Crooked
Posted: Fri Jun 24, 2011 6:59 amCatch didn't know where he was. He didn't know how he'd gotten there.
He was in the smallest room he could ever remember being in, the walls of worn wood stained black through the long years, and he could hear the whistling of the wind as it blew through aged, crumbling chinks and cracks, bringing with it the smell of outside. Fern and moss, rich, thick loam and, distant, flowers. Or was that him? He reached up, though his arm felt leaden, and plucked at his woolen cap. There was a flower between his fingers, and he gazed at it, white center and waxy, pale-pink petals, shaped like a trumpet.
The woods, then. But what had he been doing there? He sat in a little, high-backed chair, at a little table, and these two items alone took up a majority of the little, cabin room, along with a big, iron stove set into one wall, burning with a merry blaze that Catch did not feel. He felt cold, like a corpse's tongue. He looked up from the flower, and sitting on the crooked table sat a crooked cat, like her spine had been severed and re-fused, gazing at him with her wide, amber eyes, as gold as the flames in the stove. Catch stared at her, and she at him, and he could just imagine the fires leaping in her eyes, consuming a dragon's shape.
The crooked cat turned from him, then, disregarding him as she groomed her thigh.
The table, besides the grotesque cat, was heaped high with books and scraps of foolscap, underneath which Catch could detect something moldy and rotten, a creeping, black mold that dug it's fingers into the wood of the table, stubbornly thriving and growing. From the roof and rafters flowers were hung, but no matter how hard he strained, Catch couldn't hear them. They were dried-up, dead, and did not even carry the sour sounds that echoed in the logs all around him.
"You've finally come!" Came from a man, a little man that Catch had not seen, appearing from behind a curtain of hanging, colored glass, lit by the fire and sending dazzles of colors across the whole, rotten scene. Like the cat the man was crooked, and a giant hunch grew from his shoulder. He was old, older than any person that Catch had ever scene, and the flower was held forgotten between his fingers as he stared, rude as it was. But the little man did not seem to mind; he moved among the debris as a fish did in water, and the lights flashed off his bald, little skull. He busied himself at the stove, and his voice was like a dying rabbit's, and Catch felt a dread growing in him at the sound of it.
He asked anyway. "I have?"
The crooked little man set before Catch a strange, soupy mix, and Catch felt a sudden hunger, enough that he set his flower into his beard, and took up the crooked, hand-carved little spoon. It was good. He had been afraid that something nasty, something that did not belong in food, would be in there, but he could taste every ingredient, green and good, and the thick broth of which he was so fond. As he ate, the little man still busied himself, and chattered all the while.
"I've been waiting for you for such a long time. Such a long time! You've been looking for me, I wager." The little man gave him a quick, sly look, and Catch nearly dropped his spoon out of sheer nerves. He peered at the man, wary and ready. The cat gave an irritated maow, and set to nibbling on her toes.
"You don't look silver to me, Serjo," Catch said, wary and frightened that the man would take away his soup, but the crooked fellow only uttered a laugh - rather nasty-sounding - and rubbed his gnarled, knobby finger along his gnarled and knobby nose.
"Then I'd be easy to find, wouldn't I? What would you do if someone told you to go find an ugly little chap like me, eh?" The man waited as if expecting an answer, but Catch didn't wish to give him one, because he didn't want to hear that horrible laugh again. And so he said nothing, and eventually the little man turned away, and Catch dared not ask another question until he was licking up the last bits of the stew, abandoning his spoon to lick the bowl, as he had used to do before coming to the Broken Dagger.
"You... you'll help me?"
"Help you find who you are?" The crooked man acted as if he expected that question, and though he doesn't laugh, he grins an unpleasant little grin. He hop-skips to Catch in the blink of an eye, and he didn't even have the time to react before the knife came out. All he could do is gasp as the little man drew a thin, small line across his pale skin, and scooped up the little blood that came out. "Of course, of course. Everything's already been prepared, little fellow! All we needed was you."
