vOYAGE:O'Side

by Francis Kroncke

CHAPTER 4

  Once as them, once truly one in unison with the crew, so the voyage changed. There was still a longing for land, but for a different kind of land. As with his crewmates, Frak finds himself eager to discover land but not necessarily to return to the land he had known. All the talk turns to a focus on taking away...taking away things from the new land which would make them wealthy in all lands. Here, Frak grasps that this is more than simple barter...understands that it is about gold and precious items which had no special value back then...barter had been the norm and value was given to things that ensured survival like spears or foodstuff but now he gets it that stones and seemingly trivial things like gold itself or the headdress stolen from a tribal leader, these have a power to enchant people so that he could get, say, a cow to slaughter for just a few gold coins. He hears and understands gold... a word of daily banter on the boat; a word which he hears echoing in his dreams.

  Taking away—Few of the lands they had already explored had much for the taking away. To excite them, Brok spoke at great length and with fervor about the “far away” land. A place thicker with trees than any had ever seen. A landscape more flush with forest animals than any had ever seen. An abundant territory whose rivers and lakes abounded with flying-fish and other fabulous creatures. More, a treasure land where gold was as abundant as flowers and precious gems like apples for the picking. It was, even more significantly, a friendly land where the people were human—all gen as Frak translated it, but which people were like children, like newborn babes...easily commanded, ready to please—unaware of the power of gold and gems.

  Taking away—Brok tells them all, although it seemed he was speaking directly to Frak, that it was his power—his right and authority—to take-away...that is what soul-feasters do! And, it chills Frak to hear that "You are bonded!" as Brok points to the crying blood red tear...that it is his and the crew’s right and authority...Frak’s right and authority! to take-away.

  Take away whatever they wanted, because...here Brok's words took flight into high concepts that Frak struggled to grasp..."We are God’s sons!” Not “suns” as sol but “sons” as grok ums. Frak struggled with the notion and the story Brok told. "This land," stomping his foot several times, "This land is not God's land! It is a cursed land filled with tribes and clans who are not chosen sons! God, Our Father, waits for us on the other side," and here he points straight upward towards the sky, "beyond the clouds, beyond the stars! He waits for us to bring Him the souls of those lost in this land. We must fill our ship with souls teeming over the sides...it is then that we will be ready to venture home, to our home with God and live forever as his chosen sons!" Frak is more aroused, excited, near delirious as he is swept up into the crew's collective emotion. They breath in and out upon Brok's cadence. Their hearts beat in tempo, each heart feeding upon the other’s rising fervor. They stomp and grunt, hoot and bellow, all ending with a repetitive chant of Brok’s "We are God's soul-feasters!"

  Frak, at the first, could not fully comprehend Brok's story. There was no place in his back then world for judging that this world right before him—the dirt, the birds, his own hands, kin and gen—were not part of him. Back then, those who looked like gen but were not, were simply beasts, and beasts were simply part of the harj and the shad. All that was, was simply there. Yet, what blocked his grasping Brok's message was not so much the concepts, as ideas and concepts were secondary back then, no, it was because of his own feelings. Back then he felt one with everything, even with the harj and the shad. Deep within him something resisted Brok's story. Deep down, at the depthless deep, a single word disturbed him—Darlm.

  Despite how he felt, Frak accepted more quickly than he had ever done before the story in terms of words and concepts. He chanted and shouted and bellowed in tandem with his mates. Like his acceptance of "Water-House", he let the words and story slowly imbue him with the power they conveyed. He shouts, "We are chosen!" Like Brok's "Come!" so it was God calling him, choosing him...Frak, a chosen son!

  In time, Frak began to more fully understand that he was not simply in harmony with God...not just one is one...but this godly power was part of his being...the ancient grok so big big big big shad harj!...simply that he and God were one! More, that this oneness with Our Father meant separation from others, those not chosen—enemies...and all that was on earth which was cursed and not where the Father lived—the far away land beyond the stars!

  Frak thought long and hard and talked and talked about all this until his dreams were filled with taking-away for his God. It was, as back then, in the dreaming that Frak sounded the true meaning of being a soul-feaster... of Frak as a triumphant son of God!

