| October 2006 | << September 2006 | November 2006 >> |
| The City of One Thousand Children |
| Tomes of Amaxathroth > Ink, Blood and Parchment |
Upon a warm shore facing the Lantac stands Rej Neroo, a city of nut-brown and lustful people. They build halls in the shadow of a great, crumbled statue of an ancient priest, standing upon a mountaintop. Ancient indeed is this place; spired ruins of cities that have come before spread far and about; fields of strange herbs grown by the men of Rej Neroo curve about fallen statues. The name of he who shadows the city - and that of the God he sacrificed to - are lost to a past aeon of the world; in the age I plied the concubines of Rej Neroo with heady nessen wine, they had long given heed only to the Undergod Bulsath.
The bloated, hair-wrapped body of Bulsath rumbles beneath the city in loathsome sleep, lulled only by machinations of priests of the Five Grey Temples - stern and unlaughing Lords within a city given over to pleasures of the sun, sea and flesh. Dour priests stalk the streets by day and night, in festival or drunken aftermath, and in fear the brown, lithe women of Rej Neroo obey their every whim. To hear the priests, it is the dreams of Bulsath that sustain their city - and prevent the Undergod from reaching out His long thorny hairs to spear the left eye and liver from every man and woman of Rej Neroo.
There are one thousand children within Rej Neroo, always and ever more; no more than five more nor five less than this number are permitted. It is the cries of children that lull Bulsath's pulsing organs and quiet his dire tendrils, the sounds given to Him down through earth and rock by great tubes and Grey Temple sorcery. Ever forth go the forbidding priests, with tablets marked for each child - and to order the fate of women, the better to calm the Undergod they serve, and steer His dreams to their end.
Woe to the trader children who are carried to Rej Neroo upon coastal ways in ignorance, for they will be slain and cast into the sea, lest Bulsath awaken to shake off the city from His back. Entwined bodies and drugged, laughing revels of the following day will be their only tomb marker. Woe to the nut-brown woman who is ravished and with child of her own choice and does not flee this laughing city and the worms within its core!
[ Posted by Reason on October 30, 2006 | Permanent Link ]
| The Tower That Eats the Jungle |
| Tomes of Amaxathroth > Ink, Blood and Parchment |
Far beyond the tortures of sweltering Kresh, deeper into poisonous jungles that bear no one name, the four-tusked rathusk push down mighty trees to eat great blue worms that coil about the roots. When a rathusk's eyes burn orange, it will trample a man to pulp and blood upon the rotting vines, will run him down, will pull down the tree he climbs - unless that man makes the sign of three crossed branches. This ward is engraved upon an ancient temple of a past aeon, that stands broken upon a jungle hillside; it terrifies the great beasts, whose thick hide is otherwise proof to any curse or spear.
I have seen this ward twice more in all the ages. The once was upon a scorched and stolen tablet made by scribes of Lem, who print clay with sorcerous sigils as fast as any man might, lest they displease the grim, whispering demons who dig claws into their shoulders. The twice was upon The Tower That Eats the Jungle, an edifice to cast fear into the hearts of scarified MarMar hunters.
The MarMar look like other men of the great jungle, but are ants in thrall to their queens, the dark-skinned witches who chant and sing within huts forbidden to their men-slaves. They dance in circles about mud shaped to resemble The Tower and worship it as a God; the MarMar men crawl and shudder in fear before any witch's hut that contains such a hidden semblance.
I charmed the lithe witch Nukarum with a sorcery from the slave markets of Abekabar while she bathed alone beneath a waterfall. For ten crystal strands taken from the roots of far-off humra trees, she led me far through the vines and trees, to a cliff whereby I might see The Tower That Eats the Jungle. It stands within a great sinkhole floored by sands blown into desert dunes; nothing lives within, and even the crawling jungle vines wither upon the sinkhole cliffs. The Tower's black stone facade is broken by white signs, and the stench of demons carries upwards upon the wind.
I watched the Tower whilst Nakarum prostrated herself, but only the sands moved.
[ Posted by Reason on October 29, 2006 | Permanent Link ]
| A Cask of Woman-Fat |
| Tomes of Amaxathroth > Ink, Blood and Parchment |
I know not what called me to first cross the great Lantac ocean to the strange lands of Emreca. The Demon-King's wrath burned yet bright within my eyes in that age of the Black Palace; all I knew had died; men were as maggots, women as flies. Yet still the world turned beneath the sun, as though to bring decay to each land and black-hearted King in equal measure.
I learned the reading of stars in exchange for rotten bread and feigned kindness given to those unfortunate apprentices cast up as unworthy from the deep caverns of Hambegh, forsaken by those below and those above. The apex star and Grecha's Seven Eyes guided me across the lands of men and lands of beast, and then beneath stolen sail to cross cold and stormy waters to Alben.
