Deux- A Folly

Deux- A Folly
Bashir called out to Amin, "I think I found him".
Amin began to pull rubble off of a lifeless Camille. The three men were surrounded in the bombed out ruins of a temple. A temple to the old pagan gods. It looked every much as timeless as a Roman ruin. Villagers would be sacrificed to the gods on these old corrupted altars.
Everything had the look of inverted redemption. Gods that should have been saving men demanding a blood price.
Alojzy limped into view calling out to the brothers "I found a peasant farm. They are no friends to the Rus. We can treat him there." Glancing at Camille's pale skin, "Or at least prepare his body."
The brother lifted Camille's body. Although the pallor was gone from his it seemed there were no visible wounds on his body.
They laid him on a table inside of the barn. Then to both the peasant and Alojzy's surprise Amin and Bashir began tying Camille to the table. Then the brothers asked Alojz and the woman to leave. Bashir smiled "Oriental medicine mustn't be witnessed by outsiders. Give us some time and trust in Allah. Camille will be better by the morning.
Alojzy looked lustily towards the peasant girl. He wouldn't have to be told twice. They disappeared into the house.
Bashir and Amin began chanting. As they muttered these lost words Camille's body began convulsing. These death throws were accompanied by an apparent verisimilitude, it looked like his entire body was rejecting itself.
Camille's eyes finally opened but the pupils had expanded so far as to give his entire eyes a blacked out look. As he writhed he began to spit blood everywhere screaming like a mad man. The brothers just kept chanting.
Finally the convulsions slowed and the red blood from his mouth began to look the brownish color of stagnation. The brothers stopped chanting and wiped the blood from his face. Finally Camille spoke, in short halting sentences "Where am I? What happened? Why can't I see?"
Bashir smiled "You are very sick my friend. How much do you remember?"
Camille, regaining his composure "we were going to follow up on some of the information the priest had got for us."
Amin's lips pursed a few more words, "Ah, well I think you found what we were looking for. The good news is that those immortals aren't invincible. We were able to kill one. Or at least you were."
Camille looking shocked "what do you mean?"
Bashir smiled let me explain what happened, "When we found the temple it looked like it had been there since time immemorial. We were welcomed in by peasant girls scantily dressed drugged little servants of the priest. "
Amin "they brought us to the priest. A soft spoken gentle old man. He seated us and began to speak. It was a black mass. As he continued profaning the name of god, the old priest from Königsberg began to grow heated. As if the scars on his body felt the ancient wounds."
Bashir continued "The priest began an incantation from his God. It was to banish this demon back to hell. At the sound of these words the gentle old man grew angry. He ran towards the priest and tore his beating heart out. The men panicked and went to run but the servant girls ascended on them. They ripped our men a part. Only Alojzy, myself, and Amin were the only survivors."
Camille growing impatient, "Well I survived right?" A nervous laugh follows.
Amin paused "Well technically no."
Camille in a joking hesitation said "Yea so what this is hell?"
Bashir looked at him, "Yes in a matter of fact. After tearing the priest a part it came after you. Your bones broke under each punch as the three of us tried to pull him off you. He bit your throat. Ripping you skin off. The blood was flowing out in torrents. Alojzy hit the creature with a candle stick."
Camille "That brave little Pole!"
And Amin interjected, "The priest threw him threw the wall out into the woods. When we found him he could barely even blink. Broken arms, legs, and bloodied to a pulp. We stitched him up and cured him."
Camille laughed "how did you two stop it?"
And Bashir continued, "We didn't. You destroyed it. Amin and I were thrown to the ground and it was planning on finishing us off when you got up, still blood soaked, but something evil was unleashed. Your eyes had turned black and you ran at it like a mad man. You fought him for hours as the temple was destroyed all around you. Finally as the temple started to fall we ran outside."
Camille "I fought him after bleeding to death."
Amin spoke "When we came to we grabbed Alojzy and began rummaging through the rubble looking for you. We found him first. You had torn off one of his arms and there was a gaping hole in his chest. We removed his head then burnt the body for good measure."
"So how long was I out for?" Camille retorted.
Amin smiled "you were knocked out for an entire year"
Camille's shock was obvious, "Well since we cleared all of that up can you tell me why I'm tied up?"

