Merlin 2 - 10 Symmetry

Merlin 2 - 10 Symmetry

Fallen by glass torn at the seams blood made of ash a river of dreams, sleeping in sickness hanging in cells the dementia patients that have not escaped seeking wrath anew all prey for a witness of the hell exhumed, candles of flowers wait in the wings while heavenly powers an opera sing, listeners to reason speak of its pain. Burning is the season without any rain, the cult of the rising dreams sleep in golden exhaustion extremes, sin demonizing life with an axe for atrophy tastes of the blood and drinks of the sign by a chalice with the emblem of an immortal black rose, run from the bloody flood seeping of a serrated blade and chaos intensities. Fire from ashes and tears from the sky, chasing the wind of the summer day, death to the quarry killed for the lie of empires carried through the light. Blood on the wounds, with the weak descending on high sorrowing for a dream in turn missing from life, the echoes of misery seize the rapture and cherish the bliss, the minds of selfish judges of mind, body, and spirit as civilization collapses.

Ana dares not seek the demon right now but well distanced, rather at least to help Nickolas in his skirmish finding dichotomy and perilous fires for her to surpass, now knowing the capability and seeing the power direct of his regeneration. The blast area has burnt all to slag except for the coals of the larger building blocks of their arena, to wipe his brow of sweat and soot is infinitesimal in thought but only as a procured moment, the other, the city dweller perhaps unknown in name or origin, leaps in abound vaulting toward Nickolas and tears into him. Literally, with one arm and hand across the chest and holding the shoulder the other arm across the first and hand on face attempts to spin his head and snap his neck in two, twisting him to put him in knots apt with straggler skills. In success fell of Nickolas to the alluvium and cinder, as if with severed strings cut strung from the firmament a lifeless disorder, of sorts a smaller wound the spinal column and soon does heal the rapport of the inexplicable perseverance that is the fate of immortality. At Nickolas’ rise, Ana slackens and at slowest quickens her wit in slight distance, unlikely to spy in evident control save her oblivious position letting them fight for the sake of avoiding her own mortal involvement. The doppelganger stands and a step from the felled foe, Nickolas springs to his feet like a springboard or warped plank come unfastened without putting his hands to the ground and retaliates against his counterpart with fervent return. Unfortunately, for Nickolas the nameless avenger is a skilled combatant whom strikes him from a strong footing, in a spot of fate he stands again and grabs a scolding iron blade but at first swing the metal’s heat forces him to drop the weapon from bare hand and he stares reflectively with a dark insanity, standing furtively alone.

Malek: “You think that will help you?”

Nickolas: “Why are you doing this?”

Malek: “You must suffer for your wrath on these people.”

Nickolas: “A shadow of our world looms in the darkness.”

Ana stands atop a ruined shanti structure from a safe distance, thereunto imputation the fight resumes curriculum vitae, and once again Nickolas founders unto the dirt this time caused by a board to the side of his head, the damaged city wall nearby crumbles and falls inciting them both to flee its collapse and soon they fight anew. Thrice now, Nickolas stumbles to the ground pinned beneath timber of fallen scaffolding at the site of an earlier chaos in chasing the doppelganger to a cleverly convenient trap.

Whencesoever the foe finds a suitable blade, he approaches Nickolas to decapitate him painfully, but Ana only two steps behind him for the past few minutes of combat. Without saying a word she puts the palm of her hand to the temple of the vigilante, as he turns and notices her lurking a fire erupts of magical misgivings, a fiery sphere as if a mortar explodes within her grasp and sends their newfound adversary through the sparse wall of planks and makeshift scaffold.

Ana: “That’s going to leave a nasty little mark.”

Nick: “Thanks love.”

Ana: “Don’t go losing your head…he returns.”

The silent avenger fixatedly approaches with an iron reed bore once of the framework, Nickolas in rising to the occasion takes a sword from a dead soldier in the street. The attacker a more stoutly fellow, strong in the legs and thick width across the shoulders of the back whilst Nickolas is more strong in his arms and chest, standing straighter and taller ready to fight with more agility and steadfastness, as his opponent helves to injure him Nickolas quickly disconfirms any notion of superseding victory. The stout young man strikes downward twofold of anger and striking the air in haste, the first block by harnessed hilt and blade guided hand, twice a sharpened edge quite nearly hammered into Nickolas’ palm. On second triumphal incursion, he falls onto ground and with a tumbling momentum kicks the other man toppling over him, foot to opponent chest vaulting him into a broken ligneous structure, a crawl through knives skewering him many a time with struggling reckoning, and soon approaches him for interrogation in the waking dawns of east and west.

Troy, an ever increasingly pale rider on the shoulders of his red phoenix, patrols the sky of the city. The fiery light is useless in the deep shadows of night, a dim glow below him washing over and never betwixt the darkest of shadows obfuscated beyond the blast. He has been looking with cause to find any aggressor, with the phoenix flying lowly every intrigue toward darkness twilight without avail, much changes in the stern morning. From the filaments and fluffy thistledown covered in mystical powder his hands have in due time come covered in talc slowly turning the skin to white leather flexible porcelain.

To what he believes is the termagant destroyer Troy and the massive phoenix plummets to the ground with feline posture of similar sorts, four sets talon grasping in the soil of the street made of blood, ash and detriment. The darksome termagant throws a heavy spear at the phoenix once it lands cautiously so, an act scarcely unnoticed. In revolt, the phoenix waves its wings with defensive anger, a squall as the force of the furnace air pushes the metal spear to the ground causing it to lose form from the intense heat, slightly melting over the concourse of the uneven ground. For Merlin to see a tenebrous flash, alas a villain in reprisal over what feat shall countermand a fervent cloud of fire bright with fuming fulminate heat and traces of black smoke rising. Immolation has turned the tear in Troy’s arm to a flexible ivory to match the light and low profile saddle he now rides. Perched into predatory haunches the phoenix stares with certain eyes and folded wings and an afflicted rider angered to revelation with a glowing heat that vents a mist of ash into the furors of a maniac marauder.

The villain retreats, down the street in advance of escape only to find Merlin standing in the lane starkly staring to the soul serf brigand. Merlin with a crystal mace of majestic creation, a glass orb at the end of a scepter, in the dawn of a dark storm and the gales of nightmare lightning crashing the font of precipice in the eyes of the wizard. The darkling termagant in halt is sliding an axe of a solid red diamond without perfection from its sleeve, the handle descending into his hand in discretion as the energy of the distant hills seeks to seethe from the soil randomly, dawn unsettling the tide of morning timidly waits amongst the eyes of the countless darkling stars overhead. The axe is translucent and with dried blood, one single sharp edge periphery from handle to blade. The sharp edges draw the phoenix into inhibition from staging a second approach, as a great roar in multitude of thunder of resounding chaos in the streets from the obscure sorcerer, the skies become torrential, a storm of winds and thunderbolt.

Termagant: “The storm is for the gods, not these men.”

Merlin: “And yet you have no shelter.”
Termagant: “Join the fold, and shall no other tempt thee again.”
Merlin: “It has avenged on you the blood of a slave.”

Appeased a loudly sigh in laughter of condemnation and amusement twixt a personal taunt. The termagant holds out an empty hand and turns it over, looking at the veins of greyness that course through the ashen black, the used blood from capillaries courses the venom inside darker than the skin.

Termagant: “The strength of our cause is endlessly immortal.”

Though others have fled, many dozens stare in respect of the soon danger to ensue. Just around the corner, Nickolas holds his sword’s point certain against the throat of his dark double.

Nickolas: “I am not the demolisher.”
Malek: “The hell you aren’t.”

Devlin approaches leaning and somber, intense and determined, much more than in his shadowy past, covered in damaged armor through pitch black insight he intends to console a nameless familiar face, although the descended shades of night have hidden him from full vantage now twice the dawn, an identity through shows. 

Malek: “I’m sure the king would like to know you’re a traitor, Devlin!”

Devlin: “Keep your thoughts without words, they are with me, we seek the agent within the city walls.”

Malek: “If I were not exhausting I would tear you limb from limb!”

Ana approaches singing a subtle requiem as she puts her hand to his dying face.

Ana: “I risk my life as you cannot to tell you, we are not enemies.”

Malek: “Malediction lies bittersweet.”