Serpents thick and thin churn those seas between lands in every age I have known. The beasts mate without cease, and will crush men heedlessly in their vile and scaly lust. The needy sailor lashes casks of blood and flesh to his deck as serpent-offerings, and prays to whatever Gods will listen. The wise sailor sails not; only sorcerors and the mad journey to Alben across the narrow sea. I, then, was Amaxathroth the Mad for a time. Upon the pebbled Alben shore, I came to rest with ten crystal teeth within my arm and ten bloody serpent heads yet snapping weakly at my feet.
In that age, there yet lived a scholar in Alben - in a tower built within a cavern, hollowed by unknown slaves beneath ruins of aeons past. This secret I wrested from forested Hambegh for a blind beggar's price - there is naught so pitiable as one who blackens his heart and slays joy for gain, only to be denied by greater powers. From the hidden scholar of Alben, I learned of the giants of the Green Isle, and of a way that a clever man with no fear of death might cross the Lantac ocean.
The city of Lurthen had yet to suck the bone of Alben clean of marrow, but its shadow was long upon the land. The villages of those fed to the Arch-Poisoners' contests stood fresh, as though waiting for the dead and tormented to return. Long after, the scholar's tower beneath the ruins became a tomb, sealed from within by an ancient and mighty ward, proof even against the blood of demons. How the red-haired Lurthenac cursed at the loss of a single victim for their sport! The scholar is forgotten in this age, as scholars are doomed to be, but the last word remains his - repeated again and again in the decay of those pale Lurthenac Poisoners and their crumbling city.
But in the years in which I followed the apex star, Arch-Poisoners yet held great festivals to make merry while the dying twitched for their entertainment. Bards amongst murderers, they strove for novelty and perfection, pouring endless failures - those poisons that merely slew their victims - into a river turned black and turgid. Only dark, strange fish were to be caught there; twisted things dried and mounted atop spiked blocks at every corner and vault entrance of Lurthen.
I entered Lurthen beneath great carven adrons upon an eve of sleet and hail, the fanged and fanciful stonework of the adron beasts coiled about the Angled Gate - and beyond a fane of the Undergods. The gates stood open and unguarded - for who would travel the snow-bound highlands of Alben to be the guest of Poisoners? None but Amaxathroth the Mad!
The snow did not rest upon the river bridges and runnels of Lurthen's ill-lit ways; there it steamed, burned by venoms discarded in the Arch-Poisoner's revelries. The split tower of the Arch-Poisoner Fenelth stood tall against the grey sky and beckoned me - for that was the way pointed by the outflung limbs of stiff corpses upon the streets, contorted in their final moments and grimacing beneath the the shimmer of frost. Lurthen was still as a field of graves when not at festival, its fearsome black barges at sea and far from the stone docks; the Lurthenac used slaves for darker purposes than to send abroad on winter errands, and they themselves ventured but rarely from their barred vaults and high towers.
This I learned from the hidden scholar: that giants who dwell upon the storm-lashed Lantac coast of the Green Isle beyond Alben tell one another tales of women. Men who live for an age without women grow sorcerously large - and weak of mind, for they tell tales of women as the most gentle of beasts, more so than even butterflies resting upon the rune-marked ancient stones set high upon Green Isle hills. Such an awakening would come could but the whores, witches and murderesses of any stinking city of the Meddin Sea descend upon the Isle!
But women amongst giants would not live beyond the night, broken and torn by clumsy lusts. The giants would sigh and turn crushed bodies inside-out for fat to grease their boats, for the sea is their true passion. Upon circle-boats hollowed from the rock of great boulders and paddles made of whole trees, they race from wavetop to wavetop, scarce touching the roiling waters. Were womankind to die, these giants would still tell their tales, but the sea is their blood. When the world gratefully leaves the last age of man behind, there will yet be a Green Isle and giants if there is yet a Lantac ocean.
When I passed once more beneath the Angled Gate of Lurthen, I bore a sealed cask of woman-fat upon my back, and the Green Isle was my destination. I had guided Fenelth, a soft beauty of silk and suppleness wrapped about a scorpion's heart, to understand my curse rendered me inviolate to any venom of Lurthen - rather than that I was the very philtre of immortality for their poison-lust; ever suffering but never unto death. I took great risks in that age of madness, the fury of the Demon-King but a few lifetimes past and yet burning in my blood. But torturers are ever weaker and more gullible than the tortured, and fair, insect-hearted Fenelth yearned for the exotic.
