Gorerotted
Special Agent Fox Mulder: FBI
This is the first chapter in a novel I've been writing, or more accurately, trying to write. With fulltime work, school, and a girlfriend it's very hard to find spare time to myself when I'm not tired or hungry. But enough of that, the working title is "Relent" such because the main character is intended to be the recipient of long and grueling tortures and maladies right from the very onset to about the middle of the book in my current timeline draft, where he'll meet another who will play a central role in the events from there on. The writing is kind of dense I suppose which may be a turnoff to many, but it's generally how I write (my influences growing up have been H.P. Lovecraft and Poe, so what do you expect 
), and since it's told from the characters point of view, and that I thought that kind of language would give him more credibility in terms of making the supernatural and unorthodox occurances seem more acceptable, and give him a sense of intelligence but also a sense of self importance as he is far from a 'good' person. Well, here it is, the first chapter, called The Messengers.
Dark shadows circling above forming oppressive wretched black birds of a vivid abstraction have come to discourse with my soul. I cannot stand the sight of the vile creatures of insanity. Their presence lingers even before they arrive, and likewise when they have gone hence in the ways of the most stinging winter winds. With wicked caws that scratch away at my very ego they make their intentions known in foreign dialect. Before that however are the nauseating hallucinogenic miasmas that waft off their feathers made of tar and frost; they cause me to surrender myself to illogical cause and hand my mind over to them. I relinquish all sense of self and become their doll to be dissected at their whim. They can uncover all secrets, ambiguities, passions, and can destroy whatever they see fit, though they have never felt the need to destroy anything of my personality, fortunately for myself. But when they are done searching your depths they take an irreplaceable piece of your essence with them, agonizing to the core and profoundly depressing.
As they descend in a mannerism that resembles the rapid decay of flesh their incomprehensible gaze from the pits of their lifeless eyes breaks all remnants of free will that may dwindle within your form. They came down from the morning sky, which seemed to be eradicated of light in the space all around them and perched atop my limp body, all the while assuring I maintained a lucid consciousness. They are cold creatures in both their physical state and their utter denial of reasonability. They carry out their orders flawlessly and verbatim. If I could feel terror in the worst way in their presence I would, but they take the privilege of emotion away with their coming.
The very moment the three birds have perched – always there are three – they begin creating a hollow vibrating monotone pitch that drones out from their infernal bellies. This resonating intonation is such that it draws out my fundamental self and exposes it to them in a transcending physical, yet tangible form. Only these birds, known as the Nalgexelferg, are capable of interaction with that which they summon. My soul is placed within an invisible spherical barrier, which, through unknown forces, they also bring into being. They then themselves enter this barrier in an iridescent black swirling blaze. It is inside this doleful chamber they begin communication with me at its purest level, unashamedly honest and unflinchingly smooth.
“Demalitis,” they address me like a cavern roof laden with icicles dangling over my body ready to drop and impale me, “you have been loyal to the Sanctums of Meblis. Your soul further reflects the characteristics needed to serve under Vaunav. On this reunion you have been deemed worthy for the continuation of your service. We the Nalgexelferg, minions of Vaunav, King of Suffer hereby reclaim all rights and liberties given to you upon our last encounter, and confer upon you a new directive, with a new limitation of will. This diktat demands the annihilation of the being named Nefrit Lundundant. Failure to observe this directive shall result in the destruction of the physical body and imprisonment of the soul for later consumption. Success will further increase your status recognition of will, granting you more freedom. Once you attain enough trust, you will enter the in inner sanctums of Meblis where the library of Thakrin is housed. You motivation is in place, and your task defined; we depart.”
As they emerged from the shell containing my soul their talons indiscriminately sunk themselves into portions of it, tearing it just a small bit; it was enough however for it to change my demeanor permanently. I screamed out in horrid anguish as my scarred soul superimposed itself back onto my carnal, limp body, returning to me my humanity. Gasping for breath, my lungs choked with the pollution of the vile gaseous plume produced by the birds, I stretched out swiftly and likewise recoiled into a ball, and flailed in distress. My muscles felt as though they were being putrefied from the inside out as my body attempted to cope with the trauma placed upon it.
The Nalgexelferg began to ascend, spreading their squalid wings outward, cutting through light itself. The sight of them lifting off of my body is almost crippling in and of itself, in its haphazard, infantile execution. Almost appearing wounded, they limp away in flight, until they finally adjust themselves properly. After watching the birds in a terrible, captivated, stunned state, fly into the distance and out of my vision, I passed out on the beach where they had come to me. As I had lain on the beach, unconscious, I dreamt that all the water in the ocean had evaporated. I got up and began to walk into the empty seas. Everything was arid, and I felt very awkward. Dead creatures and shriveled plant life carpeted the seabed. It was fantastic in its sheer magnitude and detail. Bones were protruding from rotting fish carcasses, and many kinds of carrion animals were feeding on them and flies were laying their eggs within them, and forms crushed beneath my boots. It was a desert of flesh and bereavement, and I was the only cognitive occupant.
I walked for miles within the vacant malodorous ocean. The feeling of being awestruck and fascinated was intense to no end. At one point I came to a wrecked ship that appeared to have struck a nearby coral reef, the reef now bleached with death. I went into a section of the ship and somehow managed my ways up to the helm. At that time I grabbed hold of the wheel and turned it to the right. Instantly a depression opened up next to the ship and from out of the crater raised a metallic globe. I began to fall off the ship as it rolled over and into the crater. I managed to jump off and landed beneath the metallic globe, which was about 25 feet in the air. When I got up I pried a fish’s rib out of my forearm, and stared at the ominous sphere, waiting for it to move. When it finally did move, it did not drift away as I had felt it would with a kind of premonition only felt in dreams, but instead, it fell straight down, and it would have crushed me if I had not woken up at that moment.