Death and dawn Malek coughs blood and expounds an inconsolable final breath, were it not ere fire bound wind it might steam with anger and alas sprays in slight blood upon her hand. A shrouded haze bright into the stars the blue morn and fires of creation Ana burns the blood from her skin, quickly into a disguise of solace.

Nickolas: “Help me pull him clear or he’ll just anguish again.”

Thence steadfastly, he and Devlin pull him off the spikes and impromptu spears laying him, bloodied and ragged, to the ground. His wounds heal in death’s forfeit and he frantically shakes their hold standing fast and grabbing a new weapon rearing to go it once more.

Devlin: “Merely a flesh wound.” A smile aids his quip to further ridicule in jest.

Malek: “Try and take me this time.”

Nickolas drops his defense and walks to Malek, hearts ablaze and emotions trembling with caustic temper.

Nickolas: “Help us find the one who smites the land. Look, if they were enemies they would run from an immortal such as you.”

A manic subversion of fear and confusion he takes the sharp and short stick and drives it into Nickolas through the ribs, under the breastplate and into his heart.

Malek: “That’s for rolling through the glass.”

A defiant derision whispered into the shadows as much as Nickolas, dropping to his knees, he laughs beneath agony.

Ana: “You can’t run forever…”

Malek stops down the street and looks aback only swift paces from them, only to turn into the shallow shadows once more and through the corner into the coming storm. The fireswan phoenix landing in the street and the surreal white light of electricity has caused the people to run, fleeing in great numbers from the scene. Nickolas staggers to his feet laughing, in empathy and contagious relief as so does Devlin laugh, Ana watches but moves toward the commotion of a frantic escaping throng moving in the direction everyone is fleeing, they quiet themselves and follow her advance. They approach the street of the magical duel, Ana holding Nickolas from moving into sight, assured that Merlin as a sorcerer will handle this for now and she would assist if need be, as Devlin has left to aid the wounded doing best he to keep distance from the quarrel. Ceremoniously Malek washes his hands in the blood of martyrs and heroes in a pool on the street, he knows not who will be victor or as of yet which is the villain he seeks, but he will let them battle and slay the latter in the feigning zenith light of day.

Merlin’s many thoughts rush his head of the assumable talent that would soon become conflict as he summons his tenure of aggression.

Merlin: “And now it is your move."

A whisper and fixation on the darkness, lineages stone passed in solemnity an earnest reason of forsaken sorrow unto a new penitent bearer. Merlin standing with a cerulean glass orb welded to a silver stave, within it tumble the oceans and din haven storms in sphere. A black venomous termagant with a penchant for the torrent of death spell, at a halted acuminate blade’s aim, black spiraling deciduous smoke wellspring waves of it as if cutting the shadows from the day wave in the air during harsh swipes that come close with each keen fray. The creature rushes to attack with the red diamond blade, lighting brims the spherical prism the shock consumed by the dark void.

Termagant: “You will now die!”

Merlin holds the glass mace forward and tiny little branches at reaching the edge of consciousness he stands and stares across in the abyss through eyes of revelation, with pupils wide his lungs expand as an eon of storms inside his hand become lightning striking from the storm crystal. The demon a reverie of specious blistering eyes slices the lightning and it halts shocking further not, as if a vine severed the lighting falls to the ground and burns the sand leaving spines of glass melting hot and glowing red.

Termagant: “Like theirs your time has come.”

Merlin commands a graceful flight ability to slip from proximity to conjure more magic and the demon throws the ruby axe to Merlin's leg, the axe falls as were it thrown against a wall, but Merlin moves and drips blood from a slicing wound that begins to seep and stain the light fabric of his garb. The pain is toxic, a venomous vex that aggravates wound bringing Merlin to the ground aside rubble. His good knee upon earth he examines his other, kneeling cleverly so, as the demon rushes through the burning street. The toxin dazes, confuses, and makes the demon look as if not only gliding to him but also swaying like a crawling viper, a single view of him weaving in an undulating line. Blessed are those invited to the break of the storm, in harrowed time, fortuitous the discovery of a cruel demon, Malek who sees the viper demon approaching Merlin as if prey tell. He knows now whom he had seen in the flammable alchemy house, “That’s him,” he says and runs swiftly and jumps, kicking with both feet the demon from deathblow.

Perhaps in glory or gainsay, Nickolas joins him as they both begin to fend the demon for Merlin. The way that the caliginous demon fights is the same as the darkness, everywhere oblivious he crawls, stabs, and swings and grabs open limb to twist and break by intricate convolution the vengeance between them. Rugged battlers entangled within the arms of the putrid terror envoy. Within two screaming battles the demon attempting to cut and hew them both, the phoenix draws near slowly stalking near the ground, using proper and adequate defense, yet without notice once noticing the phoenix the termagant takes Malek, without an inkling of evasion, and throws him effortlessly to the phoenix and moves toward Merlin. The polluted demon throws Nickolas so hardly that the force though landing on his feet slides him across the soil without proper grip. Malek rises from verified certain death as the demon deacon looks impatiently for Merlin over scoured ground.

With a fall of his hand to a hilt on a ledge, a dropped sword spun over the hand Nickolas now fights the demon with two blades and drives the black hearted henchman toward an outward direction, in step for better footing toward where Ana stands. Using a proper fire defense the combinatorial of the flame’s deluge and the viral tenacity of dark magic, she sends flames toward the demon now surrounded, but it dodges ever so quickly and she bathes the phoenix in fire, which only usurps her eternally enamored flaming anger drawing in Ana’s power and her stamina with it. She faints upon the very ground she stands, Nickolas sees and rushes to her, holding her in his arms he looks for the signs of danger that he must offend. This is of simple requite, Malek stares into the battle noticing both sorcerers battle their negated powers and staring into each other’s eyes, one in disadvantaged position at the moment, surmising the situation as if looking through a twisted mirror.

The battle ensues of fervid anarchy, poised himself high the carnage of the city Troy tarries at the lane, firing arrows upon the dark wizard into the swelter of black magic and blood chaos wile. This does not appease the hellion demon cleric, the anger rising causes him to approach Troy, the sundered phoenix lands between them with open wings a blasting kiln heat as it catches the air and flaps it's wings once again to land stirring hot sand that melts into glass as it is thrown to the dark wizard. The citizens of braveness begin to assault the viperous termagant of darkness from their hidden positions as Troy mounts his flying phoenix friend and launches skyward. The bleak magician throws his arm from fingers reached in front of himself around to behind himself in a feudal resenting wave of virulent storm against and across any who stand there to assault him continued from the cape of darkness used to defend the storm of glass. Merlin gains his ground with new composure as the evil creation throws another vile burning star, but it burns against a spherical wall of cold air projected by the mace with an orb at its end. He is lucky enough to have time to absolve himself both that of his assailant and his own agitation, disillusioned he avoids engagement mired by poison.

Termagant: “In silence your waking breath shall be your death.”

The termagant seeks Merlin the wounded wizard, Merlin's mace has no longer stormy matters, only avid power and a lightning bolt pierces the heart of the demon in derision, short of time long on consequence the starry bolt comes crashing downward. Violent iridescence, veins of fire in his dark eyes, the soil vaporized and excavated, launched into the air slowly drifting through to the ground spread out as dead ash in a thin layer of dust and debris, shifting unpredictable serpentine actions before Merlin.

Malek stands over the demon, draws back a weapon and clubs the black wizard's face with the sharpened edge, alas, it simply cuts the flesh as if only a simple lancing, and stays the bone unadulterated like leather bound on stone. Rising with ambition of object permanence intent to intersect he rises with poison beneath his vestment, an interest to surmise and focus his power, a face clear of emotion while seeing in echoing shadows. The lightning scorn Merlin unleashes in his retribution is rash and wide, poorly cauterized blood of white silk seeps from the wounds and smites the venomous wretch for vengeance. Lightning from the sky strikes and when the smoke clears the demon is dying, a tear on its chest from top to bottom of complete darkness.

Merlin: “Who sends you errand?”

Merlin points the sphere at the demon and shocks him with crawling electricity through the wound that causes it great anguish. Alas, there is no reply. Merlin drops to his own knee and grabs him by the fabric of his linen.

Merlin: “From whence bode this evil?”

Merlin relinquishes his grasp, a remorseless precaution in noticing the demon is heartily cold and heavy in an eerie sort.

Termagant: “There is a storm you cannot vanquish, druid...a torrent of death, enjoy this minor success…and tremble human.”

