingdom... for Dracus was lonely, since the hour when she abandoned her fellow gods to dwell in the Netherworld below. This you may have heard tell of in myths and legends. Here, is what is not commonly known: that the Dragon seized her and so swept her up upon a dark chariot, carrying her off and down into the deepest regions of Hell... but not against her will. She was seduced by Dracus’ hypnotic charm, and begged the Dragon to show her the glories of the Vampires’ kingdom; for by Dracus’ dress she knew the Dragon to be a queen of the regions below. This was done. By Dracus’ charm, Ereshkigal was drawn deeper below still... until at last she found herself in a place so known as the Land of No Return: Kur-Nug-Ieya, in the Ancient Tongues. There, she was told to make a choice: either, to choose Heaven and depart at once for the worlds above, or to eat of the fruit of the pomegranates that grew in Kur, and remain there forever. So a choice was made, and Ereshkigal ate of the fruit. However, winter would not end in those many universes beyond Hell's bounds, for spring had been conquered. Soon, the gods all began to grow angry, and prepared to reclaim their lost daughter by force if need be, to so end the unnatural cold. But they sent word of their displeasure to Kur, and soon it was for the Dragon to hatch her plan... for she had prepared a very special pomegranate, one with a fruit containing not it's own red juices, but a certain quantity of her own blood. Behold ye, for it came to pass that Ereshkigal was bid to take the pomegranate of blood, and hold it in her hands until a certain moment had come. It was prepared for her to eat of... and thus she held it as commanded. Then, the Dragon bit her upon the neck... enough to draw a bit of blood but not to kill her... and in this way Dracus tasted of her life and told her to taste then of Dracus’ own by eating of the Pomegranate of blood. This she did... and seemed to die of it, falling into a dreamless slumber. When she awoke from it, she seemed more alive than she ever was before. Dracus sent her back to the gods, and spring returned. However, when it came the time of the year for winter to return, she lapsed into the deathlike trance once more. A call was so sent out for a cure, but none could be found. It seemed as though Ereshkigal had died. But one day, a hermaphroditic being calling itself Kutulu, but which the gods called Hecate in their tongue, arrived in the courts of the gods. Kutulu, or Hecate, was in fact the Dragon in one of her many forms, come to the assembly hall of the gods, in their great golden palace that yet existed in those days on the ancient world of Kolob, or Kobol, the planet nearest to the highest of Heaven’s glories. There, amongst the gods, the fallen goddess Ereshgkigal whom everyone believed to be dead had been laid in a coffin of glass. This... because her corpse rotted not! Kutulu went unto the coffin and flung open the lid. Everyone could only stare, sickened, when she then kissed the dead goddess’s cold lips. Then did Ereshgkigal’s eyes open, her breath returned, and she lived. Kutulu so then told her fellow gods and goddesses a cunning lie... that when she was in the Netherworld, Ereshkigal did eat of a poisonous plant, whose fluid would course in her veins now forever. She himself, she told them, was immune to this plant and possessed a temporary cure... and so... every year when winter brought it on Ereshkigal to lapse thus, she would come to take the poisoned goddess back, below. For there, she claimed, was the only place where Ereshkigal could dwell during that season... and not be afflicted so. It was agreed to... and so it remained, until a new goddess of spring so was crowned... Geshtar, also known as Geshtinanna, was chosen for this honor. Now... at last… Ereshkigal could remain a queen of the Netherword, beloved of the Dragon forever. However, one day, Ereshkigal made the mistake of falling into one of the rivers of the Netherworld, and her spirit was torn from its’ body. It then merged with Dracus’ soul, and the two became a single being, which took on the name Ganzir. And Ganzir reigned in Hell as a solitary queen for many an age.
Chapter Nine:
9. Of course... in time... the "Dragon of Kur" journeyed above, to dwell with all the gods for a while. Prior this time, Ganzir had tasted of the blood of Cthonia, and thus became also the first Cthonian Vampire in addition to having been the first Draculai Vampire. Thereafter, Nosfera fled the Netherworld to dwell in the Mortal Realms and it was about this time that the god of war, Nergal, rose to prominence in the assemblies of the gods. In between all this, here and there, he had ventured below, into the kingdom of Ganzir, and there he did dally with the terrible queen in the paradise-like gardens that graced her palace. But, never did he suspect what she was daily becoming. However... on the occasion of her journey back to dwell with the gods... Ganzir had fully embraced the Cthonian madness, and was so determined to rule Kur alone and with no rivals, that it became an obsession of hers. What she did not expect: was when Nergal followed her back to Hell and took her by the hair and dragged her from her infernal throne, which he so sat down upon with his queen draped over his lap. He vowed to share every tiny bit of his vast kingdoms in the heavens with her so she would be welcome there once more and not feared as she had been up until now, but only if Ganzir then and there agreed to forever recognize him as her equal in all within the realms of the Netherworld... for sensing the old Cthonian blood about her... Nergal was afraid, but determined that she be tamed to a certain extent. It was a gamble, but one that did pay off... for seeing his words as a compliment and testament to her own power, Ganzir felt flattered by his offer, and far less shamed and angered by his rough treatment of her than anyone might have expected. She thought to herself: if he did not fear me, he would have killed me. He thought to himself: if she did not fear me, I would be dead by her hand. And so it came to pass... that a dark order of sorts had been established in the Vampire Realms...a reign, of powerful equals. Thusly the god of war became the god of the Netherworld, called Hades by some, and many falsely attributed the seduction of Ereshkigal to him due to Ereshkigal having become one with Dracus in the form of Ganzir. The gods could not fathom how all this came to pass, so they put forth the story that made the most sense to them and allowed them to impose a patriarchal dominance over what had been a matriarchal act of seduction, the seduction of a goddess by the divine hermaphrodite. Over the countless millennia, the vampires of the Netherworld all became Cthonian... whilst all those above became Nosferatu. The Draculai who were the blood children of Ganzir and Nergal were all but forgotten, as they were in time absorbed into the ranks of the other two races. Even that most famous vampire in all the Ancient World, the fallen angel-turned-succubus Lilith, was a Cthonian. Even though many of the more ignorant scholars would have you believe that Cthonians were Demons simply because they were close to those beings in association, I say: by their standards all vampires could be termed so. What know scholars of the truth, they were not there as I so was! This brings us near unto the final point of this discourse... and the last phase of these histories. What happened to the Draculai... and indeed, to the Vampire Races as a whole? The Cthonians sealed themselves so much into their Netherworld Realm that they chose never to come into the Mortal Realm again unless summoned, or unless they needed to do such a thing as a diversion. In time, they became so indistinguishable from Demons that only one who had known them before would know them now, as I do. For one thing: Cthonians have no end of better manners than the best Demons. For another... they do tend to be far prettier in appearance! The Nosferatu, in the end, became in a similar likeness to either the wholly Angelic, Spiritual, or Human state of being. In these three various forms they are with us to this day... amongst all of these beings and inseparable from them at the same time. Ah, but what of the Draculai? Their numbers were split between the Cthonians and the Nosferatu as their pure bloodlines intermixed with the other two races over time. Those who became human have often left their mark upon History, as the old Dracul Family of Romania did. But what of Ganzir, you may wonder? That me of so long ago! Some scholars of mythical studies have put forth the notion that it is possible Ereshkigal and Ishtar were one and the same being, split into two separate beings by the gods as punishment for their combined pride. And so, when Ishtar descended into the Netherworld as recounted in the epic tale related elsewhere… and found Ganzir ruling where Ereshkigal had ruled before… Ishtar thought Ganzir to be Ereshkigal herself, and called her by name.
