W W H W I T E 8 W 8 O 1 L 3 F
Prince of Shadows came up out of the Well of the Void like a curse, climbing for what seemed like an eternity to reach the lowest of the nephwrack temples and for hours afterward to reach the edge of the Well. He did not recognize the place he emerged at, but sighting from the Calendar of Setesh, he could tell what part of Stygia he’d emerged into. The Prince had never expected when he began his pilgrimage that the Malfeans would bring him back to Styg ia, but he had had many days to plan while he climbed up from the porticos of the Malfean’s temple-mausoleums. He made his way through the black and winding streets of the city to the District of Whispering Streets, where the nephwracks’ armies had tread during the Contagion but taken no root. Today, the district’s ruined symbol of office fled from hand to hand, and there was not an affirmation of auth ority that went by without violence along the parade route. Abyssals were not wholly welcome, even among this district’s mad and questionable inhabitants, and the inhabitants of the district shunned Prince of Shadows as he strode among them in his groaning black mail. Yet, despite this prejudice, it was in their district that Prince of Shadows kept his Manse, and it was to there he traveled. Hidden behind wards against sorcerous observation, and behind the Manse’s assembled staff of demon guardians as well, Prince of Shadows drained his Essence in an exchange of infallible messengers with his mistress. She was, as always, frustratingly oblique, leaving him at loose ends. It frustrated him that the cherub’s rote mimicry of her voice made him hungry for her arms even in these inappropriate circumstances. circumstances. He was more angry that, once again, his mistress dropped hints of deep strategies, yet it seemed as if she spent most of her time tending to the needs of her loins and not of the masters. Sometimes, her hints and allusions of “greater plans” came true, but the Prince could not tell if she was actually telling him anything or simply manipulating the conversation with Essence to seem wiser and more formidable than she was. Prince of Shadows had not slept in days. Now, sullen and breathless, the feeling of invincible epiphany from his commune with the masters gone, h e was overcome with fatigue, and he slept where he knelt on the Manse’s workroom floor, while the Manse’s demon guardians whispered nervously beyond the door.
Sleeping, Prince of Shadows dreamt. He dreamed of the man he once was, or rather of the boy, dreamt o f the night when he had shivered ins ide his soaked wool robes outside the tomb, dream t of the night the Lover had first come to him in Sijan It had been the very darkest hours of the night, and when he had gone out into the driving rain, the Prince had burned with a fever, but nothing could be permitted to halt the vigils of the order. Over the course of the hours, the fever of the young apprentice mortician cooled, and he felt more at ease in the night of storms. It was just before dawn, when the cold fingers of mist began to creep between the city’s tottering mausoleums, that the boy who was to become Prince of Shadows first heard his mistress’ voice. It was a guiltless mad purr that mad his skin crawl and his cock rise. It came from behind one ear, and he attempted to arch away from it, shying away by reflex from the bite on the ear or the long-nai led hand he anticipated would slide under his robes. The soft laugher that followed was no farther away from his ear than the purr had been, and the Prince realized that his body would not move. “You’re a pretty one. A little slow, though.” The woman finally spoke in a voice as enchanting as her purr and her laughter. “Want to know a secret little boy?”
