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Chaosium Digest Volume 36 Number 12
Chaosium Digest Volume 36, Number 12
Date: Saturday, Dec. 7, 2002
Number: 1 of 4
Contents:
* AN EVENING WITH ASMODEUS (CTHULHU Fiction)
by Michael Blenkarn with contributions from Brooke Johnson
Editor's Note:
This issue features a new piece of fiction by Michael Blenkarn. For more of
his excellent fiction, check out the Archive. "An Evening with Asmodeus" is
a sequel to "The Whippoorwill House Affair" despite the last part of that
tale not yet having been completed. Michael assures me that "Asmodeus"
contains no real spoilers to the ending of "Whippoorwill House" so feel free
to read it without such concerns.
As always, submissions are needed and encouraged so keep them coming.
Enjoy!
ANNOUNCEMENTS
* CULTS COMPENDIUM AVAILABLE FROM WIZARDS ATTIC
At long last, the magnificent Cults Compendium is available for sale from
Wizards Attic.
Softcover is ISS 1608, $45.
Hardcover is ISS 1609, $60.
In general, this 352 page volume is very similar in layout to the first two.
The book contains 44 cults, including all of the cults from Cults of Prax,
Cults of Terror, Trollpak, and those printed in White Wolf and Different
Worlds magazines. Associated background articles from Wyrms Footnotes and
similar sources give you a complete breakdown on how rune magic, spirit
magic, elementals, and runes play their part in Glorantha. Wrapping up the
book are all of the designer's notes, some of which have never been
published before. A vastly improved index makes this material accessible all
in one book. Topics are vividly detailed with the addition of over 50 new
pieces of art, bringing the total over 110 snapshots into cult life (and
death). Lastly, genealogies for the various pantheons along with an updated
cult compatibility chart surpassing even the one found in the Runequest
Companion are herein. In the end, it is a book that provides untold hours of
Gloranthan reading and gaming fun.
To purchase the book, go to http://www.wizards-attic.com/NewReleases.html or
http://www.wizards-attic.com/IssariesLicense.html.
You can also order by phone, fax, or mail; go to
http://www.wizards-attic.com/Contact.html for details.
Cheers,
Stephen Martin
<administrator@glorantha.com>
Issaries, Inc., publisher of HeroQuest, Roleplaying in Glorantha
900 Murmansk St., Suite 5; Oakland, CA 94607
Phone: (510) 452 1648 Fax: (510) 302 0385
See our extensive web site at <www.HeroWars.com>
* ISSARIES, INC. ANNOUNCEMENT
GLORANTHACON VIII UPDATE
March 7-9, 2003 in Toronto, Canada
"Orlanth is Dead. Its time to party!"
The sons and daughters of the Goddess gather for ceremony and celebration.
The convention features an array of Gloranthan freeforms, adventure modules
and seminars, together with select games from other roleplaying systems such
as RuneQuest and Pendragon Pass. Plus, the official launch party for
Issaries Inc's HeroQuest roleplaying game!
Our Guests of Honour include the _Rad_ Emperor himself, Greg Stafford, and
the rumoured head of the Imperial Secret Service, the indefatigable Mark
Galeotti.
Supporting luminaries include Nick Brooke, David Dunham, Martin Laurie,
Robin Laws, Stephen Martin, Sandy Petersen, Roderick Robertson and Ken
Rolston.
Even barbarians are welcome under the healing rays of the Red Moon. Soon,
all Glorantha will be under Her benevolent gaze.
Highlights:
Some of our featured events include the HeroQuest Launch party, Gaming With
Greg, Gloranthan Lore Auction, Eat At Geo's, Gloranthan Computing, the GTA
dinner, Lawn Dart Wars, the Imperial Lunar Handbook seminars and all things
Gloranthan.
Featured Live-Action/Freeform Game: Birth of the Goddess
Can you become one of the Seven Mothers? Or will the Goddess just become
fuel for cruel Carmanian sorceries? Written by Mark Galeotti, we discover
what really happened in Zero Wane.
