Shadows & Sorcery #211
We’re back with a classic triple bill of standalone flash fiction glimpses of weird worlds that may have been, or may come to pass. Or, if there are indeed an infinite number of universes, then these tangibly exist, right now, in infinite variation, and I am merely reporting from across the cosmos.
Hey, did you know the 40th chapter of The Path of Poison came out last week? It did! You can check the entire TPoP archive out right here and get up to speed on Sepp and the gang’s misadventures.
And before that? S&S #210, a three-part adventure of conspiracy and dark sorcery in the Dragonmagick world, check that out here!
This week, a beloved queen takes drastic measures with a Sanctum Tomb, primitive warriors in a grim and fiery world seek power in the Forge Fortress, and three travellers quest into the wilds with only the aid of a Shrine of the Sigil…
Sanctum Tomb
Queen Eiru was a ruler the likes of which is seen but rarely in the annals of history. Beloved by all neither through myth, deceit, nor iron fist, she was by turns fearsome, stern, implacable, tender, caring, and above all, a devoted idealist. Eiru had a vision, and fought at every turn, with the power vested in her and her blood by the people and their blood, to see it a reality.
From every provincial ossuary and graveyard, spreading and climbing at last to the dizzying heights of the sprawling necropolis of the capital, was not a faith, but a fact of life for the land and its people. Since time immemorial was it known that the dead were as masters in their tombs. Within that space, and that space alone, were boundaries lifted, and anything possible. Every house had its ghost shrine, every street its sentinels, every village its eternal elders. In the early days of the world had it become known, and so alongside the struggle for life and civilization had kingdoms of the dead grown beside them, a world to come in which there was reserved a place for all.
Alas, it was in the days of Queen Eiru’s long reign that the capital cult began to make its move.
It could be seen far before one came to the capital. Beetling, sharply rising spires with elaborate pinnacles, buttressed and ringed, the domains of lineages of royal dead. Closer, the vastlands of old clan catacombs, followed by the earthen cemeteries of the rest of the populace, whose living dwellings came into view last, and the palace of the regent almost in combat with the palaces of the dead. Throngs of priests moved day and night about the graves, obtaining blessings and benedictions they then doled out to a city that thanked them on hands and knees. But they were simply doing as they were told, the priests said, for was not the world more than half a graveyard now? The greater dead knew and saw, and were beginning to take the place they always should have had as gods.
Queen Eiru did not believe in a living world ruled by the dead, with births mere fuel for the grave. Their worlds touched, and what was shared was blessing enough. Still, the priesthood, the very idea of which had been suppressed by her ancestors and by lords older than the oldest stones of the capital, strove to provide what they said the queen could not. She never relented, and kept the love of the people, though the hook of the mortuary priesthood was in their flesh. And when Queen Eiru was found dead, of poison, the wave of lamentation could not be stemmed by any promise of blessing.
Her burial was, however, swift, and mostly an effort from beyond the priesthood. Her enshrinement was quiet, and came with the whispered prayer that she would not turn upon they who had loved her. Visitors came and went at odd hours to her sarcophagus, hewn by a team of master craftsmen in bitter love and regret, and before it was heaped offerings of thanks, to be met each and every time with silence...until a young girl crept through the pale stone gates and under the soft gold, shivering and bruised, and those that came seeking her with jeering calls and ravenous eyes were reduced to helpless, crawling things of flesh living in a world of numb, senseless, silent darkness with nothing but distant and sere memories in their maddened dreams for the rest of their lives.
Thus had come to be the Queen’s Sanctum Tomb, and the girl, enlivened, her evangelist. The priesthood hated it. Not a single one of them could step foot within the tomb’s threshold, repelled as if by a sudden roaring gale. Word spread. People came to the tomb to pray for succour, but only those seeking sanctuary found their wishes met. Aye, Queen Eiru had a vision, and as tensions rose into unrest between the fearfully devoted of the priesthood and those seeing what were becoming shackles sundered, more and more took to the stone of her tomb for safety, and it was then she issued a mandate in the booming voice of a monarch of old: expand the rule of mine tomb.
War broke out amongst the capital necropolis. Blood flooded the dry graves of the long dead. No body had a resting place save the spot where it fell. Mausoleum walls were felled with hammers, and priests bellowed curses and dooms from the domains of tyrant dead. Scores fell, but for every slain exultant of the queen did her domain gain ground. Shattered stone was piled high and mortared and chiselled into a tomb of tombs, a holy of holies at the center of which was the blazing sarcophagus of Queen Eiru the Eternal. From under her domes and within her walls did she send forth blessed soldiers who cowed and coerced the dead of the entire city. Its walls were her walls, its stone her stone. She had broken a vow and vision, but the pieces, she believed, had been taken up and melded with gold.
