Shireroth

It started, as always, with a bet. A simple enough mission - two different people assigned to it. Two very different approaches. And a bet, between them, on who would achieve it first. Surely Number One didn´t really expect Demons to work together ...
And a result that ... well, you´ll see in the end. Maybe there was more at work than a single bet. Who knows, maybe it was from a bet Number One got the idea. You never can tell with Number One. Or ... the other One.

The bet was between two Demons. Neither of them had earned names yet (if yet is an appropriate term for an almost timeless place), so let us refer to them by the insults with which they refer to eachother - Basher and Wordy. At the moment, both were in the upper levels of Hell, where only the true Demons dwelt, and things like bodies were meaningless. And the upper levels were boring, and, more importantly, there was no one of lower rank to boss around ...

All Demons are fundamentally selfish, and power hungry. They could exert power by ranking over other Demons, and commanding the armies of lesser demons in the lower levels. Or they could exert power by being given permission to enter the mortal realms, and given free reign to mess with the lives of mortals there, and fulfil their master´s plans more directly. Some, like Wordy, thought the best way to do this was to manipulate the mortals, to tempt them ... but never to act oneself. The damage to the mortal´s soul was greater, then. Others, like Basher, thought the best way to do this was by destroying things. There were always worlds special to ... the other One, and destroying them would like as not make him unhappy, and therefore, Number One happy. There was always rivalry between the smaller Temptation face far larger Destruction faction. It didn´t help Basher´s ego that his rival, Wordy, was the protégé of the leader of the Temptationists, and said to be highly in favour with Number One. So Basher took every opportunity to dismiss temptation he could.

And what better opportunity than when both were assigned a simple mission? At this moment (if moment is the right word), both received a message from their respective superior. And both read the same:
"Number One wants this soul acquired from the other One, where it´s heading. You have one year, another Demon partner, and an unrestricted portal. Do well in this, and it could mean good things for you and I."
Both notes crumpled into flame, then, and left an image of a young man, walking in mid air. They looked at eachother. An unrestricted portal was very good. Demons who entered the mortal realms had to take on a single body, and couldn´t leave until their body was killed. And if their body was killed, they´d have failed miserably, and would be punished for millennia before any hope of returning. An unrestricted portal extended the field of Hell around them. They could travel up to a thousand kilometres from it, without sacrificing their one `bodily form´ chance. They´d be able to explore the world and influence, but come back and pick a different one if they didn´t like it.
But if an unrestricted portal was good ... both being on the same mission was better. "Bet you I have the fellow killed before you even arrive," Basher taunted.
"Bet you I have him begging for his soul to be taken before you even get close," Wordy replied.
"Want to make a real bet?" Basher said, trying a different slant in the perpetual game of one-updemonship. "How about I agree not to ever talk a mortal during the mission. And you agree not to a lay a finger on any of the them. We´ll see who´s method works better. Winner takes the glory."
"I´m not fooled that easily," Wordy replied. "I agree not to lay a finger onn my grasp, and then I may touch it and its mortal carrier."
"Fine," Basher grunted, who hadn´t even considered how he´d pick up the soul. "It won´t help you - he´ll be dead by my hand long before you get there."
"Just try not to make it obvious its a Demon," Wordy replied with an exasperated tone. "You know Number One likes a degree of subtlety for these missions."
Basher did not bother to reply, but left through the portal. Wordy merely smiled.

James and Ludvig were strolling through the woods. They had been best friends for years, and loved to go on walks through the wood together. Most people in the village would hunt with bows, but they were so fast on their feet they enjoyed hunting with their hands - chasing after the rabbits which ran through the wood and trying to catch them. Sometimes they succeeded. Often they did not. But they had fun anyway, and that was what mattered ... wasn´t it?
Ludvig was somewhat faster than James, and today he had caught two rabbits, while James had none. Ludvig made light of it, and James joked too ... but, like all young boys, he didn´t want to finish last. And so, when a rabbit appeared on the track ahead of them, the thought came to James, `Push ahead and catch that one first ...´
"Come on, slow poke!" James yelled, pushing past Ludvig and running ahead towards the rabbit. Just at that moment, they both heard a rumble, and boulder, from the hill above them, rolled down of its own accord, and came to rest in the middle of the path. On top of James.
Ludvig mind was a mass of thoughts, as is anybody´s in an emergency. First was, "That could have been me ..." and then that was dismissed for, "Is he alright?" Though they might joke and tease eachother, they were really the best of friends and Ludvig ran up to his friend, full of concern.
The corpse ... wasn´t pretty. James´ head was one of the few things pushing through under the body, and his expression was one of happiness ... in his left hand, sdy was crushed beneath the rock, was the rabbit. The rest of James´ body was under the rock, and, in the dark of the forest, blood slowly dripped out from underneath it. He had been killed instantly.

