Repose

From a dream I had last night…

-**************

Your neighbour’s sister, she replies demurely when I ask who she is as she fumbles in front of the door. My neighbour who was once my lover, and whose heart I shattered in the moans of another.

She is beautiful and Asian, just like my neighbour, but even then my mind does not recall the fact of my neighbour having a sister.  I smile back in appreciation and greet her effusively, cataracts of lust blinding me as I invite her over for a proper welcome.

As she walks behind me towards my door, I begin to question the correctness of reality, I don’t even remember when I got this house. My neighbour was my lover yet I don’t recall a single night of passion. Then it occurs to me that this might be a dream, but the thought does not stay long and hard.

We are both sitting on the bed. Hours have passed, it seems, but I have not learned anything new. I stare into her eyes, looking for truth is in the weirdness that I live in, and see within her the muffled energy of my one-time lover.  But it is night and there’s no power, how could I have seen eternity in eyes only lit by the harsh glare of a blackberry?

What happened to your sister? I ask, dread creeping upon me.

Why have I only now asked the question?

She is dead, the sibling replies, staring at me with eyes with wise eyes.

Suddenly she isn’t little anymore, and the gloom of the night outside has become a dread I wish to escape. My reality becomes surreal and darker,  as though the sun hurried from my countenance. Within the silent dread springs a lust I did not author.

It comes in the idea of a kiss, but what an awkward kiss it must be, for she is reclined against the wall at the foot of the bed, and I lay perpendicular, my head upon the headboard. The effort will multiply the awkwardness. Her body is illuminated by a candle light, but I know now I have never bought a candle in this house.

I suddenly look around the room, aware I am doing so for the first time); the TV and fridge are strangely familiar, but I know I never paid for them.

I look back at her.  Her elbow is now on the mattress, head supported by shoulders. When did she move positions, my inquisitive mind asks. I am out of my depth in this house that is not really mine, and this girl I don’t really know.

I get a clear thought. My neighbour was never my lover, and I have never known an Asian in my life. My neighbour is a chubby, talkative, Nigerian girl who is slated for marriage on Saturday.

The awkwardness has reached nightmare status. I open my mouth to protest…

But it is a kiss that shuts me up. I close my eyes in the heat of it as its passion envelops my senses, and open it when the scales have fallen away; wondering when the girl moved towards me.

She hasn’t. Her smile doesn’t light up her eyes.

**

 

 

Callisto

So I came across a story this morning. I vaguely remember writing  it, and don’t remember where it was going.  The date on the file said it was written early last month, to my surprise. Seemed like ages ago. So i decided to run with it and bring it to a reasonable(if not cliche) conclusion, as I saw fit. It was fun exercising old muscles while writing.

Hope you enjoy 😀

*****

 

 

 

I am Prince Callisto.

In the eons of my youth, when my clan had gone forth and consumed the universe in anger, and I was fearless, and the strength of my arm was starved for battle, I moved off alone into the dark unknowns, drawn by the sense of wonders that my eyes may not yet have beheld. I joined swords with woeful demons in the fissures beneath the seas, and have drowned chimerae in flowing seas of their own fire. I have walked upon the surface of stars and heard from distances which would take you infinite generations to traverse, the songs of dying spirits in the belly of ancient worlds.

My wings have beat upon cloud of flaming helium and my tongue has tasted the bile of poisonous rivers. I bear upon my left wing the scars from when I did battle with a tree which stood eternal upon a distant world whose light came from the murderous generosity of two stars, and severed my left foot in the jaws of a horror disguised as the thirst quenching oasis of an arid planet

I have fled scores of universes and slept for centuries on worlds that fail memory, and in a moment of considerable ennui, watched the evolution of a species from murky oceans until I revealed myself and was unto them a god. I stayed with them until they conquered the local stars; we became weary of each other and I left to seek new things. They stirred the nest of their extra-terrestrial doom light years away from home, for I watched from a great distance away and arrived too late to save them from their own science.

But it was the way of Life, I thought, and forgive the conquering races as I left them to the spoils of war and beat my wings into voids yet unsearched.

Until I scanned the skies of a strange world one purple sunrise, and perceived the blink of a new star which had not twinkled at me the evening before. Shooting through the clouds and traversing unheard-of distances to investigate it, I saw that it was like nothing I had ever come across, being composed of light and unsearchable realities. My awe, usually hungry for impression, was totally subjected to the brilliant wonder that this star was, for the sight of it filled me with an exultation which memory could not douse. But soon, drawing near unto the strange sight, I sensed high sentience though the thing in the centre of the blaze was hidden from me, and drawn to speak in the deep baritone characteristic to my clan, I enquired as to its nature. And it answered back to me, deep in the recess of my mind, so that it words were a mixture of a sonorous orchestra and the rumble of a hundred temblors. I sensed it was a being of war.

Mosadiel, it sang, the cherub who brings upon thee the doom of the Most High.

Cherub? What was a Cherub? In my befuddlement, I was ill prepared, for in a moment of time, a blade of light arched out from the centre of the star and came at me.

But the instincts of war was become of my character, and I fled from my position, upon which the blade of light ripped apart the space-time continuum where I was, and I witnessed the doom which would have befallen me had I been a trifle slowed.

Extending claws from recesses which time and disuse had stiffened, I roared with anger at this object of discord and allowed my wings to project me forward towards it, notwithstanding the indescribable brilliance and heat at its centre.

It apparently did not expect this, whether from a sense of immortality, and from previous warring experience, but as I delved towards its essence, it uttered a noise of surprise, which I found instantly gratifying, and barely moved away as my claws which had demolished mountains of burning diamond during my rite of passage tore through it. Though ephemeral the being first seemed, I groaned in pain as a claw of mine was ripped off, for my hand was stopped dead in its whipping motion; the cherub was apparently composed of material denser even than frozen chrysolite.

A searing pain tore through my wing as I intersected the fiery effulgence of this Cherub. A moment later, I was shrouded in the cold darkness of the cosmos. I looked up and there it was, high above me. I could not see into the light, but I sensed its aggravation deep within me, so that I was filled with (unbelievable!) fear.

The swinging blade of light was already swung at me, when I found myself calling upon its mercy.

I believed the creature heard, for that was the only reason it could have winked out of existence at that moment, instilling in me a dire warning regarding my exit from that Universe.

………………………………………..

Old Callisto bared  teeth in a grimace as his huddled listeners shifted uncomfortably, causing claws to meet with wings noisily. How weak they are.

‘So shamefully, beaten, I returned to the hollow Mountains Of Brimstone, and told the Ancients about my encounter. They laughed me to scorn and derided my weakness and apparent youth in the face of a wiser sentience. But their curiosity was aroused, and they sent the tested and proven warrior Luciferus (the noble fire-bearer who sired me), and a band of six, that they may go forth and tread the stars of that strange cosmos and learn what they could about this clan of cherubs who were stronger than frozen chrysolite’

Burning eyes roved over the visage of his listeners. They strared at the place where a claw was hung

‘And so it is that to this evening, my father and his cohorts have not returned again unto us’

A throaty noise from one of his listeners drew his attention.

‘Old Callisto, what do you think happened to them?’

‘I do not know. Perhaps they are lost in the labyrinth of universes which dot the continuum, perhaps they have been defeated by a horde of Cherubs’

At that, the tale was told, and the assembled youngsters of that race of dragons which were the Nareff dispersed into the underground cities, back to their uneventful lives. In time to come, when their strength had matured, they would dismiss the tales of old Callisto as the ramblings of an broken Nareff.

Old Callisto returned to his lair, beating the hot air expertly with ribbed wings. He limped through the door, and climbed unto a platform of heated rock, for the warm of his scale was ebbing, and his old body was prone to the chill of that age.