Merlin: “Are these your last words?”

The serpentine demon tries at laughter deridingly with a hole in its lungs, Merlin watches waiting but in patience aborted, he takes the luminary crystal ball slowly from its mounted point at silver mace and abruptly forces it into the open wound filled with muck and mire. The purity of white light alone, pains and sprawls the walls of the severe laceration. It reaches its hand forward from the ground of which it lays. Troy puts his boot heel to the motioning arm and spears the wrist to the ground, the termagant cries with many evil voices of trapped souls, a decaying lament of fallen evil, the onlookers moan in shock with awe, fearfully timid of another blast.

A nearby cart of willow, ash, and elm tree seeds, used for Pegasus feed among other things, gives a renewed assistance to Merlin who takes a handful, his steps beginning to stagger a beleaguered frustrated stammer. He holds out his hand and it begins to glow a white light, he steps back as while the seeds he placed develop luscious green vines beginning to take root from within the creature, as soon do many others. Three roots begin to grow tearing from the body, magic as by a spell of Yggdrasil, culminating crippling last moments for the creature. Roots tear into the ground to both ways of the street and one beneath the wall, also growing upward foliage into the air a tree. As pallid blood runs slowly does grow the poisonous vines of the nightshade, the roots and vines consume, when there is sight without slight, becoming over growth of white birch and weeping willow tearing the street and a vein to a fracturing wall as the sky begins to rain on a rough drought. The slain nether dweller of putrid poison covered with the tree of life, from primitive to as be of lo the sight of death defeated.

The phoenix begins feeding on the leaves with young rider Troy loath to let it snack the budding leaves as the tree swallows the darkness devil. Merlin still paces away from the growing tree never looking over his shoulder even once to the noisome demon deacon. However, now Merlin equipoise and legend, the time uncertain becomes a font of adamant anxiety for Nickolas who awaits a waking bride to be.

Ana: “You’ve come to save me.” A smile and smitten relief.

Nickolas: “I could not breathe until you did.”

Merlin’s face is old and rugose, the spells and magic have worn him so, a grey beard now longer than it was at last morning fall, portend the stellar light in a mourning rain and poison brewing in his veins.

Devlin: “Wizard, are you dying?”

Merlin: “Cut that tree and burn it in a furnace, I’ll fare well…soon enough.”

Soon the king’s healers help in time to hurry a mending of the wounded and offer a chance to drink green libations and golden meads brewed by fairies the elixirs of late.

Malek: “An apology is in order?”

Nickolas: “No, just remember mine as a friendly face.”

Malek: “Is she healing?”

Ana: “I’ll be fine.”

Ana and Nick relieve in peace and look to Merlin leaning on a broken wooden wheel drinking the bottom of a bottle first with Troy standby.

Malek: “What you have done today…”

Merlin: “There is more to come.”

Post haste does the Runelord arrive, running faster than his feet can tarry forth, his servants and guards trailing behind him as he slides halt with Merlin sliding to the ground.

Runelord: “I came as soon as I dare. That was awesome.”

Merlin: “It’s no fun ‘till someone dies, save thanks for this quick fellow, but if you really want to help me you could get me to my feet.”

Runelord: “Tonight he’ll dine with kings, but perhaps first you could help with the recovery boy.”

Malek: “Yes your highness.”

Run to the aid of others Malek does, as the Runelord stretches forth his hands and helps carry Merlin to his feet.

Runelord: “Another mess you have ended.”

Merlin: “He survived the battle.”

Runelord: “Who is he?”

Merlin: “I know not…”

Runelord: “Can he be trusted?”

Merlin: “He cannot follow the morn in which we leave.”

Runelord: “I will hold him then for you.”

Merlin: “Hold him, so then naught a league caravan trails behind me.”

A lovers amendment Nickolas and Ana steaming in the dawn rains, Merlin watching and waiting for the interests and intrigues of the innocent to question him he stares at a phoenix squalling in resentment and opposition to the people hewing the great weeping birch in two, but soon watching in confusion young Troy, rider of the phoenix, in shared consternation. A perilous witless worry wont to overcome this and become one with the weather, his limbs and wounds are white as roses inexplicably and no longer of any doubt or discretion, desire in their hearts undamaged by the thunder of an impending rainstorm.

Merlin 2 Cover

Merlin 2 - 9 Duplicity

Merlin 2 - 9 Duplicity


The fires burn each as abated, grievous exaction blunt the blast has spread vaulted disparagement as the carnage has spread fear, pain, hatred and the power on infamy of the demon who snakes his way, cutting through the shadows toward the castle as the palaces burn. A weakened rain poorly mists the scene trying to dampen the fire's ambition, an unrequited mind stares with vitriol, immaculate and tattered in reproach of pleasured indignity another ancient immortal the same in tatters without accolade.


The hour of conflict draws near, the unrequited mind seeks the king's court, time and temple opprobrium fills the hearts of every that it pass but in clear sight, plain without inhibition and impediment, for his malice it aspires to kill the Runelord. The tower is dearth of avocation, decoration, degradation of the city the disparagement burnt evokes the citizens to muster pulling patrons from collapsed stations and in armor crowding their sorrows and treasured homes. The tower window gives an advantaged vision for the wizard Merlin, staring to the street to slight the egregious plight at first sight with first bound. The termagant enters the broad way of the main street. The hasted chaos of confusion allows a solace in pass through the sundry lane toward Merlin and the tower. Its steps concealed by anarchy as much blighted by the darkness that clouds it from the fire light and waking stars of night.


The worried patrons of patent hide and heed council with the king, the mendacity of the crime leads only a furthering search for the assailant of the city as doth the countless haunts fallen, in the tainted moonlight lament the symphony of the cretin of war. As if dragging vapid shadows by kite string the paltry nightmares of squire dreams in this critical hour, whence the guards of the bastion gate found missing or maimed. With security reclaimed and awakening infinitely contrite and confused, an emissary rushes to warn their overlord the prophesier. Merlin overhears the whispers in the catacombs and rushes to front the lowered doom and to glean vestigial truth of who has come to murder or which has come to die.


Sleek to stake the yet cunning assassin to the fires of disaster Merlin leaves his place on high, into the carnage, he will rule the rue and slips into a tunnel of vision seek to scour the earth for the termagant, but in burgeoning anger, he directly discovers the sprawling provident shadow of the demon. Undertaking he secretly follows the destroyer into the king's quarters, lifting his feet, Merlin exudes a bronze mist and he as well consumes the light, a dark cloud without shadow nearly invisible. The enemy is complete colors in negative inside of inundating shadow, an evil counterpart the heir apparent swart opposite of Merlin, a rational gaze with dark hair and stained skin, transparent eyes glazed with smoke onward in garb the color of volcanic ash roiled with black ink, an identical stature immaculate with boots of soft wood and lion’s skin. An evil counterpart, trying leave behind a duplicitous façade as a gift to blast the king's quarters, rests a pouch on the regal bed, the edges of the satchel unfurl to all sides as Merlin approaches in arrears of vengeance due, and the termagant stops as if to notice the predatory sound. Merlin is lurking in the light when the demon turns, as he draws a strong breath and glides to the wall in retreat, the blade of his dagger not hidden by his transparent guise, but the foe is blind to the light and glare of the sharpened edge goes dost. It looks to its rucksack and opens the lid of a small strongbox, two tiny snakes crawl from it and hide in lieu the linens of the king's bed, soon leaving them and the room with a final small steel case, Merlin follows meretricious and fixedly.

Approaching the tower, as the antechambers hold a quiet expectation of the dawn, the shadows do not forsake the humble sleep. The termagant's dark life elevates its ability to a conscious misdemeanor, solitude and silence and with of great dementia the vigilante determinate walks step by step and heartily apace swift heretofore steadfast wherewithal. Passed the remarkable pictures and statues eager to carve and paint the skies with the blood of heroes by means of the dastardly package of lustrous yet volatile contents, passing by windows and few waking eyes of those cowering in the dusk forlorn.