Chapter Ten:
10. Ganzir was, in fact, Ereshkigal, for the two had become one with the death of Ereshkigal’s body in the waters of the Netherworld. And so, the rivalry between Ishtar and Ereshkigal was shared by Ganzir and she… and whilst this is not the place to recount what transpired between them and why their rivalry existed at all… at the end of it, Ishtar was crucified unto death and the gods set about to secure her resurrection. And they succeeded, but only in raising her body! For something unknown to all, and not recounted in the tale of Ishtar’s descent into the Netherworld and of her resurrection, was the fact that her soul was torn from her body in the moment of that body’s death and it was bound together with the soul of her sister Ereshkigal in the body of Ganzir. So the spirit that was allowed to enter the body of Ishtar was none other than the spirit of the great goddess Sophia, the Empress of Heaven Herself, who reigned along as Queen of Heaven within Ishtar’s old body ever after… for Sophia’s original body has long since become pure energy, and thus She found Herself in need of a new one. There was a purpose and a reason, however, ordained by Sophia for all of what had up until that point transpired – for originally, Ereshkigal and Ishtar were not simply one being, but they were both aspects of Dracus’ soul that were separated from it when the being they had been originally… Mara, also known as Maya… had perished. It was only through the death of Sarthonicus, her rebirth as Dracus, and her union with Ereshkigal’s spirit as well as Ishtar’s… that Mara could be reborn fully rather than in part. For the soul can become segmented or fragmented upon death, if the death of a person is terrible enough or tragic enough to cause the soul to separate in this way! And this is how all the separate aspects of my soul came to be united once again. Ishtar, the warrior queen and goddess of love… Ereshkigal, the dark and terrible queen of darkness and death… but some have sensed within me the Eternal Child, and that it is the true me, the me at the very core of my being. And for that to be, the prophecy uttered by Lucifer long ago was necessitated to come to pass. And come to pass it did, with my birth in this life! Thusly are we come full circle, from the dawn of time to present times… and as you can see dear reader, the gods and goddesses of old walk amongst you, in many forms and guises. And I am one such, mortal and human though this body may be now. Ah...I can well understand how many gods-made-flesh in my position could become a bit mad from so much division of the various aspects of their souls in the writings of the Ancients. That is doubly why a work like this is so important for posterity! Not merely to set the record straight on personal matters, but so that the real truths as I have lived them can be preserved... for every future generation to learn from as their very ancestors never had the opportunity to. And so it is good. Will you look at the time! I have passed a night through just to relate all this. However, it was well worth it... since now, the true and secret history of the Vampires has been made known. Do I yet consider myself as one of them? No, for I have grown beyond that mode of being, and so evolved in a sense... unto a higher and more blessed state than I had known when so damned. That so does not make me in any way superior to my Cthonian brethren, who still do dwell in the realms beyond death. It just so means...that I have become something very different than they have. Of course, in autumn, when the leaves turn and the moon is full... and Samhain awakens... I breathe in the crisp air and I remember what it was like to walk the night with the night's own. And in spring, when on Earth the red roses bloom, I sometimes in the past had allowed myself to weep... for Cthonia, she who was the First Vampire. Today, some will look upon me and see that I am as much an ordinary seeming human as anyone else is, for it was into such forms that all of my kind: were cast in the end. I have related that tale elsewhere, however, and so this is not the place for that. Every fallen god or angel, every devil, and every "unholy" spirit clad in a mortal's flesh in ancient times, one day discovered that they were stuck that way, human, and had to live, die, and sometimes be reborn as mortals. Now we live, we die, and reincarnate anew, we who the ancestors of man once worshipped and revered as divine beings! I often think about Cthonia, alone with her kindred in the Netherworld. And it reminds me whence her name came from: before they were annihilated from the heavens... many of the sons and daughters of Tiamat called themselves Cthonians. It meant simply: "The people of the Netherworld." Ironic, is it not? How, in a way, there are twice my kindred. And so this tale is ended!
Based on some of my past-life memories and spiritual beliefs…
Prologue:
Some say that all goddesses are: one Goddess, and that She is the embodiment of the Divine Feminine in all things. Spiritually, this is true, because all goddesses are emanations of the Divine Force, which is: both God and Goddess. But certain emanations sometimes take on a life: of their own… and eventually, over time, come down amongst mankind as mortals. And just as Jesus Christ was an emanation of God, so are certain other individuals in reality emanations of the Goddess. I am one such emanation of the Goddess, and for a long time I fought against this aspect of my nature for I feared to embrace the heavy burden of it. But, just as I had to, in life, embrace my feminine nature mentally, emotionally, and physically, so too did I have to embrace my Divine Feminine nature in order to be spiritually whole and in harmony with the rest of me. Having embraced it at long last with all my heart, I was reminded of this short story I wrote years ago about how several aspects of my soul came to be separated from me in another life long ago, and how over the course of many lifetimes those aspects came to unite once again. This story also concerns certain beings that were affected by the events surrounding my soul’s unification. One such was Cthonia, the First Vampire. Every emanation of the Divine Force oft uses parables and stories to reveal things of a divine nature unto mortals, and so in this story I relate things of a similar sort. Things about Heaven, about Hell, about angelic and demonic beings, and things about humanity too! For humanity has much history to it before the cycles of history you know… and this tale goes back to a time before human history. A time before I was human, before I came to dwell in mortal flesh. But during one strange interval of time, I was mortal then too, and my death in that life… and my subsequent rebirth… caused all of the events which I shall presently relate, and just as I begin this with a prologue explaining things, so shall I end it with my words offering what explanations I can muster. For mortals do not often understand divine things easily! Even so, I shall endeavor to relate what I can, in as relatable of terms as can be invoked for such occasion. This is not a story of mortality, or of good or evil, nor even of light and dark… rather, it is a story of souls finding themselves. Discovering their true natures, evolving, becoming, and transcending. Sometimes for the better, sometimes for the worse! And so there are no heroes or villains in this story… only individuals and their lives. The heart of the story is: centered: around a loss which led to a bitter loneliness. Not my loss, nor my loneliness, but that of Cthonia. What she did because of her sorrow became the crux around which great and terrible events were to transpire, including the unification of my soul from a fragmented state to a complete one. She is neither the heroine nor the villain of this tale, merely the hub around which a greater wheel turns. A wheel with many spokes, and each spoke a destiny, a fate. She was not a weaver of those fates though for they did not originate with her… she was merely a catalyst for change. And so we must begin this story with loneliness. They say there is naught darker or more terrible in all of Creation itself! Loneliness. How it eats away at the foundations of the soul! No one should ever have to be alone. No one's soul should ever be in such danger, that we become ensnared thus by the beast within, losing our soul, and becoming a thing of absolute darkness; despising life, yet lusting for it...with a hunger that overwhelms even the living death in which one so damned walks. That was the fate of Cthonia... the first vampire in all of Creation. Here is her tragic story, which I now present for the reader to contemplate and understand in full, the meaning and relevance for all of us being something that the legend reveals, but which will be of either greater or lesser importance depending on the person. Many times all throughout my writings, I have hinted at, or spoken of, moments when I was overcome by such absolute loneliness... how I was forced to overcome the devil within because of it. However, I now do stand triumphant over that very dark inner force, which we all both possess...and are possessed by. But Cthonia was one not so strong as I. She chose to embrace that devil...and become it. Consider this what you will; a morality tale, a horror story, a gothic legend… it is true, all of it, as surely as Lucifer's expulsion from Heaven was. And there are things to be revealed in this tale, which are dark, secret, and filled with mysteries of a sacred and divine nature. Let us begin, thusly, the telling, and so by doing let us go back to another world and a past time.
