XXIV
Idolâtrie
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> “Stars, I defy you.
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> No aleph-yoke upon mine soul,
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> Rather I rule in Hel than
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> In the Host of Heaven serve.”
—Narancan’s Folly: the God-King’s Downfall; Act Four, Lines Sixty-Two-through-Sixty-Six (Crossing the Rubicon) by playwright Gregorio D’Arcene.
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‘El, I suggest we make haste. Can feel the stars looking at me, caressing the nape of my neck.’
I did not feel anything of the sort and neither would I stay long enough to begin to. Lamaré’s spooked voice made my spine tingle in all the wrong ways; to further cement the unsettling atmosphere, my resident spectre did not deign to comment nor offer a jest at the remark.
The Elder had opened an exit for me, stone having recessed until a rectangular cleft of darkness yawned open, waiting still as stillwater for prey to enter its gullet. And I walked into that suffocating black, letting it devour me whole. After a single step, the veil of blindness was lifted and I was met with a tunnel of hewn stone lined with skulls overgrown with lime and calcite and when I looked back, there was naught but an unbroken wall, no seam to be seen but for the bas-relief of Azælaphesh carved thereupon.
I rapped my knuckles across it and knew it to be solid through-and-through. I hadn’t heard the tell-tale sign of cog and gear nor the hum of ambarique current or even a pull in my mind’s—quite literal—eye.
How I got inside Azælaphesh’s death-cradle to begin with was a secret known only to Him for my recollections were doused in delirium and insensate lunacy. I’d thought myself a creature of the night but there were worse monsters in this world—in the night there are the stars, but here, in the womb of the earth, in its labyrinthine bowels and entrails, there is no light but rather darkness visible and so tangible that it might as well consume me in my entirety such that no one might ever remember my name.
Vampyres may be creatures of the night but Azælaphesh was beyond the final threshold, and thus, beyond mortal ken. I could crush stone with my bare hands yet that paled before the ability to mould reality as if clay, to conjure something from the all-nothing as he had with the raven-idol. It is one thing to ignite phlogiston and another entirely to make lasting matter rather than ectoplasma that begins to evaporate just as soon as it’s brought this side of the veil.
In my hand I held a gift from the sleeping-god Azælaphesh, Hallowed Lord of All-Sorrows, He-of-Many-Faces, and the Penumbra of Kar’Tosh. The Éder knew this d’yabel as Enzati—the Scourge, the Ash-Reveller, the Tear-Drinker—for He had decimated our Lorekeepers during time of the Lamentations; a tenth of my people, anyone and everyone that had a lick of greying hair, put through the sieve of genocide whilst the remaining survivors were put under the yoke of servitude.
Had I not been shaken of my wits, I would have thrown the idol to the ground and spat upon it. Or, perhaps, it is better said that such had saved me from a slow and terrible death worse than even than that which Alexiaries had devised for me.
During His time as a standard-bearer of Narancan, Azæleias had been a living nightmare on the battlefield, conquering the New World in the God-Emperor’s name and the Old World in His shadow; Ossir praised Him and Serein feared Him. He’d been granted a sip of the chalice of apotheosis after His conquest over the city-state of Kar’Tosh, modern-day Kol’Taj, donning the mantle of Azælaphesh Herald of Bazazath—Azazel’s Apostle of Secrets, the Trickster-God with a thousand-thousand names; none of them real for the Stranger-At-The-Crossroads takes many forms, chief among them that of the Prince of Lies.
The raven-idol’s heart-stone was cut in the shape of the vampyre parasite; cochlear and spiralform. My true-name, writ in rúnari, was etched upon one of the ruby-amber helixes—Adronach E’átanath. On the contra, the opposing helix, Āzmūdraq was transcribed from the Black Tongue of Kalé into the Narancan alphabet; the Nazirese variation of Āzmūdan which translates roughly to the ‘dragoon’s tongue’ and is cognate with the God-Emperor’s sobriquet of Draqul. The Éderi transcription was not carved into the stone but rather a trick of the light, shadow rather than ink for the Éder would never allow a non-Éderi to learn the Old Ways of Kalé much less the Scourge Himself.
Though Azælaphesh could peer into the waves of my mind, I knew that He could not delve into its fathoms. The lore of my people was safe as it can only be learned of if heard during Kebān. Verbal recitation is needed lest the knowledge dissolve like salt thrown into the sea for it is not of this world nor for it.
