Ignis et Cruorem - The Origin of Gloomfang

Part 1 - The Curse

"The Devil take your souls!"

The scream from the frothing mouth of the condemned man made the spectators cease there jeers and start back in surprise and fear. The man's eyes seemed to glow with hell-flame amidst the moonlit execution night, his teeth glinting almost as brightly as the silver cords that bound him to the stake.

The cardinal's red robes seemed to soak up the firelight of the torches that were poised to feed the kindling, his bearded face remaining passive, unmoved. "Alban LeVay, you stand convicted of right numerous heresies, murders, and blasphemous acts of lycanthropy. Will you repent?"

The answer came not from a human throat, for the man was no longer present. Now, bound in the silver bonds, there struggled a monster. The snarling muzzle of the beast flung spittle as the teeth gnashed and snapped. Many in the crowd crossed themselves or uttered cries of terror. But the cardinal remained impervious.

"Vos ero silens!" he shouted, commanding that the werewolf be silent. "Since you will not repent, you stand condemned. Illic ero haud misericordia. Let the heretic burn!"

"I will be avenged," the thing roared even as the flames began to lick at the based of the pile. "I may die, but my legacy will live on. I curse my own family, I curse you and this land. You shall all be my prey. I will rise again through my sons and daughters. Ia! Shub-Niggurath. Ia! Relzelalm dho-hna fhtagn! All shall feed the maw of the wolf!"

And thus Alban LeVay, known to his victims as Goretongue, perished in the agony of all-consuming fire. The ashes were scattered to the four winds, the Inquisition turned to other matters and the peasants went back to their lives.

But a century later, the terror returned...

Part 2 - Accusations

Even after a hundred years the ground still smelled like charcoal. Richard rubbed a pinch of the defiled soil between his thumb and forefinger and wrinkled his nose. No one but him seemed to be able to detect such subtle smells in these parts. His keen senses helped him to know when a field on his farm needed to be left fallow for a year or when the cows were about to calf.

Or when he was being lied to.

"I assure you, if we know anything you will be the first we tell," the friar said. "The war is making it difficult to get personal messages across the border."

Richard grunted and got to his feet. "And I suppose the stories we're hearing about whole villages being burned to the ground and vampire attacks happening all along the front are making it difficult too."

The holy man nodded. "Of course."

Richard eyed the friar with a gaze that seemed to reflect more than the light of the torches surrounding the abbey's courtyard. "Interesting, isn't it?"

"What?"

"I said it's interesting: how we're able to get fantastic rumors back here easily enough, but one message from a father to his son has difficulty. Gossip more important, is it?"

The friar fidgeted beneath his robes but his face scowled in irritation. "Mind your tongue, LeVay. You tread on dangerous ground."

"Do I?" Richard said. "That's the pot calling the kettle black. Let's hear some more gossip shall we? More rumors? How about what they're whispering in the taverns: that the clergy is selling indulgences? Or how about the one where they say that the mercenaries are hauling off young women in large numbers to the convents: young women who are never heard from again? Or what about the rumor that the Sanddevi barbarians have surrendered and that the holy knights are carrying out genocide against those who are no longer opposing them?"

"Enough!" A new voice, harsh and grating. As angry as Richard's but accompanied by the scent of self-righteousness. Richard didn't even have to turn to know it was Wilfred.

"Hello, Brother," Richard said, his voice low and measured.

"I thought you came here to fulfill your vow at last," Wilfred said. "And here I find you pestering one his eminence's messengers. Life on the farm hasn't improved your manners. You may go, Brother Albert."

As the friar scurried away, Richard turned slowly and cast a contemptuous gaze on the monkish vestments that Wilfred wore. "You look every bit the part of the self-denying man of the cloth. They say you might make abbot one day. Couldn't happen to a nicer hypocrite."

Wilfred sighed and rubbed the bridge of his nose. "I'm tired, Richard. I have no time for your anger nor your flouting of church doctrine."

"I have no quarrel with your doctrine," Richard shot back. "Charity, mercy, justice, forgiveness, eternal life: all these I believe in. It's your politics I hate. That's the problem with doctrine isn't it? Doctrine doesn't fill the church coffers!"

"When you left the family estate to become a farmer, you renounced more than just your title, Richard. You renounced the king's protection. If you continue to come to the abbey and harass its members, you will be held accountable. Noble blood is no protection without the resources to back it up. Change your ways, brother, or you may find yourself in the stocks!"

Richard glared at his brother. "Are you going to let me send a message to my son or not?"

"Matthew is a soldier in the cardinal's guard. When his eminence deems it fit, you will have your message, not before."

