Post by The Forgotten God on Mar 28, 2015 17:11:53 GMT -5
From the journals of Oriax of the Shadow, Shadowbinder of Asshai, Adept of the Council of Unseen Sciences, and Master of Rituals. Some of the earlier pages are aged, as if centuries old. It is written in Asshaii runes, each letter giving the memories life, some written in ink and others in blood. There are no dates, one entry continuing into the next without warning:
In the years following my father’s death, I think it’s true to say that the Shadow became my whole world. During the long period of mother’s illness, the Shadow often seemed so vast, so confidently real, that my comparison, I felt little more than a ghost haunting its expanses; scarcely aware that anything else existed beyond. It was there that I caught my first glimpse of the other world, the world on the dark side of the mirror. Along the banks of the black river Ash, on the edge of the Shadowlands where the ghost grass grows as far as the eye could see, I came across a man. Can a man still be called such with his mind broken? The waters of the ash glimmered with a pale green phosphorescence by night, and the fish that swim in it are blind and twisted, so deformed and hideout to look upon that only fools and shadowbinders will eat their flesh. This individual was the former. He dug through the mud, nails stripped and fingers bleeding, stuffing his mouth with the monstrous squirming beetles that he found-each possessing for too many legs and eyes. His eyes, black pools lost in madness, turned to me. I focused on the torch in my hand, in that day still foolishly taking comfort in its light to ward off the darkness, and burned him to ash. There was ozone and the smell of burned skin in my nostrils…but I feel nothing as I took the pearl-handled dagger from his corpse. I cut my mother’s throat with the blade. Later, in the dusty streets, choking and sobbing, I vomit-bringing up her half-digested remains.
Many years later, when I became aware of the beetle as a symbol of rebirth, I realized that the madman was simply trying to protect himself in the only way that made sense to him. Even then, I think I understood that I had been born again, in that other world: A world of fathomless signs and portents….of magic and terror…of symbols and power.
I feel alone…and fragile. The Shadow, it…does things to the mind, Now where was I? Where am I? Where will I be? The apparent disorder of the universe is simply a higher order, an implicate order beyond our comprehension. I have begun experimentation on children for this reason. They’re all mad, but in each of them is an implicate adult. Order out of chaos. Or is it the other way around? To know them is to know myself. My mask, shining silver, hides me from the eyes of gods. But they see what I do to the children, spilling their entrails, order out of chaos.
I practice my spells without restraint or censure in the Shadow, conduct my obscene rites, fornicate with demons when I desire. Nothing is forbidden. Sometimes I think the Shadow is a head…we’re all inside a huge head that dreams us all into being. Perhaps it is my head…a dark looking glass….perhaps the Shadow is me.
Yeen…the Council has sent me to Yeen. To investigate the temple of King Hrothgar, its god-king before the jungles and vines claimed the empire, who was said to be able to transform into a dragon. They have assigned me an apprentice-Alexter. I find him charming and highly educated. We discuss the symbolism of the Yeenish hieroglyphs and he beats me at chyvasses; twice. On the second week I awake to find our guide slain, his body in pieces, indescribably violated. Almost idly I wonder where his head is. And then I look in the hollow of a nearby tree…and the tree looks at me. Just as the Doom subdued the dragons of Valyria, so too shall I bend this temple to my will. I will bring light to those dismal corridors and will open up the locked doors. Reason will triumph over the irrational.
I killed Alexter with the pearl-handled dagger, not simply cutting his throat, but sawing his head from his shoulders. The ritual sacrifice has kept the horrors of Hrothgar’s Temple at bay for the moment. Time…becomes…strange. Abruptly I become convinced that the temple is alive and trying to communicate with me. I have been shown the path. I must follow where it leads. I must confront the unreason that threatens me. I must go alone into the dark sepulcher, without a backwards glance, and face the dragon within. I have only one fear. What if I am not strong enough to defeat it? What then? I feel small and afraid. Perhaps I’ve done the wrong thing. Somewhere, not far away, the dragon hauls its terrible weight through the corridors of the temple. I am borne up on a wave of perfect terror and the world explodes. There is nothing to hold onto…no anchor. Panic-stricken, I flee the shades of a fallen empire. I run blindly through the madhouse and cannot even pray…for I have no god. Doors open and close, applauding my flight. Walls bleed and a choir of sexually maimed children sings my name over and over again…Oriax…Oriax…Oriax. I must see my reflection to prove I still exists. I hear the dragon coming closer, closer. Desperately I pull the pearl-handled dagger from my robes, standing revealed in the blood-stained steel, and I stare into old familiar eyes-my mother’s. I must have fainted then, for it is morning when next I open my eyes-no longer able to tell where the dragon ended and I begin. I am the son of the widow. It is the maze that dreams and I am lost.
