'Angels' Series - All Liturgies

Prim Leaves her Father’s House
From the Song of Maybe

There came a time when Lord Hansa entered the hollow and singing hall of the multicolored Akaroth, for lunisnight celebrations. There was a great feast there for a fortnight or more, and there, caught in a heated philosophical fugue with Akaroth, Lord Hansa in anger committed the  violation of letting his pipe smoke rise and befoul the all-wind that permeated that house and nourished the ways of the void. Fueled by wine, Akaroth was driven into such a drunken rage by this insult that he harnessed fifty winds to his will and at once slew Hansa with a single stroke of his war fan and felt little regret at the time. Later, in grief, he did heavy penance for this act, for he slew a widely respected man, but all agreed that Lord Hansa had committed a grievous offense.

When Akaroth’s archons learned of this offense, they snatched up the cooling body of Lord Hansa and rode the void to his estate, and there they slew his servants in the multitude and cleft the skulls of his retainers and set fire and lightning upon the land. They tore apart the house of iron nails that stood on that land and within found Hansa’s virginal and radiant daughter Prim, who was preparing her father’s supper, as she did every night. “Look,” said Thunder Cleaves Stone, who was chief in majesty among the retainers of Akaroth, “here is that maid or daughter which he makes a slave. How piteous and crawling a thing!” They fell upon Prim and shaved her beautiful locks and in insult demanded black bread and liquor for hospitality, which she could not fulfill. “Dog!” said they, “and daughter of a dog, live a dog’s life!”, and threw they before her her father’s mangled corpse and left her raw with their laughter in the scoured and smoking ruin of her father’s estate. Later Akaroth learned of their conduct and was greatly enraged for Hansa had been a great wise man, and he had the Archons tied to a flensing tree which stretched the seven corners of the multiverse and there flayed them with lashes of lightning as they had flayed the house of Hansa, and all agreed this was just.

Prim was despondent but did not cry for there was no finer daughter. She took up her cloak and vela and great knife, and felt a little better, and she smeared the ashes of her father’s house on her face and body as was the custom, and she felt a little better, and she wrapped her father’s poor body in a linen shroud and she felt a little better still. She prepared to set upon the road, but she had never left her father’s house, and the thought terrified her, so she plucked a single iron nail from its smoking ruins and pocketed it. So comforted, she slung her father’s corpse over her small back and set off on the road of the Ruling King, which wound seven times through the void and the Wheel, and looked for a place to bury her father.

Soon she came upon a grand field on which the ground quickly became slick with the ruins of men and heaved with the wetness of lives smashed by incredible violence. The earth shook terribly, and carrion birds circled, and a mighty stench filled the air so that she was afraid and gripped her great knife. She came upon a devil there who was perched upon a corpse and gorged upon its eyes. “Look thee craven,” said the devil, “for great lords are doing battle here.”

Indeed, Prim shortly came upon a conflict so brutal that its noise split the earth and heavens both from end to end. The Gods Sivran and Ogam-am were settled in their destroyer aspects and were doing battle with their armies. Great tides of men and horses were dashed aside by their dueling, the ground shuddered and cracked, and the air was thick with the slurry of violence. Prim felt the coldness of fear in her heart, but gripped the iron nail in her pocket, and spoke in her small voice. “Great lords, where may I bury my father?” spoke she, and then again a score of times for her voice was weak and lost easily in the cacophony.

“Who is this ant,” howled Ogam, frothing with rage as he finally noticed her, spouting flame from his navel,”so ugly and ash covered?”

“It is Hansa Primpiyat, that small Prim who you may know, who was the daughter of a great man,” spoke Prim in her small voice, and both Gods ceased their brawling and craned to hear, for she was a piteous thing and they recognized her broken burden as the master Hansa. Prim shrank back, but it was a good question, and both Gods reposed a while to contemplated it, while the blood dripped and smoked from their wounds and their armies continued the slaughter.

“Bury him on the battlefield,” commanded Sivran after a while, “for then he will die a conqueror’s death, which is a righteous death of glory and struggle.”

“Bury him on the battlefield,” roared Ogam, as molten steel dripped from his mouth, “for it is not a weak and womanly death, and his mighty corpse deserves veneration!”

So agreed, both Gods returned to their mortal drama. Prim considered for a moment, and then followed their command, though she was struck more than once by a passing bolt or a hurtling stone, for though the lords’ advice was sound, they were mad with battle lust and thought little of the lives of small things.

Prim returned to the road, and bound her bleeding wounds, and slept, for she was weary, but barely a day had passed when she heard the voice of her father’s corpse rasping. “What a din!” he said, “I can barely sleep for this racket! What terrible excuse for a daughter has interred me in this madhouse!” Prim returned once again to the battlefield with fear and obedience in her heart and though she was struck by hails of bolts and the the gore of the ruins of men, she retrieved her father’s body.

Tired and encrusted with filth, Prim once again set on the road. She trod for many days more, and her fine vela became torn, her dress became ragged, her back ached, and her shoes ripped. Interdimensional winds lashed at her, the ground betrayed her, and she came to hate the very air. Eventually, she came to a place where the road met emptiness and there encountered the angel 7 Sound of Clear Water Through a Grove, which bade her halt. “Traveler,” said the angel in its middle voice, “you look sick and weary. The lady Pravi reposes not far from here. Please pay her a visit.” Prim reluctantly obeyed, for the filth and pain of the road was wearing on her, and strode towards a grove of white glass with swollen feet.

There in a rippling expanse of frozen space the lady Pravi was ensconced on her dais with all her court around her. Her scalp was burnished and oiled, her fingers were very well trained and elegant, her left half was singing a song of love, her right a song of longing, and her cleft form was lovely and sensual. Her court burned fragrant incense and sang accompaniment and bared their breasts to the cool infinity, and indeed it was an awesome sight to behold. Prim was pricked with fear, but she clutched the nail on her pocket and set on.

“What mud spattered vagrant and dirty thing defiles my presence,” spoke the right half of Pravi and the left half made a small gesture of cessation and the music stopped most painfully. “It is I,” spoke Prim in her small voice, “the orphan of Hansa.” Pravi was a poor and abused soul herself, though vain and self-indulgent, and she took pity upon Prim and her grisly burden. Her attendants bound Prim’s feet and layered oils upon them, and sang gently to blunt her pain and found fresh linens for Lord Hansa, though they gave her neither bread nor liquor, for fear of impurity, and did not attend to her wounds. “Great Lady of Pleasure and Enjoyment,” said Prim in her small voice, “where may I bury my father?”

“Bury him in a beautiful field,” said the left half of Pravi, “so he may repose in light and silence and warmth and rest in beauty and peace, for in all things these are good qualities. This is known by me.” And her right half proclaimed that this was good, and she called upon her attendants to oil her silky flesh and bring her fruit and that was that.

Prim considered this for a moment, and then followed her command. When she had done so, she set back upon the road, and lay down to sleep, as she was very tired and in great pain. Not a day had passed however, when she heard the voice of her father’s corpse. “What deafening silence!” it rasped, “What putrid soporific sweetness is this? How insipid and smothering a place to bury such a great man as me! What wasteful  and negligent daughter would do thus to a father?” So, Prim set back to that place, and wore out her boots to shreds, and went back on the road barefoot with her rotting burden.

Exhausted and smeared with grime and ash, Prim traveled for many days, where the road tore at her every minute and blackened her bare feet with blood and calluses. Eventually she was halted by a pair of peregrine knights in the middle of a ten year watch when they came upon her filthy and hobbling figure.

“Halt Yea,” spoke the first knight, “traveler, the road will devour you before long. Over there is YISUN’s speaking hall.”

“A great gathering is there,” spoke the second knight, “pray ye ask for relief or rest, stranger, from those gathered, for ye shall proceed no longer on our watch.”

Prim gripped her knife but she was too weak to fight. She was afraid to enter that hall because she knew her dreadful appearance would surely offend her father’s peers and invite their wrath down upon her. But, she clutched her iron nail, and the assurance therein sent new strength into her cracked and bleeding feet, and she went on.

YISUN’s speaking house was full of light and sound, its feathered arches were gold and russet from the warmth within. As Prim entered, she saw a great assemblage of lords in attendance, some in their speaking forms, some clothed as great animals or birds, some as a heat or pillar of stone, some great dark roiling clouds, some stretched their limbs through quantum states and others reclined, lotus-like, through probability as they made merriment. A great cry set up when Prim came to the threshold for her feet made black marks upon the gilded tiles and the ash and filth caked upon her form befouled the scented air within, and she was so bent with the weight of her father’s corpse that there were almost none who recognized this torn and broken thing. The gods, forgoing custom, made to cast her out, so foul was her appearance, but Het, who was the doorkeeper, was the keenest among them and did not speak roughly to her. “This is the orphan of Hansa, the poor and broken wanderer who was Prim,” she chastised to the gathered, “shame upon your heart of hearts!” She struck the ground with her stave, and the gods were shamed. Still, they were so repulsed by how ugly Prim had grown that they called only their servants to approach her, who bound her feet again, and served her black bread and spirits, and wrapped her face and ragged shorn head in a binding cloth so the gods may hold her in their sight and set her gently upon the proscenium. Thin wine was brought to clear her throat and fresh and golden cloth was brought for the decaying corpse of Hansa.

