Part XIV: Of Kings and Bread
Yaw, pitch, and scritch.
Hands fritter in frantic fancies.
Things reach and stretch
A thd fp!
Solid surface.
Prostrated, eyes closed.
Dryu yuu yuu dyuu dyuu!
Music.
Slow breaths, slow.
Hysterical reverberation of nervous energy bounces and expands inside begging for release. Released in each breath.
Balance returns. Eyes flutter open.
No separation, it is me and I am it. Always was it.
Melodious, reliant, organic.
Cogs and cogs, magical little tinkery things. Endless in truest sense. Each thing a perfect reflection and representation of itself.
Ancient and sacred, marvelous cathedral-esque and clocktowerish abounds and permeates. Machinery and cosmic tapestry of colors dance like little mechanical song boxes. This kaleidoscope of laws, make wise masters children with sand castles at low tide.
Escherian distortions, no up, no down, just a defined there and here.
Slowly I move to push up.
Hands.
No hands, no forearms.
Gone.
Jagged bone and flesh, tatters.
Devoured. Blood laws, blood loss.
No fear. No sorrow. A bridge stays.
Eyes close again. Inside. All around.
The stranger, the neckball returned to me.
In me, of me.
Light and power from the root of my Qi. Calm and knowing I let go, allow it to show. A radiating cascade outwards, from center to limb, an emanation of new illumination. A bridge stays, but a bridge is crossed.
Futh thck thck vk.
Ruthless roots are mine.
Eyes open. New hands. Pliant but strong timber.
I push myself up, an exuberant fullness and serenity singing in me.
Now anew I survey, this the land of all.
Upon the tooth of a giant gear I stand. An island to itself this tooth, connected only by a spoke to the center of the gear. Not merely a spoke, a bridge.
Casting a glance I notice it. All the nearby cogs and teeth.
Each tooth a unique surface and each connected to the center by a spoke, a bridge. Ornate bridges of incredible designs every style and type imaginable; a wider look around they're everywhere a vast expansive mural of endless bridges. Shifting bridges are cogs and songs.
Ryu doo ta doo
Like organ music.
But upon where I stand something is wrong a brokenness. This cog is wrong. Bridges are missing, islands float and collide or grind, some bridges are worn down.
Of the worst bridges there are fires, blackness and stars. Black tendrils stab and smash through board and brick, strut and cable. Strips of void are narrow swallowing ribbons, they whip as if by wind to eat away at precious things.
This the reason I was selected, the reason I came. This place, this power, this wrongness.
I wish you were here Ves. It's more than you could ever have imagined.
But I am not a member of the order and I never will be. I have cheated their initiation. Failed to live according to their oaths and stolen power.
I do not care. I have come now to find my son. Order be damned.
I begin to walk across the spoke, and notice them. Figures on every tooth. They walk in perfect cadence with me towards the center of the cog. The faint outline of the king's throne at the center of the cog grows more clear with each step.
Some figures into black nothing are consumed, others aflame are lit, some a hobbled mess. All to the center we go. Strange and sometimes horrifying mirrors of each other.
Would this place really be better with your fates oh king? His husk of a skeleton more clear upon his throne.
At the edge we stop.
Turn and look.
Fwhoop.
In unison all turn to look like dominoes we are. Each one my face. Each one my body. Another step. Off the bridges we go, around the axle we gather.
Closing ranks an occasional Oez is missing some bathed in fire.
Bwathh droo droo dum dum
Perpetual music with each cog click.
Enclosing the circle we continue to step, barely a sliver's space between us.
That corpse upon his chair.
Dk crk.
His head tilts to fix me with a stare. Hollow eye sockets cream white skull set by a crown of laurel.
"I invoke-"
"I invoke-"
"I invoke-"
"I invoke-"
"I invoke-" A simultaneous speaking of each Oez each a slight difference in tone but still a mirror.
"the final rite." we finish together.
Impossible to read, no expression on fleshless face. He rises. Surveys each one of us slowly.
Stepping aside to the throne he gestures.
It is ours.
We move to take it.
Crk thuum!
Flash of white hot energy, cast asunder we are.
Chiow chak fum!
Lightning licks and dances, coils like snakes arc all around. Thunder and thrums, cracks and sparks. Our syncrocity broken, an Oez scrambles, another falls into the vast everything, another engulfed by the pulsing power. Quick and precise I pick myself up.
I see it.
The throne is rising.
Run and dodge. Jump over a fallen Oez. The throne is ascending too fast, it'll be out of reach soon.
Ruthless roots like anchors I fling.
Thth thth chk!
Roots go deep and now what is earth may fly with it. Below me now a scattered field of Oezs fight and flee. It's difficult to interpret the chaos. The king is gone. The cog is broken, decaying and falling into the everything all around.
Climb and struggle. Atop I finally sit, and breathe a sigh of relief.
I'm coming Iksander.
***
Ascend, ascend and ascend again through light and dark. Colors and scents beyond reckoning.
Across beginning and end, straight passed the middle.
Beyond and before each law, each land, each king. A mind shutters, a mind is free, a mind is gone.
And yet never to the apotheosis to come.
***
Immortal life after immortal life. Til at last a tumbling shaking turbulence.
Fade and fade, to rise again.
Return, return again.
A snake circles.
***
Flk chh ch srk.
Crackle of a small fire. Comforting homey smell of smoke. And…
Pita bread.
And more: lamb meat, dates, spices, herbs, and tea.
A chill outside, but the warmth of a good blanket. Roots do not run, on stone I lay.
Open eyes, suspicions prove true.
There she sits flowing robe, a small camp fire. Humble it looks far more than it seems. The witch, my mother. Atop a large boulder we are and beyond the sea twinkles in the dawning light of a new day.
"Come and sit." She invites.
I push the covers off with wooden fingers. Then I see him aflight on the wind. Noble and graceful he glides.
Full grown. Wings like prisms, each feather like the glass ornamentation of a chandelier. His head as bright as a second sun.
My son the bringer of new hopes. The promise of strange truths. What bridges shall you make?
Tears and joy as I come to sit by my mother.
The Order will come, there will be more hard days ahead, but for now pita bread and family.
Afterword
Two years ago after a drunken night watching The Color Out of Space with my best friend I began writing this story. At the time I only wanted to play with my writing, and see what kind of Cronenberg and Lovecraftian disgust and horror I could conjure I could not have predicted the story that would follow, nor all the directions it would lead drawing inspiration from elements of Silent Hill, The Dark Tower series, and several others. Throughout the story was littered with onomatopoeia as I meditated on the way things actually sound in the real world and what the limits of the Phoenician alphabet were. I tried for the first time to create a song, and attempted something approximating a rational if murky magic system somewhat inspired by Dresden Files and Tolkien. By the time the story was done I had somehow gone all over the place Mycenaean Greeks and 1950s Americana smashed into one culture mythic rites related to the laws of physics as perfectly understood in a far flung future when the gods have been thrown down and man lives in a triumphant if very very confused world, all while I tried to grapple in my own way with Nietzsche's Will to Power and the Ubermensch. All with a queer lead with a gay romantic back story and a male pregnancy. Reflections of real world folk, myth, and religion directed me to wonder about the nuances of different spiritual entities. Further still were interpretations of my own childhood memories. I suspected while I was writing it that I had created something special, but also that I had created something incredibly niche, and perhaps not as well written as I should like. Still 2 years later out of all the stories I've ever written it remains my favorite, if for no other reason than it is more sincere expiremental and original than anything else I have ever produced. If you enjoyed the story please let me know and thank you for reading.
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