A sublime resignation it mixes the explosive excoriation without reckless regard for opening observance, Merlin arrives and irreverently contravenes as he steps forth without the cloud of magic that consumes the hall, from it pacing forth, with sinister demeanor and from arrear, approaching the oblivious termagant. Staring are scared scholars, bystanders as the onlooker rap fear into their standard, plumes of smoke wistfully adrift the cinders of the city seen from open window, ado architecture forsooth indeed behind the tapestries in terror those that have not flit hence. Daubs the spirit leaving the guile tenacity wont to evil feigns divinity, the lines of the whited sepulchers that stand errant in the realm made of faded fair marble course the sign of glowing dark magic working over his skin. Merlin stands pallid with heavy eyes and Termagant with visage gruesome, a hoarfrost chill of fear the bent of his genius becoming manifest as Merlin’s own mystical powers of manna coursing in stricture pattern becomes luminary from beneath the skin. The evil incarnate throws aside the vials and concoction, as it breaks the glass on the wall it dithers from Merlin’s encroach as while a table or throne between them both.


Merlin: “Who sent you?”

Termagant: “It matters not, you shan’t survive… I was sent by the mist…”

Merlin: “I cannot hasten death,” Merlin paces around the obstacles at differing paces to judge the fear of his foe, “…I may only call it by name…”

Termagant: “I am the name of a myth, ghost of the nether.”
Merlin: “Who sent you?”
Termagant: “…Seasons of the abyss.”


Stand there these sentinels, illusory, sufficient accuracy they are frightfully frozen in step, unhurried and wise is Merlin as he afore they approaches the termagant, chaste of the meridian shallows the devil with strange uncertainty of any hasty devil with locked eyes. Merlin anxiously yearns to learn the flaws of the fable foe, to fell it by simple throes. The demon quickly begins a fight with a short-chained knife on its wrist in a vain attempt to dash and destroy Merlin, but in subterfuge and distraction. Amongst the device and error, swiftly it makes a tangential escape through the tower window, leaving behind Merlin to his virtue, fleeing into the demoralized public masses with its evitable wretchedness, plummeting over ledge out of sight. Merlin heeds sage wisdom and stares a dark figure sliding down the course dust wall and callous hands against the slope of the spire court. Tearing through the masses and swiftly turning the alley its dark cape chasing around the distant corner, then with the demon gone Merlin retreats to the sea of the mind, to remember the clouds and storms above the pools of quicksand, where he had seen his opponent last in the ages of past, the tragic protagonist torments.

Superfluously the shadowy anonymous figure has left with more than a vagabond's garner another instillation of duality yet in hatred anew is the evincible immortals, each unto the other in chasing the dark wizard have come to believe that each they are the other, one fearsome foe and one dastardly defendant irrevocably convinced that they have lastly found the termagant.

Propensity

Fate must be the attempt for ultimate freedom in sound mind, solemn body and established means. A less intrusive governing limited to protection from coercion and violence, when embracing individual responsibility opposes limited conditions or petty differences to propose private charity of established wealth in toleration of diverse lifestyles, including equally equitable industrialists and defenders of the unanimous civil liberties of the entirety of society. A belief in government action to achieve equal opportunity and equality for all is the duty of every leader between all aspects, from on high to the masses of the lower orders. To alleviate social ills and protect liberty in and of individual and human rights, whereas the role of the government shall be to guarantee order to chaos in plenty to needy, with constituency over boundless justice, for all to reprise the corrupt that are adept to apt government control. Common law is life where freedom is the luck of prosperity, where danger and opportune judgment combine there must be a formidable and impenetrable reckoning, checks and balances to eliminate suffering, eradicate and bring fear to surviving criminals, and breathe life into the eternal.

Achievement of dominion will create a new order, but a minority in no way signifies an imbalance, each life is in the balance of the wings of angels and demons, solidarity leads to misdirection, let your course be straight and true and truly be yours, intellectually informed without laden burden. Special messengers with extraordinary insight, powers to see and receive eternal truths, and the ability to communicate complex concepts in ways acceptable to the masses, use this opportunity for personal responsibility, limited empire, free markets inbound of law, values and morals within the construct of time to provide the freedom necessary to pursue victory. Empowerment of the individual is the last defense. Embrace freedom of choice in personal matters and logic eccentric, there is no fate but what we make but be considerate of the effects of your affects, significant government economics can exacerbate volatility and aggravate hysteria, hear the truth and take control. Subterfuge hides in agency and may advocate illegitimate expression to favor whimsicality in place of certainty, prove the environmental expression, promote equality of opportunity with favor and tolerate diverse lifestyles that reward success, failure is not an option.

Espousing a debate regarding government control of the economy and personal behavior depends of condition. Depending on the issue, government intervention supports individual freedom of choice, but pride in attention tend to oppose all arguments in extreme and emphasizes hypocrisy as an awry practical problem. Such issues of every choice is not plausible, all of not your concern or none left to compete, forever definite is the woman’s choice, a stream of indifference to the life less ordinary but tribulation begins at the breath of life and often sooner with rearing. The means of destruction of the high success candidates by those in uncertainty is of their own accord and protected, but not provided. Let the halls of the dead be monolithic and immense, and filled with echoes immaculate, will it come without perdition wherefore who will tarry for the coming of age, amnesty at conception or murder at conviction, wherein no child shall have illegitimate guardian. Or perhaps you wish to judge with prejudice, deprivation has limited potential inherent of accord, but rationing is wise of all that need not waste or create gluttons, but in foremost theory devoted sincerity, communication, and trust provides ample delegation were one to be racist and not xenophobic, exonerated aptitudes would rule at best their understanding. Using merit and assumed ability for admittance is what has brought society to this very moment, a natural selection has no assertion but factors solution and outcome, but pandering teaches nothing but incompetent practice and redundant rhetoric that has lost efficiency in the doldrum, compensation by means of alteration only isolates the radiant failure and compounds the leaderless and self-enlisted. No less than divine to favor sustainability by using the capabilities of democracy, frequently provincial our behaviors reflect our values, endorsing values in defense of structure thrives only in a society that affords them.

Warned and hopeful you still want imperialists and thunder, certainty and category without economics or individuality without freedom, finding impractical options of a distasteful rogue state that plots conspiracies with threatening tranquility reprise of enemies and questioning the royal command and granted civil liberties. The time to survive vows against the lifeless illusion, though it may be each vigilante hiding in the fog of sacred knowledge, the appropriate punishment is equal in its own reward, but never granted for retribution, fitting of the crime shall be no inquiry of concise levels of severity. Exceedingly clear should be the brimming profundity of boundless wickedness, vanity will not tread in darkness nor shall the law, neither can be remitted to subliminal definition.

Sight is sold and truths are told, without either is monopoly. The official quorum protects the customers, but this government must be of the people, the knowledge must be intricate and consummate. Private sectors of government tax the public, it is therefore their interest to see befit, but an adequate voice is required to regulate interests, competitive private enterprises create opportunity, but those who understand those conditions must set these standards. Productivity is growth where boundless capital exceeds the norms compelling the standards of life where there is only freedom, and taxes reciprocate in excess with endless possibilities and not a damaged imposition. Patience is a virtue and all good things come to those who wait. If unintelligent and unintelligible, zounds, find a book.

Then one day I became lost and wandering into the darkness that is totalitarianism, I realized nothing ever again and buried myself into the ground as a plant. Do not believe the communist lies of despots and fascists, globally we are unique and as I have heard ‘rebellion is the bastard of conformity’, it is a certain ambiguous fallacy with generalizations of diagnosis, aside from the belief systems of communists falling short as of time immemorial. Motivation and initiative to achieve personal accomplishment by studying, saving and succeeding, is what humanity deserves and freedom unites, no matter of the disposition the belief system will be the only common attribute of society. Communists share a brain with the others of their species in order to survive, an interdependency known as the welfare state, in exploit even in times of desperation. If the contradiction were not in capitalism, it is surely in education, with a strong dream and vigilant perseverance public schools could be a prized element in solidarity, yet standards in place of rewards and defiance in place of participation has clouded the people, neglect of participants has led to ambivalence of outcome, salvation, survival. Condemn all that do not improve performance in as much diversity as desires, competition is not to the benefit of the establishment, only its patrons, where we exceed expectations will be the admired refuge for those wishing to burden escape, by means of knowledge.