“Great masters,” croaked she in her small voice, “where may I bury my father? I have searched and searched, and still he will not be at rest. How may I please him?”

“Annihilate his body with fire and free yourself of his burden,” spat weeping Ashma, but Prim could not, for there was no finer daughter.
“Pass him to me, ” spoke bloated Kaon, “so I may bring him to YISUN’s gardens.” But Prim saw his smile of greed and gripped her great knife.
“Set him walking on the road,” said Pedam, tapping his staff in thought, “so he may never tire of his surroundings.” But Prim had grown to hate the road.

There were more.
“Set him in the deep mountains,” bellowed Yam, the high.
“Give him a crown so he may rule the dead,” said noble Payam.
“Make him a coffin of air, so the emptiness may pass through his bones,” said Ovis, fluctuating between five different time states.
“Give him a silver death mask,” said Kami, who tapped upon her ribcage and fingered her string of heads.
“Feed him to my sons so he may live a new life,” said the God of Pigs.
“Make his body into birds,” said Voya, “small birds, so they may pass easily through holes in the universe.”

There were more, and more besides. Prim could not decide on any of these things, and all they did was rip at her heart relentlessly, and the gods grew restless and discontent. The hour grew late, and with relief, the assembly ushered Prim out of the light and warmth of that hall and onto the cruel and jagged road and freezing morning, and Prim went on.

By degrees, Prim grew more and more bent as the corpse of her father grew bloated and swollen. The cloths on her face and feet became soiled, her great knife bent and chipped, and her beautiful vela grew ragged and torn. All the while, the corpse of her father berated her. “What a horrid excuse for a daughter,” it rasped, “I still lie uninterred! How infantile and unaccomplished! My daughter’s life amounts to less than a flea’s! Better she kill herself than allow this shame to rattle my sorry corpse! She should have died in that iron house with me where she belonged!”

After a while, Prim’s feet were fed to the road and became too swollen with blood to walk, and so she crawled like a guttural beast, and all she passed on the road gave her a wide berth and were horror stricken by the stench of death which surrounded her.

Eventually, it was too much for Prim, and she could go no further. Following her father’s last instruction, for there was no finer daughter, she set her feverish mind to one thing – dying in that iron house as her father commanded. With claw like hands, she wrenched that iron nail from her cloak and with all her strength, pounded it into the rough earth of the road. In a flash and with a terrible groan, all around her grew the terrible jagged eaves and beams, the arches and hollows of the iron house of nails. It was just as she had remembered it, even the dinner she had been preparing before the destruction of her father’s estate. Crawling, she unburdened her cargo and dragged her father’s corpse onto his throne, and prepared to expire.

But suddenly, in that moment, a most undaughterly sentiment came over Hansa Primpiyat. She saw eternity stretching before her, a servile eternity, a comfortable, familiar, and putrid eternity, her rotting corpse serving the ruin of her father in that awful, devouring iron house in perfect, decaying, daughterly obedience, forever and ever. And she felt true fear.

She crawled out of that house as soon as her bloody limbs would take her, with terrifying clarity, and hauled herself over its cold black threshold and away from the grip of eternity. But as soon as she did, there was a sound like the closing of a great tomb, or the dropping of a great stone, or the ringing of a deep bell, and a rush and a clap and there was no sign of that iron house any more in all the cosmos. Suddenly, Prim felt the awful stab of ten times the fear she had before, for all she had ever known and cared about was gone forever with that house, and all that remained was that pitiless and hungry stranger called the road, her new master, crueler and more relentless even than her father, and she curled in a sodden ball and cried an awful keening wail that split the heavens and reached even the archons on their flensing tree. Great filthy tears poured from her eyes and nose and her belly was wrenched with terrible spasms of pain and grief.

A pale face came before her and she was abruptly struck from her despair as though by a great hammer. A beautiful stranger had appeared, mild and tall, of milky flesh, spare in figure, but radiant in voice and visage. “I know you,” said the stranger in a small voice, “you are Prim.”

“I was Hansa’s orphan, the slave, Prim,” croaked Prim in response, “and now I am nobody, just a small dirty thing in great emptiness and here I will die.”

“No,” said the stranger, and the clarity and firmness of her voice and smile send a shock through Prim, “you are Prim, and Prim only, and Prim you shall be.” And Prim there realized her tears had made a great pool and she was greeting her own reflection. And she fell into that murky pool and straight away it turned clear as crystal and Prim vomited forth a great black knot from very deep within her, and her body was scoured and lashed by the icy waters of that pool, and great draughts of poisonous filth and despondency were drawn in rushing gasps from her wounds, and her skin was sealed and her soiled trappings were purged and the caked illness and death was ripped away and she rose from that pool fresh and humming. Her back straightened and she scarcely thought on her father’s corpse or the faintest echo of that iron house. The air was quite pleasant and the road which had seemed cruel now seemed to whimper and bend before her, and she stood up and laughed a perfect laugh of dominance, and its sound rang like a bell as the warmth of life steamed within her, and the road stretched on and it was good.

That is how Prim left her father’s house.

“The angels, though sturdy and true to their original purposes and long alloyed to the corrupting influence of infinity through reincarnation, experienced a profound sundering with the Universal War. The Shattering, as it came to be known, broke the long compact the angels had with the races of the omniverse to uphold the Law, and the Law itself was splintered and broken. The oldest and most holy among the warrior monks of the Concordant knights were shattered during the war, not to reincarnate for millenia more, leaving many young angels, still in their vapor or liquid states. Seeing the broken, burning remnants of the Universe, and the subsequent rule of the Seven destroyed what confidence many of them had in protecting reality, and still more came to the conclusion that reality itself was better purged, better purified through bloodshed than left to rot.

Now, the Concordance is a shattered, corrupted remnant of its former self, and rogue angels wander the worlds and the king’s road, selling their extreme skill in the ways of annihilation.

And through the void and the kings road atop steeds of glass and fire ride those terrible steel figures with their spined carapaces – the Holy Thorn Knights.”

– Preem Payapop Pritrum, introduction of 5th Treatise on Aeons – what to expect of the Pact

“From the cracked shell of the angelic concordance sprang a hot and putrid rose, and a thousand thousand wild burning seeds poured into the smoke of the corpse of the universe, and there spread with a terrible incandescence. But along with these wild embers came a greater power – the sleek and awful perfection of the Thorns.”

– Preem Payapop Pritrum, 5th Treatise on Aeons – what to expect of the Pact

Only once was there a question which YISUN hesitated to answer. Strangely enough, it was asked by Aesma, the least wise of their companions. They trode a stony road together, and Aesma’s feet grew hot and sore. She swore and spat, and clutched her feet, and asked YISUN a stupid question.

“Lord!” said she, in roiling frustration, “Before you said there is no such thing as Universal Truth!”

“It was so,” said YISUN.

“Then what is all this! This foolery!” said Aesma, with an exaggerated sweep of her ashen arms, “Isn’t creation itself, the entirety of your own grand work, a self-evident truth? The only self evident truth, in fact!”

“It is not so,” said YISUN, stopping their pace.

“Then what is it?” wailed Aesma, starting to tantrum. This was the question that caused YISUN to hesitate. They meditated on it for a short time only, but Aesma was aghast with wonderment at the power of the question.

“My opinion,” said YISUN, finally.

“Is it a correct opinion?” said Aesma, awestruck.

“Aesma is observant,” said YISUN.

– The Song of Maybe.