Chapter One:
1. It was a perfect day as usual, on the pale and pleasant meadow that occupied the outskirts of the great paradise-like valley known as Vale Nocturna, framed by the mighty azure-hued mountains that so ringed and enclosed it on all of its’ sides. The world, on which this place existed, was not so very much unlike the Earth that you dear reader may know... in almost all respects... though it was greatly larger and vastly older by far than the Earth is: even now. The highest of all the heavens, contained many such worlds. One may best consider this one, to have been a retreat of sorts from those few difficulties that came with the Angelic lifestyle. It was to get away from it all, in the very literal sense, that one solitary Seraph came to Vale Nocturna on the day known as Samhain's Awakening. Many said it portended an ill omen, but Cthonia never listened much to omens. She had come on this day in particular, for a singular purpose: to rouse the spirit of one beloved to her, lost all these many years... and she would verily pay any cost... just to speak with that one again. For longing as intense as she felt, can drive a soul to madness, horror, and even death itself. She had dabbled in dark forces before, and they had ingrained themselves in her with a powerful intensity that even she could not have anticipated! The mortal's name was Sarthonicus... a strange rarity amongst those worlds at that time, since many angels had not yet been to the Earth… nor had God created aught there on Earth save whatever indigenous life forms happened to exist prior to the rise of sentient beings on that planet. However, Sarthonicus was even more rare, for he… or mayhap she being a better term for what that being was… had been created by the Dragon Goddess of Chaos, Tiamat, to serve as the vessel for her fallen (some say adopted) child Kingu's spirit and soul. Though Kingu was a title as much as a name, and whichever of her children, adopted or otherwise, it was whom this individual had been… all that was known was that Sarthonicus was the inheritor of the Draconic legacy begun firstly by the Dragon Goddess in times ancient even in that ancient time. But though her soul was immortal, and that of a greater god (or goddess) besides...her mortal body would one day die. And so it came to pass, that the tragic love that existed between Sarthonicus and Cthonia would damn both... for naught damns one quite so certainly and fatally as love that is lost. And so this came to be, that the divine hermaphrodite Sarthonicus had been made imperfect by having been made mortal and thus able to age and die as time went on… and Cthonia could not bear the loss of one who had been so beautiful and tender to her, and so dear unto her now broken and coldly shattered heart.
You may wonder how it is I came to learn of these things. I did not come to learn of them. Rather, I lived them, for I was Sarthonicus. I suppose I still am, though much has changed me over the centuries of my many reincarnations. However... I shall speak of that which I was in those days in the most totally detached manner possible, in the third person... that the story may be told in a more traditional manner. Therefore, on this occasion, I will serve as but the humble storyteller so that you, dear reader, may hear this, my tale! Whether you choose to accept what I shall here tell you as truth or something other is for you alone to decide, for yourself.
Sarthonicus loved Cthonia beyond all reason, but her love for that being was beyond sanity. In Vale Nocturna, there was a certain small field of snow-white roses that bloomed only in the autumn. Not anywhere else in the whole of the universe was there ever such a place as this, that thus existed naturally, and not due to some sorcery or other such outside force either magical or scientific. The day that Sathonicus died, old and content, in the arms of Cthonia, who was eternally young and in her prime... had fallen on Samhain's Awakening: that night when the roses bloomed to their fullest. Cthonia had buried the hermaphrodite’s body there, in the fair midst of that white ethereal grove, and she never to that site returned... not for six long years. Now, it was exactly that precise span of time unto the day, and she had returned to the place of her greatest sorrow, never knowing that in fact Sarthonicus was alive but elsewhere... reincarnated and waiting for Cthonia to come to her. Cthonia brought no one with her, but came alone to this lonely site. What she intended... required that degree of solitude and secrecy. For there are things one can be driven to do, in loneliness and in desperation, that even for one such as she would be considered evil. Was she evil? She was no longer certain, not at all.
