A Forgotten God

         Although none alive today in the desert city of Henz remember (and this is by design), some years ago there existed a great and terrible god named Ikenior. Now, you may think that if this savage deity is indeed unremembered, the years since his passing must be quite numerous, or else his followers must have been very few: but it is not so. Examine closely the fingernails of certain grandmothers and you will notice that they grow crooked, a mindless reminder of the nights they split and chipped themselves on rough stones while grovelling below Ikenior’s altar. Look at the tiny scars on the hands of laughing grandfathers and you will find unremembering remembrances of nicks and cuts received while sharpening ceremonial blades. Ikenior’s rule was not at all long ago, though if you were to speak his name before these elders (and you would not, for if you lived in Henz you would not remember him either) they would look at you with slow, bewildered smiles before shrugging shoulders hunched with years of genuflection, and spreading hands once stained red with worship. And though they do not know it, they worship Ikenior still, and their perfect forgetting is their greatest act of obeisance.
The first temple to Ikenior, the wasted god of want, was erected in Henz, at the edge of the desert of Kallax hundreds of years ago. In those days trade routes were not well-defined, and passage to the nascent settlements of Que-Lan and Xith was fraught with hardship. Many were the travellers who took a wrong turning somewhere among the dunes, and whose sand-smoothed skeletons were found years later by despairing wanderers in similar straits. And so it became the custom to make an offering at the simple altar of Ikenior before undertaking such a journey, in hopes of staving off the hunger and thirst against which the hollow-eyed statue upon the dais gnashed his broken teeth.
Worship of the hungry god continued in this innocuous fashion for many years, with travellers offering a token bowl of food or flagon of wine before making their journeys across the sands. The few emaciated and swollen-bellied priests of Ikenior, who were Ikenior’s mouths and who ate and drank only from his sparse offerings, smiled at their supplicants with blackened gums and assured them that Ikenior would watch over them during their travels. And all went well until the ill-starred journey of Prince Kuragog and his retinue, who appeared before the temple one day with adoring crowds in tow, some pointing in wonder at the colourful raiment of the prince and his advisors, others gasping at the beauty of his courtesans, still others marvelling at the strange creatures in his travelling menagerie. And all nodded in approval as even the highborn prince knelt before the altar of Ikenior like any poor traveller and offered his simple bowl of fruit and meats, his cup of spiced wine. So when a great sandstorm appeared as from nowhere the day after the last of the prince’s flapping pennants had disappeared into the desert haze, and when the tattered remains of his caravans were found weeks later, mired in the sand halfway between Xith and Que-Lan; when the bones of the beautiful animals were found pocked with toothmarks, and the prince himself and his beautiful courtesans were discovered still in ragged finery with jewelled knives forming a glittering connection between bony hands and ribcages, having bought a swift escape from the torments Ikenior was meant to protect against; when all this was reported the people appeared before the gaunt and fearful priests and demanded to know Why.
After hasty deliberation during which the blazing eyes and clenched hands and angry mouths of the citizens were wordlessly consulted, the priests declared with becoming sorrow that Ikenior had not found the prince’s offering sufficient, and so had withdrawn his divine protection and left the convoy to the tenderness of the desert. For indeed was it not obvious that one in possession of such wealth and finery should offer more to relieve Ikenior’s eternal want than would a humble traveller? And though the people grumbled and cast sullen gazes at the temple, they accepted that this was reasonable, and even began to think differently of the prince they had adored, tarnishing their image of him with miserliness and greed. And from then on it became common to offer better fare to Ikenior, when possible.
But the desert was cruel, and still there were those found their deaths within it, regardless of their offerings. And even then a darkness was settling over Xith, the city whose name would one day become synonymous with dread and nameless doom, and travellers who returned from it were fewer by the year. The priests of Ikenior, grown bitter and sour from years of ascetic hardship, encouraged citizens of Henz to offer more and more, exhorting those who visited them to leave not only food, but now material objects as well at the idol’s withered feet. They reasoned that not everything could be carried across the desert, and that the protection of Ikenior was worth more than any trinket. And at the end of each day they burned the offerings they could not eat, and let the smoke wreath the sneering face of their insatiable god.
One year, a terrible drought came to Henz. The sands of Kallax clawed at the edges of the city, pulling the moisture from the wells and carrying it away into the dunes. Desperate, the citizens piled ever-greater piles of treasure at the withered feet of Ikenior, while the priests looked on and bobbed heads like bird skulls on fragile necks. And when the drought led to a famine in the year following, treasure was no longer enough, and life was heaped upon life upon the altar, all to gain the god’s approval.
But Ikenior was bottomless, and the famine persisted. No amount of blood could wipe the agonized sneer from his face, or the mad hunger in his eyes. And always as a supplicant wasted both salt and water on tears and wiped blood from a blade (or, as was more common in later months, laid the stained implement upon the altar next to the cooling flesh, an offering in itself), a priest would lean in and, breath smelling of sacrificed food and wine, brush their cheek wetly with the word, “More.”
Some took what they had and escaped to Que-Lan, where their descendants may be living still. Some went instead to Xith, and the fate of those who did so is speculated of in whispers on moonless nights. But many stayed in Henz, and wept and scrabbled daily below the statue of Ikenior, their hunger pangs adding fervour to their writhings. Others found themselves one day upon the altar, too weak to resist, and slept that night in the bellies of the priests.
But it became clear that all that was offered was still not enough. The last of the provisions were in danger of disappearing, and still Kallax pressed its dry assault. The people gathered before the temple and inquired of the priests what more they could give, they who had already given everything. And the priests, lacking imagination but knowing what Ikenior would want, answered: “More”.
Only then, in their desperation, did the people remember that before the trouble had come they had worshipped other gods than Ikenior, deities of love and friendship and wisdom and curiosity, whose temples now lay untenanted and neglected in disparate corners of the city. And instead of remembering the delights that worship of these beings offered, they thought only: here, at last, must be the thing Ikenior craves - for what but a god could satisfy a god’s hunger? And so they travelled to each dusty shrine in turn, seeking out the gods they had once known, and discovered only empty floors and abandoned altars, and belatedly they realized the truth: Ikenior had eaten their gods long ago. For who could think of laughter or dance or beauty with gnawing bellies and parched throats? The only gods which remained were those of anger and greed and hatred, and these had grown too strong to be wrestled onto Ikenior’s altar. The others were gone, burnt unnoticed beneath piles of jewelry and flesh.
Despairing, they returned to Ikenior and knelt, empty-handed, for the last time. And they looked at the ravaged face glaring immobile down at them, the tormented face which had eaten all they had offered and was still hungry, desperately hungry, in an agony of want. And they stared deeply into the eyes of the idol, peering desperately out from sunken sockets, and saw their own need reflected back at them, and recognized the meaning of the sneer, and understood the god at last. And they went outside and barricaded the temple doors, and paid no heed to the scrabbling of the priests’ bone-thin fingers from the other side. Fires were kindled, and so dry was the air that the temple was ablaze in minutes, flames consuming the house of consumption, offering Ikenior his own worship, his own existence, and finding the sacrifice accepted with frantic greed. And so devoted to their god were those outside that with delirious, ecstatic hunger they consumed their own recollections, devouring the idea that there ever existed an Ikenior, making sure the ritual of autophagy was perfect, that the snake devouring its tail would leave no pathetic, gnawed remains, but a perfect nothingness. By the time the roof collapsed on the temple, already they had forgotten what fearsome deity it was that gazed out at them in blackened exultation from the ruins, before falling to pieces with an ashy sigh.
       When the rains came that evening, they could no longer ask if it was mere meteorological chance, or the long-awaited answer to their prayers; they had forgotten making them.