Forge Fortress
From the broiling, thrumming gore of the inner earth did primeval sorcerers first tear out congealed masses of black iron, hammering it with the bones of their ancient dead into weapons with the power of the first fires belched forth from the open sores of the earth. And so it was, grasped by life affirming flesh, that mankind rode out to slay the giants which had finally came down out of the sky, their hunger and lust no longer fed by sacrifice and orgy. But though the earth ran in screaming torrents of blood and lava, the giants proved tenacious to the last, and so mankind drove not forward but fell behind cyclopean walls of iron a league thick heaved up in frightful rites by master sorcerers. Humanity cowered in filth and darkness, the giants lashing limbs gouged out the earth’s innards and crushed the mountains, until they finally starved to death.
Into a crepuscular, foetid vastland did humans emerge, a world long dead, its lifeblood stolen for the iron walls which had already begun to rust and crumble. Far and wide, under the putrid streaks of the claw-shorn sun’s trailing flesh, did their disparate number spread, fearing even then to touch the decaying masses of giantsflesh, while the sorcerers of old brewed great cauldrons of giantsblood with which to drench the dying iron. In the end, an almighty cacophony of the groaning and screeching of tearing metal filled the air for sevenfold days and nights, as man once reckoned them, and no more did they venture to that fortress of old, for fear of what they might find there.
Until they re-discovered war, and sought weapons of iron.
It was said the air itself strangled those who dared enter, but the frigid, slime-coated membranes, harvested from nameless vermin in lightless pits, worked somewhat to dispel the cloying heat. Yet upon their bare flesh, as five shapes crept hunched and furtive, it was oppressive in its heat and dampness, the trailing great clouds of steam collecting on the walls and arching ceilings, running into sizzling rivulets on the squelching mould that was the earth. The stench persisted, though, like the thick smoke of burning corspes, every so often catching in their throats. Yet none of this they could see, save for when the darkness was dimmed in places by dancing embers that sputtered into shadow. Their hearts swelled and thrummed blood through aching limbs at they very sight. The twist-limbed elder had been correct after all. The forge still smouldered.
Amidst the collapsed labyrinth of peeling, rusting, rotting iron that oozed thick strands of blood, they waded through foul-smelling, oil-slick flooded depths where unseen things sloshed just out of time with their movements. They strode up vast lumpen slopes of metal that crunched and flaked underfoot, the sound dying in the yawning gulfs that dwarfed everything mankind had built since they had emerged, dying, yet answered by something they knew could not be an echo. They crawled like serpents through melted tunnels that seemed to them less like the vents and pores that would reasonably form in the remains of the ancient, decaying fortress, and more like the burrows of parasites found in the corpses of charnel-field squatters. The gnarled elder had said the fortress ruins would not be empty. And indeed, as gargantuan shards of bones, yellowed, misshapen, and cracked from heat and age, began to jut from the filth in greater profusion—bones they knew in the tightening of every muscle and quickening of every heartbeat to be those of giants—the questions they had plied the elder with were answered.
It could be nothing less than a sorcerer of old, reduced to subsisting upon the blood which ran down the thrumming iron walls, and whatever beasts or fools that managed to find their way into the heart of the fortress. Sensing a feast long-dreamed of, writhing limbs lashed out to grab and slice and choke, and human blood slopped to the ground, soaking into the coarse mould at their feet. But their clubs and axes were of wood, blackened and hardened by the sickly red flames of the outside world. The bones fashioned into their bludgeons and blades were harvested from strong, youthful limbs. They fell in savage arcs with yells and roars into the squirming, verminous thing that wailed in guttural, rasping tones, its body warped beyond recognition by the desperate devouring of giantsflesh, and one who had so long ago doomed the world at last fell silent.
What lay beyond looked how the sun looked in dreams passed down to them by their forefathers. It burned itself into the spaces behind their eyes with its radiance. And yet, they knew even as they fell to their knees and crawled towards it as supplicants abandoned to the ecstasies of the old gods, this was but merely the pallid spark of what had once burned the world’s blood into iron, a mere mottling of red upon hard clumps of black slag and ash. It scorched their calloused skin with nigh divine agony as they tore it out by the handfuls to bear it upon burnt-black limbs into the realm of mankind, so the world might know true slaughter and true lords once more.
Shrine of the Sigil
Three travellers set out from the city seeking the dwelling of their friend and mentor of old, to say goodbye. In each of their palms was a new tabernacle, fashioned from clay, fastened around the wrist, and bearing in their thin, ridged arch, the sacred sigil—the name and presence of the Many-Handed-One.
Under a streak of high, shining suns they first passed, cloaked and hooded in slate grey, through the undulant span of the sparse dusty wilds. High sandy hillocks wherefrom hardy shrubs and tough grasses poked flowed across the landscape, while storm-smoothed tablelands rose higher upon the horizon. The air smelt of heat and distant spices. A well-trod and stone-scattered road snaked down a long, gentle decline where the bordering walls became shorter and shorter, and eventually ceased to be.