Blind thoughts of meticulous science, measuring the contrasts of pain and suffering could even scour among the risks for danger and opportunity, comprehensive for the youth and complicit for the wise. Cell research crosses moral lines into quandary in best regards, for it is illegal to administer anything that causes fatality in the name of science unless delivered to oneself. In cellular research, despite the cell’s potential existence is a donation by law, separate from body of origin to be of great importance. If the donation of life were objectionable, there would not be reproduction, and if the destruction of life taken were in error, vegetarians would be we all. Embryonic stem cell research does not lead to cultist consumption or zombie addiction, nor is sacrilegious in namesake, the ethics however implicitly deserving of debate do not negate the necessity. Funding is a matter of discussion, but in preliminary efforts should not receive open funding to avoid conflicting interests. Forsaking none, the potential to comprehend the healing ability has been within, its graces given by any or all are yet discovered, and when revealed may heretofore rid the wants and needs of every.

Where there is fire there is smoke, but more assuredly, there is fuel. Endless presumptuously not, exclusive perhaps, but common again nay, other sources must be explored, a plan of action is ever so required so that proactive account is made and discovery is part of the agenda, at very least our worries should be to undermine the market with another option, and not create deplorable inaction. Not diamonds from coal or blood from oil, we find them all beneath the soil, but on this wretched mortal coil, we tarry every day and toil, so why should there not be unlimited power sources created of wind and solar energy until the energy created is more than it takes to create additional power harnessing units. Anything and everything is of petroleum, from plastic to pharmaceuticals, and we simply burn it. There is a fear of those with firearms, a mindset that cannot allow what it needs to control and suspects a lack thereof, by those who have not the composure they demand of others and so they must not make rules by conjecture or schools of thought. Of course, militia may defend the empire, but as with anything so may those who would one day take their places in the busy fields of war and mercy, furnished with many a skill of family based origin, to complete the understanding of what they defend and infer what government overlooks in cases of hypocrisy. Anger is a power and can be lost easily, a weapon is violent but is made with a purpose, fear the mind of hatred that blights the eyes of others with no less than consternation.

A criminal looks like everyone else, expect no less apprehension by the other countries or unions than deserved in turn, latter innocence does not exist. The soul that cannot close the void of evil in their originations is incapable of such at settlement, in fact, it is invasion and colonization, an imperial distrust that aspires to impose rather than become a new nation and tell its elders to forget the nationalist malaise, and make babies not bombs with better genetic identity. Support the legal registered entrance of visitors, a visa perhaps at the very least, without amnesty on leave, there is no better than this democracy and it cannot sustain the traditions of the less than human cannibalism and sacrifices. There must never be remediated laws for illegal immigrants, crossing a border without patent is the crime, save the lives of the slaves. Eminent domain is the glory of eminence and the question of a public end, a martial state will only awaken the best of revolutionaries, or so much has in history’s endless doctrine, despite the lack of origin. Respect ownership and the rights of private property, seizure with compensation is more than adequate, depravity will be paid the due consequence, the hand of the law cannot sweep aside a private citizen and owned property at the pomp and circumstance of wealthy developers, no more than lost is peace of mind. Guests upon the planet are all, plant more trees than there are seas and give to the desert what it has provided, and in its full grow over the sacred land. Where the lower orders are many, the voice of reason is high above, in absence there is silence in the garden or the grave.

Merlin 2 - 8 The Vulcan Temple

Merlin 2 - 8 The Vulcan Temple
MJ Banks

For as now the fates muse upon this tale, to graces be upon it another immortal, the first and ward eldest Nick with cavil and calumny and his stalking counterpart the lured and lowering spy as intrigued as Nickolas can possibly and with a boundless fascination. This second immortal now above Nickolas, Ana and the mercenary David, hides in the rooftops and catwalks, not yet to have slipped the boundaries of this one of many capital cities as a wretched insipid foe. As they sit scheming around a map, surely plotting their next mendacity he is sure, he watches with drifting eyes beyond their conscious sight and dissonant forlorn paradigm. A tepid minutia in the city, the people with an unspoken fear brimming with laconic terror, they knew innocently how to be mercenaries, how the blood of the fields in august burns red, but not how to deal with an insurgency. Without the rune lord seer forsooth to foresee the doom for the city, the movers gave what they could, to further the fund of a hunt for the demon, and the carping shakers standing in the street ask for more of funding unable to do more than cast aspersions.

They sit at an outdoor tavern looking over a map, not a private setting but quiet as scared eyes pass and heavy eyes drink amongst them. The bartender walks elsewhere toward two garrulous drunkards at the counter, but as they beg the bartender, he will not pour a drink until they first pay. Young and drunk men binging on the spoils of a good harvest and immaculate yield tout to shout their tales, making no haste for epithets of poor taste and striking a cord to sing anew a humble chanson chaste discursive. A bandbox pub with a whole fourth wall missing, counter on the left, chairs inside and out, not many tables for all the few customers, one establishment of more the like for many. Allotting a plan and plotting allay for the city they scour, the map for what may be their best attempt to hasten the incarceration of the abomination, an abandoned road with the empty and echoing trails of banding barterer and bantering barkers with new and old chattel. Nickolas, Ana, and Devlin beseech their disparaging quandary an exhausted and forlorn retinue spitefully seeking to smite the conflagration.

Devlin: "We've tried here and here," he said pointing to the map, "Lass, what do you know about illicit materials?"
Wench: “What are you trying to find?”
Nickolas: “We hunt the agent cursing your city.”

The young woman pours a drink for they, and pores over the map to look inside of it, intently silent and filling each stein and all three each to the brim. Keeping her hand upon the handle and the lid of the pitcher, its lid twisted shut by she to close its spout, and in putting it to her side, she sets it on the table and points to the map.

Wench: “There is an alchemist, there, near the Vulcan temple.”

Devlin takes keen to fright, he pours his drink down his gullet and drops it to the table ever insatiable and renowned as so, the dark maiden pours another drink for him and reckons her parable.

Wench: “He has many things he shouldn't, you can't miss it they dress completely in red and paint their skin red to dance like fire in the virile nights.”

Two official sentries stalk the lane, approaching the pub in the wall.

Wench: “I told you nothing...greetings sentry, a drink for your thirsts perhaps?”

The sentry men jovially accept in splendor with looks concernedly pleased and vessels of violence gaining stamina in voluptuary momentum. The drunkards continue their fated fete in ode disrupting the mere patience of the forever more immortal waiting in the lofts and crofts and rooftops, and he turns away just as briefly as the shadow of the great Phoenix, a heartfelt airless shade of sunlight that consumes his fascination. High above the great wingspan and a majestic winged creature that lighter than air soars as bright as the sun in its coveted tufted crest. By the time that the shadow passes, the investigators he shadows have already gone toward the temple, and as the fates restore the assassin’s creed from the lofted capture of the muses allowing the spy to reveal himself and return his attention to the search of vindication. They were gone and he missed them, so he adjusted position, difficult as it were any insidious reproach or dastardly obstacle would not lengthen pursuit, not on a day of days, a unique immaculate reproof soon made on new perch with furtive disposition.

A temple white with granite corrugated pillars, perhaps a mausoleum of monolithic measure, many torches alight and in sequential rows each ablaze a flickering candle performance surrounding the edge of walk and wall, a service to the dark and its painted dancers in an operatic fire sermon intended to haze a brazen storm if forthwith they knew its coming censure. Silk swaying savory cloths, free of pattern and deepest red sway in doorway and foyer, and draping across the empty towering walls to keep them clean. Banner gleam for every perchance-passing patron, even in the streets the young dressed in red robes and sparse clothes of every red in its spectrum dance, dream as they lie about, lollygag about the sacred tales that once in elocution to woo the fairer species, and repeated to sound imperfectly pertinent. Each cultist agog aground painted with golden emblems on their faces enjoying the courtesan fete to delight, as of late, dancing like fairies around a statuesque representation of their Lord Vulcan holding both in hands the fires of the gods fueled by wells of white oils filling the marble statue. The interior a more prudent order with members each a sacred warder of the holy ways of fire and immaculate incarnation. Heavy and laden robes in deep thick hoods, walking with their hands in the opposite sleeve, pacing and reading, making candles and braiding wicks or writing in essence the druidism of their priesthood, the worship of fire and the alluring hypnosis therein, keeping the aisles of their sacred temple in sacramental order.

