by Aaron French
Once more he became the white flame, this time burning her from within, flowing like molten light along her skin. They melted, bodies and souls merging into a single, blazing point that rose to light the firmament, drowning out the pale glow of sun and moon alike.
Afterwards, as they lay entwined and exhausted, cooled by the soft breeze falling through the window, she knew that he would stay.
At least for a little while.
***
For the next few days, Kantoh the Priest seemed gone, replaced by Kantoh the Man. He spent each day working with Dyama’s servants picking peaches, plums, and pears in the orchards at the rim of the village. At night Anfai shared her bed and her body with him. He seemed tireless, yet the lines of an inner conflict played across his features at times, as if his body and spirit were dueling. Yet when she drew him close and kindled his inner fires, his internal struggle disappeared. And when he played with Ond, laughing and tickling, enjoying the little one’s innocent capering, his gentle smile returned, unblemished by the turmoil that came to him in the dark hours of the night. Anfai sometimes awoke to find herself alone in the bed, and Kantoh sitting in his meditative position before the window, staring out at the blinking stars. How long would it be before his wanderlust overcame his lust for her?
On the fourth day of their sojourn in Five Trees, Anfai found herself haunted by an impending sense of doom. Something in the air called to her, whispering of blood and reeking of sulfur. She stood on the highest balcony of her uncle’s house, looking out over the fields where Kantoh and the servants did their daily chores. A black cloud rolled down from the hills, casting a shadow across the valley, but she knew nobody could see it but her. She heard distant cries from the unseen vales, and the river seemed red as blood in the rising light of early day. Fear clutched at her heart, for she had felt a similar malaise on the morning her village was destroyed.
“Call in the workers,” she begged her uncle. “Something terrible is going to befall us.”
Dyama chuckled. “Sweet, sensitive niece,” he said, embracing her. “Worry not—your days of trouble are passed. You have endured more than most, and memories of what you have lost still haunt you.”
“No,” she said. She had not expected him to listen. “Not memories. I sense death approaching.”
Dyama looked at her strangely, and told her to get some rest. She took Ond into her arms and left the house, walking into the fields. Maybe Kantoh would listen. Maybe he could convince her uncle to bring in his people before it was too late. She found him among the orderly rows of fruit trees, humble as any servant, filling a wicker basket strapped to his waist with ripe peaches. He smiled at her, and before she could say a word, she saw the first of them topping the ridge that hemmed the fields.
A black horse stamped the earth, its rider staring down across the river valley, red eyes focused on the village with a gaze like that of a hungry jackal before a fresh corpse. Severed hands hung from the rider’s wide belt, and flayed scalps hung like horsetails from his tall spear. Dark leather and patches of wolf’s hide wrapped his tall frame, and his hair danced in the wind like black fire. Three more, nearly identical, galloped to join the first rider, and one blew a sour note on a horn of bone.
The Sons of the Spear, she could not fail to recognize them. But something was different. Their eyes flamed with hidden evil, an aura of darkness clung to their bodies, skeletal wraiths superimposed over their fleshly forms. Their faces were painted with dried blood in strange sigils and glyphs. These were the same men who had destroyed her village, and yet they were not. What sinister force had seized them, and how much more vicious and bloodthirsty would they now be?
At the sound of the barbaric trumpet, the fields began to empty, hundreds of workers fleeing toward the futile safety of the village proper. Kantoh dropped his basket of fruit and stared up at the horsemen advancing down the slopes—dozens of savage raiders bearing metal-tipped spears, crying like souls in torment.
“Sons of the Spear!” she told Kantoh, and would have said more. But he grabbed her by the arms.
“Get back to the village,” he said. “Hide in your uncle’s cellar.”
“Something is wrong with them,” she said. “Something else is here—something evil...”
“Run now,” he said, and turned to meet the galloping invaders.
If not for Ond, she would have stayed to watch him dance flame-like among them. She had been a fool to bring the babe into the fields. So she ran, while the whooping cries of the bandits filled the air behind her.