Anatomy of an Overactive Imagination

Conundrum present.
Yes or no?
Left or right?
Nowhere to go.
Shifting sands
And morning sun.
Wake to dreaming.
Devils run.
Forever at a seamless loss.
The Watchers watch,
The Tossers toss.
Drifting into nightmares olde.
Surrealistic tempter's gold.
Visit cities made of gore,
As tomes tell of in ancient lore.
Buildings there of skin and bone,
Made from flesh not wood or stone.
It's there one will absorb the stench
Of rotting dreams in broken French.
Forever damned to breathe the air,
And drink the poisoned water there.

-Selador of Wordcraft

Sanglante de la neige: 1

Sanglante de la neige: 1

As the hooves of the three horses stomped down the snow the youngest of the three riders let out a scream. Lining the camp in a circle where the bodies of Russian Cossacks hanging from trees. The bodies were naked, and horribly mutilated. The throats were cut and the genitals cut off and shoved into there throats. The Maréchal slowed his horse to calm the boy. He spoke softly but still paternally, "Listen my boy, these Cossacks aren't men like you and me, they are monsters, throwbacks from before the enlightenment of humanity." The boy shivered as the three riders dismounted.
A voice from the darkness boomed, "Bienvenue, mon bon Maréchal!" And as the riders walked toward the fire Camille stood up. Beside him were two Moors decked in their traditional garb. Their names were Amin and Bashir. The two had come back with the French after the emperor had conquered Egypt. Amin slowly drew his dagger and stared at the riders. The Maréchal began with the same paternal inflection, "Are those corpses really necessary?" Camille retorted, "Oh my great and wonderful Maréchal these corpses are exactly why we are so safe. And besides I remember your words so clearly. So terror in the countryside, make the Russians think the demons in hell are fighting alongside then battalions of France."
A moment of crushing silence overtook the six men. It was finally broken by the warm laugh of the Maréchal, he laughed and then embraced Camille, "Oh my young brother you were always too thorough." Camille smiled at his brother "Isn't that why I am out here in the first place?" Amin returned his little dagger to his scabbard. And with this signal Bashir and Amin walked off to sit with the rest of Camille's men. The Maréchal began. "Camille, my dear brother, your men exceed even my high expectations of you. Our spies tell us that even now the Czar prays to his false god for deliverance. One even claimed to hear Alexander I claiming that Napoleon was the antichrist himself. It is all too splendid. But your band of cutthroats and ne'er-do-wells will not be needed for much longer."
Camille's slips pursed a gentle smile "Zut Alors! Do you mean to tell me Napoleon and Alexander have decided to stop acting like spoiled children and enter into negotiations?" The Maréchal snapped into a white hot rage, "Camille if you weren't my brother I would have you shot for such treasonous babble!" Then slowly calming down, "Our great and glorious emperor has another job for you. There have been rumors of ancient pagans in the dark forests of Lithuania. Our spies seem to think they have harnessed a dark and evil magic so powerful that their priests can live forever." Camille laughed answering incredulously to his brother, "Ah my good Maréchal, you mean rather than continue a rational guerilla and terror campaign against our enemy I am to run off to the woods in search of ancient pagan non-sense?" His laughter echoed brilliantly around the camp. Until the third rider took his hood off.
Standing before Camille was an ancient man. Scars adorned his wrinkled cheeks. The man looked almost a hundred, life worn completely down by worries and pain. And his eyes were as black as night. "I am a priest from Königsberg. Our monetary was founded during the crusades. The Prussian knights were slaughtering the Lithuanians with impunity, but we balked at this. A man of god wants the sheep to come to the fold not be fodder for the wolves. Our order began preaching to the villages, trying to make their lives a little more fulfilled. However the people thought the Prussians, all of us Germans to be monsters. they clung to their false gods, and we let the knights from all over Europe cut them down."
Camille laughed "Oh the kindness of Christianity!" The Maréchal stared at him "Finish your story old man." And the priest began again, "In a desperate attempt to hold off the crusaders the high priests made a pact with their pagan gods. In exchange for the strength to fight the Franks their souls would be forever cursed with a horrific disease. It mutilated their body and gave them an insatiable desire for human flesh. The high priests went mad with this curse, and retreated to the forests. They abandoned their people when they needed them the most."
Camille interjected again "It sounds like priests in general." The Maréchal slapped his brother, then smiled "Continue my friend." The old priest looked up at them "After the wretched pagans accepted our lord the knights set up a brutal dictatorship. Our order was merged with the Teutons. We joined them to hunt down heretics where ever they were. However in the deep dark pagan forests the priests still lived. They sustained themselves off of human sacrifice and the people prayed to the old gods for salvation from the Christians. We hunted these priests down. We killed them. The first time I laid eyes on one of them I was fifteen." Camille retorted "And it was 1193 right?"
One of Camille's men approached. His name was Alojzy. Alojzy smiled and began to speak, "We have heard of these demon priests in small towns in Poland they are used as bed time stories. You threaten little children. If they don't behave they will be fed to the old gods. It is mostly wives tales and non-sense, but..."
The Maréchal interjects, "Listen Camille your orders are to investigate these priests of the old gods. The emperor has special interest in immortality. This priest and the boy will accompany you. If you can pull this off you might earn yourself a pardon. In the meantime head for Lithuania, and take these maps from the middle ages. The priest should help you find one of the covenants. Now, I must make haste to meet up with the grand army it seems Kutuzov plans to meet us in an actual engagement.

