The Seed of the Dead

[The Conjurer]

Posts until death: 15 posts
The Conjurer’s note: The possession was a success, albeit certain difficulties. It is his soul, you see. Yes, that constant pressure grinding his very existence. Remarkable how the past shapes the future. Worthy to note: the parent must never harm the child.

Crack, crack, crack.

Crack, the grinding of bones. Crack, the ripping of flesh. Crack, crack. Crack he went. With his big saw, sawing corpse after corpse in a never-ending symphony. Crack, like the sound of a whip, ever hitting, never missing. Hurting bad. Gods, how it hurt. It still does. And with every limp torn, with every bone broken, Zeregin felt he was taken back to those years. To the years of the whip and so much more. So much more.

The years of the whip, when an improper word meant pain. Many kinds of pain. For the body, Zeregin has come to understand, learns to accept physical pain. To embrace it. And from that pain it becomes stronger, more … endurable.

But the other pain, the spiritual pain … well, it never left, didn’t it just? You just have to carry on with that weight, the nightmare. Taking toll in your soul, until there is nothing left but a trembling core. And when that core’s gone, madness. Words that hurt more than cuts, possibilities lost for lack of wanting. Never mind the slashes, the excesses of sexual abuse. It was the identity of the perpetrator, and not the act, that left un-healing, ever festering scars in Zeregin’s soul. It is, alas, his very own pathos.

“Master’s ‘s really to’ it tonight, don’t ya think?”

Lady Puke was using her little finger to poke one nasal hole at a time. Her name was the embodiment of contrasts, and it fitted her nicely. Low of height and somewhat lump, she took little interest in her appearance. A bushy, black hair cascaded almost to her waist, and a lumpy, toad-like nose crowded her otherwise beautiful face – if you didn’t mind the knife scars that zigzagged here and there. All considered, she had a certain grace befitted to her youth, a certain zeal in the manner her hips swayed this way and that. Not the worst partner to have in this little enterprise. Not the worst partner by far.

“You know, them corpses are hard to find”.

Zeregin snorted. Truth be told, it was becoming increasingly hard to find the gods-blasted corpses – or acceptable subjects, as Master would say. Aye, acceptable in terms of numbers of limps, condition of skin, time diseased. To locate corpses that met the selection criteria meant searching in increasingly dangerous places. Those pits outside the city or those discreet alleys, where people that could not afford the luxury of tombs or even proper burial grounds left their dead to be mourned by roaches, rodents and worms, were no longer an option.

Crack, crack, crack, and the saw finally tore loose that last limp. Was it a hand or a foot? The Master tossed the limp away in frustration, all the while yelping in that strange language of his. Or perhaps he was just gibbering nonsense while subject to an increasingly gruesome bloodlust. He then turned, and addressed both mercenaries.

“Another one. This one more fresh”.

Zeregin and Lady Puke exchanged a look. Between professionals words were not necessary. More fresh. Now that would prove difficult. The poor bastard whose limps were just flying around like moths before a fire had spent merely a bell or two dead. To randomly find an appropriate corpse, one that has just recently passed away, they would need to kiss the floor off every temple for favor. And considering that gods were often unmindful of mortals’ prayers – Zeregin’s life was vivid proof of that – the pair would need to take extreme measures.

Zeregin shrugged, cast a brief glance to the limp-less torso, and then turned around for the door. Mere heartbeats later Lady Puke’s footsteps followed him. After they left all that could be heard in that small basement room was the whimpering cries of a mad, although insanely wealthy, master.

[The Conjurer]

Posts until death: 14 posts
The Conjurer’s note: Faces are mere illusions, to be casted aside for a new one. And when the need arises you just robe with the mask that best suits you.

The thug strode down the alley with confidence. He well knew that a few paces ahead the corridor turned to the left and then abruptly halted. There was no way to go, no way to run. He well knew that the fine lass that had run down the alley a few heartbeats ahead was trapped. And that, unable to hide amongst the rubble and discarded furniture, she would eventually be caught.

