"Honor the Dragons, for it is through their work that you can serve the Empress."

The passing words of a minister, a lay priest of the Creed.  It was a cold day, my pale skin rising in small goosebumps from the thin, and, to be honest, barely concealed figure.  I was cold, rags did little to keep me warm, while the priest sipped his tanna tea between sermons.  He was warm, he took his time.

"Be glad for the chance to serve in this life, for if you should serve well, you shall be forgiven of your innumerable sins.  Work hard, servants, and honor thy Masters!  Do thy work without fussing or complaining!"

I rolled my eyes and looked to my sister, her large, black ringed eyes watching me with a hint of mischief to them.  She rubbed at her chained wrist, bound to mine as I was bound to the large barbarian to my side.  He did not speak any tongue I knew, and there was a certain gruffness to him that was barbaric, but mhe was no enemy of mine, or of any of the Djala bound as he was.  I gave him a smile, and he nodded once, his shaggy, unshaven breard hanging to his chest.  He had been here a very long time.

"Now then, bow your head in prayer, then set to your work.  Honored Dragonbloods, please, take the slaves to their work places, and let them purify their sins through labor to the Empire."

I grunted and sighed, slowly standing with the rest of the coffle.  Work.  I hated work.

"Halt."  Outside of the work houses, the lead Dragonblood, of the Caste of the Earth, halted my coffle and gestured us to be unchained, that we could work without troubling our neighbors.  He gave me an appraising look that made my skin crawl, before he slapped me on the flanks and pushed me through the door.  My backside hurt as I trundled into the faintly lit room, to the back chambers to cook and work with the vegetables brought in.  I was glad to not work the fields, but the scent of food I would be damned to eat made my mouth water.  I smiled to my Sister, as she was lead to a farther chamber, and glanced up at the big Brute.  He shrugged at me and went to tenderize the meats for the feasts that were held, on this day of honoring the Ascension of the Empress.

Honoring my ass, just an excuse to get drunk again.  I held my tongue, my fingers dancing quick to pick out the better of the fruits for consumption.  I let the time pass, picking, picking, picking, before being sent to prepare rice for boiling, noodles for cooking, this for this, that for that.  I prepared, with the rest of the slaves, and let my anger go into the food I worked with.
It was many hours later when I, with the rest, were chained together to return to the barracks, and I walked with what strength I had left, tired from standing, and hungry, though not looking forward to the gruel that awaited us. I sat at my bunk and ate, rubbing the bruises on my wrists and glad for the thin warmth provided by discarded blankets, and waited in the dark, for my sister to return. She always stayed later, though no work I envied.

She returned later, a secondary coffle of the pretty girls and boys who were chosen for other duties. She did her best to make no sound, but I could hear her whimpering, holding herself. They were not gentle with her. They never were. My heart ached for her, so powerfully it ached, and I reached to touch her shoulder to let her know I was still here, that I still cared and loved her. She accepted the touch and I held her close, to let her sleep, pained and bruised and battered.

My anger was deep there, as I laid her head on a pillow. Deep, and gnawing at my heart, like a beast wanting to be set free. I sat in my bed for many hours, before sleep pulled me under. I did not sleep enough, but few could tell with the dark eyes of a Djala. Few could tell I was still seething as I worked the next day, back at the food stuff, my ass still aching from the slap, my fingers working into the dough, the grapes, the knife biting into wood as I slammed it through the leafy greens.

As I lay awake and held her again as she shuddered, barely able to sleep for the pain.

"I don't like it when you do that."  I said, the guard gazing down at me again, his eyes surprised, for a brief moment, where he was going to smack me like he had done for almost the full year of my enslavement.  My voice was steel, my teeth grit, and the burning anger hard in my gut.  I gazed up at him, two heads taller than I, and he sneered down at me.

"Got some balls on you, Djala."  He said, voice acid.  And then he struck me in the belly with his foot, and slammed his fist into the side of my face, sending me tumbling down into the rain and snow and mud.  I grunted, retching from the force that had gone through my body.  The stones had cracked from how hard I'd been hit.  I turned my head and looked up at him, before he laughed, and kicked me again.