Story Pt 1

I don't really know what this is, but here it is:

The first dream went like this:

I was on a suburban street, watching a motorcycle drive by, when I looked down and was confronted by a scene of pure menace. A pack of huge dogs, grim and silent, had killed a smaller dog. They surrounded the small, red carcass and tore at it with a silent and unnerving brutality. I took a step towards them, trying to frighten the big dogs away, but they turned to me and fixed me with dead-eyed stares. I shrank away.

A few months later, it seemed that everyone had had a similar dream. Details differed, but in all of them: a pack of huge dogs hunting small dogs; ripping them apart; always silent, always suffused with a carnivorous dread.

Mal’s version of the dream, as he told it to me, was by his parents’ house—their neighbor was walking his poodle and had been knocked down. The terrified poodle tried to run away, but was trapped by the leash, still held in the neighbor’s hand. It strained against the leash, yelping in terror as the larger dogs bore down on it. Mal had watched as one dog wrenched the poodle’s leg off, stunned at how vividly red it was.

“I don’t even know if I’ve ever dreamed in color before”.

We were sitting at a bar and catching up, as we tried to do once every two weeks or so. Talking about mutual friends from high school, about our jobs; whatever.

Mal’d had the dream only two nights before, and he still looked haunted and tired.

“I barely slept last night”, he told me, reaching for his pint. “Honestly, I was scared I’d dream it again”.

I told him that I’d had the dream only once, months ago, and it hadn’t come back.

“I suppose. Still, I’ve talked to some people at work. A bunch of them have had pretty much the same dream. And some of them have had it twice. One guy said his sister in law had it every night, three or four nights in a row”.

“Jesus”.

“Yeah, exactly”.

I picked up my glass, to interrupt the conversation. Trying to steer it in a new direction. Trying to keep my voice neutral, I asked, “Have you heard from Eleanor at all lately?”

“No, still not. It’s been almost a year since I’ve heard from her. I think she’s still down south, but I wouldn’t know. She hasn’t been all that open when we’ve spoken anyway”.

I at least felt a little bit ashamed by my relief that I wasn’t the only one Eleanor was stonewalling. I felt truly pathetic.

“The same with me”, I said. “She doesn’t really say much even when she does talk”.

“Well”, said Mal, “I guess we weren’t that close, even back in school, so mostly I just try and keep a little bit in touch”.