Electricity enflames my brain…the fire of heaven on the Isle of Faces. A pilgrim, come into my presence pilgrim. Gaze upon the lord thy god. I’ve saved it all. There’s power in it, you see. Gift of my body, power in my blood. It shall transform the dry lands of Asshai into the perfumed orchards of paradise and men will worship me anew. Power is born in the blood. It is my birthright...my inheritance...my destiny!
In the years following my father’s death, I think it’s true to say that the Shadow became my whole world. During the long period of mother’s illness, the Shadow often seemed so vast, so confidently real, that my comparison, I felt little more than a ghost haunting its expanses; scarcely aware that anything else existed beyond. It was there that I caught my first glimpse of the other world, the world on the dark side of the mirror. Along the banks of the black river Ash, on the edge of the Shadowlands where the ghost grass grows as far as the eye could see, I came across a man. Can a man still be called such with his mind broken? The waters of the ash glimmered with a pale green phosphorescence by night, and the fish that swim in it are blind and twisted, so deformed and hideout to look upon that only fools and shadowbinders will eat their flesh. This individual was the former. He dug through the mud, nails stripped and fingers bleeding, stuffing his mouth with the monstrous squirming beetles that he found-each possessing for too many legs and eyes. His eyes, black pools lost in madness, turned to me. I focused on the torch in my hand, in that day still foolishly taking comfort in its light to ward off the darkness, and burned him to ash. There was ozone and the smell of burned skin in my nostrils…but I feel nothing as I took the pearl-handled dagger from his corpse. I cut my mother’s throat with the blade. Later, in the dusty streets, choking and sobbing, I vomit-bringing up her half-digested remains.
Many years later, when I became aware of the beetle as a symbol of rebirth, I realized that the madman was simply trying to protect himself in the only way that made sense to him. Even then, I think I understood that I had been born again, in that other world: A world of fathomless signs and portents….of magic and terror…of symbols and power.
I feel alone…and fragile. The Shadow, it…does things to the mind, Now where was I? Where am I? Where will I be? The apparent disorder of the universe is simply a higher order, an implicate order beyond our comprehension. I have begun experimentation on children for this reason. They’re all mad, but in each of them is an implicate adult. Order out of chaos. Or is it the other way around? To know them is to know myself. My mask, shining silver, hides me from the eyes of gods. But they see what I do to the children, spilling their entrails, order out of chaos.
I practice my spells without restraint or censure in the Shadow, conduct my obscene rites, fornicate with demons when I desire. Nothing is forbidden. Sometimes I think the Shadow is a head…we’re all inside a huge head that dreams us all into being. Perhaps it is my head…a dark looking glass….perhaps the Shadow is me.
Yeen…the Council has sent me to Yeen. To investigate the temple of King Hrothgar, its god-king before the jungles and vines claimed the empire, who was said to be able to transform into a dragon. They have assigned me an apprentice-Alexter. I find him charming and highly educated. We discuss the symbolism of the Yeenish hieroglyphs and he beats me at chyvasses; twice. On the second week I awake to find our guide slain, his body in pieces, indescribably violated. Almost idly I wonder where his head is. And then I look in the hollow of a nearby tree…and the tree looks at me. Just as the Doom subdued the dragons of Valyria, so too shall I bend this temple to my will. I will bring light to those dismal corridors and will open up the locked doors. Reason will triumph over the irrational.
I killed Alexter with the pearl-handled dagger, not simply cutting his throat, but sawing his head from his shoulders. The ritual sacrifice has kept the horrors of Hrothgar’s Temple at bay for the moment. Time…becomes…strange. Abruptly I become convinced that the temple is alive and trying to communicate with me. I have been shown the path. I must follow where it leads. I must confront the unreason that threatens me. I must go alone into the dark sepulcher, without a backwards glance, and face the dragon within. I have only one fear. What if I am not strong enough to defeat it? What then? I feel small and afraid. Perhaps I’ve done the wrong thing. Somewhere, not far away, the dragon hauls its terrible weight through the corridors of the temple. I am borne up on a wave of perfect terror and the world explodes. There is nothing to hold onto…no anchor. Panic-stricken, I flee the shades of a fallen empire. I run blindly through the madhouse and cannot even pray…for I have no god. Doors open and close, applauding my flight. Walls bleed and a choir of sexually maimed children sings my name over and over again…Oriax…Oriax…Oriax. I must see my reflection to prove I still exists. I hear the dragon coming closer, closer. Desperately I pull the pearl-handled dagger from my robes, standing revealed in the blood-stained steel, and I stare into old familiar eyes-my mother’s. I must have fainted then, for it is morning when next I open my eyes-no longer able to tell where the dragon ended and I begin. I am the son of the widow. It is the maze that dreams and I am lost.
Electricity enflames my brain…the fire of heaven on the Isle of Faces. A pilgrim, come into my presence pilgrim. Gaze upon the lord thy god. I’ve saved it all. There’s power in it, you see. Gift of my body, power in my blood. It shall transform the dry lands of Asshai into the perfumed orchards of paradise and men will worship me anew. Power is born in the blood. It is my birthright...my inheritance...my destiny!