Chapter Two:
2. Clad in a metallic gold jumpsuit, the angelic woman stood there, ornate dagger in hand, as the chill wind of autumn whipped through her waist-length black hair. She looked up at the moons so high above...three small moons. They were called the Young Maiden, the Great Mother, and the Old Crone. Each shared a single orbit around the world where Vale Nocturna did lie...and it was said that upon this night of the year only, the necromantic arts were given a boost in power by the moons' influence. As the pale light of them shone down fast upon Cthonia's pale skin, she seemed a thing entirely of silver and gold, and not of flesh at all. Her eyes, completely ruby red themselves, glowed even brighter than usual. Crickets had been chirping throughout most of the evening, until the first time Cthonia spoke. Then it was, astoundingly, that they ceased. Her voice was strong and commanding, but lovely... "As this Season of Death comes only to die, with spring it shall be so... I command the elements to hear my cry, and let the most chill winds blow!" With this, the winds became increasingly more and more terrific in their intensity. "Season of Death, loose thy bonds... and let slip of thy embrace the soul of my dearest Sarthonicus! Season of Death, I fear no thing of thy own, behold I stand amongst the roses that mark the grave where lies her sad bones… so let slip of thy embrace the soul of my dearest Sarthonicus! What say ye of it?" And thereupon did a hollow voice seem to carry on the wind... "I say the nay...I say thee nay...blood is ours to keep, and so the dead must ever sleep. Until the scarlet stuff of life doth seep into this soil, thy toil is in vain. A mockery it thusly makes of even thy most profound pain!" She had spoken not a single word to anyone since the hermaphrodite died. Now her first words in that long time were wasted. What was left of her mind snapped in that hour, she grew angry, she grew impatient, and she grew desperate beyond a tolerable measure. "So, ye want of blood do ye? Ye want of blood, do ye! Fine then, I shall give thee blood… here, take my very life itself if that is what it takes...but let me be with my beloved once more and not alone in my fierce melancholy!" A slash across her left palm, for she held the dagger in her right, let loose a stream of dark red blood that fell upon a single white rose, turning it a crimson... she let her blood fall upon another, and another... until soon, all the flowers of that garden were white no longer, but red. The hollow voice rang out again only when this was done: "Ah, yes, blood sweet blood doth nourish us, but still I fear it is not enough..." She thence screamed a loud and inhuman sound so shrill that it seemed more animal than angelic... soon she collapsed in the midst of the roses, and wept pitifully, sobbing without ceasing until well near midnight. "They took her from me... the gods took her away... I said to my mother and father: please, please let me at least keep something of her that I might be consoled, but nay, nay...only her lifeless body was left for me, to bury. How I wish I had been buried with you, my love, that as ye rot I might choke and give up my last breath to be with thee...oh gods thou art cruel to bind a god or goddess to mortality, whilst her lover must last forever! I will not move from this spot until we are reunited, this I swear to the Maker..." And some voice in the darkness, watching, waiting, heard her earnest plea. And so Cthonia, sad and melancholy beyond any remedy, sat there in the grove for all of a hundred years, weeping insanely and incessantly. Angels need not any sustenance to live unless they are bound in a mortal body, but without love they do fall into a kind of illness. This illness affected all around her...the trees of that old grove where the roses bloomed above Sarthonicus' final resting place became warped and very twisted. And no matter how hard it rained...the flowers which never again died remained as red as the blood that had changed them. One day, one of Cthonia's sister angels came to see what had become of her at last, for it was quite feared that she had taken her own life in despair… for even immortal and eternal beings may still die in body, even if their soul lives on in mayhap another body, in another life. Yet there she was, almost a creature of the wild...like unto a watchful pet that so never gave up the vigil for its’ master or mistress. Her sister so looked upon her, and wept bitterly for it. To see a once proud, elegant, and dignified individual reduced to a level nigh unto insensible savagery was too much for her! But there are moments when it is unwise to tempt fate, and to assume that one lost to us for ages would still be the same upon reuniting with us. It is not always so easy. Could some semblance of civility possibly exist within the wild woman Cthonia had become? Her sister was bound and determined to reach her… no matter what.
Chapter Three:
3. "Come home, dear sister, please! This is far too morbid and cruel...oh look at thee, at thy face and thy form, so pale, gaunt, and feral to behold. Thy eyes, once so beautiful, have sunken into dark hollows that hide their light... thy lovely hair so wild and unkempt! Come home, oh my sister, come home." And Cthonia growled at her sister, saying almost unintelligibly... "My home was always with Sarthonicus, and ye sold all of her belongings...leaving nothing at all for me to remember her by. I have no home, now! I HAVE NO HOME, NOW!" And so all Cthonia could do was scream and scream, unceasingly. Weeping, unceasingly. Soon it was her sister could stand no more. She walked over to console Cthonia, to apologize for any wrong her sister could name. But it was too late... it was far, far too late for that now. Cthonia seized her sister by the hair... and she put her ancient, bloodstained dagger up unto her fearful sibling's neck. "We are alike in appearance, but not in spirit, dear 'sister mine'." Thus spoke Cthonia in a hissing voice like unto a demonic snake. She inserted the two-pronged blade in, into her sister's neck, licking up the blood that flowed from the terrible puncture wounds. The last words out of the mouth of Cthonia's sister, before she died piteously, were a strangled "I'm sorry!" "Is this enough blood for you now?" Cthonia cried out to the winds that had now come in a force terrible enough to shake the trees themselves all about. Her mouth and hands so were covered in her sister's blood: whom she lay down on the exact spot that marked the place of Sathonicus' body in the earthen soil below. The evil dagger... was still in her hands. "Is this enough, now that Sarthonicus hath a proper marker to show where her form doth lie... is it not enough, is it not enough, oh gods and spirits above?" She sobbed out every word of which she spoke, all her emotions finally beyond even her ability to control. "Is it, is it? Ha, ha, ha, ha... is this enough for ye now, is it now? Ha, ha, ha, ha..." And the hollowly inhuman sound that spoke on the winds echoed: "Nay, it is not enough. Look what thou hast done, child... look upon thy sister... who now slumbers with thy beloved, where thy place should be! Tell me, Cthonia, what IS truly enough to right THIS wrong? Hmmm?" And the wind seemed only to laugh and to mock her, and mock her, and mock her some more. Angels in their highest celestial forms may not ever die by many means that would slay anyone else. But should one angel slay another, they will die indeed as mortal and human a death as any man or woman so born may suffer. Ah, unless the soul is retrieved immediately and the body tended to at once... so that both may be reunited… the angel is thereafter lost to death. And so, the fate of Cthonia and her sister were now sealed, for look at what next transpired on that day of horrible grief, and mad desperation: "Ironic, is it not?" The fell winds mocked: "That here Sarthonicus died in thy arms... and now thy sister so passed as well... yet this time it was thy hand that brought death to the place of the roses! Why have the roses not faded in color, Cthonia? Why are they still red...so long since..." And she looked down to behold: her sister's skeletal remains staring up at her. So long since she killed her for nothing... how many years now, had it been? "I am mad!" Cthonia screamed... "I am truly mad! Ha, ha, ha, ha... I AM TRULY MAD!" And the wind thusly mocked her no more, for all was silent. She took the dagger and brought it up to her chest as if ready to plunge it into her left breast. This she did, but she died not, deep though that wound was... for the blade, not as she hoped, struck bone. She withdrew it and plunged it into her own neck... on the right side... exactly as her sister passed into death by her hand. "There! It now is enough, is it not? Now it is, it is... " And so Cthonia died that night, that black and moonless evening. The tragedy went unrecorded by the histories of that era... none knew. Not one person, other than her now slain sister... had ever loved her enough, to come to see where she had gone. Seven hundred years passed in this way... and at last another beautiful Seraph so stumbled upon the place. Its’ name was Dracus, and it was in fact Sarthonicus reborn. Dracus was a divine hermaphrodite, but this time created in an immortal and eternal image like all the angels and gods and goddesses were. For whatever hand had first fashioned that being’s soul, had learned from the mistakes of having made it mortal in the past… though in time, it would be mortal again, for time flows in cycles and that which is angel… if it falls… can become mortal and human. And so Cthonia’s irony was worsened.