"Damn that human," Basher grunted, for it had been he, standing up there, who had pushed the boulder.
"Better luck next time, Bashy," Wordy said condescendingly.
"At least I´ve done something already," Basher retorted. "Haven´t seen you do a thing."
"That´s how you know it was my work," Wordy said, winking mischieviously, then jumping out of Basher´s way as he lashed out at him. Wordy was too slow and got hit. They were still taking time to get used to their bodily forms. But Wordy had a retort ready. "Next time, try something that can´t miss him so easily," he chanted. "Really, your antics are so amusing they´d bring the house down ..." Then Wordy disappeared.
"At least I´m trying!" Basher retorted to the empty air. He could see his path easily - kill the boy now, before he became a saint ... and the boys soul was his. How that Wordy could hope to do anything in less time ...

Somehow, Ludvig made it back to the village, and through his babbling the villagers worked out something had happened and found James. There was great sadness - it was a small village and everyone had known James well. Ludvig´s father ... well, adopted father ... was the village priest, and he was worked to the bone consoling James´ family, and Ludvig, and preparing for the funeral which village custom demanded must be the next day. He was a kind and quiet man, but he could get flustered when stressed, and this was one of those times. When the evening meal was over, it was all he could do to slump into bed without collapsing, and he left his normal evening tasks for the morning.

That night, Ludvig dreamed, as he always did, of his parents. Ludvig had not had a happy childhood. His mother was like a demon in human form, yelling at him aather was a violent drunkard, and had beaten him regularly. He lived in constant fear of underperforming the slightest task and wreaking terrible revenge. Both his parents had died, however, in a house fire (spawned by one of his father´s drunken rages) while he was ten. At the time, he had been so afraid of them he had run and spent the night in the woods nearby (they lived so far out of town, nobody had noticed the blaze until too late), and the villagers had expected him dead too ... and were amazed when he came out of the wood, alive, and unaware that his parents were now dead. Ever since, he had been haunted by nightmares of his parents, still demanding he did tasks for them, and threatening horrible punishments. The priest and his family had taken Ludvig in - a nervous wreck, barely speaking to anyone. Patiently and calmly the priest had worked with him over time, and, apart from his nightmares, he appeared a perfectly normal youth. The priest feared the source of the nightmares was an inability to forgive his parents, and so he worked with Ludvig on this, and was confident that, in several years, the boy would be able to forgive them (horrible though the things they had done were) and move on. Till then, every night the priest placed a glass of water by Ludvig´s bed, for when he woke, around midnight, spluttering and coughing, and some nights the Priest would come in and sit with him. Not tonight.

Some nights he dreamt of his parents in Hell, demanding he join them and continue working. "You´re our son, to do our bidding for all eternity!" his mother screamed at him before he woke from his nightmare, gasping and spluttering. For a moment, he thought he could smell the smoke of Hell in his room ... but as he reached for the glass of water, he forget it. But ... the glass wasn´t there! The Priest must have been too tired. Spluttering still, Ludvig stumbled out of the house and to the waterbutt at its side. He broke the thin layer of ice and plunged his hands in, drawing up watnd stop the spluttering. Then, he looked up, and saw a light on in his parents room. They normally blew out the candle before they went to bed. But wait ... that was brighter than a candle ... the room was on fire! "Fire!" he screamed into the night, and, in his fear, tried to grab the waterbutt and hurl the water in. It was too heavy for him, and the water spilled against the side of the house, wasted. He ran to the well, grabbed a bucket and began filling it, feverishly, yelling "Fire!" again. By now other people were waking up and, sleepily, coming out to help. He worked like a madman, but the fire grew like crazy, faster than they could return. Other men tried to go into the house, to rescue the Priest, his wife and his daughter, but the fire was too hot, the smoke too strong. They laboured long into the night, but they could not save the Priest and family. All were taken by the flame.