  Son of God. In his dreams all creatures bow down to him. Never, again, in dreams for Frak to swim in Darlm’s "Water-House" and worship her as moonlight throne. No, never again. For him, henceforth, the dream of the blackened faces and the prodding of those he would take-away, take them away, make them kneel and bend...he to prod and prod and prod: piercingly…until the greatest of pleasures was his... so has he come to understand how a soul-feaster triumphs—through “submission.”

  Submission was how one became one of God’s chosen sons. Brok had made that clear—spoke at length about how the “cock” was the “living rod” of God. Cock was more powerful than the living, magnetic gray stone: the compass. Brok spoke of how...for those who did not submit...the spear and the lance were also God’s cock.

  Over time, but more rapidly each day, Frak's mind began to fit all the pieces together. He came to understood the connections between third-hand-of-one-finger cock...and adoration and submission. Now the cock rod between his legs was not just a sign that the other is gen, a human, but something much more powerful, more magical—God's weapon for conquest!

  Frak thought about all of this and was viscerally pleasured by the thinking.

  So it seemed that from this initiatory night forward—fully conscious of being a chosen son of God—that the lands they explored were more bountiful and ready for his taking away. This day, the new land they were sailing along was a seemingly endless mountain laced coastline...they were traveling south and ever southward. As they randomly beached and walked about this never-ending southward land, they solely focused on soul-feasting. They cocked the females and lanced the males. It seemed that all the humans they were encountering were resistant to God’s chosen sons and had to learn submission. The crew’s cocks left the seed for the birth of sons of God who would, in time, heal this land. However, to ensure that only their sons would possess these lands, required their killing all the males—at first sodomized, then a lance through their hearts. This was how Brok spoke about how Our Father wanted them to act—no longer as seafarers, only as soul-feasters. "Rejoice!" Brok shouts, "Load the souls onto the ship!"

  So it came to be that Frak’s sword was as potently active as his submitting prod.

  The taking away, also at this time, turned in peculiar and unfamiliar ways. "Load the souls onto the ship!" meant, at first, taking away a personal item from a victim. Beads, shields, knives, even pottery, but as the lancing becomes the crew's dominant activity, so does it become competitive. It is then that a few of the crew start to take away bodily parts of their victims. At first it was hearts. Hearts cut out and stuck at lance’s tip, there to be paraded about to strike fear in all to submit…most did submit, especially the younger women and those clutching children. The few that didn't, mostly older females, were instantly dispatched. Submissively, all who sought to survive bent their bodies, making ready for the soul-feaster's prodding.

  Landing after landing, ever so incrementally, the taking away became even more fantastic and fabulous—gruesome, in that the taking away started to occur while the victim was still alive. Ears were sliced off. Eyeballs were gouged out. Hands and feet were hacked and severed. Then, only after such acts, were the heads chopped off. Full heads. Heads, some with eyes still open in unsubmissive dying—eyes that were beholding a horrendous terror and sight...all whic
h fed a growling hunger deep within Frak...all which pleasured him as he dreamt.

  Heads of the not-chosen that they staked around the rim of the boat—lidless eyes sightless upon the sea...mouth and tongue agape with horror.

  As the crew boarded their landing crafts to attack a new settlement, those who saw them coming fled. Warnings had rapidly spread among all who lived along the coastline. They fled terrified even at their first glimpse of the ship’s fearsome eyes—the yellow stones actually being semi-translucent and as Brok set pots of fire behind them so did the eyes blaze from out and across the water to those dumbstruck creatures wailing and moaning and running asunder and amok up and down the beach and into the forests or up the hills or deep into caves. They deserted their villages, left all their possessions...even their knives and spears.

  The taking away was becoming almost too easy. Frak and his crew—troop!—laughed, hooted, and yowled.

  Their ship became glutted with treasure and booty...cluttered with dried out skins, rotting heads, shriveled hearts, even piles of desiccated penises.

