#charnell wight

[see-arcane]

Barking Harker TEASER 2

The following is a rough draft of a chapter for the in-progress horror novel, and alternate ending Dracula sequel, Barking Harker.

It will contain unsettling imagery.

It will contain unsettling possibilities.

It will contain things that bite, bleed, scream, and laugh.

If all this is acceptable, then welcome. Enter freely and of your own will. 

And leave all of the happiness and humanity you bring. 

For a version that isn’t in Tumblr format eye strain mode, check out the Google Doc version HERE.

Link to Barking Harker TEASER 1 is HERE.

AUTHOR'S NOTE: Apparently the full length of the document is too big for Tumblr's app to handle without crashing, so you'll have to consider the section below a teaser to the teaser. For the full whopper, you'll have to refer to the Google Doc link.

Barking Harker

TEASER 2

C.R. Kane

Preludes and Interludes II:

Dead, Dogs, and Detours

DEAD

          She didn’t take note of the hansom for at least three turns. Having noticed it, she tried to convince herself against the obvious. Paranoia, it might be called. Nervousness. In the company of anyone with eyes, they would have cooed and tutted, yet quite understood. Well, look at you, dear! It’s a wonder your young man lets you be driven out and about on your own. You do have a young man, do you not? No? As it happens, I know a young man or ten in the family who are in want of a good wife…

          But her mind drifted. Just as it had drifted when the little man with the jeweler’s loop had come out of the shop with her delivery in hand. He had gone to the trouble of doing away with the dull parcel’s wrapping and redone it in patterned paper and ribbon.

          “Direct from Mellerio, mademoiselle,” he said, only butchering the latter words a touch. “It is a magnificent piece.”

          “Mellerio dits Meller never disappoints. Perhaps the finest gifts to the world old Marie ever had her hand in. Well, her and the dear Concinis.” She had smiled for him and the little fellow turned pink as a carnation. “Merci,” she hummed, letting more of her lilt into it as she cradled the parcel. The pink flushed to red. Then the victoria was pulling away and the pedestrian bustle was retreating around her. From the corner of her eye she spied a mourning couple milling away toward a park. The pretty girl in the veil—a beauty that her peripheral senses had alerted her to, being that the girl had thought herself unnoticed in her own dreamy staring—

          (Oh oh she is lovely she is gorgeous I could see her as a painting she is too fine too fair oh oh oh I wonder what Lucy would think of her I think she might go red just at the sight of her dress Jonathan? Jonathan! Jonathan oh no Jonathan what is it what’s wrong Jonathan Jonathan)

—was half-supporting her gentleman as he staggered in tow, seeming as if he had been struck. She caught a glimpse of a face that was quite handsome even with the fearful rictus carved into it.

          A needle of terror flew from his mind. It pricked at her own, as sharp and vivid thoughts often did. She shelled herself against it by reflex. Yet it stung and stuck, if only for the twinge of familiarity she sensed in it. Something unpleasant reached her thinly through a mental haze she could not define.

          (Him him him it is it cannot be but it is unless it is not but that face that face young or old or wan or hale I know I know that face the eyes the razors of the grin him it is him he is here unless he is not unless you are mad unless you are not or perhaps both but he is here he is there he is in England and you never woke from the nightmare and Mina Mina Mina we must be gone Mina he knows my blood he will find me find you find us no no no Mina)

          But she was going and the couple was staying. She tamped the bristling thoughts down to smoothness and resettled in her airy bliss.

          Had that been when the hansom began its pursuit? When had she begun to register the clatter of its chase? She could not say. Not when her focus was steeped three quarters of the way into the future. A future filled with music, with dates, with revelry, with the flutter of games, with the freedom hidden under silk masks, with the parade of her latest wide-eyed throng come to gape and cavort, with the increasingly ardent play of darling Andy, née, Lord Andrew Blythe, her newest high-born shadow who had resorted to all but bribery to move her from her estate and into a wing of his own manse. All quarters furnished, he said, precisely to her liking.

          “And how is it you are so confident of that, Andy?”

          “Because it will be furnished until you like it.”

          She had so far been able to dodge his invitations with jokes first of Bluebeard, then of La Dame aux Camélias. Soon she would run out of segues. Or worse, out of desire to dodge. He was a fun fellow, which was a rarity among Englishmen of all walks. Even that foppish sweetheart, Arthur Something—Holming? Goldwood?—had been so gallant as to cloy. She had scarcely mourned his loss to that dainty peach of a girl some seasons ago. Andy, at least, had the decency to enjoy a bit of indecency.

Her nails drummed against the wrapped box, daydreaming of the surprise intended as a nightcap to the latest party that would embrace the far end of autumn in ghastly glee.

          Even the tautest souls permitted themselves to unravel when there was a masquerade to hide behind. It was rare that she ever loaded her rooms with guests choking on silver spoons as a rule. In truth, she often preferred the company of her staff, their friends and kin over a deluge of the prim and powdered. When she first laid hands upon Perrault’s works, she had at once seen herself in the Fairy Godmother more than the cinder-dusted heroine. If not merely for the saccharine pleasure of providing enchanted nights to those who make the most of them, then for the fact that she had not encountered a single aristocratic affair that did not put her to sleep with its fine filigreed manners within an hour. Give her noise, give her life, give her a Bacchanalia, not church service with duller music.

          Lacking superior options, it often became the case that she must play hostess to events that satisfied her own wishes, just as she was conspiring to throw her latest one in the coming weeks. One tailored to celebrate as the nights overtipped the days and the presence of strange entities crept at the edges of the mind. A perfect atmosphere for a bit of charade devilry if she did say so.

Costumes, canapés, cards, claret poured by the bucketful, perhaps even some spiritualist playing with a crystal ball. And yes, Andy, he can bring a few of his gilded friends. But do try to keep things discreet, hm? She dare not offend any of his polished circles’ poor ears with talk of her festivities and the uncouth entertainments therein. It would hardly interest such refined persons, after all…

          A caveat that she knew would lead to a loose whisper too many and several a ruffled eavesdropper. If history served, it would result in quite a few covert extra additions trying to wheedle their way onto the guest list. Assuming they did not dare the unthinkable outright and try to duck through her doors under cover of a costume or a pretense that one of the invitees had brought them along. It was what Andy himself had resorted to, making use of the one loophole she provided—that the uninvited be allowed entry provided one of the invited brought them along as a friend.

          It had been his farrier, Henry Caldwell, who had to sneak him into that first gathering half a year ago. And oh, how many exciting hues he’d turned in the face when the young lord discovered the man who tended his horses had received an invitation to her ball rather than him! He’d turned colors again at learning the only other attendees of noble blood had needed similar patrons and matrons from their underlings and staff. Imagine, a lavish romp thrown for the Cinderellas while the ‘stepsisters’ were left hoping for the charity of their invitation.

          Practically an age ago, that was. Andy had grown on her since. He had glowed when she told him he almost passed for a proper rogue in stolen clothes. Now here came the surprise in her box. The treat awaiting him at the end of the costumes. She sang from Baudelaire’s poem:

          “La très chère était nue, et, connaissant mon coeur,

          Elle n’avait gardé que ses bijoux sonores…”

          My dearest was naked and, knowing well my prayer,

          She wore only her sonorous jewelry…

          Her laugh almost broke on the air, but the driver pulled up short and clipped the sound. The driver and the poor mare both huffed over a passing cat in the road. In the same instant, she heard the whinny and hoof-clatter of horses behind her. It occurred that she had been hearing those same hoofbeats for some while. Three turned corners. All quite far apart.

          The moment she recognized as much, she became aware of a hostile edge to the air. It came to her the way a rush of sensory reminder will hit one after fixating too deeply on a task or thought until all other stimuli loses volume. Such was how poor musicians, bad smells, and dreary lectures were weathered. In the case, a nigh tangible essence of threat had been ignored as she lost herself in plush premonitions.

          The denied sensation carried its own portent—all but a promise.

          A certainty that was not helped by the fact that the hansom’s driver saw her looking and shamefacedly ducked under his hat brim. The picture of a child caught committing a crude prank at the behest of an older boy.

          He was not paid to be taken to a destination. He is being paid to stop where you stop. Perhaps he was told that it was you who insisted on being followed, that the gentleman in the hansom can find you again later. We are old friends and he is stopping in town. Go on, good man. She will lead us on.

          Perhaps that was it. Perhaps not. But the man behind the horses gave her a pained look when the victoria resumed its trundling way. It grew grimmer still when he bade his stallions to plod after her and he kept his eyes trained strictly on her wheels. And though no other eyes were visible, there was no ignoring the fact that she felt observed. Ogled in the way fat rabbits feel themselves seen by a predator who is no more than a wheeling dot in the sky, waiting for the moment to descend and sink in the talons.

          Come now. Do not insult birds of prey so callously. All an animal wants is to eat. Not that one. Not him.

          For it was a him. A very singular him. The kind that would make the Ripper seem positively chummy.

          Oh, stop. What are the odds? Truly?

          This scene was not what she thought it was. It couldn’t be. Wouldn’t be. In a few more stops, the hansom would turn away and be gone.

          And what you think is in the cab will not be there.

          Five stops and two turns later, the hansom cab was still with her. As was the pressure of a very particular presence. One whose secrets were locked against the cursory probing of her mind, but could not smother the miasma of himself for anything. Not that he would want to. The grim clockwork of his thoughts was a guarded thing, yes, but he wanted her to know it was him.

          After all this time, it was him.

          “Damn it.”

          “Did you say something, Miss?”

          “I should like to stop at a café. That little place with the garland on the sign.” She smiled by reflex despite Joseph’s turned back. “Is there anything you might like to take along? I will not be needing you for the drive back after all. I can hail another rather than keep you lingering on my account.”

          “Are you certain?”

          She was.

          They stopped. She ordered. Sent him off with a steaming bundle to eat along with an apple bartered from the kitchen for his patient steed. Then she took herself to the furthest table outside the restaurant and pretended interest in her tea as she stared down the hansom. The driver pulled up his horses for a moment, teetering between his options. Flicking a sweat-shined look at her table, then quickly away, he urged his horses on. He meant to give renewed chase to the victoria—

          (Just following your orders sir follow the victoria you said—)

          —but came just as abruptly to a halt.

          His face crumpled in comfortless lines as the cab door opened. All at once, whatever thin patter there was among the sparsely peopled tables shrank several octaves. The September air puffed with a breath of malign cold. Somewhere close, a dog barked and bayed. Truthfully, she was surprised the windows did not crack because the man stood too near to them. Assuming one could regard him as a man.

          He was dressed as a moneyed one. The midnight of his hair was tied back, moustache and sharp beard impeccable. Yet his eyes. His eyes were chips of red glass lit by hellfire. Or so he would have prided himself to hear. Liken him to Judas and he would preen like a peacock. She’d encountered more than one such fellow in her time, but even in this, he was singular.

          She watched him toss the money to his driver. He watched her watch him.

          Go on, said the red stare. Go on. Say something. Do something. I am only a man stopping for a meal. What fine coincidence it should bring us together like this, dear.

          She suppressed a sigh and turned her box round and round on the table. For effect, she produced her little gold watch to mind the time. Tick-tock. Though no shadow fell across her table, she was not surprised by the skid of the chair across from her pulling out. Nor by the gloved hands folding where she could see them.

          Resigning herself to a lost afternoon, if not worse, she peered up at him through the thick fringe of her lashes. A look that had set more hearts racing than could be counted and had, on some rare occasions, stopped them altogether. The gentleman feigning humanity merely smiled at her.

          “Is there something I might help you with, sir? I am waiting on a friend and he shall need the chair shortly.”

