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A Pestilent, Unending Mire
Tomes of Amaxathroth > Ink, Blood and Parchment |
Facing the Lantac, the land that is called Flada by the brutish daughters of Uvea lies mired like a broad and brooding toad - poisonous, slimed and submerged in muck, save for the most repulsive of protruberances. Great blue flies of stingers the length of a woman's forearm, venomous, slithering qualth and squalid heat are but half the year, the rest comprised of dire storms called up by demons of the Caraben Sea and urged on by sorcerors of the sweltering isles. The mighty winds and salt waves swirl to flatten any endeavor of men and wash away any track laid across these vile swamps.
A fool might journey moons to encompass each last rotting stench of Flada's murk, each subtle variance of swamp and poison vermin glad to feast upon living flesh - should he survive past the very first days. Of such fools, there have been too many to count across the ages, but no sign remains; even their very bones have become mush to feed the purple blooms of the mire. Yet still they would come, were there other than savages in Emreca - an aeon of glittering tales cry and beckon to the greedy hearts of men, and the schemes of women beneath.
Tales of wealth deep within Flada were told in every age that yet retains name and memory; great veins of gold, shining in the last light of sun upon the vile brown waters; ten squat towers of a sorcerous conclave, a library of unrivaled potency upon the upmost reach; the bloating flesh of a dead Undergod, sparkling with gems throughout. A dozen tales I have heard, in the holds of Emreca and farther places besides; cross the Lantac and Passac, and scholars argue over tales descended and embellished from a past age of cities and great vessels to cleave the oceans.
One such tale gave me to rue and laughter, and she who retold it to great regret - that in Flada stood ruined the Black Palace, wherein Amaxathroth the Impetuous won youth eternal in an age gone by. Youth eternal! How I laughed, angry and with the voice of the Demon-King; there is naught of youth in the curse of years, welcomed by Amaxathroth the Cursed or not, and far indeed from Flada once rose the Black Palace. Might you well as seek the heart of a women within the dripping flesh of the Undergod's spawn; beneath the like and outward casts and appurtenances of cruelty there is naught the same. Naught!
There is a truth to the tales of Flada, those that will not rouse my ire, but it is a hidden truth. Know this, scholar of forgotten tales, scribe of cracked tablets from bygone ages: Flada slimes itself in drooling anticipation for the flesh of the foolish, and the hearts of men lust for a fool's death. All else is the embellishment of those who will live, and a demon's hunger for the taste of those who will die.
[ Posted by Reason on December 27, 2006 ]