Recent News:
Our schedule is up on the website: Check out
<http://www.gloranthacon.com/events.html> for details - we have over 60
events planned with more arriving every day.
Moon Rites: Jelenkev Variorum, volume I
Moon Rites is a 60 page collection of Lunar material featuring articles,
fiction, scenarios and artwork from some of Glorantha's most talented
explorers and shapers. It includes excerpts from Greg Stafford's Lunar
novel, Gladiators by Martin Laurie, Crime & Punishment by Mark Galeotti, the
Crimson Bat, decadent cults, myths, encounters and more!
Moon Rites will be printed in conjunction with the Chaos Society, proud
publishers of Tradetalk and other fine Gloranthan works.
For a limited time, Moon Rites can be pre-ordered through our website,
<www.gloranthacon.com> while supplies last. Cost is $13 US ($21 CDN) - if
you order before Dec 21, 2002, we will cover the cost of postage in North
America. Check out <www.Tradetalk.de> as well.
Contest: Win a game with Greg!
Greg Stafford has kindly offered to run a game of HeroQuest for six lucky
players. Two seats will be awarded to randomly chosen pre-registrants. Other
spots will be awarded as prizes during various events during the convention
as well - check out our schedule for details.
Call for Events:
If you have an event you want to run, contact <Gloranthacon@glorantha.com>.
Your event can be for Hero Wars, RuneQuest, boardgames, miniatures, a Live
Action or Freeform game or a seminar topic. We don't mind as long as its
about Glorantha!
Running an event earns a $20 discount when pre-registering. Running a second
event admits you to the convention free.
Other Activities:
For those who are not wanting to spend their whole time in Toronto dealing
with All Things Glorantha, we have organized a walking tour of downtown
Toronto, designed to hit some of the museums, galleries and parks. For some
highlights, checkout <www.toronto.com> for some hot tips.
When is it?
March 7th to 9th, 2003
Where is it?
Gloranthacon is being held at the Toronto Colony Hotel, 89 Chestnut St.,
Toronto, Ontario. Call Toll Free 1-800-387-8687 (or 416-977-0707) or link to
<http://www.colonyhoteltoronto.com> and reserve your room. Make sure you
mention you are a part of GloranthaCon to get the convention rate.
Single or Double$109 CDN (about $70 US)
Triple $124 ($80 US)
Quad $139 ($90 US)
Con rates extend from Sunday, March 2nd to Sunday, March 9th. Remember to
book your room before February 14th so we can make our room commitment!
Pre-registration:
Pre registration for the weekend is $50 (US) until Feb 1, 2003. All
pre-payments must be received by Feb 3, 2002
GTA dinner is an additional $30 (US) and seating is limited
Sign up online at <www.gloranthacon.com> or mail us at:
Gloranthacon VIII
374 Glenholme Ave.
Toronto, Ontario
M6E 3E5 Canada
Make all checks and money orders payable to Gloranthacon. Paypal is also
accepted. Send funds to Glorantha@Glorantha.com
Advertising:
Interested in getting the word out at the Con? We have space for 1/4, 1/2
and full page ads in the program book or "Moon Rites." Contact us
IMMEDIATELY for details or check out our website.
Other Ways to Contact Us:
Discussion of the convention and ideas as well as help and advice for events
can be found at <gloranthacon@yahoogroups.com>.
Email us at <gloranthacon@glorantha.com>.
Hope to see you there!
The GloranthaCon Ring
------------
AN EVENING WITH ASMODEUS
By Michael Blenkarn with contributions from Brooke Johnson
"The circle will be completed. There will be thirteen disciples in the Order
of Me'elxekrah, Scribers of the Baphomet in Filth, messiahs to the Shaggai,
progeny of Nyarlathotep. The Thirteenth Disciple, flourishing unknowingly
among the foetid ranks of the decaying leftovers commonly known as modern
humanity, will come into his power. They are what humanity was first
designed to be, what it inexorably declined from - they are now inhumanity.