Chapter Four:
4. "My beloved…I have waited for thee too long..." Dracus said. "Why have none come to this place in all this time… why was thy once-beautiful form untended to!" She wept to see the bones of the two sisters draped across her own grave. "Why did ye not wait to act so rashly, oh my love, my love?" All the flowers were dead. All the trees had lost all their leaves. Dracus cast a loving hand to caress the dead form of Cthonia... "I will seek ye out, my love, even after I bury thee and thy sister's remains. I will seek ye out, even I must do so in Hell itself... " And so two graves were dug on either side of Sarthonicus' own. When the morbid duty so was accomplished thus, the flowers so at last began to bloom again. Red roses, not white. To this day... red roses bloom on many worlds throughout Creation, and are oft known as the flowers of love. How many remember why this is so... and why one cannot receive a rose from a loved one without weeping? But I recall all of this... for I was there. I, who was Sarthonicus and Dracus, was there. As I am here, relating these events for all to hear. Indeed Dracus' journey took her into Hell, where her beloved awaited rebirth with her sister. "I remember when I passed this way!" Dracus thought...as she made her way through a great number of dark tunnels and caverns beyond counting. Wraiths and specters passed for her, and things more frightful still. This part of Hell: was ruled by none...and soon it gave way to more civilized regions where subterranean gardens grow beneath a perfectly beautiful sky that is only an illusion. Here, there is an infernal counterpart to the Vale Nocturna... where the souls of the two sisters awaited the coming of the one who now came to see of what had occurred to their souls. Dracus approached them, and Cthonia knew at once it was Sarthonicus, only younger. Eternally young, for so long the hermaphrodite’s soul remained in Seraph form. "Oh my love, ye have returned... I knew when the gods roused me from death's cold slumber and restored my sister to life that thou wouldst follow not long after! Come, It hath been so long and much hath been sacrificed... come, and embrace me as so thou didst of old!" But Dracus corrected her and replied thusly: "I cannot, my love, for should the living embrace the dead none too carefully, they so might join them. Gods, as it hurts me, I cannot!" And the hermaphrodite’s heart broke bitterly, to tell Cthonia of this. Cthonia's high spirits fell, when reality sank in. "Oh, then we are truly lost, for this can only be the Netherworld... art thou then some devil come to torment me for my crime... in the form of the one I loved, and love still, the most?" Dracus could not choke back of the tears... they came no matter her will. "Nay, it is I. I am here to help thee become now reborn, and thy sister too if she wishes it... for Death hath had thee both long enough due to my passing. I feel as if the fault were mine, and so by this I am intending to be absolved of any sins associated with this on my part." Cthonia alighted at this, and was well pleased. "Tell me, what is the hope for my new return, and that of my poor sister... hast thou spoken to they who reign over this realm?" Dracus looked even sadder now. "Aye, that is how I so came to know of this place. But the cost will be terrible, for all of us, if I fail." And Dracus told of her meeting with Lucifer, and how the two had struck a bargain. "If ye can find a single soul in this place, who is willing to sacrifice even a part of his or herself so that Cthonia can live again, then thus do ye have my blessing that it be so... however, failing that, the sacrifice must be of thee thyself alone, Dracus, and none other." Thusly the words of Lucifer were related so that Cthonia could know of her love's peril. A dark mood had come upon the three, just then. Cthonia's sister seemed taken aback in fear. "If this be Hell, who so shall we find that is willing to be that selfless? Other than the nobility of the Infernal Aristocracy, and the few chosen to dwell with them in the Dark Paradise, we are dealing only with the Damned!" But Cthonia would not be so shaken..." Mayhap there are others like unto us sister, and they might be willing to lend aid to our sad plight? If not... I do not know what it means." And there was a silence that came upon all of Hell at that point, and it is said that even the Damned, in their torments, were robbed of their ability even to cry out or shriek, for they wept at the prospect of this divine tragedy taking place in their midst. And it reminded some of them mayhap of what tragedies befell to land them in perdition rather than some paradise of more fair beauty and more deserving glory. Only the most evil of them, were not thus moved!
Chapter Five:
5. It is said that in Hell, everyone weeps yet no one cares. This is because the souls there either enjoy unspeakable pleasures, or unspeakable agonies. Either way, they oft remain to the largest extent oblivious of anything not pertaining to their own state of being. And so, the three who journeyed the length and breadth of the Netherworld came to see their quest as doomed from the onset. For of all the souls encountered, not one would so help. At last, Dracus was forced to make a terrible choice... either: to sacrifice of herself, or to lose her beloved Cthonia to Hell forever. There never really was any choice, and soon it was that she and the two sisters gathered before the throne of Lucifer Herself, and knelt in the most pious devotion before that first and brightest star of all Her kind. She was fair, such fairness as one may imagine in the most: lovely paintings of angels... and She was eternally a child, like unto a little girl by all appearances, for that was Her favorite form to assume, one of purest innocence and perfect grace. Her eyes...were like sapphires; and her lips were as red as blood. Six wings made of light had sprouted from Her back, and the circlet She wore to hold back Her pale, almost silvery hair, from her face was decorated with a single emerald jewel. Clad in a soft metallic silver jumpsuit, much like unto the gold one that was favored by Cthonia, the Infernal Child walked up to Dracus and lovingly cupped her head in Her small, delicate hands... "Ye know what this means... ye do remember our agreement!" And Dracus nodded in assent. "Good, dear, drear Dracus... or should I say Kingu, hmm?" "Call me what thou wilt, my other half of my soul… of long ago... for I am thy own kindred as much now as ever." with those words, Dracus let Lucifer know that little had changed between them over all the many thousands of years and dozens of lifetimes since last they met in this way. A part of her so still burned to be united with Lucifer, for that lost part of her soul to be united with Dracus’ own… and She who was called Lucifer felt the same way about Dracus. It thusly could not ever be other than so, for they were one from the first hour of Dracus’ first creation so long ago, even though she now loved Cthonia and that love occupied all of her reason at that time. So a sweet smile broke out across the girl Archangel's face... "Why didst thou ever leave my side and go into the planes above; did ye think to find there a greater rapture than we had known when she shared one body, one flesh?" Dracus seemed moody and saddened just then. "There is yet room in my heart... for Heaven and Hell, in equal measure." Lucifer kissed Dracus then, and that kiss was as much a thing of passionate fire as Hell itself was. It was not though a lover’s kiss, but something of kissing oneself, if such a thing could be done. "Now, then..." She all but sang, in her soft and lilting, almost musical, voice. "How to begin this thing, as it will not be easy to perform!" She walked on over to just beneath Her throne, and thus beckoned Dracus to follow Her and kneel before Her there. "One last time, I will ask thee... do ye want this? Are ye certain!" One somber "Aye" was all that was required. It seemed that single word echoed like unto a chorus of many voices... throughout the palace of the Daughter of Morning. The columns that rose on either side of the throne shook to their foundations of it, but remained strong. "There is power in this moment." Lucifer said. "I accept thy willingness, and bless thee in it. The pain of what is to follow will be exquisite, but the pleasure too will be so. Prepare thyself as never before, for ere this night is over ye may wish that 'Nay' had been thy reply rather than ‘Aye’!" And She brought a terrible-looking knife out from behind Her throne. Its’ blade so was curved back, and on that backside were rows of serrated teeth like a saw. The whole of it was made of some dark, black metal like nothing that exists on Earthlike worlds. So wicked was this blade, that seeing it Cthonia nearly fainted dead away. "So… let us begin..." Lucifer whispered, and came towards Dracus. What was to follow... was a ghastly thing. Gods, angels, and spirits, in their purest forms do not feel anything of pain in the same way as Mortals do. Even still, Dracus let out a scream that all of Hell heard and fell fully silent before, silent for the second time in all of that era. Not because of any physical pain was that scream uttered, but because Lucifer's knife somehow so cut into Dracus’ spirit as well as her flesh. Spirit is ever a kind of energy, and like energy, it so can replenish. However, it is a thousand times more sensitive than the body. So imagine this! Imagine sensitivity beyond all of the nerve endings in the mortal human body! Like electricity it is, only more intense, more volatile, and more terrifying a force… for it is the true us that such energy comprises.