The cat arched her back and hissed evil laughter, and Catch was frozen in his chair, unable to move even if he wished to, for the table was far too heavy for him and the roof too small, and the heat of the stove and fear started a sheen of sweat on his brow. The little man flicked the blood into the fire, and his whipcord arms lifted, and everything in Catch screamed at him to get out, get out now, but what had he been doing?
Where had he been before this time?
"Arallû, Ganeer, Irkalla," the crooked man spoke, and his voice was not the voice of a dying rabbit but of something far more terrible. The walls seemed to stretch away and up, and crowded even closer, and Catch could not breathe or move or think, as the walls of the Room turned from cabin's wood to pounded dirt.
"You said you would help me!" Catch screamed at the crooked man, but the little beast did not hear him, or did not listen, but it was the Cat who answered in a crawling, mocking voice, and there was a dead fox above the stove with a wound in his head, the chain wrapped several times around his neck jerking and clanking in time.
"I love little pussy-cat,
Her coat is so warm,
And if I don't hurt her,
She'll do me no harm.
So I'll not pull her tail,
Nor drive her away,
But her and I
Very gently will play."
"East, West, North, South. From the Nothing of Roba El Khaliyeh, from which the mind goes, I call on you, Son of Amdusias. I bring before you re'em, the mighty Aurochs, who's blood you've tasted, who's soul you've taken. By the Elasmoth, I both take and I offer -"
He knew this. Catch knew this, knew the words, and though his mind could not think, he could feel them formed by his mouth, and like a hammer-blow to his bones, he knew the voice that was speaking was his. The fox's wild jerking seemed to make the beast almost alive, and it's lips writhed back, it's dull eyes mirroring his own.
"It went wandering in circles for days until it starved to death..."
"... here lies Guericke's Folly, the Beast of Magdeburg, and his mouth will swallow the Sun and the Moon, and the stars will hang from his ears -"
Wandering. Looking. The fox's clouded eyes looked right into him, and his fur shriveled and fell, and his jaws parted as mange dripped from it's diseased flesh, showing yellow teeth and a thick, diseased rope of saliva, and the Wolf and the Cat laughed and laughed, while the crooked man grew ever larger, ever more grotesque, pustules and tumors bulging from his once-skinny frame, his eyes burned to mercury by the flames, trickling down his cheeks like tears.
"I'm not sure where the caves are exactly, but I imagine that Catch does."
The caves.
Catch's legs lifted, his movements frantic and spasmodic, and he pushed at the rotten, gore-dripping table with all his might, scrambling to get away. The Crooked Cat hissed and wobbled with the giant, shrieking lurch the table took, but the Crooked Man took the brunt of the blow in his distended, writhing belly. He did not explode, but with a terrible shriek his words were cut short, and he toppled into the blazing inferno of what had once been the stove, and all at once flesh curled and fat bubbled and popped, and the stench of it gagged Catch, blinded him, but did not blind the cat.
With a mournful, enraged shriek, she fell on Catch's shoulders, her claws ripping and tearing, and no matter how Catch tried to protect himself she still tore, while the Wolf jiggered and bounced on his chain so hard that his innards came flying out with a sick, wet plop. With every tear of the cat's claws, catch could see his silver light escaping, in thick, radiant streams, and he cried out as crooked fangs sank into his throat -
He was inside a cabin, but the forest had long ago claimed it for it's own, so that nothing was left but a pile of logs, the thatch roof long blown away. He sat in a crooked little chair that felt like it would collapse at any moment, in front of a table with vines creeping up it's legs, covered in good, toothsome, green moss. There were the ruins of an iron, pot-belly stove, long gone red and orange with the rust, and outlining the image of a horse with a broken chain around it's leg. Fat beams of light fell on the skeleton of a cat, perched on the table, her bones still upright and held together with rotting tendon and connective matter.