Short-Term Eternity

                It didn’t occur to me to wonder where I was. Yet, I can describe its strange beauty. The stars in the sky that depicted unfamiliar constellations, the tree line in the distance that whispered promises of esoteric knowledge and not least of the marvels were the luminescent objects hovering silently above. The great watchers I called them, because they watched. I say again, it was not my setting that was relevant, nor my purpose… but my choices that mattered.

                I walked and the ground beneath my feet crunched with each step as if the green grass I walked on were dead. I passed pools of dark water. The sight of them triggered a thirst of which I had yet been unaware. It was intense. The thirst spoke to me as a vampire’s thirst for blood. All my craving focused into a single unwavering desire for a mouthful of water. I stooped next to the closest pond and began to drink. The pang of the cool liquid in my stomach was magical. I hadn’t realized how tired I’d become. The forest was still a daunting distance from where I sat and I considered sleeping there under the open sky and the gaze of the watchers.

                And I may have, had it not been for the sudden unbearable pain that saturated every fiber in my being. My stomach clenched and I heaved as warm salty liquid projected from my mouth. Blood. Soon, there was nothing left and I remained on all fours choking on the flesh of my own throat. I could barely breathe. My eyes bulged, and yet they would not stay still. I looked at the moon as it laughed, and at the grass that was not grass. The water beside me came to life with the writhing tentacles of some Lovecraftian horror. It rose from the unimaginable depths of what I had thought to be a pond, and the lights in the sky vanished. I couldn’t tell if the watchers fled, or were simply concealed by the gargantuan monstrosity.

                I swallowed hard, and stood to run. It was perhaps two or three steps before I fell again. I couldn’t take my eyes away from the thing. Its stare utterly engulfed me. It had numerous large black eyes and they drank in every bit of light from their surroundings like astronomical black holes. Tentacles fell from its body in asymmetrical patterns, and wings it should not have had spread wide from its back. I cannot explain how I knew, but it seemed to want to convey some sort of message. I only wanted to escape. To live.

Immortality.

Like a flash of light, the word hit my mind with the force of an epiphany. Only the origin of the thought was alien.

You drank.

Yes. The water. It was poison. I was dying.

Change.

Change from living to dead. I slithered away from the old priest as fast as I could. My legs felt like rubber. I could move them but they offered little strength. Glancing up at the forest in the distance, I felt utterly sad. I would never know the secrets it had to offer. My arms gave out, and when I looked down at my hands I discovered the feeling of true terror. My fingers we gone. My arms were growing long and thin. My legs were already almost fully transformed.

I collapsed. Unconscious. Black. Rest. Relief.

When I woke in the hospital, my family was there. I was told I’d suffered a seizure and was in a coma for four days.

I lived happily for months. I suffered no nightmares and no more seizures.