In bedding Fenelth, I earned the ire of the Arch-Poisoner Malcam - ire that was slowly creeping its way into the opulant, pillowed rooms of the split tower, intending to drown us in clever venoms. But the murder-dance of the Poisoners was slower in that age, distracted by the wealth of suffering and new victims brought upon black barges for each festival. Malcam yet brooded in his deep vaults of alchemy and bottled spiders from far Kresh when Lurthen's walls were far behind me.
The woman-fat I took from Lurthen lately belonged to Teathe, daughter of the Arch-Poisoner Emben, who had fallen afoul of Fenelth's lust to sting those who showed her kindness. Six years this daughter passed in a stone vault, fed to bloating enormity like a bird soon to be slaughtered, tormented drop by drop with venoms that paralyse and burn. A poison of strange provenance had come into Fenelth's collection, that caused its victims to shed fat in bloody rivulets from every pore and orifice. With this she had suddered in pleasure to bring a dire, thrashing end upon fattened, surly garuthe beasts that yet roamed the highlands in that age - but she saved the rest for Emben's daughter and the Festival of the Undergods.
In but a few moons after I entered Fenelth's tower, Teathe's newly skeletal, contorted body lay amidst her fat and blood upon Fenelth's vault-stones - save for that I carried away to the Green Isle. A year and a day of suffering I saved her, and no gratitude would I gain from any for such an act, blackened of heart like all men of this aeon of the world.
The first thaw brought me to the Green Isle's flowered hills, ruins and strange standing stones. Witches paint their skin red to dance naked in the deepest wooded valleys, and clawed demons dwell within the greatest rune-marked stones - but I sought the giants of the Lantac cliffs and shores.
It is the rare giant who hollows his own circle-boat of rock; it is a great labor, even for one whose arms are temple pillars and legs mighty trees. Instead, they choose from boats of the past that litter the shores like giant nutshells beneath the agui trees of Dramarak. In twilight, I watched giants gather before caves upon the rocky shore, there to light a blaze to roast serpents and greater sea-beasts; I listened to rumbling voices and tales of regard for women - and their flesh.
Many a time did I watch these giants until I settled upon the one called Treshal, who had made his own stone circle-boat of pride rather than seeking upon the shore, and who talked the longest and most longingly of women. When other giants were far, within their own caves, or out upon the Lantac to wrest serpents from the waters, I descended the cliffside to meet with Treshal.
Lies flow like water to the thirsty who wish to believe; Amaxathroth was a wonderous connoisseur of women - and the last was the most gentle of all creatures. Yet she succumbed to my forgetful nature, when in a careless moment I accidentally crushed her; so, I journeyed to meet her many sisters and cousins in search of my next partner. Treshal hung upon my every word, he of more bone and flesh than all a bard's audience in Undragar, yet half the sense of any one of them. As proof, I offered my cask of woman-fat in trade for a crossing of the great Lantac ocean - for the women I sought were upon the far shore.
In truth, in that age I did not know there was a far shore; the Lantac might stretch beyond even the endurance of a giant. But I was pulled onward, ever to follow the apex star. Treshal caressed the cask and Teathe's fat as through they were a living woman yet, and the deal was struck.
[ Posted by Reason on October 27, 2006 | Permanent Link ]
| Venomous Lurthen |
| Tomes of Amaxathroth > Ink, Blood and Parchment |
If there is a lowest swamp to this world, it is broken-walled Lurthen in the cold highlands of Alben, where all the venoms of man and vitriols of woman pool to fester. Scarce a single bird, beast or slave remains in that desolate sea-bounded land, for the Lurthenac Arch-Poisoners have practiced their arts with exhuberance for many a lifetime. Red of hair and pale of skin, they breed sallow progeny and engage in slow dances of venomed murder with one another. Lurthen and its dangers stand along and isolated, for men of nearby lands slay any who bear the visage of the Poisoner.
Woe to the traveling bird who comes to rest in Lurthen, for she will be netted and penned beneath stone for an Arch-Poisoner's experiments.
When Lurthen was rich with victims, and barges brought slaves and beasts from across the seas, Arch-Poisoners competed in the spasms and pain-wracked death they could induce. Women of cold Frena were thrown into the blackened river that slides beneath Lurthen's bridges, and wagers made on the breaths they would take. Now, each new victim is treated as though gold, poisoned a hundred times over, the right for their death bid upon with dusty goblets and forgotten gems.
There is wealth and sorcery in Lurthen, beneath broken towers and in deep vaults, but the Arch-Poisoners pay it no heed. Neither gold nor gem can match the twitch of the poisoned in its tug upon their venomous hearts. Go to Lurthen, foolish thieves - the Lurthenac will gladly indulge your presence for as many years as you yet suffer.
