Shadow Dio stood atop the tower his memories called 'home' and looked out over Cairo. It was night, and the lights of the city once again glimmered and shone in crude mockery of the stars his eyes could see clearly. He raised his hand, empty palm facing the sky. An image, a twist to reality, an act of will, and the palm was filled with a heavy-bound, gilt covered tome. The swirls embossed on the cover looked like they were dissolving the face of a golden skull which stared up into the night. Yet, on a second glance, the skull was taking form by pulling the eddies into itself.

Almost hidden amongst the confusion of the cover, four old words comprised the title of the treatise. Liber de Umbra Cognitio. For a moment, Dio could not read them, until they twisted in a way that left them unmoved, and he knew the manifold meanings of the title. [Tome of Shadow Knowledge is the simple translation.] Beyond that lay a wealth of alternates, and Dio knew the author had intended them all. [Record of Private Research. Journal of the School's Knowledge.] A chill went down Dio's spine. [Book of Thinking Shadows.]

The last was by far the most disturbing, because Dio could sense the final 'of' was a statement of origin. The craftsman had wanted to declare that this was a Book Built from Thinking Shades. Dio had known the nature of the volume as soon as he lay his hand upon its page, as soon as the truth of the book's terrible call had reached his then-shattered mind. He knew that he would need to learn much of the book and its author, and through those, learn of himself. The issue had not been settled by his taking of the book within the shroud of his face.

But for now, it was night. Time for a vampire to feed.

Sated, Dio looked across at the mausoleum of Imam ash-Shafi, then closed the crypt door on the view. There had been no stand users among those who crossed paths with him, but blood alone was enough to nourish him and take away the hunger for a time. [Perhaps after dusk, I shall take a look in the river. While humans make most delicious prey, there is power to be gained by draining other hunters of the night.]

Dio was hidden inside a grave in Cairo's South Cemetery, a short distance from the cenotaph of the founder of the Shafiite sect of Sunni Islam. The room was black, cool after the night, and still smelled faintly of the death sealed within. It was dawn, but inside eyes that had no need of light could read in comfort.

Dio opened his hand before him, and once again the book appeared at his will. It was opened to the inside of the front cover. [From the binding, it looks like this was originally a cover as well.] The title of the book was rendered in a simple though careful hand, and in the bottom corner, there was one more word. Maien. [A byline, perhaps?] Several pages flipped without hand or gust to lift them. The writing was in what Dio now knew to be Latin, but he had no difficulty. As he read, he idly practiced weaving a knife into his other hand, then dismissing it again.

...It was these facts combined with what I had learned from my parents and early tutors in the Art that convinced me that I had a handle on the nature of order and chaos. More than that, I had an insight into the nature of the black demons. If reality agrees with my speculation, then a key point lies in the fact that there is no world parallel to this one embodying a pure form of order or chaos. This could be evidence that the world as we know it is a spectrum of order to chaos. The stars above can be used to tell the season without fail, but the weather can be unpredictable, and who can tell just how a drop of blood will mix in a cup of water?

It may be judged to be pretentious of me, but I have begun this record of my school though I am yet a journeyman. I am certain that I have hold of a thread of truth, and more I am certain of the purpose to which this knowledge shall bend itself. Perhaps generations hence, a master of the school shall read this entry, and chuckle as he turns his mind to new experiments in subjects I cannot conceive.

Dio felt he was learning something just as important as Maien's epiphany was to him. But it was day, and he needed to rest and rebuild his strength. The book would be with him for a very long time, indeed.

After dusk he would go swimming. But first to sleep, and mayhap to dream.

At the bottom of the Nile, Dio watched a horror swim. The depth was no more impediment to his new vision than was pitch darkness. Pressure only slowed his movements somewhat, and he knew he would have to move to the shore if he was to stand a chance fighting the thing in front of him. It was ovoid, four feet long, and moved by five webbed 'wings' attached to its single foot. Five other fins spaced around its body helped it steer, and any fish it caught were dragged into a set of openings at the end Dio had to call its head.

