The waning Snow Moon casts a mere shimmer on the surface of the Toxian Sea. Joah stands quietly, water lapping her toes, as the remains of a winter storm casts waves upon the shore. The cold wind bites at her pale skin; the sleeveless muslin chemise she wears provides no protection against its salt sting.
Are you listening, Joah?
She shrugs the chemise from her shoulders, unmindful as it falls into the pull of the tide and is drawn, floating, from the shore. Stepping slowly and certainly, she walks into the icy waters, the cold of it all nearly taking her breath away. Briny fingers wrap calves, thighs and hips; still she walks, the waves pushing and pulling at her, drawing her in breast deep, until she stands swaying like a reed.
Joah closes her eyes, tastes the salt spray on her lips and sees legs that aren't her own, curled and sleeping in the cast-off husks of titanic mollusks extinct a hundred million years before the coming of man. She has closed her eyes on darkness, but when she opens them again it is to the selfsame darkness. In sleep there is the memory of light, and the promise of the phosphorescent glow of Y'ha-rthyneil, which still lies out before her.
Do you hear me?
She lifts her arms, gazing on them as they drift, marveling at the delicate bones in her wrists and graceful webbed fingers of another's hands. She grows hungry, but knows the sea will sustain her. Even as great, unseen leviathans have battened themselves for aeons, so she feeds on the eyeless things that creep across the silt and the blind fish. The blood is cold, not like the blood to which she has grown accustomed, but it is nourishing, nonetheless.
"I am become a pilgrim," she often thinks. "This is my Hajj." There are few conscious thoughts left to her mind here in the deep places, but this one, recurring, comforts her.
"You will be prepared," the sea whispers all about her. "You will be made whole, at last."
Joah….
She is in what oceanographers call the Sigsbee Deep now, that black abyssal Grand Canyon of the Gulf of Mexico. She follows the trough ever deeper, thousands of meters down, and down, and down. At the southern end of the Sigsbee lies a city of the Deep Ones, and it is there that Mother Hydra and the children of Cthulhu wait for her. The featureless plains of silt give way to hydrothermal vents and towering forests of giant tube worms, glistening brine pools and sprawling mounds of methane ice. These are, she knows, the borderlands, and so she has left the wilderness behind her.
Past a vale of cold seeps, and threading her way between the high sulfide chimneys of black smokers, she becomes aware, for the first time, of another mind brushing against her own. The one bound to her before her departure from the city and the world Above. And she stops drifting.
Joah?
Are you listening, Joah? Do you see?
When there is no answer, she moves on.
Beyond the black smokers, she glimpses something, not light, but a paler sort of blackness. And she knows it is her signpost, and some weight is lifted from off her mind that she was not even aware lay there.
The Undying Court is near.
Dream Sequence, C. Kiernan
Showing posts with label Joah's Dreams. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Joah's Dreams. Show all posts
Thursday, February 19, 2009
Monday, February 16, 2009
On Seas Hideously Serene
Joah sits in utter stillness, head bent over a leather-bound journal. A nondescript volume, it lies on the table before her, its dark cover worn with age. Each brittle page is filled with neat, old-fashioned script, written in ink that has faded to brown over the years. The pages are covered with curious drawings, wine-fueled thoughts, and line after line of poetry. Here and there, there is a signature: Henri Le Rennet. Joah pulls the oil lamp nearer as her eyes are drawn to one particular page.
Lo! Death has reared himself a throne
In a strange city lying alone
Far down within the dim West,
Where the good and the bad and the worst and the best
Have gone to their eternal rest.
There shrines and palaces and towers
(Time-eaten towers that tremble not!)
Resemble nothing that is ours.
Around, by lifting winds forgot,
Resignedly beneath the sky
The melancholy waters lie.
She leans back in her wooden chair, placing one hand on the journal, the other over her closed eyes. Joah cannot forget the pull of the dream, the drifting down into darkness, utter inviolable darkness, though she could still see. She remembers the descent, and then there are the endless abyssal plains of gray silt and primal ooze and the pale brittlestars that creep across the mud. The featureless deserts of the Gulf, broken only occasionally by the wreckage of a sunken ship, a week old, or a thousand years old, or by the carcass of a whale, wreathed by the squirming bodies of the hagfish that will pick the bones clean. These are her only landmarks in a world devoid of landmarks.
No rays from the holy heaven come down
On the long night-time of that town;
But light from out the lurid sea
Streams up the turrets silently-
Gleams up the pinnacles far and free-
Up domes- up spires- up kingly halls-
Up fanes- up Babylon-like walls-
Up shadowy long-forgotten bowers
Of sculptured ivy and stone flowers-
Up many and many a marvellous shrine
Whose wreathed friezes intertwine
The viol, the violet, and the vine.
