And so we come full circle in this tragic comedy we call our lives; and what have we learned? Only that the dance is never done, and despite our awareness of these celestial puppeteers, we are ultimately fated to carry out their designs, and to pay their toll with our sanity.
When Ephraim shook me out of my slumber and my eyes adjusted (preternaturally) to the blanket of shadows in the room, I was somewhat confused by what I saw; Petru sitting on the ledge of the window of our rented room, motioning for silence with one hand while pushing himself off the ledge with the other. I shook my head thinking that the dreamwebs still had me, but soon I came to the conclusion that something strange must be afoot. Symeon ran some cold water from the basin through his hair while Ephraim wasted no time, donning his breastplate and giving me one of those knowing looks that you often see on a fox hound when it has become aware of its prey.
My mandate was clear; I had catch up to little Petru and make certain that he remains unmolested. I found him with relative ease, clearing the distance between us before anyone was the wiser. I came upon him at an intersection in an alley proximate to our Inn, looking in every direction and obviously in pursuit of something sinister. Before he could answer my questions, a sharp wooden bolt landed between us (narrowly missing Pertu’s head) and splintered on the back wall. My instincts thrust my limbs into action before I could even formulate a clear response to the attack; the fatigue and disorientation from my slumber had urged my mind to relinquish my more crucial physical operations to my reflexes.
I shot into the night like a man possessed (ironically enough as you will see later), and rushed to close the distance between us and the culprit behind that wayward murderous shaft of wood. I surmised that the would-be assassin would likely attempt another shot, and reloading his weapon would ideally give me the desired window of opportunity to catch him and ring the meddlesome rascal’s neck. As I came around the bend I spotted the fool throwing life and limb in the opposite direction, a decision that may have saved him in the end had the dreaded Gargoyle not been his pursuer. There is no harm in buying into my own press from time to time I suppose. As I had done a hundred times, I closed in on the interloper with ease, and simply jerked back on his collar, kind of like the schoolmaster at Barnes College used to when he’d come across the unruly sort ( I used to watch him from the University clocktower).
The whelp fell back (like so many before him), the moonlight exposing some of his features as his spine collided with the cold cobble stones. I had expected a shrouded killer, or perhaps a mercenary type with telling scars and the fire of determination in his eyes, but instead I found myself standing over a wretched bag of bones, skin and foul-smelling rags; a common street dwelling gutter rat, with barely two blackened teeth to his name. This could not be the man, I gathered, but then the metallic glint of his weapon came into view, as did the small quarrel of spare bolts hanging off his curiously out-of-place steel-buckled belt, and those items shed all remaining doubt.
Before I could move in to restrain him, the man began to shift and claw at himself in a rather disconcerting way. I had seen disheveled rubbish like him perform this grotesque ritual whenever they would catch sight of a night bird showcasing her feminine accoutrements (or lack thereof) in the streets of the Black Chapel district of Paridon, but I must admit that even I, a creature of human abomination and fear, felt completely confounded and somewhat embarrassed as this filthy man stared at me with his bloodshot eyes while reaching for the contents of his sullied trousers. This bloody fool was madder than Timori sewer rat, little doubt to that effect I think.
I put an abrupt end to his ghastly behavior with a blunt stomp of my left boot to his chest (a response the schoolmaster would have surely approved of), and knocked the wind right out of the offensive bugger. Petru arrived at that moment, quickly assessing the situation and concluding with a nod of his head that we indeed had the right man. That’s when our gruesome friend decided to give us another disturbing rendition, this time performing a remarkably well-rehearsed portion of Lawrence Wright’s Falling Into Hell instead of his earlier perverted contortions, which I would’ve likened more to the stylings of a pig rolling in its excrements.
It was quite comical at first, the way his arms flew to all sides, his body thrashing as if he had caught the nasty end of an electric eel (whichever end that may be). Soon however, his convulsions started to become downright frightening, and by the time Symeon and Ephraim emerged from the shadows to engage our prey, the whelp’s body was snapping back and forth with such violence, that even my vaunted strength could not hold him at bay.