Aesma and the Three Masters

-Part 2:Aesma and the Master of Aesthetic-

Aesma left the Master of space-time humiliated and battered and set upon the road again, but the heat of victory very quickly cooled into the smoldering jealousy that was her usual manner, and she struck on.
The estate of the Master of aesthetics was not difficult to find either. It hung suspended like a brightly glowing jewel in the blackness of the void. Aesma was taken aback as she hurtled closer, for it grew quickly in in her vision into an expansive palace the size of a city, whose shining streets and ways were packed to the brim with admirers and followers of unbelievable shapes and sizes. As Aesma stowed Pedam’s walking stick, she could hardly move without being assailed with a riot of color and sound and personage. Sprays of brightly plumed dancers spun in the air and sang in speech, thought, and machine code. The cafes were thick with serious-faced philosophers and wild, frenetic writers from the seven corners of the multiverse burning a hundred thousand tongues into brightly fired glyphs. Thick-armed artists and poet-engineers packed the streets, perched over glowing canvases, crowds of admirers and assistants gathered around them, goggle-eyed and gaping.
Any god or man could a spent an age swallowed in the glorious spectacle, but it merely frustrated Aesma, who rudely cleaved her way through the impossible crowds for three days, scavenging from luminous cafes, and using Pedam’s stave to viciously fend off uncounted party invitations. But finally, she made her way to the center of that palace, where there was a hall the size of a cavern, filled with rich music, celebrants, and docile animals from a thousand stories. As she smacked and wrenched her way through man, beast, and admirer alike, she came upon a large, beautiful pool, and there seated upon the water was the Master of Aesthetic.
Aesma was somewhat taken aback, as the riotous chaos of the Master’s estate had led her to expect the Master’s art to be quite shallow. But the Master herself was an extremely plain looking woman, dressed almost completely naked in a simple wrapping cloth, her skin and eyes a dull white, her head and brow shaved, and Aesma immediately understood the power she was dealing with.
“YISUN tells me you are the strongest of their disciples,” spoke Aesma, striding across the pool like a great ugly, disheveled bird, and seating herself on the water.
“Young Aesma, who has trumped that gigantic clown, the Master of space-time,” said the Master of aesthetic in a perfectly unremarkable voice. “What an odd question. Did you not stay and observe my estate before coming here?” she added.
“I don’t have time for such frivolity when my reputation is on the line!” fumed Aesma,
The Master made a subtle motion and bread and liquor were brought for Aesma, who also loudly demanded flesh.
“It is so,” said the master as they sipped their liquor.
“How so!” said Aesma quickly.
“Though I have sacrificed much, I have attained mastery of the ultimate and insurmountable truth of Art, “the Master said, “No movement of mind, muscle, or voice is unknown to me. I can measure sorrow, or joy, or pain, or love as plainly as the fingers of my hand. I have laid bare the great filaments of color and sound that connect all life in the multiverse, and I may pluck upon them as I please. Perfection is my breath.”
“Nonsense! Any fool can say what Art is!” protested Aesma, chewing. “My face is said to be beautiful to many!” she said, contorting her expression so her face resembled the shy, demure, maid that she never was. The crowd of onlookers gasped, so sudden was the transformation. “But for me,” she said, relaxing her expression into her usual demonic countenance, “It is a hideous face of weakness.”
“Have you not seen my estate, my Palace of Resonance?” said the Master. “It is the ultimate cynosure, my final work. Until the end of days the greatest minds and artists will flock here in hope of drinking of my perfection, but never attain it.”
Aesma conceded that she had not seen the estate.
“Show me your illuminated mind,” commanded the Master in her perfectly normal voice. Aesma did, and the Master was shocked at how writhing and wicked it was. She quickly resolved to give Aesma some tutelage. Motioning for Aesma to follow, she walked out into the city-palace.
Aesma quickly realized that in her hurry to find the Master, she had made a critical oversight. The Palace itself was more than an estate, it was a gallery of monumental proportions, whose architecture thrummed with a harmony that she felt in her bones.
“We will start,” said the Master, “with a work to your liking.”
They stopped at a grand, worn looking theatre. Inside they lingered and ordered drinks while a comedian began a ballad of bawdy poetry. “Of my design,” said the Master, and as the poem progressed, Aesma, though reticent, quickly found herself unable to contain her mirth. By the end, most of the audience was in stitches on the floor, and Aesma’s sides were raked raw from laughing. “A fine work,” conceded Aesma, “but not perfect!”
“An early work,” said the Master slyly, and they progressed to a grand golden dome, where they watched an opera of the Master’s design and ordered increasingly more expensive liquor. At first, Aesma was merely amused by the opera, a simple work about a heroine’s conquest of her fears. But as the work progressed, she found herself increasingly more involved in the plot, which dragged her from emotional high to emotional low, hooked into her throat so tightly that it was raw from screaming from joy and fear. And by the end, she realized that the opera had been written about her, Aesma. It truly was perfection.
“Very well!” conceded Aesma, hoarsely, as they proceeded onwards. By now they had gathered a tail three leagues long of admirers and followers. “But my earlier point still stands,” she continued, gathering her wits, “Aesma has enjoyed your work. But who’s to say she will enjoy the next.”
They went on to observe a humid subterranean dance, a rhythmic, pulsating affair. Aesma found very little pleasure in it, and was about to crown herself victorious, when the Master spoke.
“It is true what you said before,” said the master, “that Art is a matter of perspective. So is reality. The Master of space-time was a fool precisely because he failed to see this. No matter how deep he looked, he could only see with his own eyes, the consummate fool.”
“I have also mastered perspective, “she said, “so I will teach you the way to change your form and the shape of your earthly mind, and the color of my meaning will become known to you.”
They changed their form and bearing to two bearded youths, young men, and it wasn’t long before Aesma felt a stirring in her root and a quickening in her chest. The dance had a perfect effect on her male form.
“Blast you!” she spat.
“You will see nothing is unknown to me,” said the Master, laughing heartily, “Meaning is the essence of existence, and it is a tapestry I weave at my pleasure.”
They spent the rest of the week like that, moving from dance, to art born in light and blood, to song, to music, to performance, to transcendental math, such staggering works as Aesma felt a lifetime pass with each one. Each time they shifted from form to form like the flickering of a candle. Sometimes they were beasts, drinking in the perfection of a fresh kill, sometimes they tuned their ears to trans-dimensional winds. They lived as masochists, as beggars, as kings, as gods, as men, as women, as hermaphrodites, as worms, as stars. The time wicked away like quicksilver, and soon, having gathered a crowd that trailed behind them nearly the length of the palace, they retired to the pool at the center of it all. Aesma near collapsed from exhaustion, and quickly demanded copious liquor to cure her hangover. The Master was wholly unaffected and reclined in the center of her pool in her perfectly plain flesh.
“So you see,” said the Master, “I have mastered Meaning in all its forms and perspectives. My insight is the deepest there is, and so all come to bask in my perfection. That is why I am the strongest of YISUN’s disciples.”
“Now I am sure YISUN keeps you close out of amusement or pity,” continued the Master, “but if you wish to improve your meager talent, I will allow you to present yourself as my student.”
“Die screaming,” croaked Aesma, and the hot fire of jealousy gathered itself within her, and she spat out another stupid question.
“If you understand so deeply, then what is the universal Art?” said Aesma wickedly.
“There is none,” said the Master, untroubled.
“There must be one!” said Aesma, fire rising in her heart, “What’s all this about meaning if there isn’t anything universal about it!”
“I had thought it to be love, or perhaps lovemaking,” said the Master, dismissive, “But of course, universal thinking is shallow, did I not tell you this? Meaning and existence are exercises of self. So it is, and always will be. You should know this, Aesma.”
“Of course there’s one, you smug fop!” spat Aesma, and rage began to bubble up in her boiling mind. “I’ll find it, here!”
“I have little time for the unworthy,” said the Master, and made to call for her servants to cast out Aesma. But before the Master could even extend her littlest finger, Aesma let loose a wild howl and began to tantrum.
“I’ll show you!” she roared, and clothed herself in death. “I’ll find you a universal Art in the ruins of your palace!!” Her tongue lolled, and her eyes weeped blood, and she spat fire and tore out of the pool. She began to rip apart the docile animals there, and their cries of pain brought a hundred martial artists from the crowd, who made to stop her. But Aesma in her destroyer form was a fiendish creature with thirty five arms and three ancillary battle consciousnesses, whose skin was plated like iron and gave off acrid smoke that seared the weak. She beat them bloody and then ran amok in the crowd, breaking and slashing and hurling men and women from fifty thousand worlds to and fro, destroying priceless works of art millennia in the making, and generally making a mess of things.
Her rampage lasted three days and only ceased when the Master herself sallied forth from her pool with thirty five mendicant saints who impaled Aesma on puresilver lances. Her berserk rage finally draining from her body, Aesma conceded.
“Why do you tear up my house, you wretched thing!” said the Master.
“To find the universal Art!” howled Aesma.
“There is no such thing, stupid girl,” said the Master, and Aesma dealt her a single blow across the face. And as the Master was struck, she realized terribly and immediately that Aesma was right. Although Aesma in her blind rage did not realize it, she had spoken with a language understood by all the great men, artists, beasts, philosopher-kings, angels and poets from a million worlds gathered at the Master’s estate.
“The universal art is violence,” said the Master, shocked.
“Aha!” said Aesma in sudden realization.
The master could say nothing.
“I told you!” Aesma cackled, as she was dragged away, and thrown off the shattered and burning Palace into the void.
“That’s awful,” said the Master.
Her body drooped and crumpled, and all the lights in her beautiful glowing palace slowly died as she dragged herself to her pool, which had grown an ugly shade, and wept.

“Here may pass only the worthy,

The pure and righteous of spirit

Who disdain impurity

Alone may wield this cursed flame without temptation,

Shattered, but the fires of God were not enough

To quench its thirst so here it shall be watched eternal.

So it is.”

-Unknown, carved in the base of the Angelic Concordance.

Het and the Rakshasa

(Part 3)

Resolute that she could find some new information for the Sergeant (and perhaps impress him), Het struggled down the muddy slope into the land below. And when she arrived there, she saw a strange and terrifying sight indeed.

In the square there was a great gathering of the dwellers of that land. A long and warped table had been laid out, and all the dwellers were all gathered around a terrible fire, which threw ghastly light upon their dark and white-eyed faces. Het saw there the fire-stoking woman, and the junk-sifting man, and the bundle-bearing youth. The entire gathering was giving forth an unearthly wail, their hands outstretched in claw like shapes, their faces upturned and monstrous. A great lightning bolt of fear struck Het about the heart and she fled at once back to the palace.