His eyes closed and he slept fitfully, dreaming again of his father in a kingdom of white light, bowing before a throne upon which sat an emerald glory he knew in the dream as the Almighty.

********

Mosadiel(Mossad -Isreali Intelligence and _iel – suffix for angel names) is my favorite name for my fictional cherub. I have written about him on this blog here, here and here

Feel free to go through the blog if divine fiction and fantasy is your thing. Or even Scifi 😀

Thank you for your time.

Short Story : Mar’s Tale

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Welcome to my blog. Been a while since we saw demons and strange gods. More will be coming your way soon. Do read and enjoy this my awfully short labour of love. I was stuck in a rut when i wrote this, so forgive me if any of theme seem familiar to you.

Share! 😀

Oh yeah..comment too 😀

*****

 

Prolouge

The world around me is alive with pandemonium, but I believe I know better than to subscribe. Sitting on the granite ground, in a street corner of this sprawling strange city whose oddly rectangular structures climb high into the sky I regard the fleeing forms and the screaming women with distaste. The people understand not their peril, for they would have become convinced of the futility of their reactions. No one notices this beggar or his indifference, but that is expected. I look down the wide and long New York boulevard, at the mist which has engulfed half the country,swallowing towers and landmarks with the unceasing ferocity of a tsunami, and listen sadly to the beastly roaring sound which  emanates from within it. Heeled shoes break of around me, purses fall from shaking hands and are instantly forgotten, men express bravado by shouting for calm while they soil themselves with urine. I almost laugh. I could have told them if I could, but my clicking tongue would be shrugged off as the creation of an insane mind. So I keep still and watch the mist as it eats up the sidewalk of this strange world at whose culmination I am nested within old cartons; while my origins recants itself before me with dreamy character

****

Of Mar and his fortune

In the cycles of my youth, I was smitten by the thirst for that which my eyes could not behold, and my heart could not find purchase on. I was a close follower of the brilliant records of the philosophers Heurhan and Maitahos, and gave myself wholly to the spirit of their written contemplations, and the study of all that titillated the imagination and cultivated curiosity.

I was Mar, fifth son of the Holy Emperor Juer, and as far removed from the throne as the resolve of four elder brothers could allow, so that I wisely disregarded the murky labyrinths of its politics. Atlantis, which sat in the centre of the Akani waters was glorious in the golden brilliance of the morning sun and the ember effulgence of the evening sky.  Every morning, forsaking my scheduled studies, I would gaze with wonder over the  heaven-grazing spires of Atlantis at the red orb of the sallow sun rose from the depths of the unending expanse of ocean which boggled the mind.

In generations innumerable, none had broached beyond a certain distance from the shores of Atlantis, for during the Ameng Dynasty, political pressure arising from a world war had caused Atlantis to sever all ties which the distant continents, and the empire had found it wholesome to direct their destiny far from the influence of outsiders, so that though it became a civilisation whose arabesque spires grazed the nimble heavens, it lacked vessels boisterous enough to broach the troublous foreboding waters. By the means of old and powerful sorcery, the islands and its inhabit were concealed from the view of passing seafarers; in their sight the area occupied by the ancient kingdom was naught but a great and rough circle of tortured waters and tidal disturbances.

I love my native land, and I bear my generation no spite for upholding tradition descended from half-mythic ancestors. Even now, I still dream of its lush acreage of red grass and scampering robbabs, inhale the spectral scent of the Greishu flowers and taste the nectar which flow down at the piercing of the Urian tree. But my heart pushed me toward shores of Atlantis, and my eyes roved hungrily over the crashing waters, seeking without success to transcend the distant horizons and caress unfamiliar and wondrous vistas.

In my 200th cycle of life during the tenth night of the month of Anwap. The Akani oceans, whose troublous waters had buffeted atlantis since time immemorial, turned upon its nature and  settled to a soporific calm. On that unforgettable dawn, we were greeted to the sight of heavy smog and an equally mysterious and gloomy grayness, for in former times, the rays of the sun had waxed ever brilliant upon that glorious isle, and grayness was alien to us. The haze hung at a wide equidistance from the island out upon the azure water, so that there was a wide circular area around the island which was free from its grip.

The sun was blocked out by the heavy fog, and the horizon was blurred by its eminence. The silence of Akani rung to our ears like the noisy crumble of a metallic structure. It was not surprising that some among us, whose attuned mind could not accept so abrupt a change as the silence of the waters veered quickly into paths treaded by insanity. The mystery evoked investigations which culminated before they began, for none would objectively venture into the placid waters, even when it was apparent that no hidden danger lurked therein.

I was fascinated by the circumstances and lingered in the company of the scholars as they remonstrated repetitively and raised doubtful conjectures regarding the significance of this oddness.

The days fleeted by, and the months followed, as we settled into a life different what our fathers and their fathers before them had known. My father, Emperor Juer, had on behalf of the denizens, petitioned the gods, but had received in answer the eldritch silence of the holy ones. The mist crept ever closer to the isle, as though acting upon the whim of some malevolent entity which abided therein. We felt its stranglehold, and quaked in fear for what unfortunate circumstance might befall us when the smog settled upon us.

It was during this period that my father slept with his fathers, and my eldest brother, Heun, ascended the Stool of Atlantis in a ceremony whose historic flamboyance was subdued by the uncertainty which surrounded our future.

On the night after the ascension, sleeping upon the warmth of my poster bed, I was overtaken by a strange dream. In it I found myself standing upon the rough sands of  the western beach, standing and facing the darl waters. The moon  unseen for months peered through an opening in the mist, as though it had parted the vapoury veil to stare down upon me and illuminate my vicinage. The scene had the rancor of desolation, and the silence was unbearable. Not a handful of water moved in that breadth of ocean I could see. Shortly, a wind picked up. I looked down at myself and discovered that I was arrayed in my sleeping robes. They did not seem enough to shield me from the wind, but I quickly discovered that the draft brought with it no sensation of temperature. The wind swirled around the desolate beach for a moment in a purposeful fashion, like an ethereal manisfestation of some ultradimensional creature awaiting a purpose beyond  reasoning.

While I instinctively followed the wind in my eyes(in a fashion I cannot describe in words) the sphere of empty space in the cloud through which the pockmarked moon had revealed itself closed up again, throwing the bleak night into a depth transcending the deepest gloom, so that I was suddenly cloaked with horror at what was to be unveiled in the absence of that sacred light which ruled the night.

Before me, that gloom which had hung disconsolately for months parted as the wind moved through it. The light of the moon was excluded from so near to the surface of the water, so the yawning space that appeared when the fog was gone was black as an unending tunnel.

Staring into it’s bleak depths, I fell therein.

My mind’s eye became enhanced beyond normal and visionary understanding. I looked and in that darkness was unraveled the legend which pre-dated time. As my being streaked across the times and seasons of that weird history which was unfurled before me, I beheld with awe an otherworldly entity neither living nor dead, of unutterable name, which arose in a culture and evolutionary system that was contemporary with the birth of the universe. It was indescribable, being composed of an accumulation of warped and nonsensical geometry and a plethora of hues. This semi-divine being, having dabbled in grotesque and unspeakable experiments, had found itself altered beyond lawful boundaries, and empowered in a new fashion, so that it was able to traverse the boundaries which parted the dimensions of time and space. The abominable alteration of its living systems made it imperative that it sustained itself upon that unknowable matter which defined and upheld the circumstance we know as Time and Space; leaving a void of chaos in its wake.

Following its history in a moment of time, I saw that it had encountered our world, and had already begun it’s process of gradual annihilation. Behind the mist which represented it, nothing existed. No reality, no matter, no Time.