They are of the first eon of divinity, conquerors among the beings of the
Axis of Perdition. They are the Children of the Dead Sun, Shadow Lords of
the bio circuits. The madness swells through the gates of nothingness. A
dulcet torch pierces Mechanikanna's excrement - a single tri-lobed eye. They
are the rejoicing damned. Leering from the black abyss, ever tearing towards
the goal, a million screaming voices ever surging to tenfold. When Twelve
become Thirteen, to the thunderous, violating song of the inverse stars,
time itself has died."
Excerpt from a modern rendering of Liber Maleficia
Part One
Late September 2001
Dark forbidding streets, rain cascading in washes of glittering cold in the
strangely subdued glow of the pale white lamps stretching ponderously
overhead. Silence settled chillingly in the last hints of dusky gloom. The
two figures hovered in the shadows away from the lonely lamps, motionless
and poised. Only the faintest glimmers of light on them betrayed their forms
at all - the faint oiliness distinguishing black leather from black shadow,
the threatening contours of slim, polished blades barely registering, and
the flickering of light on unblinking eyes as distinguishable from the
monochromatic smears of their brows and cheekbones. They almost appeared to
be constructed entirely of independent facets of light, as if a change in
perspective would ruin the illusion of a human shape altogether. A woman was
walking briskly through the puddles, lazily swinging a tennis racket,
strings protected from the rain by slim plastic casing. The seconds seemed
to fracture while she passed, each step a ponderous eternity while the
glinting facets moved with arachnid speed and character. There was barely a
flicker altering the light levels, but cohesion swirled the fragments of
reflectance into emaciated forms that loomed suddenly out of the dark,
gaunt, pale fingers grasping eagerly, which though tinctured with humanity,
spoke of an insatiable black hunger.
Late November 2001
The Christmas decorations had not yet gone up as of yet; the employees were
less pleasure-starved than others and were less intent to cling to cloying
festivals of materialism. This was jointly a place of work and casual,
theological cynicism. Nihil Industries may have been an international
concern (in positive and negative terms) but there were still corners of it
that clung to the anachronisms of such mammoth institutions. While the Nihil
Building in London may well have been a monument to both post-modern
business acumen and the innovative ways that concrete can make an even
uglier building than a one-room hut made of recycled dung, the last vestiges
of this Teesside office was of a much older school. Whatever sinister
happenings were being orchestrated in more developed parts of the company,
this was still a place where someone could conceivably simply walk into a
disused room, fill it with large piles of yellowing paper, pencil holders
and some sort of satirical poster for the wall, or maybe some droll Dilbert
cuttings, and within a week be considered a long standing employee and added
to the already inefficient and obscure payroll system. In other words, not
the circumstances projected by the corporate image.
The autumnal light was rapidly diminishing, and the dinginess of the office
was slowly masked by lengthening shadow. The room was developing a great
profusion of scattered documents like the golden leaves floundering in the
breeze outside in the executive car park. Filing cabinets, half-open were
littered with them; shelves, stacked with uneven folders relinquished them
from overstuffed, pregnant loose-leaf files, and the desk, sliced by the
dying sunlight flickering through the dusty blinds, was equally chaotic. The
wastepaper basket was almost volcanically disgorging a flurry of notes. The
resident of the office was leaned wearily back in his problematical swivel
chair, pen tucking messy auburn hair behind one ear, leafing through a hefty
bedraggled manuscript. The bewildered look in his eyes bespoke his
incomprehension. Sighing, he shifted his posture, crossing one gangly leg
across the other with the jerky movements of a marionette. He appeared
young, weak chinned, and his thinness was accentuated by his unhealthy
pallor. Engrossed in his reading, he barely registered the crisp,
militaristic rapping on his door, and only appeared to recognise the
existence of his visitor when the man's formidable shadow passed over the
light and a bony hand flicked the light-switch with a severe, curt motion.
