Black Blooms Twined About Bone
Tomes of Amaxathroth > Ink, Blood and Parchment

Fools and slaves of the greedy have long sought hidden wealth and ancient sorcery in the unending jungles beyond Kresh. Demons and beasts of those lush and steaming lands have fed well upon pale flesh set forth from squalid, sandstrewn Abekabar to the mouth of the Nal, and there to venture into the jungle's poison maw.

Some are taken by laughing Kreshi torturers; some are envenomed into bloated man-mush by sliding yellow vine. Others momentarily sate the rathusk's lust for vengence against all who walk on two legs, or become shambling, moaning egg-sacks for verli-spiders and shiny blue rot flies as big as a woman's fist. Few return to Abekabar where once they mocked fools come to their senses, and slaves who hid amidst cripples and beggars of the bazaar.

Even sorcerors must be wary of the nameless jungle that presses close upon the Nal; the wise learn from heavy, thick-scaled krevakiles of that river, who stay far from the banks unless tender flesh presents itself for the taking. But the ruins of past aeons call softly, heard by those who know the teachings of Yorm and sorcerous droolings of the Undergod Freth - and the bones of a sorceror molder to feed jungle trees just as those of any lesser man. Ask you, scholar, who besides Amaxathroth has seen The Tower That Eats the Jungle? Who besides Amaxathroth has seen the Shore of Black Blooms? Precious few, and their names have not lived for so long as mine.

Scarred MarMar and vine-bound, tongueless Tuk cut apart and bury every last trace of dead fools and poisoned slaves from Meddin lands - and the spoor of stranger intruders besides. The dark men and their tempting women are of the jungle; they are no more nor less your foes than nurra worms that seek blindly for the beating hearts and warm blood of those who rest near their lair. Cut their limbs from their bodies, or show them the Sign of Unth if you dare. Like all men, in all lands, they can be tamed if the way is known.

So did I journey beyond Tuk villages and through the thickest swamp and jungle, ripe and wet as rotten fruit, infested by demons who trampled trees and lesser beasts unseen behind poison green of leaf and sickly yellow of vine. To this place the Tuk send captives and those too old to leap and spear mahuh gourds, to struggle through and die upon the Shore of Black Blooms beyond.

The great demons who tread all underfoot are named as Falor Tal Unna upon a worn crystal wall of Yorm. They are the terrible servants to an empire of men that came before the jungle. For all their sorcery, mighty ruins have been consumed near-utterly by green ages, the names of their Gods and kings forgotten - only these aimless, crushing slaves remain. I have seen their footprints mashed across the trunks of fallen trees, a sight to spur madness and effort amidst the heated ooze and buzzing insects.

The Falor Tal Unna can be heard upon the Shore of Black Blooms, and the shaking of trees by their passage can be seen, but they do not approach. The jungle fades to pebbles and a sea of fresh water - here is very source of the Nal that sometimes roars and sometimes slides green through the jungles of Kresh. Everywhere are the bones of men, wrapped about by the Black Blooms that slew them. Musk hangs heavy in the air; the Blooms sway against the wind, back and forth, slow as the red-striped snakes that MarMar fear so greatly.

The Demon-King's curse of ages laughed at the murderous scent of the Black Blooms and waters poisoned by their roots; I gained much in years to come by the many Blooms I plucked, bleeding and twisting, from a corpse as yet only mummified upon the shore.

[ Posted by Reason on November 18, 2006 ]