"Know your place, slave."

It was the giant who helped me to my feet and carried me to my work.

Work was painful, with only one eye open, and with my mouth swollen, my knee aching.  Work was hard, so very hard, and I stretched my aching arms out to stir the noodle, the heat of the fire unnoticed to the ice that had replaced my blood.  I didn't notice the hot water splashing me any more, I didn't care that the wood cracked as I hit the chopping block with my flat blade again and again.

I did notice when I grabbed the knife and threw it, and it sank six inches into the stone wall.  The barbarian stared at me, his eyes unreadable, before reaching over to touch my shoulder to comfort me.  I was calmer for it, but I wanted to do more, to end this.  My head hurt, my body ached, and my chains felt heavy.

"I'm tired."  I said to him.  I looked up at this giant, two heads taller than the bastard who had struck me, he who had to duck and stoop to work in the kitchen.  Even here, he remained large, great arms hauling the pots and logs and tables where they needed.  "I'm tired of being beaten, of seeing my sister hurt, I'm tired of these chains, and I'm tired, so bloody tired, of those bastards mistreating people!"

"I too am tired."  He was not proficient, but it was there, the meaning of his words.  I gazed up at him with a shiver of anger rolling in my gut, wanting to be let free of the cage it was in.  "I tired of cooking.  Pots heavy."

He flexed an arm, the dragon wrapping it seeming to writhe over the mountains that were his muscles.  I nodded to him, then, and clasped forearms, my hand positively elfin against his greater paw.  "They no treat people good."

"No.  They no treat people good."  I said.  I looked to him then, and knew I was going to die today.  But, I felt freedom, as I took ahold of my anger and pointed towards the lock.  He gave a grunt and grabbed the great mallet he used to tenderize the sides of cattle, and he swung it at the lock.  It shattered.

"Come, little panda brother, we show strength."  I grabbed the mop and snapped off the head and followed at his side.  He let loose a roar of the north that shook the other slaves, and terrified the keeper outside the door.

The keeper did not have a chance, as I broke his knee with the make-do staff, and shattered his clavicle with a downward sweep.  He yelled his warning and gurgled into moans of pain.  Rebellion was in the air, and some of the slaves caught it.  They would go with us, for they were tired too.

Of course, it was sixteen slaves against twenty two guards, and four dragon blooded, and they were hardly any push-overs.  I gazed up at the barbarian, who charged into a pair of guards caught off guard, and crashed their heads together like symbols - the ringing made even my head ache in sympathy.  I swung my stave and caught a spear thrust and shoved it down, my left leg snapping out to catch the man in the groin.  He doubled over, holding himself, before I snapped my foot up against the bridge of his nose, and sent him spinning.

Three down, too many to go.

"Restilio!"  The shout, the sweet voice of my sister.  She was at the side of one of the bastard dragonbloods, his hand holding his knife with a look of dumb surprise.  She struggled against his grip and bit him as he reached for her - and I felt pride, which turned to horror as she was backhanded, and thrown into a wall with a pained crunch.  Her body was limp, and my hands trembled.

My vision narrowed and wavered with a whisper in a tongue I knew not - asking me a question - a question I was unsure of.  The world had stopped movement - a slave lay broken with a spear through her chest - the barbarian, my big brother, held aloft two guards by their hair and was swinging them like flails against the others.

Three of the blooded were rushing to me, and he who hurt my sister, he who had harmed her was raising himself up, his hand drawing the great jade blade from its scabbard.

The voice asked again.

"Yes."

The world exploded into light.

"Anathema..." A word whispered in horror, and in wonder. My body was not upon the ground as I felt the fire race through me, an agony of pain washing through my body, and then a euphoria, replaced with a most intense, interesting, and beautiful feeling.

