Knave
09-10-10, 09:09 PM
Unsteered, unmanned the ship floats adrift,
With captain gone, weapons are drawn,
And all manner of crimes are met.
The stage turns, the world shifts
No outside aid, no help from within
Un found, there is no chivalry left
Treachery rules the hearts of men
The Boatswain, grinning, she holds the deck,
And the greater share of sins.
She wields bow and sword,
And can always rely on friends.
More loved, more seen,
Her secrets laid bare,
However, her strength alone provides.
She lacks the heart to care.
The First Mate, proud, he with tooth and anchor
Makes peace with the seas.
A thing of hunger, he lives only as he feeds.
With strange power, he speaks,
Filling lives with ambient love and need.
Powerful, an explosive force,
Unseen below, and sound,
His threat whole, the danger complete.
The Navigator growls, his mood is foul,
His ears are for the wind.
Alighting, strong, he beats the air
And with reason rules the skies.
Arrow fall, the fastest of all,
In his conquest he cares not
For how many men must die
But consoles himself often
With now unwed wives.
And on that day, twixt the elements and the wreck,
Children ran, and toys were slung,
No innocence to be left among the young.
Parents weeping, the ship begins to burn,
And only too late will anyone learn,
That this is the beginning of the end.
- The Fisher Man‘s Journal: Canto 6 — The Month of Tears
In the dim lighting of the study, a match was lit, flaring with deep red and orange hues. “If life is no different from a stage, then life is no different from a journey;” The light wavered as it scorched pressed tobacco, and began to burn. “If you catch my meaning, I would like to begin our discussion from there, without the pleasantries” The shape-shifter, out of his usual guise, lounged in the den of Druids, the doors locked. The couch was stuffed with Fallien cotton, and its black leather provided the ease of comfort as the shape-shifter smoked for the first time in years.
“But I insist.” The druid countered swiftly. Az-ram, the eldest of sages, the most insane, was at this moment enjoying a respite from senility. He watched the creature turned man with a disturbed fascination. His hands wringing his lengthy beard, eyes shining from the darkness of his cowl. “You’ve never taken that form before… what do you call it?” He asked, staring at the man that sat and smoked and stared into the ceiling.
Upturned eyes rolled downward, mahogany rimmed black, they were a piercing addition to his countenance. “Excuse me?” The shape-shifter asked, the question seemingly so uncouth as to offend his sense of self. “I am who I appear to be. I am the idea that poses itself, and the answer to the barest few of your questions.” It was a callous rebuttal, meant to be difficult for difficulty's sake. “If you are to call me anything, I am Heisenroth Sans Logos.” Heisenroth said, “Now, what game can we play to bring us the greater share of fame?”
“One with human lives at stake, but for you that is too ordinary, I’m sure.” The druid said, eyes twinkling with a sleeping madness. “More over then, one with the greatest of gravity, where the game imitates life by being composed of it.” There was no special pitch to the words spoken, they could have talked of art, or linens in the same fashion.
"If that is the case, where do you intend to obtain this great wealth of life?" Heisenroth asked, unwilling to accept the boundless possibilities of the Citadel just yet. "Lives may be abundant, but life is something else. It requires belief and emotion tied to it action."
Az-ram smiled through his beard, gnarled yellow and black teeth bared. “Indeed. I have at my disposal all I could ever wish for. Matter. The full sum of motivations. All of it.” The beasts of hell, the beasts of heaven, the power to alter minds, and more. Even more harem sluts than he really knew what to do with—why the hell did people not request more harem sluts? “They are good background at least…” He mused, his mind wandering in fields of the flesh and combat.
The pipe’s pit smoldered as Heisenroth let the old man find his meandering peace of mind, the calming smog of tobacco sinking into his lungs and teaching him the power of chem—“How about a war?” Word association granted Heisenroth the muse for grander ideas. “I have heard tell of much more than two on two battles, but never seen them, how would one proceed?”
Az-ram's withered hands, and wandering eyes seized upon the thought even as the old man leapt from his recliner to rivet them all upon Heisenroth's ancient face. To his credit, Heisenroth made no sound against this sudden attack, and was in fact very, very still. Az-ram spoke, almost feeding the other man his words, “It would proceed with the greatest loss of life possible, until only one faction remained.”