The younger man suddenly seemed gripped by a paroxysm of subordinate,
unconscious guilt, as if expecting a reprimand for an imagined offence. 'Mr
Seth! I-,' he stammered, gulping for breath and reiterating his words, 'Mr
Seth, I did not expect your presence. Please excuse the tardiness.' The
visitor smiled coldly, but only with his lips. Over thin glasses he regarded
the employee disapprovingly with eyes as warm and humane as an ice pick. His
gaunt features rendered him almost cadaverous, and his voice reverberated
with deep, sardonic tones. 'I seldom make appointments, young man. Before
you relinquish that document, I must ask of your opinions of it.'
His voice chilled the weak-chinned man, throwing him back into adolescence
and the presence of a horribly feared teacher standing over him. It seemed
implicit in the tones of the request that a deficient, unsatisfactory answer
would warrant banishment to a nether hell.
'I, I, found it unsatisfactory, my, ah, sir. His last work that we
published, 'The Whippoorwill House Affair', was a successful and
accomplished piece of work, but this manuscript is, ah, practically
incoherent. There seems little temporal grasp, or continuity behind the, ah,
meandering. The just seem to be the speculative scribbles of an amateur. The
ideas are there, but he, um, seems to find it impossible to use them with
any, ah, degree of professionalism. The, uh, well, what I mean is, it isn't
publishable. James Aspera's 'An Evening With Asmodeus' is not a novel, but,
what would it, um, I would compare it to, let me see, a glorified scribbling
of prose on a napkin after several too many glasses of wine,
ahahahaha.uh..huh. I, that is, uh..' The weak-chinned man, sweating
profusely under the gimlet stare, faltered and trailed off.
Seth's mouth contorted into the smile of someone who has studied the
technique but had never grasped the motivation factor meant to accompany it.
It flickered and then was gone, so quickly that the nervous subordinate felt
he'd imagined it. Seth watched him silently for a moment, his eyes
scrutinizing the depths of his soul. The younger man felt as manly as a
hamster, with Patrick Seth filling the entire universe. When the now visibly
trembling man felt almost ready to give up and lie down like a hedgehog in
the path of a steamroller, Seth spoke again in his deceptively quiet voice.
'An astute summary. However, Mr Falstaff," he said in a clipped tone that
radiated with Seth's lack of regard for said personage, "has insisted on
obtaining the manuscript for his own personal evaluation. I appreciate that
you still have the last section of it to read, so please give me the rest of
the manuscript so that I can pass it on to Mr Falstaff. I give you the
remainder of this evening to finish the final section of the book, and
furthermore to read through the extra notes and Dictaphone transcripts that
I provided, to attempt to wring some explanation from them.' Seth
undiplomatically snatched most of the manuscript from the younger man
without waiting for a reply. His subordinate cringed, wrapping his arms
around himself in a pathetic, empty gesture of self-defense. Seth's eyes
narrowed. He revolved on his foot like a drill sergeant and then stalked
out, looking almost corpse-like enough to attract hopeful and enterprising
funeral directors as he strode away down the darkening corridor.
Letting out his breath explosively, the younger man quickly negotiated his
way into a deep draw in his desk and retrieved an illicit bottle of Jim Beam
for purposes of calming anxiety. He shuddered as he gulped it down and
coughed as the potent spirit set his mouth temporarily aflame, then blearily
picked up the meager sheaf of papers he had left, intoxication already
beginning to take hold. The cheap bulb overhead flickering erratically, he
rested his arms on the desk and began to read.
Late September 2001
The barest in fluctuations in the patterns of light and shade occurred as
graceful evil flowed liquidly out of the sulphurous light of the lamps. The
first of the figures blended in and out of shade, each characteristic
naturally attuning to the patterns of light around it, melting
inconspicuously through blackened night and sooty orange light
indiscriminately. Like an assassin, or a hunter - each movement was an essay
in supreme confidence and stealth. The woman's retreating back was
diminishing along the street, but this was immaterial as she was running in
precisely the wrong direction. If viewed from certain angles, contours in
the air suggested a repugnant half smile on the suggestion of a gaunt face.
