| February 2007 | << January 2007 | March 2008 >> |
| The Murderous Charm |
| Tomes of Amaxathroth > Ink, Blood and Parchment |
A second time have I come to bind the blood of a dead thief more tightly to this parchment, prisoning it with ink crushed of withered stems that grow upon the graves of Hambegh - the life of flowers looted from below in summer, as are the graves themselves when winter comes. Old and rotted is this thief's blood now, just as is what lies beneath Hambegh's forested ruins, in caverns once given to black-hearted sorcerors. A life of years has passed - enough to turn young hair white, dead and brittle, enough for Amaxathroth the Wanderer to span these bindings of reed and ink once forward and thence back again to the very beginning.
It was a poorly fated thief to snatch from Amaxathroth in a moment of distraction amidst the market of weaver-women and their rod-wielding masters upon the dockside of Callend, for in those years I wrestled mightily with the Murderous Charm. A gift it was, given unwillingly by the exiled crone Nehebal in her lair of rock and filth beyond Magak. The crone was a motionless plaything of squirming maggots even then, as the thief ran from me with his briefly-held prize, but her choking laughter formed an echo that would not fade. The Charm wrapped itself around the heart and nerves, a word and gesture of such simplicity and black intent so as to speak itself in an unguarded moment. It became a curse upon the cursed, a frustrated doom that locked claws with the will of the Demon-King, sorcery of the Black Palace an age past.
Scribe of letters, brave to risk my ink and words, do you know the fate of all who learn the Charm? It is a grim passage, to slay all around in moments of anger or loose thought, one by one, until naught is left but filth and gibbering in a lonely cave, and the heart is clenched tight about a single word and single gesture - until you cannot but refrain from shrieking it unto yourself, and thence be extinguished. This and many other gifts has the Undergod Freth inflicted upon men and women who deserved such and more.
The blood upon this parchment once heard the Murderous Charm, and was spilled, cast about with cries and screams by teeth of sorcery-maddened weaver-women. Such is the fate of thieves, and should but be the fate of all men, were women to work their true will upon this shriveled, faded world. Eager was the charm that day in its echo from the gilded walls of the Dockmaster Yallus; men who marked womanflesh with rod and whip were rent and broken by the shrieking mob, thrown bloodied into the water for many-eyed spine-crabs, a floating feast of fresh offal for the angry crathegulls.
I have left this blood a life of years in which to seep from these bindings and hide away in soil and sand - long enough, I would have claimed, but still I see the remains of thievery yet soil my work in yearning for punishment. So I recall the shape of the Murderous Charm once more, having wrestled it from my heart a lifetime past - and set it below in the obscuring manner of the crystal scribes of Yorm, as but the smallest barrier to a doom of your own devising. May the Charm bring you the fate your heart deserves.
[ Posted by Reason on February 3, 2007 | Permanent Link ]