I’d yet to divine the idol’s use as the Tir-Tau pairing was locked-away from me—the manacles of sterling of silver and sorrow-gold and oricalc still bound me by my wrists, suppressing most of my abilities, be it vampyric strength and speed or the lodestone implanted within my volar arch. The chain that connected the manacles had melted when I was exposed to God’s Right Eye, overwhelmed by the ambarique current and voltaire generated by the bloodline sorcerie of Sol.
A thought wormed its way into my skull and I could not tell if it was mine, Ré’s, or that of some other roving geist. ‘Leave before you cannot.’ It said and I believed those words wholeheartedly.
The eyes of the graven images lit up with scarlet so as to light my way out of the sleeping god’s sarcophagus and I followed after, treading ground as if a man possessed for I’d not spend another second in this accursed place where the shadows were backwards and sounds languid as if under deep water.
I’d done away with my tongue’s ability to perceive saccharinity so that I might be able to sense edges of live steel instead. I wondered then what part of His soul that Azælaphesh had sold in exchange for His dominion over the earth’s entrails.
The operative word being ‘wondered’ because I did not wish to truly find out.
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The ashes of time were at my heels, threatening to bury me in their midst. I knew that I’d not return from another rendez-vou with apophany, with the manifest form of unreality that’s hidden just out of sight within the heart of every man yet still within his reach.
With the mind buckling under its own weight, you begin to understand what’s just beyond the paltry skein of consensus existence; it was visceral, deep as the marrow of my bones, fathomless as the bottomless sea in which lévayathans make their nests, and ineffable as the name of a nameless thing.
Tell me, O conscience of mine, can I return to the shape of my humanity once my soul has outgrown its limiting vessel? Can my sanity be mended back once all that is left of it is the hollow cavity? Do the ærengeists weep for the skinless saints They’ve flayed?
Just when I began to let my wits slip from me, the endless tunnels expanded into another concave mausoleum. The eyes, red as God’s Left and Right, led me here as if the roots of a cerim tree in search of water. I did not step foot into any of the unlit passages, an unsettling in my gut telling me in no uncertain terms that I’d never return should I err from the path.
There were no pillars of blood-silver this time around, instead marble spinal columns with bas-reliefs encircling me, their eyes observing my every move, my every thought—they know; they know; they know, a little voice whispered through the parasite nested within my brains, spasmodic and enrapturing.
My spirit wanted nothing more than to leave the prison of my heart; my lifeblood ached to be released from the vein; my skeleton gnawed at my tendons to escape the confines of my flesh. Out; out; out, it wanted out.
Whether by the stench of the insanity festering within my mind or some other esoteric sense, a monster appeared from the eigengrau within the mausoleum. It was skinless as a saint, a panopticon of eyes convulsing within the riven seams of its mummified and cadaverous flesh, a rictus-grin of abject depravity splitting its face from ear to ear.
I knew then what happened to the devout of the Church after death—they were thrown down into the Underbowels, doomed to roam the catacombs in search of any foolish enough to venture within them.
Fitting for an ærengeist of Heaven, the saint walked upon ‘wings’ which were composed of its flayed hide as if an orange that hadn’t been entirely skinned, as if a rabid animal that hadn’t been put out of its misery. The mass of skin was attached to their backs in the facsimile of a bird but no one would be fooled upon seeing the ear lobes at either end of the ‘wings’.
You might be reading a pirated copy. Look for the official release to support the author.
I blinked and the monster was upon me, clawing at me with its talons; exposed bone sharpened into wicked scythes that reaped a crop most grim. WIth all the speed and strength afforded to me by the blood of Narancan, I esquived the beast’s onslaught, climbing up the pillars much like an animal myself.
I had no weapons but my own fists and wits as I jumped from graven idol to graven idol, trodding upon the faces of fallen god-kin. My resistance was moot for every punch was met with indifference, no matter that it cracked the marble and made the earth herself shudder in pain. The ærengeist’s hide was scoured with glyphe-scars which smouldered with the embers of God’s blood, shunting the force of my strikes into the ether.
It drew blood, excoriating my arm with the hooks and chains that hung from the tips of its seraph-wings. The beast grew bolder after the taste, renewing its mauling with abandon that only a base animal could achieve, lost in the throes of violence.
Slowly and surely and painfully, the saint took from me its pound of flesh for the sins I’d committed against the Church, for giving mercy to Jespar, for daring to eschew the dogma and the sanctioned hatred of the other.
