VAMP ORIGIN by C. BRIAN HICKEY

Being an Oral Account of the Birth of the Vrykolak and Therianthrope Peoples, Related by Steven kha Sebastien kha Johannes kha Ioannes kha Iqbal kha Ioannes kha Paris kha Imphep Markud kha Marzud-Dhem, Eldest Lord and Chieftain of the Marzudim Clan*

These are the true things that I know and remember. They are from a very long time ago, but my wit remained as sharp as my tooth, and I tell you now lest I am taken by fire or by stake. I tell the tale of the Three Peoples — Humanity, the Vrykolakas, whom are called 'vampires,' and the Therianthropes, whom are called 'lycanthropes.' I do this to help bring about understanding; though our forms and our ways may seem monstrous to one another, it is imperative that we once again sit in council lest misunderstanding grow into hate. This is why I tell the tale of our peoples and our origins, and I tell it true.

In the Cold Times, what you call the last great Ice Age, there were two tribes: those of the East of the valley, and those of the West. We were happy, we Two Brother Tribes. This surprises many who came after the Cold Times. Many think that because a people are cold, because they see snow, they must be grim and dour, but this was not our way. We told tales of Bear and his wife Doe, and all of the mistakes and accidents they made while they coupled—ha! This is how we lived during the Cold. We laughed, and huddled close to one another, and we laughed at all the death we saw.

As I’m sure you can imagine, the cold and the ice had killed many of the beasts we hunted, or drove them south to better grazing. We dwelt at the very edge of the glacier, and were desperate; we were many on both sides of the valley, with many children, and could not easily follow. Great Mother, who you call Mammoth, and Spear Horse, who you call Rhinoceros, and Tall Brother, who you call Elk, they all fled, and left not even their bones. Our shaman said they went below, and dwelt among the stones, but I never saw them.

I was among one of the hunters who went north, deeper into the Cold, to seek the aid of Hunting Woman. She was a mighty spirit, though now she is long gone. She appeared to those who called upon her as a woman blue of skin, naked and hairless as the day she was born, though her hips were broad and her sinew strong. She needed no spear, she needed no snare, for her domain was that of the beasts, like Mighty One, who you call Cave Bear, and those of Fang Sept, who you call Wolf, and Child Killer, who you call Sabertooth.

My people, those of the East, went to her first. Ten of us went, six men and four women who had never borne child. We traveled for a week, hungry and growing colder, until we came to her house, which was made of ice. She bade us enter, as we were dying of cold, and she gave us blood to drink from skulls, to feed us and warm us. Sadly, she told us that she knew why we were there, but it was not the right time. She pointed up out of her hut’s chimney, and showed us that the moon hid her face. This was not her time, and we had broken the rules.

All of us who drank the blood—the blood of Mighty One and of members of Fang Sept and of Child Killer, as well as Hunting Woman’s own, made powerful magic within those of us who drank. We were wracked with it, and we were changed. She decreed that from that moment forward, we were our own tribe. Our old tribe would eventually cast us out, because we were now more akin to Mighty One and Fang Sept and Child Killer. Some of us would change into beasts, some of us would be as stately as chiefs, but all of us would forever hunger and thirst for blood. And as we came to her while the moon was dark, we would forever live in the dark, as the sun would cast harsh light upon our eyes and skin. She bade us return to our tribe while we could still be a boon to them, and we knew no more.

We awoke buried in the snow, as if by avalanche, but it appeared we dug down into it, to shield us from the sun. None of us needed our furs any longer, and we shed them and marveled at one another; we were perfected. As you see me now, some sixteen thousand years after that night, so I was that night. Our fingernails had become strong like Mighty One’s and our teeth had become long and sharp like Child Killer’s, and we could smell the air like those of Fang Sept. We laughed, and we embraced, not only because we could smell Great Brother and knew we could feed the tribe, but also because of the exhilaration. We felt like we had become as the spirits themselves.