  In all this time Frak had stopped remembering Darlm. When he had picked up the amulet after his first initiation he did not tend to the mending of the leather thong. No, he did not. Frak placed it—without much thought as to why, just stashed it under a plank...there it was, there it is, there is shall be. In this manner she as the amulet became an ancient no-no inside the ship. It was with this stashing away that all images of Darlm began to cumulatively fade from his daily thoughts and nightly dreams—Frak no longer could remember who Darlm was! Then, as the memory of her was obliterated, something profoundly revolutionary occurred in how Frak submitted woman with his rod of God, the Father.

  The obliteration of Darlm was causally linked to Frak's methodical and intensifying taking away—his plundering of women. He practically ceased taking away male body parts, spent even less time gathering treasures and trinkets, no, his prime focus was on submitting the females. He’d spend long nights—on shore, since women were never brought on ship—simply playing with them...taking all—extracting all!— that they had, orgiastically pleasuring himself in ways of submission...he submitted them as he had coupled with Darlm but not as he had dreamed with her. This submitting was without dream, simply with an image—he as God’s chosen son being adored through their submissive wails, groans, and cries. How they pleasured his cock was his measure of mercy. Those who submitted to all his proddings—mouth, anus, between their breasts—lived...the others he lanced. Rarely, however, did he not show mercy to the young—these, despite their bites and flailing arms, if he seeded them, they lived. There were few Frak did not seed. Soul-feaster!

  All his ways of taking away, Frak sees as signs of the pleasure he brings to Our Father.

  “Our Father,” Brok says one day, “Our Father God is pleased with you, Frak.”

  It was on this leg of their voyage where submitting only women preoccupied Frak that the crew discovered a curious and amazing fact about the ocean...the farther south they sailed became not hotter but colder!...“far south” began to act like the far north—all became cold and then frigid and soon the ship was blanketed with snow. On this far south trek, they had to fiercely and heroically battle a raging ocean, fierce winds, and small icebergs. It was at this perilous and dangerous time that Brok stood on his altar and call the group to pray, "Come! Come and honor Our Father!" Brok stood upright like the tallest of trees and with arms outstretched, fingers touching the clouds, he supplicates, “Father in heaven…” and all joined in prayer. Frak now knowing prayer as talking to Our Father, a talking in loud voice and shout where they chanted as they moved about the boat in an orderely slow and silent manner gathering things. Here was a new ritual for him, one that had no linkage to his past, back then. The crew chanted and began to offer up to Him the best of their treasure and booty—praising Him as they started throwing golden cups, ivory jewelry, goblets with precious gems...tossed overboard for Him; burning skins and heads for Him: "We offer ourselves up to you, Father. We submit our lives to you! Do with us as Thou will!" And in answer and manifesting His power, within less than a day's sailing they shifted eastward and broke into warmer weather and started north again...through all this, Brok prayed, submissively upon his knees. Frak hearing, “Father we give Thee thanks.”

  Thanks-giving. Frak had understood, back then, this most elemental of insights and feelings. That the bush which gave eating berries had to be praised and thanked. That the deer slain had to be praised and thanked. These words came readily and easily to him, quickly translating what he had felt in the images back at that time he now does not remember.

  Thanks-giving.

  “Thanksgiving,” intones Brok, and joins it to a new word, “Sacrifice.”

  Brok knows why he selected Frak. He was pure. He lived in a world of illusion and was a chosen one, elected by God to lead his people and all people like him to the revealed truth that was entrusted to Brok by Our Father.

  Brok shares with Frak the connection between the land and sacrifice. "This land, the water, the dirt, the trees, the people...all live in a world of illusion. Evil magic. This is not a real world." Frak mind is aching to grasp the shift in consciousness this requires. "Earth is not our Mother. We have no Mother! This you must learn, understand. The land is illusion, a wizard’s magical trick. The true land is beyond here—in heaven." Frak wants to ask a question but cannot form it in either his mind or with words. "God lives over there." Brok points towards the horizon. Pauses; stares deeply into Frak's eyes, penetrating his soul. "There is a passage we must find. One where this evil land provides an escape to Our Father's land."

