28 December 2012

Merlin 3:8 “Sin and Sacrifice”

Merlin 3:8 “Sin and Sacrifice”

In the early day while children play two lovers sleep beneath the furs, enrapt and embraced with thoughts of having penance soon erased as patient slumbers oft wrest of peaceful minds, what fires in his waking eyes are all for her heart. Pulling him close their eyes focus on the bathing light and secrets of adoration.

Ana: “Mine love, to speak the window outward look.”
Nik: “What sight beseeches thee?”
Ana: “Peace and love without sin, lest thru the morrow.”
Nik: “"They proceed to plow and support themselves; I have assured tranquility for me and thee.”

Having stretched his shirtless front and contorted back to peek from windowpane, he holds her smile and delightfully presses their lips, before he crawls from couch and stands to dress himself. She watches him with pride and empathy for sympathy of devout emotion, no more callous than whereas be erst description.

Nik: “Are you to take your meal in wait?”
Ana: “How so would a queen take morning comestibles?”

Nick sits on the edge of the bed and dons his boots, smiling and stealing glances of her in vibrant form, but as whilst her early deferent concern a disturbance in the form of horses carrying barbarous slavers charge into the town. Taking people as possessions and the latter as the ilk Nik hurries into his boots and stowing hidden blades, it is all that he can do to speed into tunic and peek his head thru the collar to peer himself from the window in concern.
Nik: “Can I go play?”
Ana: “Fine, avenge thou my cause, be home anon?”
Nik: “Of course, love.”

She smiles as he kisses her then runs from the room without his full armaments nor looking back, Ana wrapped in blankets walks on her knees to the window and watches him run into the street to begin a fight without so much as a stone in his hand, he fights swift to take and use their weapons versus them. A terrorist falls to the ground, grabs that of such a stone, and rears his arm to brain Nik, but over him the nearby fire crawls and intemperately feeds on feeble skin, her magic has ignited the felon and her lover bootheels the raider’s chest causing foe to fall to fire. Nick turns and runs from her sight as she from the window, her back uncovered from nape to the small of her back in a chilly morning and dangerous freedom, sliding her feet, she slowly spins in the bed and stands. Wrapped in silver furs she walks to the tall dressing mirror and reflects her midsection followed by passing her hands across her stomach reservedly to merely admire it.

Merlin: “Have you told him yet?”
Ana: “No, and you won’t either! How many times have I told you about shadow walking?”

She covers herself, whipping about the cloth sheets to conservative concealment, and heretofore looks out the window then to Merlin as she seats herself on the mattress.

Merlin: “Are you coming or going?”
Ana: “We’re staying, favor us and tend him; we will later spill the blood.”

Outside and elsewhere Nik sneaks thru the quickly vacated town only fighting an enemy when they find him, he spies like they amongst them to find method to their madness and the surface to their malaise. With spotting the slave wagon cage Ana hast of yester-night spake he walks toward them, disdained while surveying all information he may yet confident he will endeavor victoriously, discovered he runs to them without fight or his capable fury, instead of escape he haphazardly runs thru them with intention of his own capture. Of course, he masterfully fights a little, toying shortly with those who first grab him, but into their arms he has made himself caught with much noise for façade.

Nik: “Recede the wicked blood of lies; capture will only lead to your demise.”

A brief plea of apropos polity before put is he unconscious with a swift demotic strike to his brow, large Neanderthals of fearsome stoic strength sluggishly stand and twist to survey the surrounding terrified watchers of mothers clinging children clinging hopes of heretical dissimulation, their confidence of posture perfect dotes the arrogance of equivocation in disregard to sensation.

Nik wakes with his hands shackled above him by chain tethered to the sturdy woven cage posts dried and lacquered, the others with him are anxious as their eyes bounce watching from wagoner to the captors on their horses, uneven road and imperfect rolling wheels aside heathen mercenaries makes for shaky delivery in a journey that spares not haste. Around him are men and women, all young or strong enough to sow fields and families, beside him a boy of considerably lean stature, named Thane scrawny and gangly he reaches through the posts to where the wagon hitches cage to solitary chain to steel hoop. Shouting at his captors while failing to free them all he retreats his arm before it is broken by the boot of a rider, but still curses them from within the cage confines.

Thane: “I choose independence and liberty to create civilization, what does not kill me empowers, with freedom shall I rule.”
Nik: “The king of social depravity would you be.”
Thane: “Who are you again, and before you tell me, why should I care?”
Nik: “I’m getting to know the enemy.”
Thane: “Good, what’s our plan?”
Nik: “For you I’d say hold a tree when the wind blows.”
Thane: “I’m quick as a whip.”
Nik: “Sharper than a hammer get loose and sabotage everything, rapture without capture. I will take care of the rest, can you distract them?”
Thane: “Only a child can look at tyranny and admire it.”
Edith: “I scath a chéile a mhaireann na daoine.” (People live in each other’s shadows.)
Thane: “Is í ding di féin a scoileann an dair.” (A wedge of itself splits the oak.)
Nik: “Coimhéad fearg fhear na foighde.” (Beware of the anger of a patient man.)
Edith: “Tada gan iarracht.” (Nothing without effort.)

The wagon cage jostles because of a rut in the road, and after a time of speedy travel, the captors feel not followed and so travel at a slowed rate. By the end of day, they most slow approach a camp for soldiers, tents in rows of six by four surrounding a larger black tent with space before it for its occupant’s lessons or leisure. The prisoners nervously quiet themselves and seek what wiles in fearsome guiles. The wagon finally stops and soldiers gather to transport prisoners to an imprisoning, a traipse over resistance the soldiers speak in presence stoically not, their leader among them is the butcher Kent of decadence and indecency, as he looks over the captives Nik fervently hides his face furtively, his turned face does not hide is recognition.

Kent: “This one, this one the master seeks.”
Nik: “Fuck.”
Kent: “Please, take him to the tower and put him in the bracelets, secure the others in the corrals.”
Nik: “How nice it is to see you again, Kent.”
Kent: “The pleasure is mine. Take him!”

Kent by shouting at his horse rides quickly to the castle, as Thane begins to struggle Nik shakes his head discouraging revolt, escape for lack of trying withdraws patiently notwithstanding. The quaint tower bastion is tall for a man but small as an edifice for it braces three storeys leant against the corner of a shorter mason keep that together resemble a barn and silo of stone.

Drug into the watchtower at the top of the stairs are cages filled with mostly young girls, some younger boys, and a man belted to a table for unwilling surgery. The cages are aside each other, though directly against the floor, resemblant to kennels of animals and each patron treated as such, remanded to filth and tepid squalor. Put into the cage Nik attempts to reach his hands thru the bars to the sleeping boy aside him, to check for heart pulse and beneath eyelids for vigilance gaze alas unable, restive he turns to tother lot and faces a strong commoner girl.

Elaine: “You are in wary confines, soldier.”
Nik: “Who is that upon dissimilar misfortune?”
Elaine: “Daren’t speak to an, his teeth are long and cries are horrid.”
Nik: “A kind word never hurts the tongue.”

