Episode 4: Hungers: Part 7
THE HOUSE BETWEEN THE WORLDS, FAERIE?
July 17 2010: 11:00PM
There is a principle common to almost all schools of magic: The image of a thing is symbolically this thing. All that affects the image affects what was represented and vice-versa. One could force his portrait to bear the burdens of old age in his place while piercing the heart of a doll containing a lock of hair will provoke the death of the person to which the hair belongs. It's a law as ancient as the one saying you should fear faerie's gifts or that to know the name of a thing is often to master it.
So even the Manticore feels fear when I brandish a page bearing its image to its mannish face. I don't smile anymore but my words are merry as I hold perhaps its destruction in my hands.
"Don't move, please. I'm sure none of you want to know what happens if I tear up this parchment." It recoils, sting raised to better to strike me down at a moment notice. I stay calm despite my fears. "Do you want to test if I'm quick enough to make you pierce your own image with your sting? Tell me. What would happen? Would you collapse in a pile of sand? Or just crawl away in agony?" The other two don't make a sound. They hesitate. Killing a colleague, even by simple mistake, is something you want to avoid.
I look beyond them to try to see where my comrades are up to. What I see makes my skin crawl. Tim managed to slip away from them and is trying to run to my position. The two others are after him. I don't exactly begrudge them for losing sight of a determined magician but still. Kid Flash is now running at full speed, eager to catch the foolish child while Robin is following in the shadows. That changes everything! My initial plan was to distract-the three monsters until they escaped and then hope for the best. Now I must kill all three of them or at least pray they can help me kill them.
Teenagers!
I don't let any of this show on my face. Show any weakness to a beast and it will devour you. I'm still holding the page like a crucifix in a vampire movie but they will reach a decision before long. What can I do? What can I do? I calm myself. No need to cry over spilled milk. Tearing the page for the Manticore, make the Monk taste justice, and fight the giant monster to monster. Yes I can do that. Now if only I'm lucky.
"We are in an impasse" growls the Manticore. "This page's destruction while painful to me will not bring my death. And once you've destroyed it, you have no protection against us." I don't know if he's bluffing but there's something more than simple pain holding him back. Perhaps that if I tear the page up, it will only wound him but if it's hit by his envenomed claws or the spells of the Monk or the blades of the giant, it will have a much greater effect. Still I have nothing to lose by using the weapon I have.
I cut the page cleanly on the edge of my axe. The effects are immediate. The Manticore howls as deep gashes appear at the middle of his monstrous body. It was right for it doesn't die but the pain seems horrendous and he prowl quickly behind his companions. Still to see his fur matted with his own poisoned blood was a sight I'll be sure to take to the underworld.
I mantle Anubis in an instant. My body shifts like quicksilver becoming bigger and stronger as my own biases influence this form. I'm entirely covered in fur. My face is a black jackal's covered by a white cloth. My axe shifts with me to a spear with a sickle's looking blade. I'm tall but thin, all in leathery muscle and parched skin. Strider in silence to protect tombs and bring the dead to justice.
I howl and the dead howl with me, a scream mighty enough to cast the human-looking monk in a display case, ending his course in broken glass and destroyed specimens. I lunge on the giant and my blade meet his skin. It rings like steel on steel while in absolute silence he tries to seize me by the throat. Gouts of burning oil and molten metal drip from his claws and they burn as they graze my flesh, still I persevere and, holding my spear downward then upward, opening him from crotch to gizzard and letting flow a burning blood.
In another room Tim cuts himself on a Batarang. Why the hell Robin gave him that? Remembering that magic answers need, he anoints one of the displays, a sort of unicorn, with his blood while whispering a remembered name. More intelligent than I thought. Robin and Kid Flash arrive in the room as all begins to break in many bright colors. A cat observes the lot.
The monk has risen again and he begins incantations. Forgotten spells inscribed on tomb-golds, investment of demonic might, gifts given by the darkest of spirits. I amend what I said earlier, I want ot know this one's history. He hurls lightning at me, fire and ice but its goal is to shackle me in elemental bonds. I laugh at the thought while turning my attention to him.
"Your sorcery is made for enslaving pitiful children far from their true potential, to deceive and to tempt. What can you do against me demon, me who bears the might of the gods?"
I jump on him and swipe his head with my clawed hand. Blood and worms flows from the wound. I cannot be defeated by the likes of them. I can't be defeated in this form. They are monsters, ancient and canny but this is not like the hunts they are accustomed to. I'm not a child lost in the labyrinth to be lured into their lair and disposed without a thought. I... I…
The Manticore is stealthier than anything this size has any right to be, its claws scratch my skin just a little as I dodge but a scratch is all it needs for the venom to take effect. It won't kill me yet but agony still enters my skin. So if it's finished. Let's go down fighting, shall we.
I doubt these halls have ever seen such a battle. Three ancient monsters, I now can name: The rage that entices, the plague that gnaws at belief, the drive of the old to profit from youth against a demigod avatar of the jackal-god. Claws, broken bones blade and spells against divine weapons, each of our blow finishing to destroy the contents of the room. Little by little I lose ground but none of my opponents is unharmed and all sports deep wounds worthy of being remembered.
Tim has lived to his future title and opened a gate to bring him to safety. None here to witness what I'm planning to do. None to witness what magic I'm about to craft. The Manticore I can kill with only the price to my own life. The giants I cannot name can be broken and its elements dispersed with some pain. The monk though, to my eyes he's an avatar of the very concept he represents. Kill him and another will rise to take his place and fulfill his role. Fitting the one I want the most to destroy is the one I shouldn't kill.
The dance draws to a close and the Manticore is driven to a last error. The great monster tries despite its wounds rise his tail for a last blow. I don't dodge and let the full strength of the great envenomed sting deeply pierce my body. A smile across my bloodied lips. A strike of my blade and the tail is cut and the monster recoils with a great scream. I laugh as I show it the new weapon in my left hand.
Its own dart, still dripping with venom none can cure.
I charge them in a desperate attempt and such is the strength of my assault they can't resist being scratched by my two weapons. The giant's carcasse rots and rusts under the venom. The manticore great body quakes and twists as I slash his mannish face and sees what was human in him disappear in a flow of acid. The monk I force to his knees as he's the last.
The house is crumbling around us with the earth and the sky and all. Two of its masters are dead and gone so all crumble. My body will soon follow suit but I see all gates are open, so I won't have to languish here when all will end. The blade in my hand is now a sickle, perfect for what I'm to do.
My first blows are to the sinews, ensuring he cannot walk or even crawl his way out of here. My voice is charged with all I can muster of my master lordship upon justice, to make the bindings I make holy in the sight of the gods.
"I name you paralyzed! Never again shall you touch the hearts of men."
I sense his grunts echo through the melody of the universe and think. On one level these bindings will hold this creature fast but what will their effects be on his followers. Will slavers reconsider their acts? Will they make mistakes and thus be caught. I'm binding an appointed representative of a concept here. The consequences will be momentous even if the concept is awfully narrow.
"I name you blind! Unable to see the path out of this prison, never again to look in greed on the world". And my blade work make my words true.
"I name you mute. Never again your voice will be listened by anyone." And his tongue is burned out of his mouth.
I mutilate his extremities and defile his face. I sing with my own suffering and his victims'. It takes the last of my strength but I speak for the divine with my last words.
"For a thousand years and a day I bind you here with chains made of your companions' flesh, in a cage built from your companions' bones. Thus speaks the gods."
His bloody face is the last thing I see before the mantle of Anubis falls from my tired shoulders and I'm left to the agony of the Manticore's venom, before the cage I made in one of the glades of Faerie.