"Blast you, Wilfred," Richard said, "it's only a letter. I just want to know he's all right. It's been six months!"

"And your holy orders will expire in two weeks," the monk said. "You speak of obligations. What of yours?"

Richard snarled and turned away. "You know my reasons for that."

"I know you are being foolish, and you know very well why it must be done. You say you do not oppose justice; then serve justice by taking the vows."

"Justice, you say?" Richard turned back to Wilfred and pointed at the still-livid earth. "Justice is a two-way street, oh brother of mine! Where was justice when they murdered great-grandfather Alban?"

"You dare speak of him?" roared the monk. "He was a murderer, a heretic, a monster by his own confession! He turned before dozens of witnesses."

"Paid witnesses no doubt."

"How dare you!"

"Spare me, Wilfred. How many times have we argued over this? When the church became politicized and formed the inquisition two hundred years ago, it lost its way. If your god ever blessed you, it's long past. He's forsaken you. How can I believe the words of a clergy so buried in dirt that it can devour men's homes and for a show make lengthy prayers before a populace too frightened of its armies to speak out against obvious corruption?"

Wilfred's stare was icy. "You know the consequences if you will not take the vows. Your blood be on your own head if you refuse. I will not be responsible."

"No, Wilfred, you won't. You never were. Maybe that's why you'll make such a fine abbot."

The harsh crunch of gravel was the only sound that bespoke Richard's anger as he left the abbey for home. The moon was at first quarter as he snapped the reigns of his wagon and made the horse start off at a brisk trot.

Somewhere, from across the moors, wolves were howling. Richard tasted sweet blood in his mouth.

But he paid it no heed as he made for home.

Part 3 - Conspiracy


It was after vespers, and the ruby robes of Cardinal Beaumont rippled in the slight evening breeze that came from the south through the battlements of the castellated abbey. His bearded face wore a look that Wilfred knew too well as the candlesticks cast their flickering and distorted shadows on the marble walls of the cathedral nave.

“This is most troublesome, brother abbot,” the cardinal said, his voice echoing solemnly from the flying buttresses above.

“I agree, your eminence,” Father Dominic intoned. Then, without turning to the silent witness to this grave exchange, “I trust our brother has a suitable explanation as to why his own errant kinsman has failed to consecrate himself before the holy altar.”

Wilfred tried to force the blood away from his reddening countenance. “I have made every effort to reason with him, Father. Richard is intractable. He actually accuses us of heresy and corruption! I can do nothing with him short of outright arrest.”

“Let us hope it does not come to that,” Beaumont said. “However, in these troubled times, the holy inquisition cannot countenance the presence of another errant LeVay; it is unfortunate enough that the Lycanwood has become infested with the descendants of the Andermanns. And this comes so hard upon the heels of the recent purge of the Shargrailar order.

"Even the armies of the holy church and the baron’s combined forces cannot afford to fight a three-front war: the Sanddevi remain restless and the undead vermin continue to prey upon our people. Do you realize the consequences if a powerful lycanthrope should arise to unite the disparate clans?”

Wilfred bowed his head. “Of course, your eminence. I know my failings and those of my bloodline. But there is still a week left before his seventh Hallowmas. Surely there is time to arrange a show of force that would compel him to seek absolution for the sins of his accursed progenitor?”

The cardinal frowned, his well manicured fingers steepled before his immaculately groomed face. “I fear that may not be possible, my son. Our armies are spread too thin and are barely enough to hold our present foes at bay. The fact that the werewolves of the north are as yet fractured and plagued by infighting has been a true blessing. But you yourself know the power that Alban LeVay wielded. His one failing was that he acted alone. If his descendant were to follow a different path…”

“Disaster,” the abbot finished, his hands obviously restless with nervous strain under his robes. “If any move is to be made against Richard, it will not be through official channels. The people are already suspicious of us because of the pernicious rumors coming back from the front. We must side with the people in this.”

“How do you mean, Father?” Wilfred said.

“As much as it pains me to say it,” Dominic replied, “when the sovereigns of a country cannot rule the mob, the mob itself must rule.”

Wilfred’s face was ghastly even in the flickering candlelight. “But surely, Father, you don’t mean a public lynching? It could conceivably escalate into a riot that could gut The City and all around it. The results could be catastrophic!”

“Calm yourself, my son,” the cardinal said. “I believe I know what the abbot is hinting at. There are riots, yes, but there also more expedient methods. A crusade, perhaps? Yes, what is needed is the right cause. Am I correct, Brother Dominic, in insinuating that you already have a leader in mind for this unique form of justice?”