And there was the skeleton of a little man, his back twisted and hunched, hanging from the rafters, a rusty chain wrapped about his neck.
He was in the smallest room he could ever remember being in, the walls of worn wood stained black through the long years, and he could hear the whistling of the wind as it blew through aged, crumbling chinks and cracks, bringing with it the smell of outside. Fern and moss, rich, thick loam and, distant, flowers. Or was that him? He reached up, though his arm felt leaden, and plucked at his woolen cap. There was a flower between his fingers, and he gazed at it, white center and waxy, pale-pink petals, shaped like a trumpet.
The woods, then. But what had he been doing there? He sat in a little, high-backed chair, at a little table, and these two items alone took up a majority of the little, cabin room, along with a big, iron stove set into one wall, burning with a merry blaze that Catch did not feel. He felt cold, like a corpse's tongue. He looked up from the flower, and sitting on the crooked table sat a crooked cat, like her spine had been severed and re-fused, gazing at him with her wide, amber eyes, as gold as the flames in the stove. Catch stared at her, and she at him, and he could just imagine the fires leaping in her eyes, consuming a dragon's shape.
The crooked cat turned from him, then, disregarding him as she groomed her thigh.
The table, besides the grotesque cat, was heaped high with books and scraps of foolscap, underneath which Catch could detect something moldy and rotten, a creeping, black mold that dug it's fingers into the wood of the table, stubbornly thriving and growing. From the roof and rafters flowers were hung, but no matter how hard he strained, Catch couldn't hear them. They were dried-up, dead, and did not even carry the sour sounds that echoed in the logs all around him.
"You've finally come!" Came from a man, a little man that Catch had not seen, appearing from behind a curtain of hanging, colored glass, lit by the fire and sending dazzles of colors across the whole, rotten scene. Like the cat the man was crooked, and a giant hunch grew from his shoulder. He was old, older than any person that Catch had ever scene, and the flower was held forgotten between his fingers as he stared, rude as it was. But the little man did not seem to mind; he moved among the debris as a fish did in water, and the lights flashed off his bald, little skull. He busied himself at the stove, and his voice was like a dying rabbit's, and Catch felt a dread growing in him at the sound of it.
He asked anyway. "I have?"
The crooked little man set before Catch a strange, soupy mix, and Catch felt a sudden hunger, enough that he set his flower into his beard, and took up the crooked, hand-carved little spoon. It was good. He had been afraid that something nasty, something that did not belong in food, would be in there, but he could taste every ingredient, green and good, and the thick broth of which he was so fond. As he ate, the little man still busied himself, and chattered all the while.
"I've been waiting for you for such a long time. Such a long time! You've been looking for me, I wager." The little man gave him a quick, sly look, and Catch nearly dropped his spoon out of sheer nerves. He peered at the man, wary and ready. The cat gave an irritated maow, and set to nibbling on her toes.
"You don't look silver to me, Serjo," Catch said, wary and frightened that the man would take away his soup, but the crooked fellow only uttered a laugh - rather nasty-sounding - and rubbed his gnarled, knobby finger along his gnarled and knobby nose.
"Then I'd be easy to find, wouldn't I? What would you do if someone told you to go find an ugly little chap like me, eh?" The man waited as if expecting an answer, but Catch didn't wish to give him one, because he didn't want to hear that horrible laugh again. And so he said nothing, and eventually the little man turned away, and Catch dared not ask another question until he was licking up the last bits of the stew, abandoning his spoon to lick the bowl, as he had used to do before coming to the Broken Dagger.
"You... you'll help me?"
"Help you find who you are?" The crooked man acted as if he expected that question, and though he doesn't laugh, he grins an unpleasant little grin. He hop-skips to Catch in the blink of an eye, and he didn't even have the time to react before the knife came out. All he could do is gasp as the little man drew a thin, small line across his pale skin, and scooped up the little blood that came out. "Of course, of course. Everything's already been prepared, little fellow! All we needed was you."