“I assume there will be more to it than that.” The physically older gentleman said, gently taking hold of the dark, sun touched hands that knotted in his suit. “I want more than death, I want the dramas of life in every way. The pity, the passion, the love. Calm yourself, old man, and we'll go about this together.” Gently forcing the man away, and back into his chair, Heisenroth stood, stroking his hairless chin, and shaggy sideburns, “Let us write a story.”
☻☻☻
Ace sat in the room he had been brought to, a spartan room of both meager size and furnishings, that he had been locked in for nearly fourteen days. He knew the reasons, though he suspected that Az-ram had been lying. Apparently isolation made the ease from one life into another easier; he could sense this was true.
Behind the shape-shifter, with a sharpened bit of his own bone, he had carved into the stone a mural of one of his dreams: a stark and sickening vision. It was a shapeless thing with a core that could not be seen among the writhing tentacles, gaping jaws, mouth-less teeth, and grasping claws. ‘X’s and “*”s marked the surroundings as stars, and minor devils danced in the background, playing instruments fashioned from dead worlds. He could still hear the haunting piping.
Ace had begun his painting on the fourth day, and finished on the eleventh, rendering the drawing a work of painful detail. Since then he had been whistling, and his attendants soon realized that not once had he slept since then. It was akin to the song of whales, echoing and haunting the halls. It was only interrupted by the sudden arrival of naught but voice.
“Are you ready?”
Ace started at the voice, looking around for the speaker with a starved hunger for life and conversation. He found no one, and could hear no sound outside of his door. What he did see was a strange shadow trickling in from the beneath the door. “I’ve never been more ready in my life, get me out of here.” Standing, Ace tested the knob, and let the door swing open. Darkness rushed to greet him.
☻☻☻
1977
The city was a work of art, set up on giant stilts in otherwise uninhabited waters, literal columns of calcified wood towers supporting a city more than sixteen miles wide. Coastal birds roosted, squabbled, and let loose their piercing "kaw!"s on the piers of this unnatural island, and in the distance no continents could be seen. It stood alone as the ocean’s jewel, a gem of the ocean handcrafted by humanity.
In architecture the city was at once both hard packed, and beautifully rendered from the stuff of dreams. Built on levels, space was occupied vertically in rising red wood towers to the sun shining sky. Elevators abounded, booths on hanging wire were the transports of those sky bound people. Below the trees of high civilization, was the land of shadows, an intricate work of narrow alleys, at times sunken roads, and the singing of gondoliers who waited at intersections beneath large signs indicating direction and location in bright artistic letters.
In various sections, factories churned, siphoning human life tirelessly from the tired. Each situated in large districts interspersed, and hidden, among the middle class apartments which rose high enough to conceal them. Below the surface—with sparingly few thatched port holes that allowed for views of the sky and the ocean—the lower class operated in submerged halls, crowded slum tenements, sunken sweatshops, and despondent opium dens. A monotony of grasping lower lifestyles only broken up by churches dedicated to various ocean deities both good and less so.
Below even these, Ace arrived.
“Oy, Boss, time to get going.” Eyes snapping open, Ace gasped for air, and sat up so quickly the man, who had been standing over him, had to lean back rather quickly to avoid cracking heads with the man he addressed so formally. Nevertheless, Ace gripped the man by his shirt front, and hauled him closer, “Where am I?” Even as the question was asked, he knew the answer.
“Home, Boss, you took a heavy fall when we tried to scale the airhead’s tower.” He was called Simkin, and the one silently watching, tightly bound in bandages… she was Ethyl… The man continued talking, trying to push Ace back into his bed, more at ease now that he saw Ace’s expression relax into weariness. “We managed to get everyone out, no one was killed out there.” With a dulcet murmur, he downplayed the hailing arrows and boiling oil.
Almost muscled back into his hammock, Ace made no extreme effort to move, he could feel his body aching, and his mind only now returning from that numb darkness. “A stalemate then…” Said Ace, judging the battle of the previous day a wasted effort… one that likely cost more than he could tell. With a deep breath, Ace sank into his bed, “I take it they don’t know where we are?”
“Not a soul above in heaven, or below in hell, knows even one of our secrets.” Even tired, and beaten back, no one would ever find where the Sharks of Cancion del Soberbio rested.