  This notion that the world is not real had been buzzing in and around Frak's mind since Brok's first speech about being chosen. His mind is still at this moment but noise. "What has been told to us, revealed by great good wizards and powerful leaders, is that the passage is one of blood, not water. This ocean water is illusion. What we must do is fill it with blood." Frak hears and is thinking about slaughtering animals...but is jolted as Brok's says, "Only the sacrifice of those who do not worship Our Father is acceptable. Only their blood is worthy to fill the passage. We must store not only their souls on board, but their bodies!" Brok's stare plunges deeply into Frak’s soul...finds Darlm there, crouching, hiding—slays her. "We must fill this ocean with human blood!"

  All is soon shockingly clear to Frak. Brok's slaying of Darlm, unknown in conscious thought to Frak, frees him to embrace this novel and singular understanding of Our Father's power. He is the source of all life! Brok whispers, "Women are illusions. Servants of the devil!"... Dev?

  With all traces, scents, memories of Darlm erased, obliterated, taken away by Brok, so it is evident to Frak, "Our Father who art in heaven, all power and praise be Yours!"

  So, as they set upon the next settlement, they do not do battle, no, they capture. Sneak in under darkness and capture a small family: a woman, her husband, and two children.

  Back on the boat, on top of the forecastle Brok has set up a festive altar. It is ringed about with flowers and bright feathers...other objects of value—gold and coal and smooth, wondrously colored stones.

  The small family is set on the far edge on a ledge. There to be seen by and to see all.

  Sacrifice. First it is the woman. Brok draws her to the altar...drapes great riches around her—necklaces of pearl, bracelets of gold, earrings of boiling red garnet...robes her in a flowing silk brocaded with the flowers of spring, all festive, happy, joyous colors...he offers her a small cup, pure and smooth without inscription or adornment...she sips the gom...lays her down upon the altar...gently spreads aside her robes and inner garments just enough so that he can slip inside her legs...lays upon her—ruts and heaves…but draws himself out short of ejaculation, draws himself out and kneels up, then holds himself ever so momentarily as his sperm arcs and splotches upon her belly.

  Brok leans forward and with liturgical gesture: clockwise, counter-clockwise,
he ceremoniously smears and spreads...anoints the fear rigid woman’s body with his sperm. Smears it and spreads up and down her chest, onto her face, until—God be praised!...it majestically transforms into blood—the woman is screaming and attempts to escape... rolls and pitches, but Brok’s hands are strong...the rings on his fingers filed to work as sharp teeth, as such so quickly and swiftly are her eyes wreathed with bloody tears, her lips drool red spittle, her breasts sliced and pitted with tiny pools of blood. “Father, into Your hands I commend this soul!” Pierced through the heart with a thunderous groan of fatal submission.

  A heart which Brok savages—all hearing the crack! and snap! hard splitting of breast bone and his sweaty, grunted set of plunges and cuts and tears until he hops off the altar’s ledge and lifts her heart up for all to see.

  The men shout, “Blessed be Our Father!”

  They shout jubilantly, madly, in worshipful and prayerful ejaculation.

  The woman’s body is swiftly removed and tossed overboard. Her heart—fitfully beating—lies upon the altar—amidst festive blossoms and sparkling jewels.

  The husband and children are dumbstruck—horrifically shocked beyond anything Frak has ever seen. The queerness of their protruding eyes and death-sucked cheeks evokes a strange response from within his body...as if from deep inside—an inside he has never tapped before—this ghastly fright flushes into a stream of warmth...gushing up from below his navel, radiating throughout his every organ and limb...pools into his crotch, there thickening and feeling like a lump which, with a jerk and a thump, bursts up and out, soiling his fine robes...an ejaculation of massive adoration of Our Father!

  He is staggered.

  He is consumed.

  He is not unaware that his cock is achingly stone hard.

  Then the children. Almost to the age for the ceremony of big—bordering on being full male and full female. They are dragged over...oddly quiet in terror; torpid.

  With practiced hands Brok draws his blade and slices off their clothes...short frock and a simple midriff wedge.