All other details were obscured by the whipping could of tendrils that branched from five stalks between the fins on the torso. [Perhaps I should postpone my hunting here until I am back to strength.] However, that was not to be, for the monster behaved as if the thought form into words were a beacon to it.

It turned to point its head directly at Dio's face. And charged, tendrils blurring as they reached for the meal that it sensed. Dio threw himself backwards as fast as he could mange. He wove a knife into his waiting hand, and swung through the water at the closest clump of reaching strands. Instead of being cut, the fibrous appendages enwrapped the blade, and pulled it from Dio's hand and stuffed it into the nearest opening. Unable to recall his energy in time, Shadow Dio struggled but felt other tendrils binding his arms, groping his chest. So he used the only free limbs he had, shattering the rock he had been standing on, and propelling both himself and his foe towards the shore.

Dio managed to kick solid portions of river-bottom twice more before he felt the first strand encircling his left leg. It did not truly bother him that the creature was squeezing his throat; he'd been under water for hours already. But he would soon be helpless, and the tension on his arms was growing alarmingly. The only thing that gave Dio hope the water pressure: he could feel they were in the shallows now. Finding one last piece of solid ground, Dio gathered his right leg under him, and pushed.

With a splash that would cause envy in an Olympic belly-flopper, they broke the surface and tumbled through the air, landing side by side moments later on pavement.

The creature freed one group of tentacles from Dio, and began pushing itself into an upright position, seeming unfazed by the change in its environment. Dio could see water dribbling from gills, as other slots began opening and closing rhythmically. Shadow Dio was uncertain how he saw this, as none of the tendrils wrapped around his head obscured his vision in the slightest.

Shaking his head to clear it from the impact, Dio took stock of his situation. [Great. I sure accomplished a lot.] Even as he pried himself of the road, he was being lifted by every limb, all wrapped by bands of tentacle. The upright entity began using the ends of its free limb to lash Dio, shredding his clothes and raising welts which quickly healed. [Is this it? Flayed 'til dawn by the Thing From the River?] The headband dropped to the ground, freeing Dio's hair as the heart broke with a metallic chime. "NO! I will exist for more reason than this! I will leave my mark on the world!"

Dio's determination crystallized in a direction he had thought lost. As if called by the inadvertent use of its name, the pale blue silhouette of Dio's Stand flashed into being, delivering a crushing blow before fading once again. Dio clawed himself free of the loosened strands, praising existence for the stability of his stand, but not willing to risk calling the World forth again. Cleared of the tendrils, Dio dropped to the pavement and rolled out of the creature's reach. Back on his feet, he wove a group of five knives and threw them straight-arm, as hard as he could. Then five more knives. Then five more.

One blade cut into the base of a tentacle, causing the whole group of tendrils to drop limp to the road. Four knives bounced off the barrel of the torso. Five missed. Then the entity knew what was happening, and the last five were caught and thrown back far faster than Dio had managed. [Not enough. Not fast enough, or heavy enough, or... sharp enough?]

Shadow Dio conjured one more knife into his waiting left hand, blade down. Then, as the monster began lumbering towards him, Dio glared at the blade until it... shifted. It was no longer a copy of a blade Dio Brando had once held, it was no the ideal of which the crafter of such a blade might have dreamed. It was stronger, thinner, and above all, almost impossibly sharper.

Leaving shattered pavement behind him, Dio threw himself at his enemy, pushing defenses aside with his forearm, the left hand sweeping the blade up against the leathery skin... and through it, opening a gash a foot long and inches deep. His right hand plunged into the wound, skin hungry for whatever blood the creature used, soul pulling at the being's very life. Dio prepared to sip, hoped to take enough of a drink to slow the thing, dreamed of guzzling so much of the entity's life to kill it.