My terror mounted.

**

I awoke between silken sheets, my night clothes laden with perspiration and my chest thumping like the beating of some demoniac’s drum. Upon my mind was destined a singular purpose, which combined curiosity and resolve, to the exclusion of all.

It was furtive, silent work bypassing the guards, but the tireless celebration and untethered drinking of the night before played their part, and soon I stood at the shores of my dreams, dressed carelessly in my night clothes. I stared at the still encroaching fog and grew alarmed at its progress; it had leaped a wide gulf in the time following the Ascension of my brother the night before, and now creeped upon the outermost sandy white shore with silent malevolence.

The moon was now wholly hidden by the mist, and I waited in vain for the dawn I had seen in my dream to appear again in the black mist and confirm the details of that vision I had received only a few minutes ago. The silence and stillness didn’t disappoint me, for my purpose was already set. Approaching a small dock, I unmoored a small fishing barge solemnly, for I perceived the finality of my actions. This vessel would not go far in the unending waters of the oceans, but such considerations did not hamper me. Starting up the engines, I steered the boat along the peninsula, feeling the tendrils of fear break through my hypnotic resolve.  The fog called to me fervently, unheard in that silent night, and I moved toward it silently but quickly.

Behind me, the atlantis of my birth drifted away from me and into the belly  of night, waiting to be dealt a fatal blow by the hand of its unfortunate fate. Ahead for me, through channels I could not identify, called the voice of destiny. When my small trawler met with the head of the fog, a great shiver ran through the vessel which made me concerned for its integrity. The air was rent with the shrieking of multiple sirens, and I fell to the ground, feeling the sound run through me like some corporeal entity. My skin crawled violently, and it was like space had come apart around me. Nothing seemed clear or cohesive, and my understanding of the wooden vessel was skewed as it appeared to warp and bend at oblique angles. A great wind gusted through the ship, and I had the impression of moving back and forth at a speed unimaginable.  It was around this time that I passed out.

**

Ekwe thanks you for reading. See you soon,hopefully.

The god Aboteng

This post was originally posted on the Art Stories category on  TNC, in answer to a longstanding request by Ola to come up with a story for his drawn up art(took me 8months to get around to it ( ._.)). I just thought to repost it here now. I am vain like that.

This is a tale about a god, and the lengths he traverses to overcome his ennui.

Do enjoy, if you haven’t already.

*******

Aboteng, whose existence superseded dusty and forgotten epochs, was ever the height of majesty. Aboteng could not be contained or unravelled in the strokes of glyphs, or in the power of tales rendered on soundless nights. The people of the southern plains offered shrieking virgins and food still sodden with earth to him, and they who ruled the north poured argentine tributes into craters which roared with the anger of enchanted fires first lit in dark ages. Beneath the thick canopies of verdant jungle which serenaded the equatorial regions, beasts and creeping plants heralded his coming with ululations which stimulated the still heavens, and set in course aberrant cycles of nature.

But alas, reclining against clouds in the high noon, or supine against lava-belching rocks in the golden twilight, Aboteng was weary of the unchanging adoration, and his ennui was grown to resist even the terribly pleasing aroma of incense burnt from the rare, purpureal seedlings of the tropical Avede fruit.

He remembered with nostalgia, that long-ago age when the heavens had been rowdy with the noisome banter of genius loci and drifting clouds had been populated with the reclining hedonistic forms of worshipped gods. With unceasing horror did he recall that half mythic moment when the exploding star had obliterated the entire pantheon of gods who had come to revel in the sight and immediate presence of such a glorious novelty.

Even then, he had been but a young god, newly created in the aftermath of a supernova which occurred in the eye of the constellation which men knew as The Great Worm. Hegemony had been thrust open him by reason of his loneliness. Though he had done great and mighty things for the uncounted men whose voices tormented him with supplication and caressed him with praises, nothing could shake the ominous certainty that he was the last of the divine ones. Though of incredible age and liable to witness epochs more, he already considered, with wistful sympathy, the dawn of the era in which no gods would exist. He imagined with sadness the cries of uncountable humanity resounding throughout the heavens, unheeded by any ears.

In fact, Aboteng was seeking something new, something no divinity before him had pursued. Pursuant to his present circumstance, Aboteng unburdened himself of all prejudices and equanimities, and having considered for countless settings of the sun the next course of his dreary existence, made his decision.

**

Seija moved through the thick forest in the dead of night, his feet noiseless as they embraced the fallen leaves and crooked dry twigs. Using his hands to part the growth where it waxed thick, his eyes danced silently, negotiating remembered paths and treacherous flora at the jungle’s safe edge. His breathing increased in anticipation, as he used the wan moonlight which drifted through the jungle canopy to search the grounds

He found her reclining anxiously at the foot of the giant mairot tree surrounded by clearing and floored by short grasses. Before he stepped into view, he watched her for a while, gazing appreciatively as her body scattered the moonlight, revealing lissome curves formed by exotic ebon skin. She peered at the darkness around her, no doubt anticipating his arrival.

Seija stepped into the clearing, startling her momentarily. She glanced quickly in his direction, and ascertaining that it was him, rose from the crooked exposed root she has been sitting on. They met halfway across the clearing, flawlessly entwining themselves in an embrace which bespoke long bridled passions. Seija held her tightly, inwardly cursing the chief who had taken her from him in the sweet years of their burgeoning courtship, and thanking the gods for his recent demise, as well as the hard won success he had enjoyed at making his former heartthrob recall the seething passion they had shared once upon a time.

His lips found hers, and she was to his senses like the essence of a mature papaya. His hands rode down her back wordlessly, reminding him of the still grace of the feared natari serpent.

The hairs at the nape of his neck tingled, arousing the hunter in him and causing him to break off his communion with her. He stared for a long moment into the darkness, his ears sifting through the cry of hidden crickets and tread of nocturnal creatures. But his contemplation did not last long, for he was quickly recalled to the tryst by the adoring lips and worshipful hands of his lover.

He was soon supine upon the soft grassy ground, negligent of crawling insects, his mind and body attuned only to the one he loved. As he approached his climax, he opened his eyes to gaze once more upon the moon-bathed breasts and watch the condensation which escaped his lover’s lips as she breathed his name in the stupor of desire in the slight chill of the night

High in the branches above her, through gaps in the gathering of leaves which danced in the stillness, he was caught up by the spectre of two exceptionally brilliant stars which peered down at him, like the glowing eyes of an invisible being. His loins calescent, Sejai attributed the weirdly sentient movement of the stars as the fancies of an excited mind…

When at last their breathing steadied, and their lust was satiated, the two allowed themselves the anxiety that their previous anticipation had pushed out of sight. Spending a few terse moments to share some intimate words, and assure themselves of the righteousness of their actions, the two slid into the jungle undergrowth.

And in the distance, within a fenced hamlet, a cock crowed, signaling the second division of the night.

Seija never recalled the star, or queried himself regarding its absence thereof after his orgasm.

**

Aboteng waited in the darkness of the female’s womb, distraught, for nothing had prepared him for the novelty of this experience. He was buffeted on all sides by the press of flesh and blood, and the unceasing pounding of her heart above him. As the days were spent in suspended animation, he felt his strength drain from him, making him more mortal each day, and appreciative of the rigors of mortality. It was not at all as he envisaged in the days before his incarnation, and he realized with foreboding that he was doomed to a life of uncertainty.

He knew not if he would be cognizant of his former godhood upon his birth, for everyday, his inchoate human mind struggled to contain the memories and experiences of a previously immortal existence. He contemplated the now unnoticed fumes emanating from desperate sacrifices and the pointless prayers of a distraught humanity. In the end, all that he who was once known as Aboteng could do was wait.