  The children are naked. Brok reaches out his perfumed and ornately ringed right hand, touches their foreheads with his thumb, anoints them—marking them with a gold cruciform sign ...is handed a swish of incense, he swathes them with fragrance...for a fleeting moment all eyes and thoughts and feelings are focused and centered in adoration of the children. Again, in what is a flash to Frak’s fascinated eyes, two of the troop step forward, disrobe as they approach...with cocks like lances they set about submitting the children. The shrill screams and whimpering cries and futile thrashings in protest and defense serve only to heighten the gleeful and rhapsodic shouts and fast-paced clipped guttural bursts of song from Brok and the others. Frak is at a loss for his own words, but he deeply senses what his brothers in the troop are feeling—that Our Father is pleased with them.

  The children are tossed overboard, alive.

  The mother’s heart: now flaccid, is flung after them as so much debris.

  Throughout all of this—this play of fascination, horror and ecstatic violence—it has been evident to all that the real sacrifice is that of the father, her husband. For this is a ritual of taking away from him. Of submitting him through every sense and feeling he would ever have. It was known to all in the troop...especially to Frak...that the father was being submitted as to his memory, his hopes, his dreams, his physical strength...simply and totally demeaned and destroyed and sacrificed as a total being—that the father is Enemy...one not chosen; an evil god's son.

  Through the submitting of the father, so Frak could feel, was he himself submitted to Him.

  “Our Father is pleased,” Frak murmurs softly to himself.

  Frak is pleasured and thrilled beyond words.

  The father was not killed. Not slain. No, his diminishment required that he first be feted. Dressed and draped in the richest, thickest, most luxuriant of sensuous robes and comforting hides...jewels: gold, pearls, a gaspingly thick emerald and precious stones beyond count and mingling of colors...these were looped around his wrists and his neck and his ankles. He was seated upon the richly carved throne which Brok had taken away after a most clever—and during a tale inspiring battle against a—powerful coal-black king. Brok revealed to them that there were humans who were totally black, not just from the sun, not dark like many whom they met while traveling south, but dark as the precious stone called coal. It was because of this most black of blackness that Brok coveted his throne—this wood and leather intricately carved seat fully gold gilded which Brok grasped must be for a grand soul-feaster like himself! For one who was One with his own mighty God. So was Brok chosen to slay this coal-black evil god...it was from this black demon that he stole this throne chair. Triumphantly, upon this throne, this seat of power, this symbol of the unfathomable mystery of human life, so does Our Father sit as the regal husband now sits.

  They bring the husband food. Wine and mead and thick cuts of meat; sweet fruits. No gom. But he does not eat...just sits, catatonically...almost rigor mortis, upon the magnificent throne—honored as a king should be.

  The crew sing songs of praise and adoration...he does not move, not flinch. He does not make even the tinniest of gestures...not a pant or a grunt—his breathing is silent...nothing to let them know he is aware of them.

  No blinks.

  But all know that he is aware...aware of them inside the power which has overtaken him—the gripping presence of their Father. “Our Father has taken him away,” is spoken around out loud.

  Our Father has submitted him.

  Through his being—as sacrificial offering—so Frak grasped was the Father's presence made manifest among the crew. The simple truth that life and death, each and both, are the Father’s...only Our Father’s to bestow and reclaim. Only He is “King of kings!”

  Somewhere late that night, so late that it was moving towards morning, the husband and father flares up off his throne and hurls himself into the ocean.

  Tired, weary, besotted and hallucinating from every sense—such was the ship’s crew...each of whom was relieved that Our Father—through the sacrificial king’s own act of suicide—has Himself left the ship...for His presence was too mighty, is too mighty.

  Thankfully, so Frak feels—is relieved—the presence of Our Father had only required that the sacrificial husband/father/king be slain. For His hunger for souls is so beyond understanding that all feared that He would demand their own!

  With their Mighty Father gone from the ship, so could they sleep...and upon waking from this sleep would they rise again as chosen Sons of God, Our Father...chosen to voyage ever forward towards His far-away land.