That is why, upon turning, the lust-filled expression of the thug changed. For standing at the end of the alley was not the fragile and trembling figure of a young woman, but a man leaning against one wall with a sinuous smile on his hideous scarred face. And for mere heartbeats the thug stood there perplexed, trying to figure out an answer to the conundrum; mere heartbeats, enough time for Lady Puke to emerge from one pile of rubbish just behind the thug. And under the cloak of shadows granted by a moonless night and oil lamps burning in nearby windows, she promptly carved a second smile right under the thug’s chin with a knife.
The thug fell to the ground, gasping for air. Moments later he lay motionless amongst a pool of blood.

Lady Puke fastened a smile scarred with a few missing teeth – a smile so childish that Zeregin almost cried. “Can’t get fresher than this, eh?”.

Zeregin edged closer to the thug. The surprise and confusion experienced still lingered on his face, a mask that hid, Zeregin guessed, a grim history of disappointments, confrontations, excesses and morally doubtful decisions. He felt no remorse for the fool – if there were gods out there the thug was most likely serving penance for his acts. But it amused him to no end the manner in which we continue to hold tightly to our nightmares even when dead. And bottom-line, that’s what we all are. Creatures wearing self-imposed masks, hiding our fears, terrors and dilemmas deep inside. And when what lurks behind becomes so dense that it starts breaking the thin shell, well, they call it madness.

Lady Puke knelt beside the corpse and wiped clean her blade with his robes. “We’d better get this fool to Master, before he rots and all”. Another one of those childish smiles.

Zeregin grunted. He knelt and grabbed the armpits of the corpse, using his own back to hold most of the weight. Satisfied with the balance, he risked getting up and almost stumbled back if not for Lady Puke that promptly got hold of the feet. In that manner they began to drag the thug’s body to Master’s laboratory.

“Not the talkin’ one, are ya? I don’t mind. I like shy men, you see. Almost like children, they are. But I’ll make a man out of ya, anytime, anywhere.”

Zeregin remained silent, seemingly focused on balancing the weight with his back. But in truth his heart was racing. He didn’t acknowledge Lady Puke’s advances for lack of interest. Gods no. He just wanted to throw her against a wall, rip those tight leggings and do her right then. But she reminded Zeregin of him, right when he still lived with his parents. A child of heart, regardless of the cruelty of the world. Regardless of insurable sessions of beatings, whip lashings and sexual abuse. Aye, so much had change since those days. Not in the outside, of course. Zeregin’s body was a canvas of scars, malformations and bones wrenched and hastily healed. It’s the inside what has changed.

Besides, Zeregin guessed that Lady Puke’s wiliness to spread her legs was just the result of past traumas forged in pain. Just the average girl living in Radasanth.

“I’ll tell him this time, ya know”, began Lady Puke, her tone dragging frustration. “That I want to see what he’s doin’ with them corpses in that little backroom”.

Zeregin glanced back and saw determination in those black eyes of hers. Childish curiosity, mixed with the need to be part of what’s really going on. Was it jealousy, or just gods-dammed apprehension what he also saw?

Anyway, right there and then Zeregin made a promise to himself. Not that he was the keeping-promises kind of guy. But sometimes a man stumbled with things worth protecting. He’ll be dammed if he let her go inside that little backroom. And to the abyss with the Master.

[The Conjurer]

Posts until death: 13 posts
The Conjurer’s note: Depravation is a road of many ends, twists and turns. Crowded with layer upon layer of frustrations and incomplete desires, the soul is left but with two choices. To get hold of the madness, or to be shaped but it. The latter is so much easier.

Lady Puke objected once again, this time eloquently using subtle threats that were borderline insubordination. Master denied her the pleasure of an answer, as he lowered even more his head meekly and avoiding eye contact with both mercenaries. He began muttering in that strange language, using far too many clicks of his tongue to be able to discern coherent words.