With captain gone, weapons are drawn,
And all manner of crimes are met.
The stage turns, the world shifts
No outside aid, no help from within
Un found, there is no chivalry left
Treachery rules the hearts of men
The Boatswain, grinning, she holds the deck,
And the greater share of sins.
She wields bow and sword,
And can always rely on friends.
More loved, more seen,
Her secrets laid bare,
However, her strength alone provides.
She lacks the heart to care.
The First Mate, proud, he with tooth and anchor
Makes peace with the seas.
A thing of hunger, he lives only as he feeds.
With strange power, he speaks,
Filling lives with ambient love and need.
Powerful, an explosive force,
Unseen below, and sound,
His threat whole, the danger complete.
The Navigator growls, his mood is foul,
His ears are for the wind.
Alighting, strong, he beats the air
And with reason rules the skies.
Arrow fall, the fastest of all,
In his conquest he cares not
For how many men must die
But consoles himself often
With now unwed wives.
And on that day, twixt the elements and the wreck,
Children ran, and toys were slung,
No innocence to be left among the young.
Parents weeping, the ship begins to burn,
And only too late will anyone learn,
That this is the beginning of the end.
- The Fisher Man‘s Journal: Canto 6 — The Month of Tears
In the dim lighting of the study, a match was lit, flaring with deep red and orange hues. “If life is no different from a stage, then life is no different from a journey;” The light wavered as it scorched pressed tobacco, and began to burn. “If you catch my meaning, I would like to begin our discussion from there, without the pleasantries” The shape-shifter, out of his usual guise, lounged in the den of Druids, the doors locked. The couch was stuffed with Fallien cotton, and its black leather provided the ease of comfort as the shape-shifter smoked for the first time in years.
“But I insist.” The druid countered swiftly. Az-ram, the eldest of sages, the most insane, was at this moment enjoying a respite from senility. He watched the creature turned man with a disturbed fascination. His hands wringing his lengthy beard, eyes shining from the darkness of his cowl. “You’ve never taken that form before… what do you call it?” He asked, staring at the man that sat and smoked and stared into the ceiling.
Upturned eyes rolled downward, mahogany rimmed black, they were a piercing addition to his countenance. “Excuse me?” The shape-shifter asked, the question seemingly so uncouth as to offend his sense of self. “I am who I appear to be. I am the idea that poses itself, and the answer to the barest few of your questions.” It was a callous rebuttal, meant to be difficult for difficulty's sake. “If you are to call me anything, I am Heisenroth Sans Logos.” Heisenroth said, “Now, what game can we play to bring us the greater share of fame?”
“One with human lives at stake, but for you that is too ordinary, I’m sure.” The druid said, eyes twinkling with a sleeping madness. “More over then, one with the greatest of gravity, where the game imitates life by being composed of it.” There was no special pitch to the words spoken, they could have talked of art, or linens in the same fashion.
"If that is the case, where do you intend to obtain this great wealth of life?" Heisenroth asked, unwilling to accept the boundless possibilities of the Citadel just yet. "Lives may be abundant, but life is something else. It requires belief and emotion tied to it action."
Az-ram smiled through his beard, gnarled yellow and black teeth bared. “Indeed. I have at my disposal all I could ever wish for. Matter. The full sum of motivations. All of it.” The beasts of hell, the beasts of heaven, the power to alter minds, and more. Even more harem sluts than he really knew what to do with—why the hell did people not request more harem sluts? “They are good background at least…” He mused, his mind wandering in fields of the flesh and combat.
The pipe’s pit smoldered as Heisenroth let the old man find his meandering peace of mind, the calming smog of tobacco sinking into his lungs and teaching him the power of chem—“How about a war?” Word association granted Heisenroth the muse for grander ideas. “I have heard tell of much more than two on two battles, but never seen them, how would one proceed?”
Az-ram's withered hands, and wandering eyes seized upon the thought even as the old man leapt from his recliner to rivet them all upon Heisenroth's ancient face. To his credit, Heisenroth made no sound against this sudden attack, and was in fact very, very still. Az-ram spoke, almost feeding the other man his words, “It would proceed with the greatest loss of life possible, until only one faction remained.”