Reality proved how limited his imagination was. Dio lay on the pavement once again, vaguely aware of the Ancient One dying beside him. With eyes locked wide open, Dio stared at the sky. A hundred mouthfuls of Ambrosia thundered through his veins, struggling to consume him in fire and glory and wild abandon as his cells drank deeply and grew strong. [So this is how it feels to drink the blood of one born immortal.] Beneath his back, Dio felt the heat of flames, fading as it whispered of suffering and remorse and redemption. When the heat faded to the edge of awareness, a new light bloomed in the skyfield that filled Dio's eyes. It glowed with peace and exclusion and home. It glowed with the knowledge that it was forever closed to Shadow Dio. And around it, all the stars muttered strange truths about the darkness that might now see them die.

Smiling inside, Dio knew it was time to rise and leave the scene before any witnesses knew what had happened. He tried to stand.

And quivered, slightly.

The first call was too incredible to be believed on its own. The police ignored the report until a second call came in, just as confused but confirming the gist of the first. Then a single car was sent to the west coast of the isle of Rhoda, in the area known Manial, just north of the Al-Gamaa bridge.

The two officers found the road in question after only a couple attempts. As soon as their brains made some sense of the scene in the headlights, they spilled out of the car with the same speed that they pulled their weapons from the holsters.

"Damn." Paul commented succinctly. The fact that neither body was moving had reached his mind, but was small comfort.

"Is that thing an alien?" asked Karim. "And what do we do with this?" Karim's gesture encompassed the entire scene. Broken pavement. Spatters of human blood. The thing, leaking a viscous fluid from the slit in its side. Shreds of clothing. Victim, clad only in tattered shreds of fabric, but bearing no mark, no sign of where the blood had come from. And above all, having no face.

"I say we call in the military boys. And write this poor sucker off as a suicide." Paul holstered his gun, and walked back to the squad car to report in.

Karim bent down for a closer look at what had been done to the man's head. Almost without thinking about it, Karim knew he was going to touch the black... space. The index finger on his gloved right hand moved up, and pressed against... nothing? His finger was stopped by something, but the only way Karim could tell was the pressure in his joints. He leaned his weight in, then yelped as he pulled back. The tip of the glove was gone, and blood was slowly welling up through the remains of the skin on his fingertip. Karim's casting about for a less embarrassing explanation for his noise was rewarded, before his partner could question him. "Hey, Paul, this guy's still moving!"

"Damn." said Paul again. "That just complicates things more. We'll have to take him back to the station and have a doc look at him there." Paul pulled out a set of cuffs and strode back to do the honors. "Dispatch says we shouldn't be here when the special MP units arrive." Together, they removed the body from the mass of tendrils and loaded him in the back of the car. Paul told his partner, "Get him settled, would ya? I'll add this to the report." While his partner was distracted, Karim pulled a string of prayer beads from his pocket and wound them around and through the handcuffs. Unlike his eternally practical partner, Karim had noticed that despite the body's movements, the 'victim' had not taken a single breath the entire time.

 Inside his mind, Dio could feel information flowing from the part of him that was the Tome of Shadows. He guessed it was due to his recent vision, but whatever the cause, it made a welcome distraction from his unresponsive body and the coming dawn.

Heaven and Hell have always been singularly uninterested in interaction. Some Angels have been known to meddle, so I can only assume that Heaven picks and chooses its own causes. After all, what have mortal mages to offer? And the spawn Hell keep no Bargains. As much as the demons enjoy watching souls weave their own undoing, those of Hell must feel that there are enough sources for mystics to doom themselves with, so they don't bother.

The teachings for years have been to seek Contracts with Powers and Principalities not fully aligned with either side. I have no insight into the origins of those crusaders for Good that take mortal servitors, while I have heard a daemon bound to one of my tutors claim that Lucifer created him, then fervently deny that he was among the ranks of the Hell-spawned.

These anomalies aside, the most common place to find a partner is from one of the worlds that lay somehow beside ours, yet also askew, or mayhap simply out of alignment. It is my impression that those creatures I seek revenge upon originate in one of those worlds. Or at least they are more common or comfortable there. One day, when I am ready to begin my crusade, I may have to move to one of those worlds.

