Shadows & Sorcery #41
Welcome to the forty-first edition of Shadows & Sorcery!
Today’s one is a normal paid post, but the first story is of course free for all. The long march to the next milestone continues, but it’s a comfy march. To keep you company, alongside this edition I’ll be releasing another Special Edition of my top ten personal favourites from the last 100 entries, and for free readers, this will include some paid entries you probably haven’t seen before…
If you’re thirsty (and/or hungry) for more, issue 40 which features the 200th piece of flash fiction I’ve written is completely free, as are the first entries of every single other issue. Not only that, but you can read the opening chapter of my serial novel “The Path of Poison” that came out last week for free too!
And if you liked this issue, please leave a like or a comment - it helps!
In this week’s edition, we take a look into the life and culture of a Demon Pilgrim, we witness a manifestation of Saintsflame, we join the search for the Stars of the Forsaken, we descend into the strange depths of the Earthen Archives, and we learn how to forge Storm Steel…
Demon Pilgrim
The sun rises over the river Hehm'it. The water sparkles as the great golden disc touches it, and along its banks for leagues upon leagues, do the people awaken. Morning beseechments are lifted into heaven upon the breeze. Cheap transmitters relay the chants and holy songs from within the vast, domed Great Temple and run for every hour of every day, creating a calm background drone throughout a vast city that never truly sleeps. Homes of all sizes from high apartments to manors, packed hovels and sprawling shanty towns, crowd about the banks on each side, right up to the water, broken up only by the ornate, wall-like temples.
Among these homes and their waking humanity, there now emerges dozens upon dozens of strange figures. Robed in bright red, they clack carved and painted staves upon the ground in a rhythm known only to them. Many stop at small street shrines and begin to pray in clusters, but some are alone. Some make their way down to the river, and disrobe to bathe in the shimmering waters. They reveal here the extent of their inhuman physiology. They are demons, the fearsome, half-spirit people of the comet, who came to the world in an age long ago to wage a war of blood. And as they bathe and pray, they look towards the far horizon where sits the mountain, the source of the river and their redemption.
Upon its tail danced a million terrible forms, upon its body there squatted a thousand monstrous shapes, and at its head there flew a single thing of nightmare, spitting black fire and blood through fangs and tusks. The war chariot comet of the demons carried their whole race, and it meant they would either conquer the world, or be slain and cast from history. A crown of horns adorned every head and a mane of shining black hair was upon the neck and shoulders. Eyes stared, sometimes single orbs with spiral pupils, sometimes random assortments that blinked out of synch. Nostrils flared with oily smoke. Their skins were crimson, emerald, bronze, or black like a night sky. They landed many miles from the great city, and for a fortnight, the people could hear the baleful war-chants beginning to drown out their holy songs.
What ensued was only half a war, but it was of such catastrophic violence that some places in the city have never fully recovered. Curses and ghosts haunt certain spots, and the marks of the war are visible in the oldest places, untouched out of a strange, fearful reverence. The demons sacked many places along the river, and its lower reaches ran red. But then they met the bulwark that was the Great Temple, a dome which utterly dominated the skyline for miles around, and were stopped. There is no end to the many iterations of what happened there, but what is generally agreed upon is that the demons met with a divine avatar, and upon their bloody but steadfast honour, took its truth into their hearts.
The primeval faith of the river country emphasizes the sanctity of learning. It is believed that three cosmic gods - the creator, the preserver, and the destroyer, exist to teach those lower than them, and reveal truths to bring about universal harmony. To do this, they incarnate into countless avatars or aspects, beings who embody a lesson, ethic, or concept. Some are benevolent, some are fearsome, something are entirely neutral. These avatars often had children, which themselves were manifest metaphors. It states that humanity is the highest of the lowest order of life, and it is humanity's duty to uplift the beasts about it. But just because they are the lowest doesn't mean they are the least intelligent, for the demons are half-spirits, and higher on the cosmic scale, and they had fallen to terrible ignorance. Thus did a living truth come to them, rising from the waters in a great spray, cow them, and set them upon the path of understanding.
Their passions were not quelled, but redirected. The demons lived among humanity then in a fragile but ultimately placid peace. They became redemptors, and symbols of redemption for others, paragons to be emulated. The demon people birthed a tradition from this, and it was to make pilgrimage to the headwaters of the river which was their new home's lifeblood and from which their truth, their new patron, emerged so long ago. Red-robed pilgrims are seen upon the high roads and through the valleys, and once beyond the city, they vanish for months into the wilderness, only to return as if nothing ever happened. The faith emphasizes learning, and they seek to uplift themselves utterly of some ignorance only they are still aware of in themselves. The old demon king dwells within the Great Temple in a lotus-smoke meditation from which he only emerges to speak to his people during important festivals from their far off homeland, where knowledge is shared.
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