It happened on the seventh month after my release from the hospital. I was at the bank just making a withdrawal from my savings account for groceries when a man in a black mask walked in and shot three patrons to show he wasn’t “Fucking around”… I remember the first gunshot. I remember there were only three if us in the lobby. I remember dying.

And I had made my choice. I drank the water because I believed the thirst. I chose to forget my goal for temporary comfort. I chose the poison, I chose my eternity. Immortal. Changed. Forever the spawn of great Cthulhu, forced to wait dreaming at R’lyeh. Ia! Ia! 

-Selador of Wordcraft

Red Lipstick, Long Goodbyes, and Serotonin.

Red Lipstick, Long Goodbyes, and Serotonin.

Van looked down at Ana. After just meeting her he had already realized that he loved her. Right there in the glow of her beautiful pale skin, Her eyes began to flutter again. Now our dear Ana looked up at Van, her beautiful red lips pursed together to make out a few words. She said "Van my dear boy, just another shot, I need to forget a little longer." Red tear drops ran down from her arm as Van pumped her veins full once more. Everything in the room turned a glorious red hue and Ana laid back down onto their mattress.
So with his love falling back into the coma of a deep trance, a sweet silent madness. So mad that the red drops roll down Van's arm and he falls next to his beloved the two of them laying on their old mattress their flight from light together.
Right as Ana opens her eyes she sees Van is staring into them. Marvelous hues of green adorned Ana's proud green eyes, round like records and bathed in the sorrows and pains of life. Everyone told Van she wasn't the girl that you devote yourself too. Of course, we never chose the people we love. Eventually love finds us all, and Van, had found happiness with Ana. A cold and simultaneously warm indifference that shown with radiant rays on pleasure, and a shared life of pain.
Now Ana laughed at his smiling face she kissed his neck and followed it with a little bite. Each bite pulling a little harder. Ana licked Van's blood as it dripped from his neck, and the two of them laughed in their simple room. Moreover, they loved in that simple room, and wasn't that what it was all about.
The flight from life, the escape from reality, from pain, from death and loss. Simply stated, all they had was each other and what seemed like an eternity stretched out before them. A gentle poverty and a deep love, it was more than the best of us could ask for, and less than most of us deserve.

.................................
On the day they wed Ana's thin frame clashed dreadfully with her white dress, it seemed to barely touch her skeletal body, she had the look of a concentration camp victim, broken, damned, and given submissively to a life of sorrows. Sorrows that seemed to mean so much less when Van stared into her eyes. Since, he saw something he loved, and swore to her that he would protect her as long as the two of them were together. And that not even, death or madness could test his resolves, or challenge his devotion. Note, his devotion.
Now, Ana had little memories of a time before Van, and the few she had were dotted with tears, broken hearts and torn pink ribbons, each one stretching across her mind like a magnificent shimmering spider web. Brought into being, by a thousand lives of infinite sorrows reflecting themselves in a million little failures, and unending pains. Surrounded by all the devils in hell, viciously coveting her soul and all of that other hullaballoo.
Of course, Van's best man got drunk at the reception and called little Ana a whore. Everyone stared in silence at her sad broken face, but there would be no tears today, just a sad pursing of the lips followed by a maddening little laugh. Having the effect of the entire wedding party taking it as a joke, but even the girl's laugh bore the stain of a million crimes, committed in silence, and solitude.
.................................................
Echoes in the empty apartment bounced around the walls. Singing songs of seconds suddenly lost by the elapse of time and madness, of the erosion of youth and the journey toward oblivion. A reunion with the void. Devouring the precious seconds that these two young people have to share. Erasing the infinity of love and sorrows. Sorrows that paint the canvas of the madmen which pull the strings behind the scenes in this odd and insane world. Do the furies care for mortal happiness, or are we just the playthings of the gods?
She stared into Van's eyes and time halted once more, the two lovers stuck in a liminal expanse of forever. Revealing other forevers and nevers that could no more be mutually understood by mortals. Suddenly time skipped forward and backwards, sideways long ways and all the dimensions and spaces cascaded into a simple picture.
Everything made sense. Each image slowly turned the red hue of the room away. Yet Van, could feel something wrong, for all the finiteness of these flashes, something was tugging at his mind and finally he awoke with a start. The woman he loved was laying dead on his mattress beside him. Melancholy infected his soul. Leaning forward his face buried in his hands.