Resignedly beneath the sky
The melancholy waters lie.
So blend the turrets and shadows there
That all seem pendulous in air,
While from a proud tower in the town
Death looks gigantically down.
Joah’s hand grips the edges of the journal, her fingers nearly crumpling the page before her in her fist. Yet she cannot pull away. It is the end of the descent. And there is the cold, which is almost beyond bearing. But only almost. And there is the weight of all that water pressing down on her from above, from the sunlit surface. Joah knows well enough the burden should crush her. But it sits easily upon her barnacle-scabbed shoulders, and she carries it as easily as do the native anglerfish and all the other nameless and blind deep-sea things.
There open fanes and gaping graves
Yawn level with the luminous waves;
But not the riches there that lie
In each idol's diamond eye-
Not the gaily-jewelled dead
Tempt the waters from their bed;
For no ripples curl, alas!
Along that wilderness of glass-
No swellings tell that winds may be
Upon some far-off happier sea-
No heavings hint that winds have been
On seas less hideously serene.
She has made a choice. And she wears proudly the scars of the decision, and her mind is still filled with the song of Those Who Have Called. There is more delight in the song than the touch of any lover. More joy than in any kill she has ever made. More satiation than the blood of any being she has ever devoured. More release than she has received from even the most terrible pain.
She drifts, the sharp claws at the ends of her webbed toes digging furrows in the silt as the current bears her ahead, and the Song continues, so that she knows there is a destination.
But lo, a stir is in the air!
The wave- there is a movement there!
As if the towers had thrust aside,
In slightly sinking, the dull tide-
As if their tops had feebly given
A void within the filmy Heaven.
The waves have now a redder glow-
The hours are breathing faint and low-
And when, amid no earthly moans,
Down, down that town shall settle hence,
Hell, rising from a thousand thrones,
Shall do it reverence.
Dream Sequence, C. Kiernan
Lo! Death has reared himself a throne
In a strange city lying alone
Far down within the dim West,
Where the good and the bad and the worst and the best
Have gone to their eternal rest.
There shrines and palaces and towers
(Time-eaten towers that tremble not!)
Resemble nothing that is ours.
Around, by lifting winds forgot,
Resignedly beneath the sky
The melancholy waters lie.
She leans back in her wooden chair, placing one hand on the journal, the other over her closed eyes. Joah cannot forget the pull of the dream, the drifting down into darkness, utter inviolable darkness, though she could still see. She remembers the descent, and then there are the endless abyssal plains of gray silt and primal ooze and the pale brittlestars that creep across the mud. The featureless deserts of the Gulf, broken only occasionally by the wreckage of a sunken ship, a week old, or a thousand years old, or by the carcass of a whale, wreathed by the squirming bodies of the hagfish that will pick the bones clean. These are her only landmarks in a world devoid of landmarks.
No rays from the holy heaven come down
On the long night-time of that town;
But light from out the lurid sea
Streams up the turrets silently-
Gleams up the pinnacles far and free-
Up domes- up spires- up kingly halls-
Up fanes- up Babylon-like walls-
Up shadowy long-forgotten bowers
Of sculptured ivy and stone flowers-
Up many and many a marvellous shrine
Whose wreathed friezes intertwine
The viol, the violet, and the vine.
Resignedly beneath the sky
The melancholy waters lie.
So blend the turrets and shadows there
That all seem pendulous in air,
While from a proud tower in the town
Death looks gigantically down.
Joah’s hand grips the edges of the journal, her fingers nearly crumpling the page before her in her fist. Yet she cannot pull away. It is the end of the descent. And there is the cold, which is almost beyond bearing. But only almost. And there is the weight of all that water pressing down on her from above, from the sunlit surface. Joah knows well enough the burden should crush her. But it sits easily upon her barnacle-scabbed shoulders, and she carries it as easily as do the native anglerfish and all the other nameless and blind deep-sea things.
There open fanes and gaping graves
Yawn level with the luminous waves;
But not the riches there that lie
In each idol's diamond eye-
Not the gaily-jewelled dead
Tempt the waters from their bed;
For no ripples curl, alas!
Along that wilderness of glass-
No swellings tell that winds may be
Upon some far-off happier sea-
No heavings hint that winds have been
On seas less hideously serene.
She has made a choice. And she wears proudly the scars of the decision, and her mind is still filled with the song of Those Who Have Called. There is more delight in the song than the touch of any lover. More joy than in any kill she has ever made. More satiation than the blood of any being she has ever devoured. More release than she has received from even the most terrible pain.
She drifts, the sharp claws at the ends of her webbed toes digging furrows in the silt as the current bears her ahead, and the Song continues, so that she knows there is a destination.