Others shush Nik as he calls to the man on the table, persuading him in tendency near whisper.

Nik: “You look here, under the knife, what is your name?

The man replies not and quite hoarsely groans and turns his eyes weakly to the white cloth-covered window as dusk palls. Reprimand of anxious preservation and condescension of the current condition to liken child maiden to a mother’s tongue as he lies in cuffs and bandied thought, a second effort becomes the latter.

Elaine: “Don’t speak to him – should he escape he would surely drink our throats.”
Nik: “Shall he avail it should be his captors will he assail. What is your house, Scarlet, Crimson, Vermillion? I haste to savor allies.”
Roan: “The house of Scarlet, savor your breath lest shall I.”
Nik: “If freed, canst thou stay thy thirst solely of your captors?”
Roan: “Might that I may, but not children’s hands can slip those manacles. You share their vanity in your emotion, but I will be avenged whence my kind bleed the sky.”

Nik bound cannot reach into his boot and so rips his hand from shackle, his eyes well with tears for fears until his bloody mangled hand is loose, he spits the piece of tongue bitten in distraction of his forelimb pain through the cage bars to the floor. The smell of blood causes Roan to cry of emotion conditional to his race, venerably just but comparable to only that of compulsion. With the bloody hand, he reaches deep into his boot and pulls a knife from hidden, deep with the blade he cuts deeply across his own throat, much to the dismay of the children, especially Elaine caged beside him whom screams of original terror. As guards hurriedly rise to the height of the tower, the smell of incarnadine blood infatuates Roan into the fervor of bloodlust.

Once in the room the guards shout ordering silence to the scared and imprisoned, as they look to Roan to learn his predicament has not changed in passing confusion they enter frivolity and laugh at all around them.

They make jest at what has happened, complete with time spent taunting Roan amidst his sanguine fever, only to tend to Nik’s body in labored death, whose immortality is conditional to his life extinguishing before he may heartfelt breathe. As they drag his bleeding corpse from the kennel, his wounds heal unbeknownst, and the very sight of this clamors Elaine’s mouth shut and shiveringly, silent. No longer as decoy, Nik kicks hands from his ankles to wreck knees onto fell floor, swift to fight and flit to strife he throws one into his open previous decrepit cell then straightly stands and snaps the other’s neck.

Nik skip-foots to lock the cage door, causing the mercenary to retreat within it, and when grasping the cage sides the children kick at his hands. Niko walks from the instance of captivity to Roan whose eyes roll with discomfort and blindingly greyish yearns of what has been a longing for blood as Nik solemn unties him.

Roan: “You are different.”
Nik: “What have they done here?”
Roan: “They were looking for a way to be vampires in the daylight, I was their living autopsy.”

Roan of Scarlet stands and puts his hand to Nik’s shoulder, his mind weak a tunneled double vision blights his sight until the newly imprisoned guard bemoans the situation, daringly taunting him, Nik, and the children in the cages. Roan disheveled and distraught drags his feet until he faces the cage of the impolitic guard, his weight leans to one leg, his aches show through his thought. From the side of his lightfoot his arm holds across his stomach, his bloodstained clothes hang loose on him, and the dark circles under his eyes are bleak around bloodshot eyes.

Nik: “What keeps you?”
Roan: “Open the cage door.”

Roan smiles with those words, as Nik walks to the cage doors, the terrible guard terrified clings to its gate to keep shut a breach against his painstaking sanctuary. He releases tothers and with a flippant smile kicks his hands until the latch and gate openly swings, the inimitable children having cheered for vengeance now stare in dreading silence as Roan leaps faster than step to feed. His head sways as it tears, when he finally backs out the cage he stands appearing many decades younger, from his condemnatory face the children tremble. Nik, peeking thru the doorjamb, waves Roan towards him.

Roan: “Wait, I’ll first, stay ye close, wend we for the trees with equal step.”

Roan moves to stand atop the stairwell, the shadows behind him as he faces the bottom contrast the faint white evanescence of budding spring dusk and tint of blue moon.

17 December 2012

Merlin 3:7 “Dangerous Prey”

Merlin 3:7 “Dangerous Prey”

Nik releases the victim’s hand and lifts his heel from the dead man’s neck then walks in order to return to the mining encampment. It is sunset and with as much, the rise of night and other most exacted dreadful creatures, when vampires travel between castles and cities they must bury themselves like foxes in dens, this evening two such creatures emerge in the dusk, first their hands then sitting-up, crawling-out, and shaking-off. The commotion of Nik’s has collected much of their attention that can seethe beyond primordial instinct to crave and lust the blood of man, as Nik walks down the road the first of two unholy hunters feeds on the dead mercenary while the blood is still warm, it is only moments before the blood irrevocably decays of death’s threshold. The second walks without noise and stalks without poise, merely a shadow of moonlight and nothingness, as the first begins pilfering his meal the second closes-on Nik and suddenly attacks, biting over his shoulder into the neck so masterfully quick that Nik can only reach forward as he is drug from footing.

Soon, as all vampiric meals become, Nik dies from the death of sanguine purge. The vampire drops his lifeless body to the ground with the dismissal of breath and disgust, with the sortie ended the bloodbreather picks thru Nik’s pockets tossing aside anything not wealth or weapon. With a miscreant sigh of boredom the vampire sits on his chest patting him and petting pockets for coins, sliding over his knees he checks the trousers as his compatriot Matteus joins him.

Matteus: “He smells delicious.”
Smythe: “He was, and you know, I still feel unplaced; how many towns still on the list?”
Matteus: “We scout three and a fourth for a pound of flesh.”

Smythe lifts his knees and rolls onto his feet with youthful vigor, the night is young and so forever is immortality.

Matteus: “How thirsty and when to slake?”
Smythe: “I’d say I could drink again before dawn, most queer the feeling, I see color in my veins and farther the dusk.”
Matteus: “Excellent, that shitheel was rotted, I might relapse before sunup.”
Smythe: “We shall exeunt before an interruption.”

The sky is dark and the sunset is not horizon nigh, but Smythe sees it with euphoric eyes because of Nik’s immortal blood, because of this fact Nik awakens from eternal rest. His heart begins to beat anew and over their footsteps, Smythe hears the drum of vitality, he puts his arm against Matteus to tarry them to of brief pause they both hear the heart. They run excited and wistful to drink him again but closer tread slowly, Nik hastens to his feet and rushes at them, their faces adorn bemusement and insult for they fear him not. Closer unto combat he his quick and exacting of his begrudgingly violent redress, making certain to break an elbow joint and make it a point to twist the neck of Matteus, which does not kill him but slows him.

With his buckle stolen and in Smythe’s pocket Nik slips his belt from waist with ease and swings it around Smythe’s neck who is trapped but needs not breath, Matteus walks patiently to them whiles nursing his arm that holds his wrung neck, he rolls his head to adjust split bones and riposte Nik.