In the morning, she told the Sergeant of what she had seen, and he congratulated her for her find, and promised to redouble his investigation given the new evidence of wrongdoing. So it was that even though Het’s boots and uniform were already muddy from the night before, that morning she set out warm with pride and her chin thrust in the air, the Centurion ahead of her with his sword hand flexing.

Het’s discovery seemed to invigorate the Sergeant. He set about questioning the dwellers at twice the speed he had before, and very shortly they had a suspect, who the Centurion cut down with incredible speed before they could even ask him a question. He did not have a Rakshasa inside him, but, in fact, turned out to be simply a bad debtor. So it was with the next person the Centurion slaughtered, a woman who turned out to be a forger of the king’s coin. “We’ll have a very busy day,” said the Sergeant, cleaning his perfect fingernails.

Het was roiling with frustration and guilt. How could they have been so misled? Petty criminals were not what they had come for. Surely the dwellers of this land had some awful secret they were hiding away, especially given the dark gathering Het had stumbled on the night before. Perhaps there was an entire clan of Rakshasa, scheming away at their demise. The mud-daubed faces of the hunched and twisted people around Het looked more similar than ever. They seemed to be laughing at her.

With great intent, Het excused herself from the Sergeant and Centurion, and rushed to the hut of the fire-stoking woman, knocking her door open with the butt of her stave. “You there!” said Het accusingly, “What are you doing?”

“I am making bread,” said the astonished woman, “For this land is harsh and scarce, but it gives to us all the same. It’s what we have.” Het was suspicious and took three fine steps into the room, in the way she’d seen the Sergeant step. But the woman showed her the oven, and the way it was stoked, and the thin and flimsy looking bread that she was baking there. And since Het could find no fault with baking bread, she left and ran to the dwelling of the junk-sifting man.

“You there!” she said as she reached his dwelling. She gripped her stave tightly, for she feared trouble. “What is your business?” The junk-sifter turned to her, astonished. “I am preparing amulets, made by the townspeople,” he said. “For this land is harsh and bleak, but its people are resourceful.” Het took two great steps inside the dwelling and saw that he was telling the truth. The amulets weren’t terribly well made, but they had a certain crude beauty to them that was undeniable. Growing increasingly uneasy, Het took up her stave and fled to find the bundle-bearing youth.

It took her very little time, for Het was in a great hurry. A terrible suspicion that she was being deceived had taken hold of her, and she began to walk square shouldered and narrow-eyed, like the Centurion. Her hand even hovered around her sword handle, but never touched it, for she was terrible with the sword.

She accosted the youth, who turned to her wide eyed. “You there!” barked Het, and she took a single step and grasped the youth’s shoulder. “What are you scheming? I know there’s something your people are hiding from me!” The youth gaped at Het and said, “Please! I’m carrying the burial cloths! For this land is harsh and its rulers cruel, but it’s people are resilient.” It was then that Het realized she was crushing the youth’s shoulder and let go. The trembling youth unfurled the cloth, and explained how the cloth was dyed and folded. Het saw it’s intricate pattern, but still her suspicions were not quenched. She shoved the terrified youth aside and ran in a panic to where the Sergeant and the Centurion were executing a root seller who was selling their produce over-price.

“A terrible shame,” said the Sergeant, and wiped his brow.

As Het approached him, she told him of her suspicions. “ A conspiracy is boiling here!” she said, breathless. “I am certain now the dwellers of this land are hiding the Rakshasa!”

“I thought as much,” said the Sergeant, “Which is why I have stepped up our investigations once again.” The Centurion said nothing, but only cleaned the viscera off his sword in well-practiced motions. He had butchered seven dwellers that day and was exceptionally happy for it.

Het told the Sergeant of her plan. She would stay behind and follow the dwellers to their night-time gathering, and get to the heart of the matter. Part of her daring plan, to be certain, was a desperate final bid to win the Sergeant’s affection. But the large part of it was a deathly fear that the demons of this awful, muck-ridden land would surely get the better of them and they would be ripped apart.

“If you stay behind,” said the Sergeant, matter-of-factly, “You shan’t get in the palace in time. You will miss your bath and you’ll be terribly filthy. I would think you’d have to sleep outside.” He looked pointedly at Het’s boots and uniform, doubly soiled with both the filth of that day and of her exploits the night before. Het’s heart sunk, but she was resolute.

So it was that the Sergeant and the Centurion abandoned Het and returned to the palace. Het found a thin and dead tree and huddled under it, filled with fear and trepidation, and even touched her sword handle at some points. The bleak sun grew low in the sky and darkness swept across the land. Het crawled forth from her hiding place, trudging through the muck, until she saw the light of the great fire start up again in the distance. Her heart jumped as she grew closer, as once again she saw the dark forms of the dwellers gather together and lay out their table. But fear had made her feet unsteady, and all of a sudden she slipped and tumbled through the muck until she lay battered in the street, in plain view of the gathering.

Het struggled to her feet, and gathered her staff close to her, and prepared to die. But the white eyes of the dwellers held looks of sadness and compassion, not of hate. “Come closer, stranger,” they said, gathering her in and soothing her. And Het realized that she herself was so covered with filth at this point that she looked no different from anyone else standing around that great fire. Dazed, she was pulled into the gathering, and given water. And there, Het saw the fire-stoking woman. She was laying bread out upon the table, in roughly woven baskets.

Her mind racing, Het looked around, and found the junk-sifting man, and she saw him laying amulets upon the eyes of someone lying on the ground. The person was so still at first, that Het thought they were acting, but then Het saw the bundle-bearing youth wrap them in a burial cloth and realized it was one of the dwellers that the Sergeant and the Centurion had slaughtered earlier that day. That she had slaughtered. And she looked to the fire and saw the bodies burning there, and the wailing started, and there Het began to cry.

After Het had finished weeping, it was as though the tears had cleared her eyes of something dark and terrible. The people, who had looked so alike in their covering of dirt and their rough clothing now stood out stark as day. Here was a kindly woman with a lined face pulled tight in grief for her lost son. Here was a young and sun-worn man beating his chest for his dead sister. They were simple faces, dirty and weather-beaten, but in that moment, sublimely beautiful.

After the fire and its grim contents had burned down to coals, they sat around the great table and ate the thin bread that had been laid out there. As each person bit into it, they bowed their heads and loudly praised its fine taste. Het didn’t touch it at first, but was urged on by the mourners. To her surprise, the bread was bitter and dry. “How can you praise this bread when the taste is so poor?” said Het, astonished. The dwellers looked at her strangely and said, “This land heaps pain and indignity upon us. We are small people, so we must be grateful for the small things. Otherwise, what do we have?”

Het was sickened by her own blindness. “In truth,” she said, “I am a watchman come to town to hunt for the Rakshasa.”

“We know,” said the dwellers. “The Rakshasa has plagued us for some time. It steals what little livelihood we have and inflicts pain and malice upon us. At first, our funerals were only for those that it took in the night. Now we must work twice as hard to mourn those the Law takes as well. We resent it, but what can we do? It is the way of things.”

Het thought of the Sergeant and his perfect fingernails, and felt a sudden and strong revulsion. “It is not the way of things,” she said. An idea struck her then, as pure and clear as a bolt of lightning.

“Do all attend these gatherings?” she asked the dwellers. “No,” said the dwellers, “there are some who stay silent in their grief, or resent our mourning.” Het thought a moment, then planted her staff and stood up. “I will find this Rakshasa for you,” she said, speaking to those assembled. “Are there dead that are not yet burned?” The dwellers showed her that there were, and Het bade them delay their final rites. There was a great clamor among the dwellers, but Het planted her staff again, and they listened, partly in fear, and partly in awe.

“The Sergeant will start his investigation again tomorrow,” said Het in a voice she didn’t knew she had yet. “You will burn your dead when the sun is high, instead of at night, and you will bid all the town come to the funeral. Those that are not at the gathering will surely be in danger, for the Sergeant has promised me he will step up his investigation. You will bake the bread, and make the amulets, and prepare the burial cloth, just as normal, and in turn, I will reveal to you a secret way to draw out and kill the Rakshasa.”

The dwellers were in turmoil at Het’s suggestion, for it was a grave breach of custom. But the Rakshasa had plagued them for a long time, and the suggestion of relief from its scourge was just enough to motivate them. They set about finishing their funeral rites, and preparing for the next day. Het, for her part, trudged in the cold and dark back to the palace. But, as promised, the palace gates were closed to her. She slept in the mud and awoke cold and wet, but full of purpose.

“A Devil can be the most horrifying warrior, untiring manservant, or cunning secretary that one could wish. But unlike humankind’s weak Black Flame, the flame of the Devils glows hot and raw. It must be fettered. Otherwise, they will surely tear Throne apart, angels be damned.”

– Par Vam, Undersecretary of the Yellow City

“Any man who trusts an angel had better get used to sticking his hand in fires.”

-Splitpin, devil binder

“The angel is a mighty judge, for his gavel is a fist of stone encasing a terrible and unforgiving fire. A corpse-ocean of criminals have been fed to that flame, yet oceans more shall never quell its unrelenting hunger.”