But lo, a stir is in the air!
The wave- there is a movement there!
As if the towers had thrust aside,
In slightly sinking, the dull tide-
As if their tops had feebly given
A void within the filmy Heaven.
The waves have now a redder glow-
The hours are breathing faint and low-
And when, amid no earthly moans,
Down, down that town shall settle hence,
Hell, rising from a thousand thrones,
Shall do it reverence.
Dream Sequence, C. Kiernan
Wednesday, February 11, 2009
"From space, the world is blue."
I rose early and dressed. The moon was still up when I closed and locked the door to my little room, heading down the stairs to the hearth in the Library. Grrbrool crouched by the fire, its flames creating a halo behind him.
“Hello, Spirit Gal,” he grinned. “Rested and renewed? I kept tha…well, tha OTHER wolves from tha door.”
“Other wolves?” I laughed. I brushed my hair back over my shoulder, and went to his side, bending to kiss the top of his head.
Grr grinned again. “Keepin’ tha wolves from tha door, er, whilst ya slept. Watchin'.” I settled in beside him on the floor while he spoke. “I Watch, whilst ya sleep, I guard tha dark places whilst ya work… I am tha Watcher, tha Ferryman… tha Guide, but fer you, I just like ta Watch.” He leaned in and sniffed me all over, scenting me, and licking my hands.
“Beloved,” I smiled. I leaned back, enjoying the feel of his canine tongue against my skin, raising my hand to stroke the side of his face. “I had the strangest dream last night.” I bent my head to rub my cheek against his ruff, taking in the intense new scents that I slowly now was growing accustomed to.
“Dream?” Grr asked. “Was it a good dream? Or just strange?”
“It was... so vivid,” I replied. I pulled back slightly from him, my hand going to the silver flask held on its chain about my waist.
“Dream Walkin'? Was it like bein' -in- Dream? Or just a vivid dream?” Grr lowered his eyes to the flask and then touched it with one claw. “New power, new understandin’, can do things… not bad, but scary, if ya ain’t ready, or aware.”
I shook my head. “I was drifting... just ... drifting in a void of utter, perfect, boundless blue. It wasn't like being in Dream... but then again, it was... I mean... it was peaceful.”
“Floatin’ in tha sea? Or tha sky? Blue like that?”
I closed my eyes, remembering. “Shafts of light shone down on me from somewhere overhead.... more like the sea, I think. I could barely remember the surface... but I felt buoyed and surrounded... yet pulled deeper.” I smiled at him. “I wasn't afraid.”
Grr looked at me with a wary expression. “I like tha bay, but deep scares me if I can’t see bottom.”
“This was different, Grr,” I replied. “Deep, but... no fear. I felt myself descending willingly, settling with infinite slowness.” I laid one hand on his thigh and began stroking it absently. “You'd think I would have been afraid... but the pull... even when the light began to fade... I could feel the pressure of all the water around me, pressing me down... threatening to crush me from every imaginable point of contact, but…. “ I shook my head again. It puzzled me. “Somehow, Beloved, somehow I knew that wouldn't happen. That it wouldn’t be allowed to happen.”
“Ah.” Grr nodded as his eyes began to widen with understanding. “It is a vision from Nareth, maybe. She sleeps in tha deep.”
I glanced at the outer wall of the secret room behind the lab. “I'm not sure where she lies, anymore... nor with whom.” I felt a sudden, surprising stab of longing for Nareth. When I turned to look at Grr again, I could see in his face that he’d read me plainly.
I cleared my throat. “The thing is, Beloved... I knew I was safe.” I tried to meet his golden gaze.
“Do ya wanna go look over her restin’ spot?” Grr asked gently, laying one paw atop my hand. “I don’t mind. I keep ya both safe, when I can, when ya sleep.”
“Yes, please,” I whispered. With great warmth, Grr offered his paw to me. I took it in return and rose slowly, following him to the shelves that concealed the lab. I watched as he manipulated the books on the shelf randomly, opening the secret doorway. Hand in paw, we walked down the two stone steps into the darkness.
The stench was overpowering. As we drew nearer Nareth's resting place, the smell of rotting fish, a bone yard of crab skeletons, and the spray of turbid seawater assaulted us. Grr wrinkled his nose. “Fishy….”
We knelt on the floor beside the pit that was Nareth’s resting place. A dark, glistening membrane could be seen pulsing just beneath the surface of the hole.
“Beloved?”
“Mmm?” Grr murmured, swirling the water gently with a claw.
“I felt something... in my dream.” I grew quiet, lost in the memory of that place for a moment. When I looked up, I saw Grr studying me intently.
“You and Nareth,” Grr began hesitantly, “Yer bonded, aintcha? Tha smell… and taste….”