Breathless, she entered the door of her uncle’s house once more and climbed his stairs to the high balcony. There she saw the white flame whirling among the black shadows and their dark steeds. Spears flew past his body like striking serpents. Kantoh writhed, twisted, and leapt from mount to mount, leaving each riderless in his wake. His fists, palms, fingers, and feet met skulls, breasts, and chins, and a contingent of the Sons of the Spear encircled him while their fellows swept down upon the village. She heard the screams of those who had not made it to safety in time, cut down and dragged through the streets behind the black steeds. All the while, Kantoh spun between those on the hillside, hammering riders from the backs of their horses, until all those around him lay senseless on the green grass. He leapt then upon a stray horse and rode it into the midst of the besieged village. Anfai lost sight of him as he passed between the buildings where a few fires had already been kindled by the bandits.
She turned to flee back down the steps to the sanctuary of the deep cellar, but caught her breath at the stench that met her nostrils. Her knees weakened, and the sun went out, plunging the world into darkness. On the far end of the balcony stood a man made of shadow, with eyes of dancing flame. His mouth was the maw of a black tiger, dripping blood from yellow fangs. His body was magnificent, like that of a sculpted hero, yet his hands and feet were feline paws, tipped with deadly claws. He stood nude before her, and his animal scent nearly made her faint. The top of his head flickered like a dancing black flame, a mockery of Kantoh’s graceful movements on the field of battle. He spoke to her then, in a voice like a lion that had learned the speech of man.
You have the ghost-sight, little flower, he growled. Such a rare blossom in this muddy world of flesh and bone. You see me as I am, do you not?
“Who are you?” she whispered. Her voice would not go any louder. She found herself on her knees, and she clutched Ond as if he were her only link to the living world, the one bit of solidity keeping her from falling into a sea of smothering darkness.
I am the shadow that haunts the flame, said the demon. For all things exist in relation to their opposites. I am Ka’aguloth...
“Go away...” she muttered. The brilliance of his darkness was blinding her. The shouts of dying villagers reached her ears from below. If only she had gone straight to the cellar! Could the demon have found her there just as well?
I have come for you, Gifted One, said the demon. Already you do my work, filling the Empty Hand with your ample bosom... providing earthly delights to he who has forsworn such things. You have earned the right to serve me... I will teach you to harness the power you carry within. You will be my bright blossom of darkness... my black lotus queen...
“No,” she said, as he walked closer. She could not move. He extended a hairy paw and touched her cheek lightly. One of his claws left a burning mark upon her, which filled her with sickening pleasure. She shivered in the throes of an unwanted passion, her body nearly collapsing in a spasm of carnal delight.
Yes, said Ka’aguloth. You are mine already... my seed has grown strong in your line.
“No...” she said again, blood dripping from her nostrils. His black flames burned in her head.
He took the baby from her arms. Ond howled at the touch of the demon’s paws. Anfai wept, lying at the demon’s feet, paralyzed.
This one I will spare, if you come of your own free will, he said. Resist me, and I will devour him.
She sc
reamed, the weight of the sky pressing down upon her chest and shoulders. Her bones began to moan as his flaming eyes bent close to her face. At any moment, he might snap her body in two with the sheer force of his will.
“Leave him alone!” she wailed, weeping and groveling at his clawed feet. She was his, already dead, somehow she knew this. Kantoh could not help her now. Ond was all that mattered.
So I shall, said Ka’aguloth, and laid the wailing baby gently upon the floor of the balcony. Then he grabbed Anfai up in his powerful arms, his claws digging into her side. His bloody mouth kissed hers, and she drowned beneath a wave of agony and pleasure.
The balcony door exploded, and Kantoh stood before them. His white robe was torn in many places and stained with blood. From the corner of her eye, Anfai saw again the black ink on his bare chest, the stylized tattoo of a winding dragon. One of the Dreaming Ones. She knew he must have served those drowsy gods. But now it was too late.