As I opened my eyes very slowly I realized I no longer ached, and that I could once again think clearly on my own. There was though, pounding on the back of my mind, one single ever clear thought. The thought was of murder, a murder I would have to commit if I did not want this thought to eventually drive me mad to the point where I could no longer accomplish it. For the moment though my focus was concentrated on the calming sound of the ocean waves lapping the shore. A cool breeze passed the scent of brine through my olfactory.
I was appreciative to once again be able to stand. Standing caused sand to pour off my garments in larger quantities than I thought possible. My hair needed no cleaning, for I have none. My head is emblazoned with the branding of Vaunav. In fact no one with His mark has hair on his or her head. It’s not that it is forbidden; it’s simply that the mark envelops the whole skull, scorched into the skin so that hair may not grow, not done with that intention, however that is the result. It is a little recognized emblem, but those who know it dislike it. It is such that even those who don’t know its origin are wary of it, for it is ugly and crude. For this reason anyone that bears this brand finds it beneficial to don a hooding of some sort. I don’t do this though, as I rarely include into the masses. Cities tend to suffocate me, towns –especially those of this country- have a way of irritating me, and it is solitude –only solitude- that truly satisfies me.
I brushed off my jacket, shirt, and pants, adjusting myself as I saw fit with a compulsive eye for bodily cleanliness. With my eyes on the incarnadine setting sun I crouched down to retrieve my walking stick from the sand. With the twilight upon me I headed to my lodging by the shore, a mile and some distance from where I stood. It’s a small, suitable, hand built cabin that I stay in while I am away from Mar’Garu, City of Minions. The cabin is my savior of sanity. An abode structured for the retaining of my vulnerable mentality. The desolate feeling of the cabin’s isolation and decrepit furnishings favor me well.
While walking back to my dwelling I happened upon a stone I’d never seen before, dark blue in color, and crystalline. I knelt down and palmed it, then got back up from my kneeling position in one sudden motion. No one had seen me do it. No one could have seen me do it. It was far too quickly performed, leaving no chance of detection by the eyes of man, beast, or spirit. It was beyond the depths of all sight. This I had to do, for eyes were constantly upon me, excluding the time spent inside my own shelter, my hermitage upon the Hambut shore. MY HOME.
The stone began to screech and shriek in my palm. Stones infrequently did this, and my intense curiosity focused upon what I had claimed. I dared not open my hand until I returned to my domicile, lest some wight or wraith be spying in the service of my Lord. Trinkets were never to be gathered under strict penalties of malice at its finest. To possess an item outside of necessity at my level of servitude was viewed as a crime against Vaunav, and a sign of deviance in course. Appointed tasks were supposed to be placed higher than anything else in a servant’s life, otherwise disobedience was charged, and death was agonizingly applied after months of bloody atonement. But the rock in my hand began to pulse, and the rapidity of its palpitation was quickly escalating. For a brief moment I became the very avatar of haste, and in that moment I had made it into my abode.
I slammed shut my door and upon the floor of the dark cabin I threw the beating mineral. The moment the projectile clacked against the floor my eyes were stabbed by a radiant flash of fantastic cobalt blue illuminating the single roomed shelter. My breath stolen with the burst of light, and the horrific shadows it cast. Objects in the lights’ path were silhouetted against my walls in maimed forms, sorrowful figures, and wretched appearances. And then, in the residual mental images that followed in the darkness I saw a figure like nothing ever envisaged. It could never in all possibility have been conceived. It existed in a dimension beyond all comprehension, and the very encroachment of its complexity upon my fragile, and in comparison, infantile mind, frayed and beat upon all my sensibility and crippled me to a bottomless point. Havoc was for the moment this image’s only purpose, and it served it with a love for violence unmatched. I forced shut my eyes praying darkness would cancel morbid darkness while screaming madly. I ran to the door I so frantically closed and thrust it open hoping to expose myself to the remainder of the day’s light and banish the intrusive specter.
Outside I found not the end of the day’s light, but the beginning. Dawn had arrived in what felt like a matter of seconds. With what felt like speed equal to the arrival of the dawn I felt a blow come to the back of my head, then nothing. I slipped into unconsciousness.
*******************
I regained consciousness in lassitude, my first thought being that if I were still alive it wouldn’t make much difference if I gained my bearings quickly or gradually. I caressed the back of my skull where I was struck, and examined my hand after I felt it was warm to the touch. My fingers were sanguine, and I devised from the taste and color of the blood I had been out for no more than twenty minutes. My assailant was not in sight, though my vision was hazy. No tracks were near me, no indication of the presence of another. Staggering to my feet I estimated the time to be near 2 hours after the dawn. It is outstandingly strange to know I had lost the night in what seemed as only moments. I’d never known of such incidences to occur, however, I never gave much thought into denying their possibility, and certainly now I could never do so.
Peering into my lodging I saw nothing disturbed. Light filtered lazily in through small crevices between some boards of the walls. My bed was as I’d left it the day before, so I had not dreamt the events involving the stone. I started looking for the stone I’d found, very cautiously. I didn’t plan on touching it when I found it, I’d just prefer to know its location. I began around where I thought I’d thrown it, but it was very dark inside at the time, and I was not with the clearest of minds, so I was not assuredly searching in the right spot. I lifted whatever objects it could have gone beneath, and looked on top of anything it may have ricocheted on to. The stone went unfound. I don’t like not knowing where it is, such a painful rock inside my only haven – the thought does me no good to dwell upon. I have to postpone its rediscovery for now. I simply hope it never again makes itself known. The dreadful horror that emanated from the stone’s aura did not easily vacate my thoughts yet at the same time never took clear shape in my memory, as if I’d never seen it at all and was piecing its figure together from other abominations I’ve witnessed, but I knew I had stared directly into its rancorous, trenchant muzzle, gaping jowl hinged on the border of space and time with malicious intent and myriad polished teeth like spiraling lances, long, tall and thin with jags and serrations abound.