I had known this moment would come and I feared it. “Bonded,” I whispered, meeting his gaze. “Yes.” My eyes spoke the question to him that I could not.
Grr nodded slowly and smiled faintly, a little softly sad. “By blood and Family, Sister-Lover. Kin, Pack, Blood.”
I lay one hand upon his chest. “But Beloved, I am bonded to you... always. Always.”
Grr took my hand and held it close. “I ain’t jealous or nothin’, just wanna make sure yer safe, and free ta be you, how ever ya need, or wanna, be.”
I reached up to hold his face lightly. “Once together,” I said quietly, then closed my eyes, drew near to him, and touched my forehead against his.
Grr bumped his forehead against mine and smiled in the gloom and reek. “Always together.”
I burrowed into him, laying my head on his chest and gazing at the hole, watching the membrane pulse in the darkness.
“Whatever path ya walk,” he said, claw tips tracing through my hair. “I meant that, I still do.”
*****
From below (a direction that seemed to the girl even more infinite than above), cold tendrils of blackness rose to embrace her. Her long, white hair drifted about her as eel-like shadows caressed her pale body. She knew she was welcomed there, called down, and all the fear and pain and rejection that haunted her above began to dissolve like salt in the sea.
Her lips were no longer red, but blue as the light began to fade, as the light shifted, as all red vanished from the world and from her mind. She began whispering wordless prayers to Mother Hydra and Father Kraken, to Dagon and Great Cthulhu and nameless beings from Paleozoic depths, to the Urdines, and to the Nereids...
In reply, a greeting chant rose from below...
"There gathered round her every goddess, every Nereid that was in the deep salt sea. Glauce was there and Thaleia and Cymodoce; Nesaea, Speio, Thoe and ox-eyed Halie; Cymothoe, Actaee and Limnoreia; Melite, Iaera, Amphithoe and Agaue; Doto, Proto, Pherusa and Dynamene; Dexamene, Amphinome and Callianeira; Doris, Panope and far-sung Galatea; Nemertes, Apseudes and Callianassa. Clymene came too, with Ianeira, Ianassa, Maera, Oreithuia, Amatheia of the lovely locks, and other Nereids of the salt sea depths."
The girl sank, answering.
Dream Sequence, C. Kiernan
“Hello, Spirit Gal,” he grinned. “Rested and renewed? I kept tha…well, tha OTHER wolves from tha door.”
“Other wolves?” I laughed. I brushed my hair back over my shoulder, and went to his side, bending to kiss the top of his head.
Grr grinned again. “Keepin’ tha wolves from tha door, er, whilst ya slept. Watchin'.” I settled in beside him on the floor while he spoke. “I Watch, whilst ya sleep, I guard tha dark places whilst ya work… I am tha Watcher, tha Ferryman… tha Guide, but fer you, I just like ta Watch.” He leaned in and sniffed me all over, scenting me, and licking my hands.
“Beloved,” I smiled. I leaned back, enjoying the feel of his canine tongue against my skin, raising my hand to stroke the side of his face. “I had the strangest dream last night.” I bent my head to rub my cheek against his ruff, taking in the intense new scents that I slowly now was growing accustomed to.
“Dream?” Grr asked. “Was it a good dream? Or just strange?”
“It was... so vivid,” I replied. I pulled back slightly from him, my hand going to the silver flask held on its chain about my waist.
“Dream Walkin'? Was it like bein' -in- Dream? Or just a vivid dream?” Grr lowered his eyes to the flask and then touched it with one claw. “New power, new understandin’, can do things… not bad, but scary, if ya ain’t ready, or aware.”
I shook my head. “I was drifting... just ... drifting in a void of utter, perfect, boundless blue. It wasn't like being in Dream... but then again, it was... I mean... it was peaceful.”
“Floatin’ in tha sea? Or tha sky? Blue like that?”
I closed my eyes, remembering. “Shafts of light shone down on me from somewhere overhead.... more like the sea, I think. I could barely remember the surface... but I felt buoyed and surrounded... yet pulled deeper.” I smiled at him. “I wasn't afraid.”
Grr looked at me with a wary expression. “I like tha bay, but deep scares me if I can’t see bottom.”
“This was different, Grr,” I replied. “Deep, but... no fear. I felt myself descending willingly, settling with infinite slowness.” I laid one hand on his thigh and began stroking it absently. “You'd think I would have been afraid... but the pull... even when the light began to fade... I could feel the pressure of all the water around me, pressing me down... threatening to crush me from every imaginable point of contact, but…. “ I shook my head again. It puzzled me. “Somehow, Beloved, somehow I knew that wouldn't happen. That it wouldn’t be allowed to happen.”