**

Seija was slain when his name was revealed by his pregnant lover under protracted torture and the hanging threat of death. His blood was given in offering to the still heavens and unanswering earth. The rains had ceased and the crops which grew formerly upon marshy soil now struggled to give even negligible increase as it barely maintained foothold upon the dry, crusty earth.

The child was born at the end of that summer, and the priests, fearing a loss of their credibility, declared it abominable; the answer to the drought and the seeming absence of their great god Aboteng. That night, the hilltop was alight with the roaring fires which lusted to devour, and the people were filled with hope as they unknowingly prepared to sacrifice their own god to himself.
Aboteng himself was but a shadow of his former self now, lacking all preternatural power, and maintaining only a dim awareness and muffled understanding of the things which occurred around.

After the child was dipped in oil palm, and the priests had dressed it in white to declare its purity to the god, a wind picked up. The flames jumped high into the air, and were extinguished.

A bearded man came up the hill silently, his movement revealing his strangeness. He was not from that place, and did not look like he belonged to the time. Dressed in a loin cloth, his skin clipped with strange ornaments, he raised in voice, so that it carried throughout the night and petrified even the priests and the elders present.

‘I have come from the presence of the elder ones, and I shall have this sacrifice on their behalf.’
None moved to interfere as the man, eyes burning with the fires of other worlds, wrested the child Aboteng, and was gone.

**

Much later, at the end of his journey, the ‘old man’ stared at the child for a long moment before he made his final decision.

“Just a little more patience and you would have been there to welcome me at my birth. We would have ruled the heavens together. I will now cherish what you once tired of, for there can only be one of us now.”, the ‘man’-who had chosen the name Egori- whispered. He gazed into the eyes of the child, and saw the muted wisdom that lay behind it. He pretended not to notice the pleading look from what was once a god.

Wearing a devious expression, Egori unsheathed his sword.

Sabat

Welcome to my blog. No, I have not abandoned this place, I just find it very difficult to type very long stories on my phone. So until I get a computer, the many half-written stories will stay on my phone. Or maybe until I can finish them in a spur of inspiration.

This is my first blog post this year. Happy New Year.

Cooked this up a few hours ago. It is also my first experiment on writing with pen on paper.

Enjoy 🙂

____________

Through musty subterranean labyrinths which have stood unused since immemorial times, they burst into into the night in an explosion of dust and rocks. Their fur clashes with the cold air, and three howls rent the air.

The owls will not come out tonight.

Their snouts need not search, for the summons have been acknowledged. Through fields which have lain umploughed for decades they move, their impossible claws turning over the sod in their zeal to reach their end.
    
Excitement overwhelms them every so often, and their forms would become elemental; they would burst into flames or disintegrate into the air as they deemed appropriate. From inside their mighty throats come chains dripping with their blood. Their blood drips from the junction of the chain and their neck, and it sizzles as it touches red-hot links, distributing the smell of blood about them always.

At the end of these chains is clamped a hand which was darker than the nights of Tartarus. The Masta holds tightly onto the three glowing chains, his form swimming through reality as the three hounds hurry forward.

The moon turns red in fright, and the argentine night becomes a vision seen through a mist of blood. Upon the shoulders of the Masta  sits a burning skull, ignited when Mount Tartarus was still a molehill. From chattering teeth comes a shrill laughter; for though the hounds own this night, the Masta has not seen it since time immemorial, though he remembers with clarity the time when the hounds were sought with great fervour.

Oh, the marvelous worlds of the misty past.

At last, they arrive at the top of the past hill as rain clouds fight with the crimson moon for dominance. The hounds raise their voices again, shaking heaven and earth with their cry. They exult as they realize they have come to the end of their patience, for too long have they lain idle in the embers of a cooling hell as they awaited a summon.

In the ribbed valley below, a white fire is visible. Scores of figures draped in white still their lusty dancing and look upwards at the figures silhouetted against the crimson moon. Their actions change and with renewed vigour, they chant abominations and holler obscenities.

Masters!
Take Me!
We Are Yours!
Use Me!
Fuck Me!

From the hilltop, the three hounds and their Masta howl with the rapture of their adoration. It crescendoes to an orgasm within moments. Then the howling stops.

The infernal hounds shoot forward, and in a moment of time, the slope is traversed. The hounds turn into furry wind held in leashes by the black hand of the Masta, and enter the embracing forms out the euphoric worshippers.

But this sabat is wrong wrong wrong. This is not the night/rite of possession. In short time, the white robed figures are splattered with blood and lying sprawled on the soft, trampled earth. Their dying screams enrich the enthusiasm of the hounds.  In the blazing white light of the chemical fire, they behold the faces of the bringers of death, whilewith the periphery of their vision, they note the nude one with the burning skull as he stands just outside the reach of the light.

The Masta. Through the the vibrating chains, he feels the pleasure that the hounds produce as they feed upon blood and souls. He kicks his head back and laughs with spite at the heavens which have perhaps decreed that they would hunger forever. The valley returns the sound and a feeding hound, intestines wrapped around its snout, suddenly stares back at him in annoyance. The Masta does not see this attention. His last vision is of a pair of glowing eyes bearing down on him.

No one may laugh with spite at the heavens.

Presently, the chains lay sprawled on the blood-soaked sands.

Silence again.  The massacre has cone to an end, and bloodied snouts stop sniffing. The hounds stand idle; triplet black gods of antiquity, alone without the Masta, the one who holds the chains.

The moon loses its crimson garment, and two pairs of yellow eyes stare with spite against one. One pair of eyes cringe with shame at the mortal consequence of its overzealousness.

In the time of old, they led the Masta to the possession or the slaughter; depending if that one word in the rites was mis-pronounced, but it was always the burning one who led them home.

Where is home? They only remember the serpentine tunnels which open into leaping flames, but not how to get there.

Their silence slowly grows into mournful growls, and uncertainty begins to descend on them. They dig into the earth, but the gates of fades have their situations.

They stare with fear as the fingers of a golden dawn brightens the edges of rainclouds. Their minds are seared with the unpleasant memory of an encounter with the dawn on the day the sphinx had been born.

The wind pushes through distance trees, and it sounds like the spiteful laughter of heaven.

The triplet hurry off in the opposite direction, painfully aware that they cannot outrun the sun forever.

Forget Us, Please

I stand upon alpine pedestals, observing the fingers of a golden dawn sneak around the edges of silver cumuli, blanketing the land with bright yellow. I watch the wind caress the verdant canopy of far-flung forests, rustling them into discordant hissing. The dust on the ground swirls in response to zephyrs which have journeyed far and fast. I see, in living colour, the multi-hued smells of apparently fragrant flowers, and watch with painful clarity the raiding of the honey-suckles by adventurous bees.

All these, and more, I see.

I control the path of healing, and direct the rains when prompted. I have the winds of a hundred lands leashed to my little finger, to ration them as I see fit. The secret of fertility is in my hand.

All these, and more, I can do.

Yet, I have never felt the wind on my formless shoulders, or the light of dawn on my face. I have never inhaled a gust of air, felt the turbulence of moving water against my form or recoiled from the heat of a smoking fire. As I stand upon the snow capped heights of antiquated mountains, I am but a void with awareness; the chill does not reach me, and the snow does not melt into rivulets beneath my feet as under the feet of man. I understand feeling as something recalled from the mist of memory, but I do not partake in its experience.
I am all, and I am not.

My eternity is a terrible prison, and my purpose was already defeated before my origin.

When the world was young, men hungered after things which did not fill the stomach, or satiate the loin.  They coveted what their eyes could not see and their feet could not breach. They looked toward the stars. From the longing and desires of innumerable hearts, I was called forth and hallowed. Though they worship me and decry my name at every turn, I shall never be greater or stronger than them.