My mind lingered on the subject for a short while until my thoughts came to rest on the man I was to vanquish. Nefrit Lundundant was a man of some established infamy. He crafted queer artifice with his tongue, dispelling those who listened of recollection. His origin was indistinct; arriving one day about three years ago in the northeastern lands of Carden seemingly from the heart of shadows, so like shadow is he. I am Vaunav’s first servant appointed to this task, so it is likely I am estimated to perish. If I do die my soul would travel to Vaunav’s lair, as it is eternally tethered to him; it would express to him what had occurred on my encounter with Nefrit, be devoured, and he would send a worthy minion to do what he presumed I could not. This is the way his Society of Tribulation works, as to make it impossible to reach the Inner Sanctums of Meblis. As far as anyone knows, Vaunav is the only being to enter the Inner Sanctums.
It was once told in rumors of a Templar of Branas invading the Sanctums in an audacious bout to slay Vaunav, however it is likely a story conjured of bold malcontents in the service of Vaunav who would have been swiftly uncovered and brutalized in all Vaunav’s horrific iniquity. Vaunav does not bear insult, or falsehoods, or misrepresentations both in physical character and conduct. His detesting of such inaccuracies or injurious remarks stems so far as to have assigned me to murder the artist in the atelier at Merinthinen for the painting he had done of my lord, depicting him as a pale man (as it was often said he was) with a scepter of vertebras from those he’d pried them out of, linked together with gold and sinew, as he sat atop a pile of skulls and ate the flesh of a man while the man writhed skinless in torment at his feet. This was a fair depiction for the most part, however my lord is not a pale man, nor does he wield a scepter of vertebras. For these inaccuracies I slew a man and crushed his hands, and took his head to display at the gates of Meblis. The painting was taken back to Vaunav as well and resides in his sepulcher. Vaunav’s sepulcher assuredly contains innumerable relics of great historical significance or power.
I decidedly collected my things I’d need to take with me on my trip and placed them into a shoulder bag. I would sleep if I had not been unconscious so much already, I really only wanted to get prepared and begin my march northeastward. It would take me approximately a dozen plus one days to reach the rumored residence of my target (boding fair weather and hazardless mountain passage) a place called Shersarc, or probably just west of there, but there was no certainty he would still be there when I arrived. My travels would take me through the Inithik Scrubland to Darcaxis where I would hopefully go untroubled by the dissolute town dwellers. They had distaste for civility of any kind there; as there was never much call for it in Meblis, but still I would much rather go long unnoticed than bear some ribald logorrhea spewed by the thoughtless mouth of a peasant too torpid from life - and unquestionably drugged - to acknowledge the difference between a listener and an roiled murderer in unwanted earshot of his rambling. From Darcaxis I move on into Birgolt territory, crossing the flatland – much more green than the scrubland I promise myself – until I come to Refris, a city town of sort on lake Gent. From that point I have to be sure to cross the part of the Umbrios Range still belonging to Carden, for it is unsafe to traverse the Harganzanzo portion, unless your goal is a brutal death, and that is not yet my own. In Carden is where I hope I find the man whose doom promises to expedite my sought invitation into unspeakable realms. To say I’m not doubtful of my success would be frivolous idiocy; I am sincerely skeptical of my own strength against such an unusual man thing, but my prowess for killing grows ever more skillful and mastered, that I may have the upper hand in sheer brutality and determination. I’m counting on his weakness to lie in his assumed superiority.
I set out now, my path will lead me across the Inithik Scrubland to an outer Meblian town (any town beyond the Daconip Ridge is an ‘outer’ town or city, where the dregs of our country dwell, toiling mindlessly toward goals with motives they know not the first hint of, goals not their own, of a fiendish nature) called Darcaxis.
*******************
The Inithik Scrublands have long been a popular killing ground for Meblian marauders and brigands from the base of the Inithik Back to the outskirts of Darcaxis. They often strike in threes, three being a heavily sacred number for several reasons, namely for the three celestial eyes which orbit the world. Only citizens of Meblis are safe, any immigrants or traveling scholars or those seeking servitude that has yet to enlist are all targets for banditry. It was on my way to Darcaxis while drudging the foreboding terrain of the scrubland that I first noticed a foul stench on the air which I played to the draft carrying odor from an unseen bog I was now downwind of, but as it grew stronger as I walked on I realized the fetid smell emanated from a degenerating corpse that was directly in my path, with one mangled bony hand somehow propped outward as if waiting to collect a pathetic toll that might revert its damnation. To pay it would surely be folly, as dead have little need for charity, so I would not be the one to afford its meager salvation should it be possible through some earthly coinage or trinket. The man corpse appeared well killed, four arrows now loosely dangling between semi-exposed ribs that some time ago was probably firmly embedded in thick flesh and organ. It’d probably only been moldering there for two days but its state of decomposition would have suggested longer. The fauna of the area had had their separate fills of the carcass left to them, leaving a predominantly fleshless and gutted unman mass to degenerate in star heat. No clothes, the thieves would have stripped him first then killed him, as there was little sense in bloodying what were to be presumed wearable garments.
I have both come upon and created my share of corpses in the past, however none have ever caused me to be more instantaneously apprehensive when I drew near. As I neared in my proximity the stench of the baking mass readily sickened my guts, no doubt the man before me would feel likewise had he any guts to churn. It was an unnatural, mephitic odor, violently displeasing, and as I stood before the unman remnants I began to think vaguely to myself this isn’t my doing.