          “It would not surprise me,” he said. “You could point at any man on the street, declare him your companion, and have him propose before sundown.”

          “A flattering estimate. Yet I would blame it more on the country’s quality than my own. This is a land of such tedious constriction.” She glanced at the amber swirl of her cold tea. “If I showed one inch more of decolletage, I would have a husband by dusk, a mistress by midnight, and three consorts by morning.” Her gaze rose back to him. “I would not even have invited them, but there they would be.”

          Behind him, a server approached to ask after an order, met the gentleman’s gaze, and hastily swerved away to attend another table. Satisfied, the gentleman shrugged.

          “That is the price paid for being what you are.”

          “Is that so?”

          “You cannot be so desirable a thing and not expect pursuit.”

          “Perhaps. But with some, the effects of distance have proven a decent enough deterrent.” Lashes batted. “That and death.”

          “There are always exceptions.” Saying so, he bared the top row of his teeth. It was the edge of a white saw.

          “I suppose there must be. Pardon, I am at a loss for your name..?” He paused to consider this. Then, to her misery:

          “Count DeVille.”

          “No.”

          “No?”

          “No. You can do better. Please, please, say you can do better.”

          “Alucard.”

          Her eyes fluttered shut in pain as she frowned over her cup.

          “I should have asked for cognac.”

          “I would expect something redder in your case.” She looked up at the sound of tearing paper. He’d tugged her parcel across the table and slit the wrapping. This he did with his thumbnail. He had peeled his glove to show a hand almost as wan as the silk. “Ah. Almost as red as this.”

His spade of a nail hooked the necklace and let the briolette cuts catch the light until every ruby burned. It could not be brought out of the box in full, or else the gems would drag upon the table. She planned to wear it with her artfully gruesome gown on the night of the masquerade. All glittering gore sewn into supple white while the necklace spilled over her chest like an exquisite slit throat. Then, in private, she would wear that pantomime blood for Andy’s eyes alone. In the present, the necklace received an admiring hum.

“An interesting design.” He lowered it back into the box. “Yours?”

          “Commissioned for a special occasion.”

          “What occasion is that?” He slid the box back. “A party, perhaps? One of costume and pageantry and that unholy relief worthy of the old Carnival days?” His grin showed even the bloodless edge of his gums. “You always did make such a lovely Columbine.”

          “You must be mistaken, sir, and tragically senile as well. Venice killed its dear Carnival in 1797.”

          “So I heard.” His tongue clicked in disgust. “That wretched Francis. Was it the first or second?”

          “The second. Twice as miserable as his father.” She struck a praying pose. “May they rest in Hell. Do give them a hello from me when you pass through.”

          “Surely we can greet them together.” He leaned forward until he had nearly come over the table. His eyes were lanterns. “Or must we find another abbot to spill his holy water on you first?”

          “Again, sir, I fear I do not follow, and that you have taken me for another.”

          “I have taken you, yes. But I make no mistake. Even a blind man could not forget you.”

          “You are adamant in this performance, my friend, and most original.” She scooped her parcel up and made a show of righting her already-righted hat. “But I have other strangers to be accosted by. Hopefully less mad ones.” She moved to stand. “Good day—,”

          He recited two addresses.

          One hers.

          One the Blythe estate.

          “I had planned to pay my visits later, as I am so terribly busy with business and pleasure alike. England makes for a most engaging territory. It really was pure accident spotting you ahead of schedule.” It was his turn to bat his lashes. “Shall it be a happy one? Or do I pay my fellow gentleman a visit tonight? He seems a healthy young man, despite his merry vices. The kind that so often catch up to a body in the most unfortunate ways.”

          She looked at him. A emerald stare grating against ruby.

          “Which will it be, Clarimonde? Stay or go?” And, because he threw himself at her mind, she heard the unspoken—

          (Again.)

          —barb. Under better circumstances, be they petty or romantic, she might have flattered herself at the genuine displeasure laced in the thought. Something that could almost pass itself as the heartbreak of an abandoned lover rather than whatever distorted translation of emotion had resulted from their parting. Partings, plural, if they were to play pedantic. But she was in no mind for flattery or for purpling the mental prose.

          Clarimonde was of a mind for irritation.

Which was good. To be irate, annoyed, even perturbed was better than pulling such chafing shields away and letting in the thing that lurked beyond their bounds. She told herself the monster there was not her own. Not wholly. It was part of his presence; that artificial injection of dread that he foisted on others like a pile of offal inflicted its stench. Such was the fear that lived on the other side of mere exasperation. Not hers, no. Just another unwanted gift from an old friend.

          Not mine. Not mine. Not yet. Keep it that way.

          All this churned through her head with the speed and sting of a wasp’s needling visit. There and gone but for the aching throb. It lent some credence to her striking a pose of one bashed by a sudden headache. She sighed.

          “Go,” she said. It was pleasing to see the momentary flicker of surprise and a chasing moue of disappointment in his face. Just as it was supremely annoying—ah, blessed annoyance—to see the triumph flash back in place as she added, “We both will. This place lacks for our preferred delicacies and it is rude to take up their table while we fuss over the menu. Besides, you are up and about at noon.”

“So I am. What of it?”

“Unless you have forsaken your old habit, that means you have stored up your waking hours and are no doubt eager to indulge in daylit distractions. I doubt you shall get your fill idling over teacups and pastries.”

A quarter of an hour saw them away from the café and drawing looks of either envy or pity from passersby.

The former were of that demographic who looked upon ‘Count DeVille’, grousing over how his wicked mien was outweighed by enough wealth to buy him the company of either the plum of all eligible daughters, a prize-winning mistress, or else the most expensive woman of negotiable affection in the country.

The latter were those who saw only Clarimonde, pondering whether her smile was true or a mask, and thinking in their hearts that they were witnessing some poor girl doubtlessly haggled away from her parents like a glorified sheep to slaughter. It surprised Clarimonde but little that there were so few of the second onlooker compared to the first.

Yet the Count himself remained a dark room in which no hint could be read. She had been trying to squint through that iron murk since their amble began. He seemed content, even pleased, to let her fail as he busied himself with catching the eye of the occasional gawker and spiking them with a fresh jab of inexplicable terror. One poor man saw a need to be grateful he wore dark trousers—the smell would have given him away even if his mind hadn’t. A laugh tried to escape, but the Count caged it behind a smaller chuckle. This caused a nearby infant to wail in her pram.

A lovely walk, this. One still lacking for revelations from the gruesome mire of a mind. It remained to be seen whether this was an unconscious feat or one which he was maintaining through cold focus. So.

“From the passable accent and the new ensemble, I take it you have been making yourself comfortable. Do you wear them for the sake of a holiday or for expansion?”

“Can it not be both?”

“It can. Which makes it doubly worrisome for the local fauna. All the carefree gluttony of a vacation, all the ongoing attention of an extended stay.” She sighed. “That was you who delivered the empty ship to Whitby, was it not?”

“No, not at all. I am certain it was another undetectable party onboard, indulging in the local…hm.” he paused in thought. “Would sailors be considered seafood?”

“Was that all they were? More pressingly, is that all they are?”

The Count peered down at her. He wore a passable expression of confusion, but for the eyes. They smiled too much.

“Whatever do you mean?”

Dropping her voice a pitch below a whisper, affecting the tone of one interrogating the cat as to whether they knew how the glass was knocked off the table, “Exactly how dead did you leave them before they went overboard?” In answer, the Count dropped his own pitch to a stage whisper.

“Not dead enough to escape an appetite. The first mate was alive when he threw himself off the ship in an attempt to escape their fate. As it turns out, all his crewmates were waiting below the surface to welcome him. All quite delighted to see him again. That one, at least, is dead in full. As for the rest?” The gaunt shoulders rolled in a shrug. “They go on as an intriguing experiment. I have wondered what would happen to a vampire turned amid the waters he cannot cross. Now we know. The only question now is what will happen to them in a century’s time. Will the water still corner them? Or will they be free to travel so long as they bring a box of sand to sleep in? I shall have to make a note in my calendar.”

A true headache lent its aid to her expression now, crimping her brow into a disappointed slant.

“You have not indulged so boldly in an age. There must be a special occasion in progress.”

“Perhaps it was merely my excitement at traveling to your new hideaway.”

“How flattering! Supposing I could believe it. But I do not doubt for a moment that you, so freshly groomed and with an oblivious bevy of English beauties, have not set your sights on newer fare. Am I wrong?”

“I would be a most terrible liar to deny it.”

“And you are an excellent liar. Who is the lucky girl, then? I would ask after a harem, but if you have even an ounce of taste left in those old bones, I know you are choosing with care. Pretty faces and pure souls.”

“Never a combination in ready supply. Not even in these soft times.” His teeth caught the sunlight. The canines blazed. “Yet I have managed.”

“Anyone I know?”

“I should think not. You would have been sunk to the gums in her dreams otherwise. Such a tender one, in all respects. Yet a temptress wholly unaware. She will be mourned by many a poor suitor, I think. When the time comes, I do not doubt that she will have heart enough to spare for all.”

“She must be special if she has been your sole quarry since wrecking yourself on the shore. Or else you are sinking into another old custom, greedy thing that you are.”

“Greedy? How am I greedy?”

“Leaving aside the trio you no doubt left to hold down the castle while you cavort across the Channel, I could not help but notice you have another new friend already accustomed to your unique company. One not so oblivious as you usually take them. Though I do not fault you for the exception. He looked to be a charming thing. There are girls who would kill to get such a gaze without a smear of kohl. His wife was a fair match as well.” She conjured a convincing smile. “Are you collecting in pairs now?”

Her answer was a sudden hush. When Clarimonde looked up she found herself grateful for the meager shield of the cartwheel hat. It cut the Count’s gaze by half. There was more than the default of cruel joy in it now. Things moved behind the scarlet pane of his eye like demons toiling at a forge. Drawing plans, turning gears, heaping their screaming fuel upon a thousand fires. The eyes burned brighter as he spoke.

“If you refer to the couple spying on us from the park, you are nearly right. Both in their time. It may amuse you to know the young man surprised me by appearing here. He too was meant to await my return to Transylvania once my initial business was concluded here. Alas, he slipped free of his keepers.” His head canted toward her. “Not all hostesses boast such persuasive charms as yours.”

The leer found itself somewhat lost when her line of sight fixed an inch above his stare. She leaned her head back to squint beyond the brim of her hat.

“What happened here?” She tucked the box under her arm so that her hand was free to reach up and tap the vivid red scar slashed across his forehead. She had assumed on first seeing it that the wound was new and would seal up in the time it took to walk around a corner. Yet the mark lingered. “Did you run into some holy crusader aboard the Demeter?”

At this, he seemed to brighten. She watched him trace the mark with something very close to pride.

“Ah, this was a parting gift from that same young friend! I’m afraid he took his new living arrangements quite poorly and made sure I knew it before I departed. It has stayed in place as a reminder for quite some time now, if only because I have not found myself the time to gather the materials for the usual plaster. I think I may leave it a while longer, for its own sake. A visible scar puts the onlooker at ease. Any wound in plain view does.”

“If only because it proves you can be wounded. But again, it takes more than a mere scuffle to land a lasting blow on your like. So, what was it? Don’t tell me you have sacred paraphernalia just laying about in that old ruin. Your housemates could only resist such a temptation so long.”

“Ha. No, nothing sacred.”

“Then how—?”

“If I intended to divulge all my stories in a single dose, I would have already swung the doors open and let you go pillaging my memories. An allowance I never permitted cheaply.” He patted her glove with his own. “It seems you will have to suffer as the commoners do and simply not know all the interesting details in a single prying sitting.”

