6. War of the Magi

Game VI – War of the Magi.

31st May, 2019.

Act I

Scene i: Villa de Blanche, Northern France 1759.

Nights after the wormwood feast the majority of its attendees had retired to their own distant lairs, except for the Tremere (Dietmar, Friedrich, & Yves), Johann the Nosferatu (spying on the aforementioned), Lianna & Sir Logan, and mortal Lord Jotham. These named few remained on as guests in Lord Christie’s manor, idling away their nocturnal hours with reading Voltaire or Dom Calmet’s expositions on the supernatural, others treading along the nightscape of rural France to put their own morals into practice.

Friedrich approached the shadowed alley, from whence echoed the cruel punishments of Pierre the pimp, taking out his frustrations on the bruised hide of some hapless woman he controlled. Her watering eyes focused on the new arrival, held in fear as the moonlight caressed the edge of a scalpel in the stranger’s bone-thin hand. Suddenly Pierre’s expression dropped, sagging to his knees in a wine red pool before her, the sight of which brought her to desperate flight from the scene, screaming for mercy as she ran.

Enclosing the fallen man with the hem of his leather coat as he knelt, the Doctor withdrew the surgical razor from the cartilage hollow of Pierre’s bleeding ear, drinking from the heart-palpitating fountain of vitae until the nerve signals ceased.

Johann had seen all this transpire from the webs of shadow he disguised himself within, grimacing at the inhuman appetite of the other Cainite as he licked his own teeth, tasting again the cattle’s blood he had fed on earlier.

* * *

Sometime after, Dietmar invited the six other kindred to a meeting in one of the rooms of the Villa, where he was seated across from the troubled countenance of Lord Christie by the time they arrived. The air was charged with intrigue as the neonates and others seated themselves and remained silent, letting the conversation between the Tremere (Dietmar) and Ventrue (Christie) elders inform them of the coming treachery.

For centuries the Tremere had been banished from Avalon (UK) by order of the London Prince, Mithras. Desperate to gain some kind of foothold in Britain, a deal had been reached between Vienna and London: the removal of Lord Christie and Cecilia Blackwood, elders whom had opposed the authority of the London court and intrigued with the failed Jacobite rebellion.

Dietmar explained that even though it pained him to act as an agent in Lord Christies’ coming losses, he could soften the severity of the exiled Ventrue’s punishment if he followed his instructions carefully: Jotham (Christies’ lover) had been taken as a hostage, to be returned once Christie had signed letters that would void his political connections in England. They also wanted to know where Cecelia had gone to ground, missing now for over a decade.

Seeing no alternative to save Jotham and himself from the scheming Tremere, Lord Christie relented, signing the documents in his own blood to relinquish any remaining authority in the court of York. Pleased with the compliance of the Ventrue so far, Dietmar thanked him before reminding the pale Englishman that they would hold onto Jotham until the information he had given them on Cecelia’s hidden lair proved to be correct;

“Find Pope... and you will find Cecelia...”

* * *

Until Dietmar and the three neonates have accomplished their task of finding the hidden Elder of York, Yves would remain with Lord Christie in the French villa to curtail any attempts at sabotage. Lianna had also volunteered to remain and prevent any further treachery from the Tremere, aiding the exiled Ventrue where she could.

Logan had not verbally objected to the betrayal of his Sire and mortal friend, letting those fires burn internally until he could find an opportunity to release them on a deserving foe. Johann would have followed the coterie regardless, but curiously enough Dietmar had openly invited him to join them, a student perhaps of the ‘keep mine enemies closer’ school of tactics. Regardless, the Nosferatu could not resist the opportunity to learn what the Tremere elder was really up to once they reached England.

As for Friedrich, his brain was alive with all manner of theoretical plans and calculations to achieve his goals over the conqueror-wyrm Death. As the others plotted and bargained, he pondered how he could feasibly drain the vitae of an elder like Cecelia and transport it back from England to his estates in Champagne. Another glass coffin? Too delicate... Pneumatic pumps to siphon blood? Too heavy and obvious to the other Cainites whom would be travelling with him. There had to be another way...