Basher was disgusted. He had given up watching after Ludvig had alerted the villagers. Why hadn´t the boy stayed inside, like he was meant to? "Why wasn´t there a cup there?" he screamed. "These things happen," Wordy replied. "Sometimes humans are tired. You just can´t rely on them." He sneered. "Rather like some demons I know."
"Forget this skulking, I´ll get him myself this time," Basher roared, but Wordy held him back. "Not now, not while the whole town is there," he cried, fearing Basher would go so far. "If you must, take a human form later and slay him. Be a bandit or something. But for Number One´s sake, don´t attack them in the wide open right now!"
Basher calmed. "Fine, coward," he said. "I´ll plan. Does that make you happy? I´ll find another appropriate location, and do a lot more than just tip a candle over this time. I´ll rip him limb from limb. Which is more than you can say."
"I´m ... making arrangements," Wordy replied.
"Huh, sure," Basher said. "Try to do it in under a year ..."

In the morning, many of the villagers were tired and smoky, having been up all night fighting the fire, but they insisted on having the funeral for James anyway - and for the Priest and his family too now. The Priests´ father, hair white as snow, and walking with a stick, hobbled out to do it - he had been priest before his son. Ludwig, as stained as the rest of them, attended, weeping bitterly. But the rest of the villagers were wary of him. His parents had died in a fire, hadn´t they, and the boy had escaped unscathed. Said he´d been elsewhere. Then James dies in the wood. Well, he says James was crushed, but nobody else saw it. And then the Priest´s house burns down, just when he happens to be outside to raise the alarm. Even if he did work as hard as any of us ... he did ruin the water butt. They might have been saved if he hadn´t. Even if he didn´t do anything ... people close to him die. Who wants to hang around with a person like that? That night, Ludwig slept in the house of the Priest´s father, on the edge of the village, while Basher spent time observing the local bandit groups, and trying to determine how he could get one to attack the town with him without talking to them. Damn his bet ...

The next morning, traders came through the town. Normally they would have passed such a small town over, but something seemed to suggest to them that there could be money made today. The Priest´s father was thankful they did. He talked to them, some money changed hands, and then he went to Ludwig.
"I think it would be best you left with the traders," he told him bluntly. "I do not see anything wrong with you, but the villagers mutter. They think you´re under a curse."
"A curse?" Ludwig said, alarmed.
"There is nothing in it, I am sure," the old man replied, "but I agree that it would be best for you to leave the village. Go with the traders and find another one. Start a new life. Too many sad memories here."
"I will do as you suggest," Ludwig replied. And so he packed his bags and went off with the traders, who left later that day. The traders hadn´t heard the rumours about curses, and treated Ludwig as a fellow traveller, warmly welcoming him. For the next few days, they went on through the forests, towards the next town. Little did Ludwig know those few days would be the happiet around the corner.

Basher was alarmed at first when he returned and found Ludwig gone, but realised soon this would make things easier. Bandits attack traders, right? A particular band he´d been paying attention to was camped a few days along the traders route. When the traders were nearby, it was the work of a moment to kill the bandit chief as he scouted off. Basher took on his bodily form, and went back to the bandits. He wasn´t allowed to talk ... but there he´d never said he wouldn´t communicate.
He burst into the camp, dressed as the trader, and grunted. The men looked up. "What´s up, chief?" one asked. He pointed towards the path, and pulled his finger across his throat, the universal sign for "kill." Before they could question him further (since he couldn´t talk) he ran off and, slightly confused, they followed him. As the traders rounded the corner, he burst out of the woods and attacked, the bandits close behind. As he killed one trader, he was filled with the bloodlust of destruction, and went wild, killing more and more. The bandits joined him, grabbing the traders´ purses as they went. "You can´t fight - run," one of the traders told Ludwig, and he did. A bandit saw him, but the thought came, like a whisper in his ear "He´s scrawny and in poor clothes. He doesn´t have money - kill the ones who do before the other bandits take the cash," and he returned to the fray. When it was over, all the traders were dead ... but Basher looked up, and couldn´t find the boy. Ludwig was gone. He had escaped again! Basher became furious and turned upon the bandits too, slaughtering them where they stood, astonished that their chief had turned on them, but unable to resist his demonic strength. When Basher finished, the clearing was swathed in blood, and mutilated bodies lay on the ground, under wagon wheels, and hanging from trees.
"That didn´t achieve much, did it?" Wordy taunted, careful, this time, not to come too crage.
"How did he escape again!" Basher cried. "I´d swear someone´s protecting him ..."
"Maybe ... the other One," Wordy said, before Basher could think on his statement more.
"Maybe," Basher grunted. "But it doesn´t matter ... I got him good this time."
"How?" Wordy asked, knowing Basher couldn´t resist gloating.
"Planted an infection in the trader camp," Basher replied, gleefully. "He won´t run far ... before the plague takes him. I had an escape clause this time. You´ve got a day or two to get his soul ... before I succeed."
Wordy seemed alarmed, and Basher took further glee at this. "Weren´t expecting a second plan, where you, Wordy?" Basher taunted. "Didn´t think me that smart?"
"We´ll see how well it works," was all Wordy would say, before he disappeared into the wood.

