Blank canvas…,

I search for words and sigils to scratch here. What does a prisoner print while perceiving the vacant gallows on yon berm? How to summon the correct noises, appropriate languages from the dry recesses of my trembling mouth and mind befitting this time and these terrible occurrences. I am not used to self-pity or pity at all in fact, this is a foreign sensation, these shivers. Perhaps some back-fired hex upon me, eh dear Vanessa? Some casting of mine while intruding upon one of these many minds in this time, in this place reading their words, stealing their thoughts and always delving further into the forbidden.

I knew she was here earlier, ye old crow, broken now for certain burned, beheaded and buried perhaps, but damn these blind eyes SHE WAS HERE. I felt my old mistress not long ago, the wild still smelled in her hair as I was resting on my side. Never quite asleep, I enjoy the meditative trances still and what they sometimes reveal - most of the time. In my need, my lonesomeness and perhaps the human engine of despair….I must have called her. No mystic salts, no old bone ritual, no somatic utterance, just a damn strong emotion. Note that here, a cautionary tale to whomever ventures upon this path next: when you are the darkest darkness, a public fiend of humanity, be wary of your own emotional states. Poisonous magicks lay there. Mark, “thar’ be dragons” upon your map. I am certain Vanessa would’ve said it better if she were here, yet, I knew she was for I am not completely mad yet. An unimaginably heightened state of insight, to be true, but not yet completely insane.

Coiled behind me, as she always did when we lay together, I the Little Dipper to her the Larger Dipper. Her pert breasts crushed against my shoulders, familiar - the smoke in her breath, strong legs ensnaring mine - a trapped rabbit unable scramble to a hiddey-hole, even if I wanted to. All of these glamours I was only minutely aware of in my need for rest. I know I felt her breath, I know there was an utterance as her long hand ran over the top of my sigiled old one. The graze of her contact, I know it’s signature on the back of my hand, like washing them in a clean, warm basin. Not a feint of nostalgic longing, but knowing - KNOWING that this was her like a childe knows its own hearth, were it my own, Ivad save me! She grasped the back of my hand then, as a lover and as a companion wanting me coyly, yet not wanting to rouse me per se (though the old oak was roused for certain, yet gads! It had been so long!). I muttered a sluggish greeting to her, certainly, as I was caught so flat-footed by her best charms. Yet she held my hand, held my legs, held me down with her whole self more than what was necessary. Still I rested, in and out for awhile, wondering (wandering) if I would slowly suffocate there - in her hair perhaps? A good death to die.

The grasp, her hold on me was too tight, unnatural no longer playful, she meant business it would seem, a testing (as she would often do when I least expected or lacked preparation for), be it carnal or vile or both - I was in danger from her. The vice of her being, such metal wasn’t known to me in my languorous wrests to and fro. “Summon the will! Defend yourself!” I remember her rough tutelage as she would barrage me with energy and blade, berating without losing a breath all the while. Her flourish and guile, the celerity in those powerful limbs. I would miss and miss and miss my target, entranced by her deadly courtship dance. I worshipped and feared her in that classroom, the natural arena, beneath her trees and canopy. This wasn’t the same, this was wrong - I was coiled and constricted. I knew if I remained within this open maw of what felt like her body - I would be consumed. “Stop, Vanessa! Stop your hurting my hand!”, I was crying out in the voice of my youth, a young smooth octave that had not been know in the chest for quite some time, yelping out fresh upon her trial. I was crying and crying and crying because my hand hurt so much….and I found that I was sitting-up, still in the flaxen bed clothes. Discovered myself again, regained myself as I massaged at the wrinkled old thing, damaged and sore. I knew it was her. I knew it was her, I knew her to be there holding and consuming me on the plain cot.

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So here I tread, in the very rook of my enemy’s pawns. The very best veil is one done in plain sight, so it would seem. At this late hour, they are certainly celebrating in some sodden circle jerk anyway. The duel nears its finality and I have found that I have been too bold. The wax of the candle is low, perhaps I will need to call another one soon of one of the meisters, pop out from behind the veil like some sort of haunting specter - Boo!. My black fortune it would be my dear Judas - Ben, always the willing volunteer nursemaid to come to my aid, always the constant leash at my collar trying to halt my inevitable plummet into a calling chasm, that void of irony in that he doesn’t see or understand yet guards and obeys anyway. I smell the char on the wick and miss my friends while admiring the carefree single spike of fiery dance, it sways delightfully for me. It pays no attention to the inevitability, the dim Carcosa looming in the heavens tonight.

I wonder (wander) indeed if the Choir itself is singing at such heights? Applauding their doom, the second advent of their gods as their notes ring true in ineffable praise to the astral monolith coiled and waiting to tumble head-long onto this plane? Are you happy now, you terrible dusty old-sots? Has the unseen fathers of Oduum and their slithering mistresses satisfied the old tales from cracked tomes? Such binding and bridging I would break, I would burn - yes burn thee - our beloved Spire - to save you blind and craggy monks from your own demise. This doom, dim Carcosa hovers so close now due to your folly.

I scratch at these broody thoughts, archive this now and send it somewhere to “keep it safe, keep it secret”. A pocketed plane perhaps, but a new one. I long for the warmth of a high-backed chair easing my burden, strong drink to muddle and slow the rabid, fevered mind and company that smells of sulfur and my hound of smoke. I forsake the very thought, I cannot return to the same place, for Hastur’s huntress knows my scent all too well indeed and although I do enjoy the attention of such a wily woman, her forked tongue and devotional avarice to take me as a trophy vexes me to no end. True, I know her patron, even with so many enemies patrolling my perimeter and thieves clumsily bustling through my things in the dark. Adrestia is indeed dire and to give too much attention to her name and form - that alone may be the beacon of will she waits for, let alone the flagrant act of accessing my craft and delving into the continuum. I’ve never been so afraid to not be looking over my shoulder and avoid favored alleyway jaunts, for even if I did spot her, she indeed erred misfortune in some sort of tell of what dark corner she lurked in, poised to strike from - I know many horrid truths and this is now one of them, that even one such as I would be too late. She is a wonderful adversary and I won’t survive her.

A cool breeze intrudes and the illumination wavers enough to break me from the scrying trance, fortunate, perhaps I am ready to be done? Have I lost this contest and been made to be such a sullen, wilted thing that this is how I grieve losses and fallen companions? I cannot shape my own reality and fool myself to this truth - I can only provide that comfort for others. I can stretch the time before impact, but I cannot halt it. I can call such forces,, dip my palm into the recesses of the continuum, call up the old souls, speak the formative language of my enemies and cry at the sky to barricade this blue sphere from that black one’s collision. I could walk upon waters, consume their fired missiles and shat an evening jellied delight all simultaneously, but I cannot change this inevitability.

So much tinder, so easy to burn what I do indeed love. All of these halls and all of the ringed corridors, my lovely fire dancer will barrel with its witless joy rendering their words and knowledge by recruiting more and more fire to her dance. They will shuffle and shoot through the many halls, wind and wind, up and up the Spire - the Choir of rats will have nowhere to flee and as they fling themselves afire into the nights sky - I will tell them to pray now. Pray now to your damnable Oduum, may they hear your beautiful song as you crash down upon the cobbles of Lacon. Perhaps as I light this beacon tonight, they will survey this scene and be your salvation. At their arrival their many eyes will spy me waiting for them.