Side by side, the detectives stroll through the decadence as they spot the dolt monks and move to ask them of the rumored alchemist as the dancing girls, with heather flowers in their amber hair, wave wands with banded tassel tail. Many chosen, in solitude walking of differing ages, worshipers of holy flame need not inquiry, for their notice of three mercenaries or outlandish hunters in fallow colors of land and not blood easily noticed as foreign seekers in auspice of the alchemist among the elegant ceremonious courtship. By a simple gesture, the first of the dolorous monks approached soon pulls a hand from the sleeve of the opposite arm and points down a dark foreboding alley.

In morrow awaits a dark timber door lurks dark and dreamless in the haunt of the storehouse, a shadowed port in an old city wall that nearly fears the three, large and closed to the outside world. In the pore, two disparaged and drunken youths scuffle through the narrow stricture.

A rejuvenate group with the smell of wine and an unrequited young fellow with stammering stride and their arms over the shoulders of each other despite the narrow pass one tugs on their line and breaks from their formation.

Knave: “…While you’re…waiting outside the back door love?”
Ana: “Your pestilence causes earthquakes."

Stares Ana into the mind of the boy, outside the purview of the common law, with an enticing stir a lustful entrancing fire brews within her eyes and frightens her fascinate.

Devlin: “And you are in splendor charlatan.”

The broad and large Devlin though armed slaps the obstinate and oblivious drunk upside his head and shoves him by his accolade sending him shuffling and scurrying to follow his kinfolk. The sound of the alms of the calms, there is time but for remnants now, they surround an alchemist's shop, the immortal spy lurks deep within the midst.

Nickolas: “I'll go in and ask; you watch after the exits a few moments, Ana will watch the door.”
Devlin: “Why can’t she watch the gutters?”
Nickolas: “She's less suspicious wandering the streets and you're less concern in the alley, less people who know you to stop and distract you. Ana will leave you in the alley, come in the front door, and pass through and leave through the back door to meet you again and walk to the front door."

Devlin: “Why?”
Ana: “Anyone who is conspicuous will run passed me or back into the shop and rush out of the back door where you'll be to stop them. And besides, i can’t get in conflict with someone in an alchemists shop or its stock in the alley."

Devlin: “Why the hell is that?”
Ana raises her palm to his face with a red right hand as she twiddles her fingers. Nickolas intervenes and slaps Devlin across the arm.
Nickolas: “Immaculate incineration, come now, time is of the essence.”

Down the stones laid for path and filled with dust and ash, the door creaks slightly open and swings aloft blowing the red curtains out of the window to let them gently rest in again. The unknown immortal watches beyond as thereafter Devlin enters and passes slowly through the poorly lit area to the brightly spacious foyer and out the front door, once outside he squanders his attention to one of his comrades, starting a conversation keeping one eye ever so to the door. From door to door a myriad of multiple magic wares and other fares to stock the average secluded shop, in the rear near the alley blocks of black wax, remains of spent candles that had never corrupt stacked like boxes, on the walls candles of every shape, color, size and sort. Upon dozens of shelves, bags of seed and severed grain feed and boxes lined with burlap and filled with powders for patrons to heed, in fine granulated compilation categorized, but beyond still clever reach the choice items for the experiences and authorities whose voices were better known and whose coin had yet still a better weight.

Nickolas began his time as customer, looking through pannier and lot, whoever sought of tarried arts in benefice to a proper alchemist or newcomer to ask the owner. A stolid fellow, well into his years with the character of an architect or engineer, long and strong but grey with faded glory. A glazed vacant approach to apotheosis, launched well into sleeping awake or dead at the stake where goods or alchemy are best and dearly bought through tenement dwellers with proper erudite patents at a counter surrounding the prized contents of the shop near the door which Nickolas had entered and overlooked his onlooker. A useless glare and lesson learned, unashamed but suspicious he looks away and continues his motion to seem inconspicuous, passing his hands through powders ignorant of their names and claims, appraising the stoutly musk smells of each as the shopkeeper shows signs of life merely, reading a book in erudite behavior.

The Vulcan priests and alchemist apothecaries that travel to the neighboring tribes enter, as does the nether foe in the darkness of the alchemist's shop, the manslayer rich with opprobrium and vitriol, seething shadow beneath the shade. Enemy of the light and disintegrate obscurities the tyrant of slaughter is seen by none. The newly arrived regulars drop a bag the size of a rucksack full of brimstone to the counter, and in turn, the master of alchemy slaps his book over a small and segregated piece of it turning it to powder. He scrapes it to a small saucer lifted from a scale and pours it slowly to his clear glass of blueberry wine, the water turns from blue to green and he adds the saucer to the scale and begins counting cheap coins that balance against the remainder of their bounty. Nickolas continues looking through folderol useless trinkets in aspersion and muted hilarity due by the probability that, an alchemist can more often than not forge his own coins.

A malady unbeknownst, the viper demon stirs in the murk ubiquitous as lies, passing beneath the light and behind the shadow the same as in other acquisitions of his dark materials, distance aware. An immortal, in search for the bomber with an entangled revenge finds Nickolas in a nearly hidden shop of volatility, the venomous agent entered and not seen within its confines seeks supplies for penultimate destruction. In dark reflections, it will be soon he finds fit to fulminate a final wrath upon the city for it mentions the fallacy of purity in the supplies of the room, and shortly thereafter an explosion of intense meaning and mention, as if two stars were in mend a blast sieges and surmounts every perishable. As life swallows the lives that race against the sun, the walls begin ripping and the lands slide followed by a great quaking of the earth, fiery torches blast through windows like furnaces while the sly murder gives a smile of pain in elusion. A most course thus of dissension unfound, the cunning bomber sees the two stand, but turns and rushes to the castle, the bane poison of dissention.

Outside at quick wit Devlin escapes emulsion by entrapment of contraption, a shielding wall from which the fire cast it across the street. Ana luckily, swoons by the torrential pyre of fire like a kite attached to a wick, with every step engraving memory by those who watch but simply gliding with agility to balcony thereby, drifting like a ghost of the sun. The fires rage to alarm a circling phoenix page for the nomadic lord Merlin, but the good wizard sees a city structure throe. In as much terror there is so surely many ghosts, Ana like an ember standing in a tray of incense and now two immortals, quantifying the carnage of the site that with a single fuse of dark magic and hellish fury has brought the search for justice to a new close. For each immortal, the ally Nickolas and the yet unnamed counterpart staring both theoretically and practically, each believes that the other is the perdition responsible for the vituperation, pigeonholed in battle seek the death of the other, infecting the logic that this may be a long way to attrition.

Merlin 2 - 7 Dark Agents

Merlin 2 - 7 Dark Agents

Every eternal in strife, where the gods emerge from clouds, the adept immortal accepts fate as a perilous just that must become the hunter of the poison rains. Life ceases and enters the lustrous darkness and creates the infinity that is chaos, screaming that appends to time and overshadows the silence until even the light in the mind vanishes, there the Termagant waits for invocation. In the silent dark the only voice burns the vision of the mind, a legend to the beholder with a heart of virulence, the plan to revoke hate will partake, infested with pain the betrayal will occur and the dark agent will be the sword of evil. With a great audience, echoes become the demonic reality as impostor perils the waking moment, lurking in the shadow absconding darkness with death to dole. The dark agent of reprise with ancient lust, clutching simple carnage staring at a tavern, simple discontent seething from the hellish ether beneath him aching to repatriate desperation and looking for no particular victim tonight.

The Termagant seeks trouble in ample supply, waiting, watching in silent nightmare, he breaks his poring vision into the distance and collects pieces of shadows, putting them into the parcel satchel he carries. With the desire to remember, frantic shaking hands trying to remember or forget annihilation, standing when noticing the lack of control. Stoic stance and walking grace, solid drive and determination in even paces, in even traces in the pit of the moonless summer night, with bag in hand it drops the satchel creation at the back wall of a public house, alongside the doghouse and other loose useless timber. As the locals spend their loose coins on barrels of rotgut or vineyard wines, they sing and sound the tides of their daily wary toils in the soil. They dance upon ground and in moments without a warning sound, as the dark agent leaves sighing with solace resound, the delivery expounds its purpose, an explosion of fierce intensity and brief duration of hell’s fires to the surface, the evening rests as a blast at a garrulous tavern.