We followed Great Brother for two nights; it was ordinarily a week-long hunt. We spied one of the herd; a great mother, with long, long curling tusks and a beautiful scent. We ten looked at one another, and were taken by a great daring. We cast down our spears and leapt onto her great thick pelt. As she trumpeted her surprise (as we no longer had the scent of man and woman, she did not know to look for us), we sunk our claws down into her flesh, and as the blood spilled, we drank our fill.

Oh, the elation! The feeling of Great Brother’s blood rushing all through us like a flood! Any fledgling today could tell you of this, but for we First, who had taken Great Brother bare handed, in a fraction of the time and with a fraction of the hunters it had taken before? Truly we were astonished, and we thanked Hunting Woman, though we wondered at her sadness.

So we returned to our village by night, and the men and women were amazed, as we brought Great Brother back to the tribe’s territory by hand! She was already bled dry, so the meat was not fouled with the congealing blood, and we feasted like never before.

I say 'we,' but I should say 'they.' The meat was no longer ours to eat; the blood alone was our food. Still, we danced and sang with our people, louder and harder than ever before, until the coming dawn made the snows pink, and we retreated.

The next night, there was a great clamor. When I awoke and dug out from my snowy bed, one of my brethren, a man named Ari-Ghat, was screaming. I flew to his side, and was struck dumb by his grief. He had lain with his woman, named Gani-Ghatu, amid the celebration, and the next morning, she was dead and cold. At first, I feared he had drunk from her, as we all had from Great Brother, but there was no mark upon her.

Then it was clear. Three nights hence, Gani-Ghatu rose.
She was as pale and as perfected as we who went to Hunting Woman were. Something had made her into one of us, whatever it was we were, now. Ari-Ghat’s sadness fell from him, and he leapt about with joy, and bade Gani-Ghatu hunt with him, to strengthen her.

None of us knew at the time what had changed her, but soon it became obvious; it was the fluids of our bodies that carried Hunting Woman’s medicine, like what you now call the venereal diseases. One of the youngsters, a healer before his Change, said it thus: “A spiritual state, transmitted virally.” And it is so. That night, Ari-Ghat’s seed must have carried the Change to his woman, and brought her to us.

The other villagers were conflicted. They were afraid of what we had become, but were also envious of the power. The eleven of us ranged far, bringing back much meat for our people, but we were also continuing to change. Over the seasons, my hair went white, as you see it now, and my flesh became as stone. Ari-Ghat became the first of the Great Winged Ones, which was a wonder, and his woman Gani-Ghatu followed. Another, Banhi, made his bed near a river, and became strange—bald-headed, black-eyed, long-fingered. It was as Hunting Woman said.

So it was for the people of the East. We were their protectors, and their providers, and, as it came to be, we were their gods. Both we, whom are now called the Vrykolakas, and our human brethren, have much to be ashamed of; but that is a different story. This is a story of the beginnings.

The people of the West also sent their hunters—six men and four women who had not borne child—to see Hunting Woman. My brethren and I were like a plague unto the...how are they called now…the Pleistocene megafauna. We killed and killed and killed, and the people of the East ate and ate and ate, until we began to spread. This troubled the chieftain of the West, and he sent his people north.

They, like us, nearly froze and starved, until they, like us, met Hunting Woman, who took them into her house of ice. She received them joyously, as the moon was full, and gave them meat. The Western folk pleaded with Hunting Woman. They begged her to help them, and said that we, Her children, were despoilers and reavers, and that we were eating all of the beasts, and even that we took their beautiful men and woman, and we laid with them, and we bit them, and we drank their blood, and we made them into monsters like us.

This was true.

Hunting Woman told them that because of the full moon, she was able to make a great magic, because her time was upon her. She told the Western folk that because of the meat they had eaten, they were now of the tribe of Hunting Beast, which was the father of the Bear, and of the Wolf, and of the Tiger. They could each take an aspect of Hunting Beast and wear it as their shape, and borrow Its might. Unlike we Vrykolakas, however, who had intruded upon her at the wrong time and were thus cursed, they could take Hunting Beast’s form whenever they chose. And, unlike us who were doomed to walk the darkness for all time, they would be given only an ordinary man’s lifespan. They, like us, went forth from Hunting Woman’s hut of ice, and they tested their gifts, and I am certain they laughed with the exultation, as we did.