All eyes seemed to go to Wilfred. “Brother,” Dominic said, “I believe you are able to see this situation from a unique perspective. Richard is your kinsman and you know his mind. You have been in line for an abbey of your own and now may be the moment for you to prove yourself. Do you comprehend the scope of what I ask of you?”

“I… I think so, Father. But to trust to undisciplined rabble–“

“It is of no consequence. You know as well as I when the full moon rises. If Richard has not recanted his epithets and refuses to keep his oath, he must be dealt with. You may pursue any reasonable course of action you deem fit, but what is needed is righteous fervor. The wrath of the people can be a powerful tool when other, more regimented aid is otherwise engaged.”

Wilfred hesitated a moment as he seemed to consider the tremendous import of what was asked of him. But at last, he nodded and said, “Very well. Father, your eminence, I will see to the arrangements. My brother will repent… or he will face the consequences of heresy.”

“See that it is so,” the abbot said. “Now, leave us, brother. The cardinal and I must meditate a while in private.”

===================

After Wilfred had left, the cathedral was eerily hushed, the chants of the monks having long since settled into stony silence. Now only shadows ruled.

“Do you think he will succeed?” the abbot whispered.

“It does not matter,” the cardinal responded, his gaze staring icily into the space. “What matters is that a move has been made. Either outcome will serve our purposes. Wilfred knows what must be done, and whether he succeeds or fails, he will create an awareness. That is all we require for now.”

The two then parted, their robes fluttering as they went their separate ways. They were soon lost to sight, shrouded in the darkness of the abbey.

Part 4 - Albatross

His footsteps made no indentation upon the endless hardpan. The sun beat down upon him, the merciless heat driving the moisture from his body. The light was a spear thrust through his eyes.

The light of truth.

As his boiling brain dimly drank in the terrible finality of his fate, he was able to perceive one truth even more poignant than his body’s craving for moisture. The true certainty is this boundless aridity was the lack of significance. The infinite expanse cared naught for the dreams and the hopes of men, it showed no mercy to the needs of body or soul, and it was unaffected by the strength of mortals. It was the vast unfeeling cosmos in miniature, impersonal, dread, mysterious and terrible.

And it was going to kill him.

For so long parched that his tongue swelled and blackened, he concentrated on his inner thirst to the point of exclusion of all other stimuli. So great was the need in himself that at first he failed to notice the hooded figure standing near him, observing in silence.

“A liability, isn’t it?”

“What?” He turned to face the shadowy figure, incongruous amongst the bright sands.

“Being human, Richard LeVay. It’s a millstone, an albatross. A curse, if you will?”

Richard the desert wanderer turned and confronted his questioner. “Who are you?”

The figure drew back its hood with thin pale hands, skin strangely untouched by or impervious to the baking sun. An equally whitish and gaunt face stared back at him, white hair capping its look of sickly albinism. The eyes were strangely red.

“Take a good look, Richard, my son. You know who I am in your heart.”

Richard drew back. “No. You’re dead!”

“A hundred years dead,” the man said, chuckling as he did so. “And this is a dream.”

“What? A dream?”

“Yes, Richard. And yet, it is as real as your material life. Dreams are more than mere visions in this world, my son. Dreams are doorways.”

Richard brought shaking hands to his head. “No. No! It isn’t real. It can’t be.”

“Great Cthulhu dreams beneath the sea. Would you dare call his dreams a hallucination? If not, then what do we find ourselves in, you and I? What lurks and slithers in the spaces between dreams and the waking world? What bloodthirsty horrors caress your mind with the venom you call lassitude? What is the dream? What is the reality?

“What is the dreamer? In fact… what are you?”

Richard sank to his knees. “I deny this. I am in my bed at home. My wife is beside me. I am home. Home!”

“And yet you are here,” the stranger-no-more declared. “You are not who you are, my son. You never were. You delude yourself. I have watched you from the court of the Great Mother ever since I was cast Beyond by the flames. I see you and know the truth.”

The emaciated hand cupped his chin and raised his face. The robed figure was silhouetted by the son. “You are me.”

“What?”

“I see how you rage for your son. Such passion! Where do you believe it stems from? Have you longed to change the world, but were frustrated by your powerlessness? Have you ever lusted for the blood of your tormentors, ached to leap upon the vile persons who control this filthy world?

“Rend them…”

“Stop.”

“Tear…”

“Stop!”

“Kill…”

“Stop! Stopstopstop!”

“Kill!!”

The silhouette grew, shredded its robe. Its hands produced claws like daggers. Its breath and voice deepened to a basso rumble, like a subterranean tremor given a body. Yet its form remained hidden.

Save for the eyes. Those blazing red eyes.

“I am you!!”

Richard opened his mouth to scream.