[ Posted by Reason on October 26, 2006 | Permanent Link ]
| A Certain Ward and Sign |
| Tomes of Amaxathroth > Ink, Blood and Parchment |
Two winters did I hunt the Whisper Witch in the web-choked, snowy forests of Tsibra, whilst maw spiders waited in frozen death for the thaw of spring and new prey. I sought high, upon ice-strewn hills above the storms; I sought low, where the stinking fens cast icy glissades into sinkholes that lead to the palaces of the Undergods.
In the summer of migrating, knife-footed hrale that followed the first futile winter, Blue Talia of Kol Kut cast the bones of a fresh-slain slave. She saw the Whisper Witch engrossed within her caverns, spinning silk from the eyes of venom-weakened youths. So it was the caverns I delved in the second futile Tsibra winter, for I sought a certain ward and sign that the witch of spiders had long known well.
[ Posted by Reason on October 25, 2006 | Permanent Link ]
| Tomb of the Patient |
| Tomes of Amaxathroth > Scholars |
Amaxathroth has not wandered the world in an age; his tomes decay, his words stolen and hoarded yet by wizened sorcerors who cling to life like leeches in their towers. King and Lords, who would suffer a thousand torments to gain the curse of the nameless Demon-King, devise worse tortures for scholars who fail in finding the road to the Tomb of Amaxathroth.
Amaxathroth the Patient does not laugh at these fools, nor at us, for we are less than worms to his gaze. He waits for the world of men to end, or perhaps for the Demon-King to rise from an ancient, hidden coffer beneath the ruins of the Black Palace and forget his wrath. The dust covers Amaxathroth who has learned all that can be learned, seated upon the last of his Tomes, waiting.
The seeker who disturbs Amaxathroth will find wisdom not meant for those uncursed. He who finds and descends into the Tomb will ask one question, and give sanity in trade for an answer that might never be used. Amaxathroth has become a God, and we his priests, who sacrifice all we hold most valuable, the better to impale ourselves upon his words.
[ Posted by Reason on October 24, 2006 | Permanent Link ]
| Tall Men of the Mist Forests |
| Tomes of Amaxathroth > Ink, Blood and Parchment |
Where the Mountains of Andar slope to mere hills, mists from the sea make a white blanket of the forest. This was once the extent of the Yellow Pendant Priests, who ruled three great cities and shunned seafaring to turn mountains into gardens. Ruthless, they were, in cutting soldiers from the cloth of men and crushing concubines from the petals of women - and so the Tall Men of the mist and forest were kept thin in number, gaunt and hungry.
The Yellow Pendant cracked an age ago, and its God slid away to ooze beneath the earth. The people who once bowed before priests with clouded minds forsook the mountains, for demons stalked the slopes, cracking rocks upon the snow peaks and battling in anger fit to boil water in the valley streams. Men came instead to farm strange, long-necked cattle in the hills, and thin-lipped Lords of dung and wood built walls about these holdings.
The Tall Men are more broad than tall, and all they share with men is the need to take that most desired by another. Mist-colored, they lope in silence, hang from trees to sleep, and strip the flesh from an armored man in the time his heart has for a final spasm. If you must cross the mist forests beneath the Mountains of Andar, do so with a hundred trained men, and count upon ten gruesome deaths with each new day.
There is an art by which Tall Men might be hunted; the Yellow Pendant Priests knew it well. Long spears to watch around, short spears to watch above, and thin, silent climbers to catch the beasts at their sleep in early dawn light. With men who cannot flinch nor cry out in the spray of companion's blood, you might win glistening skulls at little cost - and that is the secret of the Yellow Pendant. Soldiers not so sorcerously pressed are but meat for the Tall Men, a delay in the demise of those whom they protect.
The hill towns of Caitub and Mastaca kept Tall Men beneath the mists with the promise of large, white sand pearls - a pouch shown to any wanderers brave enough to slay the Tall Men who tore the hindquarters from cattle. The Lord of Caitub would smile as he watched a new band depart in eagerness, and put away the pouch, for he would not see such useful fools again. The Tall Men throw the shattered skulls of men up upon Halaka's Rocks above the forest, where the mist laps at a platform once sacred to the Yellow Pendant Priests. The concubines of the Lord of Caitub cast these remains upon the fields, where the long-necked cattle shower their gratitude in the manner of cattle in any other land.
So too was I offered this chance amongst chances when I journeyed the hill paths beneath the Mountains of Andar. In a past age, I would have slain the Lord of Caitub and all but the most gentle of his leering concubines, but Amaxathroth the Murderer was made no more in Daathu - and what value to even the rarest sand pearls to one such as I? They were engraved most deftly with a writing of the Yellow Pendant Priests that will remain unread until the void claims this world. So be it; with all that has been lost, this little more will not tip the scales of the Gods.
