An August Presence.
It was the eyes I remember mainly…a piercing pair of brown eyes that seemed to always be seeing something that no one else saw, some hidden part or inside joke which only he ever saw, but which his face never showed, only his eyes. He was unusually handsome … He had clear, bright eyes … His teeth were wide apart, small, and ill-kept; his hair was slightly curly and inclining to golden; his eyebrows met. His ears were of moderate size, and his nose projected a little at the top and then bent ever so slightly inward. His complexion was between dark and fair. He was short of stature though he commanded attention, when he entered a room it was always with the turning of heads and the silencing of speech. He was a slippery bastard and one for whom I have a large amount of begrudging respect. He slipped me, you see. My name is Detective Anton and this is how Julian August slipped me.
I remember the first time we met, the thought still sets a chill in me, the way I imagine he laughs at how close I was and yet how far. It was at a police pension fundraiser many years ago that I first spotted Julian in person, the lad had been making the circuit in an attempt to get himself elected for some office or position and was here to show his support for the officers. He laughed and he mingled, the crowd seemed to gravitate towards him, the whole room had an angle, an upwards angle towards him and I was on the wrong slope. A character like that never fails to escape my eye and something about this one did not sit well with me. The crowd loved him, the bigwigs ate up his every word and the women lapped up every other sentence. But something was off. A couple days ago we’d recieved word about a gangland style killing, real professional and real smooth. It just so happened to be another competitor of Julian’s who ended belly up in some filthy back alley shack. There was no trace no evidence and no link save for the fact that he was one of many vieing for political power in the already full city, but something just didn’t sit right. I found myself bumped out of my revery by a well dressed good looking young man with those same piercing eyes…”Oh excuse me” he said in an almost angelic voice, “I must not have seen you there, it’s rather crowded in here tonight isn’t it, detective?” In that smooth-almost-too-smooth voice which only politicians can fabricate.
“Not at all Mr August, I was in a world of my own making, mind focussed on this case of mine, I won’t bore you. But since i’m here i’d like to thank you for your support here tonight.
“Detective Anton, it’s my pleasure and I am happy to help the fine officers of our fair city, and If there is any way I can help with your little investigation, don’t hesitate” he said as he slipped me a business card, fine card it was, looked like it was made of marble. I slipped back into the crowd and got back to my table, thinking over the brief conversation we had had.
Smooth…Too smooth.
A gathering of sorts - ed.
The light of the two moons shone brightly upon the hilltop, the grass shivered in the breeze and the sounds of distant predators echoed into the night. A group of heavily cloaked and darkly hooded men and women could be seen huddled around a device of sorts. Of three legs upon the ground stood a scope of glass and metal, reflected upon the table below an image of the moon named by many as the Daemons Eye, named so for the story of its origin. The image upon the table was beset by a series of lines and numbers, measurements of some kind, measurements which one of the members took careful note of, relaying them down in a book. They each took turns looking through the viewing port upon the side of the scope, gazing in wonder at the pockmarks upon the faithless moon.
Reminiscing upon this legend, this fable, Laren looked down upon the mirror image of the Daemon’s Eye reflected upon the table and saw not a portal, but a large rock marked by craters and valleys. It was a beautiful thing indeed, but it was hardly a shining window of any kind. Looking back at the Eye, he could perhaps understand why people may have created such fanciful stories to explain the presence and creation of this celestial object but he wondered why when the truth could be known so clearly, that they would continue to believe such nonsense.
Amar, Battlemage of the 5th Company of Dwel sent his vision high into the sky by magical means, by sending a sliver of his spirit into the air in the distance he was able to throw his vision by great distances. He spied upon the distant hilltop a group of heretics, clearly marked by the mechanical device in their center, he needed no further proof. Withdrawing the sliver back into himself, he felt whole again as if he were back in his body again, though he knew well his full consciousness had never left. Sighing with relief, he uncupped his hand from his left eye, an unnecessary act for scrying distances, but a habit learnt from his teachers nonetheless, and turned to Captain of the 5th Zel Litorn.
“In the distance, Captain, just as rumoured - a group of mechanists gather, huddled around a device of some sort. I could not ascertain whether or not it was a weapon of some kind, but it did not appear dangerous.”
“My thanks, Battlemage, your report is noted. Men, we move to cut down these fiends who would question the works of the gods! Prepare your swords and steady your minds, give praise to those on high, for it is their work we do. In the name of the Enlightened Council, I judge these heretics guilty and sentence them to death.”
The wards they had set about their location triggered suddenly and the cultists turned in fright at the intrusion of an unforeseen threat, a whispering voice in each of their lookouts ears told them of the trespass of magic wielding newcomers. They had long feared that their gatherings may have been noticed by the inquisitorial forces of the council but they had thought themselves beyond notice and safe for the present time. They were wrong. The sky became overcast with a sudden rush of clouds, blocking the moonlight and hiding the newcomers ascent. Crackling lines of lightning split the night sky as the Empire’s battlemages began their gruesome work. Striking at random upon the hilltop they scattered the cultists and sent some flying, the ones that were lucky.
Laren blinked the dirt out of his eyes and attempted to clear the ringing from his ears as he lifted himself off the ground, meters away from him the charred and smoking corpse of his lover and apprentice Sara lay, the unlucky random target of a strike of lightning. Gripped by fury he began to quickly form a lattice work of magic particles, a weaving of air and fire, a simple fireball which he hurled at the nearest hunk of gleaming armour. The fire engulfed the soldier entirely as he flailed screaming, thrown back into the night. The blood rage took Laren entirely and he began to ignite the little linen he saw under the armour of the soldiers, he seemed to incenerate them with his gaze as each new soldier he saw was lit by the flames of his righteous hatred instantly. Lightning suddenly cracked the ground beside him, lifting his hair and sending a tingling along his body at the near miss, he looked up at the sky and threw a wall of air to split the clouds above, shifting them to either side and allowing the moonlight to shimmer down fully upon the hilltop.