Again trying to force any hint of over-concern from my voice, I said, “Well, we were pretty close, I think. Anyway, we hung out a lot. I guess it just happens though. Life forces you apart”.

Months passed. After a while, the dog dreams faded. Mal and I kept meeting: going for drinks after work, walking through the park near his house; every so often one of us going to the other’s apartment. Even though he was by all reasonable measures my best friend, neither of us were the type to really meet on personal ground. We preferred neutral space; and neutral topics of conversation.

After a while, rumors started: more dreams. Again, the shared dream was violent. Mal told me his as we walked through the park. It was early summer, just before it really starts to swelter. We met after work, but even with the sun low in the sky, it was uncomfortably hot.

“I was out walking”, Mal told me as we wound along a narrow gravel path threaded between the trees, “when I saw a guy lying out in front of his house. I got closer, and saw his head was covered in blood. I don’t know how it happened.”

We walked past a baseball diamond, and I heard the ‘clink’ of a metal bat driving a softball.

“Anyway”, Mal continued, “anyway, I didn’t notice what happened next, but suddenly I was helping this guy into his house, and his wife is just frantic. The phone is ringing, it’s chaotic in there, I can barely tell what’s happening. Finally, I manage to get him down to his basement and sit him down, when I hear this—this just tremendous banging from upstairs. Things crashing, glass breaking, maybe some screaming, I don’t even know. And the next thing, there’s a group of five or six guys down in the basement with us. I don’t know if they wanted something, or what.

You know how, in a dream, you sometimes get these feelings but you can’t really explain where they come from? Like you’re reading the stage directions, that tell you things not in the actual script? I sort of had that feeling: that these guys were here to steal something, but also, more importantly, to just break things. Fuck shit up. Fuck people up, really.

And here I am, with this bloodied-up guy behind me, completely out of it, facing down a gang of, I don’t know, thugs?”

He looked at me as if confused. “Thugs isn’t a good word. It’s like ‘no-goodnik’; it’s a word that sounds tough only to old people. No one uses it; at least, no one uses it to talk about someone actually threatening.

But these guys, I could tell, were mean. So I look around and all I can find to defend myself with is a baseball bat. I mean, I’ve never hit someone in my life. What do I know what to do with a baseball bat? I’ve never played baseball either. And I know they can tell that about me: that I’m soft. An easy target. And they start closing in on me.”

Mal had a haunted look, and he didn’t resume. I decided not to press him, and after walking for a while in silence, we eventually managed to turn to other topics.

I knew though, as everyone by now probably did, that Mal wasn’t the only one with such dreams. Nor the only one so affected by them. The newspaper spared a few column inches for the story of a little girl who had developed bruises after suffering a dream much like Mal’s: an armed gang had assaulted her piano teacher, and she had intervened.

As the days and nights grew hotter, it seemed the city became more tense. It had an antic, nervous energy to it; a rawness. Cruelty blossomed spontaneously in the streets. There was a shooting near the bar where Mal and I sometimes drank—one dead, blasted apart by three shots. The killer wasn’t found.

According to the mayor and the police chief, certain seditious elements had been distributing propaganda of a violent and disturbing nature; the usual Christian groups felt that violence in the media was to blame. Two of my co-workers got into a fight over whether it was communists or terrorists who had worked our normally placid city into such a frothing rage. Conciliatory, I tried to suggest that maybe it was communist terrorists? The looks they gave me convinced me to mind my own business.

By the end of summer, everyone was on edge—we breathed in naked aggression like humidity in the air. My back teeth ached from constant grinding; from setting them always on edge. We lived in a dry powder keg, and it felt like only the punishing humidity kept it from sparking.

When next I saw Mal, he looked terrible. He was thin—not that he had been fat before, but he looked shrink-wrapped now. He was pale, and his eyes were red-rimmed. Later, I found out he was barely sleeping. Every night, without fail, he was visited—plagued—by the same dream. A condition he shared with some two thousand or so other citizens: the dream was identical, those who shared it were sure, even though it was maddeningly difficult to describe it:

 A sense of striving—like an insect boring through the soil—a drumbeat, insistent, driving conviction that movement was what mattered—upward—forward—a thousand, million legs scuttling in unison like the oars on a Viking longboat thrusting through dark, mutinous waves in search of plunder—and beneath it all, a challenge—a glove across a complacent face, daring you to fall in line, to march to the drumbeat. If. If you would give in to the overwhelming impulse to exertion, to effort—what might be done?

Waking up disoriented and sweaty, in a dark room, heart still pounding—the details already fading but not the sense of urgency behind it; the sense of a psychic call-to-arms, aimed at the darkest parts of the soul.

But I didn’t know anything about that at the time. Mal spoke vaguely, and our conversation rattled about to no great effect, like a single gumball inside a too-large jar. We parted listlessly, but I remember being chilled by how Mal delivered his farewell: “Stay safe.”

Not long after that, the fuse on our powder keg lit.