“Ah.” Grr nodded as his eyes began to widen with understanding. “It is a vision from Nareth, maybe. She sleeps in tha deep.”
I glanced at the outer wall of the secret room behind the lab. “I'm not sure where she lies, anymore... nor with whom.” I felt a sudden, surprising stab of longing for Nareth. When I turned to look at Grr again, I could see in his face that he’d read me plainly.
I cleared my throat. “The thing is, Beloved... I knew I was safe.” I tried to meet his golden gaze.
“Do ya wanna go look over her restin’ spot?” Grr asked gently, laying one paw atop my hand. “I don’t mind. I keep ya both safe, when I can, when ya sleep.”
“Yes, please,” I whispered. With great warmth, Grr offered his paw to me. I took it in return and rose slowly, following him to the shelves that concealed the lab. I watched as he manipulated the books on the shelf randomly, opening the secret doorway. Hand in paw, we walked down the two stone steps into the darkness.
The stench was overpowering. As we drew nearer Nareth's resting place, the smell of rotting fish, a bone yard of crab skeletons, and the spray of turbid seawater assaulted us. Grr wrinkled his nose. “Fishy….”
We knelt on the floor beside the pit that was Nareth’s resting place. A dark, glistening membrane could be seen pulsing just beneath the surface of the hole.
“Beloved?”
“Mmm?” Grr murmured, swirling the water gently with a claw.
“I felt something... in my dream.” I grew quiet, lost in the memory of that place for a moment. When I looked up, I saw Grr studying me intently.
“You and Nareth,” Grr began hesitantly, “Yer bonded, aintcha? Tha smell… and taste….”
I had known this moment would come and I feared it. “Bonded,” I whispered, meeting his gaze. “Yes.” My eyes spoke the question to him that I could not.
Grr nodded slowly and smiled faintly, a little softly sad. “By blood and Family, Sister-Lover. Kin, Pack, Blood.”
I lay one hand upon his chest. “But Beloved, I am bonded to you... always. Always.”
Grr took my hand and held it close. “I ain’t jealous or nothin’, just wanna make sure yer safe, and free ta be you, how ever ya need, or wanna, be.”
I reached up to hold his face lightly. “Once together,” I said quietly, then closed my eyes, drew near to him, and touched my forehead against his.
Grr bumped his forehead against mine and smiled in the gloom and reek. “Always together.”
I burrowed into him, laying my head on his chest and gazing at the hole, watching the membrane pulse in the darkness.
“Whatever path ya walk,” he said, claw tips tracing through my hair. “I meant that, I still do.”
*****
From below (a direction that seemed to the girl even more infinite than above), cold tendrils of blackness rose to embrace her. Her long, white hair drifted about her as eel-like shadows caressed her pale body. She knew she was welcomed there, called down, and all the fear and pain and rejection that haunted her above began to dissolve like salt in the sea.
Her lips were no longer red, but blue as the light began to fade, as the light shifted, as all red vanished from the world and from her mind. She began whispering wordless prayers to Mother Hydra and Father Kraken, to Dagon and Great Cthulhu and nameless beings from Paleozoic depths, to the Urdines, and to the Nereids...
In reply, a greeting chant rose from below...
"There gathered round her every goddess, every Nereid that was in the deep salt sea. Glauce was there and Thaleia and Cymodoce; Nesaea, Speio, Thoe and ox-eyed Halie; Cymothoe, Actaee and Limnoreia; Melite, Iaera, Amphithoe and Agaue; Doto, Proto, Pherusa and Dynamene; Dexamene, Amphinome and Callianeira; Doris, Panope and far-sung Galatea; Nemertes, Apseudes and Callianassa. Clymene came too, with Ianeira, Ianassa, Maera, Oreithuia, Amatheia of the lovely locks, and other Nereids of the salt sea depths."
The girl sank, answering.
Dream Sequence, C. Kiernan
Friday, October 10, 2008
A Fifth Rider
Joah stands before the hearth, warming her hands by the fire. Her thoughts are of Blue, of the dreams, of the riders. As she gazes into the fire, the flames lick up in a shower of sparks, her eyes directing each flicker though she is barely aware of it. Twice since the dreams began, the incubus, Severus, has appeared before her as if entranced: first as a red-haired man, crossed with blood and scars, then pale as death, a scythe in hand. She could barely move or speak or breathe in his presence. “I rode with him,” she thinks, “I rode…but to what?”
The room grows warmer and stiller, the silence a palpable presence, till a thud at her feet interrupts Joah’s thoughts. She looks down to see a slim, red leather volume lying at her feet. Its pristine cover belies its great age. A gilt stamp of a tall man in a chariot drawn by four horses adorns the front panel. In his left hand, the man holds high a winnowing fork; in his right, he holds the world. Joah bends to pick up the book; as she studies it, it seems to open of its own volition.