Matteus: “You should be one of us.”
Nik: “Shall I, why is that?”
Matteus: “…no gods, no master…”
Nik: “…no sense of style.”
Smythe: “Let, go, of, me.”
Matteus: “Why do you fight, we saw you in the road and came to help you.”

Matteus sees the side of Nik’s neck, despite being drug by the throat befang there is neither scar nor blood.

Nik: “I, was in the road, you, put me, on, the fucking road, would there be any chance I could oblige a mutual intolerance?”

Having discordant epiphany Matteus delves through transient memories ignoring all of what Nik has said, instead of polity and pleasances he swifts into the forest night leaving Smythe in custody, away and opposite the direction he was heading.

Nik: “Save surprise; your ally just a-went.”
Smythe: “I don’t need to breath you fool.”
Nik: “I know.”

Nik kicks Smythe’s knees to fold them and fell him to the floor. He steps his weight onto the vampire’s back and pulls the belt to rend and rive the vampire’s head, blood splashes in his face as ravens balk.

Minutes later, Nik is dragging the headless body of the vampire by the foot, arduously marching one hefty step after the next, into the town where Merlin serves medical attention to the haggard and wounded. Ana uses her magic against the fires until all are calmed and smoldering blackened wood stops burning yet heat in the cold spring night steams the air of saved abodes, except for one house that burns bright and hot. She stands before it wondering why it will not subside and for a moment stares at the steaming cobblestones around it only to discard her longcoat and peek inside the immolating structure, piled ember glows from within as townsfolk gather.

Lord Mayor: “Come out of there lass before you burn with it!”
Ana: “I’m sorry mayor, but this one will have to burn.”
Mayor: “Firebrand eh, it’s alright, just another coalhouse, plenty more where that came-from.”

The dragged headless bounty garners attention from the people with gasps of silence, maintaining caution eagerly Merlin joins Nik to quizzical happenstance, with his final efforts Nik sloughs the creature with three labored steps sluggish each more than the last to lastly drop the leg pulled.

Merlin: “Canst thou speak of wagons?”
Nik: “It got away from me when this one and another attacked me.”
Merlin: “I take it you didn’t bring him here for questioning.”
Nik: “No, it was a vampire. I reckoned you’d want some of its blood for spells, whichever you magicians might use.”
Merlin: “O, very good, save yourself a heroes place if they say you’re not useful.”
Nik: “…and if I think I’m not?”
Merlin: “Then you’re not. Our thoughts become atonement.”

Merlin shuffles through his cloak for an empty vial and kneels aside the severed shoulders to fill it.

Ana: “So the raiders were vampires?”
Nik: “No, this one and another crawled out of the earth at sunset then made meal of me.”
Ana: “The trappings of sexual lust, power, and control usually confine them to bastions not sepulture.”
Merlin: “Gives us another sword to sharpen.”
Nik: “Whereabouts is Troy?”
Merlin: “Nearabouts, we haven’t summoned him because he they hast sought.”
Mayor: “They were here for us, the firewing was merely benefic, you have disenthralled us to-day, and you can have the silver we hid from them.”
Nik: “It is the least you can do.”
Merlin: “Nikolas, shut up and allay me to toss this body on that fire.”

The burning edifice now in embers without walls is quick to consume the tossed body, the smell is rife with foulness causing all spectators to stand upwind of it. Thru the night, the people fest and sing battle songs of glory, with Ana and Nick eloped to private moments Merlin calls Troy & Alerion by sticking a metal pole in the ground, hitting it with a stick and merely mentioning their names to its vibration. They loudly land and when Troy hops-off, the phoenix climbs into the embers of the burnt lean-to, despite the exhaustedly drunk people it rests and without Ana to calm rogue fires Merlin must stop the blaze from spreading to homes adjacent. He takes a section of a tree trunk and places it near the fire, from his pocket he pulls a vial of water mixed with blue pixie dust and sets it atop the stump and then pulls a magic-wand from his sleeve.

Merlin: “Watch children the work of magic.”

Merlin pulls the cap from the tiny glass jar and taps the rim with the wand causing a cannonade to erupt and send the blue magic into the thick clouds of drizzling overcast, without result the phoenix squawks perturbed to reprimand him, he waits for one moment and a rain begins to fall on them from a cloud. The phoenix quickly moves from the adjusted downpour and gives sounds of detest that turn noticeably to resentment, for it believes that the raincloud is following it where it treads and flies gustily into the air to confront the cloud with watchers laughing.

In the morning the carrion birds that drank the blood of a murdered vampire and became vampiric themselves, fly toward the sun as they forever have, not knowing the condition of their immortality, when the sun rises over the earth against them they extinguish to ash that falls to the forest floor as the gods have willed to be.




16 December 2012

Coven Concept Covers

Some of you have been asking for artwork regarding the Merlin series. Here are the first five who I can safely say will not die during "The Coven" -- Alerion (Phoenix), Nick, Merlin, Ana, and Troy -- in that order comprise a banner poster as well; each were scanned at 600DPI in greyscale as jpg. Click one of the little images to enter the slideshow, then you can view/save HD images, enjoy.

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15 December 2012

Merlin 3:6 “Pathless Taken”

Merlin 3:6 “Pathless Taken”

In constant rain and covering clouds the thunder clashes against itself and the rainfall, with the din of growing trees and crawling mountains as various in form as in power have forced Ana into a tavern. The panache of a multitudinous choir to her seems convivial, a point of familiarity as Troy enters the room alone and soaked by the stormy skies behind him. From the quality of his clothes he could be dry, from the quantity of rain he is not, there is no extraordinary excitement produced by his phlegmatic demeanor in the jovial minstrelsy, accustomed are the inhabitants to these effects of rainy wellspring days and comfortably in melody. Lightning defects from the downpour without, electrical skies as the door temporarily lies ajar while he removes his gloves from lustrous pale gray hands and shuts the door behind himself, his lax eyes of languid vigilance and ponderous apathy now enkindle with enthusiasm at the sight of proper sup. He stands tall and stoic, herein a strapping young dude now of many moons truculent more than half, and a scrivener of poesy to import affectations to courtesans and the like.

The rain subsides and the springtime resumes garnering safe passage into the yonder, on drying ground Troy leaves and finds the phoenix nearby foraging and feeding on the newest Adlai of the season, as he saddles and ascends Ana leaves precisely in time to see his departure to the sky. Her horse is a dark blond youthful mustang, compared to that palomino her long trench coat is darker still than her thick red dress to match her long lustrous sable hair as ilk strand of the steed. Of circumstance to proscribe warmth it is a new day full of radiance and verdant pastoral growth, which of time the sun overhead is passed thru noon sidle to shoulder, Troy on familiar Alerion soars seeking the warmth whereof the solar delivery so skyward that seems to her as small like sparrows red. At this time, such that is better than half of daylight hours, on the horizon approaches a caravan, atavistic in nomadic appearance as to have a cage wagon full of prisoner melancholic young adults, quite opprobrious and contradictory to her altruist solemnity. In forthright oncoming, she assesses a hap morass and remains silent but keen to spy, soon of quietude broken the riders tarry mounted before her as their horses dawdle in minor hesitation, of aspiration becomes conversation.