-15 Ways of Ruling

“I heard a man’s heart is worn on his sleeve. Well, it ain’t exactly correct by my reckoning, but close enough. Men is easy to read. Their heart shows all up in their eyes and face. It comes out in their breath, their voice, and the slant of their walk. Men is living things, beautiful and simple.

Where does an angel keep his heart then, I wonder? Troubling thoughts, my lads. Troubling thoughts, indeed.”

– Volk, Stoker’s Guild scion

Het and the Three Companions

Part 1

There came a time when the dust of the road grew too thick for Het, and her great stave grew heavy, and the days grew dead and cold. She lifted her brow to the horizon, and spying the faint light of shelter, set her shoulder to the wind and drove on. It was not long before she came upon a cramped and hardy town, set into the earth as though frozen there. The roads were well used, and smoke and steam coiled from hot chimneys, but although the light had not yet died, there was not a soul about, only a few spare and desperate looking dogs. This troubled Het, being a former watchman, but she pressed on, for travel by then had worn her so thin that she feared to trust the strength of her arm.

It wasn’t long before Het came upon a narrow and weather-stained hall, and there a door with iron nails in it. As she entered, something caught her eye. Over the threshold was an old sprig of holly and and a writ of forbiddance against the things that preyed on men, the paper fresh and crisp. Inside the hall a long hearth tried fitfully to push back against the chill that seeped in through the cracked walls. There gathered on the straw were some dozen locals, their faces haggard and creased, and sitting some ways off were three others, who stood out by their color – for the rest of the place was dull and smothered with gloom. The first was a man with a crimson cloak, a beggar knight with a knotted beard and bulging eyeballs. The second was a priest in a stained white vestment, chewing on sweetroot and spitting the juice into the straw. The third was a golden-haired woman with milky skin and burnished armor. She had on her a great number of weapons, all polished to a sheen, and many emblems were fastened to her breastplate, which was fashioned in the likeness of a snarling beast.

Het thought it a strange scene, but stranger still was the cold and hollow silence in that place, broken only by the shuffling of feet, the light tap of utensils, and the occasional sound of the priest spitting into the straw. “Ho friends,” said Het, feeling as if she was breaking glass with her very words, “May I sit by this hearth? The nights grow long and the path is hard and stony.” There was no response, so Het took a second step into the room, and saw at once the grey and downturned faces, the hollow and reddened eyes, and the empty expressions of those seated there. Het saw that the hall, narrow that it was, was built for far more to supper there, and she was suddenly aware of the great emptiness in that room.

“Death has made her abode here,” said Het.

“So she has,” said the red-cloaked beggar knight, and bade Het come share bread.

Het sat down amongst the three strangers. The bread had been broken some time ago, and was stiff and dense. Het chewed it and tried to warm herself, but her cloak was thin, and the the hearth barely touched the room with its heat. “Where is the waymaster?” asked Het. “Dead,” said the priest with the stained robes, and spat into the straw, “And you won’t get much out of anyone here about it. Not a soul in this town dares breathe a word, or lets their boots protrude an inch outside more than they have to. All industry and life in this town fled long ago. It’s as dead as the poor waymaster.”

“How so?” said Het.

“They are paralyzed with fear. There’s a demon about,” said the priest, through his mouthful of root. “It goes about pick-a-pack and kills what it pleases, be it man, woman, or child. So I hear it, at first it began taking a little – mutilating livestock and the like. Then before long it got a taste for man flesh. It hasn’t killed when the sun is high yet, so folks have figured that’s the only way to stay safe.” The priest picked at a scar on his nose and continued. “Trouble is, it seems lately it hasn’t been following the rules. It’s lifting latches and throwing catches and crawling in through windows and spilling the guts of folks in their sleep. So they all figure the quieter they are, the less likely they are to lose their innards.”

“Makes for poor hospitality,” wheezed the beggar knight, and took a long drink from an iron flask at his hip. The golden-haired maiden simply looked on, her expression bitter. Het found the pale woman’s silence troubling. Her massive hands searched for the grip of her great stave, for she was familiar with demons, and had spent a great deal of her days on the road driving them out of the places she passed through. Here, near the edges of the world, they clustered on the hamlets spotted across the bleak landscape and fattened themselves like ticks. “Well, hasn’t anyone thought of killing it?” said Het.

“Didn’t you see the tree on the way in?” said the beggar knight. Het shook her head, as she had no idea what he was talking about. The three other travelers passed a look between them.

“Well come have a look,” said the priest. He heaved to his feet and spat his sweet root out, and grabbed his preaching rod and an old iron lantern, which he lit with a foul-smelling oil. Het followed him as he limped out the door. Strangely, he paused on the threshold, foot planted as though waiting for something. Het was about to ask why, but caught the sheen of sweat on the man’s ruddy neck, and the slight shake in his hand, and realized the priest was afraid. She held her tongue as the beggar knight, and then the golden-haired woman, gathered up their armament, then rose and followed them into the biting dusk. The light had almost wicked away to nothing. The streets they passed through were hollow, and even the dogs had disappeared. Their footsteps echoed off the walls of that barren place, and through the freezing air Het could sense the invisible and terrible grip of fear.

Aesma and the Red Eyed King

Final Part

So it was that the Red Eyed King rode Aesma through star-winds and yawning gulfs of space-time to where the Temple of the Disc of the Sun stood glowing in its stately majesty. And when Aesma landed with the King astride her back, the priests from the temple marched out from between its columns in graceful stride. Their aprons were neatly pressed, and their collars were starched and spotless, and their gleaming rods of office rapped out a pleasing synchronous pattern as they came down the temple steps. For indeed, the priests were expecting Aesma. Their hearts were full of the pride of their victory, and anticipation to see what manner of man had conquered Aesma the Wicked so thoroughly. Already they had spread the word of Aesma’s forthcoming wedding widely across the world, and it had become table talk across all creation in short order. The temple at that time was for that very reason bustling with activity. Worshippers, gossips, and philosophers alike had all come to see the triumph of order, reason, and light over womanly discord, darkness, and wantonness.

But as the priests descended into the temple courtyard, they beheld that the throng gathered there around the new arrivals was recoiling in horror. There was no proud and virtuous man standing there, for as the King dismounted, and as he stood to his full monstrous height, the priests beheld that he he had a pure and perfect aspect of a destroyer. And at once, all their notions of victory melted away, for victory itself is of course a ridiculous notion.

“What is the meaning of this?” boomed the Hierophant.

Aesma made of herself a woman-shape again, and dusted herself off. “I have done as you said, oh great teacher!” she said, throwing herself to the dirt in joy. “It is so grand and great to be submissive! I have brought my husband meals, and darned his clothing, and he has even mounted me across the stars.” She blushed and looked demure as well as she could, which was to say quite terribly. “Now I am here to be joined in holy matrimony, and to submit to the will of my husband, as you have asked of me!”

“What has overcome you?” said the Hierophant, aghast.

“It’s love, I think!” said Aesma, “Isn’t it wonderful?”

The priests racked their staves against the King, and charged with a mighty battle cry. But the king swept up his shield, which was a thousand times heavier than stone, and their attack was dashed against it like water breaking on a cliff.

“I must thank you for inspiring this poor fool to free me from my long imprisonment,” said the King, in his voice like drifting ash. Aesma was too dazed to notice being called a fool and merely gazed upon the King through tears of admiration.

“Now that I’m free,” said the King, “These eyes of mine see a world even more putrid and insipid than in ages past. I ache for its destruction, and since I only deal in fire, fire shall by thy reward.” The king pulled his Roc-feather mantle tight about him, and drew into him all the dread powers and venoms of the night. He invoked his war forms of which he had ninety and two, enclothed himself in roiling smoke, and crowned himself with cinders. Planting his feet, he grew to such monstrous size that his flame-circled brow seared the clouds, and the earth shook and shuddered with his mighty inhalations. The crowd at the temple scattered before his majesty, and black clouds obscured the light of the Great Sun Disc as the king reached out with taloned hand and crushed it into a thousand splinters. The light and power of the Disc was exceptionally potent – a great beacon of strength and wisdom that had drawn in pilgrims from distant empires to bathe in its majesty. For this reason it seared the king just a little when he crushed it with his hand, but then its light was snuffed and it fell in shards to the earth. As an oily night fell upon the land about, the virtuous and manly priests of the Temple knew immediately that they had made a terrible mistake.

“Wife,” roared the king, in a voice that seared the mountain tops far away, “Bring my mine sword!”

And Aesma brought the king his massive sword of bone, that could cut thirty six ways at once, and he enwreathed himself in a dread black fire that could burn up the land, and immediately set about his rampage. First, he smashed aside the priests and roaming saints that came up to defend the temple, for their staves and starched aprons could do naught but turn to char beneath his onslaught. He toppled the white and stately columns of the Temple and he burned the altars to cinders with the mere heat from his body. Most of the crowd and congregation was slaughtered and torn to bits from the gale of his passing, and the Temple was consumed by hellish flame.

