Of The Dark and The Deep_The Cryptid Council Series Book 1

by Rink Wester

  Let’s find out shall we?. All aboard.

  78

  Long elven gjållårhorns sounded in the great tiered city of Mînåthrorn as Chÿnåriöns army attacked. A great wall of Mînåthrian soldiers broke against their swords like a cresting wave of armed elven malice. Queen Çåthÿ’s determination was steel whipped and her will, her forces beckoned, would not be bated. She and her sisters fought Chÿnåriön with a ferocity beneath their station. With hair disheveled and faces contorted beyond recognition they summoned the very darkest elven mågÿcks to battle him and his menace. They reached into the native beat of that land and called the Mînåthrian Fæ of the air, sea and forests to their aid. Jøłëtâ, gripping the Snøldëlëv runestone and flanked by her two Druid Elf guards, met Chÿnåriön’s dark approach head on and would sooner coat herself in the lowest dwarf’s blood and die lobeless than see his evil win this day or any other. Çåthÿ Liin rode atop her Dread Wölf whose nerves and gnashing jaws had been steadied and returned to the business of bloodletting once more by its High Queen. It snapped Mênègröthan knight and squire in two as the maiden astride him whose life he would guard until all elfdom sank down to myth and forgotten legend did battle with that invading horde’s lord and master.

  Down the castle pass trundled the regal bulk of King Prifddinås, Queen Çhêrÿl and the King’s Cådærn warrior regiment all riding their prize Kîløpilöpítsœfies, the Malagasy flying hippo steeds of the Cådærn, casting frightening mågÿcks as they made their way to Çåthÿ Liin’s side and she let fly a blood curdling cry that steeled her gentrymen and united her kingdom behind their queens.

  Think you that my muckle clumsy body could run and fight as featly, my dear? For that piercing scream I would compose and settle a thousand enemies. Have at thee interloper!

  In the smoking ash of that battlefield, Çåthÿ Liin raised her Shimmêr Wånd, hewn from a sallow branch of the great tree Łæürélin, and blasted Chÿnåriön with a feat of bright green elven mågÿcks that knocked him to the ground and broke like a sonic boom across that landscape. The closest Mênègröthan warriors folded like dried husks and disintegrated in hushed wisps of hollowed out chainmail and arbor etched helmets as that shockwave stole Chÿnåriön’s breath and reset his army’s momentum.

  Mist rose as Chÿnåriön conjured the might of his ancestral bloodline and forced the earth itself to war. The dirt of Mînåthrorn churned in a serpent ball of mineral rage as an elemental Stœrm Atrönøch, the great elven demon of rock, granite and the cursed roots of Télpérîön rose to betray its queen’s land oath and answer that binding usurper’s call to arms. His dark malice filled that golem and consumed with Chÿnåriön’s gathering glåmöûr it grabbed Çåthÿ Liin and her sisters and pinned them to the mountain crest flanking that Great Gate of Steel.

  You have elected the way of pride and pain my Queens. A choice I happily honor.

  At that very moment, with lightning precision, a bolt of blinding plasma descended from the sky, striking the heart of that battlescspe trapping every elf there in a familiar, choking grip of Vœrtëx sorcery. There before them, stuck in the mantle of Mînåthrorn, was the famed dagger of Ädårønh Tir and hovering above it in shedding waves of supreme power was the most unlikely figure the elf eyes of monarch or peasant would ever expect to see hovering against the skyline of any elven kingdom. Those of lower Fæ birth looked up and wailed in abject horror as that figure slowly descended to greet them at ground level. He bent and reclaimed his dagger, resheathing it as one by one, Chÿnåriön, Queen’s Çåthÿ, Jøłëtâ and Çhêrÿl all shrank and trembled in weak order. Queen Çåthÿ stepped forth, fighting the pull of Sihiosian mågÿcks gluing her in place as her birthright remembered itself, and she said as regally as fear would allow,

  What game is this? We are free of the curse of Ëvèr! Are we not? I will not beg for the dignity of my people but I would sooner roast in the fires of Tàrdíäd than return to that gloomiest purgatory.

  He palmed the dagger of Ädårønh Tir and smiled, a waterfall of Sihiosian mågÿcks continuing to strangle elves as they writhed and coughed and knelt in pleading homage.

  What is it you want from us? What new affront have we committed? We honor your name above all names...Lord Ôlörûn!

