A Daughter’s Homecoming (III)

[Sesexe]

There were few things the immortal lich cared about anymore. Her un-life had become an ongoing pursuit of magical research. She had become an addict to it. A magical junkie, where there was never enough to learn, nor an end to her series of knowledge ‘fix’s. Preferring the company of the dead about her, few disturbed her, even her living sisters rarely called on her. They cared more for the matters of the living anyways, so let them stay with the living, and leave her with the dead and her own devices. All members of the house were unwelcome in her presence. They all disinterested her equally.

All save one, Seshaxina, her niece. Perhaps it was this youth’s quick and sharp mind, or the keen intelligence in her eyes that reminded her of her own childhood, or rather what tattered memories she could still muster about it. Perhaps in a way, this young drow lass is what the lich wished she had been like when she was of such an age. And so it had gone when the rare lapses in research had arisen, Llaaldara would check in on her growing niece, or sometimes even allow her the honor to merely remain in her presence during experiments. The young lady was well behaved, and never interrupted, often asking insightful questions when prompted. Well, insightful for one so young. Her different way of looking at things, had on more then one occasion opened up different lines of thought to the lich. Which being a creature of deep contemplations was almost exciting. That is, if a lich could get excited. With the body long since dead, the ‘blessing’ of immortality was more akin to immortal death, and like the breath of life, emotions had long since faded.

After learning in detail of the recent attack on the city, Llaaldara proceeded to the Forest of Mir, where her niece had apparently been engaged in a class. Blood was everywhere. Body parts of adults, and even children, littered the scene. The invaders had struck hard and fast, taking the young drow students in the midst of a lecture. A strange sensation, yet oddly familiar as if forgotten, sparked within the undead creature. For a moment, she thought it to be a magical assault upon her. But then it was quickly gone, and she dismissed it the notion.

The instructor’s body was ripped to shreds, along with the guardsmen, the so-called protectors of the youths. How poorly they had fared. The student’s corpses were found scattered around the area, as they had all apparently fled for their lives in a direct path back to the city proper. Unfortunately, not one had made it back, for the invaders had ambushed them suspecting their flight. The small drow bodies were equally dismembered and violently punctured, adding to the gory massacre in the heart of the wooded landscape. All the children had apparently fled, yet the lich was unable to locate her niece. Her keen magical eyes scanned the area, examining every detail when something caught her eye. A small body lay almost entirely covered by the torn body of a guardsman. Moving aside the defender’s mauled torso, there lay the crumpled and destroyed body of Seshaxina. Once again, a sharp spark assaulted her undead body from within, and just as quickly disappeared.

Kneeling down to closer inspect her niece’s broken body, her magical hearing picked something up, traces of a fading heartbeat. The child still lived. She reached down to cradle the youth and lift her up. With a quick arcane word she could be back within the house chapel and surrounded by healing potions and priestesses. The child will not die tonight if she acted fast enough.

As her hands embraced the youth, the chilling cold of her undead form sent a shock wave thru the child and her eyes flashed open, then quickly relaxed. In a weak voice devoid of breath, Seshaxina shivered out, “Aunty La-la…I..”

“Shhhh Xina, save your..” Llaaldara soothed.

But before Llaaldara could finish, Seshaxina finally gasped, “love….you….” and with that her body went limp. The last remnants of life quickly faded from the youth’s ruined body. Once again, another spark surged thru the lich, but this one hitting like a thunderbolt. The child’s form was horribly destroyed, far beyond the ability to resurrect. Even with the lich’s powerful knowledge of animation, the severed cadaver would pose a difficult challenge to animate. Her only hope had been to keep the last bit of life within the child from fading. As long as life still was in her form, the clerical powers would work and could mend all the wounds in time. But that time had now passed.

Setting the decimated corpse of her niece down upon the soft forest ground carefully, Llaaldara stared at Seshaxina’s face. She gently close the child’s eyes, and kneeling there, stared upon her for a moment. A powerful force shocked her body again, emanating from deep within her rotting shell. Initially surprised, she bade it, welcomed it, embraced it. Shock after shock pulsed repeatedly within her, with each consecutive jolt following another, and each growing in power and intensity. She looked down, and for the first time in over a thousand years, her hands were trembling. The shaking became violent, so she clenched her fists and pounded them beneath the ground. Her hands unable to move in the encompassing earth, transferred their shaking to the rest of her body. She continued to jerk uncontrollably from the overwhelming bombardment of feelings. One dominating thought now filled her mind. It had long ago been her signature trademark. She had at one point become the living representation of it. But now all she had previously done was but empty shadows compared to reckoning to come. She screamed a horrid elven wail and ripped her hands from the land, causing debris to fly about and dust to hang in the air as she rose to her feet. In the midst of the gristly scene, dripping with her nieces blood, she mentally swore an oath. Bringing her hands slowly together before her, deathly magic danced between them, and the fires of hell burned violently within her empty eye sockets as she declared “Vengeance!”

And sitting upon her throne of bone, Kiaransalee, the Drow Goddess of Undead and Revenge cackled fiendishly to herself. One of her lost daughters had finally come home.