Ludwig stumbled through the wood, alarmed and slightly delirious. It was happening again. More people were dying. Maybe he was cursed. Then the thought came to him. The curse wasn´t that people around him would die ... he was the one meant to die. Those events were meant to kill him. And every time he escaped, more people died. What could he do, he asked himself? There was nothing for it but to avoid other people. See how long his luck lasted. He couldn´t risk killing more people to save himself, could he? And then he thought of his parents, and how he really, really didn´t want to see them in the afterlife. These thoughts looped in his head as the plague began to take hold of him, as the bats of the night flew by, squeaking and threatening to shatter his thoughts, until, crying out, he collapsed on the ground, and passed out. The bats settled on his body, squeaking to the night.

He woke up in a hut. An old lady was bending over him, mopping his forehead. Other people! He had to get away. He struggled to get him up, but she forced him down. "Drink this," she said, pouring something doleep.

He dreamed of the dead. In his dreams, he saw James, who complained "You should have died, not me!" He saw the Priest and his family, screaming, "If you hadn´t knocked over the waterbutt we would have lived!" He saw the traders, cursing him for bringing the bandits to them. All of them were calling for him to join them in death, that he may suffer the fate he deserved ... and more. They wanted to make him pay for killing them. And then his dreams turned to his parents. "Come," his mother demanded. "I have lots for you to do down here for all eternity!" His father just stood there, with an evil grin on his face, and huge club in his hand. "No, I won´t join you!" Ludwig screamed in his dreams. "I don´t want to die! I´m afraid to die!"

He woke in the early hours of the morning, still in the hut. He felt refreshed and revived. He knew he had to get away before he more suffered from his apparent curse. But as he rose out of the bed, the old lady, still sitting nearby, and dozing lightly, awoke. "Ah, you´re awake dear," she said. "Nasty plague you had there, but I recognised the symptoms. Bit o´ garlic and you´re right as rain."
"Must .... go," he murmured. "Otherwise ... others die."
"Nonsense dear, you´re all better now," she said, "and you haven´t left my hut since I dragged you in from the woods. Nobody else is infected, you´re cured - there´s no need to leave now. Wait a day or two until you´re completely better."
But Ludwig wouldn´t take no for an answer. He wasn´t quite well, he knew, but more importantly, he didn´t want to kill any others. Even if this plague was gone, there would be more attempts on his life, he was sure. This curse wasn´t going to give up. He waited until the old lady tottered off to the village well for water, and then left. Something in him told him to head further north, away from the villages, and so he plunged off, keeping the morning sun to his right.

The old laand found her patient gone. "Young people," she muttered. She looked at her store of garlic. All gone. She´d have to go and fetch some more from the woods - nobody else knew where her secret herb garden was, as the other villagers didn´t use them in food. But she was tired- first those bats, squeaking like demons, and then, after she went to scare them off, finding the boy. She had been up all night tending him, and having a little nap was oh so tempting. She deserved a sleep, didn´t she? The thought came like a whisper in her ear. She gave into temptation, and lay on the bed. She was asleep within moments. She never woke up.

Later in the day the villagers discovered her, still asleep. She was muttering in her sleep, and feverish. A few tried to help her, but she never woke up to tell them the root that would save them all was only a five minute walk away. By the end of the day the plague had taken her. Two days hence, all but a few villagers had been consumed by it. The demonic plague was short, sharp, and effective. Unfortunately, it had missed its one intended victim.