A possession, Symeon called it, and Ephraim agreed wholeheartedly. A kind of vicious and supernatural violation of one’s body by some dark metaphysical entity, with the purpose of twisting men into acts of depravity. Possession was a phenomenon often diagnosed by the more “devoted” members of the clergy according to Symeon, but rarely diagnosed acurately. There was however little doubt that we were witnessing the genuine article here. I almost felt pity for the wretch until my musings were interrupted by a sudden jerk of his torso, giving way to a strange vaporous discharge from his mouth and nostrils (his soul?). It was all over after that. His body went limp and the savage snarling gave way to the faint breathing rhythm of unconsciousness.
Symeon and Ephraim, being the philanthropists that they are convinced me and Petru to deliver the batter dirty shell to a nearby hospice for Chateaufaux invalids. I left the delivery to my worthy companions while I perched myself up on the hospice’s roof to keep a vigil over the proceedings. Something was stirring in the air, and chill along my spine did nothing to diminish my suspicions. Barley ten minutes after Symeon and company had entered the hospice, another curious visitor entered into my field of perception. An older man, perhaps a commoner with some property to his name by the looks of his casually brushed brown jacket. I watched him calmly make his way into the alley that I was looming over and approach the window to the hospice, doing his utmost to overhear the conversations going on inside without arousing suspicion.
His amateurish ways nearly caused me to emit a hiss in his direction; I felt like a court composer being subjected to the tone-deaf wailing of a one-eyed drunken sailor. I stayed my hand at first, waiting to see if perhaps this had all been a misunderstanding; if indeed this unfortunate had perhaps only wondered into the alley for a moment’s rest form his regular routine. But blast it all, there was just no other reason for him standing there, and my reflexes urged me once again without seeking permission from my intellect. I landed behind the pathetic spy without a sound, a curious trick I had never managed before on account of my considerable frame (more introspection later). With an easy movement I snatched up my victim a la Samael; one arm over the chest to hold the bugger fast, the other hand wrapped around his face, depriving him of considerable sensory information.
The strangest thing happened then, as I turned my back to the alley to withdraw into the darkness for a little entre-nous with our illustrious intruder, the man did not offer up resistance. To be perfectly accurate, he did get jumpy when I first grabbed him, but as soon as I let him get a glimpse of me in the window reflection, he all but let himself fall to pieces in my grasp. Ephraim and the others had spotted me from within and came to join me in the side alley to investigate the nature of what now represented the second intrusion on our business in a day’s time. I eased the man to his feet and gave him the berth required to be interrogated efficiently, which Petru was good enough to facilitate by looking into the man’s eyes and waving a fist in his general direction. What information this man would volunteer is still a cause of great discomfort to me until this very day.
Instead of panic or worry, the man simply bowed his head to Petru and calmly began to explain that he was a representative of an unnamed society that wished to, and I stumble on the word even as I write them, discuss the terms under which his people might be allowed to “purchase” me from Symeon, Ephraim and Petru (whom were presumably my owners!). More astonishing than this man’s absolute non-chalance during his discourse, was the term he used to describe me: Caliban, he called me. A word I had never heard before, but somehow felt to be derogatory. I can safely say that my companions were as puzzled as I to hear this man offer financial terms as if he were bargaining for a bail of tobacco, while he looked at us wide-eyed and grinning at me like some kind of opiated jackal.
According to his tirade, I was something of a rare and prized commodity to “his people” and their “goddess”, whom I could only surmise was some fictional cult deity of his choosing. And if his audacity and insolence had not been sufficient to drive even the gentle Ephraim to unclasp his scabbard, this fool even offered us a glimpse into my future as one of his people’s possessions by describing what his mistress had had in mind for me.
“We will drain him of all his holy secretions and yoke his supernatural gifts to increase our power!”