Ka’aguloth laughed, and squeezed his quivering prize, digging his claws deeper into her skin.
“Render of Flesh,” said Kantoh. “Idol of beast-men. Have you not learned that the Empty Hand is impervious to your evil? You devoured the lord of our temple, yet could not digest his soul. Would you devour me as well?”
I have no taste for those of your order, said the demon.
“Take me and leave the girl,” said Kantoh, stepping closer.
Ka’aguloth laughed again. You and I are connected, as a flame casts a shadow. Can the shadow devour the flame? No, this I have learned. So I must build my earthly army. Light and Darkness are one, do you not see?
“I see only that you claim an innocent soul,” said Kantoh. “Let her go.”
Innocent? None are so. Except perhaps this babe, whom I leave to you.
Your hands shall no longer be empty, Kantoh.
“No!” shouted the priest. He leapt like a gout of liquid fire at the darkness that stood in the form of a man. But the demon was already gone, and the girl with him.
***
The Sons of the Spear had murdered twenty-seven villagers of Five Trees, and dragged off half their corpses. The rumors that they ate human flesh were confirmed by a single captive that Kantoh had wounded. The surviving men of the village questioned him, after applying hot brands and chanting charms to drive out the evil spirit infesting his body. Although sanity seemed to return after the spirit fled, the bandit remained his uncivilized self, cursing and shouting threats at his interrogators, until eventually one of the village youths executed him with an axe used for splitting timber. Still, they had learned much from the raving man. They learned that the Sons of the Spear now served a new master, a demon-god whom they called Kaag, who demanded they feast as the tigers of Neptu did, on human flesh.
It must have been Kaag, said the villagers, who appeared in the house of poor Dyama. The only member of the household to survive was the babe borne by the plainswoman, Dyama’s niece. There was no sign of this girl left in the village... the demon-god had dragged her into some distant hell.
Somehow the strange priest had managed to save the baby. Kantoh’s body bore the scars of his desperate fight against the marauders, and he had killed more than two dozen of the savages. In the aftermath of the battle, more men came to him and begged him to teach them his way of fighting.
“You see how difficult it is to be men of peace in this blood-stained world?” someone asked.
“We are poor,” said another. “We cannot afford metal for weapons. Yet you do not need them. If we could dance as you do, deliver death at the tips of our fingers, our village might survive that our children may grow. Teach us!”
“You cradle that baby, whose mother is dead,” said one. “Will you not teach us to prevent more orphans from filling our village?”
“What hope do we have in this world?” asked someone else. “You are all we have. Teach us.”
But Kantoh sat in silence on the bloodied steps of Dyama’s decimated household, and he stared at the face of little Ond as the babe wept for its mother. Then he gave the baby to an old woman who stood nearby while the young men pleaded for knowledge, and he walked through the orchards, up the hillside and sat beneath a lone kara tree overlooking the village. A cold rain came and washed the blood from the village streets. Some took food up to him, but it went uneaten while he sat with his legs crossed, eyes closed, as if nothing but a statue. They remarked on the dragon that decorated his chest, and some said he must be a servant of the Dreaming Ones. Others said this did not matter, since he had given up on life and would sit beneath the crooked kara tree until he wasted away and died.
***
Someplace dark and cold, Anfai howled as the demon sculpted her.
Thus I unleash the dark fire that dwells within you, he sang. You are my disciple, the fist in which I will hold the terrestrial world.
She wept, surrounded by seething forms of darkness that worshiped as they defiled her. She no longer had any strength to resist. The last remnants of her earthly self-drifted like shreds of torn silk in black water, and her new self began to bloom, a bloodstain spreading across once-clean cotton.
The wisdom of the Empty Hand will spread across the world and be corrupted by the failings of mortal men. And you shall gather up such men to serve me...
Anfai knew these things would come to pass. There was no doubting the words of the demon-god. As certainly as Kantoh existed, she must exist as his dark reflection. This was why Ka’aguloth had chosen her.