And it was over. Shadow Dio sat bolt upright in the prison, his flailing arm smashing the doctor back against a wall. There was a crack when cement met the man's skull, but he continued to breathe. A muffled expletive drew Dio's attention to the cell's bars, on the other side of which stood a policeman fumbling to draw his pistol. Dio flowed off the cot, his hand tearing open the man's throat before the gun could be freed. It was a messy way to feed, the blood spilling far faster than his skin could drink, but it was a fast kill.

[So, where am I?] It was a holding cell for two, the barred window indicating he had less than an hour before dawn became dangerous to him. He had left the sheet that had been covering him on the bed, and was now standing bare in front of the bars, a dead 'cop' at his feet and an unconscious doctor behind him. The officer had nice non-regulation boots, but... He turned his attention to the other prisoner, an inebriated worker. With a shock, Dio recognized him as a man he had seen during the stillness *** Shadow Dio and another man were trading stone-crushing blows... ***

Dio shook off the reverie and faced the drunkard squarely. The man sported a paunch, added to a hugely muscled upper body. [His shirt would look ridiculous on me.] The laborer's legs were much more normal, and covered with a pair of jeans colored a blue so deep they were almost black. "Give me your pants." The man sat still, his mouth open. Dio took a menacing stride forward and tried again. "I want your clothes."

The man finally started out of his shock. "I... You... The camera!"

Dio looked around. [A camera? What would... Oh, yes. One of the moving picture ones.] The camera was near the ceiling, across the hall. [I think it's time for another test.] Dio flexed his will. The World appeared, smashed the camera, bowed to Dio, and faded.

The man merely saw the destruction of the camera. Dio could hear a mutter. "Holy Mary, Mother of Jesus, Mother of God..." The man began to strip.

Dio had The World push the slab back into place as he began settling in for another day in what he now considered his tomb. His skin was smoking lightly. [I made it back with bare minutes to spare.] He had crossed the cityscape easily with Stand-enhanced leaps, and had even found time for another snack and more clothes. He stood, drinking in the darkness of the tomb, a simple green cord holding back the blonde hair that spilled across the shoulders of his new black leather jacket. Under the lightly padded shoulders of the jacket, Dio wore a bright yellow T-shirt and the drunkard's pants, with the cop's steel-toed boots fitting well over his bare feet.

He knew now that he didn't need to hold the book to read it, but there was a distinct aesthetic appeal to the thought of a dead man sitting in a pitch black tomb, reading his favorite book to pass the time. He called the tome to hand, and asked for more detail.

The details continue to evade my grasp, but in the two years since I declared myself first master of my school, I have grown more convinced that my original intuition was correct. Thus, I shall set down for the first time what I believe.

It is my conviction that all life - life from this world - has the ability to stabilize reality around it. I believe that this world, like the worlds alongside ours, first formed or grew around its first living inhabitants. I believe that reality, before life, was 'without form, and void' as two extremes. The end that was void I call Order. That without form is Chaos. Our world is far closer to the extreme of Chaos. Things flickered into existence, then vanished just as quickly. Only one thing endured: that which had the ability to resist Chaos, to give some measure of Form to its surroundings. When some number of compatible beings met, a world was born.

Our world reaches from the frantic Chaos of that direction we call small, to the great Order of the stars. Over time, as more and strong souls exert their push toward Order, predictability may spread down from the stars and begin to drive Chaos from the existence of the normal life. This may make of descendants automatons, or it may make them small gods. I know not.

What I know about this future is it will make magic as I know it harder. Magic is the art of using Power to break down the predictable reality, then exerting Will to guide that piece of reality to a new Form. The greater the change of Form, the more Power and will are needed. I finished writing the new lessons last night, so I shall start my two apprentices on the new curriculum tomorrow.

If this is indeed truth, then my sworn foes begin to make more sense. The Shadows must be beings that were included but not capable of the same level of stabilizing. Instead, they are more comfortable in Chaos, but they exist in our mixed world by stealing a Form. They are parasites on our Order to avoid dissolving back into the Chaos from which we all came.