===============

“Richard! Richard wake up!”

Richard LeVay gasped as if it were the first breath he had taken in a year. He was soaked with sweat, throat raw, the taste of iron in his mouth.

He looked frantically about him.

She was there. “Sarah?”

“Yes, Richard, I’m here. You were having a nightmare.”

Richard swallowed hard. “Nightmare? No, I… yes. Yes, a bad dream.”

“Mommy? Daddy?” Two little voices, drowsy, belonging to two tiny forms that rubbed their eyes.

“See, you’ve woken the children,” Sarah said. “Now what was this dream all about?”

For a full thirty seconds, Richard LeVay, descendant of Alban LeVay, stared into space and said nothing while his wife watched and his children began to fidget.

A liability, isn’t it?

Kill!

“Nothing,” he said. “Just nothing.”

Part 5 – Two Visitors

All signs portended a coming storm. The sun was a congealed mass on the horizon, a freshly-dead heart whose blood had not yet acquired the rustiness of enduring dissolution. The LeVay homestead was painted with the morning ichor, a lump of stone-skinned meat slouching on the capillary grass.

Richard had been looking at the angry orb through the eye of his kitchen window ever since it had begun to peer balefully above the horizon. It stared at him with all the malevolence of an imp, mocking him with some withheld information that it knew would destroy him.

Richard suddenly knew he hated the sun. He hated the day. The burning face, scorching his weak skin, draining his strength, denying him respite from its fire. But there was another object in the sky that gave light that did not scorch, did not blind one to look at it. A beautiful radiance that turned the world to silver-glass, evoked poems of passionate furor. A soothing, strengthening radiance fit to hunt by.

On some instinctual level, he seemed to know that something was about to happen. Though he could never have explained it in words, he felt an alienage, a growing separation from the sane world. A mounting unity with the nameless esoterica of another wider universe.

What was happening to him?

But strangely he was not frightened. For days now the world he had known had simply seemed to recede from him since he had argued with the friar and then with his estranged kinsman. As yet the world that was to replace the one he had lived in for thirty years was all too small. Waiting to expand from within him, like a cocoon he was unconsciously weaving about himself.

And what would emerge from this chrysalis? He found that he fervently desired to know. When the night came, he knew he would not be same as he was now. No, he would be better. Superior. Somehow more than what he had been. The thought was like ambrosia. Yes, something was in the wind; what was it? He was possessed with an enthralling passion to know; yet it was just beyond his reach.

So close. So very, very close. He wanted it. No, he needed it. So close.

And there was a name in his head. A name he could not put a face to. A name that seemed to evoke the desired images that swelled his heart. Darkness and power. Feral authority that whispered to him from the past. The shadowy strength of the hungry marauder.

Gloomfang!

When the knock came, Richard LeVay’s head swung rapidly, angrily, toward the interruption to his reverie. Like a wonderful dream blown apart by the raucous blast of the morning cockcrow, the connection to his trance state crumbled. He angrily strode forward and wrenched open the door, conscious of how frail even this muscular effort was, how pathetically weak.

In his self-disgust, he almost failed to acknowledge the source of the irritating hammer blows.

“Well, Richard, have you no greeting for your brother?”

===================

Sarah and the children huddled in another room, fearing the storm inside far more than the weather without.

“Today is the day, Richard,” Wilfred said, his solemn face framed in his hood above his neatly folded arms.

Richard eyed his brother over his breakfast, his gaze curiously bloodshot considering his complete lack of fatigue this morning. “And?”

Wildred’s brow furrowed. “And? And nothing. You must fulfill your vows today. You have run out of time and this is the first time I have been able to see you. I have tracked you for days and now you have no opportunities left.”

Richard only grunted and savagely tore at the sausage without using any implements.

“Your stubbornness has kept you away from the altar thus far, brother, but it will not save you when the full moon rises tonight. Why must you constantly evade the truth?”

“The truth?” Richard flung the meat rind from him with a growl and stabbed a finger toward the robed monk. “The only truth I recognize is that for generations we have been enslaved to a ritual that no one knows the power of. And I still have yet to hear from my eldest son at the front.

“I pleaded, begged, demanded, but no one heard me. Now I don’t know whether he is alive or dead. And you know something, brother? After all this time, of seeing the filth of my own race, the corruption, greed and apathy around me, even from my own family members, I don’t think I care to know the truth.”

“How can you say that, Richard? Your family loves you.”

“Love? Fah! They fear me and you know it. They know the legend. I see the look in their eyes. I can smell it on them, like a cancer underneath the skin. To think that a little thing like a hoax could cool the love between man and wife, father and children. Fie on it. And fie on you!”