Short, broad, solitary trees with twisting limbs sometimes emerged from the darker earth, providing a moment’s shade. It was by one of these trees they saw the first shrine. It was a wide base rising into a stepped and sharply tapering cone. Inside this shrine were tabernacles, scrolls, votive tablets, and other amulets either beginning to fade, crumble, or that were long past legibility. Afforded the same dignity as living burial, they remained here, believed still to emanate a dim holy essence. The travellers gazes followed the road upon which the shrine dwelt, and saw in the not too far distance a great cracked dome rising right from the earth upon a short, steep mound. It was said that a strange god once whispered in this wild and arid place, and so a cavernous temple was built upon the spot, empty of life and half ruined by the winds which gnawed the stone. Within, the pristine idol under the shadow of the age-sundered dome. It had long been a custom among the dozen religions which converged in this part of the world to seek the blessing of the Great Old One within. Alas, the three had also grown up with every tale and rumour of it, and held still in their hearts a childish fear, though they told themselves it was more a cognizance that time was of the essence, and so gave the ancient edifice a wide berth. Muttered hopes in the assurance of their piety did little to dispel the lingering feeling that they had somehow made a mistake.
The gods had their earthly dwelling in their idols, or their temples, or reliquaries, or shrines, or whatever it may be. There, and nowhere else. Sometimes their reach was as long as it was mighty. Sometimes, not so much. But the Many-Handed-One was different. It did not have an idol, or a temple, or reliquary, or anything that it had once made its earthly dwelling. It had a name, and that name was a written symbol. It had no sounds for humans to reproduce, but that was okay, for it spoke itself, and so did the power of the god behind it emerge from every single sigil in everything from its greatest temples and the corner-altars of palaces, to the roughly shaped tabernacles in the hands of travellers.
Once the heat abated, and the suns began to wander away from each other, the three travellers found themselves rising into a new land: a sprawling, ridge-like, rugged hillside of darkish stone where the lush plains turned into untamed wilderness, and the air became damp and close. The road followed a path far around the summit, joining the valley below through some series of clefts and depressions, but they had no time to lose, and so had chosen the more direct way of passage.
As they attained the crown of the towering hillside, they saw spread before them the great shadowy valley, its deep greens shining like metal in cool breezes that fell from high above. So far had the Many-Handed-One carried their feet ceaselessly, but where they passed now was known by their kind as watchful of alien faiths. Elsewhere upon their path, even in regions wholly unpeopled, had they seen old shrines of sleeping amulets such as theirs, but within the first hamlet of the mist-laden valley depths, they spied not even little fixtures upon the thresholds where might sit an old scrap of parchment. The valley was long and deep, and was the sacred domain of the Seven-Eyed Ones, sentinels who watched every step through their land—it was even said those who left the valley took some of its soil, to forever feel the sentinel’s eyes upon them.
Night fell swift within the valley, and with it, a profound stillness that made it feel as if their god had retreated behind the veil of its tabernacles. Or, perhaps it was being held back. It looked like every fire had been extinguished for leagues around down the valley. The mere outlines of the land shone under starry filaments above. A wind snuck about, carrying fragrant scents from primal glades which dreamed strongest when the world was dark. Upon a bare earthen road that ran the near the whole length of the valley, which they had bypassed earlier, they came to the tall, thin entrance of what looked to be a public or meeting house which might have a spare room. But they hesitated before entering, gripping their tabernacles tight, for set into the wooden face of the building was nothing less than one of the idols of the Seven-Eyed Ones. They were supposedly spread across the entire region, but the three travellers hadn’t expected them to be so out in the open. It looked down upon them, the ancient stone immaculately preserved. Nothing had ever marred its surface. They did not know if they were even welcome, that was, until a figure opened the door and spoke, in a faltering but genuine dialect of the traveller’s own home region, a friendly greeting.
Light chatter flowed through the air alongside the clinks of plates and mugs, and they could smell spices. A yawning fireplace lit the oddly-shaped inn with rich orange and hazy shadows. Not many looked up as the publican sat the three foreigners at a table just off to the side of the fire, and talked with them over mugs of a spiced drink they heartily gulped down. They felt glad to see the little corner shrine, though it was quite bare, and really only served to make the scarcity of divine presence clearer than it had been. Still, and probably because of that, they fell over themselves in profuse thanks and apology, but they were assured it was more than okay. In fact, they were to be afforded a little extra generosity, because of what lay ahead. The Seven-Eyed Ones, they were not so fearsome as outsiders thought, but they were not kindly gods, either. They spoke as things were, no less. The publican came closer, and said: a priest had been told something amidst a slew of visions, that events were coming together from far places, and that three foreigners would “need many hands” in what most certainly would come their way. That was all that could be told, for the sentinels saw far, and these events were far indeed. A room was arranged after a short, tense evening of planning, and they were given something to help them sleep. Come the morning, they spent some time next to the scraps inside the barren public house shrine, before with many thanks, departed on an uncertain road.
