Life Amongst the Undead: Kamian Nagaraja

By J.D. Carriker, Jr. (oakthorne@hotmail.com)

Introduction

The exact time of my life I now consider irrelevant. Suffice it to say that I was born mortal, in the city of Calcutta. Surrounded by the opulence of the Maharaja's palaces and pavilions, I was still discontent. It was unseemly for the son of nobility to wander the streets, especially that place we called the Screamstreets for the undying echoes of screams, moans and insane laughter. The dead were everywhere...but so were the living. It was a testament to the city's treatment of the poor and downtrodden that one could not tell the two apart. I hated my own life, but did not want to live theirs.

No, instead, I wanted to watch. To observe. I wanted to see them live...and see them die. I wanted to watch as vast sections of the city gave way to decay, to watch as even my father's castle rotted and he decayed in an opium-ridden stupor. I heard the whispers from the servants. They said that I did all kinds of things--fornicated with the dead, killed children and even ate dead flesh. My response was that I was the son of the Maharaja and answerable to none. You will note that I denied none of it.

Then I met the one called Abmen-Takal. As I was reviled by the common folk, so he was feared. Called the Lord of the Screamstreets, Abmen-Takal decided to speak to me one day as I passed him. I had mistaken him for a corpse, so gaunt and withered was he. It wasn't until I saw his eyes that I knew he was more alive--and yet more dead--than any I had ever met. I went to live with him and he told me of great and marvelous things. He told me of another land, called the Land of Shadows where the spirits of the dead are. He told me of the Children of Kali, the blood drinking dead. I stayed with him for ten days and nights, and we stopped talking only long enough to sleep and eat.

Then came the day when my father's soldiers burst in upon us as we sat on the dirt floor of his dwelling. Without a sound and with nothing but a gesture, Abmen-Takal slew the men. He then told me I should return to my father's home. With heavy and bitter heart, I did so. My father was too stupefied on the thick black opium he loved so well to notice that I was back, but my father's chancellor scolded me. I struck him and smiled as I watched him crumple.

When he awoke, he was tied to my bed. Without further ado, with my sharpest knife, I began to slice swaths of his flesh from muscle and eat them--before his unbelieving eyes. I took the liberty of removing and consuming his tongue first, so as to ensure our privacy. When I was done, blood covered everything and there was a warm glow in my belly. A glow that mere plant or animal had never provided. I felt so satiated and content that I curled up on my bed, amidst the gore and hugged the chancellor's remains to me and fell asleep. I remember being strangely comforted by the man's unblinking gaze and rictus grin...

When I awoke, I found my father and several soldiers around my bed. My father looked as though he might pass out and the stench of vomit filled the room. Apparently, several of the guards had terribly weak stomachs. I sneered at them, my lips cracking with the dried, crusted blood and several of the guards retreated from the bed. My father finally did pass out. With my father's authority deprived them, the guards fled, dragging him with them, lest the horrible cannibal heir devour his father, too. Fools. I couldn't have eaten another bite.

I remained in my room for two days and discovered guards posted there. I did not care. On the third day I awoke to find Abmen-Takal in my room, seated upon the floor beneath the window. We spoke again and he complimented me on my success. When I questioned him further, he explained that few have the peace of mind to devour a fellow man and not go raving insane. I told him that I didn't consider anyone, save perhaps Takal himself, to be a fellow. I felt that I was outside of mankind, exempt from their petty laws and morals, but also forever denied their happiness.

He took a knife from his robes and I was suddenly curious as to if he would kill me. Not afraid, but curious. He did not. Instead, he used it to cleanly slice a piece of his withered breast from the muscle beneath and offered it to me. Astounded at this great gift and show of respect, I solemnly took it, muttered a small thanks to Kali and Abmen-Takal both and brought it to my thin, parched lips. When my teeth broke the flesh, which was tough like leather but so much sweeter than any I had ever tasted, my mind shattered. Or perhaps I should say it shattered its bonds -- and I Awakened.

Euthanatos

For many years did I remain with my Mentor. I learned much, about the Sacred Wheel of Rebirth and Death and of our Sacred Mission. I dealt many the Good Death, but I also dealt many simple, mortal death. Because I enjoyed it. And always did I eat the flesh of my victims when I could. Even other Euthanatos found me repulsive, but I did not care. To me they were still foolish mortals who had been fortunate enough to be made privy to a valuable secret. Like children playing with fire were they, while I was living my birthright. Any who know the ways of the Awakened will recognize my thoughts for the flaw that they were--simple hubris, common among those who Shape Reality.