The Prince of Peace is the Royal-Sent Champion,
The Rage-Warrior stands for all the wars, 'til there are none,
The Dark-Guest, equals eye-for-eye, ‘til due is done...
And Death...is always coming for someone.
That's why the Horsemen must ride,
The Horsemen must ride...
Following side by side, ever-rushing tide,
Ranging far and wide,
The Horsemen must.
(The Four Horsemen by MoonBee Canady)
Read Blue's Dream.
The room grows warmer and stiller, the silence a palpable presence, till a thud at her feet interrupts Joah’s thoughts. She looks down to see a slim, red leather volume lying at her feet. Its pristine cover belies its great age. A gilt stamp of a tall man in a chariot drawn by four horses adorns the front panel. In his left hand, the man holds high a winnowing fork; in his right, he holds the world. Joah bends to pick up the book; as she studies it, it seems to open of its own volition.
The Prince of Peace is the Royal-Sent Champion,
The Rage-Warrior stands for all the wars, 'til there are none,
The Dark-Guest, equals eye-for-eye, ‘til due is done...
And Death...is always coming for someone.
That's why the Horsemen must ride,
The Horsemen must ride...
Following side by side, ever-rushing tide,
Ranging far and wide,
The Horsemen must.
(The Four Horsemen by MoonBee Canady)
Read Blue's Dream.
Thursday, October 9, 2008
Lullaby
Lay your sleeping head, my love,
Human on my faithless arm;
Time and fevers burn away
Individual beauty from
Thoughtful children, and the grave
Proves the child ephemeral:
But in my arms till break of day
Let the living creature lie,
Mortal, guilty, but to me
The entirely beautiful.
Soul and body have no bounds:
To lovers as they lie upon
Her tolerant enchanted slope
In their ordinary swoon,
Grave the vision Venus sends
Of supernatural sympathy,
Universal love and hope;
While an abstract insight wakes
Among the glaciers and the rocks
The hermit's carnal ecstasy.
Certainty, fidelity
On the stroke of midnight pass
Like vibrations of a bell
And fashionable madmen raise
Their pedantic boring cry:
Every farthing of the cost,
All the dreaded cards foretell,
Shall be paid, but from this night
Not a whisper, not a thought,
Not a kiss nor look be lost.
Beauty, midnight, vision dies:
Let the winds of dawn that blow
Softly round your dreaming head
Such a day of welcome show
Eye and knocking heart may bless,
Find our mortal world enough;
Noons of dryness find you fed
By the involuntary powers,
Nights of insult let you pass
Watched by every human love.
W.H. Auden
Human on my faithless arm;
Time and fevers burn away
Individual beauty from
Thoughtful children, and the grave
Proves the child ephemeral:
But in my arms till break of day
Let the living creature lie,
Mortal, guilty, but to me
The entirely beautiful.
Soul and body have no bounds:
To lovers as they lie upon
Her tolerant enchanted slope
In their ordinary swoon,
Grave the vision Venus sends
Of supernatural sympathy,
Universal love and hope;
While an abstract insight wakes
Among the glaciers and the rocks
The hermit's carnal ecstasy.
Certainty, fidelity
On the stroke of midnight pass
Like vibrations of a bell
And fashionable madmen raise
Their pedantic boring cry:
Every farthing of the cost,
All the dreaded cards foretell,
Shall be paid, but from this night
Not a whisper, not a thought,
Not a kiss nor look be lost.
Beauty, midnight, vision dies:
Let the winds of dawn that blow
Softly round your dreaming head
Such a day of welcome show
Eye and knocking heart may bless,
Find our mortal world enough;
Noons of dryness find you fed
By the involuntary powers,
Nights of insult let you pass
Watched by every human love.
W.H. Auden
Tuesday, October 7, 2008
ίππος χλωρός
Joah turns fitfully in her sleep, kicking the quilt and sheets to the floor unknowingly. “The stars are not wanted now; put out every one.” A multitude of whispers stirs the air. “Pack up the moon and dismantle the sun.” She tries to lift her head, shaking the sleep way, and finds herself standing on a barren promontory, the dull orange moon low in the sky. She turns slowly around to see a pale green horse, ribs protruding, sickly and weak. Voices as dry and barren as a wasteland murmur, “Pour away the ocean and sweep up the woods.” Her eyes gaze up from the horse to its skeletal rider, wrapped in a winding sheet, a long thin stave in its hand. The sound of a death rattle, then the whispers: “For nothing now can ever come to any good.” The horse and rider move toward her as a chittering sound comes from the rider’s unmoving mouth. “ίππος χλωρός, θάνατος,” it says. The rider extends one bony hand to Joah, pulling her up behind it. She mounts and rides.