I had some mild sense of control, and I thought if I tried hard enough I might be able to dash forward and leave death in my wake, but I did not. There was a feeling of necessity in my actions that could not be shaken. Whether it was a necessity I would do better without I was not sure, but that thought also crossed my mind as I knelt before the decayed.
Slowly, not with any sense of caution or delicacy, but almost as if a fluid resistance to common sense were occurring on some perfunctory level, my right hand clasped the skull before me and plucked it clean of the skeletal frame. I held it out, glancing briefly at the sardonic half grimace, half smile that the unique cross between a mouth half plastered with black flesh and no flesh could produce, then turned it about that I could see the back of it. Not knowing how I knew, just knowing I knew it would be there, I observed a small hole in the skull, cleanly bored low on the base of the skull. Then I shook the skull, and heard nothing, but I had hoped –no, don’t let it be – for a noise to emanate from within.
Blazing clarity all at once swept its conflagration through my mind and I realized my assailant at the door of my home could have only been the very stone I had grasped. And here now evidence of another, once embedded in the cranium of this sincerely departed man. Or perhaps even into his brain. My hand began to overturn the corpse, spilling insects and leathery fabric-like flakes all about, rattling hastily all that stayed jointed in some perverse simulacrum of what this once man may have looked like on an internal plane, spilling all that could be spilled and then tossing cage and anything else caught among it along aside. There on the ground below, gleaming hideously beautiful beneath the hipbone lay a red object of crystalline insanity. I know for fact now, madness is spherical, and it is this world. What diabolic force of absurdity would weave my fate so absurdly as to chance me upon certain self-destruction twice, these stone demons, one before me and one internally implanted of its own accord.
It sees me. It is undeniable, the bloated carbuncle there below me was optical, its surface area a gluttonous pupil which never dilated, never needed dilating. I had not gotten this sense from the blue stone, that horror of mental degradation, but it was clear as my reflection in its bone shrouded translucence I’m certain. This one Sees. Then the one in my mind now Thinks, were it to be likened, and I fear it is very much to be likened. Gross similarities could be drawn between the two, and the revulsion of the thought that here lie a unnamable demon of never known regions of nightmare lands akin to one in my very skull, in my brain, was simply too much to bear. Utter faultier it would be to try to fully encompass the implications and ramifications of two such semi-precious abominations existing at one time and in the same universe, on an individual planet, now brought within feet of one another.
Before I could even try to think my way through to even hope to establish some basement level plateau of consciousness the stone began to moan. It saw me, saw me seeing it, and did moan a bellow so atrocious I burst out in infantile weeping. My body stung with hotness, helpless cruelty inflicted by unfettered, unfretted automatons, my very body my only remotely meaningful possession left in this world now being bombarded with inhuman discomforts, tortures, from indifferent sources, the stone in my mind causing agony by its very presence and location, its circumstantial violation from its occupation and the merciless wails of the stone below.
Pick it up, I told myself, snare this fiend within your clutch and condemn its foul odor – for I now knew this is where that rankness originated – and cast away its defiance of natural laws to as far away as it can be sent by your arm, in the direction you came from and are no longer heading. I did this all while thinking it, the red mineral home to some savage demon power now carrying through air away from me as well I could make it; riddance and semi-peace my moments goal and apparent accomplishment. Now I fled, fast as I can, a speed unlike any other I’ve encountered hurtling across the leg battering low growing scrubland.
Then a sharp whistle of air being parted severely, a loud bang of bone cracking, or two unnaturally dense stones smacking together, then blackness.
*******************
In no uncertain terms the following was a demand: “Press on, there are yet more to find.”
Voices within spoke these words – two. Their tone – the only perception of tone to offer was clarity emergent from the darkest veil of primordial calamity, visible words cast in radiant cosmic brilliance that gave no hint of the known malignancy of their originators. And to interpret their meaning, what inconceivable horror; a quantity of tangible fey forces greater than the number now engaged in existence could not be so. How could natural occurrence permit such condemnable lunacy?
The pain of that simple message and its blatant insinuations sent semi-digested matter spewing forth from my knotted guts. A discomforting momentary feeling of corrosion coated my esophagus as it emerged.
For a moment, the ever-interlaced thought among all my thoughts, the message of the birds’ implantation had ceased, and I realized that was the sense of clarity I experienced. It seems these cranial invaders were capable of overriding even the twisted distortion of my soul the dread flock had caused. It became very clear that they have unrestricted dominance over everything I am. They do not erase my initial directive however – no sooner did their words leave my mentality only to remain in hazed memory did I once again feel and know the necessity of murder. Why not enact their own assertive control and carry my body where they will? For clearly they have a will of their own, and it appears to draw them together.
I think now on the corpse. It too was possessed of despicable rock. How then could it have allowed its carrier vessel to be slain. That’s all I am to these things, surely the once man was no less or more a carrier than I, which means I too face obscure death at the whim or felt need of these merciless conduits for nameless monstrosities. The stone of sight, the red one, was in that man. What was the range of its visibility? How many depths could it penetrate; was it limited by distance, time, thought, or reality? Appalling perspective it must possess, for as I started asking myself of its limitations of sight, I soon discovered the answers were self-evident. What occurred here was no oversight on its part, simply Oversight, all seeing.
All went through my mind in moments sweat drenching my fevered form. The scrubland was silent, no wind or disturbance, but could the chaos in my mind achieve audibility it would widely be thought the end of this world nigh. Perhaps understood as the end of all worlds. Indeed it very well in actuality could be, at the prospect of seemingly infinitely diabolic mechanisms looming over my path’s horizon, with collective power beyond my wanting imagination, all could cease for all I’m aware.