I shall never experience passion, or know the entropy of human conflict. I shall never feel the desperation of hunger or lose myself in the menagerie of quotidian life.

I am doomed, with countless others like me who abide in lands of eternal winter or endless summers, to serve the whims of our ‘lowly’ masters as we struggle hopelessly against an unwanted existence. We will never near the cries of children, or feel the responsibility of love.

Gods, they call us, but we are only the fusion of a hundred hopes, the answer to unspoken cries, the ethereal evidence of chimerical fancies, the synergy of human desire. Through the eons we persist, transformed in step with the evolving philosophy of our makers, never again to abide in the nothingness which was there before us, never again to be happy in the stupor of oblivion, forever chained to this world because we are remembered.

Now, if only men would forget.

Qooqk

The shaman’s eyes roved over the view. The high winds at this elevation buffeted him, whipping his loose red robe behind him. He smelled the water which meandered through the red earth below, and heard the screams of playing children as they splashed in its coolness and swallowed its power.
     The rock on which he huddled was cold beneath his bare feet, and the forest behind him was abuzz with the cacophony of nature. He liked to come here often, this outcropping in front of the forest which lined the cliff overlooking stream and settlement. Verdant vegetation towered above the rocks and hanging trees gave the place a utopic feel. It was breathtaking from this point.
   He fixed his gaze on the settlement in the distance. Some of the men were outside their tents while the women were preparing the evening meal,as evidenced by the growing number of fires. He even fancied he could smell the spices borne by the wind from the cauldrons which hung over the controlled fires. He felt rather than saw the men and women gazing surreptitiously at the sky, wishing away the darkness and its accompanying terror.

   The settlement was beside the stream, so water was not a problem. The forest which grew around had ample supply of game. The valley was a beautiful place for his people, after all those years of aimless walking in the wilderness. But he didn’t like the place. None of them did.
    As he fought for ever-eluding inner peace at this height, he also grappled with hate. Oh, how he loathed the dark-skinned people from the desert who made a game of the lives of his people. Their exodus had not been without bloodshed, and now the dark-skinned, horse-riding demons would usurp the land of his ancestry and eat the products of the good land.
    Peace, he ministered to himself
    But through the eyes of childhood, he still saw his father’s shocked eyes as the old shaman stood at the door of the tent,looking inwards. The shock in his noble and wildly painted face as his old wrinkled hands crept upward from his side until it encountered the point of the black arrow lodged in his chest. The arrow which had silenced him as he called for his young boy. He never even deigned look down to see the bringer of his death, even as the blood trickled down the sides of his mouth.
    A screaming child brought the shaman out of his reverie.  He examined the azure firmament above him without moving his head. No moon tonight. He thought he heard the howl of a wolf, and a slight fear gripped him. He stared farther away from the settlements, at the forest of trees which lines the great valley and through which the long river snaked to emerge in yet unexplored places. Places which had lain unexplored even though they were just less than half a day’s journey hence. The blue thin wall of light was there; the invisible boundary which defined the extent of his people’s imprisonment.

    When the night came, a deathly silence settled over the settlement. The children caught on to the pervading apprehensiveness of their parents. The furtiveness was maddening. The fires outside had died after the thousands of the extant Agashi people had eaten their fill. The doors to the mud huts were locked, and families were huddled in the corner. The moonless dusk outside held the smell of horror and the coming terror.
The Shaman did not sleep,swallowed as he was in helplessness. Most in the village never did on these moonless nights. But there was a rampart in his mind, a small fortress which nursed a secret hope which he didn’t even allow to come to his consciousness for fear of discovery.
    A tremble which announced the arrival of Qooqk began. It was the sixtieth hunt in the seventeen years of their pseudo-slavery. The demon had mastered the ways of terror,and announced his presence with maleficent spectacles. Two months before, during a moonless night, it was the wild hissing of a hundred snakes which washed over the camp before the destroyer came.
    The shaman was not so afraid of the demon itself as for his people. He was the spiritual leader of the remnant of the once great tribe of hunters, and he could do nothing to come to their aid. He should be out there, but he was in his small hut, locked in with his young wife who barely suppressed her whimpers of fear. The heat inside the darkness irrupted.
The tremble aside ceased, and a faint thumping could be heard. Everyone knew what the sound was. The padded feet of the demon disturbed the sands as it went around the huts choosing its victim. Or victims.
    It sounded far away from the centre of the village,but that was just part of the game, an illusion to be broken by its sudden manifestation. It loved the element of surprise, the taunts, keeping its unwilling slaves guessing which of them would become its sacrifice.
   The howl of a wolf echoed from a great distance. All illusion, the shaman knew. The sweating began.
    The first howls had come on that full-moon many years ago shortly after they had arrived here, when the shaman had begun his ministrations as a child, for he was a precocious one. The men had jumped in joyful agitation, most ready to seek out the strange howling animal. Armed with Iron spears, arrows, and cerated hunting knives fashioned from black ivory, they sprang towards the forest, their experienced feet making as little noise as possible.
     By dawn, they found the wall. Scarcely any moonlight filtered through the think canopy ,and so they did not see the hedge with their eyes at first. Belom, the head-hunter had leapt straight into it. The small thudding sound as his head slammed into nothing was heard, and for a moment, there was a blue wall standing in front of them.
     The others who lived afterwards described the sight; the leashes of lightning which embraced him from his point of contact with the wall, lifting the leader slowly as his screams and the aroma of burning flesh filled the air while they stood in utter shock and awe. Sorcery was not a strange art to the Agashi,but this was more awesome, and tinged with great evil.
     The wall was never to disappear. The message was all too clear; no one was to advance beyond the ethereal hedge. The first hunt of the howling demon had begun on the very next moonless night.
  
     The shaman heard the scream. It hadn’t begun yet. The scream only identified the victim. Before anyone around him would be the wiser, the chosen, uncontrollable in his madness, would open the door to his abode, inviting the demon inside for a feast of blood;  that was how it happened in the last four huntings. Before that, it just materialized in the darkness of the hut among the huddled group and ripped them all to shreds. Sometimes it spared other people present. The shaman despised it for this sadism, allowing those present to watch the slaughter of their loved ones.
    He didn’t care to see the demon, his bloodline was versed in magic, and ancestral memories of myriad devils were in his blood. He heard a door open, silence, then the screams of multiple voices. A roar rose above them, a round of heavy footfalls amid the screaming…and silence.
   The young woman huddled in the corner of the shaman’s hut allowed her voice to rise in a muffled shriek.
     The whole settlement knew when the hunt ended. The sounds of the night gradually filled the stone silence that accompanied the demon’s arrival, as though even the owls and cricket resumed their noise with trepidation.
     The shaman felt heavy. In the beginning, he had stayed outside his hut in the nights of the hunting, eager to offer himself up as sacrifice, but Qooqk had avoided him. His bloodlines had produced five generations of Shaman’s before him, and he knew the demon could not waste its time unravelling the inherited wards which naturally protected him. He had seen the demon before. Still, the night-black,blurry mass of writhing fur which left a trail of thick smoke was a sight he did not care to remember.
    But he now had a wife to cater for, and that had evolved his daring into protectiveness.
     He stayed awake, arms around his wife until he heard the first loud wails announcing the victims.