  He threw his head back and laughed a deep malicious laugh, his head throbbing and this last blackout bringing him to this second realm of the elves. He pinned Çåthÿ Liin with a stare deep enough to drown planets as he whispered loud and darkly for all of nature to hear before teleporting away,

  My name is not Ôlörûn. The body you see…this body…is his. I borrow it merely. I am his firstborn. The tired but true prince of Hiklorim. A rich tale to be sure, but one I fear for another day. I promise. I have returned to right him and wrong him. You may call me…Lêlwåni Ädår. It’s extremely nice for you to meet me. Sweet dreams are indeed made of this.

  79

  Grynn Xanthopoulos, Brüücê Phillip Väntös, Vickie and Victor Basse and the northeast regional Pörø guard gathered on the Washington DC National Airport tarmac unloading bags and the detritus of domestic travel while the Gröötslâng göddess, Nänå Båkløü Lång hovered high above the scene watching them all. She floated draped in gold with Burmese Ekeks fanning her with golden fronds. They had all heard both rumor and lore of the resurrected göddess, Ûlghänå Ÿêmøjá and those that weren’t staring in jittery distress did so in a morbid curiosity bordering groupie fetish.

  The Bödhisåttvå, Kuan Yin, her remaining brothers and the Chao Tåôtié twins kept their distance, repto-psychic tongues darting out tasting the air periodically for any shifting threat scent of predator pheromones.

  -Restraint brother. Remember what grandfather always said about enemies and enemies of our enemies.

  -Yeah. They die last. First the handshake and the baijiu gangbei. Then the sword.

  They both laughed, something in the recessive gene of their personalities detaching and inviting their depravity to come out and play.

  Kuan Yin and Vickie glared at one another, both plotting and replotting the presence of the other, both holding white knuckled onto what had happened before and in that Bödhisåttvå dungeon between Vickie and the dragons. Between Vickie and Kuan Yin’s youngest Brother. With a nod, they greeted one another in one word acknowledgment, the rules of göd parlay forcing their better angels to the fore.

  -Witch. Nod.

  -Bitch. Nod.

  The Chao twins watched Grynn and Brüücê Phillip like raptors deciding from which angle to strike and pounce. Grynn nodded psychically to Brüücê Phillip, that raised flag finding a home in an already suspiciously alert Pygmy master.

  -It is wonderful to see you again Master Väntös. Nod.

  -It is wonderful to be seen Misters Chao. Nod.

  Vickie levitated next to Nänå and watched airport techs drive around slicks of black ice and leftover mounds of dirty snow from the latest winter storm, gassing planes and relocating carts of luggage. Inside the terminal, echoing intercoms ushered fake frenzy and Sbarro pizza guzzling passengers to a long conveyored march of debarcation gates, filling its portals and walkways with a duty free enthusiasm absent that basket of otherworldly misfits congregating on the tarmac below. What she wouldn’t give, not for the last time, to run through green hills and creek banks and frolic once more through the quiet lavender of her childhood. Here they all waited like a wit-stuck Br’er Rabbit caught on swindled thorns and waiting for the lid to close on Uncle Remus’ pot.

  Everyone gathered was on edge. They all felt true evil walking that tarmac. An evil tearing scars into the peace of mind too agitated to settle their nerves. Brüücê Phillip looked up at the Gröötslâng queen of heaven, Ûlghänå göddess who would not burn, and cast a messianic hex hoping to heal the infected wound on the air.

  A little mågÿckal marijuana for the soul.

  It was Nänå’s show now. She had summoned them all in what was more ugly imperative than fatal suggestion. After the debacle with Åpsät
and his new Despoiler, there was not much left for any of them to salvage or save of their individual missions. Commercial exhaust perfumed the ice on everyone’s breath as Nänå teased their sanity, drawing out her proclamation in protracted, dry pause.

  The Dark Mother is now almost free. She has recruited a vile human host to her lofty cause. My daughters mate. The scum worm. Her curse in the blackguard of her seven sons is complete. The Elven 19 are free and He is now coming for me with a Death knell that only dagger may now tell. I am here for your powers. For this and no other clause have I summoned you all. Relax children of Sihiosia. Spawn of the Fæ and Øgdöåd seed. I’m not here to hurt you.

  In final animate alliance, Grynn, Brüücê Phillip, the BödhisåttvåDragons and Tåôtié twins all nodded, crossing mental fingers behind mental backs and waiting for Ûlghänå Ÿêmøjá’s other razor sharp stilletto to drop.