Chapter Six:
6. Imagine, what Dracus felt... when half of all her Seraphic skin... on the right side of her body, was sliced away. Had any other blade done the deed, she would have felt nothing of it at all, but this was no ordinary blade. What was cut from her was not flesh alone, but a good half of her entire spiritual energy! In time, both body and soul would recover and so heal. With a Seraph in the purest form…the healing is so even faster...but not less painful. For though it is the body that aches a mortal, it is that which lies within it that pains more spiritual creatures when agony comes upon them. Dracus' agony was never thus matched, in all of Hell in that era. Lucifer took the half-skin She had cut away...and waited until all had repaired itself on Dracus, before She stepped over to Cthonia and began to remove all of her skin of the right side of the body that she had been given to inhabit. (Which had as been made to appear so identical to how Cthonia looked in life; that she, even like unto Dracus, felt every facet of the nigh-unbearable pain.) What kept them sane throughout this torture? It was because the demonic knife made part of their senses register pleasure like none ever encountered before by beings living or dead, that they remained fully lucid and yet detached from the agony at the same time. During all of this, Cthonia's sister had so closed her eyes; and knew an uncontrollable dread for all of them. "Why is this necessary, Lucifer?" she cried, "What is the purpose to this barbaric deed!" Lucifer did not wait for Cthonia's body to heal, as She had Dracus. Instead, She so slid Dracus’ right-half skin over the exposed bloody mess that Cthonia's own right side had thusly become. Then it was that She cut her own palm and sealed the seam where both met using Her blood. As Cthonia began to heal, the living skin of Dracus combined with the living blood of Lucifer to restore all that was dead in Cthonia to full life once more. But soon it was that Dracus’ skin... now hers... darkened on the right side when it transformed into a more perfect likeness of Cthonia’s features. The result was that Cthonia looked like a healthy Seraph in that side of her body, which was the left... but on the right side, it seemed like: a woman who had been mummified and yet lived. All excess traces of health and life had shed themselves of the right side, like snakeskin... never to return. Cthonia's sister looked in horror at this... Dracus noticed that the bloody neck-wound scars on both women, which had looked so like unto the fangs of some terrible monster until now, healed completely. For when it so came to pass that Cthonia had tasted her sister's blood, they were in that hour thusly linked. In that way, both were restored to life, but Cthonia's deformity would forever remain, as punishment for the final sins she committed in her sibling's murder and her own suicide. Lucifer then took the right-half skin of Cthonia, which had been removed for Dracus' skin to be attached as told previously... and what was shed from that... and burned them in a brazier of hot coals until they were ashes. These, She mixed with wax and made a black candle from. This, she brought over to Cthonia's naked back, and let some of the hot wax drip down unto her skin therefore. More and more... until the wax formed a pattern: like wings. This done, Lucifer once again applied Her own blood. And the diabolical wax meshed with the skin, transformed... as two lumps formed beneath the flesh. These lumps burst, spraying blood everywhere as two great black and feathery wings emerged from out of Cthonia's back in those exact locations. Her sister vomited at last, Dracus appeared transfixed and unable to look away. All of Cthonia's teeth then grew into sharp fangs, and this terrible Seraph who seemed half-living and half-dead was now complete. However... this was not yet the end of it all. Only one thing remained... and that was for Lucifer to send them all home. As a great sleepiness fell upon the three who had been thus changed for all eternities to come... and a black and potent dreamlessness stole their senses away... the last they saw or heard, was Lucifer's smiling face and the words: "Thy sacrifice is accepted, my Children! Live, not as before. But know, Dracus, that one day in payment for this, I shall unite with my soul and we shall be one once again, in a single body! For I must have my due.” And so was a prophecy uttered by Lucifer, and thus was Dracus bound by that prophecy, through life after life, form after form, until one day the Eternal Child would become apart of Dracus’ own soul, thus restoring both beings to what they had been once in the dawn of all time, when they together were called Mara and Maya. The memory of having been this being haunted Dracus, and one day… the Eternal Child would, through Dracus, live again. For such beings can never die!
Chapter Seven:
7. Dracus was the first to awaken in her coffin, terrified and clawing at the wood. She then calmed herself and centered her thoughts on the field of roses above, on that little garden. Her body became mist, and she floated up and was there. Sitting up, she saw that she so was alone. Her memory of what had come before came only in flashes. Out of it, she came thus to think: that she had died of old age, a mortal, in the arms of her beloved Cthonia. She was called Sarthonicus, but yet also Dracus? Aye...and so Dracus she was, but mortal no longer... was she ever truly so? For behold... her body had become young again... and almost like an angel in its’ appearance. Cthonia's sister formed from mist next, from her grave. Sarthonicus then shared many pleasant hours of conversation with her, ever slightly confused though both were. "Gods, what is this thirst I feel in my throat? I am so parched!" the sister complained. Sarthonicus so made similar complaint. "It is almost like a hunger." she commented. Suddenly, the thing that Cthonia had become tore its’ way out of the earth next to them. No subtle misty form for her... only brute force would do. The now-empty grave proved that these were indeed their bones given new flesh and new life... no mere ghosts in some shadowy afterlife. Dracus was terrified: by the pale-skinned, black-feather-winged fiend with the mouthful of fangs, calling itself by the name of Cthonia. Though half her skin appeared shriveled and black, the eyes and the dark hair betrayed her for who she was, and soon quelled all their fears. Most Angelic Races have not wings as such. The projections of light that they can will to spring from their backs are like unto Lucifer's "wings", as they appear in this legend... manifestations of spiritual energy from within. Actual wings of any kind... are usually the result of some powerful sorcery or science used to fashion them. This is not all that uncommon on certain worlds in the universe. Then… Cthonia spoke to them to tell more than her name... "I thirst..." She growled in the most feral way imaginable. "I thirst, for blood!" And each time she said: "thirst", it so hissed like unto a snake. A brief flash of memory... of a bloody deed, and dark madness... as it came to pass that full memory returned to the three. However, what lucidness Cthonia so was granted in Death's kingdom, lost all effect in the world of the living. She was thusly as insane as when she had taken her sister's life, though now that her love lived again it all was: a madness without direction. But not for long! It was midnight, and a rare mortal so had stumbled upon the place of the red roses in Vale Nocturna. Cthonia fell upon him to slake her thirst. Unable to control their own urges, Dracus and Cthonia's sister fell upon the hapless victim in no less fierce a fashion. Soon, the man was dead and they were so left to contemplate what they had become. Lucifer had so birthed a new class of fallen angels. In that moment... those three Great Races of the Vampire were born. Cthonia, and her sister whose name I may reveal at last to have been Nosfera, became the twin mothers of they who in the lore of far later years would come to be called: the Cthonians and the Nosferatu, respectively. Dracus became the father as well as the mother of the Draculai, and each ever believed in a wholly different philosophy. It was thus bound to soon come to pass, that all of their as yet future-born descendants... would pursue like philosophies to their great ancestral trinity. Cthonians so were creatures of the darkest regions of the Netherworld in all ways. Preferring the company of Demons... these fell beings were content to live apart from Angels, or even Humans, save when bloodlust called them to prey. They so were the most terrible, of all things to ever walk the night. But what of the other two races? The Nosferatu... were the opposite of the Cthonians in all of their ways. They so delighted in the company of Angels, tried to fit in with Humans as much as possible, and found the fellowship of Demons to often be less than is tolerable. Now the Draculai, are more difficult to speak of... for they had walked the fine line that did exist between the extreme ways of thinking pursued by the other two. Those who ponder the nature of these creatures of the night, might oft wonder if they be good, though misguided, beings… or wholly evil. Since Lucifer was their maker, they are like unto Her in their natures: dual. Being both good and evil, and having the capacity for light or darkness in their beings equally. Thusly, are more oft than not, the facts being that Vampires are civilized creatures, unlike Lycanthropes or Demons. Cthonia, however, was as terrible as any Demon could ever be! So terrible was she, that she was given her own regions of the Great Below to rule and they called it Helheim, and she was named Hel, its’ cold, sovereign goddess. But this reward was given unto her only after the flight below which the Vampire Trinity decided upon, for none in the realms above would be willing to accept them.
