Shadows & Sorcery #209
This week’s S&S opens with a 3000+ word short story because sometimes you just have to let the spirits take the wheel. This story also features a duo we haven’t heard from in a while! To know what they last got up to, maybe check out these previous editions… Then after that, how about some dank lore on weird moons and infectious incantations?
Also, hey, missed last week’s edition exploring vampiric darkness? If so, do check it out.
And lastly, please let the stories know you enjoyed them! Leave a like, comment, or share. Help S&S get seen!
This week, two agents in a world running on faith are in search of something within the Fortress of Silence, we pore over the final notes on a Death Curse, and we get a glimpse into the aged lore of the Pilgrim Moon…
Fortress of Silence
It had been some time since Candorick and Rudge received communication from Lord Jerican of the Ministry of Public Works. Their debacle in the Tower of the Saints, a supposed gateway to sainthood, had taken something of a toll on the two agents. He had seen it clear as day when they had returned to deliver their report. Jerican afforded them the time off. He understood well enough the spiritual rigours his tasks put them under. Let them cool off, regroup, and recoup.
And then, out of blue, just as it seemed to Candorick and Rudge that, perhaps, things were beginning drift away, both men received, independently of each other, a communique to meet their old friend and patron. Not at his office, though. Rather, the short, formal note implored them—did not ask, but implored—to meet under a certain bridge at sun’s height the next day. Neither one had seen much of the other since they returned, things having gotten a little heated in the situation, and simmered on the way home, yet neither one had either ever seriously considered cutting ties. And so they met, as the sun climbed to its pinnacle, and for the first time in too long clasped hands and laughed beside the rushing canal of their city of Anchorhold, and its many creeping arteries.
The main thoroughfare of the city passed over the canal as a great bridge, pinnacled and honeycombed with habitations and shrines, and it was beneath this, in the damp shade where small boats passed to and fro through incense clouds released from the shacks and hovels of ascetics and beggars, did the two men meet the minister.
“All very hush-hush, Jerican,” Rudge said as he and Candorick approached. The man was dressed mostly in a large cloak and hood—not exactly subtle, but it did the trick. They’d seen him in states of agitation, excitement, anxiety, and even elation before, but today, though, there was something else. Jerican was normally a bristle-faced fellow with a high brow and squinting, discerning, but tranquil eyes—the eyes of a man of deep and, if not contented, then at least ardent faith. But the look about his slightly widened eyes and furrowed brow belied, perhaps, struggle. That, despite every mad venture they’d been sent on before at his behest, this time, it was a gamble. Still, despite the tension in his bearing, he seemed genuinely pleased to see them.
“Indeed it is,” he said with a strained levity, “but perhaps it’s for the best we meet again under these circumstances. You see, time is of the essence—more so than I had expected, actually, so I can’t afford you as much information or explanation as I’d like. So, on to the matter at hand...” He began to dig around under his cloak.
“Right to the point,” said Rudge.
“Firstly, I give you these,” said Jerican handing his two agents a bundle of small bound scrolls. Candorick took his and inspected them lightly.
“Hold on, these are dwimmerscript,” Candorick said, looking to Rudge, who confirmed his own as the same.
“Even a passing familiarity with that tongue will be enough to make use of these, and I know you two have more than that.”
“I take it this is a dangerous task, then,” said Rudge, “no chance of the usual round of blessings beforehand?”
“As I said,” Jerican without missing a beat, “I’m afraid there’s, ah, little time for that.” He ended on a nervous chuckle. He stopped for a second, bit his lip, blinked, and then fished about under his cloak for something else.
What he brought out then almost made the agents swear out loud.
“This goes beyond even my strangest requests of you two...I need you to deliver this to someone. Below the city. Where, I cannot exactly say, save that it isn’t too far down, it is hidden but accessed best from here, and that, well...you’ll know it when you see it.” What the minister held out was a cursed bone, mostly enshrouded, but enough stuck out for them to see what it was. Neither Candorick nor Rudge were strangers to the curse. Indeed, the Tower of the Saints had been infested with those bearing its onerous degradation. The curse was an ancient vision, a malediction beyond compare invoked by those of incomparable cruelty, hatred, misery, or despair. It destroyed humanity, and thus faith, condemning the cursed to a monstrous dissolution, but never destruction. Their wrathful, impotent souls would persist, cascading through the winds for all time to come. What’s more, the very touch of cursed flesh, blood, bone, or even, it was said, their stare, was anathema to existence itself. And here was Lord Jerican of the Ministry of Public Works, a middle man and administrator for a dozen city organizations, bearing it forth on a lazy afternoon, just past the sun’s pinnacle, alongside the canal in Anchorhold.