Memory prickled. She did her best not to show it.

While he had never been one to unload all the machinations of his thoughts and plots as the villains on a stage were compelled to—indeed, as some of the more grating self-styled kings of any age were wont to do when they wished to impress a room—the Count was nothing if not a habitual orator. So long as it was not a thing detrimental to his designs, he would happily make full use of his dead lungs and listen to himself while his audience, so often captive, debated the merits of tearing their ears off. Which was all to say that his not saying more was proof positive of…what?

Something important. Assuming anything he’s said yet is true. He does so love to mingle fact and fiction.

Yet the scar seemed evidence enough of that nebulous Something. Neither shrinking nor radiating the essence of the divine, it simply blazed there against the chalk of his brow. It made her think unhappily of damage administered to a corpse too cold to bleed. She shelved it all away in a private crevice of the mind and turned her attention back to the street.

They had managed to pass by the more crowded areas and its gawkers. Pedestrians milled thinner and thinner the further they walked from the condensed clamor of the Square. Neither could complain of exhaustion despite the unfolding distance, not even she in her button boots. It was one of those smaller perks that hitched onto the greater ones in their condition and quite made up for the price. Most of the time. Unless her senses deceived her, and they didn’t, the price would become its own boon within—oh, she would guess less than ten minutes. Fifteen at most.

In her peripheral, she saw the Count’s attention sharpen into recognition.

All we need now is Lord Killjoy and it would be our little haunting party all over again. …Oh, do not let him be part of this. I do not think I could stomach them making up for another round.

The notion was a limp one and it died almost the instant it came to her. Neither half of that pair carried a mote of forgiveness in the ravenous pits they might mistake for a soul. Both were convincing enough actors to fool less initiated victims to the contrary, but history had proven that neither was so idiotic as to buy the other’s performance. A combination of novelty, familiarity, and that occasional itch for company not predestined for the blood-crusted altar of their own appetites had been the truer bond in-between all the little evils flung at one another. But the last row had been of a very particular sort. The kind that did not merely burn bridges, but the bodies left broken-legged and howling at the middle. No, Ruthven was nowhere about. Common as well as uncommon senses verified as much. How fortunate for him.

All this mulling passed in the space of a blink.

“I shall have to treat you likewise,” she said aloud. “Though I expect it is hardly a loss for your end. I’ve so little to tell. Not all of us have grand machinations within machinations to eat up our nights, O Great Alexander with your conqueror’s itinerary. For we mere commoners, hedonism is enough to while the hours away.”

“Not all conquests are the same. Or was I deceived in all the so-secret-but-not chatter whispering of a certain rising queen among revelries? A curious phenomenon, how many speak of it versus how many bodies I imagine could actually fit in your estate. Apparently you manage to fit half of England in its walls and a third of Hell with it.”

“Preposterous. A quarter at the most. I must always reserve space for the Maenads, the witches, a few practical instructors of the Kama Sutra. And there must be comfortable space enough for all the orgies.”

No less than five sharp-eared heads turned. Notably, these were the only five pedestrians present. The herd was thinning, thinning.

“No vampires?”

“Not of late. Names will not be named,” she flicked her best glower to the side, “but in the past, certain parties had a habit of poaching my guests to excess. And, though it may wound some of those parties’ pride, it was one of my more recent invitees that sealed my prejudice against the lot.”

“Oh?”

“Back when I was touring about through Styria. It was my ball, but not my castle. Invitations were not wholly in my hands. I caught dear Millie sniffing around the girls—which would have been fine enough if I did not see the pure Lothario lurking under her pretenses. You know the type. Makes a big dramatic production of fondness and obsession and stalking and ‘I must have you, my darling!’ Then the moment the bedmate’s bled and undead?” Clarimonde flicked her hand in a dismissing gesture. “Poof. Lost in the night. Off to nibble another pretty thing. I can allow for juggling multiple loves in the know, but I quite draw the line at such utterly caddish treatment.”

“I tremble to imagine earning such displeasure.”

The barb flew—

(Again.)

—and struck. Clarimonde withheld a bristle as his arm unfolded out of her hand and moved to loop her closer. His glove rested on her like a massive spider. The sight irked her for many reasons. Reason one being that she would quite like to run a hairpin through it. Repeatedly. Reason two being that, like the rest of him, it truly was gaunter than she had ever seen him. The cut of his greatcoat was enough to disguise much of his thinness, but up close there was no mistaking the narrow dimensions that had overtaken his frame.

She did not brush off the gripping hand, but, to his surprise, tugged it nearer until she could pinch the mountain range of knuckles in her fingertips.

“All charades aside, you did finish off that whole ship, did you not? Bar the poor captain?”

“I have eaten well of late, yes. I’ve left hibernation famished and indulgent.”

“Then how did this happen, mon géant?” She rolled the spindly digits in her soft grip. “I know broomsticks with more bulk than you.”

“Ah, the return of the Nursemaid. I so missed her. Shall she kiss me better? Or do I have the pleasure of a reunion with one of the Consorts? Perhaps an Adulteress feigning a tryst behind your fresh little lord’s back?” In a blink, he had twisted her hold around so that her hand was locked inside his. It held just at the edge of pain. “You have such a broad cast living in you, my love.” He brought her glove up to his lips. Cold on cold. “Losing you was losing a legion.”

“Yet now that we’re here, you can speak to none of us.” She considered trying to pull herself free, but left it on the off-chance that he would grip it until the fingers groaned. Her thumb grazed the back of his hand. “That is your second dodge. I begin to think you do not have anything to say except that you have nothing to say.”

“I have much I wish to say to you, Clarimonde. A great deal.” He gave her fingers a parting crush before snatching his own hand daintily away. “Alas, I cannot even spare a full day’s escapade! Not even with an old friend. Too much to be done in too many ways. So many potentialities need their foundations in place.” He performed a great sigh. “I cannot even say if fair England will be my only destination in the year to come. Time must tell.” Though his face was a caricature of distress, once more his eyes gave away nothing but delight. There was a project in his hands. A true goal that had cracked through some dreary shell of stagnation and set his dust-choked mind into motion. Had Clarimonde been a dimmer person, she might have been happy for him.

As it stood, she felt a most unwelcome resurgence of concern. That vague and edgeless unease which stretched beyond herself and those she could conceive of enjoying in her immediate future. It sat in her chest like sickly flowers going into bloom. She did her best to kill it.

“In that case, I shall not force you to dally longer. If we must part ways…”

She had not made it a step away before he had snaked around her again.

“Not so soon. Not until the midday meal has been and gone. Is it close?”

“Yes. He is.” And she did not lie.

Alec Mooring was a gentleman of that particularly disappointing blend of rich prose, wide acclaim, great potential, and a wide stinking smear of prejudices and predilections to stain the underside of all the preceding virtues. Epithets were varied and plentiful regardless of a body’s hue, nationality, ethnicity, faith, or sex. There were opinions of the non-Anglo and tragically female body and brain stewing behind his pen that would make even the most odious sectarian turn from white to green. Yet enough degrees and a flair for the written word made much of his work as good as gospel in many an empowered circle.

Tragically, when away from the lecture halls and salons, one of Mooring’s most habitual locales was a certain small building he owned under a pseudonym. In the cellar of this tidy brick box, he entertained a hobby that, were it known to the shivering bruise-speckled wisp that was his wife, would see him divorced; were it known to his followers and peers, would see him violently ejected from his career; were it known to the world at large, would see him hanged twice; were it known to the families of the victims—or, considering the age of some, merely the parents—his body would never be found. At least not in one piece.

As it happened, Mooring would have his sins revealed too late for them to matter to anyone living. He had been approached whilst he was making a less fevered return to the building for a bit of clean-up. The place needed a scrub and some chemical application to fight the stench building up with its occupants.

It was as he was about to unlock the door that he felt a hook land in his head. It turned him around and brought him eye to eye with a beauty even his eloquence stumbled to define.

Love herself stood before him, poured into the hypnotically curved mold of a tailored dress. She was patterned everywhere with brilliant butterflies. More balanced on the disc of her hat. Her gaze held the lushness of the forest, the depths of an absinthe sea. In her mouth was the supple curl of the opening rose. The rose’s thorns showed behind the petals. White and pointed. She even smelled of a garden. Was it perfume or her own scent? Neither would surprise him. A springtime goddess come to visit him in the ruddy rim of autumn.

Behind her was something he first mistook for a shadow on the alley wall. But to his knowledge, shadows did not have their own eyes. Provided they did, he thought they ought not to glow like twin furnaces. Nor should they turn his bowels into quivering ice water.

“Shall we head in?”

His attention fell back to her. The seraph smiled. Love and loins demanded he lead the way in for her. Surely the threshold would clip her shadow off at the heels. Mooring held the door open for her. He had some faint idea that perhaps he was dreaming, and that even after he saw to the services he meant to apply to her indoors, she would simply cobble herself back together for another round. She seemed infinitely accommodating in all things. A perfect woman, a finely fashioned Galatea among the tawdry strumpets and frigid harpies plaguing the cusp of this backwards century. She alone was perfection. An oasis in a wretched desert.

They were inside. Perfectly—ah, he could sing it, perfect, perfect, perfect!—she did not bat her eyes at the signs of his work within. Neither stain nor stench nor the sorry state of the mattress or manacles moved her smile an inch. But as he moved to shut and bolt the door, the shadow slithered in. Rather, a sort of black fog did. Mooring might have taken it for smoke but for the lack of smell and the sudden shudder of a chill that passed through him as it seeped in. The fog grew a hand and helpfully shut the door the rest of the way. And bolted it.

There was some minor debate that Mooring was aware of toward the start, before the full comprehension of the nightmare settled in. That is, the comprehension that he was not in a nightmare.

“Ladies first?”

“You are the guest, I insist.”

“I insist back. You have been starving yourself again. A holy man’s sneeze would leave you blistering.”

“Oh, but he simply reeks of the druggist. Anyway, I would not risk him enjoying even a moment of it. He deserves your attention more than mine.”

“If I decant, will you drink? More than a thimble?”

“…Two thimbles.”

“Swear a pint or it will be over in a blink for him. No play at all.”

“Fine, fine, a pint…”

And then Alec Mooring proceeded to be unmade in most meticulous fashion. Whatever noises he could make during this were as muffled behind the insulated brick as the noise of his collected tenants had been while alive. Ignorable as the squeal of vermin.

He would be found later that day by the police following an anonymous tip. Amid the mess of Mooring and the unearthed rot of his collection, only a single sign would be left of whomever might have committed the final murder in that miserable killing floor. A sole print of a sole pointed at the door.

The underside of a woman’s boot, stamped in blood.

“You know, with the proper look, you could have some passing husband lick that clean for you. There is a slavering wretch I know who would plead for the chance.”

“I would have to charge you for the show.” Though she could not deny a certain temptation of her own. The silk handkerchief was beyond saving now, swollen as it was with the coagulating mess. The Count had his matches out before she could get hers. They watched the scrap burn, its motes drifting from their rooftop perch and up to the clouds. “You really do mean to loiter here, don’t you?”

“There are worse places to run out the last of the millennium. You are here, after all. Perhaps I shall wring an invitation out of you before the next one.” He canted his head in pantomime of epiphany. “Or I could always get an invitation from one of the invited.”

“Supposing your schedule clears up.”

And supposing you know when my doors will open.

“It will be clear for the night of October 31st.” His smile widened as hers curdled. “Likewise for the week preceding and following. Oh, but I shall have to find a costume. Perhaps I will come as a priest.” 