[ Posted by Reason on October 23, 2006 | Permanent Link ]
| A Land of Cottages and Rogues |
| Tomes of Amaxathroth > Ink, Blood and Parchment |
A verdant, sparse land lies between the sorceries of spired Harumetha and the Road of Skulls, built in honor of a forgotten king. Once were skulls set atop shining poles every hundred paces, their height above the roadway stones indicating the level of the king's displeasure - and the torments visited upon that skull's owner in the last days of his time in this world. That was long past, long indeed, and none but I and scholars eager to please recall the truth of the name.
Rogues and practitioners of every violent calumny have picked the Road of Skulls clean of travelers. Not so tidy as the forgotten king, they leave skulls yet attached to the bodies of those few victims still foolish enough to present themselves. Once ten covens of ragged roarch flew about the Road, fed full and gluttonous upon the wastes of brigands - in these years, but one great roarch remains, broad and scale-feathered, foul-tempered for having consumed its sisters in these lean times.
Yet despite a stinking flood of rogues and thieves, the land I traveled in haste from Harumetha was scattered with peaceable cottages and the signs of carefree habitation. I bore the Thrice-Dagger of the Bone Priestesses, taken upon a whim after a night of drugged revelry and blessed murder amongst the living who wish to be dead - for who even within Harumetha can breach my curse? With sense and morning came the realization that jealous priestesses could take it upon themselves to outdo the years of torment I suffered in far Daathu. But the deed was done, and stone oubliettes lay beneath Harumetha's vaults and spires.
Peaceful cottages and tended gardens are enough to lull even the careful from notice - and so I was, until at a copse-edge there about me were twenty offal of the Road of Skulls, floated far from their cesspit. What they took me for, I know not, but I gave to laughter - here was I, Amaxathroth the Cursed, who has strode the world, known all, slain armies. Here was I, waylaid by thieves whilst a thief myself. Laugh I did, fit to burst and never stop; hysteria and the curse carried me through the pain of five mortal thrusts of blade. Bubbling blood, doubled up with what lies beyond mirth and sanity, I slew seven before one wrestled the Thrice-Dagger from me. All ran then, making the ward sign against sorceries, for yet still I laughed.
Amaxathroth the Cursed, robbed by vermin of the Road! Amaxathroth the Wanderer, messenger to the Gods, who moves trinkets about the world - how I laughed whilst my blood fed the grasses! In what bandit grave lies the Thrice-Dagger now, I wonder, and whose purpose does that serve?
In time, I laughed and bled no more - sustained by the Demon-King's misplaced wrath of so long ago. So I came down from the grass to the nearest stone-walled cottage in search of water to cleanse away filth and gore, and clothing free of rent and tear. Pushing my way inside, I was greeted not by simple farmers or craftsmen, but by the stench of alchemy. Ten crooked shelves covered each wall, piled to overflowing with vials and mummifications, each exuding a miasma more malodorous than the last.
Impkin cackled from the rafters, and the sorceror within thought not to inquire of the origin of the bloodstained wretch who had thrown open his door. He started upon a dark invocation of the Undergod Freth, and so I slew him, choking upon the vapors, whilst he wrested with the curse. Impkin fled into the fireplace while I threw open the windows and cast lids upon the open coffers. But there was no cleasing the ever-changing foul odors within, and that night I slept upon the thatch above.
A mystery, at least, I had put to rest - not all sorceries take place within the spires of Harumetha. Much like the rogues of the Road of Skulls, the worst and most truculent spill out across the land, and so were these seemingly peaceable cottages protected.
[ Posted by Reason on October 22, 2006 | Permanent Link ]
| Ancient Yorm |
| Tomes of Amaxathroth > Ink, Blood and Parchment |
The mongrel peoples who build cities of cruelty and filth about the summer-warm Meddin Sea believe that all men and women tell of ancient Yorm. Their sight is bound and blinded by their ignorance. I have crossed the great ocean of savage jungle isles to Aulstra, once by great vessel and once with serpent-riders terrified by stolen sorcery. The dark men of Aulstra have no knowledge nor care of Yorm, and butcher one another no less than any other vermin of this world. The sun itself might blink at what men will do for fleeting beauty, or women for fading coins.
Men of the Meddin Sea have buried the rigors of kindness and the laws of great civilization under the sands, alongside the ruined city that Yormites built. Yormite ghosts have become unwilling tomb guardians for virtues unseemly to cruel men, and graces spurned by murderesses. But think you the blood of Yorm any different in past aeons whilst the white pillars and halls still stood freshly raised? You struggling worms have made a sacrifice of the dead, the better to be rogues, catamites, whores and witches.