Unable to accomplish her desire with the Master, she turned pleading eyes to her fellow partner. She resembled a hungry puppy, what with those wide and tear-filled eyes. It took a considerable amount of inner strength, but Zeregin was able to maintain a blank expression. Seeing her efforts were unsuccessful, she stormed out from the little backroom in a parade of tantrums and curses. Soon they heard the basement door slammed shut, which triggered small avalanches of dust down from the ceiling’s wooden beams.

“Good, good. Recently dead, yes?”.

Master had turned to examine the new specimen. He lifted each extremity at a time, looking for any of the signs that indicated an advanced state of decomposition. Zeregin had conducted that same examination, of course. Color of nails, stiffness of limbs, size of lips. He had concluded the subject as acceptable, and had ventured to report so to Master.

Master ran thin, bony fingers up the corpse’s torso, pressing here and there. Satisfied, he passed then to the neck, and his eyes opened wide. Blood still poured in small droplets from the wound, staining the operation table with traces of red. He turned, reproach painted in his gaunt, black-skin face.

Zeregin shrugged. It hadn’t been his idea. Lady Puke had suggested picking a guinea pig from any of the local thugs that roamed the back alleys with a broad and expectant smile on her face. Not that Zeregin had any moral dilemma against her idea. A job was a job after all, and he had performed his part with the same zeal as his partner, albeit without dirtying his hands. He remained silent though. If we’re going to point blames – and Zeregin wondered, remembering the tore limbs and viscera sprawled in the basement’s floor, where the kind Master had found his moral high ground – better me than her.

In the end Master cocked his head sideways, as if looking for the first time at Zeregin. He smiled then. A pleased smile, one than made Zeregin shiver.

Master then turned his complete attention to the matter at hand, procuring to undress the corpse. Any cloth that proved too stubborn was met if annoyed slashes of surgeon blades. Before long the thug’s body, marred with scars, populated with lice and all kinds of nasty creatures, lay naked under the dimmed light of a modest chandelier.

Now, an important issue to be minded of when dealing with recently deceased corpses is the stiffness of extremities. Rigor Mortis, or something like that. The blood, unable to properly circulate, slowly flows to hands, legs and … other parts. The result, a stiffness that defied human standards.

Master took hold of such spectacle for a few heartbeats as he steadily increased his gibbering. He then began to tremble uncontrollably, his face a jumble of excitement and expectation. He licked his lips, and his hands slowly got hold of the thug’s penis. At which point Zeregin made sure to close the door that lead to the basement. No point in letting Lady Puke stumble into such a scene.

And a scene indeed. Zeregin remained in the room, not really sure if his presence annoyed the crazy bastard. Master began to play with the swollen thing, up and down, methodically keeping count of his heartbeats. 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, he muttered, his voice nothing but a faint whisper amidst his own moans. Was Master a depraved soul? No doubt. But Zeregin suspected that whatever bizarre ideas triggered sexual desires in that lunatic were far more sordid, more harmful to others. No, this was nothing related to that primordial instinct. Zeregin was half-tempted to ask him to cut the act, but reconsidered. No point of causing a rift between them. A clear, apparent rift, that is.

61, 62, 63, 64. Master’s voice came more irritated, less charged with pleasure. By the time he reached a hundred, he was billowing in gibberish again, throwing chirurgical objects like a spoiled brat. Gods, here we go again.

Master was trying to move aside the body, to drag it down from the surgeon table and out from the room. But he was too thin, without the necessary strength. Zeregin got hold of the body and began dragging it out into the basement, all the while Master pointing accusing fingers to the dead thug and muttering strange courses and other depravations. Out of nowhere came Lady Puke and help him to place the corpse on the blood stained table of the basement.

They barely avoided the saw that aimed at one of the body’s limbs. The small blades ripped flesh effortlessly, up and down, until they got caught in bone. Master then began pressing harder, crack, crack, crack, and the limb fell to the floor.

When he was done, panting and dripping blood, Master turned to regard both mercenaries.

“Alive. I need one alive”.