Lurking behind, clinging to the shadows, the other figure swam through the
air, but with a somnolent, unseeing gait, as if while possessing the
abilities of the former, was in some intoxicated stupor. The first figure
made what might be ascertained as an assertive gesture to the other, and
their pace began to quicken. As they progressed through the shadows, their
forms began to coalesce from the natural resources around them.
Her feet pounded through the puddles as, clothes muddied and torn, she
stumbled with panic, breathing in terrified, quick gasps which spread in a
wavering trail of mist behind her. The shadows around her in the streets
were constantly distorted, weaving together and shrouding any ghost of
reassurance. She felt more than heard or saw the pursuit. Every shadow
seemed to suggest those tell-tale points of barely perceptible light that
indicated her enigmatic pursuers. Were they running after her with the
stealth of trained assassins or merely flitting mockingly from shadow to
shadow like spectres with an evil streak of humour? The buildings around her
were skeletal, dilapidated, wholly derelict. She stared with bewilderment as
she ran. Surely no part of the city was this decrepit? She recognized none
of the buildings she ran past, towering piles that hulked silently and
desolately, with boarded and broken windows, and walls streaked with
suggestions of incomprehensible graffiti. Stark, bent street lamps, like
decrepit cerebra lolling on broken spinal columns jerkily arced above,
emanating the feeblest of grey glows.
This neighbourhood was the natural breeding ground for drug culture, in its
graceless and unconscious depravity and decadence. The street seemed to
exude an atmosphere of dormancy like a social volcano gathering to erupt a
wave of degenerate, shambling ghouls fresh from being punctured by their
filthy needles. Looking back, she could discern no sign of pursuit, and
thick fog was coalescing fast out of the air, making the street lamps
diffuse. No wonder she was lost, with the fog boiling insanely outward to
cloak everything in damp condensation and mask the roads enigmatically. She
wondered what would happen first, whether her shady pursuers would catch her
or whether some socially redundant, gibbering inadequate would spawn from
the litter-strewn gutters to accost her with a plaintive whine or a ready
weapon. She glanced around again nervously. Yes, there was half a glass
bottle, the bottom end smashed into a dizzying array of fragments in clumsy
concentric circles. No, the fragments were arranged in some crude, malignant
pattern, like a clumsy pentacle. Or was that a trick of the light? The sharp
spears of glass at the base of the fracture on the bottle glimmered evilly
with touches of crimson. Blood. Had the injury been sustained in the
breaking of the bottle or had it been wielding like a weapon? A random
Glaswegian voice echoed mockingly in her head, "Stitch that, pal.." Had
ritual incisions been made in pallid skin in genuflection to chemical gods?
Either way, the jagged tongues of broken glass sliced their way through her
already frayed nerves.
Panting with exhaustion she threw herself at the door to a building that
seemed uninhabited. Surprisingly, the door opened at her touch with an
agonized creak. The latch had been broken and splinters of wood circled
around the gash in the doorframe that rendered the lock useless. She shut
the door as quietly as possible and slumped down into a crouch, whimpering
at the horrible aching in her limbs. She heard nothing but the distant
static of cars on occupied roads. Her fevered interior monologue continued.
What had those things after her been?
Her eyes slowly became accustomed to the gloom. Furtively, trembling, she
scoured the shadows among ancient filing cabinets. Was that a telltale
flicker of chains, rings glittering on a brow? Could she hear the faint
jingling of metal accessories? She shook her head dumbly as if to try and
dislodge or disorientate her paranoia. Hesitantly she took a few steps
towards a full-length glass door reflecting the minimal light on the far
side of the room. Maybe there was a back door that she could slip out of, a
network of littered alleys that could weave an imperceptibly false trail for
her pursuers. As she thought this, two tall and imposing shadows rose up
behind her and blotted out the last vestiges of the light. There was a
strangely musical clinking of chains and the graceful swish of blades being
slid reverentially from leather sheaths.
Her back prickled with needles of ice as she perceived them, and eyes hard
as fragments of black ice and just as compassionate narrowed in the dark.