A wash of a lifetime ago spilled through my head, and I found myself in the memories of so many centuries ago. I was bathed in the first rays of sun on the longest day of the year, I was cast in the golden rays of The Unconquered Sun, and I knew his name, for He smiled upon me. I was alive, like I had never been before - and I felt the world call to me, needing me, to fix this world to what it should be.

"Anathema." The bastard who harmed my sweet sister, my Tackchi, would know justice. My feet touched the ground and I watched him rush me, as did his four companions. Their weapons were drawn, and their blades hummed in fear, for their blades knew who, what, they faced, even if I only had a grasp of it.

The first blade swung low, and slashed at my chest - the tip scratching across the surface as I twisted away, and brought my elbow down. The blade screamed as I smashed it away from me, and caught the second thrust between forearm and bicep. The third was swept away with a twist of my head, and I spun, wrenching a blade free from the dragonblood. My leg swept out, and caught him in the chest, sending him spiraling, twisting in shock, surprise, and pain as he crashed through the table he had risen from, thirty feet away. I had not thought about the motion I flowed with, as it did not require thought - these were the instincts awoken in me.

I spun again, my fist slapping into the chest of the fire caste, who staggered, and felt blood trickle his mouth.  My palm caught him aside the face and sent him down into the wooden floor with a sickening crack.  He groaned most painfully, as I faced the third, who stepped back.

His head fell forward as my Big Brother brought both hands down in a thunder-blow, sending him into the ground up to his knees.  At his brow was a great circle, flared and open with the glory of the Dawn.  He gazed at me with a large smile.

I faced the fourth, the bastard who struck me every morning, who had harmed my sister at night.  He gazed at me in mortal terror, as I approached him, as I closed the distance.   Justice demanded penance, and he would pay.

"See to my sister, and the others.  This is between he and I alone, Big Brother."





"Your crimes are written in your eyes, Dragonblood."  I found my voice to be... compassionate.  I had lost my anger in my own pain, I had no more hate, though I must admit, I was going to enjoy bringing justice.  "How many girls have you killed in your pleasures?  How many have been bruised and pained and forced to serve you?  How many have you robbed and stolen from, in your belief that it is your right, that they are less than worthy of respect?  How many girls, and boys, have you harmed?"

I walked up until he was not more than five feet from me, his blade limp in his hand.  His mouth gaped open, as I looked up, unafraid of him.  I had never been afraid, I realized, only hesitant.  I knew, with the certainty of knowing how to breath or swallow, that he was a very, very wicked soul.

"How many lives, ruined?  Killed for looking crossways at you?  Is life so cheap to you, Danclii? How could you have become this?  This failure, this terrible man-boy who cannot even face his fears?"

That roused him, as I hoped it would.  He swung the great blade at my front and I stepped to the side, feeling it shave the air in-front of my cheek.  He snarled incoherently as he reversed his grip, bringing it side ways to hew me in half.  I bent backwards, feeling it cross its shadow over my belly, and flipped backwards, to my feet.  He struck a third time, and the wood between my feet cracked.

"You are guilty.  Your sins slow you, weigh you down, Blood."

He drew his blade up again and lunged, but this time I was prepared, and parried it as easily as one would parry a child with a stick.  I swept the blade up and struck his belly, cracking the woven armor he wore.  I struck again, sending him back, as he lowered the blade to sweep at my hand again.  I stepped back.

"You called me slave.  My name is Restilio, and I am... I am chosen of the Unconquered Sun, and I am his Lawbringer.  You are guilty."

He lunged forward, and this I caught with my fist, and returned the force as the blade buried between my knuckles.  The flow reversed as he was blown back and through the room, and through the great glass windows between the outside rain, and inside luxury.

I walked to the window and stepped through, as he gazed up at me, on his knees.

"Spare me!  Have mercy!"  He begged.  He was simpering, trembling, pleading with his fear and pain, for he had never before been outmatched in a fight, not when it mattered.  "Please, spare me!"