“I assume there will be more to it than that.” The physically older gentleman said, gently taking hold of the dark, sun touched hands that knotted in his suit. “I want more than death, I want the dramas of life in every way. The pity, the passion, the love. Calm yourself, old man, and we'll go about this together.” Gently forcing the man away, and back into his chair, Heisenroth stood, stroking his hairless chin, and shaggy sideburns, “Let us write a story.”
☻☻☻
Ace sat in the room he had been brought to, a spartan room of both meager size and furnishings, that he had been locked in for nearly fourteen days. He knew the reasons, though he suspected that Az-ram had been lying. Apparently isolation made the ease from one life into another easier; he could sense this was true.
Behind the shape-shifter, with a sharpened bit of his own bone, he had carved into the stone a mural of one of his dreams: a stark and sickening vision. It was a shapeless thing with a core that could not be seen among the writhing tentacles, gaping jaws, mouth-less teeth, and grasping claws. ‘X’s and “*”s marked the surroundings as stars, and minor devils danced in the background, playing instruments fashioned from dead worlds. He could still hear the haunting piping.
Ace had begun his painting on the fourth day, and finished on the eleventh, rendering the drawing a work of painful detail. Since then he had been whistling, and his attendants soon realized that not once had he slept since then. It was akin to the song of whales, echoing and haunting the halls. It was only interrupted by the sudden arrival of naught but voice.
“Are you ready?”
Ace started at the voice, looking around for the speaker with a starved hunger for life and conversation. He found no one, and could hear no sound outside of his door. What he did see was a strange shadow trickling in from the beneath the door. “I’ve never been more ready in my life, get me out of here.” Standing, Ace tested the knob, and let the door swing open. Darkness rushed to greet him.
☻☻☻
1977
The city was a work of art, set up on giant stilts in otherwise uninhabited waters, literal columns of calcified wood towers supporting a city more than sixteen miles wide. Coastal birds roosted, squabbled, and let loose their piercing "kaw!"s on the piers of this unnatural island, and in the distance no continents could be seen. It stood alone as the ocean’s jewel, a gem of the ocean handcrafted by humanity.
In architecture the city was at once both hard packed, and beautifully rendered from the stuff of dreams. Built on levels, space was occupied vertically in rising red wood towers to the sun shining sky. Elevators abounded, booths on hanging wire were the transports of those sky bound people. Below the trees of high civilization, was the land of shadows, an intricate work of narrow alleys, at times sunken roads, and the singing of gondoliers who waited at intersections beneath large signs indicating direction and location in bright artistic letters.
In various sections, factories churned, siphoning human life tirelessly from the tired. Each situated in large districts interspersed, and hidden, among the middle class apartments which rose high enough to conceal them. Below the surface—with sparingly few thatched port holes that allowed for views of the sky and the ocean—the lower class operated in submerged halls, crowded slum tenements, sunken sweatshops, and despondent opium dens. A monotony of grasping lower lifestyles only broken up by churches dedicated to various ocean deities both good and less so.
Below even these, Ace arrived.
“Oy, Boss, time to get going.” Eyes snapping open, Ace gasped for air, and sat up so quickly the man, who had been standing over him, had to lean back rather quickly to avoid cracking heads with the man he addressed so formally. Nevertheless, Ace gripped the man by his shirt front, and hauled him closer, “Where am I?” Even as the question was asked, he knew the answer.
“Home, Boss, you took a heavy fall when we tried to scale the airhead’s tower.” He was called Simkin, and the one silently watching, tightly bound in bandages… she was Ethyl… The man continued talking, trying to push Ace back into his bed, more at ease now that he saw Ace’s expression relax into weariness. “We managed to get everyone out, no one was killed out there.” With a dulcet murmur, he downplayed the hailing arrows and boiling oil.
Almost muscled back into his hammock, Ace made no extreme effort to move, he could feel his body aching, and his mind only now returning from that numb darkness. “A stalemate then…” Said Ace, judging the battle of the previous day a wasted effort… one that likely cost more than he could tell. With a deep breath, Ace sank into his bed, “I take it they don’t know where we are?”
“Not a soul above in heaven, or below in hell, knows even one of our secrets.” Even tired, and beaten back, no one would ever find where the Sharks of Cancion del Soberbio rested.