For the next few days, Ludwig stumbled north, sleeping in the open, and always haunted by his new nightmares. The voices of the dead seemed to call in his ears, wanting to punish him for cutting their life short. And he just kept thinking, "I want to live ..." He was afraid to die, he realised. Deathly afraid. And then ... he saw the strangest thing he would ever see in his life. He saw a bubbling pool with a sickly green glow, and, standing behind it, what looked like a man in a dark grey cloak. "You have come, Ludwig," he said to Ludwig, as if he had been waiting here for all eternity for Ludwig to arrive.
"How do you know my name?" Ludwig asked.
"I know far more than that," the stranger replied. "I know of the curse on you. I know those around you die. And I know you are afraid of death ... afraid of what they will do to you, if you ever reach them."
Ludwig was amazed. He hads, had he? How did this stranger know?
"Do you want to avoid death?" the stranger continued.
"More than anything," Ludwig said, realising, for the first time, how certain he had become on this.
"Then I can help you, but it will come at a price," the stranger replied. "What the curse wants is your soul. It doesn´t want you. If you give me your soul, I will guard it from the curse. But even if the curse leaves you, you will still die naturally, sooner or later. That is why I am offering you a chance beyond the loss of your soul - offering that you may never die."
"How?" Ludwig asked.
"With the power of your soul, I can weave a powerful enchantment on you, that will free you from the power of death," the stranger said. "You will need to keep giving it energy, but to do so is easy, and I will explain how after I have done the enchantment. Do that simple thing, and eternal freedom from death shall be yours."
"I accept," Ludwig said. At the moment, he was willing to do anything to avoid death.
"Then I will make it so. Come towards me and stand by this pool, as you repeat after me ..."
Ludwig did so, and repeated a sentence in a strange tongue. After he had finished, he convulsed, coughing furiously, and watched, for a moment, as something silvery left his mouth and fell, screaming, into the pool. It was then he began to realise he had been tricked. But then he convulsed further, as the stranger laughed. His skin grew pale, his teeth long, and the curse of the Vampire came upon him. Ludwig was no more. A Vampire was left now.
"Your freedom from death is sustained by something simple and obvious," the stranger said to the new Vampire. "Drinking the lifeblood of others. You fear death, and rightly so. You can only be free of it by taking the life of others. Enjoy eternity ..." the stranger finished, and then laughed horribly, before stepping into the portal.

Back in hell, Wordy (who the stranger had of course been) laughed triumphantly. "Bunothing! Nothing! You never even talked to him before he arrived at you - and yet he offered his soul to you freely, and now he will kill others for you to boot!"
"It is simple, Basher," Wordy said. He no longer feared Basher hitting him. Back here in Hell, his body was gone, and besides - he was about to be rewarded greatly for this success. He delighted in this chance to explain it to Basher. "I didn´t do nothing ... I merely whispered. Whispered a few choice temptations in the right places. I whispered to the friend, the priest, the townsfolk, the bandits, the wise-woman ... and the soul in question. I walked him down the path of self doubt and death that I knew would lead him to me, and that offer. You merely need to know people, and their weaknesses, and then, with the right words, they´ll do exactly what you want"
"But the death ... you didn´t do any of that. You couldn´t have planned it to miss him, the person who enacted it was me! You couldn´t have done anything with ... me ..." Basher remembered the phrases Wordy had used, and cursed. "You used me."
"I´m a demon, it´s what I do," Wordy replied. "Had you done your plan, you would have had one soul - his. Not even slightly tarnished, just under developed. With my plan, I have not only his soul, quite corrupted from its old path, but I have the souls of many others, taken before their time, with temptation on their hearts. And I have him still out there, taking the lifeblood of others for all eternity." He laughed again, delighting at the brilliance of the plan.
"One day, I will make you pay," Basher vowed.
"But until then, I think I´m due for a promotion," Wordy said. And he was. Soon enough, his Mistress would be sent to wreak temptational havoc in Gralus, and he would be sent with her, with his new name .... The Whisperer.

The first Vampire, meanwhile, was struck with the absolute horror of what he had done. Not only had he let others die to avoid his own death. Now hlife of others. "Never die ..." In times to come he would laugh bitterly at those words. He had never been promised eternal life, though he thought he had. He had been promised that he would never die. And the difference for that was as great as the difference between life and death. He was horrified at the thought that he would have to kill others to live - but even more so, he was still afraid of facing death, especially as the last vision in the pool, before it had gone with the stranger, was the village he had ended up in before here - with every citizen dead of plague that he had carried. He was both afraid of death, and shamed at his fear. He felt ashamed to be seen under the same sun as the living, and fled, hiding in darkness, and fearing the light. Garlic, that root that had saved him (and, by taking the last of it, condemned the town) became a source of fear also, and he would never partake of it again. He could never again face the profession of his loving, adopted father - he avoided any symbols of religion. And the loss of his best friend to save himself broke his heart - but he would not die of a broken heart - it would take a wooden stake through it, like the woods they had been walking through when his friend died. In horror at himself, at first, he made his way to the cliff and threw himself off ... but he floated off, light as a feather. Finally, he fled to the darkest cave in the mountains he could find, which was filled with bats - bats like the ones that had found him in his night of delirium. He hid in the cave, hiding from himself and the world, and became one of the bats that surrounded him. And thus, the first Vampire was truly reborn.