“What the hell have you been getting into, Jerican,” Rudge grunted, backing up. Candorick’s eyes were wide and he couldn’t break his sight from it. His hand had fallen to his communion seal at his belt.
“I realize what it is I’m asking you to do, but...well, it would be best for you to see for yourselves. You’ve been on the frontier of new visions before. But I won’t lie. This one is different. And yet...perhaps greater than any before in its implications...” At this point he seemed almost talking to himself, and snapped out the reverie. “You would be doing me, and them, a great service. The road is long, and this is yet another step forward. And besides...there aren’t another pair of souls in his world I would entrust this to.” He held for a second, looking away, before setting the bone on the ground and striding away.
They looked at the scrolls in their hands. They were good quality. Didn’t come cheap. Probably pretty strong, and what’s more, would get used up upon use. No trace, and nothing to weigh them down. Then they looked down at the bone on the ground. Warped, gnarled and knobbed like an ancient tree branch, spined, spiked. The thing this bone used to reside within must have suffered unimaginable pain. Rudge swore out loud. Candorick took out his Communion seal, and looked into it. Twenty different cults ought to be enough protection, even if they hadn’t been blessed by each one. Faith would suffice, as it had each time before. Neither man kidded themselves. There was only one thing to do. Rudge swore again.
By the raw might of solar force and by the beneficent mystery of astral guidance, the agents descended into the ancient underlayers of Anchorhold. Through a storm drain did they first pass, through wide, open passages with grating above letting in stark shafts of lately pinnacled sunlight into the shaded gloom. At least it was cool down there. Anchorhold was a dry, dusty, hot city. The Communion, and the canal it operated and maintained, was its lifeblood. But still, better safe than sorry should something like The Storm decide to pass over the city. They’d been out to see that once before, too. The rest of the time, this place was all but untouched, save for those seeking to flee, or hide, or secret away. The drains gave way at a point to sewers: low, cramped, rounded tunnels not particularly fit for long spans of human movement. The light was worse here, but what did break through from far above was enough to invoke the sun, and carry with them light into the depths. The sewers were where so much of the city’s ritual run off went. Molten wax, incense-stained waters, poured libations, blood, bones, hair, rusted metal, and more they knew a little too much about from their more regular line of work procuring quality ritual materials. Heavens, that had been a while back. They said in rather few words, for these sewers did not seem welcoming to outside sound, that they hoped their contacts still remembered them.
At another point, the sewers, which must have gathered and flushed out into the wilderness, gave way to something far more interesting: the foundational layers of Anchorhold. A primordial labyrinth of warrens, caverns, vaults, mires, and lairs, where the barren, the broken, the lonely, the banished, and the apostate dwelt. Not even the zealous Jerican had much traffick with the minuscule cults that infested such deeps. They were rarely of a savoury kind, usually obscure little cruelties centered on nameless figures claiming to be something they weren’t. Blackflame faithful tended to dwell in darkness feeding whatever they could to their ravenous flames, alongside the bitter madmen that spread ice for reasons none could understand, as well as the spider cult of secrets that might have only been a rumour had certain chronicles not mentioned them. But, too, lone ascetics privy to all but forgotten visions dwelt here, with the safety of the city above, and the solitude their inward journeys required.
It was within a great pillared chamber through which a pale, eerie luminance passed that they saw the first one. One could move through this lightless abyss for days without being seen or without meeting a single individual. It could be that was precisely what drew cursed beings into these desolate regions. The two agents hoped such was the case, and not that what they carried served as a beacon, or that Jerican had woefully underestimated whatever it was he sent them down into. Aside from the howling shadows that infested the Tower of the Saints, neither Candorick nor Rudge had ever really encountered cursed beings before, despite what seemed to them ample opportunity in their travels. They considered themselves blessed for it. But then it came forward, a thing shrouded in layer upon layer of tattered, stained rags that might have once had colour. Long ragged strips trailed along the filthy stone, and showed just enough of the warped form underneath to make every grim story the men had ever heard come rushing back to the forefront of their minds. And yet, the unimaginable agony such a thing felt, they could only guess at. Each step the hunched, crawling thing took trembled, and the digits, not quite fingers, not quite talons, curled with something between pain and rage. It would be a mercy to destroy it, they thought, removing the scrolls they had tucked into their belts.