[ Posted by Reason on October 22, 2006 | Permanent Link ]
| The Hidden Vale of Cultured Brutes |
| Tomes of Amaxathroth > Scholars |
The fat, pock-faced dockmasters of Calland greatly prize the blue-black horns of mountain jalsque. They grind the horns of that ill-tempered beast for philtres to ply upon Calland maidens, or as bribes for lustful sorcerors of Magak and Harumetha. Why, the great and reviled Massas had a horn to mount upon each and every torch bracket of her reception hall - until she was cut apart and burned by those captains whose labor filled her coin vault. This, I am sure you know already. Let me tell you a little more, however, for nearby lies an interesting tale.
Lulled from sense by Calland coins, the foolish have long traveled to the dolesome Grey Peaks, a wall of few doors that divides the lands of men. There, they seek the jalsque with spear and net. Most are caught and slowly consumed by winged demons, or crushed by the Garamek Worm that coils itself about an entire mountain. Yet there are some few who have made their names known by luck or skill in the hunt.
Torthen the Climber claimed the skulls of twenty jalsque in his years as hunter of the Grey Peaks, proof of his worth piled before his tumbledown tower outside the gates of Calland. Such was his renown, none sought to disturb his cobwebbed door in the year and day of a hunt.
It came to pass that Torthen followed a mighty red jalsque of great strength, far into the Grey Peaks, farther than any man of Callend had gone before. Steep and jagged were the mountainsides, lacking path and shelter - and the demons flew above, screaming to one another. For all his prowess with spear and slope, Torthen would have been carried away to torment by the winged horrors, but that a great storm of rain and sudden rivers came upon the mountains. In but a short time, the the treacherous rocks slid Torthen the Climber into a deep ravine, and pinned him there above a raging torrent.
Upon awakening as the storm had passed, Torthen found himself surrounded by misshapen brutes - shambling echoes of men, twisted of face and thick of limb, yet clad in well-made clothing after the fashion of craftsmen. They set upon him, binding him, and there was naught he could so ambushed and half-buried by rocks carried with his fall. The brutes carried him away, running like jalsque across slopes that no man of Callend could match, grunting to one another in a coarse tongue.
The brutes carried Torthen down and down into a green valley of grass and twining trees below the high peaks, and there he saw many more of their kind. Every tree was set precisely, and huts and halls of carefully-fitted stone formed a circle at the very center of it all. If not for the ill-shaped creatures before his eyes, Torthen might have thought himself within a sanctuary of those who built ancient Yorm, long before the sands overtook its well-formed streets.
Placed and barred within a hut, alone upon a well-crafted bed, it did not take Torthen long to slip his bonds. Was he not Torthen the Climber, who wrestled down his fifteenth jalsque and broke its neck across a high rock spur with his own hands? However well made and well tied, the ropes of half-men would be no obstacle.
Through barred and slatted window of finely waxed wood, then, Torthen saw a gathering of brutes from all across the vale. Such an array of faces and bodies - fit only for the drug-addled dreams of beggars in the spice markets of Alacran, or the waxen curse figurines that Magaken sorcerors melt to bring anguish upon their victims. Yet in form of the most peaceful and civilized people of ancient Yorm did these brutes consort themselves, gathering and speaking in turn as wise sages. About and through their ugly, polite throng passed a large and well-used book of leather, marked well upon its bindings by a blackened symbol I think you well know - yes, a tome of Amaxathroth.
Yet Torthen knew not then what he saw, more valued than all the jalsque horns of the Grey Peaks. Perhaps it is as well, for even had he escaped with the tome as well as his life - there are a thousand who would slay him for it. But escape Torthen did; whilst the brutes held council and debated in their gruntish tongue, he took stones from the far wall and slipped away, stealthy and unseen, as only a hunter can be.
I have heard like tales as this one. I have heard tell of Borok of the White Spears who sought to loot great red rubies from mines of the Reddened King in the mountains above the Edge-Walled City. Or of Nelphen the Sea Captain, run aground upon a fog-bound isle where the distant mountain-tops shone with gold. Yet there is always the hidden vale, and the brutes who act with a manner that is gone from the world of men - and there is always the tome of Amaxathroth.
More than this, I do not know. Perhaps there are those who do, but their price may be too high for one who desires to keep both limbs and blood.
[ Posted by Reason on October 21, 2006 | Permanent Link ]
| The Corpse of the World |
| Tomes of Amaxathroth > Ink, Blood and Parchment |
Men and women are but worms upon the corpse and rotten bones of this world - the last vestige of a death aeons past, unnoticed and uncared. How the mighty have fallen! The corpse moans yet for the relief of oblivion, but you vermin knaw on, fighting for the choicest putrescence. Flies came from the stars, long ago, but sparse few saw fit to leave eggs that fester into maggots deep within - you are the infestation upon that shunned even by the eaters of dung.