“I would not put it past you. As for now, I believe you said you were short on time? I did not mean to distract you so long with lunch.”

“You do excel in distraction and I would gladly suffer it again. Especially if it means seeing you forestall your latest death with proper nutrition. I can tell you are out of practice.” He tapped his lower lip in illustration. Clarimonde licked her own, wiping a spot of wet red glaze from her mouth. “How often are you feeding, Clarimonde? I would so hate to think I have found my old friend again only to discover her wasting away from weakness over poor self-maintenance. Do you mean to tease your little lord into the same phantasmal play as dear Rom—,”

Clarimonde looked at him.

Clarimonde looked into him.

Not to read the secrets, but to follow the familiar routes that were open in all minds. The pathways of senses and sensation. She went to work. It was uncanny how easy it was to fall back into the old habits. Even with all the time between them. Nostalgia, nostalgia.

She watched as his eyes rolled up, red to white, his head trying to loll back with them. His mouth shuddered and twitched. Fangs still scummy with drinking caught the sun as he spasmed on his feet. Bliss. Pain. High. Low. Victories old and miseries new.

Back and down and burrowed into the meat of the human animal on which he had built himself, all the base foundations that were slick and sweating and sticky with the ghost of living longing, and then he almost pitched forward, swarmed, drowned, buried in the pretty folds and holds of loves given and stolen in ages past and they are there, they are breathing for the joy of it, incense and candles and death in the air, the fools a floor below call their teacher Geber instead of Jabir, all pretending to know the truths of God and Devil and Trismegistus, oh my, and they do not know what is up here in the dark, these greybeards will never know anything of all the black wonders of the world and the worlds beyond it until its thirsty teeth and truth bite them open and suck them dry as fruit and oh, oh, oh, don’t go, don’t go, don’t let his mind retreat back to itself, this, always this, turning, running, betraying, no, no, no—

Within him the walls cracked, the moat drained, and for just a moment there was something—

(—show me show me yes good yes look at that look how he does it, yes, yes, above God and Devil and soul, yes, good boy good man, so much hidden inside, yes yes yes, Solomon needed a ring, but all I need is—)

—there and gone before the fortress righted itself again.

It helped that his hand was locked around her throat. Crushing.

“Try that again and your next party shall be a funeral.”

“Well, that will be bothersome, but hardly anything new,” she rasped. Her lungs had no complaint beyond that. “Really, you act as if you’ve never been goosed before. You did help yourself as much as I did down there. You only have yourself to blame for possessing enough of the old verve in you to produce the,” she gestured airily at him, “natural results. Ah, but it has been a long while. Things may have changed. I do hope I have not overstepped my bounds.” She laid her fingertips on the strangling hand. Against the agony in her neck and the would-be panic trying to roost in her chest, she bowed her head until she had to look up at him through the fans of her lashes again. And winked. “Are you saving yourself for someone new, dear? If so, we could form a club. The Regrettable Romantics Society has a decent ring.”

Then Ruthven can laugh at both of us.

The Count seemed to hesitate on the line between releasing her and snapping her neck. He settled for flinging her aside. His claws had pricked through the gloves and scored her throat as she went. The skin sealed itself readily enough, but not before the blood spotted her shoulder. At least it hid well amid the butterflies. Salvageable.

Clarimonde looked to him only to discover his back was to her. He’d lost his hat as he tilted his head back. When he rose from retrieving it, it was like watching an obsidian plant grow its shoot from the earth. Slow and silent. The hat went back in place. He did not turn.

“You may see me at your revelry. You may not. Perhaps I shall pace out my time here for months and years and decades to come. Yet the odds are just as fair that I may be gone before the first gasp of November. Much is in motion. Some priorities outweigh the others. You, consort of Concini, of so many decadents besides, are not at the top of the list in any eventuality. You are there, of course. You will be seen to. But do not flatter yourself to think you are of such significance that you can be sheltered indefinitely from the consequences of your play.”

If I ever played, voivode, I never played alone. A consort does not break into the chamber where they work. They are bought and begged for. Just like any narcotic.

“I’m certain. Alternatively, if you must kill me to satisfy whatever amorphous whim dictates I must die for whatever vague crime I committed in your mind, you could always do it now. Save me the time and effort of playing hostess. Only, do try not to ruin the ensemble. But first.” She opened the box and let it fall away as she fastened the necklace and its pouring rubies at her throat. The effect improved when she opened her walking coat and the gems spilled over the dress beneath. “Leave my corpse someplace picturesque. A nice botanical garden someplace.”

 Now he turned. She recognized some of the old hunger in his look. Yet it was crowded in with something else. Something that stoked the flame that was almost fear in her. It did not lessen when he began to soften at his edges, the body breaking down into a bruised fog. She watched it seep out and away on the wind.

“Clarimonde. I would never kill you. There is no repercussion for you in that. There never has been. For you, I must utilize true artistry for a consequence, and I shall not fail the task. But if it is any consolation, such things are still at the bottom of my itinerary. If properly convinced, I may even forget it. Regardless, my love, you can go back to your château with at least one certainty to warm you in the coffin. If you are to suffer, you shall not suffer first…” Eyes and teeth were all he had left. They blazed. “…and yours will be a far kinder agony than his.”

With that, she was alone.

Time had come, time had gone. The masquerade went with it, another scintillating success, whispered about behind fans and winked about over cigars. Andy had loved the necklace.

Her friend made no appearance. Even so, anxiety had opened the door to dear Andy’s reserved wing at last, replete with the gentleman’s delight. He really was a darling thing, and she was not far off in guessing he would hear her ulterior reasons for the stay—

‘A grim shadow from my past has followed me to England, sweet Andy, and I am afraid!’

—and think himself a knight with a desperate damsel in hand. Assuming, naturally, that the fear was for herself.

If truth were told in all its coldness, she could not say she was in love with the young man. Yet she had reserved a corner of her heart for him as she had for many in her time. If the Count meant to start tightening the noose, those closest would be the first to feel the rope. She could at least buttress the manor and its people against his entry.

You say it as if it matters. He would as soon burn the place to the ground as charm his way through the door. …So why hasn’t he?

A persistent question.

Flashes that might have been trying to form an answer had come to her in dreams as September tipped to October, as October bled to November. When she was not constructing worlds against a dreamscape, she could fish for more than her own inventions in the psychic ether. More often than not these came to her as pure gibberish made of symbols and metaphor and hints so layered in enigma they bordered on indecipherable.

A whirl of bats and loose earth littering the air.

A face melting like wax between a vaguely familiar beauty and a screeching flower of teeth and blood.

A thunder-drum of living hearts beating in the same tune with eyes piercing an endless dark like desperate candles. 

A second face, another semi-recognition, grinning with hate and pulling apart into something horrid beyond words.

A pack of collared dogs with sharp twigs of ash in their mouths, a foaming pale hound racing ahead, carrying a great shining knife, all giving chase to a massive wolf leading them into snowy wilds, leaving a trail of dropped blood from the beating heart caught in its jaws.

A pair of shadows embracing, kissing, eating out the other’s heart.

A world that was a cemetery, every tomb and casket around its dead globe breaking open to scream a choir against a bleeding sky.

All less than heartening and even less enlightening. No more than her discovering the state of the Count’s Piccadilly purchase following the first nervous week of October. His estate or no, she had the benefit of not requiring an invitation at any home’s threshold. Not that there was much about the place that could suggest a home.

Here was dust tramped with strangers’ footprints, broken glass, whiffs of garlic blossom and, hidden in the lowermost dark, boxed Transylvanian dirt muddled with both its owner’s unmistakable stamp and the divine stain of the Eucharist. But no Count. Not even a spot of blood to mark a quick nibble taken before his exit. In the busiest room—at least busy in way of mess—she had found a single gold coin forgotten in a corner. There were a few fibers of fine black cloth with it.

No more than that. Not for days. Weeks. Now creeping toward months. With that time and no sign of change in the Piccadilly estate, she could only guess that whatever his business was, it had moved elsewhere for the time being. It had also given her a significant enough pause to mull her own status and that of Lord Blythe; namely, that perhaps her very nearness would be the thing to paint a target on him and his. It had already drawn enough attention to make his address known. Better to excise themselves from the others’ circles.

A dalliance was only a dalliance and the boy didn’t need to die over it.

Away and adieu, now. Go blow away to a new corner before the poor boy gets it in his head to come clawing at the door.

Such was her intention.

Among others, formless and imperative as they felt. She wanted to be away from where Dracula knew she could be found. She wanted to replenish herself with another unhappy red draught. She wanted to make a pilgrimage to poor Romuald.

She wanted to shed the nauseating disquiet of her last nightmare, a thing full of howling, barking, cackling horror that still left its echo reverberating in her head like a shriek in a cathedral, made worse for how it had crashed its way into her dream-dead mind without warning.

Away. Clarimonde wanted away. It could be her, it could be the Count, it could be the whole jagged mess that was the shattering of her latest pleasant bout of idle comfort and debauchery, so long as it was away.

For now, it must only be her. The single moving piece she had control of. She could take a holiday away from her holiday until she could arrange for a new permanent residence. All this should have been enough to consider. Plenty to frustrate the plush default of her life.

And yet, there was more.

Of course.

Three new nuisances in the shape of three envelopes of varying stationery. Two of which had come by post. The third she had found hidden, with schoolboy bluntness, waiting in the lingerie chest she had left behind during her stay with Andy. That one bore the black wax seal of the Dragon. Despite the sender’s best efforts, it did not unsettle her as much as the deliveries sent by mundane measures.

A crimson seal of an ornate dagger planted in a skull marked one’s sender clearly, even without his true name in the corner. She was less than shocked at the whiff of blood stirred into the wax. A predictable thing was Ruthven.

The third she did not know at all. No more than she recognized the sender’s address, being even more distant and stamp-smothered than the one in ruddy wax. It was this last alien offering that disturbed her most. Unbidden, she found herself repeatedly hiding, revealing, and hiding it again under the letters she knew. The carriage ride’s dullness had not yet bored her enough to break any of the seals. Even the train’s steady chugging march had not prodded her into killing the suspense and rending the wax. Not yet.

But her novels were tired and the fashion plates more-so. Curiosity warred with the premonition of deepening displeasure.

Clarimonde looked again at that third seal. All the while sensing, despite her best efforts at senselessness, that the seal was looking back at her and seeing more than it should.

This wax seal was gold.

And at its center was a single staring eye.