[The Conjurer]

Posts until death: 12 posts

The Conjurer’s note: What it took for her to descend to the bottomless pit she is now in? Pain? No, life is nothing but a struggle against pain. To lose hope? No, for it is but a consequence, one of the many ropes used to descend into the abyss. It appears, then, and based on the information gathered from the subject, that the act itself is nothing compared with the identity of the perpetrator.

“Have you ever wondered why they call me Lady Puke?”

Zeregin turned to regard his partner. Shrouded by her hood, she was dispatching two tankards of ale at a time, one in each hand. They were both sitting inconspicuously on the terrace of a tavern, just another pair of mercenaries squandering their well-earned money. Nothing special, not worthy of a second glance.

“There was once a young lady”, she began, her eyes focused on the entrance of the building across the street. “This lady, you see, was abandoned at birth. Or her parents were killed. Or whatever”.

Glup, another sip. “So she ended in an orphanage. Not fancy, true, but warm and cozy. With meals and a nice bed. Now, the young lady had dreams. To marry a prince, or duke, or someone that would take her away to a castle. There to love and be loved. So everyone there began calling her Lady”.

Glup. She had a stern expression on her face as she poured word after word. Words, Zeregin then realized, that must have been repressed for who knew how long. Drunk as she was, she spoke with a fluency and determination that scared him.

“In this orphanage there was a man, a monk, clerk, or whatever. An acolyte of some god, and you know I piss on gods, temples and the fools that crowd them. Anyways, this man, or clerk, was fond of the young lady. Fondness led to friendship. Friendship to obsession”.

Glup.

Her eyes narrowed. “One day. Or night, it was a night. Around her tenth winter. The acolyte got really fond. He took her to a cellar, really deep in the basement, with promises of sugared sweets and other silliness. To have fun, he said. And fun he had. She cried, but no one came. Her world, that night, was reduced to a small room. A room, and the pain”.

She sipped again, but the tankards were both empty. Tears ran down her face, a face that had seen too much. They remained silent for a while. People walked up and down the street, idly talking or in some errand before shutting in into their homes. Street lamps were alight, and shadows danced between cobbles and horse dung.

“That very morning Lady ran from the orphanage. Away and as fast has her shaking legs allowed her. To never return, until now”.

Zeregin remained silent. He wanted to say something, anything. But what was there to say? Welcome to the world, young lass. Where you are nothing but fodder for the strong. A tool to be used, and when no longer useful, to be discarded. He suddenly wanted to hurt someone, hurt him bad. Luckily, the gods were smiling on them that night.

Lady Puke sprang from her seat, white fingers clutching the edges of the wooden table. Zeregin draw his attention to where she was looking, and saw an aged man cautiously descending the set of stairs that led from the orphanage’s entrance. Before long he entered the stream of people and began walking to where he was headed.

Lady Puke sprinted out of the terrace and down the wooden stairs while Zeregin tossed a few extra coins on the table and followed suit. She had disappeared into the crowd when he reached the street, and was probably edging closer to the target with every heartbeat. Zeregin cursed loudly and attracted the attention of nearby passengers, whom hastily returned to what they were doing.

[The Conjurer]

Posts until death: 11 posts

The Conjurer’s note: Witness this revelation with awe, for the future does not always shines with prospects and opportunities. Sometimes it drags a heavy past with chains of unconceivable weight that turns wrists bony white. Alas, when there is no strength left to carry the weight, well…the future becomes unassailable. Witness, then, and weep.


Zeregin zigzagged between groups of people in a frantic effort to catch up with Lady Puke. She was barely visible up ahead, a blur of unattended and curly, brown hair scurrying through the gaps left by the walking crowd. His partner was clearly gaining distance and following a somewhat straight line to her target.

The cobble paved road was nurtured by small side-tracks that winded between the buildings and alleys, like small streams ending on a river. Unpaved and uncared for, they were mostly used by local merchants in their frantic errands in broad daylight, and were strongly avoided at night for their notorious dangers. It was one of this minor side-tracks that Lady Puke plunged herself into, trailing behind the squalid figure of an aged man with the sprint’s momentum. They both disappeared into shadows as a mass of curious passerby formed a broad semicircle in the alley’s mouth.