The horror of a tempestuous explosion ends with a rising ball of fire, rubble and rough terrain is what the weeping eyes searching through the demised remain find in the dark blue early morn. The morning view of dastard carnage, tiny streams of blood, bone and sinew, and wrath, Merlin stands watch as Ana tries to console the sorrows and dejection equally Nickolas and Troy sift through the scattered ashes and broken and currently smoldering hatch roof. In the blast, the garret where the casks and kegs were, had fallen on a great many a few, but beneath the debris, a survivor struggles to escape. The wrath is whole and complete, not a simple hole in the wall but a scene of aftermath, where a building once stood. The remnants in darkness begin to shake and scatter as gravel rolls down the remaining structure and a body begins to surface.

Nickolas finds the struggling limbs of a sole survivor and proximately sounds to the others in group, “We’ve got a live one here,” he touts as per continue, to pull the lucky victim into the clear of the calm. Troy hastily rushes just before helping him drag the would be decedent, and the survivor crawls into the clear as the last of the stone thrown, covered in dust and caked blood, able to stand in surly will. Troy stands infatuated in slighting disbelief, not only is the man standing accordant, without leaning or yearning to seek a healer, but of sound volition standing above and painted skin beneath the blood of heroes without a single scar. The survivor still coughing though, lungs full of ash, gravel and or turf, he dusts his clothes and shakes the dirt from his dark hair, in contrast complete and utter opposite juxtapose, nearly sharing the same breath, clean to dirty from blonde to black between light to dark.

“What happened, what do you remember?” Troy asked in a quiet and consoling tone. Still dusting himself the survivor coughs once more and speaks with watery eyes and a pallid tone of disbelief.

“I was having too much to drink as I do, and then smoke and fire,” the stranger spoke.

Though the young magic squire Troy stands close with intent, Nickolas looms closer. In opposite quiet as dusk, staring at a man dressed shade to shade the opposite as he, and no sign of injury from a collapsed building razed. The survivor turns to the abruptly close Nickolas and speaks again shortly after noticing Merlin approach from the distance. “It all happened so quickly, first I was standing there and then,” without hesitation, he strikes Nickolas in the throat with the clasp of his hand and punches Troy with the other, and starkly absconds with any further information chased by others into the maze that is the city Utopia.

Merlin stood watch as the young man escapes, in confusion to reckon in pondering luck, he drew a lit smoking pipe from his sleeve, readily alit and cupped in his hand, stoking the fire and drawing the smoldered contents into his stern mouth as his allies rise. Meanwhile the hellish embers beneath Ana’s fingernails began to cool, whichever manifest spell of fire she wished to summon and divulge, had not the opportunity for the swiftly elusive and confrontational unfamiliar person.

Troy holds his nose, “What the blast was that?”
Merlin answered from the distance, “Just that, I suppose.”
“Will you live?” Nickolas asked in a rakish coarse voice of an ailing Troy.
Troy: “Yes, I’ll be well, I imagine…”

Ana approaches for emotional support and besting a witty comment with sarcastic interring inference.
Ana: “My boys always getting in trouble, what did you say to him?”
She asks and waits with her arms crossed in half stance.
Nickolas: “I know what I’ll say when I find him...”

Ana approaches Nickolas, dusts his sleeves and attentively straightens his jib. Merlin ceaselessly approaches them, as Ana helps then with care to Troy’s cracked broken nose, discovering sensitive pride and reluctant preservation. The wizard Merlin stands taller than the day before, with echoing eyes befit a rejuvenated physique free of fray, he looks carefully over everything, not turning his head until he has soaked the scenery and looks once anent to the sky. He looks down again as Nickolas steps to his side.

Merlin: “Did you recognize him?”
Nickolas: “No, should I’ve?”
Merlin: “I thought maybe a name would help us track him; He’s in your family.”
Ana: “What do you mean, ‘family’?

From a distance, they check for wear and worse, she mends the nose of Troy to his begrudging frustration, a maternal touch and a loudly sound of brush underfoot in healing seams of a broken nose with a mending spell, and then a patient grace. A rewarding appreciation the pain magically abolishes as she whips her hand away from his face and gives a simple dusting of her hands where the dried blood of his wound easily brushes to the ground. Nickolas suffers sever frustration, a simple menacing consternation of whimsical confusion he cannot tame nor consume asunder.

Nickolas: “He survived the havoc here…but he looked nothing like me.”
Ana: “He looked like you in opposite reverse.”
Troy: “Like a dark mirror.”

Nickolas looked to Merlin, hoping that it is his time to speak a revealing decisive moment, but there is none. They watch as the sorrowed bring out the dead from the debris of the destroyed pub, a collective memory of the reckless terror none yet incarcerated.

Ana: “Would you remember him, if seen again?”
Troy: “I sure will.”
Nickolas: “Assuredly, I owe him best.”
Merlin: “Good, we may just need his help yet.”

The audible melancholy of the saddened families of victims caterwauling their loses, as flammable libations spill out of a leaking cask and begin a new fire, Ana rushes to the fires and with the tips of her fingers of an outreached hand the flames behest into a quell. The recovery continues for a city in woe, with aloof lumbering and sickeningly morose with yet another destructive malaise to mar the citizen’s spirits as the burdened tend to their wounded and dead.

Night Terrors 12 - Infiltrate, Destroy, Rebuild.

Night Terrors 12 - Infiltrate, Destroy, Rebuild.

Castor drives in his sharp car and sporting mind toward the city of death, seeking a paradise lost and dreaming as horizons end. His commotion is a streamline, swiftly traversing stolidly cursing what could and might have been of his wrecked ship and uncouth decadence of this planet of which he rides. The emitter plays a favorite song, one he has heard many times echoing the voids of space and the wind blows his hair and cools his face. Near the boundaries of the city, he finalizes his list and checks it twice as he make the radio loud as possible, folds the seat back and away from the steering-wheel, and begins to ride the car like a board on a water wave.

Castor: "Reinitialize the location transponder on the vehicle."
Pollux: "Consider it done."

With a glance of the eyes, followed by a simple gest wave of his hand the deadened control panel illumines with new life as the vehicle careens toward gridlock traffic, Castor's eyes narrow and focus on the heavy sunset haze.

Pollux: "Do you see it?"
Castor: "I do."
Pollux: "Good, I think I'm bored."
Pollux still no more than a subroutine in proxy in their current condition, spoke of the endless city.

The car crashes the back of another unsuspecting driver, who was humming an annoying adult-rendition of a nursery song, sung by someone with repetitive rhyming disorder, a collision causing a near decapitation and a concussion in three cars beyond it. During the impact the abrupt force and momentum throws Castor in a streak over the cars and toward a light-post at the side of the bridge. He grabs the post with one hand as he effortlessly arches before vaulting over the edge, spinning about it once with heavy momentum, and in spiraling once slides down the pole and over the ledge of the lengthy overpass, landing out of sight and beyond mind into the shrouded divine masses wandering under the accident of the far further streets.

Castor roams the street, walking against the throng taller than they are by eye level as they pass him effortlessly and oblivious. He wanders the streets until he sees what he is searching, an obvious currency machine located further along the sidewalk, he approaches the line and waits his turn.

Police Radio: "More units to the St. Matthew bridge at the Oceanic Street dock."

Two walking patrol officers at the end of the block hear the announcement and assay to pass through the busy thoroughfare to the accident location. Castor waits in line to use the ATM and when it is his turn, he approaches the machine, places both of his palms on the screen, and hangs his head low as if exhausted, beginning to access the network as the person next in line becomes impatient, hollering obscenities of the rube sort.

Next in line: "Hey fucker, move it, it's not a hotel!"

Castor turns and looks at the unruly person while his eyes are full of mechanical nanotechnology silver ink, startling the next in line into silence. The ATM prints a receipt as long as his forearm covered in an indecipherable alien language and dispenses a stack of money in large denomination as the entire machine slowly dims and disconnects its connection with the main network and electrical grid. Castor takes the money, turns, and punches the bystander hardly in his stomach causing him to instantly keel over and fold in half on the ground, but before falling to the walk Castor also takes the unprepared victim’s wallet.

The two cops down the street witness the assault, and chase him from the scene, daft and dash he eludes through the multitude and into traffic with both constables in ready pursuit. They follow him with a nearing ease, as they are sentinels of the city, born and bred to extinguish the crimes of civilization, large and following him with formidable speed. Castor leans forward in his escape and as the excursion trails out into between the lanes of traffic at near halt near a traffic signal, he reaches into the passenger window and pulls an innocent through a partially opened vehicle window, throwing the unsuspecting person into the path of the closest chasing police officer.