Tynan: “Should I be so lucky to help you on your way?”
Ana: “I’m sure you’re often wrong and never unsure.”
Tynan: “From a spiteful tongue for a heathen, perhaps you should bathe and rest in my comforts.”
Ana: “What is the name the people hath yclept you?”
Tynan: “I am Tynan of Faas, tired ruler of grateful many.”
Ana: “Tynan of Faas, I am sorry, but I cannot have men whose only strength between their legs is a horse.”

As his compatriots laugh and prisoners fret, Tynan circles his horse than rides quickly around hers, abandoning invitation and flirtation; angered he draws his sword and shouts at her with adverse aversion.

Tynan: “Up with your hands, dismount!”

Amused and besmirching she benignly raises her closer hand, it radiates heat and vapor illusion thru the air then eventually into fire, fear and dismay possesses the envying prisoners and the featly horses are not ambivalent. He steadies his steed of fear and bleak remorse then speaks to rebuff her threat.

Tynan: “You would not be the first witch I’ve killed today.”

Troy glides overhead eyes shut and listening for stark lightning with the wind in his hair and his mind in the clouds, Ana peers to the sky then stares at the captives as she ends the fiery enmity manipulation within her grasp.

Ana: “If you do, my bird will burn your eyes.”

They laugh at her and glance at each convivial other to share amusement, in distraction a captive secretly toils with the cage lock only to have their hands kicked after the fact. Their bemusement stems from the sight of phoenix flying so high seeming like a smallish finch, she waves her arm to and fro at Troy, he begins circling in a downward spiral, each revolution around them getting larger and closer, the slaves begin to lapse anxiously while a calm and quick one toils again with the lock during convenient distraction. The approach silent does not scare the horses, with a squawk the phoenix close upon landing decides to free-fall. Opening its wings and gusting strength to land it abruptly comes to earth, a final fluster of wings to fold them beneath and the phoenix squawks again, a chirp in consideration but so newly loud to scare the horses and the slaves into begging complicit escape.

Troy: “Who calls me to the Earth?”

As Alerion yowls, half of the bandits have fled, the others having noticed follow suit hauling the prisoners to mayhap a madrasa or dungeon, Tynan of which is last is fastest flit from confrontation that has surely scared his shit. Ana dismounts her horse, walks to the phoenix, and hugs its head, its beak nearly as long as her forearm she places one hand to its temple and with the other points to the slavers escaping post haste. Troy’s attention swiftly diverts to a jackrabbit, then his bow, then his arrow, and then his focus anent hitting the creature and veritably their lunch, Ana comforts the phoenix again and points to the ground, proscribing time for meat.

The life of history and legacy of blood flowing through the earth, rolling over counties and kingdoms, spreads the horizon from departure to destination for the excursionists. Unfamiliar terrain brings twists of fate and complicit felicity in such a way that the town Merlin fitly approaches is the penultimate encampment that Ana will cross germane before arriving where she and he have planned to reconvene. The haughty town built for mines hides in a dense forest uncut whose denizens have chosen to cut their timber from the mountain effacement to reveal schist broken by rootage and sown by ages of trickling subsurface water that courses through cracks and erodes them, making for malleable mine entrances they have dug as caves.

Tongue in cheek Merlin enters the mining outpost with Nik and Kent most stoically and most reservedly, in their sights are surly and tired kin of neighboring clans, dingy burrowers of men in itinerant moral malaise.

Merlin: “Speak of you the benefice to your godforsaken modulus and you will not need genesis, but expound of our arrangement and by morn you will have not.”
Kent: “Quartermaster in the finest keep, on there, steady by the stables.”

They ride slowly to the stables where he flips a gold coin for the tax to Kent who pockets the doubloon and pays a greyer coin when feeling unwatched, Nikolas sees the transaction but quiets saying nothing. They heartily dismount and Merlin grabs a nearby brush with white bristles to clean his steed, Nik begins walking Kent to the finest house in the smallish settlement, Kent turns to see if Merlin follows as Nik pulls his attention silent in sojourn. At the door of Kent’s unknown employer, there is a knock inquisitor for which follows unrequited, Nik calmly turns to Merlin who subtly points to the inn, inconspicuous he escorts the prisoner to the edifice.

On her horse with her long coat draped over saddle behind her back, Ana paces on horseback into the town. She holds her hand in the air to catch Merlin’s attention and he to her before walking to meet in the avenue. Impromptu, merely before they dialogue, rider and Alerion land heavily and alarmingly rumbling the street, there is dismay and alarm from the bystanders as Merlin embraces his sister in arms. Men and boys in curiosity approach the phoenix, pushing the young aback and ready to attack they reappraise foe into friend as Troy dismounts with eight hares lashed together, handing one to a timid man then laughing at him. Butchering rabbits with a hatchet begins as the waning sun descends and all magic of the oft is scene le fain.

Merlin: “Any luck at the fair?”
Ana: “All was well and good until a sect of plunderers fell into our pockets.”
Merlin: “What happened?”
Ana: “I’m fine if you must know.”
Merlin: “I’m sorry; I would feel awful if you couldn’t tell me.”
Ana: “At the end of our sport we were interrupted by Braden wanting to play.”
Merlin: “Braden Abrecan?”
Ana: “The same, he spoke of the old war.”
Merlin: “I hope you gave him a slap on the wrist.”
Ana: “I couldn’t, it wasn’t solely him, he had seven of us and faithful rustlers, looking for something only to not find it in the run, and guess who with him was.”
Merlin: “Dunno.”
Ana: “Katyenka, from the Vaeringjar.”
Merlin: “This is their fatherland. Is she the one with the white filaments?”
Ana: “Don’t spiel coy, she had her hooks in your barbarism.”
Merlin: “I could use your silence.”
Ana: “It was just an observation.”
Merlin: “No, can you hear that?”

Merlin looks abound most vastly to his respite in anxious fill. The phoenix begins randomly squawking at Merlin, he looks at the road of which he arrived, to another road beside it smaller and into the forest, and turning himself doth make a glance to the third, a continuation of the first alongside the mountain and ancillary hillside. Ana closes her eyes and holds her hands in the air to feel for warmth of extreme distances, in moments she lowers them and looks to him while nodding to confirm trouble ensues.

The sound of trampling horse hooves nears the town and fills minds with unrelenting conception until the small cavalry breaks the darkness on the evening light cast. The riders are zealous and horses with zeal, Sino their leader stops amidst to point the one high road that runs afore the mineshafts, his horse jittery as he points to the lowland at opposite the phoenix. Pulled from immoderate hospice Merlin walks into the street with stoic purpose, pointing to the distant sky while looking to Troy, then looking to Sino as the boy leaps to saddle familiar and into the night sky, the auxiliaries of Sino look disparately confused as Merlin takes stasis at street center. The dark wizard holds his hand to the air and his followers urbane and visceral, a town of soldiers and servants occupying the silver mine suddenly with more noise from restless horses as these two wizards begin a reacquainting.