Thursday, October 2, 2008
ίππος μέλας
Joah walks along the shore of the Toxian Sea, the hem of her dress dragging in the wet sand, her boots sinking to the heels with every step. The twilight rain drizzles bitter cold as she watches the sea foam wash up crusty chunks of old tar carried along by brown water. She has been unable to sleep, all rest eluding her, so she paces while the first light of weak sun fights the clouds, the upper limb failing to clear the horizon.
She stops where the rock jetty meets the shore, a shiver running through her that does not come from the cold or the rain. The many whispered voices sound inside her. “Come and see…” they say, as she turns slowly toward the pinnacle facing the sea wall. In the distance there stands a black horse, its rider dour, graying and deathly thin. He raises one arm to show a pair of scales in his hand. As he does so, the wails of the hungry and dying fill her ears. The rider locks his eyes with hers and gives a silent, mirthless laugh. “ίππος μέλας,” whisper the voices, “Come and see….”
Read Blue's Dream.
She stops where the rock jetty meets the shore, a shiver running through her that does not come from the cold or the rain. The many whispered voices sound inside her. “Come and see…” they say, as she turns slowly toward the pinnacle facing the sea wall. In the distance there stands a black horse, its rider dour, graying and deathly thin. He raises one arm to show a pair of scales in his hand. As he does so, the wails of the hungry and dying fill her ears. The rider locks his eyes with hers and gives a silent, mirthless laugh. “ίππος μέλας,” whisper the voices, “Come and see….”
Read Blue's Dream.
Friday, September 26, 2008
ίππος πυρρός
Joah tosses and turns on her narrow bed, slowly realizing that she is sitting in the dirt, her dress torn, dust covering her hands. She runs her tongue across her cracked and dry bottom lip, looking around, trying to gain focus in the hot, dry night. The sound of the wind whips past her, a spray of dirt peppering her face, stinging. She hears a noise like rumbling thunder, and turns to see it sounds from the feet of a fiery red horse, flying down the path behind her in a cloud of dust, all of a lather and foam with sweat. On its back, hands gripping a greatsword, sits a blood-streaked rider, dark eyes blazing, and auburn hair streaming behind him like the mane on his mount. The sound of many whispers echoes on the wind as the rider thunders past: ίππος πυρρός.
Read Blue's Dream.
Read Blue's Dream.
Wednesday, September 24, 2008
ίππος λευκός
I was lying on a cushion reading, the fire warm at my back, and drowsing a little when the temperature in the library dropped noticeably and Legion stepped to lean against the pillar supporting the stairs to the attic. I gazed at her impossibly smooth pale skin, drawn to the darkness of Her eyevoids. As I looked, the central pillar of the Library began to twist and spread, leafless branches shooting upward from a gnarled trunk. “Legion?” I whispered, but She said nothing, her head nodding to on side, motioning. I followed the tilt of her head and saw a suit of gleaming armor. It was almost white, the light glinted from it so fiercely. A white horse stood next to it, its eyes red and staring. His head was held up, his mouth closed, and a snorting sound came from his flared nostrils as if checking for danger. As I focused on the armor, the sights in the visor opened, revealing nothing within. A stream of beetles poured out. They swirled, moved by an unseen whirlwind, slowly forming into the shape of a man in white clothing. He wore a bow but carried no arrows. He looked at me, his face impassive, and turned to mount the steed beside him, a pale rider on a pale horse. I heard the words, “ίππος λευκός” uttered in many whispering voices. The wind whipped the rider’s robes and then he was no more, man and horse dissolving in a mist.
Read Blue's Dream.
Read Blue's Dream.
Sunday, July 13, 2008
The dreaming
Joah wakes suddenly from her narrow bed, sitting upright in the darkened upper regions of the Library. The crescent moon streams through the window, barely illuminating the sparsely furnished room. Just by looking at her quilt, she realizes she's had another night of tossing and turning and inexplicable dreams: the covers lie heaped on the floor, the cotton sheets in a crumple. She thinks, "Maybe I should read," and as the thought crosses her mind, a small candle holder and the stub of a lit candle appear on her writing table. Still lost in the dreaming and the waking, she seems oblivious to what she's done. She rises and walks lightly to the little wooden table, bare feet graceful on the cool floor, her thin cotton chemise moving softly with each step. Her gaze wanders from the book she'd been reading earlier to a small ebony writing box banded with brass. Running her fingertips along the edge of the box and then lifting the lid, she takes out a sheet of opaque ivory vellum and a gold, eyedrop-filled pen. She settles on a small, three-legged stool as her mind wanders hours back to Abi's dream, of being with Abi in her dream in the Tainted Earth, floating above the ground, dream dancing with the Magician. The memory is otherwordly and soothing, the effects of a magical place. She closes her eyes and watches Omega floating and drifting, her skirts swirling as she rises and falls. Grr had seemed . . . free . . . dreaming on the air wtih joy. But she remembers the frown that creased his countenance only a short time before as he sat by the fire and said in a quiet, distracted voice, "I try not to dream." Joah knows about the dreaming, and about trying not to dream. She licks the nib of her pen and puts it to paper. "Brother," she begins, "Perhaps this will speak to your spirit." In her neat and old fashioned script, she writes the words of an old poem. She debates for a moment, then simply signs her name. Folding the vellum in half, she tucks it into an envelope instead of tying it. "Grr," she writes on the front, then treads silently down the stairs, placing the envelope on Omega's desk.