I felt pity again, and closed my eyes.  The Unconquered Sun demanded justice, but even He gave His light upon the just and unjust, and was always one to forgive, if one but asked.  I clenched my teeth, and felt the anger flow out of me.
I turned his blade and held it out to him. He took it, and let it touch the ground at my feet. IT was beautiful, worth a thousand slaves in value, and my knuckles ached where it had struck. A fine blade.
"Go. Tell your Masters their reign is through. Tell them that no more slaves will be taken, and that the Djala people will be avenged. Go, dog, and tell them they will be vanquished, as the shadow is vanquished by the glory of the midday sun. Go!"

I turned and walked away from him, leaving him to his misery, and raised my arms open, to feel the heat of the sun breaking through the clouds. A ray fell upon the ground before me, an acknowledgement of my oath to the Unconquered Sun, and I breathed in deep the warm, fresh air. It was pleasing. I looked to my rags, and sighed softly - I needed something better than this.

"Thank you. Anathema."

His boots splashed in the mud and snow, his blade heavy as he lunged for me, impossibly fast. I turned, I would be too slow, with the blade aimed towards my ribs. I spun slowly, gazing, watching, staring in horror at him...

...before he fell, skidding across the mud and slush, and lay behind me. A blade stuck out of his throat, and the wound spat red in wet gouts. I gazed down at him, then slowly up towards the hand that threw the blade - white and spotted black, trembling with the surity of the throw. Behind her, a surprised Big Brother stood, looking to her. Her bruises were large and painful, but she had a fire in her.

"Brother?" She asked, as her hand fell. "Can we go home now?"

I looked to the sky, as the clouds moved in, and the streets filled with shouts of horror and fear. I looked at her with a smile, and shook my head slowly.

"No. We have work to do, to make this city right. But, it might be best if we lay low for a while, and escaped the city."

Her face fell, before she gave a slow, but determined, nod. She understood, she knew it had to be done. She knew, as surely as a woman knows the secrets of feminity.

"Okay, brother."

---

And that's how /I/ play Exalted.  Picture is a Djala, according to the books.

The moonlight was beautiful. Above the shore and beneath the waves, it did not matter, the silver glitter was the same, beautiful and kind and soft on the skin, and bright, so bright - it was the hunters moon over the sleeping time on the darkened township of Oviserv.

Oviserv. In the small cove and natural port on the edge of the great fishing schools, it provided a rich bounty to those who respected it, and those who understood the need to give back.

Sitting at the shore, a young woman looked out upon her home, the town, and clasped her hands to the white dress that hugged her small, young figure ever beautifully. A thin veil hid her face, as she sat, watching, and listening to the shore lapping at the rocks.

"You do us proud." Her father had said. "You do us so very proud, choosing to honor our ways, daughter."

Cold comfort, as she watched the water part and a shape lift out, a spear in his hand. His hand, the webbed fingers stretched upon the bone crafted weapon, and his mouth gaped, gasping at the air, tasting the sweetness, the dry feeling over his tongue. Sahuagin, folk of the water, folk of the deep oceans.

He looked upon her with eyes that could not be read, and extended a hand, as if asking, asking if she were ready. He was as nervous as she, though his pride refused to let him show it.

"Come." He breathed, to his bride to be...

"What joys we have to show you, Ambassador."

In the secret theaters of the under-tunnels, in places that no human had stepped before, places carved of the earth with a precision that one did not need to be a dwarf to appreciate, but with strange angles and climbs that required the assistance of one of his spidery escorts.

"Come this way.  Up to the great amphitheater.  I do hope you can appreciative the subtleties of what you will witness, though I know not the limits of your anatomy."

The Ambassador gave a simple nod as he settled upon one of the hanging benches that was suspended high above the curved and deepened depths below.  The lights along the side of the bowl dimmed, but for one greater one, to shine down upon the central figure, a dancer.

"We witness the dance of Queen Lethian, who took the brood from her mother in the waning days of the first Empire.  She made this dance to honor her mother, to tell her story, and to impress the head suitor of her mothers brood.  A special treat, this is the first time a male will attempt the dance, so I apologize if the subject matter offends."