Zeregin pushed his way into the semicircle and wandered into the alley’s depths. What he saw then and there, amongst discarded rubbish, piss and rodents was a scene he would remember for the rest of his pathetic existence. A threshold of sorts, the waypoint to madness.
Lady Puke landed yet another ironed fist into the acolyte’s face. Bones snapped as she reached up again, gaining momentum. The descending blow was caught in midair, and Zeregin realized that there was no strength left in that blood-stained punch. Tenderly, as tender as a good-for-nothing thug could anyway, he lowered the trembling fist and dragged Lady Puke away from the would-be-called victim. Curious that people tended to regard victims as the product of isolated acts. There are no victims, no ulterior notion to justify acts of violence. Just hate, or any of its variants, and more often than not, bad luck.

Lady Puke let herself be dragged a couple of paces away, until soft moans turned her attention. The acolyte was leaning on a wall, both knees shaking wildly and damped with more than sweat. She sprang into motion again and charged wildly, but Zeregin clutched her tightly with both hands. She fought, quailed, bit and cursed, but he was simply stronger. After a while she stopped struggling and fell to the ground whimpering.

It comes a time when choices must be made. Important choices. And, when all is done and you look back, a trembling old hand clutching a tankard in some god-forgotten tavern while people gathered around you to hear stories they really do not care about, you realize that the decisions taken during your life are not isolated. That all is connected, one way or another; and choices made year ago have repercussions that last a lifespan.

Zeregin faced one of those choices. Either to let the old man stumbled out from the alley by his own means; or… against his will. A quick glance on a whimpering girl, clutching his curled body with both hands as she desperately tried to regain some sort of sense to her miserable life helped him make a decision. Yes, sometimes you are shoved into the path. Sometimes you are pushed.

[The Conjurer]

Posts until death: 10 posts

The Conjurer’s note: Burdens are meant to be carried. They are consequences of acts and/or omissions, the effects of causes, and are measured proportionally by the burdened. Thus, burdens that weight mountains for some weight like feather to others, and are not worthy of care. What happens, then, when third parties willingly lift that weight? Is it a gift, an act of mercy, a balancing of scales? For some, certainly. For others, love.

The journey back to the basement proved challenging and demanding. Never mind the weight of an old man desperately struggling to free himself from improvised leather shackles. Never mind the distant calls from city guards that occasionally reached them – and were only quelled by frantic escapes. No, Zeregin fought enemies much stronger than a whimpering soon-to-be skewered acolyte and phantoms of civil justice. He fought an urge to drag that fool all the way to the sea, head rolling and kicking dust, stones and whatnot, and drown him for good. Not before meticulously snapping each and every finger and toe, followed by hands, arms and feet. Add a few broken ribs, and perhaps a good old-fashioned anal impale.

But there was no real point in doing it, and that truth stung more than any cut. There was no good to be had from harming the man, no balancing of scales, no mending of past sins and sufferings. Lady Puke would remain exactly as she is now, a hollow shell of unclaimed possibilities deprived of life expectations, of meaning. A shadow of the past. And all that rage stored inside her would simply focus into another target, divert into another goal. It will turn into a new pathos, claiming whatever humanity was left in her, leaving score after score of dead sinners. And what if they had done no real harm to her? Well, surely they would have sooner or later, right?

The only possible end to that path of daggers is madness. An unassailable decompensation of brain fluids, the unavailability to discern between cause and effect. A burden, Zeregin suspected, she will not be able to carry. So he decided to take it into himself, to divert and shape that hate into something he may call his own. That is why he was carrying a living body, and not a corpse, down the worn out wooden steps of a basement. That is why the acolyte squealed in terror upon seeing lustful eyes staring back at him, mouth wet in expectation. That is why Master nodded once, twice, thrice and danced in creepy glee, moccasined feet stumping rotten viscera and crusted blood.