Plagueborn
A short bit of back-story for a character from the novella I've been working on
Eager to save their village the shamans began their rituals. They sought to bind the essence of the plague that ravaged their home to a physical form, so that they might reason with it or kill it. A young couple, already dying from the plague, lay in the center of an elaborate summoning circle. With somber voices the shamans began their chant. Their voices rose and fell like the ocean in the grip of a mighty storm, the power of their voices echoing through the fabric of reality.
A thick dark mist rolled through the village, gathering inside the circle. The plague stricken couple cried out in agony as the feverish mist enveloped them. Sweat beaded on the faces of the shamans as they struggled to contain the entity that slowly formed within the circle, though their unwavering chant drove relentlessly onwards.
The mist writhed and boiled as the dark shapes at its heart began to twist about each other, slowly merging together. The screams died out, cut off by a bone chilling death rattle. The shamans swayed, barely able to hold back the growing creature. A low cruel laugh filled the clearing as the mist condensed around a nightmarish form.
Taut greyish skin stretched over a lanky skeletal form, pitted with weeping sores and pockmarks. Two great bat-like wings rose from its shoulders, the delicate membranes lost to rot. A long rat-like tail coiled about its talons like a hungry serpent. Its face was human in shape but was only more taut skin over a smooth skull. The only features were seamless sunken flesh over empty eye sockets and oily tear tracks.
As its gaze passed over the trembling shamans they fell to the ground. Blood seeped from their faces as the plague took them, accelerated by the creature's magic. Chuckling, it stepped over the boundaries of the circle.
The village was lost, within days the creature had spread its plague with naught but glances and its foreboding presence. It moved on, dancing its mad jig through the country side, spreading death to all that caught its eye. The stench of death and the echoes of its mad laugh were all that remained in its wake.
Slowly cities began to form and the creature was delighted. The filth that clogged gutters and alleyways along with the rampant vermin proved to be perfect for the creature's twisted delights. New diseases crept through streets and homes, carried by its tainted rats and insects.
It crept unseen through the streets, watching the results of its work with unrestrained glee. It laughed at the pitiful attempts to contain the infected, the humans unaware of how its contagions spread. As despair spread it heard tales of other creatures that wrought death the way the smiths wrought iron. Curiosity burned within its cruel mind and it set out to watch them work, watch and perhaps learn.
It found itself in the deserts of the far south, speaking with beings that worked in insanity. Diseases of the mind... the very idea delighted the creature. From them it learned to play the melodies of madness. To wear down the strong and stubborn with gilded words.
Eager to work its new art the creature returned north. Along the way he encountered a village gripped by terror, terror of the ancient hunter that lived within the forest. Seeing a perfect opportunity the creature drifted through the village, spreading the insanity of false hope. He talked many men into trying to hunt the beast, to seek revenge for the villagers already lost to the great hunter. It watched with sadistic pleasure as they all rushed to their death. It left a pox that brought those that remained to their graves.
For centuries, the creature wandered, never tiring of its cruel work. It finally caught the attention of the dwindling Ancients, self-appointed guardians of humans and other lesser creatures. Though much like the diseases it conjured, it slipped through every crack and crevice, always avoiding their grasp.
Ever so slowly human science did what the Ancients could not. New cures and medicines slowed the creature's plagues and poxes. Soon it had to result to its most vile conjurations to spread the panic it so loved. Though its devious mind never ceased its relentless push forward.
It danced through the streets, its haunting melodies burrowing into the depths of peoples' minds. It whispered silver lies into the ears of the wealthy and influential. And it stirred the common rabble into frenzies. Where its abhorrent talons tread, madness and strife soon followed like loyal hounds.