My anger bubbled in the seat of my stomach, burning hotter and hotter still as it secreted its vitriol. I was weary and ragged and tired of the pain—how much more would Lucifer take from me until my debts to Him were gone? Why should I bear the wages of a sin that’s no sin at all but rather virtue?
How much more injustice would I endure until enough was enough?
When next the saint bit into my flesh, I enveloped its nape within my jaws, my mandible unhinging and my true-fangs erupting from under the thin membrane that hid them away. My teeth caught hold of bone, the muscles in my neck straining as if the steel cables of a factory’s pulley as I pulled with all of my rage.
Like ripping a serpent from its scales, I tore the saint’s spine from its body in a single swift motion. Gods, it was satisfying, my worse nature coming alive and overcoming my sensible humanity—I was nothing more than an animal then, indulging in the most base and ugly desire: to cause harm, to rend, to rip and tear and eviscerate.
I opened my eyes to a tableau that didn’t make any sense: strips of desiccated flesh and marrowless bones upon white, Ossirian marble. I looked down at my hands and saw gold and pyrite erupting from under my skin, forming talons more wicked than that of a harpie and longer than that of a gargoil.
Like salt dissolving within water, the aurum melted into amalgam, reabsorbing back into my skeleton. This wasn’t a sorcerous ability devised by Calcifer but rather a spontaneous mutation, Narancan’s curse imposing its perverse image upon the very chains that I used to bind the beast within.
Necessity makes law—I would not scorn a weapon when I’ve no other choice.
‘Steel does not weep.’ Lamaré d’Amice Solaire whispered with the roteness of a catatonic.
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Abominations tend to congregate rather than simply disperse, I found out. Like calls to like and so the fallen ærengeists descended upon me, starving and oh so very ravenous.
I met them, within the hallowed catacombs clad in purest Ossirian marble, with golden talons and spurs. My skin was a topography of pyrite eruptions, lacerating any foolish enough to attempt to take a bite. Corruscating, tumorous growths of metal that were razor-edged and stunk of sulphur.
Had I a mirror to see myself, I would have seen a monster scything through the throngs of graviers and vampyre-spawn, thrashing and ripping and threshing. Mangled limbs flew this way and that; bone cracked and joints bent in angles they were not designed to; meat was scoured from the skeleton in long lines of wounds; würms were devoured whole, slurped up like mollusques from the shells of their skulls.
The only manner by which I would survive was to give into the slaughter and become that which I dreaded most; the only way out was through; to escape the dark, I needed to don the shadow. I told myself this, again and again and again, with religious zeal but belief does not dictate reality but rather only the nebulous senses.
In truth, there was no man lost in this Hel. There were only d’yabels of different make.
Rest of body came only once every there and again—I could not ascertain time of day or night without the bleeding-sun or weeping-moon. Respite was short as the battles were long, centuries upon centuries of the dead risen once again not to be judged by Christ but by me, laid back again to rest after being desecrated by violence that would make even the most blood-thirsty of warmongers a pacifist.
My supernatural strength of body returned to me as the heat of battle boiled my blood and, in so doing, melted through the sorcerie that bound my wrists. The manacles had melted into my skeleton and been assimilated, transmuted into fool’s gold courtesy of the many glyphes carved into my bones.
The tides changed under the waxing moon of my might; deathblows came back to me with ease, my claws no longer finding purchase but rather severed through bone wholesale. My trial changed from one of weakness before a greater force to one of scarcity as these preternatural abilities were powered through the combustion of ichor.
Shrewd as the Merchant of Death Himself, I needed to become, holding back so as to not burn through my reserves. I forswore strikes to anything but the skull because the würms within them remained my only source of easily-acquired lifeblood—they were dense concentrations of ichor and I could just swallow them whole. Ghûls were prioritised only when the swarms were thin enough to allow me to feast upon them.
The tunnels were labyrinthine, opening up into large mortuaries and then branching out further; Lamaré took to keeping track of my location, guiding me away from previously-explored dead ends while I was responsible for combat alone.
I’d lost count of how many I killed after three score.
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The tide of monsters, be they skinless saints or infernal bedfellows, was unquenchable. Though I did not know it then, I shall humour you, O shadow of mine, with a secret known only to a select few: ghûls were created as the Eternal Empire’s golemns, as their beasts of burden and cleaning serfs for higher vampyres drink only blood and so the body must be done away with after it has been drained dry.
Ghûls are not, in and of themselves, vampyric in nature but rather humans twisted to the design of Narancan’s ilk. Imagine that, being moulded in someone’s image, only to be created for a purpose so depraved and I did not speak only of Hel.