Scene ii: Aboard the ‘Kliene Muis’ toward Hull, North Sea.

Capt. Hans, a Dutch smuggler whom operated out of Amsterdam, could trust his crew to avoid the lower holds, where he had stacked four heavy crates without merchant markings. He, like his father before, had made a healthy profit from carrying persons of interest on behalf of the English Lord ‘C’ during the wars of the continent, bringing them into foreign ports by night to avoid detection.

Setting out from that great trading hub amongst a motley flotilla of other trading vessels and frigates, he guided her through the West Frisian Islands to arrive in the North Sea, gliding along calm waters toward an orange sunset.

* * *

Peering through the hatch as the heavens growled like falling stones, Friedrich swung the portal open to investigate the stirring elements that had been rocking the merchant ship since dusk. The north-eastern horizon was a brooding black storm, covering the stars in its slow conquest of the night sky.

Capt Hans was also on the deck, studying the onset of shadow. Stepping beside him at the railings, Friedrich asked him if the storm should be of any concern as they both watched it continually summon a slow rolling mass at its edges. Shaking his head with confidence, the haughty Dutchman replied that it would pass them and break before the dawn.

* * *

Below, in the holds of the ship, came the scraping sound of a fine-grained stone burnishing a sword’s edge with each pass of Logan’s hand. With even, practiced strokes he polished away any obvious serration before turning the great-sword’s handle to show his blurred face, warping on the flat steel surface in the lantern light. Twisting the hilt back to the other side, a flash of pale colour was caught in the tempered surface, another face that was not his own.

A clean handsome visage, hairless with a peaked skullcap of brazen metals stared out from the reflected plane, lost as suddenly as it had appeared like an ethereal dream. Examining the space behind him with another slow panning tilt of his sword, the Ventrue smiled as he waited for the illusion to possibly return, oiling the weapon in feigned ignorance of the mystery presence.

[Flames dance from a driftwood fire on the coast of England, a secluded pebble beach were four naked women have linked hands to chant in bacchanalian rhythm. Veined lightning splits from the turmoil of an ocean squall as they call out for the daemons of the air to unleash the four winds to churn rain and ruin.]

Groaning from the slap of a breaking wave, the plank hull of the ‘Kleine Muis’ remained watertight. Snuffing out the lantern, Logan quickly left the hold to assess the danger of the wild weather. Rocked with the weight of the restless sea, he struggled out of the hatch bay to find the decks active with sailors fighting to control their vessel as night flickered to day in the seconds of a lightning bolt.

The other kindred, including the unseen Johann, had already gathered around Capt. Hans. on the starboard decks. Beyond them, the fury of a tempest was galloping over their heads like the net of the abyss. Memories of past sea voyages flooded Logan’s mind to warn him that the merchant ship was in dire waters.

* * *

Retreating from the elements to the holds below, Dietmar warned his student that their clan had many enemies, not all of whom where Cainite: Long ago, in the first years of the clan’s founding they had broken from a hidden society of magi to commit themselves as immortal vampires thereafter. The Magi had never forgiven them for this ‘schism’, fighting them sporadically since the feudal ages. Recent struggles in this ‘War of the Magi’ had flared in Vienna, hence their journey to England to make allies.

The tempest coming toward the Kleine Muis could possibly have been summoned by their opponents, so it would be appropriate for Friedrich to learn a banishing ritual to help disperse attacks from the spiritual plane. Before the lesson, Dietmar revealed a cyan topaz that he kept on a thin gilt chain about his neck, of a length by which he could comfortably view into its fractal prisms and summon the entity trapped within.

Johann leant closer from his own hidden position to take note of the sinister jewel, having been listening into the previous talks on the origins of the Tremere. Stirring the ensnared demon in the jewel by its name ‘Asmodel’, a pale green light glowed back into Dietmar’s eyes as a cherubic face scowled at him as though woken from sleep.

The vampire mage asked the spirit if it could see any threat about them, working against them in the more subtle realms emanating from the Earth’s shell. After momentary silence, a small voice whispered back to them in nonsense rhyme, to which it was pleased to frustrate the warden of its crystal cell;

“I see a man who is a piece of the sun,

I see four mothers, four witches...”