"Take this kiss upon the brow!
And, in parting from you now,
Thus much let me avow-
You are not wrong, who deem
That my days have been a dream;
Yet if hope has flown away
In a night, or in a day,
In a vision, or in none,
Is it therefore the less gone?
All that we see or seem
Is but a dream within a dream.
I stand amid the roar
Of a surf-tormented shore,
And I hold within my hand
Grains of the golden sand-
How few! yet how they creep
Through my fingers to the deep,
While I weep-while I weep!
O God! can I not grasp
Them with a tighter clasp?
O God! can I not save
One from the pitiless wave?
Is all that we see or seem
But a dream within a dream?"
"Take this kiss upon the brow!
And, in parting from you now,
Thus much let me avow-
You are not wrong, who deem
That my days have been a dream;
Yet if hope has flown away
In a night, or in a day,
In a vision, or in none,
Is it therefore the less gone?
All that we see or seem
Is but a dream within a dream.
I stand amid the roar
Of a surf-tormented shore,
And I hold within my hand
Grains of the golden sand-
How few! yet how they creep
Through my fingers to the deep,
While I weep-while I weep!
O God! can I not grasp
Them with a tighter clasp?
O God! can I not save
One from the pitiless wave?
Is all that we see or seem
But a dream within a dream?"
Saturday, June 14, 2008
Speaker for the dead
Lorne asked me where I had been.
How to describe it? I’d been out of the city. Ferried away to a place where ruin walks more strongly than in Toxia, as hard as that is to imagine. I speak for the dead. When I am summoned, I must go. I cannot refuse the call, nor can my presence be refused once I am sent. They call me from their dreams.
But there were so many dead this time. So much loss. So much chaos. Over and over I researched, I talked to the survivors, I spoke trying to describe each life and give meaning to the way it was lived. I neither justify nor judge. I try to give meaning to the flaws, the misdeeds, and the intentions gone awry.
Some think me a priestess, though I am not. I mark the span. I tell their lives. I cannot help but reveal their secrets, the mysteries of each intricately woven together with the others by deception, guilt, and love. Thirty-two stones. Thirty-two tolls of the bell. I traced the Tree of Sephiroth around my neck, with the tips of my fingers, marking the Path for each one, Malcuth to Kaether Elyson.
The heat rippled off of the crumbling houses as the people left quietly and the cicadas buzzed in the trees, an electric hum permeating the air.
I speak for the dead.
How to describe it? I’d been out of the city. Ferried away to a place where ruin walks more strongly than in Toxia, as hard as that is to imagine. I speak for the dead. When I am summoned, I must go. I cannot refuse the call, nor can my presence be refused once I am sent. They call me from their dreams.
But there were so many dead this time. So much loss. So much chaos. Over and over I researched, I talked to the survivors, I spoke trying to describe each life and give meaning to the way it was lived. I neither justify nor judge. I try to give meaning to the flaws, the misdeeds, and the intentions gone awry.
Some think me a priestess, though I am not. I mark the span. I tell their lives. I cannot help but reveal their secrets, the mysteries of each intricately woven together with the others by deception, guilt, and love. Thirty-two stones. Thirty-two tolls of the bell. I traced the Tree of Sephiroth around my neck, with the tips of my fingers, marking the Path for each one, Malcuth to Kaether Elyson.
The heat rippled off of the crumbling houses as the people left quietly and the cicadas buzzed in the trees, an electric hum permeating the air.
I speak for the dead.
Monday, May 12, 2008
Chinatti
My mind wants no greater thing than to escape into the unknown abyss of what lies ahead, to wander into nothingness. My very being cries out to be free of my mind's tyranny. My fingers curl, my body wretches, my lungs burn as I die inside. It refuses to leave me: it caves in upon itself, chains pulling me to the ground. My prayers taste like ashes. Nothing can give me breath again. Nothing.
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