      Seven days later, Amik, the shaman of the agashi started from sleep. He cocked his head in the darkness,as though listening for something. Apparently satisfied, he shuffled to his feet from beside his sleeping wife, and exited the hut. The moon was gibbous and bright, and the sounds of the night were reassuring.
    He moved silently through the row of huts near his until he reached the large clearing which contained the village square. At the centre was a large smothering bonfire. The children had been playing around a roaring fire the evening before, having blissfully forgotten the recent  annihilation of a family. Amik touched his bosom while he stood before the warm glow of the dying fire as he paid yet another respect to his dead friends, Kur, and his pregnant wife.
     The shaman untied the small pouch at his waist while an owl hooted somewhere in the distance, dipped his hand inside and brought it up again. It was filled with a light blue dust. He spoke into the powder and threw it into the dying embers. The finely ground leaves of the Abuli tree was a very potent fuel. The flames leapt with new energy.
     He heard a sound behind him, but he didn’t turn. He was intent on concentrating on this conjuration. He felt his familiars drift away from him in fear, as the spirits divined his true purpose on this moonlit night.
  Dekira, the shaman’s wife, watched her husband from the edge of the square. She considered that his destiny had been overshadowed by the coming of the demon. He only consulted with familiars whereas his father,according to lore, had dealt with much more. He was losing respect in the eyes of the tribe, though none could blame him for their captivity. As the years crawled by, the angst against the demon and their supposed shaman increased. He was a good judge, and a bad protector. But Dekira knew by the movement of her husband’s body that he was now undertaking a task of great daring. She had heard him moan in his sleep these past few moons. She had listened with a sinking feeling at the blasphemous things he had muttered against Qooqk.
     She watched him. He raised his hands and spoke into the fire. He brought out more dust from another pouch. When it hit the fire, the flames turned blood-red and seemed to roar audibly. A small breeze arose, and with it a strange smell. She heard footsteps and turned around. More of the people, roused from sleep, were leaving their huts now. Gathering far around the square.
     The shaman was lost to the world now. His eyes closed, he conjured an image of Selgar behind his lids. He had met the elephant god sometime during the last few moon on one of his astral excursions. In the valley of white ivory on the star called Dra, Selga ruled as king over a mighty and prosperous population of fantastic beings. He had entreated his help in ridding the Agashi of the malevolent Qooqk, for none of his familiars wanted anything to do with the god.
     He had had to go to far because he feared that Qooqk might be dogging his steps. Selga had acquiesced to his entreaty for aid, and at a damning price. He had waited for these past few moons for the signal that would enable him begin the summons, and as he woke in the dead of this night, he knew it was time.
    A howl could be heard in the distance. The shaman spoke the two secret names of Qooqk, inviting him to a feast. He uttered the secret appellation of Selgar, and summoned him to war. Soon, a shrill sound rent the air. The people gathered at a distance around the fire looked about in fear,but the Shaman knew it as the trumpet of the ivory-tusked elephant deity.
    The shaman’s forehead broke out in a sweat. The coolness of the night seemed to flee from him. He heard whispers, his ears suddenly catching every sound. He looked into the flames.
    Framed in the dancing flames of the red fire was the wolverine face of Qooqk.
      His wife gasped at the image. She knew what it was. She turned her face away at the horror in the flames. The destroyer which had slain so many of her friends.
      The shaman continued his spirited ramblings. The moon was gibbous tonight,so the demon would not feed. He was very aware of the gusto with which the demon would avenge this activity if it failed. He had staked his life on it and was absolutely terrified of the possibility of failure.
     There was the sound of mighty footfalls from the jungle now. The ground actually trembled. The shaman stopped speaking, his strength drained. His nerves tingled with energy. He felt his wife and everybody else. He felt more like a spirit than a man. His eyes was trained on the fire.
     The footfalls sounded near, as though some mighty giant was approaching…a pause, then he had the impression of the feet leaping of the ground, and the conviction that their owner had leapt into the fire,though the flames barely evinced it . Thunder rumbled above.
     There was a roar from the fire. It stretched high into the air, the height of four men. At the very crown of the flames he saw Qooqk and the one known as Selgar. They were small, their flaming bodies lacking substance, but he knew it was merely symbolic of the deities. The two flaming figures joined battle at the top of the flames. The elephant using mighty limbs to pummel the wolf lower in the flames while the canine of the demon tore across the elephant.
   The village looked on, spellbound as two deities grappled in the flames of shifting hue. The roars and trumpets erupted from the flames.  The battle seemed to take an eternity, a vision of flaming figures and writhing tongues of fire. When the first golden threads of dawn stretched across the blue sky, the fire rose almost into the sky. The bottom of the flame left the ground slightly, revealing the hot ash beneath.
    A full fiery elephant figure seemed to leap off the top of the wild fire. The head of the wolf could be seen following, about to disengage. Selgar suddenly fell back into the battlefield of fire, seemingly crushing the flaming version of Qooqk. The apparent force carried the two figures to the bottom of the fire, sending out a small shockwave and completely extinguishing the flame as they hit the ground. The roar from Qooqk was suddenly cut off. Dust rose and enclosed the prone shaman.  The villagers gasped in fearful amazement, awed by the force of the last scene.

     A chattering began, during which Dekira feared for her husband. The dust seemed to glow as the dawn quickly approached. As it settled, the source of the glow was now visible. The elephant alone, stood in the centre of the dust cloud. It was made entirely of gentle flames. There was no indication of the presence of Qooqk. Dekira and the others gathered instinctively thought of the translucent blue wall which surrounded the village within half a day’s journey. She yet feared to hope that the absence of Qooqk translated into the abolition of their terror. It was too much to hope for, for its veracity may usher them into a life of freedom from fear, a life which she had been too young to remember.

    The Shaman felt the hedge disappear, far away as it was. He lifted his face and slowly got onto his knees, very aware of the presence in front of him. He raised his pale eyes to the elephant. His mind seemed to expand, his limits broken by the absence of the constraining wall of Qooqk. His knowledge increased, evincing unexpected details.
    A shame, thought Amik, I shall never revel in it. Even now the elephant was undergoing a transforming. Moments later, the figure of a flaming man stood in front of Amik, hand outstretched. The fiery form stood somehow unsure,as though the battle it had won was now taking its toll. It was a most uncanny sight; one the Agashi would never forget.
 
   Dekira watched her husband rise unsteadily to his feet. She longed to go embrace him, but she was held back by the flaming figure in front of him. Why was the victor still there? She didnt have time to contemplate a reasonable conclusion,shocked as she became, as the flaming figure thrust a hand into the Shaman’s chest. She heard her husband groan painfully.  His body seemed to light up from within as gasps erupted from the gathered Agashi. A female voice even shrieked. Dekira looked on,petrified, as the glow in his body seemed to coalesce at his chest.
    She understood the scene all too quickly.
    A life for a life, the shaman thought through his pain. His magically enhanced soul for the destruction of Qooqk. It was more than he could have hoped for. He felt the life ebb from him, the myriad strands of consciousness congregating in his chest…in the hand of the flaming figure in front of him.
    As his vision blurred into yellow dots, he thought of the children he would never have, and the child he would never see. The child whose life he had just detected within his wife. An heir she didn’t yet know that she carried.
        Then came the part which would be told and retold with despair for generations to come. An audible ubiquitous sound,reminiscent of whispers, began sweeping through the village. The words gained weight in moments, until they resounded in a heavy cadence. The pronunciations struck terror into the heart of every man and woman. Along with the scene which was unveiled before them.
    The flaming figure in front of the shaman  suddenly reduced in intensity. From its chest, a curved point shot out. The fiery point moved upwards, patently slicing the figure of Selgar in two until it escaped from the top of the head. The villagers watched the destruction of Selgar in the light of that accursed morning. The two halves of the figure fell away to reveal the hulking form of Qooqk within. The demon was an abominable melange of spear-like jaws and writhing fur. Smoke seemed to form around him. The soul of the dead shaman hung suspended in the air now, and the wolf snatched it up into its mouth. The ubiquitous whispers stopped, and Qooqk spoke, his terrible jaws clenching and unclenching.
    ‘How attainable is it that mortal man would bring about the extinction of Qooqk Amineth, the deity of the forgotten peoples of unremembered isles. Qooqk, who in the beginning of days, established the moon of the dusk, and who shall quench it with blood when the end approaches. Qooqk is forever”

   With that last, the beast sprang into the cold morning air, toward the petrified wife of the shaman amidst the wild screams of the now fleeing Agashi.