There was one particular secretion, or rather excretion that I considered imparting on this lunatic at that precise moment, but my rage was somehow overwhelmed by curiosity regarding his choice of words. The world Caiban had not been used with regards to me specifically, and so I began to deduce what I had always suspected in the heart of me; there were others with my so-called condition. Perhaps not fashioned from the same clay, but nevertheless common to me in more ways than normal men. My mind was racing; I wanted to know what this man knew. I wanted to follow him into whatever dark pit he had no doubt emerged from and perhaps enen answer an existential question or two while I dismantled his sickening rable by tearing their so-called goddess limb-from-limb, as they all looked on helplessly.
I awoke from my daydream when Symeon tapped me on the shoulder, and I realized that Ephraim and Petru were talking to me.
“Samael, would you like us to give you a little privacy with this man so that you may converse with him in a more intimate manner?”
Bless their hearts, they knew me for the beast that I could be, but for the first time in my life, violence occurred to me only as a last resort.
As if by divine comedy, the moment I turned to face the diminutive madman before me, he too began to shake and convulse like his predecessor. His eyes rolled back into his head in the same repulsive fashion, and he fell to the ground stricken with seizures nearly identical to the man we had just delivered to Hala’s hospice. After a moment’s time it was over for him as well, and while Ephraim and Petru returned to the shelter to add this one to the list of Dementlieu’s disenfranchised, Petru and I walked back to our room at the Inn to mull over things and formulate a plan of action. I noticed Petru looking on with an air of concern as we closed in on our destination, but as I would find out later that day; his thoughts had not been primarily preoccupied by our strange run-ins of late, as much as they were by his own private agenda.
Who knew Petru could be such a devious little schemer? I certainly did. Once relaxed with a cup of hot wine (of laughable quality, alas), and some cold cheeses we withdrew from our rations, I settled my immediate concerns and gave Petru the opening he needed to engage me with his ideas. I had expected to hear some interesting things out of my favorite little revolutionary, and he certainly did not disappoint, that much I can certify.
Petru told me about his homeland of G’henna, a desolate place by his former accounts, and all the suffering and oppression that unfolded there on a daily basis thanks to the misguided worship of some form of destroyer entity called Zakata (I believe he said), and his foul enforcer, the black sorcerer Yagno Petrovna. For a moment I feared that my dear companion was about to go on one of his usual bile-laced diatribes regarding the suffering of his unfortunate people and so forth, and in all honesty I didn’t so much mind the prospect of hearing about someone else’s burdens for a little while.
Instead of the usual fare, Petru shared with me a very curious bit of information regarding some of the lesser-known inhabitants of his nation. He described to me a demography of men, women and children in G’henna referred to by the locals as “beast-men”. A blighted grouping of misfortunate people that had come under the eye of Petrovna and his minions, whom in turn had visited terrible tortures and manipulations on their physiologies. Manipulations that had an awfully familiar ring to them from where I was standing. Petru assured me that these deformed men had been marginalized and cast out from what G’hennan’s consider their society, and despite their status as little more than animals was a matter that he wished dearly to rectify.
Hold on, say I! Petru the merciful? The man who called for vengeance in his every waking hour, this fiery little human with plans to burn his country’s churches to the ground, talking to me of clemency for the poor unfortunate beast-men of G’henna, and equal rights for all of Nature’s children? Oh for sure, but I hadn’t yet understood his plan, that devious little scoundrel.
“When I return to my homeland and set the fire of my people’s revolution under Pertovna`s cursed corpse, I will need generals to rally the forces of justice behind me Samael. These beast-men have been dealt a harsh lot in life, but they can be redeemed with the proper guidance, with the proper leadership. Samael, I need a general…”
I was speechless. Where I had once seen a good-hearted (if naïve) and resolute saboteur with delusions of leading his people to topple their oppressive regime, now stood a stout-hearted freedom fighter. I understood then that Petru had had all us for fools up until this moment. This shrewd bastard knew exactly what he was doing, and he had been planning things from the start. He hadn’t been tagging along for his enjoyment all these months, oh no, not little Petru of G’henna. He had been forging alliances with foreign powers (namely me, Ephraim and Symeon) like a skilled diplomat or tactician. There had been purpose in every moment he had spent in our company.