It could be I make too much of it, but when every construct of my body, though now perched weakly on the chasm of irreparable mental and physical plunge, tells me every instantaneous intuit assumption bears quick unfaltering sooth how then do I doubt myself?
[A long,
long silence. ]
What other choices do I have?
The message is clarity.
I press on
), and since it's told from the characters point of view, and that I thought that kind of language would give him more credibility in terms of making the supernatural and unorthodox occurances seem more acceptable, and give him a sense of intelligence but also a sense of self importance as he is far from a 'good' person. Well, here it is, the first chapter, called The Messengers. Dark shadows circling above forming oppressive wretched black birds of a vivid abstraction have come to discourse with my soul. I cannot stand the sight of the vile creatures of insanity. Their presence lingers even before they arrive, and likewise when they have gone hence in the ways of the most stinging winter winds. With wicked caws that scratch away at my very ego they make their intentions known in foreign dialect. Before that however are the nauseating hallucinogenic miasmas that waft off their feathers made of tar and frost; they cause me to surrender myself to illogical cause and hand my mind over to them. I relinquish all sense of self and become their doll to be dissected at their whim. They can uncover all secrets, ambiguities, passions, and can destroy whatever they see fit, though they have never felt the need to destroy anything of my personality, fortunately for myself. But when they are done searching your depths they take an irreplaceable piece of your essence with them, agonizing to the core and profoundly depressing.
As they descend in a mannerism that resembles the rapid decay of flesh their incomprehensible gaze from the pits of their lifeless eyes breaks all remnants of free will that may dwindle within your form. They came down from the morning sky, which seemed to be eradicated of light in the space all around them and perched atop my limp body, all the while assuring I maintained a lucid consciousness. They are cold creatures in both their physical state and their utter denial of reasonability. They carry out their orders flawlessly and verbatim. If I could feel terror in the worst way in their presence I would, but they take the privilege of emotion away with their coming.
The very moment the three birds have perched – always there are three – they begin creating a hollow vibrating monotone pitch that drones out from their infernal bellies. This resonating intonation is such that it draws out my fundamental self and exposes it to them in a transcending physical, yet tangible form. Only these birds, known as the Nalgexelferg, are capable of interaction with that which they summon. My soul is placed within an invisible spherical barrier, which, through unknown forces, they also bring into being. They then themselves enter this barrier in an iridescent black swirling blaze. It is inside this doleful chamber they begin communication with me at its purest level, unashamedly honest and unflinchingly smooth.
“Demalitis,” they address me like a cavern roof laden with icicles dangling over my body ready to drop and impale me, “you have been loyal to the Sanctums of Meblis. Your soul further reflects the characteristics needed to serve under Vaunav. On this reunion you have been deemed worthy for the continuation of your service. We the Nalgexelferg, minions of Vaunav, King of Suffer hereby reclaim all rights and liberties given to you upon our last encounter, and confer upon you a new directive, with a new limitation of will. This diktat demands the annihilation of the being named Nefrit Lundundant. Failure to observe this directive shall result in the destruction of the physical body and imprisonment of the soul for later consumption. Success will further increase your status recognition of will, granting you more freedom. Once you attain enough trust, you will enter the in inner sanctums of Meblis where the library of Thakrin is housed. You motivation is in place, and your task defined; we depart.”
As they emerged from the shell containing my soul their talons indiscriminately sunk themselves into portions of it, tearing it just a small bit; it was enough however for it to change my demeanor permanently. I screamed out in horrid anguish as my scarred soul superimposed itself back onto my carnal, limp body, returning to me my humanity. Gasping for breath, my lungs choked with the pollution of the vile gaseous plume produced by the birds, I stretched out swiftly and likewise recoiled into a ball, and flailed in distress. My muscles felt as though they were being putrefied from the inside out as my body attempted to cope with the trauma placed upon it.
The Nalgexelferg began to ascend, spreading their squalid wings outward, cutting through light itself. The sight of them lifting off of my body is almost crippling in and of itself, in its haphazard, infantile execution. Almost appearing wounded, they limp away in flight, until they finally adjust themselves properly. After watching the birds in a terrible, captivated, stunned state, fly into the distance and out of my vision, I passed out on the beach where they had come to me. As I had lain on the beach, unconscious, I dreamt that all the water in the ocean had evaporated. I got up and began to walk into the empty seas. Everything was arid, and I felt very awkward. Dead creatures and shriveled plant life carpeted the seabed. It was fantastic in its sheer magnitude and detail. Bones were protruding from rotting fish carcasses, and many kinds of carrion animals were feeding on them and flies were laying their eggs within them, and forms crushed beneath my boots. It was a desert of flesh and bereavement, and I was the only cognitive occupant.
I walked for miles within the vacant malodorous ocean. The feeling of being awestruck and fascinated was intense to no end. At one point I came to a wrecked ship that appeared to have struck a nearby coral reef, the reef now bleached with death. I went into a section of the ship and somehow managed my ways up to the helm. At that time I grabbed hold of the wheel and turned it to the right. Instantly a depression opened up next to the ship and from out of the crater raised a metallic globe. I began to fall off the ship as it rolled over and into the crater. I managed to jump off and landed beneath the metallic globe, which was about 25 feet in the air. When I got up I pried a fish’s rib out of my forearm, and stared at the ominous sphere, waiting for it to move. When it finally did move, it did not drift away as I had felt it would with a kind of premonition only felt in dreams, but instead, it fell straight down, and it would have crushed me if I had not woken up at that moment.