“That will be quite enough,” commanded Wilfred. “You edge close to blasphemy by accusing the holy diocese of duplicity.”

“Blasphemy? How can men be blasphemed when they’re not gods? Or are you saying you are?”

“Silence!” roared the monk. “Now you do blaspheme. You damn yourself and all near you by refusing holy orders. Come with me now to fulfill your vows or suffer the dire consequences.”

Richard leapt to his feet, eyes blazing with a furious effulgence, a crimson passion that seemed lit by abysmal fires. “Get out.”

“Listen to me! Take this path and you face the Inquisition. Do you know what that means? Do you have any idea what they will do to you tonight?”

“I said get out!”

Wilfred’s feet were planted firmly on the wooden planks of the kitchen floor. “No. You have tried the patience of the cardinal one too many times. If you want me to leave without having achieved my goal here, then you will have to throw me out!”

===================

She watched with amusement and not a little admiration for the strength he showed even in this form. She chuckled in a sinister way as she watched the monk’s body literally fly ten feet and end up in the mud outside of the LeVay house.

The monk got to his feet and pointed an all-too-accusatory finger at the farmer who stood menacingly in the doorway. “The deity punisheth the sins of the fathers unto the third and fourth generation, brother,” the holy man shouted. “Repent or be damned!”

She clapped her hands together and laughed appreciatively as Richard threw a pitchfork, the monk just barely dodging in time to avoid being impaled.

It would be all too short a day for the farmer. Soon his brother would be back. And he would bring others. If she wished to save the man she had been watching for years, to see him achieve the legacy both he and unknowingly she craved, now was the time to reveal herself. To give the gift only she could give.

===================

When the second knock sounded, Richard’s mind was almost a haze of murderous frenzy. He had resolved to kill the next person to enter his house, and he threw open the door, almost taking the portal off its hinges.

But no sanctimonious cleric stood arrogantly before him. And he felt no hatred for what confronted him now. Instead he simply stared at the regal form that looked up at him.

A great lady, clad in a silken gown, golden hair flowing behind in the wind like a wild mane, stood and regarded him with eyes as blue as aquamarine gems, as hard as diamonds.

One delicately manicured hand was upturned, holding what looked like a small plant.

It seemed an eternity before either of them spoke. Richard felt something stir within him at the sight of this mysterious noble. Had he seen her once, long ago?

A lifetime. An eternity ago.

“I know your soul, good sir,” she said, her words seeming to hypnotize him. “And thus I bring you this.”

“Who… who are you?” Richard stammered. “I seem to know…”

The lady reached for one of his hands and laid the plant gently in his palm. “For you.”

“But… why?”

She smiled a smile at once sensual and predatory. She continued to hold his hand as she spoke. “Because it contains your destiny. You are not one of them. You are meant for something else. I have seen it.”

Richard found himself growing breathless. There seemed to be some will at work, some irresistible power, at once malevolent and alluring, that was cloying about his spirit. A thing he had no power to shake off.

When she finally let go and backed away, her gaze kept level with his, blue eyes boring into him. “Remember the words, Richard LeVay. Even a man who is pure in heart and says his prayers by night, may become a wolf when the wolf bane blooms and the autumn moon is bright."

And with a silvery, melodious laugh, she seemed to dance into the distance. Like a sprite or ghost.

And was gone.

Yet for a moment he still heard her amused voice.

Tonight you will be reborn. The next night we will meet again. Until that night, I await you where the shadow of the wood falls upon the Shunned Road. Till we meet again…

My lord Gloomfang!

Part 6 – Soulsplitter

That very night three pairs of eyes, non-physical and unseen, watched the throngs of humans that gathered in the public square.

One pair belonged to an old and filthy spirit. It had long wandered the halls of the unseen and gazed with smug satisfaction as the ancient curse had done its work since its death. Yes, its revenge was about to become complete; and he who was the fulfillment of a prophecy made a century ago was about to come into his own. And he would be so wonderful to control!

The second pair, belonging to a soul made of dark passion who craved communion with one who was fated to join her in the march of destiny, gazed with cruel excitement at what was to come. Her spirit saw the immediate future and knew that what transpired tonight was to unite her with the being she ached for. One who would end her loneliness, her curse ever since a terrible night of bloodshed so long ago. If it was possible for a heart to salivate, hers was viciously slavering.

And the third…

The third belonged to a thing that men had no name for, or at least no name of their own making. A power, a force, a horror that saw all futures, all possibilities, all life, indeed the cosmos itself, as mere playthings. A thing that walked like a man when it wished. This blasphemous presence, this mad faceless entity, saw the night and the creature about to be born from it. But to attempt to describe its desires would have been fruitless, for its mind was utterly alien: beyond the comprehension of even the most ancient of the immortals, still less by the comparatively trivial lives displayed before its hideous attention tonight.