Build your cities of rot and corpse-strands, fight to eat the flesh of the world, mate in your piles like worms rubbing and squirming. There will come to be a void where once was a corpse world and its vermin - and might that be soon enough that I hear the cries of those torn to a thousand lonely dooms.
[ Posted by Reason on October 20, 2006 | Permanent Link ]
| Slave Boats of Kresh |
| Tomes of Amaxathroth > Ink, Blood and Parchment |
Read well, you rare lettered sage: in Kresh, the wise seek death before slavery. Eat jungri root that grows beneath every tree, or fall upon the spears of Kreshi - who think themselves marked by a God and greater than all for their twelve fingers. Either fate will gladly take you, and this pestilent realm will be unburdened of your fear.
Black Spear Kreshi herd slaves upon the glass rock beaches, where the ugly jungles dip roots into the salt tides. You are well to avoid encampments by the screams that rise at night; a screaming slave is healthy for the next day. Silent ones, half-taken by death demons already, are amusement for thick-limbed Kreshi. The remains are left each morning for circling vagra and the stealthy yellow vine.
At the wide Nal river delta, the Kreshi mass their slaves to cross. Rare sage, I have sat amidst the fallen pillars of a city whose name is long forgotten, there to watch Kreshi bind and lash slaves into the form of boats for the crossing. The favored who scream loudest are set above the water, whilst the unlucky must learn to breath well through thick reeds.
I, too, sought a way across the Nal in that year - but the great and scaly krevakiles suffer neither raft nor swimmer. I have not sought to test my curse while rotted in pieces upon the inside of a water beast. I doubt not the power of the Demon-King, but doubt the nature of a krevakile's belly the less. So, rare sage, I came before the Kreshi with the sign of the Demon-King in my eyes and ten black ebon stones about my neck - and they were both greedy and fearful, for the Kreshi are weak amongst men.
The offal of slaves mixes quickly with blood in the fleshy sumps of Kreshi slave boats; the slaves who form the deck and prow implore, maddened by torment. The Kreshi laugh long - and reach for needles and hot coals to while away the hours afloat upon slave bodies.
Weak are Kreshi, but they know the way of the krevakile, as the same eyes are found in both faces. No more than ten slaves and twice as many limbs were torn away and consumed upon this crossing. The Kreshi thought that a good and great sign, and I a creature of luck, or sorceror in thrall to ebon stones. They plotted in their bestial way, as they pulled apart the dead and the living upon the swampy shore, but I had long left for the falling dusk and jungle trails.
Oh rare and lettered sage, choose the krevakile in my place, for the Kreshi will not treat you so kindly.
[ Posted by Reason on October 19, 2006 | Permanent Link ]
| Library of the Reddened King |
| Tomes of Amaxathroth > Scholars |
Beneath the palace of the Reddened King lies a library vault to hold his ten Tomes of Amaxathroth the Wanderer. The vault is rumored far and wide, well-hidden and guarded by the most savage bandsmen of the Edge-Walled City - those yellow-painted ones who wail and cut at one another, dancing about fires at the palace gates. Naked scholars, captive and tormented by the bandsmen, are bound in chains and carried downwards by torchlight with each new night. They must wring new secrets from the Tomes, or be cut at each limb and hurled four ways at once from the Scar Tower above the market of the starving bands.
The Reddened King is hungry for a knowledge of the farthest lands; bandsmen who prove their wiles in the Pointed Maze - and yet live - are sent away on direction of the Tomes and tortured scholars. The returned bear heads of the most wise and honored men of far cities, for the Reddened King dines only upon travel-dessicated brains, and in this grows ever more cruel and powerful with each passing year. Head-bearers are gifted with great rubies and pleasing slaves - or are slain by jealous and cruel-mouthed bands for the amusement of the powerful.
That which my master knows of Amaxathroth - wanderer, murderer, cursed man and scholar - came copied in blood, upon scraps hidden about the bodies of those long cut four ways and eagerly eaten. The words of Amaxathroth have a manner of seeping from the strictures placed about them by jealous Kings.
[ Posted by Reason on October 18, 2006 | Permanent Link ]
| Gulhgra, Doorwatch of the First Coin |
| Ten Thousand Gates > Conversing in the Doorway of the First Coin |
Gold you say. Rrruth. Not Tailings one, look like coin learner from Pavings place. Hruh. Black wet guards not know to say nice to tail rain. Stupid guards.
Mrth. Guards not know to say nice to me. Wave sharp is not nice. Learn nice and tail rain not angry. Hruh. Stupid guards bad in Tailings, Tailings ones steal and steal.