FOR THE FULL CHAPTER, REFER TO THE GOOGLE DOC LINK. 👁

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#hope you're ready to read through a cinderblock #barking harker #dracula #carmilla #clarimonde #lucy westenra #charnell wight #bram stoker #theophile gautier #sheridan le fanu #my writing #horror #jonathan harker #mina harker #lord ruthven #the vampyre

[myth-lord]

D&D Monster Madness

Aboleth Abyssal Maw Ahuizotl Air Elemental - Ragewind (Caller in Darkness / Voidwraith) Almiraj Ankheg - Kruthik ANT - Abyss Ant ARCHON - Lantern Archon - Hound Archon Arrowhawk - Steelwing Aurumvorax Axe Beak - Achaierai

Babau Balor Banderhobb Barlgura - Girallon (Yeti) Basidirond Basilisk - Dracolisk BEETLE - Water Beetle - Fire Beetle (Bombardier) - Siege Beetle Behir Beholder Belker - Phiuhl Black Dragon - Shadow Dragon Bladeling Blindheim Blink Dog - Cooshee Bloodthorn Blue Dragon Bodak Boneyard Brown Dragon Bulette Bullywug - Grung - Hezrou (Pod Demon)

Carbuncle Carrion Crawler - Ulgurstasta Catoblepas Cave Fisher - Avalancher Cave Moray Centaur - Armanite CENTIPEDE - Adaru - Remorhaz Chasme Chathrang Chimera Choker - Skulk Chuul Cloaker Clockroach (Clockwork Horror) Cloud Giant - Fog Giant Cockatrice - Pyrolisk Copper Dragon Coral Golem Couatl Crawling Claw Crimson Death Crysmal Crystal Dragon Crystal Ooze Cyclops

DARK TREE - Hangman Tree - Quickwood - Orcwort Darktentacles Deadly Dancer Death Knight Deepspawn Destrachan Deva - Erinyes DIRE BEAST - Dire Rat (Osquip) - Dire Bat (Mobat) - Dire Boar (Fhorge) Displacer Beast - Phane Doppelganger - Maurezhi Dragon Turtle DRAKE - Water Drake (Dimetrodon) - Fire Drake (Zezir) - Air Drake (Wyvern) - Earth Drake (Rock Reptile) Drow - Drider Dryad - Splinterwaif Duergar - Derro - Automaton Dunkleosteus Dust Digger - Silt Horror

Earth Elemental - Tomb Mote Eblis Eidolon Ethereal Defiler Ethereal Dreadnought Ethereal Filcher Ethereal Slayer Ethereal Stalker Ettercap - Vermin Lord Ettin

Faerie Dragon Fetch Feyr Fire Bat Fire Elemental - Fire Effigy Fire Giant Flesh Golem - Rotripper Fomorian - Plague Spewer - Eldritch Giant Froghemoth Frost Giant

Galeb Duhr Gargoyle Gas Spore - Ascomoid Gelatinous Cube Gelugon GENIE - Dao - Djinn - Efreet - Marid Ghaunadan GHOST - Poltergeist - Allip (Wraith) - Banshee Ghoul - Ghast (Witherstench) - Berbalang - Devourer Giant Dragonfly Gibbering Mouther - Argos Glabrezu Gloomwing Gnoll - Witherling - Marrashi - Flind Goblin - Nilbog - Spriggan - Gremlin (Quarrak) Gold Dragon Gorgon Gravorg Gray Render - Cadaver Collector Green Dragon Green Slime - Arcane Ooze - Alkilith Greenvise Grey Dragon Griffon

Hadozee HAG - Bog Hag - Bheur Hag - Night Hag Hamatula Harpy - Siren Hatori Hell Hound - Yeth Hound - Canoloth Hippocampus Hook Horror Hullathoin Hydra

Id Fiend Imp - Mephit - Quasit Intellect Devourer - Cerebrilith (Brain Collector) - Grell Iron Golem - Adamantine Golem - Juggernaut

Kelpie Kenku Kirin (Celestial Stag) Korred Krenshar - Carcass Eater Kyton

Lamia Lemure - Rutterkin Leprechaun Leucrotta Lich - Demilich - Skull Lord Lillend LIZARDFOLK - Drakkoth - Kobold - Pterrax - Salamander - Troglodyte LYCANTHROPE - Werebear (Firbolg) - Werefox (Kitsune) - Wereshark

Magmin - Magma Hurler Manticore - Jarilith Marilith - Spell Weaver Medusa Merman - Merrow Merregon - Barbazu Mimic - Trapper Mind Flayer - Ulitharid Minotaur - Goristro Mohrg Morkoth Mudman Mummy - Grisgol - Skirr Myconid - Phycomid

NAGA - Dark Naga - Water Naga Nereid Nightmare Nightwalker (Death Giant) Nothic - Shardsoul Slayer (Phthisic) Nuckelavee

Obliviax (Puppeteer) Oni Orc - Tulgar Osyluth Otyugh Owlbear

Paeliryon Peryton Phoenix Piercer - Roper POSSESSED OBJECT - Book of Vile Darkness - Carrionette (Soul Puppet) - Helmed Horror - Slithering Hoard - Trap Haunt - Xaver (Deathdrinker) PUDDING - Black Pudding - White Pudding Purple Dragon Purple Worm - Fiendwurm - Neothelid

Quickling

Rakshasa Ravid Red Dragon - Hellfire Wyrm Redcap Roc Rot Grubs Rust Monster

Sahuagin - Skulvyn Sandman - Skriaxit Satyr - Bulezau Scarecrow SCORPION - Hellstinger Shadow Demon Shadow Mastiff Shambling Mound - Tendriculos Shardmind Shocker Sibriex Silver Dragon - Mercury Dragon Simpathetic Skin Kite Solamith (Soul Eater) SNAIL - Balhannoth - Flail Snail - Metalmaster Solar   - Angel of Decay Sphinx SPIDER - Phase Spider (Wraith Spider) - Aranea (Tomb Spider) - Darkweaver - Bebilith Sprite Steel Predator Stirge Stone Giant Su-Monster Succubus (Incubus) Swordwing

Tlincalli Treant - Saguaro Sentinel Troll

Umber Hulk Unicorn - Dusk Unicorn Uridezu

Vampire - Varrangoin Vargouille Vrock

WASP - Hellwasp Swarm - Quanlos (Advespa) Wastrilith Water Elemental - Caller from the Deeps Web Golem Wendigo White Dragon Wight - Boneclaw Will o Wisp - Trilloch Winter Wolf

Yellow Dragon (Sunwyrm) Yellow Musk Creeper - Twilight Bloom (corpse flower) Yrthak Yuan-Ti - Abomination

Zombie - Drowned - Dustblight - Entombed Zorbo

UNIQUE Demogorgon Juiblex Tiamat Bahamut Lolth Cryonax Imix Ogremoch Olhydra Yan-C-Bin Pazuzu Kraken Tarrasque Leviathan Eye Tyrant Elder Brain Zuggtmoy

UNDEAD: Shadow / Adherer / Coffer Corpse / Crypt Thing / Huecuva / Necrophidius / Penanggalan / Revenant / Death Slaad / Son of Kyuss / Blazing Bones / Flameskull / Sinister / Skuz / Dracolich / Nightwing / Nightcrawler / Gravecrawler / Charnel Hound / Vitreous Drinker / Atropal / Spectre / Skeleton / Giant Skeleton / Entropic Reaper / Famine Spirit / Wraith / Deadborn / Vampiric Mist /

FIEND: Nalfeshnee / Cornugon / Pit Fiend / Larva / Amnizu / Hellcat / Mezzoloth / Nycaloth / Arcanoloth / Charonaloth / Dergholoth / Hydroloth / Oinoloth / Piscoloth / Ultroloth / Yagnoloth / Demodand / Cambion / Abishai / Spinagon / Yochlol / Molydeus / Nightmare Beast / Wastrel / Jovoc / Zovvut / Advespa / Durzagon / Arrow Demon / Sorrowsworn / Deathdrinker / Whisper Demon / Evistro / Draudnu / Remmanon / Blood Fiend / Echinoloth / Dybbuk / Nabassu / Braxat / Death Dog / Howler / Soul Eater / Tanarukk / Skybleeder / Incubus / Barghest /

ABERRATION: Eyewing / Eye of the Deep / Giant Leech / Lurker Above / Giant Octopus / Giant Jellyfish / Giant Slug / Thought Eater / Xorn / Flumph / Thoqqua / Volt / Xill / Land Urchin / Burbur / Giant Sea Anemone / Giant Clam / Giant Sunstar / Fachan / Neogi / Giant Squid / Decapus / Darkmantle / Delver / Ethereal Marauder / Frost Worm / Grick / Avolakia / Odopi / Rot Reaver / Gorbel / Spectator / Slaad / Digester / Meenlock / Chaos Beast / Balhannoth / Masher / Vodyanoi / Uchuulon / Dharculus / Brain Collector /

HUMANOID: Hill Giant / Halfling / Hobgoblin / Weretiger / Yeti / Aarakocra / Babbler / Dark Creeper / Dark Stalker / Dire Corby / Dune Stalker / Mountain Giant / Gibberling / Grimlock / Meazel / Norker / Quaggoth / Formian / Verbeeg / Selkie / Thri-Kreen / Wemic / Dragonkin / Asabi / Werebat / Athach / Abeil / Death Giant / Lumi / Phoelarch / Storm Giant / Nightshade / Gith / Flind / Bugbear / Wereboar / Wererat / Werewolf / Ogre / Tabaxi / Skindancer / Pit Master / Shadar-Kai / Lizardman / Triton / Kuo-Toa / Nagpa /

OOZE: Ochre Jelly / Slithering Tracker / Stunjelly / Aballin / Flareater / Phasm / Bone Ooze / Flesh Jelly / Teratomorph / Conflagration Ooze / Corrupture / Graveyard Sludge / Brown Pudding / Gray Ooze /

BEAST: Ankylosaurus / Brachiosaurus / Ceratosaurus / Elasmosaurus / Mosasaurus / Pteranodon / Stegosaurus / Triceratops / Tyrannosaurus / Giant Eagle / Giant Eel / Giant Frog / Giant Gar / Giant Lamprey / Subterrean Lizard / Mammoth / Giant Otter / Giant Owl / Giant Sea Horse / Sea Serpent / Giant Constrictor / Giant Cobra / Giant Snapping Turtle / Giant Weasel / Giant Wolverine / Blood Hawk / Bonesnapper / Jaculi / Quipper / Rothe / Behemoth Hippo / Boobrie / Giant Catfish / Compsognathus / Deinonychus / Dimetrodon / Struthiomimus / Tanystropheus / Giant Raven / Verme / Megatherium / Cloud Ray / Quetzalcoatlus / Spinosaurus / Gambol / Moonrat / Guulvorg / Amphisbaena / Dire Bear / Dire Crocodile / Dire Elephant / Dire Shark / Dire Rhinoceros / Dire Stag / Dire Tiger / Dire Wolf / Worg / Muckdweller / Brain Mole / Ixitxachitl / Jackalwere / Pegasus / Sea Lion / Androsphinx / Hieracosphinx / Ice Toad / Bunyip / Disenchanter / Fire Snake / Kamadan / Mantari / Nonafel / Afanc / Baku / Boalisk / Kech / Ascallion / Frost Salamander / Kirre / Dragon Eel / Tojanida / Mudmaw / Rejkar / Zezir / Lodestone Marauder / Rylkar / Julajimus / Sand Hunter / Cranium Rat / Witherstench /

PLANT: Shrieker / Whipweed / Kampfult / Mandragora / Giant Sundew / Vegepygmy / Wolf-In-Sheeps-Clothing / Death’s Head Tree / Thorny / Phantom Fungus / Twig Blight / Dread Blossom Swarm / Night Twist / Burrow Root / Assassin Vine / Bloodsipper / Burnflower / Vine Horror / Tri-Flower Frond / Violet Fungus / Wood Woad / Battlebriar /

FEY: Brownie / Nixie / Nymph / Sylph / Atomie / Boggle / Green Hag / Grig / Hybsil / Frost Fairy / Lhiannan Shee / Ragewalker / Lunar Ravager / Banshrae / Frostwind Virago / Wild Hunt / Eladrin / Grimalkin / Sea Hag / Annis Hag / Kercpa / Skiurid / Pixie / Pech /

CONSTRUCT: Homonculus / Caryatid Column / Iron Cobra / Margoyle / Mongrel / Magic Golem / Bone Golem / Glass Golem / Shield Guardian / Hangman Golem / Merchurion / Clay Golem / Clockwork Horror / Dwarf Ancestor / Stone Golem / Emerald Golem / Retriever / Hellfire Engine /

DRAGON: Bronze Dragon / Dragonne / Pseudo-Dragon / Cloud Dragon / Mist Dragon / Linnorm / Gorynych / Tether Beast / Styx Dragon / Ambush Drake / Guardian Naga / Spirit Naga /

ELEMENTAL: Invisible Stalker / Water Weird / Azer / Mihstu / Ice Elemental / Lightning Elemental / Time Elemental / Energon / Earth Weird / Nishruu / Nyth / Orglash / Immoth / Tempest / Blackball / Breathdrinker / Chraal / Gulgar / Zaratan / Chaos Shard / Kapoacinth / Visilight /

VERMIN: Rhinoceros Beetle / Water Spider / Assassin Bug / Ant Lion / Death Watch Beetle / Slicer Beetle / Megapede / Giant Solifugid / Tenebrous Worm / Fyrefly / Bonespear / Sword Spider / Spider Eater / Spellgaunt / Brood Keeper / Chelicera / Harpoon Spider / Tomb Spider / Boring Beetle / Giant Ant / Giant Crab / Bristle Spider / Death Jumper / Snow Tarantula / Giant Tick / Bloodsilk Spider / Heart Tick / Carcass Crab / Giant Centipede / Giant Mantis / Giant Scorpion / Giant Spider / Wraith Spider / Giant Wasp /

CELESTIAL: Lammasu / Titan / Planetar / Swanmay / Trumpet Archon /

#long post #d&d #monsters

[tatticstudio55]

Onto the idea that dragons “aren’t the solution”

This is a take I’ve seen so, so many times. And here are some reasons (but not all of them) why i disagree with it.