The second officer is close to encounter, only one lane the side and eager to don demise against Castor steps onto a vehicle in traffic and lunges, only to crash into the glass too thick to break of another vehicle in trivial pursuit. Castor had grabbed him midst air and thrown him in a spiraling vault, himself falling to the ground and early to rise. Pollux's voice, the compatriot of cartography and hidden counterpart, spoke genuinely somber in his mind.

Pollux: "We’ve attained surveillance brother."

Castor pivots his step without hesitation, dashing in a new direction. A camera has begun to witness the course of events, surely the first of a fleet, to avoid too much evidence he darts into a storefront. The flatfoot keen to follow, fully fomenting anger with Castor's evasion, follows through plight as pursuant, but obstruction unavoidable as broken aftermath causes janitorial droids to not only clean a mess but also inhibit any further following of Castor and Pollux. Automaton machines defending a digital deity as Castor kicks open a rear door to an employee area.

A dispirited Castor in desperate haste tears the pipes casing electrical conduit, grabs the wires and screams as a torrent while his eyes turn silver and begin to glow with conductive heat, the silver springs course into his eyes and soon the power to the building dies. He glows slightly, burning forever endless, as would any in darkness but soon remits to cold circuitry and referred corruption, the weighted hanging doors fall like castle gates. In the eve of sunset he slips the confines of the building with only electrical authorization, the windows shattered, the walls tattered, and the establishment's security tapes scattered, into the violence of passive future whilst the voices of shadows converse highly intrigued with the cybernetic trespasser.

Night Terrors 11 - Sullivan and Scion

Night Terrors 11 - Sullivan and Scion

An art fair, the type that celebrate the yesteryear of days gone by where old garb and wit are the common display, provided for a charge to the locality. The likes of archaist language in lavish attire, surrounding the prioresses and young dukes tasting the wares and bartering fares as a shadow vacant in the sky above a one-room tent-house with a curtain hanging across, between its middle, to separate a small cot and pot-bellied stove to provide a solitary brisk evening and a single tenant heat. Afore the hung partition within the draped tapered lofty panels of the entrance, pinned upon the outside of the red tent cordon to large button hooks and bound in large golden ropes with tassels on end to lifeless lay. Within therein stands a wooden table, a partisan sat upon a hewed log made into beveled stump sits a man in a blue walking cloak and an equally velvet pointed cone hat, one what that its top lay lifeless from fulcrum crux lifelessly draping over the back of his head.

Sitting across, before and facing him is a young demure lass, prim and prose of humble attire, unlike the norm of the world beyond the festival and yet nearing the style of the patrons of the fete, a new way of the old, reserved and shy. Between the two, before and currently a crystal ball upon a dull and hammer driven paupers crown, no peaks or points, only a ring to balance the glass filled with smoke, as a silence is broken the prophet speaks the words of fate before action. At the edges and exits, near the entrance and penance throng, men of the army sieve through the crowd, they begin to infiltrate without speech and violate the solemn peace of festivity as they encroach to the tent of a distracted visionary.

Stalking assailants parsing the ground quietly through the brushwood, and running through the open paths, each strikingly similar to the seer, fair skin and hair, yet the enemies teaming with enmity are different as their eyes have solid black blood filling the glass orbs that hold it behind their face.

The fortuneteller jumps to his feet, but not with sparing time to acquiesce the hunters of he, the members in service to their leader sack him. First he is put in bonds, wrist to wrist, leg to leg and placed into a burlap bag from the scene, and binding both ends with ropes and dragging him sideways from the camp to their vehicles, carelessly tossing him in as if quarry of the hunt only to drive from the location. The commotions of their careless disown throws dust and dirt from the vehicle lot and in caravan down the narrow lane, in the absence of light with total tumult, captive he wanders into frantic sleep without wit of where.

He later awakes surrounded by foes of darker sight in a dimly lit interrogation room of sorts. A two-way mirror panels a portion of one wall adjacent the door, which he can see without any way but true reflection. As his captors beyond the glass watch their servants of night-mirrored eyes latch the harness of a straightjacket and toss him into listless disparity, he brings himself to his feet and tries to kick the guards, but they push him down with ease.

Sullivan: “Tell me why I'm here.”
Guard 1: “Supposed for a purpose.”

The door opens and a slender man with stamina tensile strength apparent with the muscular contours beaming from his nearly perfect black suit enter as the guards bring him in a chair for him to sit.

Interrogator: “Tell me what you do.”
Sullivan: “I help people try their hopes.”
Interrogator: “I need you to help me try something.”
Sullivan: “Try and make me!”

Sullivan runs and throws himself against Mr. Jack, but with the bottom of his foot, with his knee sharply bent, he kicks the prophet swiftly and all but gently against the padded wall, one, which its covering has long ago, began to wear.

Sullivan: “I was just about to offer my services.”
Interrogator: “Oh...were you?”
Sullivan: “Tell me what this is, who are you, what authority do you have to ask someone like me anything?”

A voice interrupts through the grate on the wall behind and seemingly through the looking glass, the voice of an important villain in the employ of the Invinidine Corporation, and similar in appearance toxic features and all. One notable difference being that he is dress regal and fantastic as if courtly and imperial.

Scion: “Wait! Don’t answer that…”

Sullivan looks with frantic haste, in dissolute fear, his chest stretches like a bird without wings, his back arches in dreadful angst as he tries to stretch the straightjacket. The malaise of terror begins to cover his eyes with a glaze of separation as he coils from fearful instinct. Intense contortion he looks to the flickering lights in the ceiling and his eyes offer the signs of pain without the sound of lament.

Scion: “Are you going to help us Mr. Sullivan?”

Sullivan vehemently becomes exasperated, his eyes suddenly awash, his frantic emotion drowns in violent sadness, all yet he does not make a sound whilst he begins to cry, though not one note crosses his teeth. He stares at the mirror swiftly after looking to the man in the chair and vaguely smiles with contempt insurmountable of fear and joy where silence is broken.

Sullivan: “…Yes…”

Spoken in a sigh of relief, and further delve into melancholy Sullivan falls in broken hopes, emotional pain, and wounded struggle to the floor as the two guards and inquisitor gracefully leave the room, taking the chair and the light with them.

Sneaking Behind Myself

This Saturday last, my network connection failed and I was compelled to disavow my DSL ISP and attain lease on Cable-Connect. Only a small count of my days later the cable was connected and I still could not attain network connectivity, so I discovered the problem was both a failed on-board NIC and a long since failed Wireless Card, replaced the card and achieved a connection. After being without connection for such a long time, the new terminal speeds are 20 times faster and I have been previously in time several days. I wish I would have snagged a lottery number or a better coat, but for those days, I could not attend to my business, sneaking around my previous self. When I returned at my departure, I have come to realize that I have not lost time nor wish to gain any anew. In my journey, I’ve finished the plot to the second book and sketched a cover without the means yet to upload it, and I though everyone, (the site counter marks unique visits, not total visits…or what has been read) could use words of wisdom, maybe a reflective supposition. I get more from listening to metal, than from most conversations. The voices are no more than what they were when my mind was young. If I write what people say, I would not have anything to write that is my own.


The next volume (M2)will be much more violent than anything I’ve ever seen, the grammar precise beyond finite, with a darker morose verbal assault wholly full of metaphorical nonsense and evil magical acts, I’m trying to send a message into time, frightfully so. I feel that the books are advanced, with malice and vernacular of higher if not highest education, but I feel that it is not only complex but equally well written so that despite the intricacy the text will be easily understood. I wish not of words glossed ambivalently because the reader cannot read them, but of words learned with inherent aptitude, with the apparent simplicity of seeing and believing. Writing or typing the old words for the first time, the surface of everything becomes grey, dull and lifeless, a chromatic distilled electric static that bathes everything, my instinct being often that if I detect any imperfection in the surface of time I must leave my musing meditation. In this course, I believe that I have lost my short-term memory within only moments, as if being a blonde-haired person was contradictory or like something. My only recourse has been to wager with the gods to learn the plights and means of their magic, and write a message beyond this time. If I were to say that I don’t know what is reality any longer, than I would be insane, but if I cannot see the reason that god has given, I’m just melancholy. So in refute I tell of deities and divinities and let every voice of my mind tell the tale and their whispers, and dare bid you read the allegory with great caution.