According to an emergency press conference given by the mayor, “certain agitators” were at work—members of a nihilistic cult, devoted to death, reveling in bloodshed. “They seek to tear apart the bonds that keep us together. We will show them that we are better than that.” The police chief spoke beside a picture of a young man, the alleged leader of the alleged cult, both nameless. The picture was at odds with the crimes the young man was supposed to have committed, or inspired: his face was young, and soft. He looked like a teenager trying to look tough. The face was too chubby to be grim, but not fat enough to be grotesque. His up-coiffed hair looked like a pop star’s. As summer rolled into autumn, and each fresh atrocity rolled in, I would try and imagine this face to reconcile it to the latest outrage, always unsuccessfully.

Time passed, and no end to the crimes. Knife attacks on the subway—a 9-11 call; in reality an ambush—two girls tied their friend’s dog in a sack with rocks, and dropped it in the river. An endless parade of horrors. I work up each morning with a pit of dread in my stomach, a slow nausea tugging at my insides. Through all this time, I had no word from Mal.

So I was surprised to receive a phone call from him in late September: “Jason, hey. I’m sorry I’ve been out of touch for a while, but I’d like to see you.”

“Sure, I could use a night out. How’ve you been? When’s a good time for you? And where do you want to meet?”

“To be honest, it’s not been a great few months for me. But I’ll tell you about that when we meet. Are you free tomorrow?”

I was; unwilling to go out alone, I spent most nights at home alone, reading. “Yes, tomorrow is fine. Where do you want to go? Doyle’s? Do you want to grab some drinks?”

“Actually”—he spoke slowly, as if hesitant to broach the suggestion—“I was wondering if you’d mind coming to a”—a pause—“friend’s house.”

He continued after a moment, “I think you’d be interested in him.”

This was so unlike Mal that I didn’t believe I had understood. Other than our shared group of friends in high school, I had not known Mal to have any friends. And most of those had drifted away by now; other than occasional e-mails from Eleanor, his interactions with colleagues at work, and whatever contact he had with his family, I did not believe that Mal spoke to other human beings at all. I was too shocked to do anything other than agree: “Yes, that sounds fine.” Curiosity alone made this impossible to turn down.

“Great, I can pick you up and drive there. You don’t need to bring anything, and I don’t imagine we’ll stay late. I can get you from your place around 6.”

The next day, Mal picked me up as agreed in his ten-year-old Honda. I got in beside him, but after saying our ‘hello’s, we drove in silence. I was nervous, and I imagine Mal was self-conscious; small-talk with him always felt forced.

Twenty minutes later we pulled up at a small house in a suburb west of downtown. It was getting dark by then, and the overgrown garden gave the low, white structure a fairy-tale aspect. It was a little sinister as well, set far back from the road as it was. Most of the windows were dark, but on the lower floor it was clear that lights were on in a room deeper in the house. The door and the windows were dark blue, and an ivy reached around from the left side of the house to wrap around an upper-story window.

I stepped out of the car into the fresh autumn air; heard the ‘click’ of the car door shutting. We approached the house, crunching the gravel of the drive under our feet. Mal knocked loudly; the door opened and we were ushered inside by a man who greeted Mal with a nod. I was completely ignored. We walked down a passageway past a few closed doors and into a kitchen that I would describe as gracefully shabby: it was untidy, all the furniture was clearly past its prime. Even with all the lights on, the room was dim; the corners seemed to drink up the light. Pots and pans cluttered the counter that ran along a far wall; two benches set on either side of a long table that took up the centre of the room. Upon the benches were perched five people, two men and three women; it seemed they had been interrupted by our arrival. I could feel them waiting for us, so they could continue with some conversation. The man who had ushered us in gestured to the benches before sitting down himself.

At the head of the table stood a man with short blond hair, of medium height and a slight build. Mal went over to the man and they exchanged some words I didn’t hear, before Mal waved me around the table to come join them. This then, must be Mal’s friend.

“Jason”, Mal said giving me a significant look, as if willing me to receive some telepathic communication from him, “this is Gideon.” I reached out to take his hand; I looked into Gideon’s eyes, and prepared to mouth a “pleased to meet you” when I felt an electric shock run through me. My guts clenched and ice ran through my veins. I had been blind not to recognize ‘Gideon’ from across the room. The hair was shorter, and the mens’ clothing had perhaps misdirected me, but the blue eyes and the oval face were unmistakable. Eleanor.

Mal steered me away before I could say anything, and so I stewed in my confusion as we took our seats on the bench. I supposed this was what Mal had wanted me to infer from his look: don’t say a fucking word.

My head felt like it had been invaded by a swarm of locusts. I had not seen Eleanor in years, nor had any word from her recently. I had no idea what she had been doing in the south. I had imagined (fantasized is probably the truer word) what it would be like to see her again. But to see her here, like this; no longer Eleanor but ‘Gideon’—the shock was too much. I had been trying to regain control over my twisting stomach and buzzing head for half a minute before I noticed a low voice talking, and realized it was ‘Gideon’. The voice was lower than the voice I remembered, but not quite masculine. I tried to push down the emotional surge threatening to overwhelm me and listen:

“—have all felt it; the rallying call”, Gideon said. “You are here because you were sensitive enough to hear it, and curious, or perhaps brave enough to heed it. You are here because we face a deadly enemy—an enemy, inspired, like you, by forces they do not understand and cannot face directly. An enemy that has perched on our city like an unfelt, unseen spider: injecting its venom, liquefying its prey quietly.”

