Ashen Rider
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Ashen Rider — Part One
ONE Tonight, we have lost our god! I asked my sister where the god went, And she did not know. “Poof!” she said, “Gone in a cloud of smoke!” And I asked, “What of dearest grandmother? What of her?” But sister only shrugged. “We are alone now,” she said, “No one helms the ferry.” The river has flooded with silver And no one helms the ferry. We are alone now. And so I left my home In desperate search for my god. But still, I did not find her. I found only gray carrion fields, Glowing red by brutal light…
Demons
When I was young, no older than eight or nine, I would covertly enter my stepfather’s basement workshop to marvel at the miniature kingdom he had built. The display was set up over the pool table my real father had used, now little more than a platform to support stream-fed caverns and mountain chambers, the subterranean strongholds within. Gothic towers linked by arched bridges rose up and stretched under the domes of hollowed rock, which may have been plaster or papier-mâché, but had been expertly painted to look like natural stone. My stepfather was a talented hobbyist, there is no…
Ashen Rider — Part Four
FOUR Let me tell you, boy A tale of down below. Where the days are hard And the beds are stone. I’ll tell you the tale Of when time had split. And the fires of hell Were our only light. Ephraim (-54 to 47) “Down Below,” published Year 40. I — In the sky, crossing the threshold Grahtzildahn, second layer of Pandemonium The dreamlike threshold separating the unceasing storms of the Vale Betwixt shimmered with the furnace heat of Grahtzildahn. The nearer they drew, the sorcerous wall appeared more like an illusion than something material. The barrier danced, milky tendrils jittering…