Sino: “And I suppose you want to keep your life.”
Merlin: “What I feel is mine.”
Sino: “I’m sorry I’m not a stunning conversationalist, I don’t get much time with my memories.”
Merlin: “All of which you chose for yourself.”
Sino: “You are a trespasser on this entire world.”
Merlin: “I’ve come for your bounty.”
Sino: “I’m sorry Merlin, but we mustn’t have time for that today.”

Sino’s veins fill with darkness as he ignites the entire village with the snap of his fingers only to escape as the fires hungrily consume the rooftops, burning and churning ceilings and walls to find the ashes of what remains, in the commotion Kent flees with his accomplices. With excitement in his motive, slipping through the immolate catastrophe as Sino and his mercenaries flee on horseback taking a coach filled with silver from the mine, as if theirs by purport despite the burning domiciles, Nik ties a rope to a heavy metal lantern and hitches a tow from the escaping wagon yanking him from his feet. Dragged the rope also burns toward him by mistake of lantern wonted dost, his bloody hands from force and fire pull him to the wagon rear, climbing the carapace he disjoins a bandit from the back bench but is kicked squarely in the chest, thrust to the road in tumble and tumult.

Nik: “Where are they going?”
Villain: “Down lay your head and I’ll send it to them.”
Nik: “Reroute to remain, you cannot have my head.”

He spends a moment to kill his foe paltrily pulled from the ferry, duly of provocation and dissimulation not before sinister anguish before mercy dealt with clear pleasure.

Thunder crawls most distantly, at the gathering night of clouds the rain falls pristinely verdant invigorating the young pasture beneath closing welkin.










12 December 2012

Merlin 3:5 “Witches Brew”

Merlin 3:5 “Witches Brew”

Where ancient grasses wave and filter salty breeze there is silence to the sea as the tide washes over the beach and granular sand, where midnight meets the sunset the shallow undertow pulls from the depths beyond the coastal border to where the new moon illumines the shallow waters and surface of the deep darkness. Where ebb and flow without the moon is far below the crashing tumult of wind and water, irreverent aqua becomes dark and foreboding to the naked eye, commotion of the repellent waves and level visions fair of far horizon become deterrent to faint of heart without devotion. Witches three devotees to magic and the dark reflections within the shadows cast from raining lighting and water heavy in the breeze, a dark rift becomes ever the thunder tumultuous in ominous stormy skies, the white cracks of lightning thru the air coursing along the dour and the shifting sea. The wind high and sails pulled tight brave and garrulous sailors bring the witches’ staging vessel over a raging ocean born of dusk.

Encircled three witches turn their backs to one another and hold together their pale hands as the waters churn the ship smallest when from shore, against dark horizon and angered elements they begin an invocation to bring spiraling movement to the water. The sea beneath the storm besets to swirling around them as the arms from chthonic monsters of the deep mutilate to remove the bystander seafarers, the ship sinks toward the ocean floor revealing and breaking over a shipwreck sunk long ago, the hurricane drills to the bottom while the mermaid warriors escape a danger they have never seen. The witches wave their hands and mid pieces pull the timber flotsam with their magic and their minds, debris and panels flying while all manner of creatures caught in the whirlpool channels are dashed by the eyes of an unearthed vacuum waiting for sunken wreckage, all save fierce magic causing the sky to pass around the scene sealing the repose.

The massive welling of water outside the eyes of the storm uncovers for the tripartite an ancient cauldron. Supernatural fires embolden the sigils carved into its outer surface to an effulgent glow of green and blue, a brightly glowing radiant into the torrential sky, three witches begin to breathe and seethe the magic within contained and speak be-hither the ululate words for summoning the souls of the dead.

Lulu/Nara/Kay: “Darkness, sacrifice, power, we are the wicked daughters, we are fear, and we are salvation. Come, o void, thru us, our open souls, grant power spited by the gods, to release thee, o prisoner of war.”

Thunder bellows louder as the water spirals faster than that which can be fastest as the eyes of the witches three begin to glow and seem of addled mind while their skins darken, the sound of all nature abandons its ever-present furor as Nara’s skin consumes the wickedly manna from the rage and cage of storm and sea. Her eyes close but the bright nature of her vision shines thru her eyelids, in saturnine retention she begins to speak as the glow, ever bright, serves as an illusion too illuminant for them to see her eyes opening as her voice resounds sharing the words with dread prevailed amongst the inviolable tempest.

Nara: “If we survive, it shall be by killing your blood.”

Quieting the demons in her voice Nara briskly flies to put her hand on Lulu’s face, lightning courses and kills her prey as all dark powers summoned consumed, with wrath comes a witchery war as Kay deviltry attacks Nara effortlessly but without indemnifying affects. In response, Nara extends her other hand and disseminates many branches of black lightning paralytic and parasitic. Dire, deadly, and finished with Lulu she focuses both hands and thusly exacerbates dispended electricity to Kay, suspending her passing and falling aguishly, Nara grasps her face and jejunely drains her second sister witch at the bottom of the swirling sea. Nara looks above herself as the whirlpool collapses, then as the crash compounds itself thru the thunderstorm she walks with dark tranquility on the water to the shore.


11 December 2012

Lost in Time

Personal Log: Thule, Joseph, Dr.
[Interval 1] (27004-212-03) 8:3:3:0


The looking glass is deeper than I imagined. When I crossed through the portal it was like being between a cascading mirror illusion. Another portal in the world I have entered, a third in the one I was, it felt like any other step but I could only sense another me entering the world I was leaving, another door, another me leaving the world I have joined, as if a shadow of matter passing in harmony, saving space between infinite worlds. The portal closed as if it weren't open, so indistinctly that questioned whither was my memory. Reading this I'm sure you can't imagine how I reckoned to my memories, surreal, using the portal again I the time code incorrect, portal has standard tempus-fugit affect, the timecode for this entry is accurate and further ahead than I have physically experienced by almost 3-130 0:17 from the first temporal-dimensional bridge. Nearly a parsec-joule by my arithmetic. I'm sleeping for the night in a closed mine.

[Interval 2] (29034-994-02) 1:2:7:4


The Einstein bridge has put me forward in time, but with the particular spacetime returning to its natural state the new point I chose though statically unaffected had a dynamic momentum, like the sail on a ship returning to a natural state in the wind, with my location on the fabric of time subject to nature's discourse, historical events near me have remained as I remember them, but occurrences around the planet have drastically different outcomes. Further experiment has proven this true, further research related that leaving the log open during a 'jump' forced an error log in this file's meta information. (Error:Lx113377) to be paid or, evacuating planet in pursuit of mutagen. As for the revisions of what I knew to be history, I am either suffering neurological damage, I have crossed not only temporal but dimensional planes as well, or tje prior assumption that using the device alters reality may be true.