Hruh. Where learning books and learning clothes, small learner one? Why come to Coin as surprise? Rrruth. No announce, no letter.
[ Posted by Reason on October 15, 2006 | Permanent Link ]
| Leli, the Fifteenth Note |
| Ten Thousand Gates > Conversing in the Doorway of the First Coin |
Umery, why will you not sing more to me? I heard your notes, so solemn with rain and splashing on the walls, and I danced! Where are you now, is it not your part in the Song? None here will dance, but they hide and walk in brown and rags and spill notes of nothing to themselves. Will you not even speak to me? Or you, with the stick that taps against the notes, or you, hidden in your cloak? Where are your voices; how can you not sing to the dance of rain and the tones of cloud and cobble?
Such music all about, all so strange; is this what a city is when lived in? But the notes are all so faint beside the Song I sang - as though soft Derema and quiet Toley sing to echo from the farthest stone pillar and back. Those who would sing are silent but for the notes that fall from all and about. Oh, how I wish I were above the old city once more! Will Myrelin fly high to sing my part ...
La! Such notes from kind Bethen and tall Ulvath. New notes, and more, and who tolls and swirls as the deepest bell amidst ivy in the wind?
Bethen, Ulvath, who now sings such deep notes? What song are you making, and can I not sing too? Oh! Not ivy, but gold all a-swirl, can't you see? He dances inside like the bells of the old city, so deep from afar but the highest notes of the Song hidden within. Why do not all here sing like this, what a wondrous place this would be - rain and Umery, the bells of the Song, and all such voices!
[ Posted by Reason on October 14, 2006 | Permanent Link ]
| Ulvath, the Dying King's Champion |
| Ten Thousand Gates > Conversing in the Doorway of the First Coin |
Aye, King's Champion, and never to die facing a foe with ax raised. So did Tulsrealm grow great! Foul beast before and foul rain behind, and you to speak of fair and foul as one and the same - and silver dagger in your hand whilst the words were on your tongue. Witch for a mother, but father from the Spear Hall, say I.
Ho, foul beast! Broad and tall, fat and grey you are, but long of teeth and troll-fast - and man-speech and man-thoughts behind those eyes. This I see, and my name is Ulvath, that you might know!
See, it thinks how best to cast us forth from this arch and passage, and wonders if it can. I need no witchery to tell me of the ways of man and beast - aye, nor troll and demon. Speak as you will woman, and thence will be what will be.
[ Posted by Reason on October 7, 2006 | Permanent Link ]
| Bethen, the Lost Dream |
| Ten Thousand Gates > Conversing in the Doorway of the First Coin |
Hold back your ax, Ulvath! Hold! A dream-path, a guide ... this spirit stands astride a path. No...yes, but it shifts, it shifts. There are too many paths here, too many and twining about!
Spirit, stand, we do not threaten - we shelter from this rain that burns.
Ulvath! This dream has need of speaking! You can see neither nightmare nor venom spirit by hide and fat, color and teeth. All can appear as any, and any may show the way; you must listen to me in this, King's Champion!
[ Posted by Reason on October 7, 2006 | Permanent Link ]
| Gulhgra, Doorwatch of the First Coin |
| Ten Thousand Gates > Conversing in the Doorway of the First Coin |
Who bothers? Hruh. Who talk and talk but not enter? Hruh.
This is not drink house. You go now, leave door clear. Rrruth. Should know now. Hruh. Stupid Tailings ones. Stupid.
What? What you look at? Hruh. You not hear? You go now. Rrruth.
[ Posted by Reason on October 6, 2006 | Permanent Link ]
| Ulvath, the Dying King's Champion |
| Ten Thousand Gates > Conversing in the Doorway of the First Coin |
This is no clean, cold hurt of ax and battle - it is the burn of witchery! I'll curse it yet and again, and so long as any will listen, aye!
It burns you less woman, that I'll wager against my ax on a cast of the bone runes. You speak with the tongue of the witches who bedded trolls in Skara forest - sharp and a-babble with that best unknown to hard ax and long spear. Your witchery and knifes may stand beside my ax-arm, but that is no choice of Ulvath's.
A bard of Tallath's Hearth spoke a saga of the Tulsrealm as all but a dream of the Gods. Twas but a year past that trolls maddened by warmth and rot came upon the Hearth and tore him asunder. I and ten more strong ax-arms hacked trolls to blood and screams by torchlight that night - and how is that a dream?
Would that this place of blackened rain and hovels be a dream, aye, but that thrice-cursed Maggat would find a way betwixt knife and neck whilst I slumbered. No, Ulvath is awake; this is the workings of Maggat and demon runes against the King and Tulsrealm.
[ Posted by Reason on October 1, 2006 | Permanent Link ]
