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A Tainted Grove, Born of Demonflesh
Tomes of Amaxathroth > Ink, Blood and Parchment |
In a deserted place of Espaga, near to the Meddin shores, grows a tainted grove of twisted trees, tall grass and glistening orange fruit - but underfoot is rot and the feel of bone beneath fallen leaves. A nameless lesser Undergod, as dead as alive, reaches up from a deep place beneath the lands of men, strands of ropy demonflesh twisted into every branch and each watery fruit. So the men and women who come here, lost and tempted, never leave.
A sorcery of vibration within the grove calls to the nerves of men, tugs upon the hearts of women, and the eating of demon fruit changes the lost utterly. The essence of the Undergod melts away that which makes the cruelty of man distinct from the cruelty of beasts, severs the screaming ghost from the corrupting flesh. Slavering in the manner of animals, but eyes crying for the ways of man soon lost, these unfortunates eat and eat, growing bloated in limb and torso as though shuddering, olive-skinned bladders of oil.
Finally unable to reach the calling fruit, mewling and blubbering, the most corpulant tear and puncture one another in hunger for the demonflesh, spilling stench and meat turned to liquid rot across the grass and coiling roots. Soon enough, nothing is left to warn away those who will come after - and the nameless Undergod twitches far below in the pleasures its flesh transmits.
Half an age ago, a witch of Malg set fifty of her scheming sisters upon my path to Cadaz, each bearing long needles and vicious sorceries to torment me in vengence for my refusal of the witch's plain and unremarkable favors. The first I drowned, as has been the tradition of ages in wild Espaga, but the others, and their weak-willed, ax-armed lovers of Cadaz, I led for days into the Undergod's grove.
Upon the hill of rocks above the grove, and beneath sun and cloud, I thought of the deserved death to come below, as newly swollen puppets of the Undergod moaned though a mash of fruit and demonflesh. How apt the diorama, the Meddin lands cast in a single expanse - the ever-greedy fattened to incapacity by their excess, given to prey upon one another for the pleasure of demons by a hunger that cannot be sated. In place of twisting trees, there might be the spires of Magak, the opulant halls of Calland - and the wormish sorcerors and fattened merchants who plunder one another's corrupt flesh.
I did not wait to see the fate of the witches and their lovers, for Cadaz, and thence a passage to Jibaral, called me onward.
[ Posted by Reason on January 21, 2007 ]