Dabblenaught

Dabblenaught

By: Selador of Wordcraft

                Azrael Ka cleared dust from the cover of an ancient book. If its title was once rendered there, it was etched clean by time. No matter. Ka knew the name of the book but dared not utter it. The book he gazed upon was the most dangerous object in the known world, and held secrets to unleashing untold horrors.

                But that was utter nonsense. Old stories meant to frighten people away from obtaining the gifts it promised. Ka craved the power, his wealth left him wanting for little, but this, this would be the ultimate prize. He spent years studying the various languages and symbols used in the dreaded book and he was finally ready to reap his reward.

                The book creaked and crackled as the binding flexed and revealed rough pages of an old material said to be indestructible, but obviously stainable, blood scarred the face of many chapters.

                Ka flipped through the pages determined to find the perfect passage, one that would offer immediate results. Immortality would be unknowable and too risky to test. Wisdom perhaps? No. The passage for wisdom would take far too long to incant. Maybe if they had a short passage that offered patience, he mused. Then he saw it. Human flight. He had always wanted to be able to fly. Who hadn’t?

                His excitement began to mount as he uttered the sounds written on the page. His body began to change, at least internally. The more he read the lighter he felt, he found he could weigh as much or as little as he wanted. He could lift his arm to turn the page without needing to exercise muscle control in the slightest. It was working!

                When Azrael Ka finished the incantation, he slammed the book shut with a “THUP!” and a puff of dust smoke, and then locked it away safely in his secret place. His movement was effortless; muscle use was nearly optional when it came to basic motor skills. They needed to be called upon when he interacted with the door out of his dungeon, but gravity did not serve its usual resistance.

                He went upstairs and stepped outside into his courtyard. With a small flex in his mind Ka rose a few feet into the air. It worked. This was real. He could fly. In his excitement he shot into the sky at a tremendous speed… right smack into the jet engine of an airplane. 

Confessions of an Average Madman

For your consideration, an anthology of sin. Perhaps I've always had a panache for self destruction, but allow me this beautiful little lie. I hope you don't hold it against me, but I've.... they've always kept me warm. I can hardly breathe without them anymore. There are so many of them now. A writer sells a little bit of truth with a lot of lies. And a sad little boy wears them like a suit of armor. Look how the metal glistens in the light.
The light that constantly strips me and beats me into abnegation. I lay there lost and naked. My head pounds. It plays a tune on the infernal beating. Like an old marching ditty. I pull myself up. The floor is cold. However the sun has made it rather clear that I'll not be getting out of this one. Alas, what do I do now. A good Irish boy is taught to go to confession. However does it count if you've forgotten where you placed the truth?

Heh, well here I go. forgive me father for I have sinned.
I've cheat lied, and stolen, whenever it was expedient.
I've drank too much, and made a whore of myself, and reveled in it.

So I sit here listening to the rain crack in the sky, please give me clouds today.
I can have a little more peace of mind with clouds.
But you don't forgive me do you? You know even my misdeeds are exaggerations, and lies.

A real heartfelt poetic license used only to induce enough time for me to run.
Ah but father, can I run! I can run for hours, for days, for weeks.
And I can run my mouth off, a million lyrical lies. Sounding beautiful rolling on a liars tongue.
And now of course. You want to tell me I don't understand the spirit of the whole confession thing. I'm just indicting myself deeper with my pact. All my little nothings, my lies, and pillow talk. Did you know that all these things keep me warm at night. The memories of a dozen fucks. The cries of anguish from all the souls that suffer. Here I stand, thinking I wanted to atone for my sins. No my dear I am here to boast of them.
Listen up Father because I'm not sure I'll always be as kind. I hope you know you're not getting out of here alive. You see, it is with a flash of rabid madness that I feel my bones ready to walk a few dozen more miles. I feel my tongue ready to spin pages more of lies, and I hope that all the devils in hell and the angels in heaven begin to fear my arrival. Between Lancelot and Lucifer so to speak. So get ready for the next slide in a real horrorshow scene of decadence. Lock you doors. Lock up you daughters and get ready to experience something wicled. Oh and.....

Forgive me father, because you have sinned....................