As I opened my eyes very slowly I realized I no longer ached, and that I could once again think clearly on my own. There was though, pounding on the back of my mind, one single ever clear thought. The thought was of murder, a murder I would have to commit if I did not want this thought to eventually drive me mad to the point where I could no longer accomplish it. For the moment though my focus was concentrated on the calming sound of the ocean waves lapping the shore. A cool breeze passed the scent of brine through my olfactory.
I was appreciative to once again be able to stand. Standing caused sand to pour off my garments in larger quantities than I thought possible. My hair needed no cleaning, for I have none. My head is emblazoned with the branding of Vaunav. In fact no one with His mark has hair on his or her head. It’s not that it is forbidden; it’s simply that the mark envelops the whole skull, scorched into the skin so that hair may not grow, not done with that intention, however that is the result. It is a little recognized emblem, but those who know it dislike it. It is such that even those who don’t know its origin are wary of it, for it is ugly and crude. For this reason anyone that bears this brand finds it beneficial to don a hooding of some sort. I don’t do this though, as I rarely include into the masses. Cities tend to suffocate me, towns –especially those of this country- have a way of irritating me, and it is solitude –only solitude- that truly satisfies me.
I brushed off my jacket, shirt, and pants, adjusting myself as I saw fit with a compulsive eye for bodily cleanliness. With my eyes on the incarnadine setting sun I crouched down to retrieve my walking stick from the sand. With the twilight upon me I headed to my lodging by the shore, a mile and some distance from where I stood. It’s a small, suitable, hand built cabin that I stay in while I am away from Mar’Garu, City of Minions. The cabin is my savior of sanity. An abode structured for the retaining of my vulnerable mentality. The desolate feeling of the cabin’s isolation and decrepit furnishings favor me well.
While walking back to my dwelling I happened upon a stone I’d never seen before, dark blue in color, and crystalline. I knelt down and palmed it, then got back up from my kneeling position in one sudden motion. No one had seen me do it. No one could have seen me do it. It was far too quickly performed, leaving no chance of detection by the eyes of man, beast, or spirit. It was beyond the depths of all sight. This I had to do, for eyes were constantly upon me, excluding the time spent inside my own shelter, my hermitage upon the Hambut shore. MY HOME.
The stone began to screech and shriek in my palm. Stones infrequently did this, and my intense curiosity focused upon what I had claimed. I dared not open my hand until I returned to my domicile, lest some wight or wraith be spying in the service of my Lord. Trinkets were never to be gathered under strict penalties of malice at its finest. To possess an item outside of necessity at my level of servitude was viewed as a crime against Vaunav, and a sign of deviance in course. Appointed tasks were supposed to be placed higher than anything else in a servant’s life, otherwise disobedience was charged, and death was agonizingly applied after months of bloody atonement. But the rock in my hand began to pulse, and the rapidity of its palpitation was quickly escalating. For a brief moment I became the very avatar of haste, and in that moment I had made it into my abode.
I slammed shut my door and upon the floor of the dark cabin I threw the beating mineral. The moment the projectile clacked against the floor my eyes were stabbed by a radiant flash of fantastic cobalt blue illuminating the single roomed shelter. My breath stolen with the burst of light, and the horrific shadows it cast. Objects in the lights’ path were silhouetted against my walls in maimed forms, sorrowful figures, and wretched appearances. And then, in the residual mental images that followed in the darkness I saw a figure like nothing ever envisaged. It could never in all possibility have been conceived. It existed in a dimension beyond all comprehension, and the very encroachment of its complexity upon my fragile, and in comparison, infantile mind, frayed and beat upon all my sensibility and crippled me to a bottomless point. Havoc was for the moment this image’s only purpose, and it served it with a love for violence unmatched. I forced shut my eyes praying darkness would cancel morbid darkness while screaming madly. I ran to the door I so frantically closed and thrust it open hoping to expose myself to the remainder of the day’s light and banish the intrusive specter.
Outside I found not the end of the day’s light, but the beginning. Dawn had arrived in what felt like a matter of seconds. With what felt like speed equal to the arrival of the dawn I felt a blow come to the back of my head, then nothing. I slipped into unconsciousness.
*******************
I regained consciousness in lassitude, my first thought being that if I were still alive it wouldn’t make much difference if I gained my bearings quickly or gradually. I caressed the back of my skull where I was struck, and examined my hand after I felt it was warm to the touch. My fingers were sanguine, and I devised from the taste and color of the blood I had been out for no more than twenty minutes. My assailant was not in sight, though my vision was hazy. No tracks were near me, no indication of the presence of another. Staggering to my feet I estimated the time to be near 2 hours after the dawn. It is outstandingly strange to know I had lost the night in what seemed as only moments. I’d never known of such incidences to occur, however, I never gave much thought into denying their possibility, and certainly now I could never do so.
Peering into my lodging I saw nothing disturbed. Light filtered lazily in through small crevices between some boards of the walls. My bed was as I’d left it the day before, so I had not dreamt the events involving the stone. I started looking for the stone I’d found, very cautiously. I didn’t plan on touching it when I found it, I’d just prefer to know its location. I began around where I thought I’d thrown it, but it was very dark inside at the time, and I was not with the clearest of minds, so I was not assuredly searching in the right spot. I lifted whatever objects it could have gone beneath, and looked on top of anything it may have ricocheted on to. The stone went unfound. I don’t like not knowing where it is, such a painful rock inside my only haven – the thought does me no good to dwell upon. I have to postpone its rediscovery for now. I simply hope it never again makes itself known. The dreadful horror that emanated from the stone’s aura did not easily vacate my thoughts yet at the same time never took clear shape in my memory, as if I’d never seen it at all and was piecing its figure together from other abominations I’ve witnessed, but I knew I had stared directly into its rancorous, trenchant muzzle, gaping jowl hinged on the border of space and time with malicious intent and myriad polished teeth like spiraling lances, long, tall and thin with jags and serrations abound.