Gideon looked around the room, meeting each of our gazes. I almost looked away, but steeled myself to look into those eyes, less familiar than they should have been. I saw no recognition in them.

We sat in silence for a moment, and then: “I will not lie to you. It may already be too late. There may be nothing we can do. The poison may already have reached the heart. But we are nothing if we do not try to stop it. Less than nothing.” I squirmed in my seat a little. 

Story as Apology

Callix Millender resurrected his parents first. It was easiest to start there. He knew where they were buried, and neither had been cremated, or been dead for so long as to have decayed. Too many other dead were now scattered as ashes, or mulched into the dark soil, or slowly dissolved in the ocean deeps. Not to mention those blown to smithereens in explosions, burnt to cinders in fires; eaten and digested as wild beasts. 

Bodily resurrection, he knew, was simple in principle: all the information contained in the living person was conserved, only now diffused into the wider world. But the degree of diffusion mattered, too, he knew. To resurrect those long since eaten by worms would require tracking down the worms, and thus in turn the robins that ate the worms, and the cats that ate the robins...and so on and so forth. 

Callix's parents bodies, on the other hand, were readily at hand, and still reasonably well preserved. What decay there was could be offset by any number of methods: his own genetic material, of course, preserved some memory of them, which he could use to reconstruct them. Then there was memorabilia--their diaries, their old possessions, their letters to friends. And finally, his own memories. 

Callix almost surprised himself with his initial success: perhaps he had doubted the principle, even though of course it was perfectly logical and sound. 

With one success in hand, he felt emboldened to go further. Having resurrected his parents, he now had new source of genetic material and memories with which to resurrect those close to his parents. They were the next link in a chain radiating out from himself:

His parents, reconstructed from the traces they had left on him, could in turn be used to reconstruct those who had left their traces on them, and so on and so forth. Ad infinitum.

As he practiced, he perfected his technique: resurrections came faster and easier. Missing information could be filled in from multiple sources. Someone whose only physical remains were a slightly richer iron contain the dark earth where they had been buried could now be reconstructed from the memories they had left in others; from the physical information in their descendents, and antescedents; from the physical traces they had left on the world. 

Within five years, Callix had resurrected almost ten million people. Truly, he felt, he had mastered the forces of decay and fragmentation. He could restore a human being who had lived decades before, and give him back his personality.

Although on this last point, there was some lingering doubt. Each chain in the link represented some possibility of missing information. And as time went on, he began to doubt even the earlier links in the chain. Were his parents acting as they always had? Was he sure their personalities were unchanged from before their deaths?

Of course, it was hard to be sure this was even a meaningful question: obviously, the fact of having died, of having ceased to be for some years, would change a person. And even had they lived, they would have grown and changed. The question was: would they have changed into people identical to those he had recreated? And if not, did that mean their memories, which he had used to recreate others, compromise his whole project? 

As time went on, and he slowly repopulated the world, he became more and more haunted that he was not flaunting death at all. That, rather than bestowing immortality on the world, he had simply replaced the dead with cheap imitations. That their souls had fled into the soil, or the ocean deeps, or the cremation furnace, or maybe just been annihilated. Death had claimed them, after all, and he had simply substituted forgeries. Perhaps, after all his efforts, he had achieved only a simulation of immortality; no better than if he had made puppets or voodoo dolls of all the dead.

Eventually he understood the only way he could come be sure: he would have to die, and be resurrected himself, and see if he was the same before and after. 

But even having done that, his doubts were never settled.

IT HAS BEEN TOO LONG

And yea, he whom the writhing Five-Tongued Disciples mention occasionally-in-passing as the great Rascal/Exultant/Calder/Whelp/Skunk did say unto his demiurgic cohort: "Thou art lollygaggers. Thy tongues are still. Thy throats, barren. Thy fingers, brittle. Speak, sing, paint to life that which ye envision, or surrender this world unto my keeping." And so saying, he posted in challenge:

 HOW ONE RETURNED FROM THE CITY OF XITH

 It is common knowledge that two cities reside within the desert of Kallax, though there is little traffic between them. Throughout the history of the two, citizens of Que-Lan have sometimes made the journey across the sand to the city of Xith - and occasionally even returned home again - but these emissaries were without exception of that particular brand of merchant who deal only in stealth and cunning, and whose transactions are notoriously one-sided. Citizens of Xith have never made the journey to Que-Lan, for which denizens of the latter are grateful.