Then inhumanly quick limbs flashed out of the night holding unutterably
cruel barbed blades. The woman threw herself forward in desperation.
Late November 2001
There should be at least a modicum of concern among electricians, or the
manufacturers of lightbulbs at this point. The prevalence of flickering,
inefficient bulbs might be over-emphasized in these narratives, but perhaps
not. At any rate, the syncopated jaundice glow of another less-than-standard
bulb illuminated considerably more insalubrious surroundings. Droplets
cultivated by an ancient tap, irregularly plummeted to oblivion in a stained
washbasin. Cold, musical echoes filtered across the air as each consecutive
drop united with a stagnating pool. The combination of flickering light,
rhythmic dripping and the angry outbursts of distant vehicles had long since
become peripheral, unconscious information to Matt Swindell, who sat in a
perceptibly disintegrating armchair with his brow furrowed in a mixture of
concentration and indignation. He was soldiering his way through the novel
resting in his lap. Eventually he slammed the covers shut with an
authoritative thunderclap, as if trying to trap the information inside
before it had a chance to leap off the pages and fly joyfully away to seek
its fortune in the Big City.
Swindell tossed the book aside with an irritated flick of his wrist and then
retrieved the fragments of a cigarette from an ashtray so overflowing that
it resembled an ant-heap that had been cremated. With a look of revulsion
and disgust he tossed the dog-end aside after experiencing the interesting
taste it had developed, and then negligently emptied the ashtray out of the
window. He was fuming, incandescent with rage. Unconsciously he smoothed his
hair back in a supposedly calming gesture, inadvertently stretching the skin
on his face so that his eyes appeared to pop out like someone had dropped an
icicle down his trousers. He walked into his apartment kitchen and fished
around in the cupboards, accidentally dislodging a considerable backlog of
half-empty bottles as he furtively searched for his favorite spirit from
amongst his formidable collection. The resulting explosion of rage echoed
off the walls of his flat for some time, especially after one particularly
weighty bottle dropped neatly and inevitably in a lazy arc connecting with
his right foot.
The evening was not working out for Swindell. He had read a heavily
fabricated novel by someone who'd made a vast number of disparaging comments
about him, and had shown a remarkable lack of tact in doing so. He decided
that next time he laid his hands on James Aspera he'd tie the arrogant sod's
legs around his head in an attractive bow, then make him literally eat his
words by feeding him his book 'The Whippoorwill House Affair' page by page,
possibly with a piquant tomato relish. He smiled at the mental image that
that conjured up. Admittedly Aspera hadn't made too many mistakes about the
events that had dogged the unlikely pair, and Swindell might have tolerated
those discrepancies if the man could have been at least a little more
responsible, self-effacing or polite about the whole situation. Wearily he
surmised that it was foolish to expect Aspera to do any of those things,
merely because if Swindell was frank in his opinions, Aspera had about as
much strength and co-ordination with a weapon as was needed to burst a
balloon at point blank range best out of three, rejoiced in his own craven
cowardice as if it was a virtue, and therefore had to move the focus away
from his own shortcomings by exaggerating the ones of those around him.
Still, he thought, sighing audibly, the damn book was in print now and there
wasn't a single thing that he could do about it. Admittedly it was being
marketed as a work of fiction, but there were principles at stake. Hey,
steak, now there was a golden idea.. Cradling his generously proportioned
drink, Swindell maneuvered his way along to his freezer, making sure not to
make any more accidental messes.