"I do not think it will."  The pale haired ambassador replied, while looking down with interest, and resting a hand on the bone and silk woven seat.  The strands above were light and thin, no thicker than a mans thumb if all put together, but the platform had not even rocked when loaded with ambassador and his retinue.

The seat vibrated slightly, at the first three taps of the dancer down below, who moved across the polished floor with a glide and skitter.

Though there was an accompanied hum of instruments, they were light and barely noticed upon the vibrations of the dance, which echoed across the hollow floor and carried out in rings, sharper to softer and faintly felt.  Each motion, each step was felt, and even for one as distantly tuned as a human, it could be felt through the thread and into the specially crafted seat, and the rhythm had a pulse, not unlike the beating of a heart...

It has long been asked why men no longer dream of going to the fourth planet of our glorious solar system. Why, when we have the ability to climb the stars and the arcane tools to touch the distant cold void beyond our own orbiting sibling planets, do we not reach for the fourth, where ice and water and our dreams all call for us?

Oh, for what we found there, upon that distant plane, where the sun was distant but burned with the wrath of the sword of heaven, where the ground bled black and great storms crackled across the plane. Where we stared upon the images we saw, and only those few e're were released, where we gazed in wonder on such little things, too afraid to turn and stare upon the greater. Where a small machine wandered the planetscape, where it moved truly, unbroken for a hundred days more than spoken of - and it found such things.

No. Men do not dream of mars, for even as none yet live who have seen what lays there remain, the imprint of our minds do know, and we shudder, and make excuse for why we do not claim the red rock orbiting our unfriendly sun.

Try as I might, I can find nothing of horror about these things. I am, instead, found only to their beauty, of these things, these wonderfully dark creatures that exist in a world that has been for a billion years, and shall be for another four, perhaps five.

These things, unaging, a twilight perfection of life upon this humble world, who live and die, unknowing, uncaring, of the world above them, for they need not the glory of the eye of god to thrive, but only the depths and the secret joys of a world frigid, cold, and under conditions no mortal can survive. These creatures, gods in their own right, for surviving where men would perish unmourned, move, unseen, uncaring, existing as aliens upon a very small, very alien world.

It was in the depths of the terrible place I heard an itching sound, and felt it stab painfully into my skull. And like fresh blood drawn from old scabbed wounds, I felt thoughts flow into my head that were long forgotten, and held my head in stretches of agony.

I can say I have heard a song before, in the depths of my dreams. It was a song as played by all the angels of heaven, with a rapturous chord to it that made all my being swell, and the sound was to my heart as spilling ones loins is to ones genes. It was in the depths of a dream, a dream I am blessed to never recall, that I heard it again, the strumming and whisper of ancient instruments that are antediluvian.

The sound echoed through my mind as they echoed through this wondrous place, a place that I felt at home, though I had never once belonged. Here I approached, forgetting the mission of stealth and untmost hope, and passing the cries of those who I walked with, to find again the song that plucked at my being. I walked upon the floor of living flesh and past the eyes that had stared upon me a thousand times before, only now it was not in the dream that I felt myself being studied. I looked to my home and walked with my hands falling open, and the pain of my skin slowly sloughing, as I walked willingly into the acids that bathed the breath of the living hive.

"Gaebriella! Don't!" I looked back, and stared upon the insect that looked to me, the pink flesh cancerous and the eyes as dull as the stones outside the home, and I hissed, my jaws stretching wide and he gaped in horror at me. Like any insect, he fled from me, gibbering and shouting, as I turned to approach the feet of the Yrimiss, and laid at his feet, to listen to the song he had played a thousand years ago, when he sought to court me...

"Come now, do not weep." I lay dying upon the stone floor, my hands held upon my stomach, where pain flooded through me, and held me aching, shaking, trembling at the sickening sensations that poured through my very being.

The voice that spoke belonged to a shadow, which oozed across the floor and drew towards me, slinking into the shape of a human, a dark skinned negroid from the darkest depths of africa. His teeth gleamed as he smiled down at me, and I shuddered, avoided staring into those eyes.