It was while searching through a collection of tales told about Xith, that city whose towers jut from the desert like dead hands and whose inhabitants live beneath the sand instead of above, that Thragg first began to consider journeying there. Upon coming across an account of one who returned from Xith, laden with jewels and describing the technique employed in liberating them, Thragg would always speak to himself, “I am cleverer still.” And as each tale of amateurish thievery came before his eyes his resolve grew and grew, until at last he decided that he himself would make the voyage across the desert, and come away with more jewels than those who had gone before him.

Such a journey required careful consideration, however, for though many novice footpads had returned successfully from Xith, many more, some of even greater skill, had never returned. And so Thragg spent three months in preparation, employing his art upon the wealthier houses of Que-Lan to ensure his hands were as deft and his footsteps as light as ever they were. And when he decided he was ready, he very wisely chose for his accomplice the famed Lydia, who had once stolen the Wyvern's Emerald and who alone amongst the thieves of the world could match Thragg for nimbleness. Although generally two thieves are less effective than one, as the misstep of one ensures the downfall of the other, Thragg knew that such an error would never be committed by Lydia, and she knew the same for him. And so it was that one clouded night, a night without stars nor moon, Lydia and Thragg met as if by accident on the road leading out of the city, and without a word or sound, but merely a glance and a nod, turned their silent footsteps towards Xith.

They arrived in the golden light of early morning, for though darkness is in most cases the best armour a thief can acquire, Thragg and Lydia reasoned that as no citizen of Xith would raise itself above the sand unless a footstep landed upon its grainy roof, and as it would be fatal to draw the attention of a Xithian no matter how much shadow was present, it would not matter how bright the sun was shining. Furthermore, they knew that extra illumination would allow them to pick their way more carefully among the rocks and boulders littering the streets of the city, lessening the chance of a misstep. And so the two made their way stealthily through the streets, avoiding the single footfall that would mean their doom.

And finally they came to the temple which was said to house such a ludicrous amount of treasure that an army of thieves could never carry it all away. They entered with all the caution one would expect, and I need not relate the traps and dangers they encountered while traversing the nitrous hallways, since so effortlessly did they avoid them that such an account could only serve to bore the reader. Finally, however, they came upon the treasure room, and though years of gazing upon gold and silver had caused their eyes to adopt some of the hardness and dispassion of these metals, still Thragg and Lydia found themselves affected by the sight of so much wealth, and they paused a moment in wonderment. And they began to sift through the ridiculous pile, judging each piece with professional discrimination, until Thragg uncovered, buried behind several tapestries and a gilded suit of armour, a small and secret passageway leading into yet another quiet corridor. And there was discourse then, as to whether it would be wiser to simply collect as much wealth as possible and escape, or to see what lay beyond the tiny portal in the corner. And though they realized at that moment why it was that novice thieves always came away with treasure, whereas more skilled practitioners often did not return, they decided that the treasure beyond the door must surely be of an extraordinary nature, and felt also that they had an obligation to their trade to always try their fortunes behind whatever hidden doors might present themselves.

And so they entered, and found increasingly subtle traps awaiting them as they made their way forward, along with occasional remains of previous explorers, but again they avoided these with such ease as to make accounts tedious. At last they came to a large chamber, spacious and dimly lit, with statues in strange forms and reliefs carved upon the walls. They saw that there was a Guardian, but Lydia had brought a sword she had removed from a certain barrow, and employed it surreptitiously before the bloated creature could utter its terrible word or point its terrible finger.

And the two came to a large door, on which was written a final warning, that what lay beyond was not treasure at all, but rather something sentient and awful, and it reminded them of the vast wealth lying untouched upstairs, which indeed had been placed there for the purpose of dissuading adventurers from opening this last and fateful aperture. And Lydia, having decided already that the absurd wealth kept above was fair payment for her efforts, and noting that the massive door before them was hardly secret, argued that they should return immediately, and cease their exploration. But Thragg pointed out that doors kept behind hidden doors are themselves hidden, and reminded her of the superior treasure which probably lay beyond, protected now only by a fictional history carved upon the gateway. This time, however, Lydia was immovable, and the two decided to go separate ways.

 As a courtesy, Thragg offered to wait a full hour before opening the door, to give Lydia time to remove herself from Xith with whatever loot she could carry. And remove herself she did, taking only three rings and a brooch which were nevertheless worth more than the rest of the hoard combined. And as she made her way across the sands, she felt a distant rumble, and glanced back at Xith to find its crumbling towers snapping back to perfection, its ruined walls reassembling themselves, and the city adopting an aspect of perfection which it had not held in human memory. And though it had never looked so beautiful, Lydia found something ominous about the angles at which the pristine towers were placed, and the way the wind turned suddenly towards the city, shrouding it from sight with swirling sands. And large shadows without origin began moving across the dunes towards Xith, sliding aside to avoid Lydia on their way, and singing strange songs. Lydia shuddered at the thought of Thragg trapped inside the walls with these, and wondered what he had found in the last and terrible chamber, but she was a businesswoman first, and turned once more toward Que-Lan.