I wanted to strangle the duplicitous lout, but I was too overcome with admiration for his cunning and subterfuge. Well played you spotty rascal, I told myself, well played indeed. The worst part was of course that he had succeeded in arousing my curiosity about these so called beast-men, and therein laid my inability to fault him for his scheming. Other queations also crept into my mind at that moment; if I was to theoretically lead his monster armies into battle in this coming revolt, what role did Petru have in store for our other two companions? What role did he envision for himself? Did our valiant soldier of justice intend to lay down arms on the day of victory, or did he perhaps have more human designs for the throne of G’henna?
I felt another chill on my spine, and told him that I would consider his words for now. With more pressing matters at hand, Petru’s clever machinations would have to wait for later. We had been thrust into a mystery without time for preparation, and we would not be caught with our trousers undone a third time; secret death cults be damned.
Our investigations would lead us back to the scene of Symeon and Petru’s violent thrashing at the hands of those anonymous brutes a few day ago; we stood in the night in view of our old acquaintance, Lord Brass’ opium den on the Main boulevard. The plan was simple enough; Petru goes in to have a look, I skulk about in the rafters as I am predisposed to do, and Ephraim and Symeon await any sign of trouble from the outside. I snuck in through a second-story window (where I had surprised Charles the caretaker two days previous) and hid among the curtains while Petru made a more direct approach.
Petru would encounter a man within the confines of Brass’ club who would open our eyes fully to the goings-on in Chateaufaux; one Jean-Jacques of Port-a-Lucine. A well-kept young fellow with manner and education, Jean-Jacques would reveal to Petru in an impromptu conversation that he had seen all of us in one of his dreams (he did not seem to be jesting). Dreams unlike those experienced by normal men and women, he claimed. JJ not only knew of us and of me in particular, but he seemed to possess intimate knowledge of our friends from the dark cult of the goddess. He claimed in an hushed but excited voice that these cultists were fiendish pawns of ancient and inexplicable powerful outer-entities called Deep Ones, that corrupted the world and sought to overwhelm it, to bring about a new age of darkness and madness (or something to that effect). Charming bunch, I thought to myself, no wonder they wanted me along for the ride!
Jean-Jacques’ further explanations would also have to wait for a later time as he beseeched Petru to round us up and travel with him to visit an Invidian acquaintance of his in Port-a-Lucine; a mesmerist, coincidently enough (I had proposed to the others that we seek one out to unlock the mystery of our unexplained adventures in Falkovnia) that would help us finally make sense of things.
I had heard enough and retreated back up through the access to the roof that I had taken earlier, only to have my thoughts abruptly cut short by the sound of a rattling of wood-on-stone and yelling from beyond. I moved to the front of the building, standing perched from Brass’ roof, trying to make sense of the events unfolding before me. Petru and Jean-Jacques had converged outside to talk further about their plans as Symeon and Ephraim approached them cautiously. The noise I had heard had come from a large four-horse-driven heavy coach that had shot out of the evening mist, headed without a doubt straight toward my unsuspecting companions.
Ephraim and Symeon had fortunately seen it in time, but Petru and JJ would have both been reduced to bloody mush had Petru not shoved Jean-Jacques into the nearby alley, and taken a tremendous impact from the oncoming horses. The coach halted and out came a couple of well dressed ruffians, pistols at the ready and murder in their eyes. The shot at JJ had its desired effect, sending the poor bastard flying in a spray of crimson. This was the call to arms for all of us, and I was positively itching to make my presence felt.
I leapt from the roof toward the carriage, landing in a loud crash and splintering the damned thing into a hundred pieces with my girth. The panic was sufficient for my compatriots to do the rest, and before we knew it we were on our way to Port-a-Lucine with several wounded and a prisoner in tow.
What we found in Port-a-Lucine is doubtlessly a tale for another time…