My mind lingered on the subject for a short while until my thoughts came to rest on the man I was to vanquish. Nefrit Lundundant was a man of some established infamy. He crafted queer artifice with his tongue, dispelling those who listened of recollection. His origin was indistinct; arriving one day about three years ago in the northeastern lands of Carden seemingly from the heart of shadows, so like shadow is he. I am Vaunav’s first servant appointed to this task, so it is likely I am estimated to perish. If I do die my soul would travel to Vaunav’s lair, as it is eternally tethered to him; it would express to him what had occurred on my encounter with Nefrit, be devoured, and he would send a worthy minion to do what he presumed I could not. This is the way his Society of Tribulation works, as to make it impossible to reach the Inner Sanctums of Meblis. As far as anyone knows, Vaunav is the only being to enter the Inner Sanctums.
It was once told in rumors of a Templar of Branas invading the Sanctums in an audacious bout to slay Vaunav, however it is likely a story conjured of bold malcontents in the service of Vaunav who would have been swiftly uncovered and brutalized in all Vaunav’s horrific iniquity. Vaunav does not bear insult, or falsehoods, or misrepresentations both in physical character and conduct. His detesting of such inaccuracies or injurious remarks stems so far as to have assigned me to murder the artist in the atelier at Merinthinen for the painting he had done of my lord, depicting him as a pale man (as it was often said he was) with a scepter of vertebras from those he’d pried them out of, linked together with gold and sinew, as he sat atop a pile of skulls and ate the flesh of a man while the man writhed skinless in torment at his feet. This was a fair depiction for the most part, however my lord is not a pale man, nor does he wield a scepter of vertebras. For these inaccuracies I slew a man and crushed his hands, and took his head to display at the gates of Meblis. The painting was taken back to Vaunav as well and resides in his sepulcher. Vaunav’s sepulcher assuredly contains innumerable relics of great historical significance or power.
I decidedly collected my things I’d need to take with me on my trip and placed them into a shoulder bag. I would sleep if I had not been unconscious so much already, I really only wanted to get prepared and begin my march northeastward. It would take me approximately a dozen plus one days to reach the rumored residence of my target (boding fair weather and hazardless mountain passage) a place called Shersarc, or probably just west of there, but there was no certainty he would still be there when I arrived. My travels would take me through the Inithik Scrubland to Darcaxis where I would hopefully go untroubled by the dissolute town dwellers. They had distaste for civility of any kind there; as there was never much call for it in Meblis, but still I would much rather go long unnoticed than bear some ribald logorrhea spewed by the thoughtless mouth of a peasant too torpid from life - and unquestionably drugged - to acknowledge the difference between a listener and an roiled murderer in unwanted earshot of his rambling. From Darcaxis I move on into Birgolt territory, crossing the flatland – much more green than the scrubland I promise myself – until I come to Refris, a city town of sort on lake Gent. From that point I have to be sure to cross the part of the Umbrios Range still belonging to Carden, for it is unsafe to traverse the Harganzanzo portion, unless your goal is a brutal death, and that is not yet my own. In Carden is where I hope I find the man whose doom promises to expedite my sought invitation into unspeakable realms. To say I’m not doubtful of my success would be frivolous idiocy; I am sincerely skeptical of my own strength against such an unusual man thing, but my prowess for killing grows ever more skillful and mastered, that I may have the upper hand in sheer brutality and determination. I’m counting on his weakness to lie in his assumed superiority.
I set out now, my path will lead me across the Inithik Scrubland to an outer Meblian town (any town beyond the Daconip Ridge is an ‘outer’ town or city, where the dregs of our country dwell, toiling mindlessly toward goals with motives they know not the first hint of, goals not their own, of a fiendish nature) called Darcaxis.
*******************
The Inithik Scrublands have long been a popular killing ground for Meblian marauders and brigands from the base of the Inithik Back to the outskirts of Darcaxis. They often strike in threes, three being a heavily sacred number for several reasons, namely for the three celestial eyes which orbit the world. Only citizens of Meblis are safe, any immigrants or traveling scholars or those seeking servitude that has yet to enlist are all targets for banditry. It was on my way to Darcaxis while drudging the foreboding terrain of the scrubland that I first noticed a foul stench on the air which I played to the draft carrying odor from an unseen bog I was now downwind of, but as it grew stronger as I walked on I realized the fetid smell emanated from a degenerating corpse that was directly in my path, with one mangled bony hand somehow propped outward as if waiting to collect a pathetic toll that might revert its damnation. To pay it would surely be folly, as dead have little need for charity, so I would not be the one to afford its meager salvation should it be possible through some earthly coinage or trinket. The man corpse appeared well killed, four arrows now loosely dangling between semi-exposed ribs that some time ago was probably firmly embedded in thick flesh and organ. It’d probably only been moldering there for two days but its state of decomposition would have suggested longer. The fauna of the area had had their separate fills of the carcass left to them, leaving a predominantly fleshless and gutted unman mass to degenerate in star heat. No clothes, the thieves would have stripped him first then killed him, as there was little sense in bloodying what were to be presumed wearable garments.
I have both come upon and created my share of corpses in the past, however none have ever caused me to be more instantaneously apprehensive when I drew near. As I neared in my proximity the stench of the baking mass readily sickened my guts, no doubt the man before me would feel likewise had he any guts to churn. It was an unnatural, mephitic odor, violently displeasing, and as I stood before the unman remnants I began to think vaguely to myself this isn’t my doing.
I had some mild sense of control, and I thought if I tried hard enough I might be able to dash forward and leave death in my wake, but I did not. There was a feeling of necessity in my actions that could not be shaken. Whether it was a necessity I would do better without I was not sure, but that thought also crossed my mind as I knelt before the decayed.