So satisfied with his work, the King turned his red gaze away from the temple, and found all the land about unspoiled and pure, which offended him greatly. He took five great strides across the land, and each stride burned a forest up and smashed its trees to matchsticks. On his fifth stride, he found the great domain of the king Mavamatri Io, which was a shining white city that had long revered the great Sun Disc, with orderly avenues and leafy boulevards of gilded paving stones. As they saw the King approach, the city guard blew the great horn of defense, and to its clarion call rallied five thousand men at arms in armor made from gleaming fish scales, whose chariots were drawn by horses shod in silver. The warriors of that city could draw a bow heavier than any man in five hundred kingdoms, and they were brave and righteous men, bearded and muscled from toil and training. They loosed upon the King their shafts, but once again he drew up his bulwark and dashed the rain of arrows into a pitiful shower.

The King struck out with his sword that cut thirty six ways, and it cut the air with a fierce and awful wind that blew the walls of the city asunder and killed seven hundred men at once. And in very short order, the King’s red gaze beheld only ashes were the great city had stood, and he was pleased. Aesma, for her part, was so lovesick that she could only sit in stunned admiration in the smoking ruins of the temple and watch as her would-be husband lay waste to the land about. But very shortly, it occurred to her that the marriage ceremony would still have to take place, so she staggered to her feet and skipped after the King, following the wake of his destruction.
And indeed, that wake grew very large indeed. On the first day of his rampage, the King razed ten cities to the ground, and slew a score of demigods. On the third, he had razed thirty five cities, and slew a hundred and thirty two demigods, and thrown twenty temples into ruin. And by the seventh day, he had razed ninety five cities, slew five hundred and sixty demigods, boiled seven seas to dust, burned the College of Stars to the ground, set alight the Ulaptis river, and slaughtered the god Un-Utram in single combat. And each day, Aesma would follow along, giddy with love, mend his battle-worn armament, sing his praises. But as the sun grew low and the only light was from the cities burning to the ground around the King, Aesma would tug at his ankle and say, “Oh husband of mine, will you come back to the temple with me? Have you forgotten our ceremony?”

This grew extremely vexing to the King, who truly cared little for Aesma and could harbor nothing so infinitely complex as love in his small and dull heart. And by fits and starts, the King made the exact same mistake as the priests of the Temple. He began to relish in his conquest, and he grew assured in his victory, for the swathe of carnage and devastation that the King had carved was visible even from YISUN’s speaking house, and it’s smoke was so thick that it blotted out the sun for near half of creation. Grand and imperious armies rallied against the King, and were dashed to pieces upon his armor, and everywhere he went he left a sea of dying men and horses. Even the meta-dimensional halls and transcendent planar-estates of the Gods began to pay attention to the King, and rallied their celestial hosts. War gods girded their loins and clad themselves in steaming armor and summoned their sword arts for battle. The Great Gods of Justice summoned the minor Gods of Justice from where they were harassing Ogam, and together they shouldered their spears and clothed themselves in molten law, and marched for the battlefield.

But even the Gods themselves could do little but slow down the King’s ferocious rampage. For battle as they might, they were unable to strike a single wound against the King, who was encased in his invulnerable armament. And the King did not sleep or tire, for his hatred of creation and his burning rage against the insipid beauty of the universe gave him the awful power of Want, which filled his limbs with unstoppable force. He shattered the smoking spears of the Gods of Justice, and threw down the Gods of Law with a strike from his shield, and did battle with Sivran, God of Conquest, for seven and one days before Sivran retired to his palanquin from exhaustion.

So indeed, the King’s victory seemed assured. And it was there at the height of his conquest that he decided to rid himself of Aesma.

“Oh husband of mine, won’t you come back to the temple with me?” said lovestruck Aesma, for the twentieth time. The King looked at her with his terrible red eyes and said, “Get thee gone, gnat! Thou hast served thy purpose, now play in the ashes a while!” And he took his sword that could cut thirty six ways and smote Aesma with a blow so mighty that it sent her hurtling across the world and blew all the love clean out of her. When Aesma landed, she was pouring tears again. She staggered around, sobbing, until she found herself trudging through the ashes of the Temple of the Disc of the Sun. By this point she had been crying for a good day and a half, so her eyes were very sore and blurry with fiery tears. But she could see just well enough that she made out the sorry and filthy figure of the Hierophant of the Temple, who was poking through the smoking mess that had been the mighty congregation hall with what remained of his staff of office.

“Oh teacher!” sobbed Aesma, and shook the poor Hierophant from side to side, “I did what you asked! I followed all the rules of your temple! Is it because I’m too wicked that I must be punished so?”

“You awful, wretched creature!” shrieked the Hierophant in rage, “Look at what your foolishness has wrought! Get up and set this right at once!”

“Oh I was struck by my husband,” said Aesma, “And now my heart is aflame with pain!” And she sobbed and rolled around in self-pity, covering herself in ashes and moaning. The immediately Hierophant saw that he had made a second, and far greater mistake than getting Aesma to marry in the first place. By trying to tame Aesma, he had inadvertently removed one of the only weapons that could be relied on to trounce pompous fools such as the Red Eyed King with any degree of reliability.

“Get up!” sputtered the Hierophant, “You have to fight!”

“Oh but that’s against the rules!” sobbed Aesma.

“You useless moron!” said the Hierophant, “The great Disc of the Sun is shattered! This temple is brought to ruin, and the world will ne’er see its like again, even in the whole history of creation! The stars themselves burn with the evil you have unleashed! Who cares if you were struck?”

It was true that the Temple would never return. But Aesma was not listening, for a sudden thought had hit her like a stone, and she stood up.

“Say!” she said, nurturing a growing anger, “If my husband strikes me, doesn’t that break our marriage vows?”

“You absolute dolt!” said the Hierophant, “You haven’t even been married yet!”

“Oh!” said Aesma, standing up, and becoming herself again. “I’ll beat him to a pulp!” She smacked the Hierophant for good measure, and felt fantastic. Then she set off in a dead sprint through the charred and smoldering landscape to where the Red Eyed King stood, wreathed in ruinous power, and laying waste to the world about him with great bolts of black fire and scorching ash. Five hundred gods were doing furious battle with him, and the light of their burning combat obscured the sky itself. Aesma instantly filled to the brim with an unstoppable berserk rage upon seeing his wicked face, and she began to tantrum, as was her custom.

“You!” she screamed, and laid hand upon the nearest thing to her, which was a large rock. She hurled it with tremendous force, where it struck the King in the thigh and made hardly a dent. Aesma was so angry, she turned to the next largest thing she could find, which was a stray horse. The horse was a well-bred steed that had once pulled the chariot of Mantos Am, God of Tax Law, but Aesma cared very little. She gripped the horse by its mane and flung it bodily at the king. It bounced of his thigh and he barely turned from his heated combat.

This so enraged Aesma that she turned to the next largest thing she could find, which was a boat – a mighty war barge a hundred paces long or more that had washed ashore when the river was vaporized by the king’s passing. She flung it at the king with terrifying force, and it glanced off the back of his hauberk and shattered into a thousand splinters of wood. This got the king to turn a little in Aesma’s direction, but at that point he gave her so little regard, so enthralled by victory as he was, that he spared here only the tiniest sliver of a sneer before turning back to his fight and swatting three Gods of war out of the sky with a swing of his hand.

Aesma couldn’t take it at that point. She dug her fingers in the earth, and with a mighty heave, flung part of the entire battlefield at the King. It struck the king square in the shoulder, and knocked him off balance as clods of earth, men, horses, and errant war machines went flying everywhere.

“What are you doing, miserable creature,” said the King. He threw off his combatants and turned to face her, and aligned all his aspects of war and mastery, armor states, and vorpal blade arts in her direction. He was an awe-inspiring sight.

“I think you’re the handsomest man I’ve ever met,” said Aesma, and she was quite sincere, “And you’ve got such a great work ethic! But you struck me with that sword that cuts thirty six ways, and more importantly you let my love for you pour out of me and die cold and withered on the floor. And that I cannot forgive!” She leapt at the king, and summoned up her destroyer form, and rained such ferocious blows upon him that the other five hundred Gods made a circle of their shields and gave her wide berth. But the King was a mighty warrior, and would not yield, so clothed in the invulnerable armor that Aesma had made for him. Any other warrior would have shriveled in dismay at the impossibility of victory in such a situation. It quickly became apparent that Aesma could not beat the Red Eyed King in battle. He was equally as fast as her, better trained, and his war aspects were more deadly. Most of Aesma’s killing blows bounced harmlessly off his shield, while others were rebuffed by the scales of his hauberk.

But Aesma did not cling to victory. Her lack of success merely filled her with a hot and infinite rage.

With a free hand, she groped around until she found the largest object she could find, which happened to a nearby mountain, and with impossible strength she tore it up by the root and dashed it across the Red Eyed King’s shield. The mountain shattered with a colossal rumble and the King was thrown back, but still he would not yield. So Aesma found the next largest object she could find. She raised herself up and reached into the sky and tore a passing moon from it’s orbit. And as the King staggered back from the mountain blow, Aesma ripped the moon molten hot through the atmosphere, and smashed it down into the King’s sword. Moon and sword both were blown into a million pieces, and the battlefield was rent asunder and turned into a maelstrom of screaming men, and gods, and horses, and chunks of stone and clouds of earth. Up and down ceased to have meaning, and the stars were blotted out by the cloud of destruction. But still the King would not yield.