"Come now. There is no reason to weep. You did exactly like I hoped you would."

I gazed upon the dead cultists, over the great book of horrid things, and at the slowly resealing void, where great and terrible things clawed to get out, but could not, for the Elder Sign still stuck, having been painted in my blood upon the floor. I had been shot for my efforts, but they had failed another day. My attacker lay dead, wheezing a breath.

His hand took the consistancy of the umbral broth of pre-life, and his hand touched my brow, with a sickly, cloying hold, like mildew climbing upon wet glass. He touched me there, and the chill flowed through me.

"I will tell you a secret before you pass. Take heart in it, for you have kept your race alive for one more day." And he leaned down to whisper to my ear the secret, before I fell into the darkness of oblivion. I can say I did so gladly.

"Lo and let it be known, Terrible is He who stands at the gate of time, Master of Past, Present, Future, Master of time that is, was, and never will be."

I had read the passage once and once again, and knew that my work would be done. To walk the gate and bare the sign, to step beyond the pale and into the great river that flows between the moments of now and what was, I knew what I had to do, to make things right. So it was that I walked from my home and took all I had, sold all of it, for it would not matter, and took up the Key, as had been made according to the thirteen steps of the book of Blood. Carved of a finger and bathed in my own heartsblood, it would open the gate to time, and I knew where it lay, for I had a map to the great city, lost in the dunes of old Arabia.

The journey was long. The heat was oppressive, but nothing to the heat of my brow. I was sick, the wound had left me infected, but it would be alright, for none of this would be, if I could set it right. I would disappear from time, but all would be set right!

The great city was laughably easy to find - had none before found it? Was it so hidden, than even the eyes of god would pass away and not see it? Was this the great garden, burned away in the fires of an angry gods wrath? I walked through the ruins, to the great door, and I stood before it, shouting the sixty names of the Keeper, and holding forth the key, even as my eyes and mouth and nostrils began to bleed from the terrible things I proclaimed.

Lo, the doors did open for me, and I gazed upon the keeper of Time, and He stared upon me, and his mouth opened, to scream in no sound, but to feel the earth itself rebel from the horrid viperish tones.

I held up the key, and spoke aloud the rites, to demand to return into time, to make things right! And he looked upon me, and stepped forward, beyond the gate, and aproached me, even as the buckles of reality tore and the winds blew up in a great hurricane of sand and grit and bone of the ages.

He stepped, Terrible beyond all measure, his mouth opened to the vastness of the stars and his eyes burning with a wicked intelligence that measured me, and saw me through a thousand different timelines. He gazed upon me, and drew his great hand up, and bellowed again. The stars chanted and the walls began to weep a black viscous blood, the black blood of the earth, of abominations, running down stone and pooling at my feet, the gate opening to cast me into the depths of time itself! And with a terrible laugh, I stepped into it!

And held a hand to my throat, gasping, retching, at the befouled stench of the ages, as I knelt before the great masters of the city, in a time before time. I gazed up at the guardian, who looked upon me, and pointed down the great streets. I had made it, even as I grew giddy from a loss of air, I ran, ran, ran to find the door that would take me where I was to go! I ran, and threw open the door, and then hurled myself through!

And then landed at the feet of the guardian, who looked upon me through ancient eyes, and the sand storm had fallen, showing the stars burnt out and the sun a distant cold death, having given birth to a future far distant from what I had known or dreamt.

"You are the Master of the Past! Why have I not gone there?!" I shouted!

"For I am also Master of the Present, and times that never were..."

For a moment, I was dead. I think it was the bending of my body and the contortion of my neck that killed me, if not the drive of steel through my arm and near shearing that sent me into a downward spiral, but for a moment, the moments between breaths, I was dead, and I knew only a dryness.

Where I opened my eyes next, staring into the dry land of Two Fields, and I stared up upon the brown sky, covered in dust and the whispers beyond the aether. This was not the white cloud of heaven nor the burning pits of hell, but somewhere else, where I walked.