The voice begged to be released, but it’s plea was smothered once Dietmar tucked the gem back into the folds of his shirt. Taking the oracle’s riddle as a confirmation of the storm’s bewitched origin, the elder quickly demonstrated the banishing ritual’s application to Friedrich, as the boat was pummelled by the rising walls of water over the railing and deck.

* * *

Momentarily airborne as the ship dropped from the crest of a wave, a lantern glass cracked as it struck the captain’s table, oil spreading over the charts and diary, catching alight once the fallen vessel had rolled over them to meet the floor and continue in its fiery path. Black smoke slivered through the door jamb and cracks until the heat scorched through to deliver torrents of billowing soot from the ship’s aft.

Shouting across the pelting rain and thunder, the crew desperately moved to try and quell the burning quarterdeck as it was consumed in the inferno. The sudden commotion had reached Friedrich, Dietmar, and the obfuscated Nosferatu below, all of whom fled out through the layer of smoke and falling timbers to reach the rolling decks. Sweeping his gaze over the ruinous scene of panic and flame, Johann immediately threw himself over the railing to plummet into the turbulent brine. Dietmar cried out and waved furiously toward his childer (Fried.), whom turned to witness the fury of the sea take him into its ceaseless void with an unstoppable foaming momentum.

The Tremere neonate was concerned as he sought for any rescue amongst the fleeing men and rats. A booming voice hailed him from the bow, cursing at him to hurry. It was Logan, whom had just recovered a supply crate through great effort as he planned to use it as a makeshift raft. The Ventrue had paused in his labours to sight the undecided Friedrich, questioning his morals in leaving the Cainite to perish with his traitorous master. Realising that he would need Friedrich to try and learn the truth of it all (if they survived), he roared out for the other to join him or be damned to a watery hell.

[Illuminated by the beach fire, a cork boat floats in a bowl of seawater, voices hissing in a language of chittering consonants as they looked down into their own reflections, four wild women with curses moving their lips surrounding the toy effigy.

“Drown!”

A hand slapped the cork boat to sink into the bowl with a violent command, the tide line lapping away the flaming driftwood to return the beach to darkness.]

Leaping into the box after Friedrich, Logan dug his nails into the lid and held it through adrenaline will to try and keep a seal. The dark gifts of Caine’s strength helped to keep the crate together as the ‘Kleine Muis’ twisted apart, a drowning funeral pyre until she sank to Poseidon’s bed.

Act II

Scene i: Aldborough Bay, Coast of Essex.

Two nights after the storm a figure ascended from the placid depth of the cove to walk across a pebble beach, followed shortly thereafter by another form that broke the surface. Wiping off the slippery kelp and debris their bodies had accumulated in the blind groping search for land, Logan squeezed away as much water as he could whilst Friedrich felt to make sure he had not lost his pistols and other effects.

Logan had managed to keep them both sealed airtight in the crate through prodigious strength until the brine soaked through and weighed them down to the seabed, the currents of the North Sea dragging them south-west until their compartment could no longer hold itself together.

Johann had already made landfall the previous night, washed up in the tide of wreckage and corpses. From the eroded cliffs near the bay he had waited in the hopes the current had also drawn them to a nearby shore. Observing the two figures in the silver aura of the moon cresting the sea’s horizon, he limped down the cascading cliffs to join them.

Friedrich and Logan were silent as they looked over the charcoal remains of a bonfire, built by locals after they had cleaned the bay of the flotsam ruin that had once been the Dutch merchant ship. Footprints and drag marks coming to and from the tide toward the west, were a path cut through a shallow in the cliff walls.

* * *

Having found each other again on an unknown shore in England (they presumed), the three neonates could not account for the whereabouts of Dietmar, the leader of their coterie in its hunt for Cecelia Blackwood. His absence left plenty of room for the three vampires to renegotiate their reasons for being in the country at all. Logan was the first to broach this avenue of thought, telling Friedrich that he would be prudent to relax his loyalty to Dietmar and work with him since he had the home advantage of being an Englishman.

