Catechisms: In HIS Broken House.

Catechisms: In HIS Broken House.

Postby catch » Wed Sep 14, 2011 7:49 am

(For the mad, for the sensitive, for those who simply want to know, and have their character see, this thread is meant for you. Take from it what you will, respond here, or in channel, or both, if you so desire. Or ignore it completely. It's for you.)

__________________________________


Late on the afternoon of the 13 of High Summer, AR 211, there was at Crystal Lake an incident of unexplained and disturbing activities, similar to the one that had occurred almost two months prior, after the singular and extraordinary events of the Grand Ball. Whereas the former incident held no witnesses, no accounts, save for a great agitation of the Mad at the Rememdium, and several complaints from certain sensitive individuals, this new development had witnesses. Gypsy, romani, the Wandering Folk, if they are to be trusted. The Mad became Madder. A Dignitary at the Thessilane Emissary had to be sedated. Not only the sensitive, but everyone, had heard the singular toll of some great, brass bell, the haunted tone of something the Priory may have rung on holy days. The gypsies said that two figures had been seen near the Black place where sand and rock had been burnt to glass, and footprints of two individuals were found. One of those footprints disappeared; the other, though it could hardly be believed, had turned to the tracks of some great wolf, quickly joined by another, and also vanishing at the dying treeline. As soon as the day came, they could be followed more thoroughly.

As soon as the day came...

____________________________________________

In the dreams of man, beast, those made sensitive by the fabric clawed by thousands of ghostly hands, that night took them to what was Myrken Forest. Not as it was, or as it appeared now, but a forest that was impossible. Above the gentle wave of oiled leaves immeasurable stars of eons past, young stars in a young sky, glittered and winked with Every-color. Below the leaves, with every step, fresh, clean soil drew their curious fingers across traveler's feet. Everything was impossibly bright, impossibly vibrant, so that even inanimate objects glowed in auras under the unnatural sky above. As a deer flashes by, she is so shimmering that she almost blinds.

Twelve footfalls came down that beckoning path, twelve hooves put down, and up, and down again. They did not stop until they reached the break in the trees, dripping with thick, glowing paints. Beyond? There was the Lake, but a Lake unlike anything seen. It's surface reflected nothing, an expanse of black glass with no white breaks to signify waves, though the sound of lapping beat on the stones of the shore.

It was here, the horses stopped. The first, an old, grey nag, held a man swabbed in tattered robes, his skin grey and ailing, his skull as bald as an egg. The second, a wild, shaggy jenny-mule, wary and warrior, with an equally feral man on her back, only one eye glittering from under a shelving brow. The last came on an ass, a short, stubby donkey, who came to a stop with little heaves of his barrel-like body, and the man on his back was a strange, shifting thing, bearing the face of man and beast both, never still, always changing.

All this could have been real, despite the impossibility of it. It all was real, to one, broken mind, though he slumbered in ignorance, and the dream came to all but him.

"It showed another," said the Grey Man, perhaps needlessly. But it was his way. His smooth head turned, tilted down, as if to peer into the depths. "Did the nature's-child see the same thing as It?"

"They fought, in a fashion," said the One-Eye warrior. His armor jarred around him as he slid from his mule, rough, knotted fingers creaking like branches as they touched the disturbed ground. "She saw everything, and nothing."

"But how long can It stay hidden, Brother? So long as It feared the Wolf-father..."

"And as long as It fears the Lake, the others can go on caging It. The vision held, even under the eyes of another. Do you think It would dare show another, again?"

"It came close to breaking." The third figure finally spoke, his voice a duality of giggling madness and soft sanity. "When she struck it. You'll have to bind It's mind tighter, tighter..." The madman trailed off into incoherent muttering, his moment of sanity broken. The other two watched him, for awhile, to see if he had anything to add, unaware that they were being watched. Observed by unwitting observers.

"He would know. He gave the most, to bind It," One-Eye said, and he turned to pull himself into his saddle again, sword rattling from where it lay parallel against the jenny-mule's flank.

"We all have given much," said the Grey Man, his dark eyes closing. He urges his nag forward with a movement of his arms, and something under his robes clicks with the motion, while the horse paces forward. Instead of plowing through the water, the two of them strode upon in, man and horse.

"Knowledge gained," he intones, his hand lifted, palm-out, towards the madman giggling on his donkey. "The deed, done," he continues, palm passing the the wild, grim, One-eyed warrior, his jenny-mule stoic and unmovable. "The House, broken." His palm hovered to his own heart, ticking and clicking away. The Grey Man's arms spread outwards, the fabric of his tattered robe, flickering as if underwater, rather than in a breeze.

"Still, It came here. And if they find it..."

Where his hand hovered, so too did the viewer, the onyx glassiness of the lake looming, closer and closer, until they broke the surface - together - looking up at the distorted image of the Grey Man and his nag, his arm still suspended in whatever spell he sought to cast. Down, down, through the thick, turgid waters, rock turned molten, and yet not burning at all. Where there had been an eye, there lingered into a flat, beautiful lakebed, scattered with precious gems and sparkling rock.

In their midst, for the briefest, awed glint, there lay a marble shrine, broken, ancient, with the figure of what had been a beautiful woman carved into it, her lower body swollen into the fat, hideous form of a spider. And on this altar sat a radiance, a spiraling light of gold and silver and rubies, shimmering in the dark waters, insubstantial, yet undeniable.

The image of a single, spiraling horn.
User avatar
catch
Member
 
Posts: 699
Joined: Mon Aug 31, 2009 4:00 am

Return to The Forest & Lake



Who is online

Users browsing this forum: No registered users and 14 guests

cron