Dio realized he felt none of his lethargy of the previous day, even though the sun must be well above the horizon. [The river-creature's blood took almost as much energy as it gave me, but it seems I am changed in other ways. If I have all day to pass, perhaps I too shall be a student of this school.] Masked by two layers of darkness, Dio smiled at the thought of how that would enrage the author of the Tome, Maien.

Shadow Dio gathered Power, released it and Willed the new Form he wished the unstable Reality to take. From no discernable source, a silver glow like moonlight filtered into the tomb. Briefly visible, the walls seemed to vanish behind the swaying shadows of a grove of trees, and a chorus of nightbirds and hunters brought a chaotic music to Dio's ears. Finally, on his sixth attempt, he had the effect he desired. Very relaxing, even if he had spend some of the hours of darkness to master it. This was based upon the principles of one of the early spells in the Tome of Shadow Knowledge, but was applied in a such a way as to make it different in kind. [I do like this environment. The spell needs a name, for I am sure I will use it again.] Dio cast his memory back, and found a fragment from a minor vampire noble, soon after the return of his liege. The name of a technique, then whispered in awe, now translated to the Latin of the Tome. Media Nox Libet. [Yes, perfect. From now on, this spell of relaxation shall be my Midnight Bliss.]

Maien's estimate was that it would require the first eight months of study for an new apprentice to learn the original spell. However, as much as the implications of the thought intrigued him, the night grew short. And whatever he was, vampire or demon, the night was his time to feed.

Heading north from the cemetery, Shadow Dio felt drawn to the Citadel. He was moving over buildings on the west side of the Sayyida Aisha, and something, some sense lost to his mind amidst the cacophony of the city, drew him northeast to the fortress on the limestone spur. Dio decided to follow. Gathering himself, he soared over the traffic of the Sayyida in a single leap, leaving a roof collapsing behind him.

Landing in a crouch on the deserted wall of the Citadel's Lower Enclosure, Dio identified the nature of the stimulus that brought him this way. A scent, of blood, and new death mixed with old, and a musk that whispered to him of power. [This is where Mohammed Ali massacred the Mamluks in 1811. They were an interesting people.] Dio Brando had studied them with the Jostars, before he made himself a vampire. [Slave troops, who also formed the ruling class via a trail by combat. They had been out of power for almost 300 years when the mercenary Ali took over on behalf of the Turks, and they were still enough of a threat that he had to have them killed.]

While Dio had been thinking, his eyes had been scanning for the source of the aroma, but it could not be seen from this perch. He jumped down into the central area of the Enclosure, clearing a building [An old stable?] and landing almost on top of his quarry. Which lifted itself from where it had crouched over its prey, bared an impressive muzzle of fangs, and leaped.

Dio wasn't where he had been. As the werewolf leaped past him, Dio chuckled "Muda." The were landed, skidding around to halt on all fours, facing Dio. "My progenitor must have entertained himself with languages. 'Muda' is Japanese, and has such a useful combination of meanings." The werewolf was confused, and so he did what came naturally. He went for the jugular.

As the Darkstalker came in low, Dio continued. "It means:

"You are nothing." A claw hooked in at Dio's throat. The attached wrist was caught in a left hand.

"It is useless!" Dio hammered the cobbles with his right hand, blowing the werewolf back by shrapnel alone.

"Pointless!" The wolfman landed three paces distant. Wasting no time, his powerful legs cannoned him at the man who interrupted his meal, arms crossed in front of him. Dio was waiting. The vampire ducked, then straightened both arms, launching the werewolf directly upward.

"HOPELESS!" Dio hammered an overhand right into the chest of the falling Darkstalker, launching him into the wall of the stable.

Waiting for his foe to pry himself loose, Shadow Dio stood with his head tilted left, tossing a knife in his right hand. "Now, is that all you can do, or shall we get serious?"

Dio bent over his fallen opponent, a knee grinding into the werewolf's breastbone. He traced a languid finger down a gash in the fur, the skin of his finger drinking in blood that had just begun to clot. "Perhaps you will tell me what you know... about Makai."