Late September 2001
The first sensation was of sunlight. Uncomfortable, cloying sunlight
magnified through smeared glass, beating in sharp and scattered shafts down
into the cellars. The woman's eyelids twitched and her expression twisted in
discomfort, and then hesitantly she shifted from her sprawled position, body
screaming affronted complaints at each movement of her joints. With obvious
difficulty she rolled into a patch of shadows, clinking as she negligently
shifted across the fragments of broken glass scattered around her. With one
instinctively searching hand she felt for the tennis racket she had been
carrying, and clasped it like a shield to her chest with visibly shivering
hands. Judging by the steep angles that the uncomfortable light was slanting
along, through the small windows, smeared by dirt and dust, it was some time
past dawn and she had lain unconscious in her twisted posture for several
hours, easily long enough for the veils of night to be teasingly pulled
back. Was it sunlight? It seemed so. The stairs, pitted and cracked, leaned
on a precarious angle from the wall, the wood splintering and ancient. When
she had flung herself through the glass door without opening it she had not
anticipated steps, and the thought of her fall made her conscious of a
thousand cuts and abrasions. She winced as every injury flickered with acute
pain, and she involuntarily retracted into a fetal position, cradling her
obstinately throbbing head with shaking hands. Then a noise suddenly scythed
the peace and wriggled into her mind from the offices above.
A telephone was ringing in regular jarring bursts that thundered in her
head, causing it to throb even more. Stumbling and weaving she miraculously
navigated her way up the stairs and half-fell into a messy office, its desk
piled with sheaf upon sheaf of official looking documents and the dormant
blank screen of an outdated, unused computer. The rings of the telephone
seemed to have projected, coming less from a definable source up here as
much as having reverberated inside her head in a private ordeal of
irritation. Groggily she fumbled among the papers with an unbecoming
clumsiness, and finally located the phone beneath an old newspaper. She
swept her disheveled hair backwards and tentatively lifted the telephone to
her ear. The mocking refrain of the ring instantly stopped. Sitting heavily
down in a battered swivel chair she stuttered out a hello, weary fear
playing across her features as she eyed the middle distance with something
approaching trepidation. A puzzled look spread over her face as a peculiarly
dissonant dialing tone echoed from the receiver. After a moment of
concerned thought, she furtively hammered a number into the handset and with
more determination kept the receiver to her ear as she scanned the desk for
a blank sheet of paper. Then she looked puzzled again, as after a few rings
the phone reset itself back to dialing tone, which had become noticeably
more resonant and discordant. She listened a little more closely.
No, that wasn't a dialing tone, but a constant wave of sound emanating from
some unknown source. There was the crackle of static electricity there, a
faint but insistent hum as of some mechanism as if on standby, the barely
audible sounds of machinery and strangely, the murmurings of human voices,
though what they were saying was inaudible. These weren't all initially
apparent; the soundscape seemed to unfold from one barrage of enigmatic
noise to a more coherent amalgamation of those core elements. Unoccupied,
her eyes strayed across the scattered documents. A chill passed down her
spine. They weren't administrative documents, but collections of completely
alien symbols meandering across pages spattered with pinpoints of blood. One
symbol recurred over and over. She examined it, trembling, then a rising
shriek echoed down the line.
A mantra, twisted as emanating from between mandibles rather than lips,
words filled with fear as if the speaker had no intention to mouth such
blasphemies but was irresistibly compelled by some unseen force.
PULL DOWN THE STARS AND BRAND THEM INTO THE SHRIVELED EYES OF GOD. GRIND
THE TEMPLES INTO GRAVEL AND TEAR HIS FACE WITH THE SHARDS. SUNDER THE CROSS
INTO THIRTEEN STAKES AND PIERCE HIS EMACIATED FLESH. THIS IS THE PROMISE OF
THOSE THAT WOULD MAKE US AS INSECTS ...
The screaming descended into an inarticulate wail of agony through which a
final phrase meandered in and out.
LET SATAN CLING FEEBLY TO GOD FOR THEY SHALL BE DESTROYED TOGETHER!
Her eyes widened, and she hurriedly slammed the phone down and ripped the
connection out of the socket. But the sound still reverberated out of the
air, from all directions suddenly as she started to her feet, and staring
around her began to back away, brandishing her tennis racket like a weapon.
The little twinges and discomforts of her body were forgotten in the waves
of adrenaline, and the events of the previous night began to take on a
malign significance. The sun seemed to have faded or disappeared; she slowly
edged across the room towards the blinds, attempting to be as silent as
possible. It was in doing so that she began to perceive the faint but
insistent sounds from the cellar below. In her frightened state she fingered
the blinds erratically. Out of the dusty window she could see fog lazily
drifting across the ground, with absolutely no sign of the sun whatsoever.