There once was a city which sat in the sky, born of a saint’s vision. Each and every stone had been lined with an arcane script, a power reliant not on faith, but on understanding, a sacral and common tongue of the people, able to conjure all they needed, and more, from the stone itself, with a mere word. Alas, it was doomed from the start, and all that remained of it now were chunks, shards, and lengths of crumbling chalk which were used to scrawl the scraps of that city’s language onto bits and piece of pottery, glass, and parchment for the sake of evoking the incredible powers it was once said to have been able to raise. Rudge, naturally, had been a fan from the moment he learned of it, and was glad he’d dragged Candorick to the scholar’s sessions on learning the old tongue. Scroll unfurled, Rudge spoke the words thereon—lines of complex glyphs representing entire concepts in few sounds for ease of expression—and from the page itself there burst forth a cloud of broiling haze that spat red hot sparks, and the scroll itself danced in the air as the script was transformed, and destroyed. The cursed thing flew back upon its gnarled limbs, screeching, and they saw for just an instant something of its still vaguely human outline, and that that outline was very clearly maimed. Candorick had wasted no time, and had brought out a scroll of his own, speaking its words and letting fly forth a scintillant light that flooded the entire chamber, the light staining the walls and pillars as it fizzled out—revealing some dozen more shapes they felt confident were more of the same cursed beings as this. The radiant burst created enough confusion, however, for the two to flee past the encroaching horrors and into the darkness of this underworld.
The two men afforded themselves only moments to rest. They didn’t bank on those blasts and flashes to ward off any pursuers. Also, the sources of their shared faith were distant, and Candorick’s solar invocations were producing little effect this far down. Rudge didn’t try, but he did study their scrolls. A few moments later, resting against the slant of the curious triangular corridor they’d found themselves in, he let out a swear.
“Damn it anyway,” he spat, “these things are harmless!”
Candorick spun about with a mumbled, tired, and confused “What?”
“Look! Read them!” Rudge held out a bundled of hastily rolled up parchment. Candorick took them, and scanned them quickly, and let out a groan.
“Jerican really was in a hurry, wasn’t he?”
“This stinks something fierce, ‘Orick. He sends us down here with bangs and sizzles, carrying this horrid thing, against who knows how many of the cursed and whatever else lives down here.”
“Could be he thought we didn’t need more than this.”
“Yeah, could be. But if he had any notion of what was down here, and something tells me he has more than that...” he trailed off in an angry huff.
“Pff...maybe we’re not meant to hurt them?”
“He never struck me as that sympathetic a character, I won’t lie, ‘Orick.”
“He is a man of conviction, Rudge, come on.”
“Yeah, and so are blackflame cultists.”
“Oh, you know what I mean.”
“And what’s he want with curses anyway? What’s he into?”
“I’m in the dark as much as you are. But he trusts us with it. You trust Jerican?”
Rudge grumbled. “I suppose.”
“I mean, we are already down here, Rudge! And the first thing he did was hand us defenses, what were you expecting?”
“I don’t know,” Rudge said with a sigh. “But didn’t he say ‘time was of the essence’?”
“And that this bone was ‘another step forward’...I will admit, it is weird. Weird for even him.”
“We’re seeing it through, I suppose.”
“I suppose so,” Candorick said as they resumed their way through the curious triangular passage.
It felt like they must have traversed half a city. So much for not that far in. They knew Anchorhold had been built up over the ages in layers, but there were spans down here of such vastness it boggled the mind to think how much was just abandoned, forgotten, lost, or kept empty. Made them wonder why. A few of their scrolls had to be used along the way just to see in a few places, one was able to conjure a slow spreading of stone they used as a bridge, and another sent forth a single violent gust they counted themselves lucky only blew down a small section of ruined wall. They met nothing else on their way, but every few steps, one of them cast a glance backwards, just in case. They lamented just how little they had to rely upon here.
They came then to a place that was decidedly different. There air of decay and ruination that had been absolutely omnipresent since the lower sewer channels all but completely ceased at a point, and not too soon after, truly vanished, leaving bare, dry, stone that bore such little wearing of time or elements it looked in better condition than even the newest sections of the city above them. Untouched was this high hallway, rising on each side in steps, still lit by the sourceless, pallid illumination as so many of the underworld sections were. And it opened out upon a sprawling chamber that was itself stepped, reaching to some beetling height hidden in shadow. It was not, however, empty. Something stood just within sight, shifting slightly, a great mass their eyes couldn’t rightly perceive. The two men crept low around the sides, their eyes fixed upon whatever it was that hadn’t yet noticed them. All the same, Rudge had lowered a hand to his remaining scrolls, and slid one out. The way the chamber curved brought them close to it—too close, for as it loomed out of the haze of darkness, something on it turned towards them.
They froze, ready to defend themselves.