  I’m not here to hurt you? Isn’t that what all serial killers say before the party really begins?

  80

  The living room was drowning in Hiklorik power. Gærüt took each of his brothers in stride. Looking at them cowering behind Åpsät’s madness was an exercise in breaking eggs and making omelettes. You are beautiful if seasoned and flipped perfectly. But no matter how elegant, every omelette still begins in the ass of a chicken.

  His brothers sat slack-jawed and complacent, the mågÿckal authority of their candle wick snuffed between Åpsät’s forefinger and the thumb of the Dark Mother. Something in the set of their shoulders flickered and faded. They seemed small and shrunken standing there in their big brother’s presence. They were curse covered in a murky film of restraint mågÿcks stone-binding their Øgdöåd mågÿcks to the will of the Despoiler. The will of Aeyitria. Her climax breached their quodlibet, joining them all in a sort of maddeningly comic chorus.

  She wants them to be here. The shrewd doxy.

  Gærüt’s brothers receded in the heat of their Mother’s plans. She needed them all gathered around the Sky Father. Needed them to be present but impotent. She had prevented their Øgdöåd powers it’s native revolt when Gærüt’s Inkongonzelo had come to claim them. In the dark venery of her Hiklorim, she had shaped the air around them into a raging business of mind bending horseflies, maggot-scraping against their resolve as she had trampled their will underfoot.

  He pitied his brothers. True enough. Åpsät for the bottom-rung ignorance that was always his weakness and the hamstrung arrogance that was always the weakness of the rest. The might of the universe and the Cryptid Council was gathered there in his private lodge. Power now drooling before the latent whims of a dead Mother brandishing and delivering weakness with the morning dew. Weakness was going to get all of their asses kicked. By me. Unfortunately.

  The sun had just peeked over the metallic and stone horizon of buildings and scattered rooftops. Lonely sunlight reflected off the sconces, striking the adventure of their family turmoil and the mending burden of a curse slowly returning.

  Tony shut his eyes as Aeyitria spoke in flawless English, her words imperious and resentful as she addressed the peril of her eldest son,

  -My Cursed Halfborn. Cut bastard of a broken star. I see your arrogance has survived these long millennia.

  -So too, I see, has the vein carrying the liqueur of your sleepless and petty retard endured in exile Blighted Mother.

  -You rule but you hold sway over nothing! An empty crown atop a waifish, maladroit king! I find this new tongue of man infinitely capable of describing the disease of you. You are sick and pallid my My Mounted Pestilemce. I am here to strip bare your canker.

  - Foulest Mother of Calamity, do you remember when we first met? When birth pain and misfortune introduced us, making singular our plural paths. It has been long years since then. It will be longer still til your frazil forms and your name’s rough sea is once more frozen in reign.

  Tony-Aeyitria laughed, Tony’s body becoming bubbly and molten as Aeyitria, in the forced mercurial timber of his voice, continued,

  -You are now as you were born, a lesser heir of greater beings. In me were you made and behind the bosom of my black gates shall you be unmade. For now, just like then, your sloppy miracle leaves me but one choice. You must be destroyed.

  -Miracles are funny things Mother. Perhaps the lesson, now, just like then, is yours to learn. I’m happy to help you remember the victory dance even and perhaps most especially when the miracle fails. Let the needle scratch and the record play. The waltz, like always Brittle Mother of Malice, will choose its own partner. This go round, shall I lead, or shall you?

  Snow flurries fell outside as Gærüt met his Mother in battle once more. Twilight rays of errant sunlight shone through breaks in high clouds illuminating dust particles in the air. Tony-Aeyitria rose in a ball of smoky soot and swirling mågÿck as Gærüt, the great Lord of the Sky, rose to meet them. Åpsät reached out hoping to touch His Despoiler and draw from his dark core that sea of necromancy he used to rout Nänå and that rabble in the Kuqala Corp temple chamber.

  Gærüt smiled, mind and mågÿcks strained in formidable play, as the Star of Sihiosia awoke in a blazing wash of power. Not this time little brother. You all have grown dull in your respect. Shall I reteach you all the syllable of göd? Shall I remind you of my name and that I and I alone belong to it? Gærüt peeked a nose above the pool of Sihiosian power alive and bleeding from him in all directions, a sea of mystical might flowing like white tar and scalding Spanish silver from his eyes and every single pore. He grabbed Åpsät in a grappling wave of Sihiosian tendrils, like miles of laser scorched cheesecloth over necrotic skin, the star of Sihiosia ridding the winged Peryton göd of that eager weakness. Gærüt ripped Åpsät’s arm from its socket, melting his fingers into rotting leaf matter and sealing him in a brutal sandstorm of crushing acid hex like a terrible swarm of star-hot termites from an anal fissure. An ugly haboob of biting mågÿck drank Åpsät down and left him paraplegic and smote.