Friedrich agreed, adding that he too sometimes played the ‘Englishman’, having visited the country many times in his mortal years, even owning some property outside London. He advised Logan and the Nosferatu that they should accompany him there so they could continue their work.

Logan offered that he had a more private lair in the north, and reliable allies whom could help them find the elusive Cecelia before Mithras and the others involved learnt of the disaster that had freed them temporarily from service. Johann agreed with the Ventrue, warning them all to make a choice soon before opportunity closed its door on them.

* * *

Travelling west from the bay, Logan began to suspect they had washed up somewhere in Essex as the coterie followed a winding path toward distant lights. The road led them to a coaching inn where three routes met, a pair of tall buildings either side of the intersection that were framed against the night with unkempt Beechwood trees.

Needing a place to rest and some confirmation of their whereabouts in England, they all entered through to the soft lamplight in the main parlour. Johan had learnt through the recent nights how to disguise the leprous nightmare that was his face and limbs, although the effect was never perfect. A small crowd of local men silently watched until Friedrich spoke with a labourer’s accent, asking if they might join them for supper.

Curiously, the dialect was spoken by another, whom invited them to sit at his table in the mistaken belief they were fellow countrymen. Others listened in to Friedrich (now ‘Alistair’) and Ian (F’s new friend), including a surly looking brute particularly interested in learning who these strangers were. After stoneware mugs and a pitcher of ale were left at their table by the Innkeeper, the surly one commented aloud that they all stank of seawater, just like the corpses they had dragged from the beach two days earlier. Fear passed from villager to villager at the thought these arrivals were somehow ghosts from the wreck.

Looking back over his shoulder, Logan warned the ruffian to keep his manners, as they were the victims of a coaching accident that had left them in a watery ditch. Continuing this ruse, he asked the Innkeeper if they might stay for a night and day until the carriage could be mended to continue their journey. The request was denied with a polite excuse that the rooms were already full. As these and other idle conversations rolled about the parlour the surly one asked what circumstances had burnt their mate into such an ugly sight.

Logan replied that Johann had been burnt from his time as a soldier, and an argument flared as to what war and whose side he had served on (in 1759 Europe and its colonies had been engaged for three years in the global conflict that would be known afterward as ‘The Seven Years War’). As their words became envenomed with hate, Logan threatened the fool to leave Johann be, as any soldier whom had suffered in his duties had already paid enough from his life to enjoy his remaining years in peace.

The door of the Inn was thrown open, turning all attention to the sudden noise. From the night without, a maiden’s hand tossed a small item to the middle of the room, fading as quickly as it had arrived. There, amidst them was a rabbit’s paw charm tied with red and black ribbons. Men rose and left with a nod to the innkeeper, whom was cupping the air behind the candles and lanterns to extinguish them with his breath. Even the surly one was frightened by the charm, forcing his way past the others to escape the room.

No matter the pretence or reasoning, Logan could not convince the innkeeper to host them, the fear of the rabbit’s paw too strong for the mortal to ignore. As the last lights were snuffed out he begged them all to leave the coach house and seek shelter elsewhere.

* * *

With no other recourse, the three kindred left the inn and followed the northern road to guide them along the nocturnal countryside. Logan and Alistair (aka Friedrich) had resumed their debate about Dietmar and Prince Mithras, keeping them from noticing the silhouette of an animal further along the track.

Johann had shifted his focus from the conversing Cainites to the movement of the dog, which had paused to study them also before skipping into the shadows of the wayside. Eventually the trio caught up to the piece of road the canine had occupied, animal tracks leading away from a glyph that was scratched into the earth. What the symbol meant was unclear to the Nosferatu, but he had seen them before in the camps of Gypsies and beggars.

Scene ii: Tarrow Hall, Yorkshire.

Some nights later a black carriage arrived at the main doors of Tarrow Hall, the private farm manor that Sir Logan had lived in since his embrace. A neat figure in frockcoat and woollen leggings waited before the door’s pilaster columns, welcoming the Ventrue home after so many months abroad as he accepted their travelling cloaks. Introducing the two guests in his company to his manservant John, Logan asked if there was any news since his absence, ushering Johan and Alistair into the safety of his home to finally rest after the interrupted journey.