The grisly scene below was fully illuminated now, hooded figures lay writing in pain, run through by the sword or burned by spell, soldier by cultist, few were without wound and the ground itself was torn apart, scarcely a blade of grass remained and the apparatus they had all been studying before had been melted and destroyed utterly. The moonlight showed at the base of the hill a circle of soldiers moving slowly forward against the single standing figure upon the crown of the hill, witnessing the carnage he had wrought upon their fellow murderers moments before. The battlemage below, marked by the armoured cloak and the gleaming seal of the Enlightened, looked up at this heathen figure and began to weave. He combined a trickle of spirit with torrent of flame, split and twined about a river of earth and a gathering of air, launched at the hooded figure a mass of energy crackling in the night.
Laren seeing this familiar weaving below, he twisted together his own combination of forces, a mass of spirit and a wall of earth creating a shield to hold back against the lightning which was to come. The beam of energy crashed against the shield held in the air and pushed as the battlemage poured more energy into the spell, his concentration keen upon his work, a trickle of sweat rolled down his cheek. Laren gathered together with his other hand a quick gathering of spiritual energy and shot it down directly at the skull of the mage, crashing into and through the soul of his enemy, tearing it straight from his body and throwing it into the night. The mage collapsed upon the ground, eyes empty and dull, and the soldiers moved upon the man, unafraid and believing falsely that he was spent and without fight left in his body. Spinning suddenly at the first new threat to breach the hilltop Laren threw a sudden gust of air, a simple wall of force and threw the soldier off, shattering his breastplate and several ribs. Several more figures closed in around him and he weaved a lash of flame which he held in his hand, cracking at each new foe, cutting and tearing with a sharpened tail of fire. When suddenly a collar was thrown around his neck from a side, a soldier had approached unseen and was able to place it upon Laren without his notice and suddenly he felt his connection to the universe cut off as his whip of fire was dissipated into the night, a mere memory of light in the blinking eyes of the men. Captain Zel Litorn approached calmly, stepping over or on the fallen bloody and charred bodies of the dead and dieing which littered his path. He whispered in Laren’s ear “You, little heathen, are a mad dog, and this dog will be leashed, you are now the property of the Council and your power will be put at their disposal, your life is at an end.” And with a kick pushed him down, smacking his face against the dirt, leaving a bloody smear of dirt and pebbles along his cheek.
Have you ever become…obsessed I suppose would be the word for it, though I hesitate in the usage…obsessed with a word or a phrase, some kind of sentence which or other combination of letters which hold no real significance or meaning that you can at first discern but for a time nag insistently in the back of your consciousness?
When the mind is empty and dull, perhaps while watching TV or browsing the net, and unclouded by thoughts of any particular kind, it echoes again and again, coming back no matter how often you may try to brush it aside or ignore it, to throw it back in the darkness of the subconscious it only returns again and again until you either embrace it or ignore it so completely that you do not even notice when it is gone…
For me this happens unsettlingly often, it’s usually only a word, though not uncommonly a sentence. A single word, the source of which I cannot later on remember or even attempt to identify for to attempt to do so only brings back some kind of memetic repitition of the word. In the mind it seems to bounce around, you voice it in your head, perhaps even out loud when alone (or not if you’re a little madder than most), you say it in this way or that, sliding it along the mental tongue or the physical one, and you say it again and again as if attempting to look at the mental representation of the word from some other angle, in another light or from another point of view. But ever it remains the one meaningless word until it once again flutters away…
For me right now, this word is ‘Faithless’.
Also, i’m finding the use of brackets (sort of like this eh?) amusing in the use of literary humour, thank you stephen king. Did-a-chuk (dad-a-chum?)
Creation myths - Daemon’s Eye
The story they had all heard was that the Eye was the portal to the domain of Mortu’us, God of the dead, keeper of spirits and the Enemy of Life. It was said that in the days before man, the gods Mendax and Mortu’us each sought dominance for the souls of the beings to come so there was a contest. They were each asked by Asileus, Lord of All, to bring forth tribute to gain his favour. Mendax, it was said, gave to his King a crown of jewels, forged by the flare of the sun. Asileus bore this crown high upon his brow and his splendour did then shine forth. Finding this gift most beautiful and enchanting he wore it often. Mortu’us knowing his brother for what he was, a trickster of most devious sorts deigned that the only gift greater than that already given by Mendax was a mirror. One which could show the true nature of Mendax’s gift. As he presented this heavenly mirror to his lord Asileus, the mirror instantly reflected the dark presence which twisted about the crown, it was a sliver of Mendax’s soul, one which would forever while he wore it, whisper corruptions in his ear. Asileus seeing this was enraged and threw the crown in anger at the mirror smashing it to pieces, the crown flew through the mirror and landed upon the land, becoming what were to be the great jeweled peaks of the Reaching Range, mountains forever sparkling of snow, as jewels in the sky to those below. Mortu’us discovering the nature of a mirror (and perhaps of more than just this mirror) decided to use this new portal, this shattered mirror, as an entry way from the planes of divine, and so a shortcut to that of the dead, to those of mortal kind, a window, an eye into the realm of Mortu’us.
