Category: Dark Fantasy
SOIL — Part Four
FOUR The bairns speak trilling voices in the night, harsh echoes dancing, afright of the hoary and weighty squalor of unending sleep. Messages delivered nigh, grasped in sharp talons of ravens, crows, pigeons; whether the cock-crows or refuses to show. May our dreams stay safe; for our sleeps are fraught and the days, so dark, as the sun burrows deep, quaffs the Devil’s draught, As if the accursed swill were as naught but cool, clear water, a gentle man’s drink, atop the Great Mothers’ hill. Ithica (b. 413). Journaled year 442. I After living in the temperate embrace of the…
The Talekeeper
The weight of old words, pages unread. I carried it with me in those days. Close to my breast I clutched it under my cloak as if holding myself together. I was filthy-faced and rough-bearded, seldom speaking to another living soul. Carriages steered in wide arcs around me on the road; lanterns dimmed in windowsills when I passed. If I came across a group of children they would scatter upon seeing me. When I left a town, tales sometimes spread of a witch’s thrall shambling by night or a bogeyman carrying a sack of bone and gristle on his back.…
SOIL — Part Three
THREE Oft I’ve seen you in the night, or a wan image of you. A pale imitation compared to your brilliance and bright devotion by day. Oft my dreams are fraught. Corrupted echos of memories long faded, extinguished. Long have I languished in nightmares beset; they fall upon me, gnashing, dark creatures of the long black night. Though tonight, it shall not be black demon nor red devil that plagues ill mine troubled thoughts. Nay, I see you, my father as you were in my youth. And you visit my dreams, in your arms you carry another. A boy with…
SOIL — Part Two
TWO Why must the wind blow when Earth does not know that the Mourning Sun shines, as my light slowly declines? How many years must I wait for you, so belated, to arrive? For how long must I hate, curdling mine blood that turns to shit like soured butter lodged in the devil’s churn? How many moons must I fester brining within bitter salt? Must I scream my soul’s lament, cast mine curse upon the gods for all they have wrought? Or shall I sing a sweet refrain awake tomorrow and do it all again? Ithica (b. 413). Journaled Year…
SOIL — Part One
ONE In the dead of night I pray for your arrival and dream of your smile yearning for your scent. By the light of day I am left alone beside myself and entirely distraught. To know your father is to know your potential to hear Bridget’s plans and to see them in action with hopes they soon come to pass. Ithica (b. 413). Journaled Year 433. I Year 442 Loathsome winds howled their bitter protests as I shouldered my way up the slope, still slick with ice and hard-packed snow. Last storm was days past, but the early Winter freeze…
The King of Kings
The shroud was pale, it hurt the eyes. Kohl over the eyelids shielded just enough, but a single overt glance sent a surge of piercing thunder straight back into the skull. Selikkar had warned the sun was deadly, but it barely stood a dissuasion. She had spoken of prophecies and gods unrecorded, decried that Neliesen’s journey was not sufficient to appease nature’s forces, yet It departed, and It walked into a storm It could not see to test the legitimacy of Its order’s teachings. The sand burned wherever it hit the skin, like bee stings of flaming magma which overstayed…
Thoughts of the Drowned — Prologue to SOIL
“I ain’t ever had a friend like you,” said Snorri Morn, his meaty arms slung over my neck. Snorri was a great bloody ox of a man, back when he was alive, full of drink, piss, and rage. Twice as mean as a mother bear defending her cubs, and half as loving. I bloody loathed the man and I don’t regret what I’ve done. “In all my years,” he went on, seeming to burp between every word, “I ain’t ever—I mean ever—had a friend like you.” We’d been deep in the cups that night. My head was a swill of…