In the released chapter called The Forsaken, we get these words from Euron:

“The bleeding star bespoke the end,” he said to Aeron. “These are the last days, when the world shall be broken and remade. A new god shall be born from the graves and charnel pits.”

Unreliable as Euron is, Martin is probably using him to announce where he plans to take his story next. He’s about to write a redo-myth where what happened at the *beginning* of Westeros will happen again. The story is falling back in time (metaphorically, of course), until it reaches the “dawn” age of gods and monsters. In traditional mythology - not asoiaf, but actual myths -, that’s where and when these creatures lived. Not during the time of man, before.

And in many of these myths, the first civilizations of humans are built on the remains of a slain dragon. That’s because dragons are a symbol of the chaos from which a new world is built. In other creations myths, giants were the first creature to live on the earth. They then grew smaller and smaller as their kinship with the gods diminished. The asoiaf books have been bringing back “mythical” creatures since early AGOT, when Jon and Robb found the direwolves pups. Likewise, summers and winters are lasting longer and longer, almost as if time was slowing down. Time already “froze” on the other side of the Wall, where the lands of always winter are, where creatures with a very long lifespan are the most “abundant” (the 3EC, the children of the forest, the weirwoods) and where people can “live” indefinitely (as wights). (Moreover, although these “phenomenon” are mostly seen in the North, they’re gradually making their way down South as well.) In “mythical” beginnings, time moves a lot slower: days (and nights too, I assume) last longer and people can live for hundreds of years. And before these beginnings, time is nonexistent. Time slows down in Westeros because it’s making a full circle, back at the beginning (or Beginning). And when time stops, someone blows the Horn of Winter and brings down the Wall.

What does the legend say about the Horn of Joramun? Joramun blew the horn and woke giants from the earth.

Re-quoting myself here: “In other creations myths, giants were the first creature to live on the earth.”

So that’s basically what Euron is predicting to Aeron in The Forsaken.

This is hardly human business. Dragons have been used by Targaryen for political reasons in the past, as we know, and if Martin must drill in the point that dragons + human politics = bad with Dany accidentally blowing up King’s Landing, well so be it. The conflicts in King’s Landing were created and perpetuated solely by human. It is nothing but a human business.

What Euron is talking about is a war of mythical scale where dragons might represent one – but only one – of many magical creatures involved in a massive, chaotic do-over: giants, children of the forest, unicorns, white walkers, wights, direwolves, wargs, dragons, etc, etc.

For example, if two Starklings must end up with crowns like in the show (and assuming that Westeros doesn’t fragment itself into 7 separate kingdoms again), I’m certain – I’d bet money on it – that the children of the forest will bring another “Hammer of Water” upon the Neck, breaking Westeros in half for good. Obviously, if CotF do that, it won’t be to settle some political dispute over who gets to rule what, even if the result turns out conveniently for the Starks in the end.

Whoever blows the Horn of Winter doesn’t *only* bring down the Wall. He’s also waking giants and, oh, who else currently sleeping under the earth? Children of the forest, right. Whose help was supposedly indispensable to end the first Long Night.

Whoever bring down the Wall also ensures that dragons will be able to cross on the other side. The part in Fire and Blood where Alysanne tries and fail to get Silverwing to fly across the Wall serves two purposes: 1) it tells us that no dragon has ever been North of the Wall before, and 2) it pretty much guarantees that dragons in present asoiaf time will make it back at the Wall, either to learn the same thing Alysanne learned, or to succeed where she couldn’t since the Wall won’t be there anymore.

Are dragons the secret magical solution, the one missing element needed to defeat the Others for good? I doubt it. It sounds too simple.

But you’re shoving your head in the sand if you don’t think that they’ll be useful. Even in the eventuality that they couldn’t do much against the WW themselves, 1) they’ll do wonders at burning wights, and 2) more importantly, they’ll brings the heroes to where they need to be in order to defeat the Great Other, likely in the Heart of Winter. How else are they supposed to reach that place?

Now, I have my own little theory over what will happen once they’re there, and no, it does not directly involve dragons. To put it plainly, Dany (and maybe Jon; unsure about the third person with them, if there’s a third person) gets inside the Heart of Winter, whatever it is, and burn it down from within. That’s where the “flaming heart” Melisandre swears by comes from (or points to), that’s what was foreshadowed in the HotU when Dany was almost “absorbed” into the rotting blue heart before being saved by Drogon’s fire, that’s probably even where Nissa Nissa’s legend comes from (heart + sacrifice + fire). That will be Dany’s third fire, the one to love (what’s the connection to love? Because she’s inside a heart? I have no clue.) It roughly aligns with all the Samson subtext/foreshadowing. Don’t ask me if they survive it. My first answer would be “probably not”. Maybe they’re meant to be the slain “dragons” that new worlds are built upon. But then again if anyone could survive something like this, it’s Dany.

Of course, none of this will be possible if they can’t reach the Heart of Winter in the first place.

#valyrianscrolls #asoiaf meta #asoiaf #daenerys targaryen #jon snow #Tyrion Lannister #ados speculation #heart of winter

[yeniayofnymeria]

Euron Greyjoy "Ice or Fire"

Selam, hello! :)

Today I want to discuss Euron Greyjoy's side with you. Usually peope thinks Euron works with ice side. Because ice side is bad guys and Euron is bad guy too... But first... I need explain something.

I wanted open another topic about it but for now a brief summary is more appropriate.

Who bad who good?

As readers, we tend to see the ice side as bad and the fire side as good. We think this story is a classic good and bad story. That's how it was done on TV Show. But the show is the world of D&D. ASOIAF is the world of GRRM. And GRRM's perspective is very different from D&D.

GRRM believes everyone can do bad and good thing at the same time. We can be heroes and also bad guys. We can be racist but also we can be anti-war. In stories, we do not need dark lords anymore.

Men are still capable of great heroism. But I don’t necessarily think there are heroes. That’s something that’s very much in my books: I believe in great characters. We’re all capable of doing great things, and of doing bad things. We have the angels and the demons inside of us, and our lives are a succession of choices…[Woodrow Wilson] was a racist who tried to end war. Now, does one cancel out the other? Well, they don’t cancel out the other. You can’t make him a hero or a villain. He was both. And we’re all both.

Much as I admire Tolkien, and I do admire Tolkien — he’s been a huge influence on me, and his Lord of the Rings is the mountain that leans over every other fantasy written since and shaped all of modern fantasy — there are things about it, the whole concept of the Dark Lord, and good guys battling bad guys, Good versus Evil, while brilliantly handled in Tolkien, in the hands of many Tolkien successors, it has become kind of a cartoon. We don’t need any more Dark Lords, we don’t need any more, “Here are the good guys, they’re in white, there are the bad guys, they’re in black. And also, they’re really ugly, the bad guys.”

Ruling is hard. This was maybe my answer to Tolkien, whom, as much as I admire him, I do quibble with. Lord of the Rings had a very medieval philosophy: that if the king was a good man, the land would prosper. We look at real history and it’s not that simple. Tolkien can say that Aragorn became king and reigned for a hundred years, and he was wise and good. But Tolkien doesn’t ask the question: What was Aragorn’s tax policy? Did he maintain a standing army? What did he do in times of flood and famine? And what about all these orcs? By the end of the war, Sauron is gone but all of the orcs aren’t gone – they’re in the mountains. Did Aragorn pursue a policy of systematic genocide and kill them? Even the little baby orcs, in their little orc cradles? The war that Tolkien wrote about was a war for the fate of civilization and the future of humanity, and that’s become the template. I’m not sure that it’s a good template, though. The Tolkien model led generations of fantasy writers to produce these endless series of dark lords and their evil minions who are all very ugly and wear black clothes. But the vast majority of wars throughout history are not like that.

You can also see traces of these words in books. For example Aemon said these words.

"Many good men have been bad kings, Maester Aemon used to say, and some bad men have been good kings." "Better men than Stannis have done worse things than this."

So we can say ice or fire side are not pure evil or good. They are both; like a Stark and like a Lannister. I'm a Stark but i can say Stark side ise not pure good and sinless. We saw all. We read it.

This reason do not think fire is good and ice is bad. Probably both sides have their own justification for fighting. There will be people and houses fighting and dying for both sides.

The question is which side will Euron be on?

For the above reasons the majority said ice. I think the opposite. Actually, my main idea is that Euron is on its side. In alliance with the side that he thinks is strong for personal ambition and interests. And I think this side is "fire"

Euron is a sociopath narcissist. Someone who sees himself as a god, worships himself. He wants power, he wants to rule. If you are such a narcissist, you will go wherever you find power. I don't think such a person would want to die.

Euron says he went to Asshai and Valyria. The Valyria part may be a lie, but not the Asshai part. Even if we take it all right, these two cities are on the fire side. The magic of these two cities is based on fire and blood. Most of the wizards of Euron use these spells. So Euron is close by weight with these spells.

I believe the R'hllor faith comes from Asshai. AA legend and prophecy comes from that city anyway. I have no doubt that Euron has learned all this and more. If this ( https://clankingdragon.wordpress.com/2017/09/26/might-makes-wight-qarth-and-asshai/) theory is true which i belive it is, then Euron saw fire wights in Asshai. Then he knows now that there is a way not to die and he wants it.

Do not forget the word in their (iron born) faith. It also points to a wight incident. "What is dead may never die, but rises again, harder and stronger."

HINTS

1- When Euron came back, he went after Dany and his dragons. If he was working with the ice, he would have wanted to kill Dany and Dany's dragons. He didn't have to go back to Westeros for that. Somehow he could have gone to Meereen to kill Dany. And if Daario = Euron theory is true, he has had the opportunity many times. As a result, if he wants to have it instead of killing her ... It makes more sense to return home if he wants to be there for her. He even captured wizards who wanted to kill Dany.

Moqorro*: Others seek* Daenerys too. Tyrion*: Have you seen these others in your fires?* Moqorro*: Only their shadows. One most of all. A tall and twisted thing with one black eye and ten long arms, sailing on a sea of blood.* “So are the contents of my chamber pot. None is fit to sit the Seastone Chair, much less the Iron Throne. No, to make an heir that’s worthy of him , I need a different woman. When the kraken weds the dragon, brother, let all the world beware.”