Centuries upon centuries of burying the holymen and women of Saint-Getaine bore its toll before me as twisted abominations that sought to crack open my skull like an egg so as to slurp the parasite nested within my brains.
How I knew this was decidedly concerning: I had developed a compulsion for devouring theirs. Each and every night-spawn within these tunnels gestated a vampyre-würm which only brought up more questions—this was consecrated ground, no? At least, it was supposed to be. Were the clergy implanting themselves with the parasites or did they mature like fungus in the dark of the cranium after a life lived in adherence to Lucifer? The latter hypothesis was symmetrical in nature as Azazel presided over the aspect of death. ‘For no thing thereupon the scales of Creation is without its counterweight’ and all that.
I was at the end of my rope. My flesh could not heal with the paltry lifeblood of these revenants, leaving me a ragged and weary half-mortal. Though I loathed it something fierce, I saw but a single path towards salvation and it was paved with my dead scruples if not my sanity of mind.
The pact with Sathariel had not been fully sealed, lacking an anchor by which to pin it upon such as the steel that I’d forsworn to Abeloth. The soul is not simply confined to the flesh but also the world outside the self; star-binding requires something of emotional weight to harken either the Empyreal or Infernal. It must weigh heavily in the senses of the individual that invokes the rite.
I was naked and afraid and without anything but the raven-idol; a poison-gift from Enzati Himself. The Ash-Reveller was the Éderi analogue for the D’yabel and twice as hated. He was the reason for our secrecy, why we travelled and did not let our roots grow too deep in any one place. Why we had no nation any longer and why our children are called ‘mud-bloods’.
‘Deals with the D’yabel, mon ami.’ Ré consoled, his sing-song voice sombre and wistful. ‘I won’t judge you either way. Don’t sell away your soul for my sake but neither save your life for fear alone. Either way, one day we’ll both die. All that matters is if you’re willing to do so today.’
I would not sell away my soul for fear of death.
I would sell it away for fear of letting my tormentors continue to draw breath.
My hate was eternal. There was no corner of my soul that I would not turn over for the satisfaction of seeing my enemies in ruins. There was nothing sacred before the profanity that I’d been through—no all-benevolent God within a world where His devout had done what’d they’d done to me and mine.
I bit through my wrist, my fangs rending through my flesh with all the savagery that I was due. Getting me to bleed was just as likely as getting blood from a stone, but when I touched the raven-idol to my self-inflicted wound, it drank freely of me. Scarlet arcs of ambarique current lashed me through my bones, forevermore making me a peon of the Effigy of Deathknells.
It dawned on me then the idol’s imagery—what better phylactère for the Raven-God than the image of a raven itself? What better manner in which to bind the flesh of a fallen god than Her daughter’s bones?
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Light, I had sought for so long and when finally did I grasp it in my clutches, it tasted bitter rather than sweet. Abeloth’s tongue of steel, no doubt.
The Underbowels of Saint-Getaine were labyrinthine and had trapped me in their intestines for Blind-God knew how long. Like bowels, they had to finally expel me and they did so upon the River Sorrow; said to have formed by the tears of Saint Getaine Herself upon witnessing a vision of Red, Nameless Christ’s death upon the Cross of Golgotha.
Like how the death of a mortal brings about mourning in their kith and kin, the death of a god could bring about mourning upon the earth itself.
Now that I knew that the weeping-saintess of Getaine was entangled with the sleeping-god Azælaphesh, the barriers in my mind that separated Hel’s d’yabels and Heaven’s ærengeists were wan and thin indeed. Especially so with my savage combat with skinless saints.
We were southward of the Cairn, the bleeding sun dousing me in its scarlet. Where it touched my tub āq-red skin, subliminal fire leapt into being, phlogiston condensed from the ether. I could not control these bromine tongues of flame but I could keep them from ever existing in the first place.
Where once I cloaked myself in alp-leather, now living shadow caressed my shoulders. I no longer cast a true shadow but rather wore it, having sold a piece of my eternal soul to Satan Herself, or rather one of Satan’s six intermediaries—Envy.
Beyond this, I had also achieved another feat of witchcraft: every time I closed my eyes, I could feel the sympathie-compass’ needle pointing towards me from across a near-unfathomable gulf. They knew that I still yet drew breath and I was glad for it.
Let them know that their doom comes on the morrow.
They had set me aflame and would reap a harvest of ash for their sins had sown the seeds to their own demise.