Principia Infecta

Crossing the Demon Wastes Tomes of Amaxathroth > Ink, Blood and Parchment

If you must travel the infested and doleful wastes beyond the Grey Mountains, journey in a company of no fewer than twenty beasts and men, of whom five carry spears and a knowledge of gorg. The most ravenous and long-tongued of gorg will be left sated and distended by the swallowing whole of twenty live bodies; a doom cast upon passing companions is the only true surity for your safe passage, for horned gorg are long of limb, cunning and strong enough to tear men asunder.

I crossed the wastes in the first year of a journey from new spires raised upon the ruins of forested Hambegh to the tormented lands of jade and tallow - a long and arduous path of many forks; drear and emptiness picked clean of men by the spawn of the Undergods was but the first step. So in huddled, thick-walled Varzsova, beside a river of treacherous currents, where the rain falls blackened and men have but little thought and no will to pleasure, I tied my path to that of thirty color-strewn Rhym Ney and painted wagons.

I knew something of the Rhym Ney, for all their distain of clay and parchment, of trade with men of other races. Sharp knifes against the dull blades of Varzsova, quick thievery and smiling cruelties hid convictions of a king's prowess. They call themselves descendants of a empire of man once known as Rhym, in which a hundred Lords of equal might ruled all the world from a white city of seven hills. Sharp-toothed vermin who call themselves kings, the Rhym Ney journey to and from the secrets of deepest Rushka, bleeding towns and murdering the weak for their needs. Proud, boastful, they tell tales incautiously - and so I already knew their keys to their rotten hearts.

Yet of Rhym and a white city - and of sorcery to compel a hundred Lords to refrain from murder until there was but one remaining - I knew not further then, and know not further now. Before the fall of Yorm, before Undergods descended from the stars to set their eggs to hatch within the world, before the first sorcerous sigil pressed upon the most ancient of tablets, say the Rhym Ney. Are the words of scholars any more to be believed?

The dark-haired women of the Rhym Ney are hard and passionate in their youth; willing lures for the schemes of fathers, brothers and lovers. Were the shaggy wolves who stalk lone travelers possessed of human lusts, Rhym Ney women would lick their lips and dance naked in the wilds to bring forth fangs and fur from the thick forests to a hunt of spears.

I appeared as sorceror of secrets for the Rhym Ney - an easy guise for a man of uncounted years - and thereby another form of animal for the snaring, should the hunters come to think they understood the nature of the spoils. Caught I was, but by the elegance of the trap evaded, the glimmering of the net of lies and intent, for decay of the body is naught as colorful as what has become of the hearts of this age. Lush Red Talytha pressed herself against me not as lengthy prelude to the murder planned by Andryzeg, but as ardent inspiration for his jealousy - and then for her own greedy desire, for men grown wise see a mirror of waters in the ways of treacherous women. Words to charm and hooks to sink into a perfidious heart come ever easily for one such as I.

The cruel Rhym Ney laughed at Andryzeg when they thought I paid no attention, or when Red Talytha cried loud within her swirl-painted wagon and the gelded jureth in the traces grew restless. Soon, then, there would be knives, but the game demanded no less than to wait and step aside at the last moment - just as those who offend the strange priesthoods hidden in highest Espaga are given one chance, blindfolded, to face a spearing axar in the blooded pit. Perhaps this all was yet the snare set about my neck and legs, but the Demon-King's wrath shielded me from the sons and daughters of Rhym, as from any black-willed worm in this last aeon of the world.

Games of murder and lust are amongst the lineage of man, however, to be scattered and forgotten with the coming of demons. It was not sudden screams of jureth brought Red Talytha and I naked from heated bedding and into the cold rain of hilly wastes, but rather the choking cough of the gorg, the sound of a dying man horrified by the flux that pours from his mouth. Thrice as great as than any other I have heard tell of in all the ages, more pustulant toad than horned ox, this mighty gorg was set about with chains of copper. It stuffed a broken-necked jureth into its maw, while its dripping belly-hide flexed with the struggles of the Rhym Ney who preceeded it.

Gone was the bold bluster of Rhym Ney men, who cried sorcery, cowering or fleeing, save for two whose spears caught and broke within the copper chains. Three outer tongues had the gorg, one yet wrapped about the jureth's haunches, but two were enough to stretch its maw yet further with the flesh of foolish bravery. About the painted wagons bounded the gorg in spray and hunger, snatching up those who ran or cowered, smashing the panicked jureth to the wet ground.

Wisdom flees first, as had I, and Red Talytha behind me, naked in the rain. Gorg can neither climb nor fit their bulk within thin crevices, and the hills about were topped by great cairns and the remains of ancient pillars, set by giants of a past aeon. The powerful choking call of the gorg spurred us, chests heaving on the boulder-strewn slope and skin cut by long thorns. The curse of the Demon-King has turned back deaths by blade, venom and a hundred other violent betrayals, but never have I sought its test in the maw of demonkind.

Scattered Rhym Ney and all the jureth did not occupy the chain-bound gorg longer than for I and Red Talytha to mount but three fourths of the nearest hillside, and nor did their struggling flesh sate the demon. In all her youth, Red Talytha proved more fleet than I, and the gorg was scarce slowed by the living packed amongst the broken-boned dead within its bloated midsection. Upon the upper slopes were scattered stones of all sizes, cast off as chips before the awl when giants hurled rock upon rock, and broke down the pillars of ancient fanes. One I snatched and hurled to strike Red Talytha square amidst her rain-soaked hair - she fell, and scarce was I past and to the base of the great boulders when the gorg was upon her. A old and potent curse upon me she screamed, but the gorg's tongues broke her limbs with the sound of branches parting before the fifth word of power could seal the sorcery.

Thusly I scrambled, berefit of dignity and any tool of man, to the very apex of giant-piled rocks about a pillar of ages. Below, the gorg's tongues worked to pack Red Talytha, yet screaming weakly, amongst the rest of her kin and their beasts - united now with her Andryzeg in goals and fate. Then the great, copper-bound gorg squatted, glaring up at me with ire and hunger in its bulging eyes, and settled to wait. The rain fell colder, and the part of the broken mass within its belly that yet lived squirmed and twitched; gorg digest but slowly - and most painfully for their food. When the squirming became great, it rolled to punch at its turgid gut; more bones snapped and crushed, the sounds ugly and muffled by its hide.

A curse I knew besides, dire and of ancient Yorm, but of no more worth than that screamed by Red Talytha when matched against a gorg. What priest or sorceror had bound this demon about with chains and fed it to such prodigious size upon the flesh of man and beast? Such a guardian might have roamed the wastes for an age, eating all it found, so that no tale came to the cities of man.

An age might a gorg roam, but Amaxathroth the Wanderer has lived many ages of man - and eluded far greater dangers. What price might I put upon two moons of torture by unrelenting sun and rain, hunger and thirst fit to die, but that will not kill me? May the Demon-King have reveled in these days of torment, whatever has become of him and his Black Palace. I waited naked in the cold, above the patient gorg, for it to dissolve away the flesh of Rhym Ney, cough forth their bones, and hunger enough to seek other prey.

[ Posted by Reason on November 24, 2006 ]