2- Euron is now attacking Reach. Why is that? He is not interested in the North or Dorne or Lannister lands, or Storm land, or even the river lands. Reach is very rich right but Euron is not one who loves money. He doesn't care. Places like the old town are under serious threat. Reach's army was very vigorous, they did not see war properly. Rich and powerful. Now, because of the Lannister-Tyrell alliance, Reach will fight against Dany. Euron can weaken them. Also, according to Sam, if the old city falls, the realm is torn to pieces. This is definitely beneficial for Dany. At first, even Varys was trying to do something similar. We all know that Euron can't sit in the Iron Throne because he killed the Lannisters. He needs Dany.

3- Aeron's dreams...

There are very important signs.

He showed the world his blood eye now, dark and terrible. Clad head to heel in scale as dark as onyx, he sat upon a mound of blackened skulls as dwarfs capered round his feet and a forest burned behind him.

A dark onyx reminded me of black stones

. (Also could be Euron's Valyria armor) "blood eye" interesting, like fire and blood? Or Bloodstone Emperor? Euron's personel sigil is a red/blood eye... And the Emperor was worshiped those black stones. He killed her sister and took her throne, like Euron did.

Impaled upon the longer spikes were the bodies of the gods. The Maiden was there and the Father and the Mother, the Warrior and Crone and Smith … even the Stranger. They hung side by side with all manner of queer foreign gods: the Great Shepherd and the Black Goat, three-headed Trios and the Pale Child Bakkalon, the Lord of Light and the butterfly god of Naath.

The Emperor took down all his gods. Euron did same thing (Black Goat, The Stranger are God of death of FM, the great other). Remeber Euron clad head to heel in scale as dark as onyx, he looks like black stone. Euron worships himself.

Beside him stood a shadow in woman’s form, long and tall and terrible, her hands alive with pale white fire.

Whoever this woman is must belong to the fire side. Northern gods and others hate fire. They prefer cold and snow. If the Euron was on the ice side, this woman would have ice instead of fire.

And most important to me. This...

“The bleeding star bespoke the end,” he said to Aeron. “These are the last days, when the world shall be broken and remade. A new god shall be born from the graves and charnel pits.” Then Euron lifted a great horn to his lips and blew, and dragons and krakens and sphinxes came at his command and bowed before him. “Kneel, brother,” the Crow’s Eye commanded. “I am your king, I am your god. Worship me, and I will raise you up to be my priest.”

Dragons, krakens and shpinxes(we saw Valyrian ones, half human half dragon but this could be half dragon half kraken like he wanted) bowed him with horn. He uses those powers.

The bleeding stars(dragons, fire...)... last days (the war is coming)... the world shall be broken and remade (after war someone will do this)... a ned god (he thinks himself) will born from the draves and charnel pits(from dead, he means).

"Her. Daenerys?" Haldon nodded. "Benerro has sent forth the word from Volantis. Her coming is the fulfillment of an ancient prophecy. From smoke and salt was she born to make the world anew. She is Azor Ahai returned … and her triumph over darkness will bring a summer that will never end … death itself will bend its knee, and all those who die fighting in her cause shall be reborn …" "Do I have to be reborn in this same body?" asked Tyrion

R'hllor side (except Melisandre) thinks Dany is AA. She will make the world anew (world shall be broken and remade.) and death itself will bend its knee(ice side will lost) and her men will rise again from dead ( born from the graves and charnel pits)

So Euron believes fire side will win, Dany is AA and if he would be with her, he will be reborn and became immortal. Even he became a god and king... So yes, Euron chose fire side because he thinks fire side will win.

So, what do you think?

#euron greyjoy #daenerys targeryan

[violettesiren]

There stammer'd sounds of stifled sobs from out the fountain-cave,

And glimmer'd shapes of spirits grieving deeply 'neath the wave.

The water took a tawny hue, its wash a tedious tone,

And sluicy sand and rifted rock and hollow seem'd to moan.

A chilly breeze came soughing, like the charnel-breath of sighs,

The sensitive stream-blossoms shrank, and clos'd their lucid eyes,

The flag and rush fell jostling in the stilly-trembling mere,

And mute the mists congeal d on moss and lichen far and near.

'Twas the Undine! she who long had lov'd the Viking Wight,

And ere a while had wedded him with sacred ring and rite,

But now, forsaken sigh'd and sobb'd and would not be consol'd;

Until a secret summons rang within the cavern cold.

And so, at sunset, when the soft and soothing zephyr weaves

A mournful sort of monody among the murm'ring leaves,

She bade the grot a grave adieu, and kiss'd her wet wan hand

To silv'ry foam and plashy ooze and ripple-fretted strand.

And slowly with a swan-like dirge she dropp'd adown the stream;

The home-bound angler only saw a surface-creeping steam;

But all the springs and bubbles and the eddies by the shore,

They knew her, and grew sad to see the garb of woe she wore.

While on through many a tortuous gorge, down many a foaming steep,

'Twixt dark and dimpling pools she sank. where calm the currents sleep;

And oft the elfin greeted her, and oft the river-fay

With dainty liquid-chiming speech entreated her to stay.

But heedlessly she hied her on despite the courteous din;

She only heard the ode of grief weird-echoing within:

The water-skimmer stood stock-still at her despairful face,

And pixies ceas'd their merry pranks in many a pleasant place.

The rapids shudder'd 'mong the stones as she went gliding by;

The prowling trout, afraid, forbore to seize the tempting fly;

The timid moth fell headlong in the dank and slimy weeds,

And dragon-flies dream'd frightful dreams around the rustling reeds.

And thus the quiet ev'ning long beneath the ling'ring light

She fled in anguish, all alone, and through the noiseless night;

And still her sighs were like the breath of some mysterious breeze,

And still her tears fell thick as dewdrops trickling down the trees.

Until at daybreak o'er the sands, that rib the wrinkly shore,

She div'd into the mighty deep, that moveth evermore;

And faster fell her sighs and tears, till in the tide she lay

Like some uprooted lily swooning 'neath noon's sultry ray.

But, when at length the broad'ning sun was brightly sinking down,

She braided her long locks with pearl, and donn'd her crystal crown,

Her robes of white and azure, and her coral girdle rare;

And thus in meekness mute went up amid the glowing air:

And sought a drear and desart ledge, that lipp'd the wasting wave,

As naked as a scaffold and as ghastly as the grave,

With reefs and banks and shallows round, and wreck-wood old and dry;

And straightway at her beck arose a pile, that she might die.

And there she bow'd her sleeky head, and lit the solemn pyre,

And mounted it in silence 'mid the stealthy mounting fire;    

And, kneeling on the rugged wreck, beneath one shimm'ring star,

She stretch'd her snowy arms towards the whitening waves afar.

Oh! father! and Oh!mother! Oh! she cried- when lo! there came

A huge grey gull, that hover'd ghostlike round the rising flame;

And hark! amid the surf as 'twere a motion and a moan!

And with a shriek the gull swept on- and she was all alone.

And fiercelier flash'd the flaring flames and roar'd the ravening fire,

And all was hidden, all was hush'd amid the crackling pyre,

Till one faint gasp, one feeble groan was heard- and then no more;

And deep awe sank with deep dark night about the spray-swept shore.

From The Undine and the Viking by A. Wrangler

#A. Wrangler #water nymphs #undine

[poorquentyn]

What do you think will happen to Aeron Greyjoy in the following books?

I think he dies when Euron sacrifices both the Redwyne and Greyjoy fleets in the name of apocalyptic apotheosis. @racefortheironthrone pointed out that tying priests to the prows of his ships, as Euron orders his men to do at the end of “The Forsaken,” suggests that he is trying to channel some intense metaphysical energy as part of a massive blood sacrifice, all towards the end of joining, conquering, and replacing the gods:

“No, I’ll not kill you tonight. A holy man with holy blood. I may have need of that blood…later. For now, you are condemned to live.”

“The bleeding star bespoke the end,” he said to Aeron. “These are the last days, when the world shall be broken and remade. A new god shall be born from the graves and charnel pits.”

“Kneel, brother,” the Crow’s Eye commanded. “I am your king, I am your god. Worship me, and I will raise you up to be my priest.”

“Never. No godless man may sit the Seastone Chair!”

“Why would I want that hard black rock? Brother, look again and see where I am seated.”

Aeron Damphair looked. The mound of skulls was gone. Now it was metal underneath the Crow’s Eye: a great, tall, twisted seat of razor sharp iron, barbs and blades and broken swords, all dripping blood.

Impaled upon the longer spikes were the bodies of the gods. The Maiden was there and the Father and the Mother, the Warrior and Crone and Smith…even the Stranger. They hung side by side with all manner of queer foreign gods: the Great Shepherd and the Black Goat, three-headed Trios and the Pale Child Bakkalon, the Lord of Light and the butterfly god of Naath.

And there, swollen and green, half­-devoured by crabs, the Drowned God festered with the rest, seawater still dripping from his hair.

There’s a prophetic infrastructure at work here that suggests it’s going to work, linked through the imagery of an ocean of blood, whether via Moqorro…

“Have you seen these others in your fires?” he asked, warily.

“Only their shadows,” Moqorro said. “One most of all. A tall and twisted thing with one black eye and ten long arms, sailing on a sea of blood.”

…or Melisandre…

Then the towers by the sea, crumbling as the dark tide came sweeping over them, rising from the depths.

“I saw towers by the sea, submerged beneath a black and bloody tide. That is where the heaviest blow will fall.”

…or Aeron himself.

The dreams were even worse the second time. He saw the longships of the Ironborn adrift and burning on a boiling blood­-red sea. He saw his brother on the Iron Throne again, but Euron was no longer human. He seemed more squid than man, a monster fathered by a kraken of the deep, his face a mass of writhing tentacles. Beside him stood a shadow in woman’s form, long and tall and terrible, her hands alive with pale white fire. Dwarves capered for their amusement, male and female, naked and misshapen, locked in carnal embrace, biting and tearing at each other as Euron and his mate laughed and laughed and laughed…

This horror-soaked religious arc ties directly into Aeron’s own story, which from “The Prophet” through “The Drowned Man” to “The Forsaken” is largely about how he filters and faces down his abuser through the lens of his faith. Aeron was reborn as Damphair, and keeps telling himself that this has allowed him to escape the fear and shame and self-loathing that have gripped him since childhood thanks to Euron (and the death of Urrigon as well, a trauma Euorn oh-so-cruelly exploits multiple times in “The Forsaken”). But then:

“The king is dead,” he said, as plain as that. Four small words, yet the sea itself trembled when he uttered them.

Aeron Greyjoy had built his life upon two mighty pillars. Those four small words had knocked one down. Only the Drowned God remains to me. May he make me as strong and tireless as the sea.

And then: 

Aeron was almost at the door when the maester cleared his throat, and said, “Euron Crow’s Eye sits the Seastone Chair.”

The Damphair turned. The hall had suddenly grown colder. The Crow’s Eye is half a world away. Balon sent him off two years ago, and swore that it would be his life if he returned. “Tell me,” he said hoarsely.