Another day and night passed with circling sun and moon, allowing Logan to fill his empty veins, his dire predicament barely disguised from the others in those final hours before they had reached Tarrow Hall. The azure-eyed ‘milkmaids’ who was employed on the estate relinquished his ravenous hunger once they were alone in the boudoir...

* * *

Enjoying one of his constitutional walks, Alistair chuckled to look back and see Tarrow Hall eclipsed by the hills and tree stands, finally alone to hunt as he pleased within the Ventrue’s territory. Adjusting his tricorne hat and cloak, the doctor began to explore the village avenues for any sinner worthy of an immediate death.

From the tenebrous gaps in building walls and unlit corners the Nosferatu followed his charge, wondering what chilling morality play the good Doctor would be enacting that night as he crept after the Tremere’s echoing footfalls.

* * *

Glad to be free of his guests, Logan set down his quill and leant back in his oak chair to break his thoughts from the account ledgers of the brewery and assorted letters from his solicitors. Rising from the paper work to enjoy the night scene of the horned moon slipping behind the wild parks bordering the estate, he turned by habit to look for the cenotaph below the starlight where a four-legged shape padded to and fro.

Glaring at the impudence of the creature, Logan cursed aloud that the dog Johann had sighted in Essex had followed their scent Northward, reaching for the great-sword that hung on the study wall.

Scene iii: Empty Barnhouse & the Shadowlands.

As for Alistair, the hunt for the wicked had turned up nothing amongst the local kine, forcing him to travel further out into the fields. Stalking across the shadows of a tree break beside a narrow track, he froze still as something moved across the fields. It was a young man, of no particular wealth or physical significance except for his furtive actions as he ducked and played as though someone was trying to follow him.

This behaviour intrigued the doctor, pondering if the figure was guilty of some crime, or the victim of another. Retracing his steps through the avenue of Poplar to remain in sight of the youth, Alistair prowled like a cat hunting after squeaking-toy morsels.

On the rise of the low wooded hills there was an empty animal barn, to which the suspicious man arrived, turning a final time to scan the paddocks before he unlatched the paired gate and disappeared from view into the unlit interior. Arriving minutes later, Alistair levelled his eye close to a spyhole in the timber.

The scene within was peculiar indeed; now naked in the light of a tallow candle, the youth smeared himself with lard as he mumbled something in repetition like an incantation. In no hurry to interrupt this spectacle, Alistair waited, the figure beginning to jerk and twitch like a possessed man, his spine curling and flexing as a fish out of water until the effects of the drug had settled, for Alistair could account for the behaviour in no other way than to assume it were some narcotic absorbed through the carrier medium of animal-fat.

Daring to enter the lonely building to examine the strange youth’s condition, he reached out to touch the oily skin of the cradled body and take a sample. His senses smeared sideways, warping in lines of colour and undulating sounds, the world re-established into a mirror reflection of ethereal ash.

* * *

Until this moment, Johann had of course been a silent witness, remaining outside the barn to spy on Alistair’s intrepid steps toward the fallen man. The moment the Tremere made contact with his gloved hand they faded like apparitions. The event startled the Nosferatu, backing away from the structure lest it take him also.

The groundcover brushed against the feet of something else approaching the barn. Reacting to the danger, Johann faced a man with sharp swarthy features, his ancestry foreign to the shores of England even if he dressed as one of them. His accent was also English when he spoke, as far as Johan could guess.

The Gypsy asked him if he were a ‘vampire’, a popular term now in the 18th century. Avoiding the answer, he retorted the same, to which the man laughed as he too avoided relating his own background. Instead, he warned that Johann’s friend had been lured into the ‘Shadowlands’, asking if he would follow him into that underworld realm to discover his fate.

The Nosferatu accepted the offer, his twisted hand holding the others as they flitted away from the material plane. The world was still there, distant like the opaque details in the background of an oil painting, colourless tones under the phantasm layers of dreams... and nightmares...

Staring back at him, a sable dire wolf revealed bone-snapping teeth through its snarling flews. The Gypsy knave was no longer recognizable as a man...