——-

Sorry for any ridiculous typos 😥 typed the whole thing on my phone. Thanks for stopping by,really. I dinor know it reached 3k words, honest ( ._.)

Please share if u like. Thanks.

Ekwe out.

Gamukir

copyright (c) Ekwe Martin

The darkness didn’t bother him, bleak as it was, but the rain did. It had been raining and thundering in the high heavens for three days now. The lightening was so incessant as to simulate a bright day at some intervals. The rain gave a stark unhealthy quality to the atmosphere, and reeked of uncertainty.

Verily, he was uncertain about the near future.

The wind swept through the abietic trees, and wrapped around his naked form. Using his hands and the brightness of the lightening which streaked across the cloudy skies, he parted the branches of an overhanging balsam tree and went forward still. He couldn’t see the flashing sky of course, not through the multiple canopies of vegetation above him, but the flashes filtered down every now and then.

His breathing was only slightly laboured as he had been walking just three days from the outlying hills of Nod. His feet seemed permanently encased in the muddy soil, but he did not mind. He only had a mind, and eyes, for one thing.

Behind him, high atop the trees which surrounded him, a slithering form followed. Its eyes, as they reflected the flash of the lightening above, did not cease being crimson like the blood-red rubies that lined the white banks of the Pishon. The beast moved quickly and in inevitable silence, its ancient eyes on the straggling figure below. Soon, the chill gave way to distant warmth. It was time. The red orbs left the man for the first time in a long while.

The man slowed in front of a hedge. Slowly, as though with uncertainty, he reached out with a hand and parted the obstruction. He squinted in the blue light which lit up his face. His eyes adjusted quickly, and he made a detailed examination of the phenomena in front of him.

He was looking into a circular clearing about 500paces in diameter, a perfect circle, he surmised correctly. The centre of the lot was blurry, as though seen through a wall of still water, the way he examined the sun. The rippling blur was luminous too, though the man knew it wasn’t the blur which gave out the light. At the very centre of the clearing stood a large rock, and upon the face of the rock stood a small tree, unremarkable in every way except that its roots seemed to dig into the hard rock. It also had a very potent guard, the man reminded himself. The man was very aware of the presence of Gamukir, the flaming sword which had been stationed here. Gamukir revolved—at the speed of lightning. He wasn’t surprised as to how he suddenly knew this. The flaming weapon was revolving so swiftly around the tree that it had become invisible. The man concentrated, squinting painfully at the vision. His vision slowed, and he could see the glorious sword during a revolution. Its spiral filigreed hilt, two cubits tall, held a large emerald at the very centre. From the top of the hilt shot out a thin body of solid light, out of which blue flames roared. It was this which was responsible for the azure hue thrown on everything, and the welcome warmth.

Gamukir would allow nothing through to the tree and its hallowed trinitarian fruits.

A few cubits above the tree from whose lithe branches hung three blue fruits, a canopy of water had formed. Gamukir had refused even the tiniest droplets of rain ingress into its circle of movement- 50paces around the tree. As a result, the whole area within the purview of the sword was completely dry. The rain gathered above, and drifted down in a rush, as though racing down an invisible semi-circular shell.

The man had seen enough.

He closed his eyes, pulling on the reserves of his energy, and steeling himself for the task ahead. After a long time, feeling the rivulets of rain running down on his face, he exhaled and turned, looking above him at the darkness of the trees. Nothing was there. His escort was gone. He felt the stirring of a fear; a strange feeling, but one he was getting used to with each experience.

On the other side of the clearing from him, the beast slithered into view. The serpent was as wide as the man’s thigh, long as fifteen paces and moved with obvious  regality. The man allowed himself to admire the serpent for a moment. Welded to its head was a diadem on which were nested seven variegated jewels, dug up from the mountain of fire before the world was young. The blue glossy scales of the serpent caught the ambient blue light from the flaming sword, rendering it a vista of living brilliance.

The sword stopped suddenly, and faced the slowly approaching serpent. Two words emanated from empty air as the spirit of Gamukir spoke, “Be gone”. The sword stopped at about fifty paces from the tree. It could go no further, for it was too dangerous to be bestowed that concession in its original mandate.

The serpent hissed rebelliously, baring gilded jaws and adamantine fangs of melded onyx and diamond. The jewels around his flat skull suddenly flared brightly, adding a variegated splendour to ambient lighting in the the clearing. Gamukir spoke no more. The emerald at the hilt flared. Something like a liquid drop fell off it, and the area around the tree was suddenly alive with green flames. The serpent hissed disdainfully, and sprang forward, though not coming too near to the lethal guard. The fire died away as it approached, and Gamukir began to vibrate. The stones on the serpent reached out with separate rays of light, all seeking to fall on the sword, except they didn’t.

Gamukir reacted quickly. The emerald jewel shot a beam to counteract the will of the serpent. The serpent represented ancient evil, evil older than even the spirit of the sword. The sword focused its will, bent on driving the serpent into a paralysing stupor.

The two contenders were perfectly still now as though stuck in a moment of time, the man saw. The battle of the will instigated by the serpent was now in progress. The sword was not made for this, and it would hamper its response time to the man’s own action. Now was the time. He breathed deeply.

One moment, the man was looking through the gap in the clearing, the next he was beside the sword. Gamukir had felt the swift movement, and had lately decided to face the new enemy. Leaving the throes of the serpent’s gaze, it sought to swipe at the intruder which was about to enter its guard radius…

The man stopped just outside the guard radius. His ability would not work within it.  He didn’t stop to think. He simply continued running on the bare strength of his feet, perfectly aware that Gamukir was already about to slay him…

The man’s huge hands wrapped around the hilt of the sword as it began to swipe. Gamukir resisted violently, and flared brighter still, searing the man’s hands. The man roared, a terrifying sound, and held on tightly. The observing serpent shivered slightly for the first time since the Old War.

Gamukir submitted to the will of man, and became dim. The area was now only illuminated dimly, the diadems on the serpent having stopped radiating. Gamukir began burning a brilliant yellow, evidence of its corruption and loss. It had no choice, for it was being wielded by the son of God.

Adam smiled at his victory in the very centre of the garden of Eden, and grinned at the approaching serpent. It seemed only slightly etiolated.

“You have done well, Diablo. Now, I shall never return to dust, or face the eternal judgement of God”

Grinning slightly, his face lit by the yellow flames from the vanquished sword, Adam, the son of God, reached for the fruit of Life.

——

Thanks for reading. And commenting -__-

DreamPost

14-07-2012

This is about 40% of the entire dream. The only part I remember.

——————————————

A boy of about my age came to me, and told me that he stole something from a shrine. Previously, this boy had bullied me, so I wasn’t really interested in his story. But he came to me in the dead of night, with a stubborn expression on his face. He told me the god was going to kill him for stealing, and that I should pray for his salvation.

I was unsure about the story, and why he was asking me to pray for him. While I was still speechless, he motioned with his hands, and suddenly I noticed a hut far behind us. Behind the hut there was a fire. By the fire was a tray, and on the tray was a lot of things I can’t remember. Another boy was also there. He picked up something from the tray and brought it to the boy, it was an object whose function couldn’t be told from its shape. A patently fetish object.