The three were aware of one another, the first two somewhat dimly, the third sharply and in focus. But the presence of the other seers was of little consequence for the moment: now the object, the locus of fate that drew together at long last, was all to them.

Thus they waited in sinister glee.

That object, the marketplace of the City, was crowded as usual; but tonight there was more than merely a horde of bodies. There was a flock of angry spirits.

Just the sort of weapon to bring down a monster, Wilfred thought as a smug smile crawled its way across his well-fed face.

“Tonight, my brothers, we stand against an evil growing at our very gates,” the hired orator was shouting. “What man, woman or child does not know of the history of Vale and what became of the pour souls who suffered at the hands of the cursed Alban the heretic? Do you wish this curse to visit you and your children and your children’s children?”

The crowd’s response was a like a tidal wave of sound. Howls and shouts of outrage, incoherent cries for vengeance undulated through the mob like a surge in a stagnant pond, churned by the skillful hand of the demagogue.

“Is it your will that your loved ones will become the prey of a new plague, a fresh curse upon our people?”

Again the gush of indignation. Clenched fists began to rage at the air.
“Will you stand by while your homes, your very lives are defiled by the damned? I say to you, never! Never!”

Never! Never! The rabble took up the chant, every face distorted by pure unreasoning hate. They were more than a mere mob, Wilfred knew. They had merged, coalesced. They were now one organism, one soul. And one being was so much easier to manipulate than a hundred.

===================

“Keep away!” she shouted.

As his wife and children backed away with stark fear and loathing on their faces, Richard’s own face was distorted with the pain. He had heard tales of what it was like, that first unholy metamorphosis. And truly it was a metamorphosis; he knew it now. For once, Wilfred had been right. What were the odds of that?

He would have laughed if it were not for the agony. The pain was blinding, disorienting, nightmarish. He was certain his flesh and bones were being broken, torn, baked and soaked in acid. His eyes, already bloodshot, began to become more so. They began to glow: to shine with a light that came from no source save the unknown something that clawed its way up from within.

“Demon! Monster! Stay away from my children!” The screams from his wife’s throat were not only laced with fear, but carried the venom of hatred. They stung him like poisoned barbs, digging into his heart as a tick seeks to bury its filthy head in its host.

He reached out one pitifully quivering hand to his family, pleading silently for their solace in his misery. But there was none. Through the haze of his suffering, he saw only disgust, abhorrence, and repulsion. He now knew that to them, he was already dead, something vile taking his place. There would be no comfort. There was no comfort.

No. He remembered the lady. She had danced away with such feral grace. She had not feared him, had not hated what she had seen. Indeed, she had actually seemed desirous somehow. As if she wanted to see him again. As if she knew what he was inside and did not fear it.

Because she was the same.

What had she called him?

As those who had once been his family continued to hurl epithets and curses at him, he felt for the first time a glimmer of hope.

What had she called him?

The pain was gone. As he felt his clothes tear, his skin sprout a coat of dark fur, and his face elongate to a lupine muzzle, he began to glory in the change. His former life had been a lie, a façade of weak convention. As ears elongated and began to swivel at every sound, as he rose to the balls of his feet and let the razor-keen fangs and claws emerge from his fluid flesh, he shut his reddening eyes in ecstasy. His humanity was slipping away.

Gloomfang.

And he welcomed it. The thing that had been Richard LeVay grew in size and mass, muscles gaining bulk and bursting with unnatural force, body beginning to strain against the now confining ceiling as the cornered human weaklings gibbered in their pathetic weakness.

Gloomfang!

The change was complete. Where one there had been Richard LeVay, husbandman and father, there now stood a terror, more vast and potent than that miserable brood of human filth could have conceived.

“Richard!” The angry voice came from outside and was echoed by the cries of a hundred throats, calling for blood.

Blood. Food. Meat. Oh, the hunger.

Oh, the power!

GLOOMFANG!

He opened his eyes.

======================

The growls and screeches coming from the interior of the farm house made some of the lynch mob draw back in superstitious dread, but Wilfred stood firm. “No retreat, my brothers,” he shouted. “Stand fast. We have seen the lycanthrope before!”

But when the doors burst to splinters and the creature rocketed forth from the black maw of the portal, the crowds knew he was wrong. They had never seen anything like this.

The werewolf was massive, tall, with eyes that glowed as if with the fires of Hades itself. Its gaze was mesmerizing, freezing the soul as it burned the senses.