The young man could give no answer, he was too cold and sick , and his body would not answer his demands. “Yes. You’re dying. Dead, actually. You died of the fever and the rain just a few minutes ago.” The boy sighed and with the realization came the feeling of distance from his body that he understood often accompanied death. Yet, he did not feel existence slipping away from him. “Yes. I am holding you here. I have an offer to make. You have this.” There was a flashback to his life as third child to an impoverished family, the hard existence of a neglected and abused apprentice, a life of studying the funerary arts cut off young by a lonely death. He saw the ghosts who manipul ated his living master and saw his place among them as a servant for centuries. The woman’s voice was clear to him thro ugh the explosion of images. “Ther e you are. Just a nothe notherr cog in the th e dreams dre ams of o f some som e people peo ple who w ho don’t do n’t even know you exist. e xist. They just expect you to keep functionin g, even when they send you out in to the rain to die.” The boy’s mind jumped. The woman’s sensual laughter erupted again. “You didn’t even think of that until I mentioned it, did you? That you might be something other than a playing piece in the games of those more important than you.” His consciousness paled into shame, but her voice continued, “You would hav e, though, in 10 or 20 years. You had quite a bit of potential before your idiot masters sent you out into the storm to die as a sick young boy.” He saw himself as a master of the Observances both in life and death, as a successful designer of funeral rites, traveling the world and comforting queens and princes in despair. He saw himself forsakin g Sijan and living as an independent savant, poor but wise and proud or growin g rich and famous as a scavenger lord. “Unfortunately, you’re dead. You’re left with something more like this.” The boiling phantasm of success evaporated, and there was only a dawn none too distant from this moment, where the girl who would relieve him came out into the rainy morning and found him dead. He watched the girl shake her head and then duck behind the mausoleum to piss before hurrying back to report his death. “And that’s what the world gives you, boy. But you already knew that, or I wouldn’t be here whispering in your ear. Take my hand, or go into the Underworld. Take my hand, or die here alone in the rain. Take my hand, and you will never die.” The boy accepted, knowing that the voice could only mean damnation. The offer, his acceptance, they had all taken place in the timeless instant when the young man’s fluttering heart had finally ceased to beat. The pretty little tombguard barely had enough time to wonder what would happen next when the Black Exaltation was on him. It was a barbed rod of smoking black glass driven into his heart, it was the jaws of a great dark beast, i t was the shadow of the final and ultimate eclipse falling across his n ame in the book of life and forever casting it into shadow.
Prince of Shadows awoke, as he always did, screaming at the moment of his Exaltation. The door of the room smashed open as the erymanthoi hurled themselves bodily at the portal and sent it flying from its hinges. The Prince smiled at the damage the demons caused. One of the flat-faced, red-furred monsters leaned down before him, stinking even here in the Underworld. “You are well, Master? You screamed. Are there any threats?”
The Prince shook his head. “No. Your mistress sent me a dream of her presence. Bring me a basin of water, blood-ape, and fresh garb. I must clean myself.” The demon scurried off, and the Prince continued to smile admiringly at the wrecked and splintered door. Perhaps his mistress would learn more if there was a cost attached to her childish displays of power. Prince of Shadows stripped out of his filthy body suit, the same one that had held the points of his arm or for so many months. Naked and careless of the Underworld’s all-pervasive chill, the Exalt called for the blood-ape to return with a basin of water. When the beast shambled back into sight with the pan of chill water, Prince of Shadows took it from him impatiently and toweled the seed from his naked loins. “Beasts, dress me.” The demons wrapped him in a bod ysuit of silk and linen and laced his weeping armor to it, tying down the p oints with their brutal strength un til the metal of the plates cried out from tension. The n, he had the blood apes carry him in a palanq uin to the edge of the city and used stormwind rider to depart, hurrying away to the East, across the Sunless Sea to where his mistress told him that the armies of the dead had begun to gather.
The darkness of living forests could not compare to the forests of the dead. Leathery black leaves and the grim dimness of the Underworld conspired to make the thickets places of darkness during the gray days and of impenetrable gloom during the long nights of the dead. Prince of Shadows strode through the nighted forest surely, for the Malfeans had changed his eyes. They could penetrate the darkness of the Labyrinth — no lesser darkness would thwart them. This was an uncomfortable place for the Prince, far from his mistress and near the abodes of so many other lords, yet here he was, waiting in the darkness of the forest. His orders were to meet his contact, but his heart expected ambush or betrayal. His heart was not disappointed. Prince of Shadows heard the calls of the hungry ghosts when they were more than a mile away, and it was not much longer until he heard the crashing and hurried footfalls of his contact. Then, there was a blue glimmer to the air. Prince of Shadows was far from a gifted hunter, but compared to the fleeing woman, he was a paragon of skill. If he were an inept woodsman, then she was the worst of rubes. Princess Annuaski arrived dressed in a robe of white, with the hungry ghosts trailing close behind her. The beasts hesitated at the scent of the Abyssal, but their hunger drove them onward toward the fleeing ghost. The Exalt sighed. Her panic and her fear egged the beasts on. The faster she ran, the more sustenance they derived from the pursuit itself. Normally, Prince of Shadows would have watched bemused as this ironic scene played itself out, but the ghostly ruler was of use to his mistress. Prince of Shadows bit his lip to hold back his chuckle, and Annuaski fled blindly past him, coming mere inches from the protector she could not see, one hand clutching a blue-glowing soulfire crystal, the other hand held out before her to protect her from collision with the forest giants. She was beautiful, in the manner of ghosts, her form simple and erotic, withou t wrinkles or lines or any sign of life. It was a beauty that had come from the fingers of an artisan, laid across a being whose frame knew no needs save locomotion. Then, the hungry ghosts came, fierce and ragg ed and skeletal, their long claws glittering. First came two and then a third, who had stopped to bay at the dark moon hidden somewhere far above the canopy and clouds. It took a mere instant to slay them, and the Exalt’s Essence did not stir, nor would he have loosed it even if hard-pressed. This was not the place to expend power. The snarls alerted the Princess, and Prince of Shadows turned to find her standing behind him, her light held high. He raised his arm to shield his vision.