I fought with the Ahl-i-Batin and the Akashic Brotherhood over the various foolishness that afflicted us all, but my heart was never in it. Rather I sought to go places to do other things and so I left the conflicts to those who actually cared for what they fought. I journeyed out of my beloved homeland and I travelled away to the West. It was in the dreary land now called England that I met the one called Inhautep. He was accompanied by a beautiful woman of pale skin and sonorous voice. For the first time in my existence I felt something other than hunger or lassitude. I hesitate to call it love, but it was not lust either. Perhaps I felt a kinship with her -- and I found out why. Like myself, she viewed the world around her as an outsider, as only a predator, above all. She was a child of Kali, or Kindred as she preferred to be called. We spoke at great length and I introduced them to the Ways of the Euthanatos. They spoke in private and finally asked me to join them in a great experiment -- The Tal'Mahe'Ra. The details of the formation of the Manus Nigrum are long and exhaustive and detailed elsewhere. Suffice it to say that I joined their Great Experiment and we formed the True Hand.

Still I longed for more. I felt so alone in my viewpoint and personage. I met and knew many Kindred and they were just that -- Kindred. Even the bitterest enemies could meet on a common ground and share a common viewpoint. The fact that they were so close together allowed them to form such intense relationships -- Love and Hate. I knew only apathy and decay.

So, I left the august assemblage of Enoch for fifty years to study and search for knowledge. Finally, in the greatest temple to Kali in all the Earth, in my birthcountry and home city of Calcutta, I performed a horrible rite -- one that involved the deaths of twenty Kindred and a hundred humans. To this day, the people of Calcutta still speak of the day the Temple of Kali bled. She came to me -- my Avatar, in the form of Kali. Her terrible face and horrid tongue, stinking hair and four arms, her necklace of skulls and skirt of hands, She came before me. She threatened me with dire consequences if I continued this rite. I should lose my Magick she told me, for I would deliver the True Death to that which cannot die -- my Avatar. With a sneer on my face, I did not answer her, but instead plunged the knife into my final victim. She screamed and literally Shattered, to return no more. I was Kindred now and could join my kind.

Nagaraja

I had trouble returning to Enoch, for much time had passed and I had no more Spirit Magicks to rely upon. Therefore, I gathered my chronicles and travelled further to make myself known in the world of the Kindred. I found that simple blood would not sustain me, however. I must eat the flesh of my victim as well and this did not go over well with most Kindred. It was difficult to preserve their precious Masquerade when I must strip flesh to feed. I travelled for much time and eventually entered Torpor in southern Gaul. When I awoke, I had created the ritual necessary to open a gate into the Shadowlands and did so. The trip to Enoch was difficult and I was cast out again and again from the Tempest by the damnable Spectres.

I ended up in the peninsula of Italy, in a small township. There I met the woman called Adrianna Giovanni. She was interested in the Shadowlands and the Tempest and I told her all I knew in return for being taught Necromancy. She would have been cast out of her Clan for teaching me this valuable secret, so I told none of my tutoring. I even took her to the Shadowlands of her city, but I refused to show her the horrors of the Tempest until I could defend us both properly. I stayed with her for four decades and I formed a bond unlike any other I have ever known -- one of friendship. Once I had gained sufficient lore in the Dead Arts, I bid her goodbye and returned to Enoch.

In Enoch I found that our Great Experiment was a rousing success. The True Hand was everywhere and part of everything. We were allied with Silent Striders, Euthanatos, the Restless Dead and many other denizens of the supernatural. My one love was now the Del'Roh and welcomed me back, but she was unable to spend too much time on me or any other, for she was in a position of much responsibility. I accepted this with far less bitterness than I thought I would. I founded my own bloodline. I have passed on the arts I was taught by Adrianna, as well as my own insight. From my previous mastery of Entropic Arts, I mastered the power of Oblivion and crafted many rituals that are used by the True Hand even now.

When the Del'Roh informed me that she wanted a link into Clan Giovanni. I gladly accepted this mission, for it would allow me to take time away from the nuances of the True Hand. So, I journied to Adrianna and begged to become her bodyguard. She accepted, not for need of a bodyguard and servant, but for friendship's sake. We two have become fast friends -- both so fast that we have taken to putting one another before our respective sects. To the outside world, I am her enigmatic guardian. But in actuality, we are partners and a pair of friends. And together -- unstoppable.