The sounds from below were becoming louder and deeper, as if the flagstones
of the floor were slowly being ground inexorably away by something
underneath, or in some imperceptible way, coterminous to them. Her nerve
broke, she rattled the door handle in panic and was astonished to find the
door swinging ponderously open with a creak of ancient and neglected hinges.
Whimpering involuntarily, she crept out into the street. It was freezing,
the fog clinging, damp, and snow crunching underfoot. She was hopelessly
unprepared for the temperature, hopelessly. She made some attempt to wrap
her flimsy coat around her, and then blindly floundered into the fog. Why
was there snow in September?
Were the buildings different? She couldn't tell through the wreaths of mist.
From behind in the office, there was the sound of something grappling its
way up the stairs. She fled, running blindly and in a numbing, irrational
panic, until up ahead she saw a human shaped shadow, looking diffuse through
the fog and moving nervously and slowly. She fancied she heard the figure
muttering to itself, in a relieving human tone obviously as worried and
bewildered as she was. Gaining a little confidence, she stepped towards it.
There was a sudden blaze of malignant green light. Its dripping hair matted
to its unhealthily pale forehead, the figure before her spun round.
The fragments of flagstone scattered into dust. The first figure brushed the
last excrescence from her esoteric clothing with practiced swipes. She was a
woman, and possessed the same unearthly, effortlessly lithe quality as her
compatriot, unlike the man's companion on the previous night. The second
merely gestured irritably, and the residue fountained off the leather
clothing and erupted from where it was caked around chains and other metal
accessories. The second glanced at the first with a mixture of amusement and
contempt as the less efficient figure continued to brush ineffectually at
its clothes.
Her eyes, agate hard and with a strangely becoming cruelty and arrogance,
rose to meet his, which bored back with the misanthropy of gods. Her neck
was bared, and incised with a three-inch vertical slash. The flesh was
stretched open to accentuate the hole and safety pins glittered to hold the
wound sickeningly open. She muttered, an inarticulate gurgle of blood
drowning the vocal cords. The silence of the other was somehow more powerful
and more unashamedly black, speaking reprimands through the movements of
eyes like globes of ice. His jet black hair was bound back painfully tight,
a spike protruded from beneath his lower lip as he gave a barbed-wire smile
at nothing.
They had lured their prey through easily as was often the case. Those little
patches where reality was thin and could be stretched in the unlikeliest of
fashions; so easy to manipulate. Doubtless the woman had been to busy
running to register the moment of transition. She'd find out soon enough.
The authoritative man made an imperious gesture and they began to stalk up
the creaking stairs, his leather-coat billowing out behind him.
Late November 2001
Placing his drink on the corner of his paper-strewn desk, Matt Swindell idly
fingered the package that his copy of the book had arrived in the morning
before. He made a surprised exclamation as a sheaf of papers fell out onto
the carpet and spread in disarray. He hastily collected them together, half
hoping they were a list of agonized apologies for his treatment in the book.
In fact, he surmised that Aspera had sent him an advance sample of his next
work, supposedly another work of truth marketed as fiction. There didn't
seem to be that many pages, so Swindell settled back down to read the
fragments, enigmatically titled, "An Evening With Asmodeus - Final Chapter".
Late September 2001
But this man was human, as human emotions fought on his face as he
tentatively stepped forward. The expression on his pale and stricken face
almost mirrored her own as she staggered into the green glare, fear exerting
its own gravity upon her limbs. Fear and wariness were there, but a strange
gratitude at signs of life. He spoke, but her ears barely registered the
words at the music of any voice with human tone and cadence.
The man started forward, knocking stray strands of his long hair back across
his shoulder irritably and hesitantly moving to steady her with his other
hand. At last, another human being, she thought. Then she swiveled into the
source of the malevolent green glare, and the world dropped into the
distance..
(Continued)
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