[Interval 3] (29034-994-02) 11:2:7:4

My experiment was recreated by the military, it failed with an outbreak just as it had before, just as I or a potato could have predicted. According to sensors the lab is overrun and the moon will soon be deemed quarantined and purged, if not may the gods help us all. Quality points for visiting a clean lab are inappropriate as I won't have time to wait, mission on schedule, rendezvous High Council destroyer is here to burn the rock. I'm headed to Mars on a cargo freighter, for a timeline marker, the Americas have become a sovereign state.

[Interval 4] (29987-777-56) 1:9:7:9

History seems to be a pattern, Mars is in the early years of feudal conflict and secret monarchies, as is to be expected. I went to buy parts for my watch and discovered I'll have to make my own parts, I don't have to buy a new watch, or comm for that matter, but if I do it'll be a federal tracking unit, these are certainly the Orwell years of Mars. Due to technological advancements the portal device carries in a smaller case, nearly all the metrics of equation are ignored, I would offer a reason to go back and warn myself not to create the error, but in paradox I wouldn't be here to do the warning, something or someone put the contagion to a weaponized use, I'll be leaping forward until I know, or do not. Note: when despots teach people that property and identity have anything to do with the other, beware women bearing gifts, I nearly lost the device and my life, her name is Sera. 

[Interval 5] (31900-683-01) 11:7:6:4

Sera followed me through the portal, our relationship is amiable, better than one but less inconspicuous as multiple traveling anomalies. In furthering my research, entropy, the nonviability of energy to do work, conduit space, string theory basics, astrophysics, rocket science, FTL, weight, acceleration, transistor-superconductivity, it's all ten over six to crystallographic subspace transmission, velocity of light in free space. I need to build a mirror element structure, where layers of gravimetric sensors watch mirroring portals, the space between the parallels must be negatively charged by a constant rate of one third, but I need resources, and even if I get a quotient of conflict minerals, the industrialization of time and human expansion is an efficient mining process, meaning I'll have to find a source of capital, if you're the ones sent by the High Council who are following me and are reading this, your ship's dimming field was more expensive than elusive, like a bull in a porcelain shop, old tricks are the best tricks.

[Interval 6] (33218-960-42) 2:6:3:3

Inviolate is the mass of a planet it seems, it's harder to keep illegitimate money than I had thought, if I could jump back I could make a few good bets, for the eyes of High Command, I take full responsibility for the service casualties on Mithras 4, though it may have been a better of your agents, it only happened as the result of an agent in one of the uniforms that used to be worn, and coincidentally by one my pursuers at this temporal juncture, old threads, he is or was a hasty bounty hunter that seemed as perplexed by futuristic technology as I have been so many times now. It is doubtful that by my research or simply the guillotine of time, you've learned to skip across the temporal pond with me. By lock and key I'm holding hostage people who have themselves been hostages of tyrants or as occasionally possessions for ransom, by the misfortune in all senses of the word, a heavy jump can devalue currency once viable for a mansion into a lowly meal, this piracy will deem me a tyrant or a ghost, from what I've read in fairy tales, I can be both. Stop chasing me, I plan to go to the beginning of the end.

[Interval 7] (33419-390-88) 9:3:7:4

It may be poetic to say the future is history, I know now that man will forever look into the past and see the darkness, the future holds so much traction for scientific potential. I've seen the progress in as many steps. I understand it would be a tactical disadvantage to come for me and not exploit the advancements, but I would be remiss not to mention:

Gravity discovered as the cause of dark matter
Unification of nuclear physics
Linear relativity w/in trans-dimensional quantum mechanics
Subatomic entropy and communication
Quantum parallel interference windows / bilateral planes
Sonic fractal communication frequencies
Electromagnetic, gravimetric, EM V 5 combustion
Point-to-point displacement teleportation

These in their independent times scientific breakthroughs, destined to be utilized by the people of the cosmos, yet one after the next, stolen by High Command, even my LCARS patent, hidden, they are meant for all, so I have taken the research of each discovery, the advantage is undoubtedly mine, as they can hide it, but cannot know every mode which I might attack, this time jumping disasterpiece allows not only patience but a powerful way to infiltrate an organization. there are temporal agents after me assuredly, but I destroyed my own records every chance I get, should I discover a way to use the portal to go backward. These advancements have humbly shown me how small tech can make the universe and how young any civilization truly is, I worry that with the spoils of war I may have already damaged my chances at returning. 

[Interval 8] (33644-224-18) 10:3:3:2

I'm sorry in a way that I wasn't there to see my kindred to their ends, in reverse, I plan to see them again. I could curl into a ball as soon as it is inevitably invented, until then, I am a space pirate, my file w/ High Command was altered to myth status, but a touch on a privileged file puts me as a critical threat to royal installations, I have been busy with my research, mostly exploring an explorable charted galaxy, but I may piss on their doorstep before I croak, unless I make it back. The contagion is rancid waters in the tides of space, remote planets and city-continents have automated contagion defenses, the universe is still big enough for the both of us, time and I.

[Interval 9] (33780-220-22) 1:8:4:7

I mentioned I was dancing w/ time, but I forgot to mention I may have repeatedly cut-in-on a few warlords and their grudges to get my resources, I have no fixed point and their belonging doesn't either, not until I'm home. I've lost two things recently, my home world was lost to a supernova, and my little finger from a markswoman with a, special anger. where was I when this all began?

[Interval 10] (34166-184-08) 2:7:8:9

FTL creates gravity, bending space-time, making distances shorter, so that teleported matter doesn't double-occupy/overload gravitational space, substances FTL fabric universe, subatomic relativity escaping gravity, liquid time becomes 'spherical' what is extrinsic of entity is one of the dimensions the famous Dr Bishop had mentioned, how I could use his eyes, universal neighbors I think he called it, thus quantum physics encompasses relativity's rules w/in and at FTL scenarios to create teleportation black-holes/wormholes controlled, light does not escape black holes b/c its space-time momentum, or string momentum if you will, does not allow light spectrum visualization, or perhaps the planets are protons, dark matter the refraction of space, absence of perception, such as magnetic blind spot of conceivable theoretical physics.

[Interval 11] (34518-383-66) 9:8:7:2

Using a particle accelerator, the parallel magnetic field inducer, a ring of custom-built gas-filled recoil ion separators coupled to a position-sensitive semiconductor sensors to identify reaction products I attempted to record the aggravated mass and field variation, to alter absolute zero into fluctuations, then calculate the ideal mechanical advantage of parallel magnetic field induction measurements.

[Interval 12] (34937-027-01) 11:3:6:8

The galaxy is still big enough to hide, but I worry that with a wrong jump the social universe will get smaller again. Supplemental to the log, 10^-32 concatenate weight deduction attached to one wall of field induction unit ore, weight measurements from large to small. easy to visualize as a chain of bells, each smaller than the next with each step from the shell of the wall, it's really two arches. indeterminacy principle counteraction, nullified interference by use of Einstein's cradle.