I was not alone, I found, and I gazed upon the face of god, though no god I knew, and found myself terribly small before the dark majesty that was Him. I gazed up, higher than the stars were to earth, and found the burning novae that were his eyes, and it was not light that fluttered through him, but the antithisis of light, the reverse of light, a dusty darkness that consumed.

I stared upon Him, his wings wider than the thousand hoods of allmighty Shesha, and his voice rang out, calling all spirits of the dead to join Him, to come to Him.

All the dead came to Him, and I stood before Him, to be judged as worthy or unworthy. I gazed upon the terrible majesty of Death, and His hand fell to touch my face.

"No. Not yet ready." I was awash, in disappointment, and felt my stomach fall away from me, and the great darkness denied me join with the oblivion, the sweet, endless oblivion, that was promiced to all who stared into the eyes of Death.

And I breathed again, even as my soul wished that I hadn't...

Oh what a find it was. Up topside, looking down through the depths with radar and other amazing wonders of technology, the team had found what appeared to be the ruins of something truly massive, and so very near the surface. A great find, a wonderful find, the scientists drew straws and one lucky bastard, Dr. Foster, had been the one chosen to don the brass suit, and sink down into the cold depths to find what treasures lay below.

The light on his helmet helped illuminate the gloom, some thousand feet from the surface, and he walked the bottom of the risen floor, upon old stone and barnacle-rich statues, great statues of long since past gods. Who would have thought such wonders could be found just off the coast of Wales, what joys could be found? Was this lost Avalon? Atlantis? Something older? The script was faded and old upon one great pillar, and as he walked, he explored.

High above, the ship twisted and lurched, and then shuddered from great impacts, and lurched, as great tears ripped through the iron sides, while below, the good doctor did not pay attention to the twelve shadows that rose over head, towards the surface. Nor did he see the malevolent glow of a great pair of eyes or the maw stretching wide coming up behind...

I know not what brings me more terror. That when I read that book, that thrice damned book accursed of all that is holy and natural, that I saw visions of hell that were beyond the cruelties of all the many demons fallen from gods grace, or that I, standing in that tormented plane beyond sight and sound and reason, that in the cacophony of weeping gods I heard a voice asking me, clear as day and as gentle as my grandfather would ask, a question.

"You should not be here, little one."

What terrifies me most, not that I stood in that realm of madness, that I gazed upon the true sight of the sun and saw, under green skies and orange glow, the sun was but the writhing mass of gods own afterbirth, the squamous birth of a dragon yet to hatch from a molten egg, but that the man in yellow and wearing a mask that moved, looked on me through hollow eyes, and asked with concern, why I was there. That I, in a place that god would fear to tread, that this creature asked why I had crossed over and stood on the very edge of sanity, and beyond it.

"You should not be here, young one."

And he held to me a medalion, made of cool metal and forged by no hands human, and touched it to my brow, sending me back. And now, staring at the mirror, gazing on the scar left in its wake, I must ask, is it more terrible to gaze upon the realm of madness, or find something who cared to send you back?

For even now, I stare at the sun, and scream, knowing what it is.

Under the guidance of my professor, who I trusted immensely, I let him put me into a hypnotic trance with the strange amulet that he had found in the old journeys to the ruins of fabled Canaan. I trusted the old man, wise in his years, and I opened my thoughts to let him explore, while gazing longingly upon the open eye of the strange five-sided star.

I remember falling into the star, and seeing the eye flare open to gaze at me. The world had become frozen in mid swing, and I rose up to touch the marking, as the world fell away and I gazed unsteadily into a gray world. The eye gazed upon me, on the hide of a great chittenous beast, who spoke of words and sounds that were a cold spike across my nerves.

I stood in the gray planes, and I looked upon the insectine face of the keeper of the eye, the eye upon his back, and he gazed at me, seeing me with neither contempt nor wonder, but a simple, blank acceptance of what I was, and who I was, and he gazed through me, reading every part of my soul, laid bare before him.