So Aesma reached even further out, and pulled stars, one by one, and hurled them at the King. And the King hunched low and charged at Aesma through their fiery trails as they hurtled to earth in great explosions. He kept coming, even as his shield was blown into pieces, and gripped Aesma by the shoulders, so Aesma grabbed an Eye of Night, which was a star so large it had broken through space-time and collapsed into a hole infinitely more massive. She bashed the king over the head with it, and he was stunned and bloodied, but managed to knock it away from Aesma, where it flew off and devoured a nearby lunar kingdom.

“Yield!” said Aesma. But the King would not yield. He was exceedingly foolish, and still clung to his dreams of conquest. This allowed fear of losing to make its way in his limbs, which poisoned his grip. Instead of snapping Aesma’s neck, as he should have easily done, she instead squirmed out of his hold.

It was exactly then that Aesma did a truly impossible thing, since by then she was thoroughly fed up. She flexed her fingers, and planted her feet, an inhaled a mighty gale of breath, and reached out to grab the fabric of the world itself. And with a deafening roar, she lifted, and the entirety of creation shook.

“What are you doing?” said the King, aghast. And the other Gods who were hurled too and fro through that chaotic battlefield echoed his cry, for all could feel it.

“I’m going to lift the Wheel and beat you over the head with it until you give up!” puffed Aesma.

And the King saw that this was true. Aesma had indeed lifted the Wheel. He knew then that he had lost utterly and completely, and yielded. He lay down his shattered sword, and shuffled off his battered scale hauberk, and dispersed his dread aspect. If there was anything to be said about him further, it was that he was a graceful loser.

Even still, it took some convincing by the five hundred other Gods and the celestial hosts to get Aesma to put down the universe, but eventually she did. She remained upset all the while the King was escorted back to the Crucible of Punishment and locked inside an even tighter cage, and only cheered up once the key was turned in the lock, removed, and melted. Aesma was brought before Payam, who was foremost in YISUN’s Speaking House in those days, and sentenced to a hundred days as a scullery maid as punishment. Strangely, Aesma seemed rather meek about the whole affair and accepted her punishment gracefully as long as she was brought wine once in a while.

“You seem changed, Aesma ten Yondam,” said Payam to Aesma.

“I’m done with husbands,” said Aesma, who was despondent. “I think it’s time to grow up.”

“Oh?” said Payam, with great concern. The other Gods in YISUN’s speaking house also leaned in closely at this, for they were very worried at what could possibly go wrong next.

“Yes,” said Aesma, “I’m getting a dog.”

“I wasted five hours of hard fighting and a hundred and fifty of my best men bringing it down. Then it exploded.”

– General Yross of the Yellow Moon Brood, on fighting angels

“In some parts they know the master of Throne as the god Zayus Patrom, father of lightning. In others they know him as the great warrior called Angel-Breaker, who fights with a spear dipped in molten silver. Only one name is bestowed upon him in common across all the wretched cosmos: King.”

-Sayophraxes, Silent Sister of the Wax Covenant

“The Belligerents have a name for Preem Jagganoth: God’s Monster. You see, to them, he is a divine messenger, blessed by YISUN’s angels to cut away weak and useless things from the world and forge it into a more pure form. To them, he draws all evils into himself, like a great poison, in order to expunge the world of corruption.

Most people, I believe, take their worship as further proof of their insanity.”

-Peroxes the younger, S.C. 1440

“It is well known that Angels, having tens of thousands of years of contemplation to perfect the martial arts, are unparalleled masters of them. If you are to seek an angel master, be respectful to them. Defer to them on all matters, worldly and otherwise, for they are dogmatic and proud beings. Attend to their requests, clean their monasteries, and humble yourself in your actions and words.

Above all, do not spar with them, unless you want your arms torn from your sockets.”

Zao Xu, Horse Style Master, “49 Empty Palms”

“Yemmod, storm-crowned, came to Lam, the Blue City His men were like flies upon the earth and over the earth. They set upon the land a terrible blaze. The heat of the flames consumed the land about and licked the tops of the great walls around the city, and there was much wailing.

Yemmod said, “For every man of age to fight, hack off his right hand,” and it was done. “And his sons too,” and it was done. Then the hands were set in a pile, like pale driftwood, and the people could see his cruelty. The shrine of the Goddess was burned and its idols defiled and smeared with filth and excrement. The angels of the shrine were driven back and abandoned their sanctuaries.

An angel came to Umman Ap, who was king of that place. “See the defiler Yemmod,” said the angel. “He stacks the bodies of the people of this city like the autumn harvest. He provokes your power. Ride forth and drive him from this holy place.”

“I cannot harm Yemmod,” said Umman, blue-eyed. “He has consumed the hearts of many of my kin and is swollen with their star magic.” This was true, but the angel was enraged nevertheless. His kind lashed together steeds of fire and clay and abandoned the city to its fate. Umman had expected this. He gathered the remaining people inside the walls of the Blue City, which had never been breached.

The others were on fire, for it was a time of war. The yellow city had recently been consumed by great gales and fell into the void. This was the way of things.

At last Yemmod rode to the gates of Lam. He had a spear three times the length of a man and its point could burst through shields like matchwood. It never missed its mark. It was called Amija, or heart-piercer.

Yemmod said “Open the gates, and grant me passage.” But the gates did not open.

“Open the gates, lest I make the dead to outnumber the living.” But the gates did not grant him passage.

Yemmod called for star fire and smote the gates with one blow into ten thousand pieces. This was the way of things.

There was one way the city could be saved, so Umman sent for him. The sword-saint Intra was there. But when the men of the Blue City found him, he was very drunk.”

– The Song of Maybe

“The Ruling King has no equal. He is at the pinnacle of power of all men, servants, angels, and devils alike. Only the gods could rival him, if they weren’t rotting, the bastards. And only a man who’s power reaches that far up can cast a shadow that large.”

– Hurim Thrymgard, Demiurge of the First Conquest

” EMPTY PALMS

An internal, cold-atum style said to be as ancient as the gods themselves. It is said the god Ovis taught it to the first angels, who taught it to the first human, Metia. The style involves miraculous alignment of the body’s meridians to multiply the muscular power and striking force of bare handed strikes tenfold. Since the style relies heavily on the cultivation of internal force, its external strikes may seem unassuming to the untrained eye until they hit their target with the force of an ox cart.

It is said masters of this style can so precisely align the channels of power within their body that they can project the force of their blows at range, sometimes up to thirty or forty paces away. One old master of this style, who dwells in Fifteen Rivers, makes a great show to visitors of striking a heavy cast iron bell some 5 or 6 shins high with great blows from his fists, though he stands apart from the bell quite some distance.

A practitioner of this style must take tremendous pains to use it effectively. The style was originally developed for battling and destroying various titanic void monsters and unbound devils, and is rather difficult for humans to learn. A student must train rigorously, keep a strict diet, and maintain fine bodily control in order to effectively utilize its techniques. Therefore, it has always been an unpopular school, seen as somewhat old fashioned. None, however, deny the power of its techniques, which include YISUN’s Open Palm, widely regarded as an unbeatable move.”

– Manual of Hands and Feet

The Judicator towers are many within the district of Spires. From here, as tradition dictates, criminals may be held for up to a week before transport for a trial in a Hall of Law in Ashton, or for more severe cases, the Concordance of Angels just outside the city.

There are only twenty operable spires in the entire city, eleven of which are manned. Of the hundred and five Halls of Law, approximately seventy were destroyed during the Universal War. Most of the remaining structures are being squatted in by residents of Ashton, with the rest being used by various guilds as gambling dens, slave pens, warehouses, or headquarters. At least one is physically missing from the city, claimed by a rogue sorcerer as his House Apart, ripped into a pocket world.

“The names of the host are marked in the Book of Un. The copy is held at the ruins of Koss’ Workshop, where the angels hold concordance, and there are five of their number marked hierophants who serve as scribes and record keepers. Each name is a fragment-glyph of a verse of the Old Law. It’s meaning is highly complex, and when translated into U.M. the nearest approximation is a sentence (usually declarative) or poetic, such as “Warding Flame Guides the Judicious” or “Sound of a Bell, Once, Warning the Iniquitous of Punishment”.

According to apocrypha and the angels themselves, their names were hammered into them with the sacred chisel YSMIR when the forge god Koss made them out of the smokeless fire of UN.  As immortal beings, they often put their reincarnation number before their name, thus the angel “Searing Blade” who has reincarnated twice (and thus on their third incarnation) would introduce themselves as ‘3 Searing Blade’. Angels hold their names in high regard and seem to know their true meanings, letting them serve as moral guides.”

– Payapop Pritram “Treatise on the Host, Chapter II”

“I have one wish – make of my body a hammer that will fall with great fury and purpose. Make of my skin blades that will repel the impure world. I tire of it.”