I remember a meeting we had with their leader, a great man called Kharichok. We spoke long, and he was kind to us. He said, Marzud-Dhem, why do you take all the beasts? Leave some to mate, and bear calves! It had not occurred to me, and so I told him, but that I had to think of my people. Think of all the people, then, said he. We left the council tent and hunted, I in my naked marble flesh, he in the body of Hunting Beast, much taller than me, and in the shape of a wolfish bear. Magnificent. We agreed; we would hunt far from men, and bring the kills back, and they would hunt close by, so the men could rest easy.

There were many battles and skirmishes with the beast men in those first few seasons, however. Their wrath was terrible, and when they were in the battle-frenzy, and their bodies swelled and became hairy, like bears, like wolves, and like great cats, they were a sight to behold. And we ourselves were terrible as well! Those of us whose bodies changed were like great white spirits. Before ten winters were through, Ari-Ghat was larger than any eagle—though he was nowhere near as immense as he is today—and he would swoop down, and seize the wolf men in his jaws, and tear away their limbs, and crush the blood out, and spit out the pulp. And I! When the smell of blood was upon me, back then, there was no stopping me! And when we would clash, it was an earthquake, an avalanche!

After much war, and much fruitless council, between the Peoples of the Valley, and those of the Peoples touched by Hunting Woman, we all stood at a crossroads. The numbers of the Untouched, as we called them, were swelling due to us—vampire and therianthrope alike—hunting for them, and once again, the beasts everywhere were becoming scarce. Hunting Woman had made not one, but two perfect predators—too perfect, it seemed.

So we left, we two Brother Septs, and we each made out own way in the world.

Of our original ten, our numbers grew every time we drank from a human (as we had learned the human spirit makes the blood so much sweeter than that of a beast) or lay with one, as that was how the condition was carried. And, I admit, some of us became strange and cruel. It was our love of humanity that had led us to our state, and it was ultimately what led us away from them. We formed our great civilization, and taught the arts, and writing, and building of things, as well as the planting of crops—after all, what predator should hunt when it can feed itself, is this not so? Then, that civilization fell, a sad, sad story for another day. We retired to the shadows, and there we stayed for millennia.

And the beastmen too were estranged from their tribes; when one was found, they would be killed as a witch, a despoiler of the herds. They remained close to the woods, and when the Great Ice receded and they spread, as we did, throughout the globe. Perhaps one of them can tell their story better than I can; though I do have a certain perspective on the relationship between the Two Tribes.

And so we come to today. The Ten Clans of the Vrykolakas are “outed”, as the very youngest say. We talk with the leaders of this new world, wishing only our own space to govern ourselves. Needless to say, the old wives’ tales told about us make this difficult. The Three Peoples of the Earth have much to learn from one another still, and it is my hope as the leader of a homeless nation that we can all sit down and begin soon.

In the spirit of Fellowship and Understanding,
Steven kha Sebastien kha Johannes kha Ioannes kha Iqbal
kha Ioannes kha Paris kha Imphep Markud kha Marzud-Dhem



*In the naming conventions used among the people of the Ten Clans, all of the names an individual has gone by over his or her long unlife are used, separated by the denominator kha, which in the original language used by the Clan Leaders’ people, means “who once was”. Therefore, the High Lord’s name is understood as “Steve, who once was Sebastien, who once was Johannes,” et cetera. This is done to celebrate the long life and adaptability of the individual. There is variation, however; one ancient vampire who goes simply by “Anna” no fewer than thirty-five names, due mostly to a penchant for reinvention. Clan Leader Banhi, however, thought it demeaning to take names to fit into human society.





Original image by Carniphage, some rights reserved.