“Douse that, or do you want to invite the Mask of Winter’s raitons to our little gathering? You would have been better served to meet us in Stygia. We have countless hidden places there.” She pulled the light close to her and extinguished it, and after a moment, Prince of Shadows spoke again. “Now, you asked my mistress to send an agent, ambitious princess. N ow, I have come to you. Tell me of the betrayal that you plan, for otherwise, you would not have reached out to a faraway Deathlord for aid.” Annuaski nodded, her gesture graceful and devoid of any sentiment. “Deathknight, I beg your favor and the favor of your mistress as well.” Her voice was the singsong formalism of a professional courtier hitting her stride. “I beg your aid and beseech you to support me in my time of need—” The Exalt cut her off, “Shut up. I know you grovel before me. You would never have called for us otherwise. Now tell me your proposal.” “The Mask of Winters even now rests in his corpse-fortress Juggernaut, planning his next conquest. Soon my nation of Hanau and Tyoka will be forced to take up arms against him.” Prince of Shadows nodded , “And what is it that you wish? We will n ot come to the field against another Deathlord.” “I did not expect you to, dark master. Soon, my nation will join with Sijan and the Empire of Aki to openly oppose th e Mask of Winters. I think we shall shortly be vanquished and our people cast into slavery or destroyed. I will act as your spy, deathknight, reporting all that I can of the Empire of Aki and Sijan and what I can learn of the Mask of Winters, if you will shelter me from the storm that threatens the Underworld and return me to my throne as your puppet when you r master rules the Underworld.” Princess Annuaski looked at the deathknight with eyes that held no more love or emotion than a glittering rock. She spoke without emotion, “Deathknight, there are only two things that matter in life or after it — power and survival. Why should I perish for my ideals when I can thrive and continue? Better to exist as a slave than pass into the Abyss a hero.” Prince of Shadows wondered how long it would be until those eyes turned the depthless perfect black of the Disciples of the Abyss or if perhaps they had changed long ago, and the princess somehow concealed them. Prince of Shadows smiled. “Y ou are not yet in our service, yet you are already a fine slave. How do you know that my mist ress is the proper master for your obedience, slip of a princess?” Annuaski smiled cruelly, “Do you think I am blind? That I have not seen the full breadth of her schemes?” Prince of Shadows looked wry, “Really? Prove yourself to me, then. Tell me, what is it my mistress plans?” And so Prince of Shadows was told of his mistresses’ dark plans from a ghostly princess in an abandoned wood hidden deep in the Underworld, and Prince of Shadows laughed within his black and loveless heart to hear them.
EXALTED • THE ABYSSALS
CREDITS
SPECIAL THANKS
Authors: Richard E. Dansky, Dawn Elliot, Michael Goodwin, Michael Kessler, James Kiley, Scott Taylor Storyteller Game System Design: Mark Design: Mark Rein•Hagen Developer: Geoffrey C. Grabowski Editor: John Editor: John Chambers Playtesters: Christopher M. Carter, A. Bleys Ingram, Ron King, Amul Kumar, Marichristine Storch, Eric Toth, William Van Meter Art Direction: Brian Glass Artists: Mike Bowden, Leanne Buckley, Ross Campbell, Eric Canete, Pop Mhan, Steven Preston, Chris Stevens, Richard Thomas, Joshua G. Timbrook, UDON with Joe Vriens, Melissa Uran Cover Art: UDON with Omar Dogan and Charles Park Cover Design: Brian Glass Layout and Typesetting: Brian Glass Intern: Ryan Green
Terry “Spyder” Gearhart, Gearhart , for proofreading and help with the index.
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