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A Toll of Flesh For the Raging Chasm
Tomes of Amaxathroth > Ink, Blood and Parchment |
Serpent-foaming Lantac and shard-laden waves of the Passac have eaten away at the rock of Emreca through the aeons; at the very narrows of that land runs a mighty, raging chasm of waters to link two oceans. Laid through earth and rock straight as a sword edge, here surged great sea vessels of metal and crystal banners in the last age of Yorm, bearing lords in search of sorcery within the deepest Passac.
The far sands of Meddin lands are the grave of Yorm and its age of wonderous rarities; it may be that crystal tablets yet lie buried, guarded by ghosts of demon-ridden scholars, upon which are written those secrets wrested from Passac waters so long ago. But what matter should they join the black mountain of secrets lost to men? No filthy, broken scribe who hides beneath the fanes of Magak will weep over that which he knows not exists. No masked, unwomaned mistress of the Beast Uvea's court will sigh at that tale of which she hears the name and no more.
I have stood upon hills of naked rock above the steaming jungle of Pan Ma, there to see distant Passac and distant Lantac in the same sweep of my eyes - and the chasm of white waters far below, that even the greatest and most ancient serpents will not brave. The man-large worms of that jungle are a sickly white, and beslime their way between close-pressed trunks, waiting and sliding with the patience of the nerveless until their prey must rest. Beware white-drenched leaves and wood soaked to poison mush, lest you might journey for days without end, without rest, stalked upon each step by worming, faceless demons. But Amaxathroth the Wanderer am I, cursed to live by the Demon-King of the Black Palace, and the charms of poison Kresh are known to me besides - there is naught of threat to one such as I in the worms of Pan Ma.
The chasm to link Lantac and Passac was once bridged by graceful spans, built in an age of priest-lords and mighty, high-walled cities in Emreca. Brave searfarers saw white waters as the floor of a giant's stone-walled temple fane, vaulted by bridges of gleaming white and a sky of blue above. The bridges are no more, many ages gone; eaten by the waters, just as the land has swallowed the cities and ruins of proud priest-lords.
There is but one way I know to cross the chasm, and that is upon the red boats of those who call themselves Marn, and dwell in villages upon the Passac coast where the jungle stands upon tall roots and drinks of the salt water. Scarred, bone-fingered Marn will trade only flesh for their attention and favor, for flesh is sacred to their god of buried, secret altars. Of great regard is the Marn women who weaves dried flesh from a hundred bloody trades, or the Marn man who skillfully steals living flesh from one left to live, bleed and scream in loss.
Ugly are the Marn, but secretive, for I had heard naught of their ways, nor even their very presence upon this world of poison and squalor, when first I descended from worm-ridden Pan Ma to the salt and silt-rooted jungle edge. Their red boats I saw in stone-formed lagoons, and passage I sought - but horrid indeed was my encounter with the flesh traders and their perfected braid of torment, woven of blindness brought by greed, murderous urges and tortures that collect, putrid, in the hearts of men.
Where the chasm rapids pour forth to roil the Passac, I bade my time to bleed from deep and ragged trade wounds into the waters, and then threw the dusky boatman from his red oar to the waves, there to feed sharp-beaked, many-eyed beasts with a taste for the blood of men. This murder and the boat for passage I considered poor indeed in trade for all I was made to learn of the Marn and their ways.
[ Posted by Reason on December 23, 2006 ]