Slowly, not with any sense of caution or delicacy, but almost as if a fluid resistance to common sense were occurring on some perfunctory level, my right hand clasped the skull before me and plucked it clean of the skeletal frame. I held it out, glancing briefly at the sardonic half grimace, half smile that the unique cross between a mouth half plastered with black flesh and no flesh could produce, then turned it about that I could see the back of it. Not knowing how I knew, just knowing I knew it would be there, I observed a small hole in the skull, cleanly bored low on the base of the skull. Then I shook the skull, and heard nothing, but I had hoped –no, don’t let it be – for a noise to emanate from within.
Blazing clarity all at once swept its conflagration through my mind and I realized my assailant at the door of my home could have only been the very stone I had grasped. And here now evidence of another, once embedded in the cranium of this sincerely departed man. Or perhaps even into his brain. My hand began to overturn the corpse, spilling insects and leathery fabric-like flakes all about, rattling hastily all that stayed jointed in some perverse simulacrum of what this once man may have looked like on an internal plane, spilling all that could be spilled and then tossing cage and anything else caught among it along aside. There on the ground below, gleaming hideously beautiful beneath the hipbone lay a red object of crystalline insanity. I know for fact now, madness is spherical, and it is this world. What diabolic force of absurdity would weave my fate so absurdly as to chance me upon certain self-destruction twice, these stone demons, one before me and one internally implanted of its own accord.
It sees me. It is undeniable, the bloated carbuncle there below me was optical, its surface area a gluttonous pupil which never dilated, never needed dilating. I had not gotten this sense from the blue stone, that horror of mental degradation, but it was clear as my reflection in its bone shrouded translucence I’m certain. This one Sees. Then the one in my mind now Thinks, were it to be likened, and I fear it is very much to be likened. Gross similarities could be drawn between the two, and the revulsion of the thought that here lie a unnamable demon of never known regions of nightmare lands akin to one in my very skull, in my brain, was simply too much to bear. Utter faultier it would be to try to fully encompass the implications and ramifications of two such semi-precious abominations existing at one time and in the same universe, on an individual planet, now brought within feet of one another.
Before I could even try to think my way through to even hope to establish some basement level plateau of consciousness the stone began to moan. It saw me, saw me seeing it, and did moan a bellow so atrocious I burst out in infantile weeping. My body stung with hotness, helpless cruelty inflicted by unfettered, unfretted automatons, my very body my only remotely meaningful possession left in this world now being bombarded with inhuman discomforts, tortures, from indifferent sources, the stone in my mind causing agony by its very presence and location, its circumstantial violation from its occupation and the merciless wails of the stone below.
Pick it up, I told myself, snare this fiend within your clutch and condemn its foul odor – for I now knew this is where that rankness originated – and cast away its defiance of natural laws to as far away as it can be sent by your arm, in the direction you came from and are no longer heading. I did this all while thinking it, the red mineral home to some savage demon power now carrying through air away from me as well I could make it; riddance and semi-peace my moments goal and apparent accomplishment. Now I fled, fast as I can, a speed unlike any other I’ve encountered hurtling across the leg battering low growing scrubland.
Then a sharp whistle of air being parted severely, a loud bang of bone cracking, or two unnaturally dense stones smacking together, then blackness.
*******************
In no uncertain terms the following was a demand: “Press on, there are yet more to find.”
Voices within spoke these words – two. Their tone – the only perception of tone to offer was clarity emergent from the darkest veil of primordial calamity, visible words cast in radiant cosmic brilliance that gave no hint of the known malignancy of their originators. And to interpret their meaning, what inconceivable horror; a quantity of tangible fey forces greater than the number now engaged in existence could not be so. How could natural occurrence permit such condemnable lunacy?
The pain of that simple message and its blatant insinuations sent semi-digested matter spewing forth from my knotted guts. A discomforting momentary feeling of corrosion coated my esophagus as it emerged.
For a moment, the ever-interlaced thought among all my thoughts, the message of the birds’ implantation had ceased, and I realized that was the sense of clarity I experienced. It seems these cranial invaders were capable of overriding even the twisted distortion of my soul the dread flock had caused. It became very clear that they have unrestricted dominance over everything I am. They do not erase my initial directive however – no sooner did their words leave my mentality only to remain in hazed memory did I once again feel and know the necessity of murder. Why not enact their own assertive control and carry my body where they will? For clearly they have a will of their own, and it appears to draw them together.
I think now on the corpse. It too was possessed of despicable rock. How then could it have allowed its carrier vessel to be slain. That’s all I am to these things, surely the once man was no less or more a carrier than I, which means I too face obscure death at the whim or felt need of these merciless conduits for nameless monstrosities. The stone of sight, the red one, was in that man. What was the range of its visibility? How many depths could it penetrate; was it limited by distance, time, thought, or reality? Appalling perspective it must possess, for as I started asking myself of its limitations of sight, I soon discovered the answers were self-evident. What occurred here was no oversight on its part, simply Oversight, all seeing.
All went through my mind in moments sweat drenching my fevered form. The scrubland was silent, no wind or disturbance, but could the chaos in my mind achieve audibility it would widely be thought the end of this world nigh. Perhaps understood as the end of all worlds. Indeed it very well in actuality could be, at the prospect of seemingly infinitely diabolic mechanisms looming over my path’s horizon, with collective power beyond my wanting imagination, all could cease for all I’m aware.
It could be I make too much of it, but when every construct of my body, though now perched weakly on the chasm of irreparable mental and physical plunge, tells me every instantaneous intuit assumption bears quick unfaltering sooth how then do I doubt myself?
[A long,
long silence. ]
What other choices do I have?
The message is clarity.
I press on