And although sometimes in her later years she caught herself singing as the shadows had done on their way to Xith, the three rings alone were enough to keep her comfortable for the rest of her days. Indeed, such was her wealth that some citizens of Que-Lan grew envious and sought to make the journey across Kallax in search of similar fortune, but although some of these were as skilled as Lydia herself had been in her youth, the days in which citizens of Que-Lan could return from Xith were ended, and none were seen thereafter.

The Perfect Statue

There once was a pious woodcarver who loved the gods. In his modest home he had a small shrine, and every day he would offer prayers to each god in turn. He had carefully whittled statues of all the deities he knew, and one by one he would place them on the altar and address them as he would old and dear friends, with affection and warmth, and never with fear. And sometimes he would ask for small favours, and sometimes he would give thanks, and sometimes he would merely tell them stories of his life, particularly stories in which they played key roles. Certainly he prayed to the gods of luck and beauty and wisdom, as all do, but he also did not neglect the gods of jealousy and hatred and anger, hoping that by acknowledging them each morning, they would be appeased, and not exert their influence so strongly upon his soul.

                The woodcarver made his living selling what he crafted in the marketplace, and on occasion from commissions for specific pieces, for his talent was not insignificant. And it happened one day that a wealthy merchant, passing by his stall, took note of his wares, and was impressed.

                “Good master carver,” he said, holding a small wooden dog to his eye to inspect the detail, “I wonder if you might be interested in crafting something particular for me. You see, I am in the process of installing a small chapel on my property. I hope to dedicate it to Nalgi, the goddess of kindness, to remind myself to use what wealth I have obtained wisely. I shall need for this a representation of the goddess, and believe that your skill could provide me with a very fine one indeed.”

                The woodcarver’s delight can well be imagined at this offer, and he hastily expressed his eagerness. The two shook hands and parted ways, and the carver carefully placed his wooden animals and statues into a tissue-lined box and rushed home to begin.

                The work took three months. First, he spent six days searching a nearby forest for the perfect piece of wood, at last finding a large, strong tree which had been recently toppled by a storm. With help from some neighbours (who refused the money the woodcutter offered when they heard what the piece would be used for, but accepted a meal at his home in thanks), he transported a large section of the trunk to his house, and installed it in his workshop. Each day thereafter, he would awaken, say his prayers as always (giving special thought to Nalgi, but being careful not to neglect the others), and then go out into the village with the aim of performing as many kindnesses as possible. He would help wherever he saw the need, and would bring small carvings he had made to give to children. Then, at midday, he would return home and work on the beautiful piece of wood until he grew too weary to continue.         

Finally, just as the trees began to lose their green and to scatter their fiery embers, it was finished. A friend of the carver’s spent three days at the workshop, carefully painting the limbs and face of the statue, while a local seamstress spent her nights making a simple gown out of spare bits of fabric. Once adorned, the piece was once again transported across town by helpful neighbours, to where the merchant’s chapel waited for it. The piece was unveiled to great acclaim from all gathered (and, thanks to the merchant, the crowd was not inconsiderable). All praised the skill with which it had been crafted, for while the features could perhaps have been more deftly defined by a more prestigious carver, none could deny that the face smiling perfectly down from the wood was Nalgi. To even look upon her features was to feel the thousand tiny kindnesses that had gone into its carving, and all left the gathering praising the artist and the merchant who commissioned the piece. Woodcarver and merchant both went to sleep happy, knowing that they had brought something splendid into the world.

                I wish I could say that the story ended there. But the merchant lived for many years more, and the years brought about a change in his character. He visited less and less the chapel of Nalgi, and more and more the vault where his money was kept. He became greedy and envious, and one day noticed construction happening on his neighbour’s property.

                “Ho there, sir!” he called from the gate. “What is it that you build there?”

                “A chapel!” came the reply from his neighbour, who was overseeing the proceedings. “I mean to honour Plouta, the goddess of wealth, for all that she has brought me!”

                And though the merchant outwardly expressed his delight, and promised to come to see the chapel when it was at last completed, he took note of the expensive materials being used and the skill of the craftsmen employed, and felt a slow warmth spreading across his cheeks. He hastened back to his own chapel and stared up at the smiling face of Nalgi which had been carven for him, forgetting even to kneel and give her greeting, and instead saying to himself, “How shabby Nalgi is looking these days. See how her paint begins to peel, and how poorly she is adorned. I have more wealth now than once I did; I should use it to improve the statue, to make it more beautiful still, that it might inspire all who see it to even greater acts of kindness.”

                And so, as his neighbour’s chapel began to take shape, he too began to renovate. He had beautiful bracelets and rings imported from far-off lands, and had a new robe fashioned from expensive silk. He brought in diamonds and precious stones and vivid paints, and once everything was gathered, he began to improve his statue.