Yet, at the very center of her shattered being, she laughed in the face of her new master. She laughed at the thought of little Ond walking through a field of white blossoms, dancing like a flame in the shadow of a great kara tree.
The demon heard her laughter, and dug his claws deeper.
***
On the third day the villagers saw a wondrous thing. In the shade of the kara tree, all about Kantoh’s still form, a number of white blossoms had grown unseeded from the wet ground. A pool of water rose up to enclose the kara roots, and a ring of pale lotus flowers floated there, gleaming white as the lazy clouds that swam across the sky.
At sunset, Kantoh rose from the pool’s edge and came down into the village. The torn fragments of his white robe flapped in the evening breeze. He walked wordlessly to the house of the old woman who kept little Ond and knocked on the door. When she answered he took the baby from her arms and smiled at the little fellow. Slowly, a crowd gathered about him, but they did not now plead for his wisdom. They simply stared as he rocked the baby in his arms, and they followed him into the plaza.
Kantoh looked up from the baby’s face at those gathered about him, faces old and young, the glimmering stars of evening reflected in their eyes. Then he spoke to the baby, but they all heard his words and thrilled to the sound of them.
“There,” Kantoh said. He looked toward the kara tree standing above the village, where white lotus blossoms gleamed like points of holy fire.
“There we will build our temple.”
About the author: John R. Fultz lives in California but is originally from Kentucky. His short fiction has appeared in Black Gate, Weird Tales, Space & Time, Lightspeed, Way of the Wizard, and Cthulhu’s Reign. His “big fantasy novel” Seven Princes will be published by Orbit Books in early 2012 as the first volume in his Books of the Shaper series. John’s comic book work includes Primordia, Zombie Tales, and Cthulhu Tales. When not writing novels, stories, or comics, John teaches English and Literature. In a previous life he made his living as a wandering storyteller on the lost continent of Atlantis. He blogs about all things cosmic, earthly, and otherwise at johnrfultz.wordpress.com.
Monk Punk v. 2.0
Special Bonus Features
Evil Fruit
Josh Reynolds
Omnibus Exclusive
For HP Lovecraft and Ellis Peters
Bartolomeo Corsi descended the rough-hewn, moss-encrusted stone steps into the catacombs beneath the abbey, a flickering torch in one hand, and a blade
in the other. It was a plain, ugly thing, that blade. Crudely forged and cheaply made. But it was serviceable enough, even as its wielder was, and God yet had a use for them both. Or so Corsi hoped. He hated to think that God might have brought him back from the Pit simply to call him to Paradise. Still, if it was his time, then he would go in good grace, certain of his soul’s peace. Which was more than some could say.
Corsi descended the slimy steps carefully, and the heavy, wet air settled on him like a blanket. It chilled him, despite the thick wool of his cloak and robes. It wasn’t the cold of the storm which lashed the island above, or the coolness of the waters of the Grado Lagoon that surrounded said island, but rather a creeping damp, like that which might emanate from an old well or forgotten stones.
The air was thick with it as well as the smells of stagnation and worse things besides. The feathery bristles of the faintly phosphorescent patches of mold that clung to the stones around him stirred in an unpleasant fashion as he descended.
Strange sculptures of fantastic design crouched in shallow niches, adding to the eerie air of the place. How long such things had been there, Corsi couldn’t say, and didn’t wish to investigate. The nooks and crannies reeked as badly as the open air and he was glad of the cloth tied about his face. “By their smell can men sometimes know that they are near,” he muttered. His words, quiet as they were, were swallowed by the oppressive atmosphere.
The abbey above him had been a fortress-keep once, built in centuries past by a family of fine pedigree and ferocious disposition named Veles. When the last of them had been on death’s doorstep, he had made a bequest of his family’s ancient hold, offering it to the church in return for forgiveness of his many and varied sins, and daily prayers for his blackened soul. Such was not uncommon. But, in this case the church, Corsi thought, had gotten the worse of the deal. “A good tree cannot bring forth evil fruit, neither can a corrupt tree bring forth good fruit,” he murmured.