A thousand worshipers, a thousand students lay knelt at his feet, as he rose above the multitude of people, human, and some far less and far more. He spoke again in the tongue, the tongue of Canaan, and lectured his students upon matters that I did not know or comprehend. In this gray place, of three moons and a brightness without sun, the Knower spoke, and taught lessons far beyond my kenning. He gestured a hand for me to join them, and I did, taking up a robe brought to me, and for a thousand years I knelt, and listened to him speak, my mind brought open to wonders and terrors and revelations...

And then I knew I was ready, as I stood, and approached the great eye again, and I bowed my head in thanks to my Master, the Knower, and obeyed his command to bring others. My head swam with all I knew, like a pitcher filled with two gallons to the one it was meant to hold. Knowledge spilled from my lips like blood, as I held fast onto the gaze of the eye.

I looked away from his face, a face touched with a moment of compassion, and then to the eye, which blinked once and cast me back to strange colors.

"What did you see?" The professor asked me, as he shook me, his voice a froth, of wanton need to know. I shook, I trembled, and I retched as I was forced to breath again. "Tell me! Tell me what you saw! Tell me what He knows!"

I gazed upon my professor, and shook my head slowly, and spoke not a word to him. I said little, as I walked away to his furious shouts, and spoke not a word to any again.  For what had been shown, was too beautiful to speak, and too horrible to behold...

"Yami, you need to paint today..."

She was a good child. She obeyed her parents and honored her elders, but always she was afraid to paint. It was not that she was not talented - oh no, she was amongst the most gifted of all of the children of Edo, and she could paint with a flourish that Masters would weep at. Her works were beautiful, the flesh of her dreamed images rippled like they were drawn out of movement to pose for her. She drew with one single brush, with simple paints, but she was the best any had seen.

But her pictures had grown steadily darker, and she no longer drew happy things. She saw things in the pageswatched them, always felt the whisper of the creatures calling to her mind. And one such thing kept asking to be painted.

She knew she should not, but she was a good child, and she knew that Mr. Eddisc would not hurt her, even as terrible as he was. She sat, sitting in chair, and she raised her brush to the canvas, and began to give Mr. Eddisc shape, she painted him and let the ink run and dry upon the canvas.

His terrible maw fell open and his eyes gleamed at her from beyond the portrait, and she felt a pained smile touch her face. She did not want to give this one shape, but, she had to. And she continued to drag the soft brush down, to mark her name upon the edge, to give final breath to her work.

She was a good child, even as Mr. Eddisc reached out from the canvas, and smeared her cheek with a touch of paint. She had painted her greatest piece. But he asked her to draw again.

He had so many friends who wanted to come and meet her...

The Devourer...

Oh of what hells I hath seen in the moments of my dreams, that take upon them the sigil of our heavenly father, of what things I have seen in the wretched moments, where reality wavers likened to the ocean and nothing is as it seems, oh what terrors I have glimpsed, upon the sky without the glory of the sun, what terrors I have witnessed and horrors overrun.

Six times six years have I spent in the meditations of which the order of the white rose is best known, but for each year have I seen another vision of the future yet untold, and every time I watch the candle burn itself low I am witness to things I pray to the gods "do not let me behold!"

I have witnessed the far planes of reality beyond the ken of allmighty God, and I have seen the things that walk the lands of long forgotten Nod, for there lay the great maw of the devourer his body stained with blood of saints, in time that have not come but for truth I know for which I have saw'd!

Oh what blasphemies must I dream that the angels bare to me the horrors of a hundred thousand madmen, what crimes must I have commit'd under the thought I had been working the hand of the Lord!  Oh woe upon woe are heaped upon me in the terrible shallow depths of my mind, that I would serve the pennance for all the sins Babylon herself hath whore'd!

Woe, woe, woe again I say, for what I see beyond the vale and scream aloud in the sacred silence of my meditations, for I see the face of ba'al Himself come to steal my soul and not even the saints could save me with all of their benedictions!

Woe.  Do not come this path I have taken, for hubris did I spend in meditation upon things unholy, for I dared ask to be shown the truth, and it has taken the whole of me...