“I am so sorry,” it said, bending down, for it was quite tall, “I didn’t see you, I was absorbed in thought.” They remained frozen. The thing was a colossal mass of tatters, shapeless, and were it not for the fact it just spoke to them, they’d have assumed the worst. It came forward a step, and suddenly, there was the sound as of a great beast sniffing and huffing. “You are not- Ahh, you have...one of my children, my poor, poor children.” A great hand—a cursed hand of warped flesh upon an arm of gnarled bone extended from within the mass of rags with all the grace and gentle motion of, indeed, a mother to a child. They were both thinking it. Jerican wanted to venerate this thing? “You have nothing to fear, my friends,” it spoke in a voice which both trilled and rumbled, wholly unnatural, but was measured and thoughtful. Candorick, who had been carrying the cursed bone, held it out as slowly as he could manage. He attempted to stammer out an explanation, but found to his horror, he could not speak. He couldn’t even form the words. “This place is the only succour I have found in a long time. An old vision, I do believe, of silence. In this stillness, the curse,” it almost seemed to spit the word, “can be fettered, but alas, the visions of the world also struggle to find much purchase here. Tongues seem first to fail. I am largely unaffected, but you, my friends, must not stay here too long. I will take this remnant of the child. I suspect as yet a wrathful spirit is attached, which I must take into myself.” With that, it took the bone, and cradled in its one great hand. “We both thank you for this kindness, you both must have endured great hardship to find me.” The two men noticed a great many bones littering the floor, none of them intact. “Allow me to show you what I hope will be a more swift exit.”
The thing strode forth and selected a passageway leading out of the silent chamber. It bowed, and they bowed back, running at that moment entirely on a nervous energy they felt might quite literally be the end of them. They left, waiting for the second they once again could speak. Before that came, though, they heard something: a sharp wet crack, followed by a guttural rasping. They could guess what it was.
Some time later, far above in the sunlight, which in all truth was achieved far quicker than their descent, Lord Jerican listened to their report with a small, gentle smile, akin, perhaps, to a proud parent, before bearing the brunt of their interrogation with well-deserved answers about a vision of old that might meet its end against a vision of new.
Death Curse
It has appeared again. There can be no doubt. Not this time, I’m afraid. I have been mercifully wrong before, but it was only a matter of time. I can hear them even now, even through the layers of linen and padding over my ears. The last time, I was not prepared, I was a mere neophyte. But now I have everything I need, if not to destroy it, to at least show it for what it is before it goes too far. The following are my revised and collated notations, musings, observations, and my warning to all those who shall read this.
The first sign is the most subtle. It begins as an unaccountable dread—anxiety is too light a word, fear too vague. There is an oppressive nature to its presence. This dread persists for some time, waxing and waning as thought barriers are being tested. Those under its influence may be difficult to pick out, for something of the sensation creates furtiveness in the victim. If you are lucky, rumour will pass and you will be able to keep a close eye on a victim. Do so, and watch as the symptoms advance from sensation to perception. The victim will begin to see things—just what those things are they will not be able to readily explain or describe. Shadows. Shapes. Mirages. Illusions dispelled by focusing long enough. This will cease to work for long, however, and with increased visual perception comes illness. This can and may be explained away by stress or regular disease or nervous agitation. Do not fool yourself into easier explanations.
In cases such as this, one of the victims—for it is never an isolated phenomenon—will inevitably learn the incantation usually through fevered rambling or from affected dreams. You will not know it to hear it at first. This is the single most dangerous moment of the entire attack. Once you can recognize it, block your ears and choose something else to focus on until you forget the sounds. Do not repeat them subvocally, nor in your mind, and do not transcribe them. Choose a prayer, poem, joke, or any string of nonsensical syllables to replace what you have heard.
Chanted, the incantation seems to greatly lessen, if not entirely remove the adverse effects of the sudden onset of illness. Victims will share it with each other, and then with their kith and kin, leading to others repeating it for the sake of their affected loved ones, overjoyed at the effects it seems to have. Inevitably, it becomes the focus of cult veneration.
The incantation can be described as having the aspect of a river slowly bursting its banks. I describe it thus for two reasons. Repeated, it may be understood to “flush” the accumulated negative build up (energy) out the affected person, and onto others. It then begins to build back up again in greater reserves, like a gathering sediment. The process then repeats in greater and greater volume. Each time it is spoken, its efficacy diminishes as the presence behind it is both conjured and expressed, with relief only ever momentary, and the accumulated negative energy spilling, eventually, onto other as yet unaffected people.
The infected, or possessed, are reduced to babbling children, their waking moments given over to the incantation, left to rot and wither, chanting their words and becoming little more than channels for the thing to seep into the space around it, before its victims’ ultimate dissolution, and the cessation of the plague.