It killed Wilfred so easily.

Two more men were swept into eternity by the ravening claws before anyone could react.

And with a bellow that echoed across the endless moors…

It was gone.

Some of the former mob fell to their knees in stunned stupefaction. A few braver souls dared to enter the house and returned with ashen-gray countenances. Still others cried out to a deity they didn’t trust.

And slowly, the mass of flabby peasants dispersed, leaving the remains to be devoured by the crows on the morrow. The LeVay home was left silent. Dark. Lifeless.

Red.

===============

The three watchers had, of course, seen it all. All three began to move.

A focus approached, a nexus of destiny, desire, and cosmic purpose. And the offspring of the boundless sultan had finally emerged.

Gloomfang was alive at last!

Part 7 – The Outer Gods

In the center of all lay a vastness, a bubbling infinity that no mortal could gaze upon. Its sight was chaos, its sounds were bedlam, its thoughts were null.

Its power was eternal.

Over this sea of living mindlessness, destruction in repose, hovered the soul of the thing. A glowing glory, a fiendish intellect that no man could fathom. A name no one dared speak.

And now he is free, the thing said.

Laughter echoed across the dimensions.

==================

The man awoke with a start. For a moment he could have sworn he had heard someone laughing.

The sun was beginning to set. He had missed an entire day! He looked around the barrow he inhabited; saw the ancient bones, the rags and bits of rusted metal bespeaking an ancient people whose identity was lost to the mists of history.

The bones…

He remembered! He tasted the old blood on his lips, saw the rusty stains on his skin.

He had killed them all!

He heard a keening wail, a rising shriek somewhere, coming to his ears as if from a great distance. As the sun slunk beneath the horizon, he heard the cries grow lower in pitch, then turn to animal-like snarls, growls and hellish howlings.

Only when he looked at his hands again did he realize the sounds were coming from him.

In the halls of his mind, he committed a different kind of murder. In a remote corner of the soul of the beast, where huddled the final shredded remnants of the mind once known as Richard LeVay, the monster stalked. It saw the bloody and insane rags of that pitiful spirit as it twitched and gibbered in its final madness.

Eventually, the beast went away, licking its muzzle.

The corner was left empty.

=================

That night, on a lonely forsaken path men called The Shunned Road, a lithe figure with cold blue eyes gazed to the southeast. Hot breath steamed into the coolness of the night as nostrils sniffed, hoping to catch a faint waft of a desired scent.
“Come to me, my lord,” a husky voice said. “Come to me… my love!”

==================

The creature journeyed west though he knew it not.

And alongside him were two spirits that came and went.

“Did it feel good to eat their flesh?” the first one said, a stocky man with snow-white hair who shifted back and forth, to and from the form of a great werewolf, long tongue encrusted with gore. “Salty or spicy?”

“It was meat,” replied the creature.

“Oh it was more than that,” Goretongue replied. “You are my grandson, of my blood. I know you. How delicious, to have killed your own. And my vengeance is not yet complete! You will kill so many more. So very many.”

The beast tried to ignore the jibes, but it was only to hear another voice, another presence. It was formless, yet glowing. Then it had the form of a man, then a bloated hag, then a tri-legged monstrosity whose head was a long red tentacle. The beast knew it was a god. I am pleased, child. Kill for me, it said.

“I kill for no one but myself,” the beast growled.

“Don’t be foolish,” Goretongue shot back. “Remember who gave you life. You are the fulfillment of my vow, my vengeance made flesh.”

And you will kill for another, the god said.

The beast remembered. The lady. So beautiful. So wild and dangerous.

“She waits for you in another form” Goretongue said, his maw dripping red as he walked beside.

“Yes. Yes!” the beast knew he was running now.

The ghosts know the truth, the god intoned. Your destiny is writ large in these Cursed Lands. The children of Shub-Niggurath will welcome you. And she longs for you. Go to her. Go to her because I will it!

“I will it!” the beast howled. “She is all I have. You have done a monstrous thing to me and now I have nothing. Nothing but rage.”

“You have power,” Goretongue said with a sickening rolling of his tongue that spoke of infinite relish. “Ia Azathoth. Ia Shub-Niggurath. Cthulhu fhtagn!”

“Ia Azathoth,” the beast snarled. “The power, the rage. I hunger. So hungry. HUNGRY!!”

The two voices’ scornful amusement was left behind as he ran as fast as his now colossal muscles would propel him.

=================

He came toward the mansion with the speed of a hurricane, trails of spittle flailing about his wind-swept mane of hair. His eyes might have been twin pits in which the fires of Earth’s center might have burned.