– Unknown, widely attributed to the first Thorn Knight

Vacus needles are forged exclusively from puresilver, a rare material that in the time of the Multiplicity was only obtained from the breath of Ovis, the glass god of emptiness. An individual’s Atum, or personal soul, cannot flow through a needle, making them highly effective weapons and anathema to beings whose Atum burns especially bright, such as angels or devils, who rely on their connections to their armor and masks.

Arhan was a mighty lord with powerful atum, born as he was during a storm from the kayb tree, fully grown and crowned in golden twine.

He was a sorcerer lord of some repute, and wielded many names of power. He had mastery over secret flame, animals, and deep water. His kingdoms were five and one, prosperous and orderly. He had a court of two hundred eunuch warriors, each clad in silvered mail and the equal of any army of earthly men.

Even he, Arhan the Unbreakable, stood aside for Angels.

– Song of Many

KRAYU MAT

“I made several feeble attempts to learn this art, but was rebuffed in my efforts by its very nature. It is, by my best attempts at researching its origins, the oldest martial art in existence. The human Metia was said to have been taught many martial arts by the gods upon her birth from Koss’ hearth, but the angels say Krayu Mat is older. It was (purportedly) taught to them by a god whose name has been forgotten. Today it is exclusively practiced by angels, who regard its practice as highly archaic. All angels know it, having learned it at some point during their repeated reincarnations, but it is extremely rare and unusual to observe it in practice, for the simple and plain reason that its origins are in the primal killing movements of angels in their ancient forms, whose foes at the time were enormous unbound devils, beings of myth, and lesser gods.

Each of my inquiries with the Concordant Knights led to exactly the same conclusion, which they explained to me with great patience and kindness: it was impossible for me, a being with a weak soul flame, to practice Krayu Mat, as it would tear my flesh in ten thousand places and utterly annihilate my physical body. ”

-Manual of Hands and Feet

“Once, there was an angel with a flaming spear that guarded the western gate of YISUN’s speaking house. He was rigorous, martial, and followed the exact letter of the Old Law that had been inlaid into his very being with Koss’ silver chisel. At the time, most angels were like him, and they were exceptionally inflexible beings. They could not rebel, so well they had been hewn, against the slightest violation of their code. This made them all extremely cruel.

One day, Prim passed by on the road, and happened upon this angel flogging a group of men of the oldest nation with a lash made of lightning. The men had refused to take their shoes off inside of YISUN’s speaking house – they had journeyed far and did not know the law of the gods. For this minor offense they were being punished rather severely, and their cries were loud and fierce.

Cleverly, Prim took her jeweled comb from her pocket, which she no longer used, since she had long ago hewn off most of her beautiful hair, and bade the angel guard it with his life. Being a lesser being with no practical free will to speak of, the angel could do naught but comply.

Turning back to his prisoners, the angel made to flog them again, but found that the comb was so delicate that every violent motion he made sent it tumbling and ringing and threatened to shatter it. He could no longer continue his violent, oppressive work without fear of harming his duty to the daughter of Hansa, to protect this small and delicate thing.

He gave up flogging the men, and for the first time ever, began to think.”

-Spasms

“It is often speculated upon why Concordant Knights start their pre-combat prayer for forgiveness of violence with an attempt to propitiate Aesma, by far the most violent, rampant, and willful of the gods. The answer, as I was told by one particularly old angel who held watch over a decaying section of the king’s road, is extremely simple: if anything was horrendous enough to offend Aesma, it was enough to offend all the other multitudes of gods, thus the prayer is started by opening the largest flood gate of them all, so to speak.”

– Musko Reeve, Manual of Hands and Feet

“FIERCE HORSE SOUL

A peculiar internal style with very narrow application, and one almost solely focused on defensive techniques. Practiced by most angels, it is almost entirely focused on getting close enough to a foe to subdue him without harming him, with maximal speed, safety, and precision. The movement techniques in this style are very popular and often borrowed by other schools, such as the Unlimited Chariot Sprinting technique which, when practiced properly, allows running at incredible speed over long distances without tiring. The student of this school is taught to endure all kinds of harm, hardship, and exhaustion in the pursuit of his quarry, and in doing so develops a truly unique constitution, resiliency, and ability to channel internal force.

Though it is commonly perceived to have no offensive applications, a quirk of this school is that due to its energy conservation techniques, a trained master who has practiced them for an extremely long time is capable (or so I have heard) of unleashing attacks of staggering power, aimed at felling dangerous or impossible to subdue foes. Such an technique must be delivered at extremely close range and can take a phenomenal amount of concentration and cultivation of internal force. Only the oldest extant angels proficient in this style are said to be capable of this ‘ten thousand year evil-quelling fist’ style –  those that have been alive for an age or more. If any of them truly exist and can be roused to action, it would be a most terrible sight indeed.”

-Manual of Hands and Feet

“The moment the first prince of the world tore apart an angel, we must have known we were proper fucked.”

– Mars Pallatrix, Belligerent Knight

“Once, Lord Intra came to the Vale of Stalks. It was a broad land with a hardy and beautiful people that wove stems of grass into elaborate mats. There were frequent harvest songs and offerings to the God of Pigs.

Unfortunately, at the time, the people were starving. The land was ruled by Yem Yeddo and his family, who had sucked the life out of it for some time. That was the way of things in those days. Though the soil was quite fertile, Yem Yeddo had surrounded himself with thickset and well-fed men, who lacked in brains but made up for it in muscle and the same kind of canniness found in very smart dogs. These men he used as tax collectors, and he drained the land of every third, fourth, and fifth bale of crop, and sold it for crude coin, feeding the scraps to his thugs.

Lord Intra arrived at the local way house and was served black bread, as was the custom, but skesh was strangely absent, and the bread was thin and mealy. When Intra asked why, he quickly learned of the lands’ plight.

“What of the peregrine lords that tend this place?” He asked.

“They were killed by thirty men, and hung from a tree for seven days,” said the inn proprietor, with a look like a beaten animal.

Intra could not abide this. He called out to Yem Yeddo in the spare and decaying market square, who brought his thirty men.

“Preem Yeddo,” bellowed Intra, “You are a cruel and petty man. How can you scour this land so and not feel for the people that call it their abode?”

Yem Yeddo laughed. “Let them eat the stones, for all I care,” said he.

Intra, who was not one to balk at such matters, picked up a particularly large rock and said, “So it shall be. I shall feed the people with this stone.”

– The Song of Maybe

“After running for three years and three days, Prim finally came to a tumbling halt. No matter how far she ran, no matter how fast her legs carried her, she could not find the end of the road. No matter how she scanned the horizon, or reached out with trembling fingers, she could not grasp her resting place. The road continued forever.

There was a way-angel there, standing on a pillar of basalt, who understood many things, and he said to Prim: ‘O piteous thing.” Struck by her dreadful appearance, he recognized her as the orphan of Hansa, for he was very wise in the world. ‘What seek you on the road, small one?’ said the angel, “Perhaps I can offer succor.”

“The end of the road,” croaked Prim.

“There is no end,” said the angel, and it was so indeed. For the road was the rim of the Wheel, which encircled infinity. There was, truly no resting place. For some, this would have been dread news, enough to strike the life out of them. Many had given up when they learned of this, and laid down to die, as was sometimes the way of men in those days.

But for Prim, it washed over her, and soothed her, and for her weary and torn heart was the sweetest balm in the world.”

-Prim Masters the Road

“[…]descended there an angel with a silver sword. An the angel said ‘Come and see,’ and I saw. There upon the great hill of rot, the great and terrible beasts of the earth had gathered, and a hundred thousand times a thousand strong men, girded for war, with chariot and horse and war shade. The ground had cracked and the bowels of the land had split and all manner of ancient things from the cold and old world had crawled from the ash and were making havoc upon the land. There was a sound so terrible it could not be withstood except by those who had, through manner of hardship or war, been exposed to the noise of innumerable dying animals.”

– Vision of Extemporary Monk Lumuu (circa SC 245)

“The temple of YS-HET, the god of thresholds, is open to visitors at all hours of the day, and though any are allowed to linger, they may not stay for a period longer than a night and a day over a period of a quarter turn of the Wheel, as mandated by the Old Law. This is to make sure the temple is clear and functioning well for the constant flow of pilgrims and the needy, and does not become overwhelmed in its services.

The temple sits close to the West Dragon Gate at the lowest ring of throne (in Ashton), and is a point of entry for many coming to Throne for the first time. In old times it was guarded by seven angelic Root Knights of an esoteric order although now five of their number lay dormant and reincarnating. The priests of the temple chiefly concern themselves with keeping the temple clean and orderly, and offering succor to travelers. Central among these duties is the giving of temple alms to pilgrims, including the famous Six Color temple stew, a perpetual stew based on the six flavor elements of traditional Goblin cooking that is kept fed from a mother pot in the central sanctum and is said to have many health benefits.

Having tried the Six Color stew myself it was, disappointingly, only one color, although its fortifying effects on my constitution were hard to dispute as it kept me awake for hours.”

-Payapop Pritram