[Interval 13] (34908-029-30) 8:5:4:9

In pinch I had to hide my research by sending it forward, to keep a secret from the locals, with adjustments made it only went forward an hour, as presumed events near the portal do not alter, as they were there when I got there, watching the gate open and seeing myself made me sick, I vomited after seeing myself ahead in time, after the portal closed, knowing I will not have made it back. It was the first time I have seen the side open from the past that didn't have agents shooting at me, seeing myself an hour younger was disconcerting, when the portal closed I cried, then and now the thought courses me, would I have still cried if I had seen myself do so from the past?

[Interval 14] (55099-028-29) 7:4:3:8

Glitch in the device caused a long temporal jump much more than expected, not only had my home been razed by time, but I stepped in manure on passing through, let no one tell you that time isn't shitty. I though I had gone backward from the first jump, after finding city and realizing I hadn't, I stole one of your spaceships, bet you didn't think that would happen, I initiated a false evacuation and took an escape pod as it crashed into a star for good measure, this mentioning it is my equivalent to taking a picture with a a passed-out drunk and sending it to their wife. 

[Interval 15] (56808-024-96) 8:1:3:3

Prismatic illusion, isolated frequencies don't change when parallel refractory convergence, the point of which is absolute light, at the optical medium where the white light has passed through a prism and a refractory lens, just before the surface of a second prism used to re-converge a rainbow into pure/white light, event horizon, b/c distinction of color is insufficient, counter intuitive to the true nature of light.

[Interval 16] (56810-001-00) 8:5:1:2

Conservation of momentum is relevant to the smallest unit of subatomic structure, the impulse of velocity is centripetal force, gravimetric isolation multiplied by prismatic absolutes allows centrifugal gravity, acceleration mass bridges points of linear space, if escape velocity is deleted; light traveling at the point of mass creates temporal vacuums; black holes are traveling civilizations.

[Interval 17] (56811-001-00) 0:3:9:9

Achieving exact precision in temporal crossing, I may never return, but now by my own choosing. The escape velocity for light from a black hole must be many times faster than light, enough to have momentum in parabolic potential energy; dark matter is trans-dimensional frequency, using the deconstruction of covalent bonds for subspace communication, nontransferable to different subspace stratum; thus beyond comprehension or defiant transliteration, no reflection w/ current filum technology; poetic: line of sight for a three dimensional equation/view.

[Interval 18] (56911-002-00) 0:5:0:1

Apparent weightlessness, electromagnetic magnification impedes thru structural delineation, pervasive to the anomaly, which if perfect an base gathered turns bubble at event horizon becomes spherical fractal compression folds the bubble when layers touch beneath thermal dynamic emitters the wormhole between universes is created, to which an estimable level of radiation exists w/in it, as is the reciprocal of conductivity is insularity.

[Interval 19] (57911-015-00) 11:4:0:0

I'm still having trouble with harmonic multidimensional rift buffering in polymerized emitter arrays for compression signal transference, it could have something to do with the theoretical subatomic particle photovoltaic dimensionality of subspace harmonics w/in retrograde spacial cooling.

[Interval 20] (19840-024-96) 1:1:2:3

Followed or alone, invading the future has been more fun than I though possible, I may or may not have learned how to return to the past, if those of you from the High Council following me have discovered the secret to successful reverse time travel, stop trying to erase me, or at the very least, let us be to discover our own future.



Read more here: http://www.sacbee.com/2012/09/26/4858723/search-for-element-113-concluded.html#storylink=cpy

Read more here: http://www.sacbee.com/2012/09/26/4858723/search-for-element-113-concluded.html#storylink=cpy




05 December 2012

Merlin 3:4 “Adoration for None”

Merlin 3:4 “Adoration for None”

There are but two others and not yet disdained of poesy they are integral to a tale and an invariable phoenix named Alerion but of literary terms a familiar. Firstly, of affection and sate, a woman named Anathema, a fiery mage that in this age is tryst to Nik, dissolute but demure, to boldly venture nature darkly and regarding. With her at present is Troy who is rider of the phoenix, of reflection and second to the wayfarer’s pate and his father the coreligionist pagan known as Merlin.

On this day beneath the sun and the moons Ana stands on a stage the height of a knee, on her head a crimson shawl curls over her raven hair but does not shelter her brow and pale complexion, her conservative clothes are dapper but of dull grey and leather colors natural of boots. As she paces toward center stage holding a lantern it burns bright with the fires of her eyes until it exhausts without fuel or fire, to the opposite side of the stage approaches Troy, whose skin is much of paleness and leather. Dourly inconspicuous he pulls his deep hood from his face to show his snowy pallor as Ana holds her palms toward him, mocking the placement of fear and aversion. He takes an arrow passed his ice blond hair from his quiver and his bow from his side forthwith stretching the string and aiming. As he lets the arrow fly it passes by her intentionally, she turns and runs to the stage edge and acts as if trapped, she turns again to Troy but this time she stands and puts her downstage right arm toward him. Her hand begins to become fire as he, imaginarily unsure of himself aims over and aside her shoulder, this time when he lets the arrow escape it turns to fire and then to ash before crossing her path. The enthralled crowd gasps in lurid amazement, the smallest children at the edges of their seats and emotive parents joining them aside the usual skeptics.

Ana turns abruptly to face the crowd and puts her left palm in the air toward Troy with her other hand behind her back, which she uses to signal him to fling another arrow. Again, an arrow soars loosely across the stage, and again it becomes afire then to ash appearing to become soot and cinders at the palm of her hand. Troy feigns to be in woe and fear as he kneels and offers her the string of his bow, but she holds out her left hand again and the lantern reignites, just as it does his heavy cloak soaked in a thick fuel mixed with balms begins to burn. She brandishes her fists and thrusts forward her arms in rehearsed ceremony, each summons the fire growing larger, and each time with him cowering deeper until he is huddled on the floor beneath the cloak concealment and conflagration, and when he and the crowd are in pyre and procession, she uses her natural magic to subside the flames. Thereupon unsworn Troy throws-aside the once soaked now singed blanket and takes her hand as they bow together pleasing and praised by the audience. In the dark of morrow, the caretakers ignite the evening torches and feasting sup begins for a town and its guests.

As the small village lauds the performance, a group of brigands begins terrorizing their way thru the populace unto the gathering, wizards and sorcery priestesses leading teams of soldiers thru the opposition given by the free people, some immobilized by fear and others complacent, and some by which consider themselves above the struggle. These insurgents are elusive and decadent as they sunder what town militia are not bacchanal or youthful aberrant abet, there is not destruction between the fear and fury, but there is the sign of death as the soldiers take the eldest sons from families.

The mages set their own hands afire to prevent angry mothers from wailing and warring, others use the magic of the old ways, seating the fathers in misfortune to the ground by using earth spells that make leather heavier than the alloys of mining tools. Among the patrons of insurgents, there are four soldiers for every magician to a count of only one and thirty. Ana turns her back to the audience as she stands directly against Troy’s shoulder preventing him from interacting.

Ana: “Flee from here, do only running, go you now.”