Chapter Eight.
8. Following that first night, the Vampire Trinity fled deep into the Netherworld, where it was hoped they could live undisturbed and without fearing, or being feared by anyone. In time, however, Dracus grew lonely for the companionship of the gods, and so by guileful craft ensnared a single goddess to come below, that her new kingdom might have a queen. So: Ereshkigal was the first to become a Draculai Vampire, there in the Netherworld realm of Kur, and though she was firstly a Sky Goddess and a Daughter of Heaven... Hell became thus her home. Here, is the tale of her seduction, in brief. One day, the goddess of spring and sky, Ereshkigal, was out picking flowers in the Elysian Meadows of the Netherworld. The Dragon of Kur, so saw her, fell in love with her, and vowed to make her queen of the Dragon’s kingdom... for Dracus was lonely, since the hour when she abandoned her fellow gods to dwell in the Netherworld below. This you may have heard tell of in myths and legends. Here, is what is not commonly known: that the Dragon seized her and so swept her up upon a dark chariot, carrying her off and down into the deepest regions of Hell... but not against her will. She was seduced by Dracus’ hypnotic charm, and begged the Dragon to show her the glories of the Vampires’ kingdom; for by Dracus’ dress she knew the Dragon to be a queen of the regions below. This was done. By Dracus’ charm, Ereshkigal was drawn deeper below still... until at last she found herself in a place so known as the Land of No Return: Kur-Nug-Ieya, in the Ancient Tongues. There, she was told to make a choice: either, to choose Heaven and depart at once for the worlds above, or to eat of the fruit of the pomegranates that grew in Kur, and remain there forever. So a choice was made, and Ereshkigal ate of the fruit. However, winter would not end in those many universes beyond Hell's bounds, for spring had been conquered. Soon, the gods all began to grow angry, and prepared to reclaim their lost daughter by force if need be, to so end the unnatural cold. But they sent word of their displeasure to Kur, and soon it was for the Dragon to hatch her plan... for she had prepared a very special pomegranate, one with a fruit containing not it's own red juices, but a certain quantity of her own blood. Behold ye, for it came to pass that Ereshkigal was bid to take the pomegranate of blood, and hold it in her hands until a certain moment had come. It was prepared for her to eat of... and thus she held it as commanded. Then, the Dragon bit her upon the neck... enough to draw a bit of blood but not to kill her... and in this way Dracus tasted of her life and told her to taste then of Dracus’ own by eating of the Pomegranate of blood. This she did... and seemed to die of it, falling into a dreamless slumber. When she awoke from it, she seemed more alive than she ever was before. Dracus sent her back to the gods, and spring returned. However, when it came the time of the year for winter to return, she lapsed into the deathlike trance once more. A call was so sent out for a cure, but none could be found. It seemed as though Ereshkigal had died. But one day, a hermaphroditic being calling itself Kutulu, but which the gods called Hecate in their tongue, arrived in the courts of the gods. Kutulu, or Hecate, was in fact the Dragon in one of her many forms, come to the assembly hall of the gods, in their great golden palace that yet existed in those days on the ancient world of Kolob, or Kobol, the planet nearest to the highest of Heaven’s glories. There, amongst the gods, the fallen goddess Ereshgkigal whom everyone believed to be dead had been laid in a coffin of glass. This... because her corpse rotted not! Kutulu went unto the coffin and flung open the lid. Everyone could only stare, sickened, when she then kissed the dead goddess’s cold lips. Then did Ereshgkigal’s eyes open, her breath returned, and she lived. Kutulu so then told her fellow gods and goddesses a cunning lie... that when she was in the Netherworld, Ereshkigal did eat of a poisonous plant, whose fluid would course in her veins now forever. She himself, she told them, was immune to this plant and possessed a temporary cure... and so... every year when winter brought it on Ereshkigal to lapse thus, she would come to take the poisoned goddess back, below. For there, she claimed, was the only place where Ereshkigal could dwell during that season... and not be afflicted so. It was agreed to... and so it remained, until a new goddess of spring so was crowned... Geshtar, also known as Geshtinanna, was chosen for this honor. Now... at last… Ereshkigal could remain a queen of the Netherword, beloved of the Dragon forever. However, one day, Ereshkigal made the mistake of falling into one of the rivers of the Netherworld, and her spirit was torn from its’ body. It then merged with Dracus’ soul, and the two became a single being, which took on the name Ganzir. And Ganzir reigned in Hell as a solitary queen for many an age.