                First, he scrubbed away the fading colour on her limbs and face, and paid a customer’s son who was skilled with a brush to put on a fresh coat in a dazzling colour made rare by the fact that its preparation involved the use of dangerous poisons, and inevitably harmed those forced to brew it. He removed the various simple homemade bracelets which adorned her arms, and which had been given to the woodcarver by friends in thanks for past kindnesses. These he threw away, and replaced with elegant circles of ivory and gold, which glittered cold and untouchable against her glistening arms. The rough gown he tore from her shoulders, and replaced with a new, more fashionable garment. Lastly, he gazed with a frown upon her face, still smiling down at him, and thought to himself until he had an idea. Smiling with delight, he rushed off to contact a jeweler he knew.

                Two weeks later, his neighbour unveiled his beautiful temple to Plouta. There was much admiration and many compliments, for the statue was very beautiful, and richly adorned, and all agreed that there was no better representation of wealth to be seen for hundreds of miles. And then, as the crowd began to depart, some recalled the beautiful statue of Nalgi housed in the chapel next door which they had seen many years before, and wondered whether it was as lovely and perfect as they remembered. And a handful of them went next door and knocked, and the merchant answered readily, dressed in his finery, as if he had expected them. And he led them, beaming, to the chapel, and threw open the door with a flourish, and revealed to them the goddess of kindness, and mistook their gasps for delight.

                Shortly afterwards, once his guests had stammered their excuses and departed, he gazed up at what he had made, and thought upon how much improved Nalgi had become from the simple carving she had been in earlier days, and how the course of his own successful life was to be traced in her progression to the radiant being smiling down at him with her diamond teeth. He smiled back, and went to bed, getting up twice in the night to visit the chapel and stroke the fine silk gown of the sparkling wonder which dwelt there.

                And over the coming months he visited the chapel more and more, more than ever he had visited even when the statue was new. And he sometimes fancied that he heard movement from the chapel when no one was in it, and sometimes imagined that he saw diamond teeth gleaming in the darkness of his bedroom, but set these fanciful notions aside with a laugh and a shudder.

                Then, one night, an alarum was made throughout the town, and the villagers rushed outside to find the merchant’s home consumed in a fiery blaze, and the chapel with it. And, armed with buckets and axes, they first attempted to gain access to the mansion to save the merchant, but finding it impossible, they turned instead to the chapel, to see if they couldn’t at least salvage the costly statue; but this, too they found impossible, so fierce were the flames. And by dawn all that was left was a blackened patch of earth, smoking in a morning rain.

                And the old woodcarver shook his head when he heard that his work had been destroyed, but not too sadly, as he knew that such a tragedy would move the villagers to further acts of kindness, and Nalgi’s presence in the world would be, if anything, increased by the statue’s loss. Still, he decided to walk to the spot where his carving had been housed, to remember. And on his way he passed three sinister-looking men carrying behind them a cart covered in a tarpaulin. And for one moment only the tarpaulin was shifted by the breeze, and the woodcarver caught sight of a hideous face leering out at him with jewelled eyes and sharp diamond teeth, and he recoiled in horror at what he saw, but mercifully recognized nothing of his own craftsmanship in the thing. And then the face was hastily covered again by one of the three villains, who glared malevolently at the woodcarver before moving on again. And the woodcarver walked on as well, thinking to himself, “I shall have to mention to the gods of greed and jealousy that I believe I saw them today. They love hearing such things.”

The Amaravella Art Movement

Since no one has posted in over a year, I think we should try and kick-start this thing. So, in lieu of trying to write something original, here is an art post. The Amaravella movement was sort of the artistic subset of the Russian Cosmist movement of the early 20th century. The name is apparently a Sanskrit word meaning "sprouts of immortality", and the group was active in the 1920s.

Amaravella had scientific and spiritual influences: one early influence was the Lithuanian painter Mikalogus Konstantinas Ciurlionis. Ciurlionis was an important precursor of abstract art in Europe, and also contributed to the Art Nouveau movement, which is pretty evident from his works:

You can see pretty clearly the architectural side of his work, and the mystical side, but also the naturalistic and scientific. The second painting is a stylized picture of lightning, and the last is part of a series of works called The Creation of the World.

A more esoteric early influence on Amaravella was Nicholas (or Nikolai) Roerich, a Russian painter, theosophist, and spiritualist. Roerich in particular brought some serious Eastern mystic influence to the movement.

This Eastern mysticism influenced Boris Smirnov-Rusetsky, a member of Amaravella proper:

Okay, I should stop, though I could put stuff up by this guy forever. You can pretty clearly see the Russian influence, all of his paintings have a pretty strong Russian rodinia feel, but you can also feel the spaciness and the influence of cosmism. In fact, the second painting above is part of his Cosmist cycle.

Another member of Amaravella was Victor Chernovolenko. This guy doesn't even have an English Wikipedia page (outrage!) so I can't tell you much about him, but I have some cool pictures.

Once again, you can see the futurism, and the spaciness, but also the spirituality. The last painting there is called "Pray", and other works of his have distinctly spiritual themes, while still being science-fictiony. 

Anyway, that's all I really have on Amaravella, but I think, going with my original inspiration for this whole mythos of the Cosmists, that it's worth it to see their main artistic offshoot. And personally speaking, I find the art really beautiful. 

The Ultimate Incantation