I suddenly knew a lot of things.

I told him I had dreamed of him while he stole the object, but that what he stole wasn’t that very small object. The look on  his face changed, and he swore that thesmall round bone-cloured thing was what he stole. The other boy who brought the thing was now standing beside him.

The darkness rolled away from us, and the colour of the atmosphere changed to a dull brown, such as we only see in old movies. A lot of changes occurred while we spoke out that very short conversation.

I asked him why he had come to me to pray for him. I cant remember what he answered, I agreed to pray, citing that Yahweh was a merciful good, and would take his soul. While I spoke horrible things happened. The boys grew much older in the brownish evening light. A light rain appeared to be falling cos the ground became muddy. The two boys now strangely appeared to be dressed in armor much like the romans wore, but the old man who had stolen from the shrine was rolling on the floor, because his arms and legs had already been cut off. He was just complete from his head to his belly button, no arms. As he was rolling over, I realized he wouldn’t be able to hear me, so I switched my talking to the other man who was standing beside him, dressed in same armor.

He asked me why my God would forgive the dying man, and I laughed and told him that my Yahweh was not like the god of his religion, that his mercy was boundless. Then he shocked me.

‘how can you pray for him, you are not even holy or sinless. We are the same thing!’

As he spoke, my perception of everything changed. The speed of the different images and concepts being made clear to me was too intense. There was this weird thing happening that I really cant explain, but it was like I could see the very nature of evil, I saw it in him, and I saw it in me too at the same time, as though to prove what he was saying. At that moment I realized that I had told him that what he stole was not that small object because I had not seen it in its physical form, I had seen it in this strange evil form, and it was much larger. Basically, the small object contained a great evil. Then the vision ceased.

‘My God is merciful, and my sins will not cause him to abandon me’, I replied.

The man on the ground was certainly in great pain. So I closed my eyes to pray.

‘In Jesus-‘

I woke up instantly, with my head understanding what was happening, and I continued the prayer as though I was still in the dream.

Creator

At the most inopportune time in the ages to come, the candent and relentless albedo of the sun shall find itself burdened with the weight of infinite ages by-gone, and wan to a sanguine orb.

In the days before this supernal aberration, Man would have already fought his last great war, and retrogressed the development of his kind through the attendant destruction by settling once again into primeval cultures and roaming the war-torn plains and atomically leveled cities of the earth, having become inundated and partially invulnerable to the radiation. Then in the course of countable seasons the sun would be observed to dim swiftly to a red dull orb and cast a purple radiance across the earth. The earth, and all that is illumined by the sun in the darkness of the infinite void shall attain a mien of gloom beneath the purple radiance, and the very souls of men shall weep for the loss. No more shall the sun be the muse for some romantic poet, or its illumination power the solar panels of the great cities. Its rising from the east which in saner times was an emotive event will become a torturous parody of the old days, and will lift no hearts or trodden soul by its impotent and lacklustre display. Much knowledge would be lost and primal instinct would hold much sway in the demeanour and dealing of man.

Men shall move about in uncertainty and speculate in mournful susurration of a time when the red glow which cast its melancholic rays shall find itself extinguished for all time. The progeny of these men would hear about a yellow sun as in a mythic lore, and stare with hungry souls at the orb which hangs balefully beyond the purple clouds. The moon of the twilight shall be brighter than the sun at noon, and the stars shall shine will dazzling brilliance in the absence of a more glorious celestial body.

In that irreligious and verdigris-eaten world of broken steel and twisted copper, of irradiated concrete, shattered glass, and thatched settlements, the fruit of the field will be sparse, ill-grown, inadequate and a pallid tone would be propagated on the flesh of man. The long-curtailed primal instincts would rush to the fore as though atoning for the ages of repression, and many a man would find sustenance in the raw flesh of another before he submits to slumber. Then men shall resort, as like through the countless ages, to creating deities and issuing lamentations mingled with entreaties for their salvation.

The creator would hearken, and undertake a journey to the sun to achieve repairs and restore it to its old glory, that men may show gratefulness by returning to his adoration. Now the creator had not deemed it expedient to use his power and skill since the first creation at the beginning, except for the achieving of minor wonders among mankind in the days when the lore of him was told abroad, and men bowed to the earth at the mention of his name. He shall find upon reaching the sun that he is as much helpless in reversing its death as the men which cry out to him, for it would not hearken to his command to burn yellow, or yield to his creative devices. As though taking stock of himself for the first time since the beginning, he shall notice for the first time the trailing silver beard which adorn his chin and sweep the ground he treads. He shall look with rising alarm at his mottled hands and feel the beginning of a certain weakness in his appendages. He will also begin to perceive a slight waning in the intensity of his glory. Then a fear shall grip him as it dawns on him  that as the universe is drawing to an interminable close, so is he. He will realize for the first time, how much of himself he had put into the work of creation, and how wrong he was to mistake his great longevity for immortality. He cannot now even remember his beginnings, for it is mired in an epoch so far gone that it seems to have been lost in the infinite oblivion of the great ether. He will recall with sudden alarm that the universe was before him, and that he simply created all within it. the untouchable darkness of the cosmos was before him, and now light must die; For the darkness was here first, and will remain forever. Standing in front of the dying sun, he shall weep in mourning at this calamitous state of things, and turning resolutely about him, head towards the earth.

On the ancient olympian heights of Greece shall thunder and lightning and fire coalize in a brilliant display announcing the coming of majesty, and men shall see from all over the earth and tremble as they run to the hills and into the dead forests, fearful of the baleful scene and incurious to its demystification. The creator shall appear and call them to him, and they shall come at his feet. And while his beards and robes billow in the wind, he will relate to them his impotency in trying to reverse the ominous trend of the celestial cycle and how close to the end he has found himself to be. The people of that unfortunate world shall find themselves stricken with a loss of hope. The creator shall then invite them into his cave on the great mountain; and seated in his purple robes which majesty the pale sun will fail to diminish, tell them of the things that have passed, of other ages, and of great men. He shall tell them about the vanity of the philosophy of an eternity, and the foolishness of an eternity after the grave. In the aeonian rocks of Olympia, his audience shall attend solemnly and listen to his final oration while the world outside the igneous mountain grows reddish gray as it gallops towards a silent annihilation. One after the other, men shall fall into eternal sleep while he speaks, and he shall keep speaking until the last lung has stopped its throbbing dance. When all is silent save the frothy waves which crash into the Grecian peninsula, he shall lay supine upon the flat rock on which he sits and ordain it for a catafalque. As he makes preparation to sleep forever, dark blotches shall appear in the vermillion pallor of the sun. Like a lantern which flares up brightly before its fuel runs out finally, the sun shall assume its former candent glory for a few moments, and swiftly, like a forest fire which has been deprived of air, go out. In the cave which is only lit by his ebbing effulgence, he shall close his eyes and dissipate into the universe which had made him so.

The moon, the earth, the spinning rings of detritus and ice which surround Saturn, the mighty moons of Jupiter, the brilliant stars and a thousand other celestial bodies which occupy the bleak ether…all these things shall be still in that day. And when at last the crashing seas have become stationary and the raging winds have lost their momentum, there shall be a great cacophony as all created things dissipate into the nothingness from whence they were fashioned.

After a time which cannot the conjectured, there shall be a song broadcast in the infinite oblivion, and a rumbling sound shall take precedence. A brightness shall ensue at one end of it, and from its nucleus another would emerge; one who would be called creator. And the first thing he would do would be to create the celestial bodies and, in the fullness of time, forget that the universe was here before him.

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Well, you have read it.

Ekwe.