And she stood her ground, unafraid. Her own fur was gently stirred by the night wind as she paced back and forth, ice-blue eyes seeing him approach from miles away.

The ground felt tingly under the pads of her feet. A mere hint of the coming storm. She could hear the yips of the younger clan mates as they too sensed the imminent arrival of their newest brother. And soon to be so much more.

She licked her finely-sculpted muzzle as her lupine ears swiveled to catch the hint of his panting as he came on. Any moment.

A nearby ancient oak tree cracked and swayed.

And with a terrifying roar, he sprang into the air, launched from the high tree branches, sailing through the air in a high arc, claws and teeth extended like ivory daggers. The ground shook as he landed at her feet.

He rose slowly, gracefully, towering over her, carmine eyes meeting the aquamarine of her own.

They began to circle one another, testing each other’s defenses. Occasionally a claw from one of them would shoot out, or teeth would experimentally nip. Growls of bestial passion welled up from them.

“Who are you?” he rumbled.

“I am your destiny,” was the reply.

“Bah! Riddles. I have seen you in my dreams. I have smelled you over my shoulder. I cannot escape you. Tell me your name!”

“What will you do if I do not?” she said, a playful tone in her voice. One crystal-sharp claw drew itself along her tongue as she continued to stalk him.

He roared a challenge. “Tell me!”

“That’s it!” she snarled. “Let all your rage wash over me! Such passion. Such power. I too have seen you in dreams. I was guided to you. It was I who came to you before you turned; do you not recognize me… my love?”

At last, they sprang at one another, meeting in a crash of muscle and bone. Each snarled at the other, claws lacerating flesh even as the healing powers of the werewolf mended muscle and skin. Fire red and ice blue pierced their souls.

And at last, all was still. They stood together, panting with exertion, limbs aquiver with tense anticipation.

“I am Lady Acacia Arianna Cromwell, Baroness of Cromwell Manor,” she purred. “Welcome to my home, oh blessed of the Outer Gods.

“Welcome, my lord Gloomfang!”

Epilogue – A Thousand and One Masks

The nave was empty save for the two figures. The cathedral was silent as before, its walls unlighted, its windows providing the only light as the moon streamed its silvery rays in ephemeral patterns through the stained glass.

“Wilfred has failed to contain the situation, your eminence!” the abbot said.

“Yes, I am aware of it,” the cardinal answered. “In fact, I have learned he has been murdered by his own kinsman. Tragic, I’m sure.”

“Tragic? Your eminence, granted you once told me that the outcome was immaterial, and at the time I took you at your word. But did not you yourself warn us that should the werewolves gain a new charismatic leader, we might face a third front in the war? With all due respect, this is a disaster!”

The man in red chuckled. “Yes, isn’t it? In fact, I daresay this may destabilize the entire region given time. A Lunar Empire dawns, my dear abbot. Isn’t it glorious?”

The abbot took a step back, alarm at this unexpected reaction distorting his fat features. “Cardinal?” he half squeaked.

“Cardinal? Oh, forgive me abbot; I believe you must address me by my proper name."

Then the red-clad man spoke another word.

And the Abbot vomited up a gout of blood as his eyeballs liquefied. A gargling scream caught in his fire-branded throat.

“Yes, I often receive that reaction,” the crimson-robed figure said. “Be thankful you did not witness me in one of my thousand other forms. I’m afraid the effect might have killed you outright or at least shredded your mind into a thousand fragmentary personalities.”

As the abbot writhed in agony, the figure continued to speak as if nothing at all were amiss. “But to satisfy your curiosity, the closest human analog to my true name would be…

“Nyarlathotep, the Crawling Chaos!”

The Abbot was weeping from his empty eye sockets. “P…please,” he gargled.

“Yes, you indeed speak to a god,” the figure continued. “I’m afraid the true cardinal whose face I currently wear, has been dead for some months. It was I who engineered the death of Matthew LeVay and the subsequent cover-up. However my agents made sure that just enough information got through to make Richard suspicious. I was also the one who tempted him in his dreams, opened the door to Azathoth, filled his spirit with the rage that powers the universe!

“Tomorrow, they will find you, a pitiful wreck. That will be bad enough. But then the next day, they will find the Cardinal quite dead, eviscerated as if by the claws of a werewolf. And a new powerful leader will emerge soon after to unite the scattered clans of the Wolf Lands. The Cursed Lands will become a battlefield of epic proportions and human suffering will abound.

“Magnificent, isn’t it?”

As the abbot crawled on his hands and knees, moaning in pain, the outer god walked away through the nave and into the night. His heartless laughter disappeared like a fog dispelled by the morning’s first rays.

THE BEGINNING…