Ana faces the approaching guards while pretending to have casually mentioned nothing to Troy who runs post haste and forth leaning in apace escape. Soldiers notice his speedy flit and chase him, but Ana tosses a fabric at fore them as she leaps and lands to bring them aground, knocking a table and goblets she takes one and crashes a head protuberant under cover, and satisfied she looks up to see more soldiers ready to ruin her. Her hands cover with magical fire while she smiles with devilish eyes as they hesitate and revere her, amongst this, their leader speaks.

Braden: “Leave her be. She is one of us and calls no harm. Ana dear, don’t get yourself soiled on my account.”
Ana: “If it isn’t Braden.”
Braden: “Still wrestling in the mud like a boy I see.”
Ana: “I suppose I should be telling you, what to do.”
Braden: “Where was your friend run off? Not to your brother I hope.”
Ana: “The town hasn’t paid us in full, he went for our cut before you and your thugs robbed us blind.”
Braden: “You can have yours, just play with us a while, we used to have so much fun.”

In furtive secret Troy spies from beside a wagon and behind lumber to the happenings and conversations of such so sage and mage.

Ana: “What are you doing here?”
Braden: “We’re heading for economic dictatorship, Vinland is falling into the accreting cesspool of decent, and I reckoned I’d gather some ducats before the ruination.”
Ana: “I suppose the fact that they’re godless doesn’t bother you.”
Braden: “I’ve come to the conclusion that they have no imagination, dullards of the highest order, sensationalists driven by emotion, of what should be better translated as without logic or conviviality, animals of instinct and incest, lower life forms.”
Ana: “In your strife to become puritan you’ve become a murderer?”
Braden: “You can tell my wroth by the count of the dead, and there are none.”
Sabian: “Father, we think these are all.”
Braden: “Good work Mr. Carrow, you may have found your calling.”

Braden slaps Sabian on his shoulder to dismiss him then begins to sidle Ana, looking back to her once then speaking to the humble worried crowd, slow in steps to intimidate the village sons and their parents. He signals to his anent friend, another witch of cloak and dagger desperate to intimidate, lean and tall her with her white hair it is the longest of the entire prospect and tied with four bands about its length into a single tail down her back. It silkily drapes over an emblem of a dragon in a circle between the shoulders of her long overcoat, her eyes hold lightning that dances around her fingers wrapped around a dagger of pure silver.

Katyenka: “These atheists are fundamentalists of the worst kind, rapists and fascists of monarchies come…and easily gone, living the grandest of untenable socialist utopian delusions, that you can rule as plutocrats like megalomaniacal emperors who disallow paupers to touch you and choose of pure vitriolic dissonance that you will not speak to them directly. We will allow you to return to those ways in peace, so long as we learn where you keep your most valuable relics and get the proceeds from this gathering for our time.”

Braden: “The strongest of a village keep its best secrets, tell us where your coffers are and your families will live.”

The sons and brothers stand along the stage facing their families, hoping to know what best will better the situation, nonetheless keeping silent and sweating. A mother shouts to her only son and unjustly struck is sent to the ground, her husband seeking vengeance is dealt a heavy blow to the head so much that he is not dead but dreaming as the mages flare their furor in display of powerful magic. Where the clouds push a distal fog are thereupon five ominous sorcerers among the large crowd of soldiers and citizens, in addition to Katyenka, Braden, and Ana.

Ana: “Stop this Braden.”
Braden: “In lax arrogance you deny what you do not understand, now that you might spare me your imaginations, tell yourselves what you must to justify your destruction of art, freedom, and expression.”
Anders: “You must leave, you do not understand our practice, and for such I am sorry you are heathens.”
Braden: “Fain am I to hear you sing, Katyenka, compel his truth forthwith.”

The boy sweats hard enough that the drops roll from his face, his hands bound like the others he tries to stretch himself free unsuccessful begins to cringe and lean aback Katyenka and her double-edged silver knife. Near his skin small strands of electricity arc into the beads of sweat causing him nauseating discomfiture and abbreviating his perception of reality and replacing it with pain, closer still his cries become loud with terror filing his blood as his eyes try to roll into his head. Some of the other boys try to assist him, but Braden reaches his hand forward and a wind knocks as many that stand to his side of Katyenka, into the stage front as black lightning pierces their minds and burns their clothes, to her side other his loyal guards pull three their shoulders from her waist as she laughs.  Again, she tortures the young man as Ana’s hands begin to flame with vengeance.

Katyenka: “Realize that councils who supersede and disarm sovereign states are what start wars foremost.”
Braden: “Aright, you can stop. We are here for an artifact! If you know where you keep enchanted things, feel free to tell us. If we cannot look for it here, your mothers will be the first to Valhalla.”
Ana: “Promise me no one dies, and we will have truce.”

Braden winks at Ana, Katyenka puts the tip of her dagger beneath the same boy’s chin, as he begins to pain he begins to speak.

Anders: “Leave us if we tell you.”
Katyenka: “We’ll certainly stay if you don’t.”
Anders: “There is a door in the floor of the bakers! Take with our wealth your delusions!”

This secret revealed causes several of the fathers to attack a mage in unison, but the one they have chosen should not be touched by humans, in soon as they clamor they begin to fall, to other wizards magic nullifies attack with visual threat. Ana sets the ropes binding the wrists of the young men to heat and ever slowly decay, as an isolated wizard disguised as a warrior dressed very simple throws men behind him as he walks with great strength and fortitude, when insurrection has ended so does her spell, interrupted succinctly as Braden speaks to her.

Braden: “There’s no one left to save. We are heading east, unless we find what I need, in which case we are heading to Biarmaland. You’re welcome to join us if you still please.”
Ana: “I’ll be fine on my own thank you.”
Braden: “That may not ever be true; beyond mortals and monarchies, a war comes to these walls of reality; let me keep you safe.”
Ana: “I hope you find what you seek, but I cannot, I am betrothed now.”
Braden: “Find him, and find Merlin, then seek the western shore and never return.”

Braden releases Ana’s hands from his, a sorrow chills her heart from anxiety of sage memories she cannot find to requite, concern races thru her thoughts to quandary what words had effaced warning and alarming sincerity. The invasive magicians and mercenaries leave the crowd to search the bakery cellarage, when not incurring their ambitions they talk of what beneath lies, and leave empty-handed.








02 December 2012

To Quote A Killer

"A lot of you young people, even though you go through college, you still don’t understand that courtroom. That courtroom is the court of the kings and lords of the world. We as human beings can invoke the ground here called the United States of America. And the reason our system has perpetuated in such a way is because all the powers of Europe and England and monarchies and all those big people; we have come over here and started another world where each man in the United States has that power because he has that courtroom. That courtroom belongs to every human being in the United States. And if you take that courtroom away from one human being, you’re taking that courtroom away from all human beings. Then what follows is you got kings and queens of yesterday – they’re gonna come and play croquet with your heads. They’re gonna take your courtrooms. They’re gonna take your money and they’re gonna take your country. They’re gonna take your resources. They’re gonna rip you off in every way you can think of because you didn’t give your own children the benefit of the courtroom that your fathers fought in battles and died for."

~ Charles Manson
~~ Interview with KALX radio at Vacaville