The cat arched her back and hissed evil laughter, and Catch was frozen in his chair, unable to move even if he wished to, for the table was far too heavy for him and the roof too small, and the heat of the stove and fear started a sheen of sweat on his brow. The little man flicked the blood into the fire, and his whipcord arms lifted, and everything in Catch screamed at him to get out, get out now, but what had he been doing?
Where had he been before this time?
"Arallû, Ganeer, Irkalla," the crooked man spoke, and his voice was not the voice of a dying rabbit but of something far more terrible. The walls seemed to stretch away and up, and crowded even closer, and Catch could not breathe or move or think, as the walls of the Room turned from cabin's wood to pounded dirt.
"You said you would help me!" Catch screamed at the crooked man, but the little beast did not hear him, or did not listen, but it was the Cat who answered in a crawling, mocking voice, and there was a dead fox above the stove with a wound in his head, the chain wrapped several times around his neck jerking and clanking in time.
"I love little pussy-cat,
Her coat is so warm,
And if I don't hurt her,
She'll do me no harm.
So I'll not pull her tail,
Nor drive her away,
But her and I
Very gently will play."
"East, West, North, South. From the Nothing of Roba El Khaliyeh, from which the mind goes, I call on you, Son of Amdusias. I bring before you re'em, the mighty Aurochs, who's blood you've tasted, who's soul you've taken. By the Elasmoth, I both take and I offer -"
He knew this. Catch knew this, knew the words, and though his mind could not think, he could feel them formed by his mouth, and like a hammer-blow to his bones, he knew the voice that was speaking was his. The fox's wild jerking seemed to make the beast almost alive, and it's lips writhed back, it's dull eyes mirroring his own.
"It went wandering in circles for days until it starved to death..."
"... here lies Guericke's Folly, the Beast of Magdeburg, and his mouth will swallow the Sun and the Moon, and the stars will hang from his ears -"
Wandering. Looking. The fox's clouded eyes looked right into him, and his fur shriveled and fell, and his jaws parted as mange dripped from it's diseased flesh, showing yellow teeth and a thick, diseased rope of saliva, and the Wolf and the Cat laughed and laughed, while the crooked man grew ever larger, ever more grotesque, pustules and tumors bulging from his once-skinny frame, his eyes burned to mercury by the flames, trickling down his cheeks like tears.
"I'm not sure where the caves are exactly, but I imagine that Catch does."
The caves.
Catch's legs lifted, his movements frantic and spasmodic, and he pushed at the rotten, gore-dripping table with all his might, scrambling to get away. The Crooked Cat hissed and wobbled with the giant, shrieking lurch the table took, but the Crooked Man took the brunt of the blow in his distended, writhing belly. He did not explode, but with a terrible shriek his words were cut short, and he toppled into the blazing inferno of what had once been the stove, and all at once flesh curled and fat bubbled and popped, and the stench of it gagged Catch, blinded him, but did not blind the cat.
With a mournful, enraged shriek, she fell on Catch's shoulders, her claws ripping and tearing, and no matter how Catch tried to protect himself she still tore, while the Wolf jiggered and bounced on his chain so hard that his innards came flying out with a sick, wet plop. With every tear of the cat's claws, catch could see his silver light escaping, in thick, radiant streams, and he cried out as crooked fangs sank into his throat -
He was inside a cabin, but the forest had long ago claimed it for it's own, so that nothing was left but a pile of logs, the thatch roof long blown away. He sat in a crooked little chair that felt like it would collapse at any moment, in front of a table with vines creeping up it's legs, covered in good, toothsome, green moss. There were the ruins of an iron, pot-belly stove, long gone red and orange with the rust, and outlining the image of a horse with a broken chain around it's leg. Fat beams of light fell on the skeleton of a cat, perched on the table, her bones still upright and held together with rotting tendon and connective matter.
And there was the skeleton of a little man, his back twisted and hunched, hanging from the rafters, a rusty chain wrapped about his neck.