Chapter Nine:
9. Of course... in time... the "Dragon of Kur" journeyed above, to dwell with all the gods for a while. Prior this time, Ganzir had tasted of the blood of Cthonia, and thus became also the first Cthonian Vampire in addition to having been the first Draculai Vampire. Thereafter, Nosfera fled the Netherworld to dwell in the Mortal Realms and it was about this time that the god of war, Nergal, rose to prominence in the assemblies of the gods. In between all this, here and there, he had ventured below, into the kingdom of Ganzir, and there he did dally with the terrible queen in the paradise-like gardens that graced her palace. But, never did he suspect what she was daily becoming. However... on the occasion of her journey back to dwell with the gods... Ganzir had fully embraced the Cthonian madness, and was so determined to rule Kur alone and with no rivals, that it became an obsession of hers. What she did not expect: was when Nergal followed her back to Hell and took her by the hair and dragged her from her infernal throne, which he so sat down upon with his queen draped over his lap. He vowed to share every tiny bit of his vast kingdoms in the heavens with her so she would be welcome there once more and not feared as she had been up until now, but only if Ganzir then and there agreed to forever recognize him as her equal in all within the realms of the Netherworld... for sensing the old Cthonian blood about her... Nergal was afraid, but determined that she be tamed to a certain extent. It was a gamble, but one that did pay off... for seeing his words as a compliment and testament to her own power, Ganzir felt flattered by his offer, and far less shamed and angered by his rough treatment of her than anyone might have expected. She thought to herself: if he did not fear me, he would have killed me. He thought to himself: if she did not fear me, I would be dead by her hand. And so it came to pass... that a dark order of sorts had been established in the Vampire Realms...a reign, of powerful equals. Thusly the god of war became the god of the Netherworld, called Hades by some, and many falsely attributed the seduction of Ereshkigal to him due to Ereshkigal having become one with Dracus in the form of Ganzir. The gods could not fathom how all this came to pass, so they put forth the story that made the most sense to them and allowed them to impose a patriarchal dominance over what had been a matriarchal act of seduction, the seduction of a goddess by the divine hermaphrodite. Over the countless millennia, the vampires of the Netherworld all became Cthonian... whilst all those above became Nosferatu. The Draculai who were the blood children of Ganzir and Nergal were all but forgotten, as they were in time absorbed into the ranks of the other two races. Even that most famous vampire in all the Ancient World, the fallen angel-turned-succubus Lilith, was a Cthonian. Even though many of the more ignorant scholars would have you believe that Cthonians were Demons simply because they were close to those beings in association, I say: by their standards all vampires could be termed so. What know scholars of the truth, they were not there as I so was! This brings us near unto the final point of this discourse... and the last phase of these histories. What happened to the Draculai... and indeed, to the Vampire Races as a whole? The Cthonians sealed themselves so much into their Netherworld Realm that they chose never to come into the Mortal Realm again unless summoned, or unless they needed to do such a thing as a diversion. In time, they became so indistinguishable from Demons that only one who had known them before would know them now, as I do. For one thing: Cthonians have no end of better manners than the best Demons. For another... they do tend to be far prettier in appearance! The Nosferatu, in the end, became in a similar likeness to either the wholly Angelic, Spiritual, or Human state of being. In these three various forms they are with us to this day... amongst all of these beings and inseparable from them at the same time. Ah, but what of the Draculai? Their numbers were split between the Cthonians and the Nosferatu as their pure bloodlines intermixed with the other two races over time. Those who became human have often left their mark upon History, as the old Dracul Family of Romania did. But what of Ganzir, you may wonder? That me of so long ago! Some scholars of mythical studies have put forth the notion that it is possible Ereshkigal and Ishtar were one and the same being, split into two separate beings by the gods as punishment for their combined pride. And so, when Ishtar descended into the Netherworld as recounted in the epic tale related elsewhere… and found Ganzir ruling where Ereshkigal had ruled before… Ishtar thought Ganzir to be Ereshkigal herself, and called her by name.
Chapter Ten:
10. Ganzir was, in fact, Ereshkigal, for the two had become one with the death of Ereshkigal’s body in the waters of the Netherworld. And so, the rivalry between Ishtar and Ereshkigal was shared by Ganzir and she… and whilst this is not the place to recount what transpired between them and why their rivalry existed at all… at the end of it, Ishtar was crucified unto death and the gods set about to secure her resurrection. And they succeeded, but only in raising her body! For something unknown to all, and not recounted in the tale of Ishtar’s descent into the Netherworld and of her resurrection, was the fact that her soul was torn from her body in the moment of that body’s death and it was bound together with the soul of her sister Ereshkigal in the body of Ganzir. So the spirit that was allowed to enter the body of Ishtar was none other than the spirit of the great goddess Sophia, the Empress of Heaven Herself, who reigned along as Queen of Heaven within Ishtar’s old body ever after… for Sophia’s original body has long since become pure energy, and thus She found Herself in need of a new one. There was a purpose and a reason, however, ordained by Sophia for all of what had up until that point transpired – for originally, Ereshkigal and Ishtar were not simply one being, but they were both aspects of Dracus’ soul that were separated from it when the being they had been originally… Mara, also known as Maya… had perished. It was only through the death of Sarthonicus, her rebirth as Dracus, and her union with Ereshkigal’s spirit as well as Ishtar’s… that Mara could be reborn fully rather than in part. For the soul can become segmented or fragmented upon death, if the death of a person is terrible enough or tragic enough to cause the soul to separate in this way! And this is how all the separate aspects of my soul came to be united once again. Ishtar, the warrior queen and goddess of love… Ereshkigal, the dark and terrible queen of darkness and death… but some have sensed within me the Eternal Child, and that it is the true me, the me at the very core of my being. And for that to be, the prophecy uttered by Lucifer long ago was necessitated to come to pass. And come to pass it did, with my birth in this life! Thusly are we come full circle, from the dawn of time to present times… and as you can see dear reader, the gods and goddesses of old walk amongst you, in many forms and guises. And I am one such, mortal and human though this body may be now. Ah...I can well understand how many gods-made-flesh in my position could become a bit mad from so much division of the various aspects of their souls in the writings of the Ancients. That is doubly why a work like this is so important for posterity! Not merely to set the record straight on personal matters, but so that the real truths as I have lived them can be preserved... for every future generation to learn from as their very ancestors never had the opportunity to. And so it is good. Will you look at the time! I have passed a night through just to relate all this. However, it was well worth it... since now, the true and secret history of the Vampires has been made known. Do I yet consider myself as one of them? No, for I have grown beyond that mode of being, and so evolved in a sense... unto a higher and more blessed state than I had known when so damned. That so does not make me in any way superior to my Cthonian brethren, who still do dwell in the realms beyond death. It just so means...that I have become something very different than they have. Of course, in autumn, when the leaves turn and the moon is full... and Samhain awakens... I breathe in the crisp air and I remember what it was like to walk the night with the night's own. And in spring, when on Earth the red roses bloom, I sometimes in the past had allowed myself to weep... for Cthonia, she who was the First Vampire. Today, some will look upon me and see that I am as much an ordinary seeming human as anyone else is, for it was into such forms that all of my kind: were cast in the end. I have related that tale elsewhere, however, and so this is not the place for that. Every fallen god or angel, every devil, and every "unholy" spirit clad in a mortal's flesh in ancient times, one day discovered that they were stuck that way, human, and had to live, die, and sometimes be reborn as mortals. Now we live, we die, and reincarnate anew, we who the ancestors of man once worshipped and revered as divine beings! I often think about Cthonia, alone with her kindred in the Netherworld. And it reminds me whence her name came from: before they were annihilated from the heavens... many of the sons and daughters of Tiamat called themselves Cthonians. It meant simply: "The people of the Netherworld." Ironic, is it not? How, in a way, there are twice my kindred. And so this tale is ended!
Published 7th Apr 2013
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