You understand the greatest dangers, but you may ask, what is it? Overall, it can be likened to a contagion or miasma, either in the form of a verminous infestation or growing emanation of putrescence. I do not think the presence ultimately has a purpose other than insidious propagation. It does nothing but kill. In this way, it is as a primal lifeform with no higher thought or action. If it is alive, it is parasitic in its actions, and the incantation is its method of infection or seeding. The thought once crossed my mind that it may be a lifeform of immense advancement, free from personal physical concerns, existing merely in voice. If it be not alive in any sense, understood or no, then it is a metaphysical condition, that is, a spell. If this is the case, I think it is a curse. How it spreads, though, how it ceases to present itself and then suddenly manifest, I cannot rightly say. I do not know if this belies intelligence, or at least some kind of animal cunning, or if it is a condition of the curse, and if that is so, then it is not a single space or soul that is cursed. The notion of how far reaching such a power may be is not healthy to dwell upon.
You know what to seek out, and what to watch out for. At first signs of influence, I hope you know what to do.
Pilgrim Moon
“By most reckonings, it appeared some twenty years ago. It neither rushed nor crept into the sky, but came at measured pace, obscuring by degrees great spans of the heavens, ever looming, ever staring, with dusky iris and reddish crown, until it found its perch, and sat motionless, calling. For that past twenty years, thousands of people have heard that call somewhere in their souls, and to this day, they continue to answer it...”
-The Collected Pilgrim’s History, Fifth Edition, by Sarokos Nem du Vomm
“Oh, I think they’re blessed. Mhmm. Must be, right? They kept the faith, they did, even if they said they didn’t, and now the old ones are calling to them. I think we’ll all hear it some day.”
“You know, I have colleagues who say they shudder to think what the pilgrims will find at the end of it all. Me? I can’t wait. New gods. True gods! Something beyond all this nonsense of gods! That’ll be a fine day.”
“Cursed. Have to be. So many families, lovers, children, companions, dropped like dung for that thing...lives ruined, you know? Talk to one, they’ll tell you, they regret it all, but couldn’t resist! Hah!”
“Cursed? I think it must be so, yes. Oh, it’s terrible. I feel for them. That ceaseless, restless tread, never knowing if you’ll make it. So many haven’t. I actually pray at their graves when I get the chance, poor devils...”
“Stay well clear of them! Well clear! Mate told me that you get too close, you’ll hear that ‘call’ yourself, and you’re done for. Nah. Stay away from ‘em.”
“I plan on following them. That’s right. Hmm? No, I haven’t heard it. Well, at least I don’t think so. I guess I’d know, right? Maybe if I follow, if I understand, I’ll hear it. I would like to.”
“Aye, been on the same path, oh, ah, three years now. Aye. Don’t never get the same treatment, no. You can tell we’re not like them. They’re getting stranger, too, let me tell you.”
-Quotes from a popular bipartisan tract
“What’s your favourite pilgrim story? Love them, hate them, fear them, everyone has one. Maybe you like the stories where a traveller appears at a country inn one night, seeking shelter, only for bandits to arrive at the same inn, seeking to wreak havoc, but are scared off by the revealed pilgrim’s holy, or perhaps unearthly countenance. Or, if you are decidedly not a fan, you like the stories where the strange traveller lurks among the streets of a peaceful hamlet, bringing visions and storms and speaking ominous prophecies to those who question him. Or, for the more religiously-inclined reader, you savour tales of pilgrims mysteriously appearing at high festivals, grand ceremonies, helping bring them to fruition, and disappearing, or revealing some hitherto unknown secret rite or prayer from the moon, marking them as witnesses of the divine. These tales and more are to be found within the bounds of this volume, collected for posterity and the enjoyment of all future generations.”
-Opening introduction of a cheap collection of regional pilgrim tales
“Of the countless theories surrounding their purpose and their ultimate fate, the most baseless are the ones discussing their supposed secret nature. The idea touted by romantics are that these masses of shiftless wanderers are in fact the descendents of some supposed nameless, ancient, prehistoric people, some unbroken bloodline scattered across the world, finally being called home or to some destiny known only to them. It is no wonder that movements venerating and imitating them sprouted so quickly. The first rumours which sprung up in the wake of initial ‘call’ were the seeds, and the human mind the ever fertile soil. As of this revised edition’s writing, far likelier theories that they were ‘chosen’ continue to hold sway in serious academic circles, free of romance and fancy, for it is confirmed reality that divine incursion is neither rare nor always subtle...”
-The Collected Pilgrim’s History, Fifth Edition, by Sarokos Nem du Vomm