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The Opal Skulls of Thaiy
Tomes of Amaxathroth > Ink, Blood and Parchment |
Few are the ancient, high prows of metal and strangely-cut sails that follow coasts about the Ocean of Isles. They are vessels of a past aeon, beyond the wear of sea and man, crewed again with each dark fate to befall those who tend decks and bulwarks. Sailors of far-off lands risk sudden, sorcerous storms, great sea-demons that leap and fly in search of men to torment, and serpent riders who claim all deep waters of the Ocean of Isles as their own - but even those foolish or cursed beneath a doom avoid the ruined harbors of Thaiy, glistening by day, and marked in darkness by lanterns set atop fallen statues of long forgotten kings.
The brown, elegant women of Thaiy are beautiful as in no other land, painted and patterned, numbering twenty for each thin, haunted man in the sun-drenched port city of Foon Khet. They slink and dance to the side of any traveler or ignorant seafarer, promising much with wide eyes and reddened lips. But it is not pleasure they seek, nor the face - a mere covering of flesh - they stare at so entranced.
For there is a deep shadow to Thaiy, well known to scholars even so far as Magak or Hambegh. The necromancer Kovat, who sleeps upon tightly laced thigh-bones and embraces the bundled ribs of his long-dead love, has built towers of opal-eyed skulls of men, engraved with signs of power and torment, within the jungles and upon the mountains. Villages that once laughed with life are silent ruins or long rotted into the trees and vines; great Thaiy is but the eyes of Foon Khet and the dead realm of Kovat in this age - and women are the means by which servants of the necromancer raise themselves yet closer to the sky.
Enjoy the few hours you have remaining in the arms and at the lips of beauty, unwary sailor, for long, heavy knives will soon be brought forth - and the bones of your neck will add another notch to their metal. You will spill your secrets to Kovat, and he will set your place in the world for the remaining ages before the void claims all.
[ Posted by Reason on November 14, 2006 ]