The deep valley had given way to a growth of green the likes of which they in their desert home had never imagined. Unbroken canopies filtered sunslight into piercing shafts of silver that spread as radiant pools upon the forest floor, itself an ocean of tangled roots, shoots, vines, and pungent, seeping loam. No path existed here—such was why folk like their old friend and mentor came this way, to seek primeval seclusion. But no hermit’s dwelling did they spy, and into a flooded, gangrenous jungle did they then descend. Stinking, greenish haze rose from stagnant lakes and archipelagoes of mud and slime where massive insects droned, skittered, and crept alongside massive, jagged-fanged serpents that slunk into the thick waters with nary sound nor shifting of the surface. Like coils of smoke were the bloated trees, so utterly twisted were they, oozing dark sap from wounds made by who knew what, and the trees were of such a density that the light was itself choked, and an eerie, eternal twilight reigned.
And in the midst of that long trek with no rest, with tremulous hearts, and with time ever dwindling, the stars once again spread across the firmament, and under its inky shadows, three figures raced with desperation through the vast mirelands. That their pursuers were adherents of some savage deity they hoped not, for even common bandits might listen to reason or find mercy, but with the fervent calls the bladed shadows gave, they believed it could be naught else. What gods dwelt here, lurking in the noisome darkness, they felt they did not want to know. And all they had were three little tabernacles that could, at best, push aside some of the underbrush and force their limbs into motion. Their insistence on cutting straight through the landscape had cost them more time in the end, and possibly their lives. But they had seen something in the distance when they had clambered up the half-fallen trunk of a great tree: what looked to be a lonely tributary of the grand highway. With that single vision, and three muttered prayers, there was hope.
Among the cult of the Many-Handed-One, it was understood that larger sigils corresponded to greater influence, but only in the short term—even things like old traveller’s tabernacles produced surprisingly effects over spans of time, each sign of the god growing in potency. Yet, despite the abundance of materials with which something may inscribed in the surfaces of the swampland, the sigil could not merely be written anywhere by anyone, it needed to be written in the presence of a pre-existing sigil, as a kind of imparting or chaining of power. Every single sigil in the known world was part of an unbroken lineage of sigils reaching all the way back to the primordial name. Now, the three had this in their tabernacles, but alas, this helped them not. The sigil itself required immense dexterity and years of training to perfectly execute the necessary order of strokes in their particular series of layers. What amounted to the priesthood of the cult were artisans who specialized in this. In this place, no such person existed. But on the road, even as desolate a span as what they’d glimpsed, there might be something there that could turn the tide in their favour. Many hands, the publican had said. It was this, more than their faith, that spurred their feet far beyond exhaustion in the rancid heat of the mire.
One of the travellers limped, sputtered, and gasped as the three of them burst from the treeline, covered in rank water and slime. A great red gouge ran down the back of the traveller’s leg, the result of a zealot’s flat-tipped hacking blade. Every step oozed fresh streaks of blood. It practically led their hunters to them. The roadside was barely drier than the swamp, but it was enough. And along it, they saw, their hearts singing, a simple, crude construction of hand-carved wood that signified nothing less than a shrine of old amulets. They dove upon it immediately—it held none within, there was no space, so they had been buried, perhaps a more sound tactic in this climate, they thought. The knowledge that pilgrims and wanderers and hermits of old had left these here for their descendents—for them—was invigorating, and it helped make the earth give way. Directly beneath the crude conical grave was a clay container in which a veritable heap of old sigils lay, crumbling, flaking, faded, but as yet radiating a faint power that when piled together into their hands and upon their own tabernacles, created such a rush of divine presence that they almost exclaimed out loud.
Five filthy, rag-bound zealots slid from the murk, and it was if—almost as if—the second they appeared, they were seized. It was clear that in their bloodlust, they had just left the confines of their dark god’s temple. Their weapons dropped to the ground as their muscles and eyes bulged, then their voices spluttered, then their bones audibly cracked, and blood shot from burst flesh and melded into the damp muck as they crumpled and fell. Many hands indeed, they laughed and praised, many hands indeed! The travellers stuck to the road after that, sigils re-buried and prayed over, determined to walk til their feet blistered, the tale of their deliverance on their lips for their old friend and mentor, whose very hermit’s hovel they were sure had just appeared as the land flattened into a wide, breezy delta, and beyond it, a shimmering ocean.
Arriving early this week.