  Tony-Aeyitria raised both hands curled in despair and vitriol, face turning ashen as the dawn, the treachery of their mågÿck challenging Gærüt and rescuing the failed test of Åpsät’s broken body. Now bound together, Tony-Aeyitria was a force of nature as they round after round of gödbolt and concentrated dark and struck against Gærüt’s Sihiosian control. In full sync, they had become nature’s hybrid antagonist. A walking cataclysm. Aeyitria scattered and jackknifed inside Tony’s body, her violent appetite once again finding its menu. Vengeance and pain had called her forth and she would once again rave and despair.

  She yelled Gærüt’s name seconds before Gærüt grabbed his head as his eyes glossed over and he screamed into the massive migraine crippling his senses. A dagger appeared in his hand moments before he teleported away, leaving his guests bewildered and frought with unanswered anguish.

  Suddenly, the walls of Gærüt’s lodge vibrated as the entire residence rose in a hurricane of Pörø, Ëgbëand Ëhiån mågÿck. The lodge landed in a heavy thud on a Blue ridge mountain pass just inside the Virginia border. The walls stretched and exploded as the occupants fell out and looked up a floating golden draped Nänå smirking at her own mågÿckal checkmate. Eyes rolling in thunder, her mågÿck releasing it’s own petriachor, that distinct scent of rain in the air just before a rainstorm, she shouted,

  Hear me. I was caught flat-footed when last me met, Åpsät. Despoiler. It seems you are in far worst shape than when last we saw one another brother. I smell Gærüt’s mågÿck at work here. Poor little halfwit. But it is to neither of you that I make this address. I know now the flavor of that power I tasted on the air that day. Hello Aeyitria. Through you these peasant have gained great power and in my unvigilence managed momentarily to embarrass my own. I promise it won’t happen again. I want vengeance and you want release. Let us to the marriage of dark will and deep desire bring King Ôlörûn to his knees.

  Tony-Aeyitria guffawed loud and maniacal in a violent squall of climatic irony blowing in the near polar latitude of her divine scorn
. She-Tony left the ground and embraced Nänå midair like a long lost daughter, kissing her on both cheeks, her dark impulse already plotting ahead to the second of a three-dog night they would none of them live to see.

  81

  Lêlwåni Ädår returned, riding the high altitude currents of that Northern Virginia stretch of the Blue Ridge Mountains. Still claiming Gærüt’s body, he appeared with an army of elves and nature Cryptids through a fiery 5 story incision in the Spirit Plane, having gone just long enough to walk a beach, torture turtles and sequester all of elfdom.

  Nänå’s features softened in momentary lapse and a nostalgic beat of past wings as she spoke for that huddled caucus, I am all here Umyeni. I remain yours. Queen, deadened and clipped, prisoner to what you’ve spoken to the darkness. Under the absinthian log of your long night, the walls of your 4000 year old bower consumed me like a capsule to trammel some wild thing in. I have suffered you and I have returned from you Gærüt, dearest Father and Lover. What now?

  That was all quite beautiful. To be sure. But...I am not Gærüt, Mother. I am the bone and blood of your firstborn. Let us now make introductions so that history shall meet present and fierce truth made gross and large. I am Lêlwåni Ädår. I am Norse Hel of old. The Iku of Santeria. The Aztec Göd of Death, Mîchtläntécühtli. Babylonian Ereshkigal. The Morrigan. I am Anubis and Osiris. The Celestial Grim Reaper. Aita of the Etruscans. I am Hades and Thanatos. And like them I was banished. Caged. Murdered and locked away half a million years ago like polluted wildlife. Until my bone and the Pendant of my Mother replanted itself and I awoke in the secret psyche of the Sky Father. I am the prophesied death of all. I hid away in my Father’s Sihiosian fount. The Star of Sihiosia welcomed my intrusion like a long lost aunt. Astonishing in its deceit it taught me how to wait and in patience grow dark and strong. It helped me rewrite our blackouts and sew together the disappearance of time and fuse multiple personality fugue states. My Father has no idea I’m even here inside his very whim.