 "Makai would tear you to shreds, human. The Lords would treat you as you've treated me, the beasts would crack your bones, the tribes would hound you 'til your waking and nightmares are one, and if you wandered into the demon lands..." The wereman wheezed a chuckle, taking vicarious pleasure in the image of his tormentor's corpse.

Leaning in close, Dio waved a finger in front of his captive's muzzle. "Perhaps your reasoning is sound, but you assume too much. Look into my eyes, if you can, and call me human once more. I was 'born' in Makai, I believe, or perhaps a world darker yet. Now, who are the Lords you spoke of?"

"There are three. The incubus Molech Aensland, the vampire Demitri Maximoff, and Ozum the Demon Emperor."

Dio shifted some weight to his left leg, which rested on pavement. "Then Ozum rules the Demon realm you spoke of? What are its hazards?"

"The danger there is great indeed for one not of the demon race, and the threats are as varied as Ozum's seven children. I know little more."

"Very well. And the tribes?"

"We inhabit the wild spaces of the two 'civilized' kingdoms, as well as the unclaimed lands. Wolfmen may be the most common, but no darkstalker has ever seen all the races of Makai."

Dio hesistated while he decided to ask the question that occurred to him. "And the Shadows?"

The wolfman pretended to spit to the side. "There are as many types of them. Some wear the body of a weak being like a garment. Others transform when they fight someone, or after. Others infect someone, slipping through skin like a black mist and draining their strength 'til they die, or are driven out. None of them are aware of their actions, not in a way we understand anyway." A thought evidenced itself on the werewolf's face. "You... Is that what you are?"

Slowly, Dio tilted his head to the right. "Do I sound unaware of my actions? Now, how does one travel from Makai?"

"The strongest can travel themselves, but I had to..." A rising clamor interrupted the answer. "No! We can be caught here! They either kill us or lock us up and..."

Dio cut him off. "Can you escape?"

"Yes, I was almost ready to fight free of you. I should make it if I have a lead."

"Then go. They have already taken me once. I will teach them not to try again."

As the still unnamed darkstalker vanished around the corner of the stable, Shadow Dio turned to face the first policeman as he rounded the corner. The man paused, as his mind absorbed the destruction and the neglected 'meal' on the ground. "Hands on your head! You're under arrest!"

Dio let the words simmer in his mind. "You would again try to restrain ME!"

The black tide of rage rose within Dio again.

And once again the Lower Enclosure was host to a massacre.

I have found it! My opportunity and my vengeance!

When a Shadow is in its natural state, a container of crystal enchanted with Darkness magic may draw off a small portion of the Shadow's... nature? Or mayhap it should be called their magic. Far more can be collected at the Shadow's death. The black liquid that can then be extracted looks like a black mist stretching back to an impossibly far distance. I have named it shadowsoul. It is this that I write of. I placed a drop on the palm of my hand and I now have the image, almost like a tattoo, of a moving black flame inside my palm, and my magic has doubled in Power, at the least!

I apologize for my long neglect of this volume, but I have now begun a new volume for the new school I shall found in a realm more habitable to my foes, the realm named Makai. This tome shall remain in this world, with a new cover I shall craft with my stock of shadowsoul. It shall be a trap, drawing in any Shadows within its reach and holding them until I return to collect them. It shall lure them simply by being in a stable form, while partaking of their nature. It shall be a bridge, offering them a way to cross over to the ranks of stable beings.

This knowledge, and my supply of shadowsoul, has cost me the lives of my apprentices, but the power I have gained from the four Shadows we confronted is worth it, and cheap at the price. I now know how to kill, truly kill, the targets of my revenge. And the nectar of victory is sweet and dark and potent indeed. I sense that this new ease in breaking down the Order of reality is only the first of the gifts that shadowsoul shall give me.

I hereby declare this volume closed

Maien

In the dark of the noonday tomb, Shadow Dio narrowed his eyes. <Have I, then, crossed that bridge?> He closed the book, then reopened it to the lessons. <Perhaps I should hurry my education, and find out how to pay short a visit to Makai during spring break.>