White Death

[Quincunx]

Archivist's note: Meant as an stand-alone "apology accepted", this became one of the more important stories in the Quincunx canon. Originally posted to the Legion of the White Rose boards.

[Quincunx]

Gods, I feel horrible, moaned Tzimfemme. She poked her head over the side of the bed and met the stench already hovering above the bucket. Gagging, she added to it, then dragged herself back onto the sheets. She shivered and clenched for covers, despite raging with fever. The vampire Rosemary drew a heavy blanket over the bed, printed with the contours of Terra, and traced her fingers along the lands. I havent been anywhere, Tzimfemme moaned in answer, except to the gardens. Rosemary murmured something religious. I ate nothing! I dont steal from the gardens! But you know, Tzimfemme stopped to twist and be sick again, You know about the holy war. They attacked the gardens. She fell back, her limbs jerking and muscles twitching, Th-the gardenersthey s-scourged the invadersand I was th-there. . .

 

This is how they defended themselves? I cannot understand, Rosemary sighed. This is mad beyond mad; I can smell it ripening even still. Yet it is unfamiliar. She stared intently at the hand convulsing between her own. There is only one way I may learn. May I? Tzimfemme ceased moving as best as she was able. Rosemary clasped Tzimfemmes wrist with one hand, then bared her fangs and slit her free wrist. This she placed over Tzimfemmes mouth before biting the hand held steady, piercing the web between thumb and forefinger. The patient remembered, and opened her mouth to receive blood even as it was drained from her.

 

They were most careful, and Tzimfemme remained as human as she ever was. Purified (though with blood now diffusing a touch of insanity into her), her sickness subsided. Rosemarys tougher constitution felt no disease, yet she was uneasy. That blood had had some psychic poison steeped into it; her eyesight was impaired with pure white light, her internal organs toughened like fresh-killed meat upon a fire. Her heart, long dead, filled with this taint and began to pulse. At that, she clutched frantically at her chest, eyes wide and whitening slightly. No! she cried out, repulsed by the sudden pain of life released. Forcing her soul to the horizon, she called to the dreadful things which had always pursued her. With greedy glee they flocked around: murderers souls, the thoughts of werebeasts, unholy servants, guilt, sin. Yet when they approached, the taint absorbed and burnt them to nothing.

 

*********

 

Rosemary held the condemned mage at arrow-point, tucking her arm behind her to draw the bow in such a confined space. Traces of his inhuman cold made the arrowhead brittle. I smell you, tainted one. I am not interested, commanded she when he opened his mouth. She leaned her weight on the arrow, and the arrowhead sank into his vocal cords. You are blessed for all that, flecked with something that must not die with you. The bowstring snapped, and the arrow shattered as it froze through his throat. As he thrashed, droplets of blood flew. Some fell to earth solid and rolled under the bed. Others splashed as normal, and these she licked up quickly, not letting her tongue contact his bare skin. At the very last, Rosemary wrenched his head around with gloved hands, looked beyond his eyes, and called out wordlessly to that unnatural heat which plagued him. It answered, and he liquefied. Rosemarys hair and skin crinkled and baked as the heat found her. She gave him no benediction, but left seething as his body soaked the bed.

 

*********

 

She filtered dust from the air with her gown and breathed it in; she drank the ashes of everyone slain in the holy war. Rosemary was addicted to the taint, gathering it particle by particle from every corner of Terra. Her eyes had lightened from chestnut to palest tan, and her heart quivered at an unsustainable pace. She was a walking column of fireless heat, deadly to any beast standing within arms length of her. More and more she retreated to the gardens, smelling the poison in the soil, longing to rip the plants from the ground and gorge on its power. Yet she was a vampire still, forbidden to eat the food of mortals, and could not. She was starving, unable to approach her prey without their blood boiling to worthlessness.

 

When wandering in the gardens, often she would see the gardeners strolling through, smiling as they picked this fruit or that flower and delighting in it. Wracked with jealousy, she could only hide among the vines and plot to snatch their ashes should some accident befall them. They were charmed, though, overflowing with the poison which warded off all ill. Paler and weaker she became, burnt with bloodlust and heat and the taint of life. At last she flung herself facefirst onto a thorny vine like a shrikes prey, dangling above the ground, and waiting for the deadly dawn. The thorns on which she impaled herself rustled and grew, drawing the last few drops of blood out of her body. Each pierced through her body and shimmered as they emerged. Rosemary felt no pain until the last thorn emerged and pierced her frantically beating heart.

 

The dawning was not of the sun. The collected life of the garden burst out of her in a searing white light. Unseen invaders, also jealous of the garden, had no time to scream before their ashes dusted the earth. Its not so, whispered the dying Rosemary, as life once more ebbed out of her body. It cannot be so. Thorns retracted, oozing blood back into the corpse which healed as they passed through. She tried to protest as a thorny red vine blossomed and ripened before her mouth, but the berries smelled of blood. Hunger won, and she drained every one before the vines released her. She drew her pierced cloak around her tightly. So cold, she whispered, and her demons flooded around her once more. So lonely, she sighed, and the gardeners gently expelled her from the grounds. So unnatural, she mourned, before the insanity claimed her again.

Edited February 8, 2016 by Quincunx