The Crow’s Eye strides into the text to look Damphair dead in the face and tell him that he has seen through every god and every prayer, and none of them matter, because they did not stop Euron from abusing him and they did not stop Euron from spending his entire life getting ready to end the world:

“We shall have no king but from the kingsmoot.” The Damphair stood. “No godless man—”

“—may sit the Seastone Chair, aye.” Euron glanced about the tent. “As it happens I have oft sat upon the Seastone Chair of late. It raises no objections.” His smiling eye was glittering. “Who knows more of gods than I? Horse gods and fire gods, gods made of gold with gemstone eyes, gods carved of cedar wood, gods chiseled into mountains, gods of empty air…I know them all. I have seen their peoples garland them with flowers, and shed the blood of goats and bulls and children in their names. And I have heard the prayers, in half a hundred tongues. Cure my withered leg, make the maiden love me, grant me a healthy son. Save me, succor me, make me wealthy…protect me! Protect me from mine enemies, protect me from the darkness, protect me from the crabs inside my belly, from the horselords, from the slavers, from the sellswords at my door. Protect me from the Silence.” He laughed. “Godless? Why, Aeron, I am the godliest man ever to raise sail! You serve one god, Damphair, but I have served ten thousand. From Ib to Asshai, when men see my sails, they pray.”

The priest raised a bony finger. “They pray to trees and golden idols and goat-headed abominations. False gods…”

“Just so,” said Euron, “and for that sin I kill them all. I spill their blood upon the sea and sow their screaming women with my seed. Their little gods cannot stop me, so plainly they are false gods. I am more devout than even you, Aeron. Perhaps it should be you who kneels to me for blessing.”

Aeron takes refuge, as always, in the sea:

Only when his arms and legs were numb from the cold did Aeron Greyjoy struggle back to shore and don his robes again.

He had run before the Crow’s Eye as if he were still the weak thing he had been, but when the waves broke over his head they reminded once more that that man was dead. I was reborn from thesea, a harder man and stronger. No mortal man could frighten him, no more than the darkness could,nor the bones of his soul, the grey and grisly bones of his soul. The sound of a door opening, the scream of a rusted iron hinge.

But then Euron triumphs at Damphair’s own kingsmoot, starting with the cosmic-horror unveiling of Dragonbinder (Damphair calls it “the horn of hell”), and as Aeron is forced to crown his abuser, he experiences a profound crisis of faith. 

Even a priest may doubt. Even a prophet may know terror. Aeron Damphair reached within himself for his god and discovered only silence. As a thousand voices shouted out his brother’s name, all he could hear was the scream of a rusted iron hinge.

Here we find the multi-layered meaning of the name of Euron’s ship. Silence refers not only to the tongues he removes, but the silence of the gods:

“Harlon was my first. All I had to do was pinch his nose shut. The greyscale had turned his mouth to stone so he could not cry out. But his eyes grew frantic as he died. They begged me. When the life went out of them, I went out and pissed into the sea, waiting for the god to strike me down. None did.”

And now Aeron is tied to Silence, sailing into the storm he spent AFFC dreading. I think his religious arc ends with Euron’s divine ascension, and Sam takes over as our POV on the Crow’s Eye.

…although if I’m right that Euron reanimates his followers after sacrificing both fleets, maybe Sam spots Wight Damphair? Euron did say he would raise Aeron up to make him his priest…

#aeron greyjoy #euron greyjoy #twow spoilers

[see-arcane]

Barking Harker Cast Snapshot 10: Dogs

They that dwell up in the steeple,

All alone,

And who, tolling, tolling, tolling,

In that muffled monotone,

Feel a glory in so rolling

On the human heart a stone—

They are neither man nor woman—

They are neither brute nor human—

They are Ghouls… —Edgar Allan Poe, “The Bells”

“It be all fool-talk, lock, stock, and barrel, that's what it be and nowt else. These bans an' wafts an' boh-ghosts an' bar-guests an' bogles an' all anent them is only fit to set bairns an' dizzy women a'belderin'. They be nowt but air-blebs. They, an' all grims an' signs an' warnin's, be all invented…” —Mr. Swales, Dracula

Dogs were not always dogs. 

Once, they were wolves. They were wild. They hunted what there was to hunt. Whether that was the beasts of the forest or farmland fodder, it did not matter. No more than it mattered whether the latter were livestock or their human minders. It took time, training, and generations of care to create the dog.

To create every dog. Each born to an innate purpose rooted in the bones and blood of the ancestors who came before.

Dogs that guide. Dogs that track. Dogs that guard. Dogs that hunt. Dogs that fight. Dogs that help. Dogs that love.

Dogs who keep the wolves away or chase them down or lead the lost home.

Humanity domesticated the dog in all the creature’s variations of duty and devotion over the course of a scant few millennia. It stands to reason that for Powers which existed before the concept of Earthly life itself, rearing creatures to their own purposes would be ancient child’s play. So it was. So it is.

So two Dogs of unique pedigree find themselves crossing paths with a Wolf one summer night…  

More details about Barking Harker here.

#@ all restless dead these two would like to know your location #barghest #spectral dog #black dog #ghoul #charnell wight #dracula #barking harker #my writing #my art #horror

[see-arcane]

Barking Harker Cast Snapshot 2: A White ‘Lady’ of Whitby Abbey

“Accursed misbirth of hell! I understand your hatred of the food of mankind. You get your sustenance out of the burying-ground, damnable creature that you are!”

As soon as those words had passed his lips, the Countess flew at him, uttering a sound between a snarl and a howl, and bit him on the breast with the fury of a hyena. He dashed her from him on to the ground, raving fiercely as she was, and she gave up the ghost in the most terrible convulsions. —“Aurelia; or, The Tale of a Ghoul”

Right over the town is the ruin of Whitby Abbey, which was sacked by the Danes, and which is the scene of part of "Marmion," where the girl was built up in the wall. It is a most noble ruin, of immense size, and full of beautiful and romantic bits; there is a legend that a white lady is seen in one of the windows. Between it and the town there is another church, the parish one, round which is a big graveyard, all full of tombstones. […] They have a legend here that when a ship is lost bells are heard out at sea. I must ask the old man about this; he is coming this way.... […]

He is, I am afraid, a very skeptical person, for when I asked him about the bells at sea and the White Lady at the abbey he said very brusquely:—

"I wouldn't fash masel' about them, miss. Them things be all wore out.” —Mina Harker, Mr. Swales, Dracula

She is not the Lady, whoever that pale wraith is meant to be. She is neither a walled-in maiden nor a dead holy woman stalking the ruins. Frankly, she’s not even at the Abbey the whole of her year. Merely visiting with all the other tourists. She comes for the view and the cuisine alike.

The only trouble with the place of late was that mess following the Demeter. Some uniquely dead codgers and their unhappy spirits, which was fine. A dead dog, which was not. A certain Black Dog roaming, which was worse. And a dog that was not a dog, but one of those cheating dead; the walking, talking, blood-burgling sorts who went around mucking up the natural order of things. ‘Natural’ here meaning ‘supper stays in its damn dirt box.’ So she tells him. He informs her in turn that she doesn’t know who she speaks to.

On the contrary, Count Cadaver. She can smell the dead legions on him. The screaming innocents who died in toil or twitching on pikes. The babes. The sailors. The codgers. Yes, he’s positively rancid with death and power and et cetera. Duly impressed, she is. But not as much as she is annoyed at this new grisly wrinkle in her routine. And she is not even half as annoyed as she is hungry. For she is of the living that consumes the dead. It should be said that her bite lasts on a corpse, no matter how puffed up or well-dressed he is. He might kill her if he’s quick about it, true. But he will have to get close.

And she imagines he’ll have a hell of a time enjoying England with a necrotized hole where his face should be.

Count Cadaver makes his exit and she doesn’t see those fair maidens in their nighties at the Abbey again—bittersweet, that—and time marches. Other cemeteries call. She digs and dines. Until one night she lets herself into a fine tomb in the Hampstead area. Westenra is engraved on the stone and a familiar fair face waits inside.

(Not the one in the coffin; too staked and sliced and delectably decayed for that. But the face of the fair maiden in the corner, neither resting nor at peace…)

Barking Harker details here.

#while we're all waiting for the next Dracula Daily entry to drop #here: have a ghoul #no she's not Aurelia herself #she buried her name long ago along with all the other pretenses of civilized life #but if Dracula can have his Count DeVille #I think we can allow her 'Charnell Wight' #barking harker #dracula #my writing #my art #charnell wight #dracula daily

[see-arcane]

Are the black and white dog that Jonathan saw at the Budapest hospital different that the ones that Lucy met?

Technically, Lucy's only met one 'dog' so far, ala Charnell Wight. But if you mean are the Black and White Dogs of Teaser 1 versus Teaser 2 different, then yes. If only be half.

The Barghest is the Spectral Black Dog among spectral black dogs. Travels a lot for work.

The White Dogs we've seen so far are two very different monstrous mongrels, if with matching appetites. Which is fine by Charnell. Jonathan on the other hand...

#me @ any story: 'idk I just think it needs more dogs' #also honorable mention goes to Ward the mastiff dog who died a good good boy #jonathan harker #charnell wight #dracula #barking harker #barghest #ghoul

[see-arcane]

Hi! The second Barking Harker teaser was glorious and made me write down my thoughts as I read in hopes that the brain worms don’t catch me. (It failed). I look forward to reading about the dynamic duo of Charnell Wight and Lucy Westenra in the future. A duo I didn’t know I wanted nor needed.

There's no escaping brain worms or grave worms for long 😔

Glad the ghoulish and ghostly gals satisfied. There shall be many a hijink to be had with them in the future. (As well as adventures in creative culinary experiences p: )

#I'm so glad folks like Charnell my special rancid ghoul gal #charnell wight #lucy westenra #dracula #barking harker

[poorquentyn]

You've said Euron will sacrifice his ironborn fleet to destroy the Redwynes. I was just wondering who will then make up most of his army for Garllas to eventually take down (just ironborn? Wights? Cthulhu minions?)

Yeah, I think @racefortheironthrone is right that it’s hard to interpret the Crow’s Eye tying the priests to the prows of the Ironborn ships in any other way, especially given the ramp-up of “thousands” of blood sacrifices committed by his men in the area, Euron’s history of turning on those who serve him and handing out “poisoned” rewards, and the visions (from Moqorro and Melisandre as well as Damphair) of Euron’s “black and bloody tide.” 

For the record, though, I don’t think he’s doing it just to destroy the Redwynes. I think he’s doing it to attain something resembling godhood: 

“The bleeding star bespoke the end,” he said to Aeron. “These are the last days, when the world shall be broken and remade. A new god shall be born from the graves and charnel pits.”

“One most of all. A tall and twisted thing with one black eye and ten long arms, sailing on a sea of blood.”

As for who follows him to Oldtown after that, I have two guesses, judging from the tone and imagery we’ve seen so far. One is that Euron (whose ultimate role I think is as the story’s Night’s King/Bloodstone Emperor figure, responsible for unleashing the Long Night) reanimates the dead sailors wight-style, which may be what the true prophet of the Drowned God saw at the end of ADWD: 

Patchface jumped up. “I will lead it!” His bells rang merrily. “We will march into the sea and out again. Under the waves we will ride seahorses, and mermaids will blow seashells to announce our coming, oh, oh, oh.”

The other is that Euron wakes something up below the waves with this mass magic-enhanced blood sacrifice on the open water. The Deep Ones history in the area is well-established, both Varys and the Tolands have mentioned krakens stirring (the latter specifically saying it’s in response to blood), it’d be a hideously perfect close to Damphair’s story to face undeniable proof that the humanoid god around whom he rebuilt his life was a projection and the real thing is a monster summoned by Big Brother, and there’s a ton of worldbuilding (Patchface, the squishers, the kraken horn on Claw Isle, the imagery in “The Forsaken,” the relevant material in WOIAF) that could be paving the way. 

#eldritch apocalypse #euron greyjoy #patchface #twow spoilers #asoiaf meta