The Rhevireon Chronicle: The Ascent of the West Read online

  ‘So, without wasting yours and mine,’ he snarled the response,‘here’s your cutoff unvenerable piece of tatterdemalion.’ Lackadaisically, Dusk tossed him the coin, and the Priest grabbed it in the air, pored over it, then correspondingly, his cohort by his side giggled, the situation had shifted into a deadlock.

  ‘That’s it? All a man of letters ready to fork out?!’

  ‘When had murderers merited more?’

  ‘Murderers?’ hummed the cohort.

  Only then, head-to-head with the imposing figure of the Priest,‘he is dead, and he remains dead, you have killed him, you but never I,’Dusk recited, this is it, the real McCoy.‘Masquerading as the good fella, somewhere the disordered dramatis persona struggling the exposure of the tangible you, from borough to borough, shrine to shrine, the feral Priest solicit the carnal night, until body and soul he falls putrefactive into the warmth of dawn! Heretical arts! It’s the verdict of urchins; a hoax, your nefarious terror, from my personal perspective, smoke and mirrors; it is tormenting you, your inner weakness, the self-destructive ideation!’ like if he at once gave vent to his antipathetic tirade, far from being suggestive of sanity.

  ‘Who are you?’stuttered the other fellow irritated, primed to retreat to violence.

  ‘I who I am, whom you adulate and abhor, who no longer believed to exist, patron of the seven princes of hell, the numbered fifteen out of twenty-two ideas worn-out on trump cards, the d.e.v.i.l, in flesh and bone. You rabietic dogs.’Dusk ranted, his speech resonating as though an extract from the quasi-scripture on a black mass,‘just get out of my way.’ He added sedately, thought he was done with it, right, he did. Not after a third step he’d taken, they seized on his shoulder, so hard dragging him aback. Now Dusk distraught like a demonic possession, the pupil of his eye widened, sets of ire found their way to subdue thoroughly over his acts, his menacing tendencies; in the snap of a finger, with one hand squeezed on the Priest’s throat causing him in suffocation, coinciding action of the strike, from under his pants’ cuffs slid a collapsible baton, beating up the revered seriatim, a maximal meting out of the twinge; particles of saliva sputtered and blood droplets expectorated from the hooked nose, Dusk crying out loud the spate of thrill. Until when, one of them threw his astonishment off, sucker punched him with knuckledusters, blunt trauma; and at one fell swoop they slammed him up against the wall, toughly tightened on his motion, they back rained down the pain; the third disciple wielded an Apache revolver, as he shambled toward him.

  ‘What about this pendant? Where’s her other half?’ he stammered out, reeled the chain Dusk wore around tip of the dual-edged blade which went astray winging his neck.‘How enlaced it is, tells me of a secret somewhere through these etchings intersperses a story. Well, pardon me I’ve no intention to hear from you. Personally, not into pickle in the ear anecdotes. However, I’m interested in, I’m an idolizer of what precious metals are! To say the least.’ Then from theory to practice he tore up the chain. And as if all the anguish wasn’t bad enough, Dusk grinned and gripped on the foldout serrated bayonet. The Priest seized with consternation stared as the vital fluid, seeped from the thenar space of his hand, they both forbore the reciprocally applied pressure of their sinew, but the Priest vied to pull it out a fist quaking firm.

  ‘What you wuss,’ Dusk yelled at him,‘do it, bump my neck off, do it; ah, you pests of this world, your perpetual ordeal to quench your thirst, the thirst for gore. I avow, of the innate trait common between you and me, perhaps that, we owe it to the Kantian imperative, to the faithlessness in our common sin, their great sin, either we the ones in the wrong places at the wrong time, doing someone else’s work, their great work; or is it much more than that? I said do it.’ And his answer was, no, for the pests lacked the general comprisal of logic. Verily, they were the subject of his growing odium toward the ones mortifying their own, slaves knuckled under who they were, driven by the id, by a horoscope, they denied, were angry at, dickered plea for, were disappointed with, but accepted in the end, a bargain signed on by Mephistopheles, trash.

  ‘Shut it up psycho.’

  All of a sudden, summoned by the shed of blood; stock-still, frenzied to acquiesce with a silent call; unobtrusively it crossed threshold of the limbo, a wild boar leaped in a burst, a living breathing release of rage tore at the Priest’s wrist, fangs of the animal thrust into the nerve fibers and damaged the bone structure, the whole thing was sundered apart, the Priest blew away the pinfire cartridges he had aimlessly, he screeched nuts, denoting agony! His cohorts had passed out of sight. Even so it insinuated a fight or flight reaction, Dusk who beheld tusks of the malignant freak meshed around head of the man stranded violently aground, fought nor fled, in lieu of, Dusk suppressed his fidgeting nerve, the beast with stature of an adult man, trice size of the average razor back, drew nigh to him, to a point where, through his face he balefully could perceive the warm breath escaping snout of the animal, but the animal didn’t attack him, it just growled, eyed him, the crimson pupils it had! Thereafter, the beast bowed down, licking the wound on palm of his hand, and so Dusk charily attempted a touch on its head, he slowly ran his fingers through its coarse, abnormally white fur, he clasped it; the hog whined with abstruse fondness.

  ‘The Organon bewrayed our God.’ Were the dying Priest’s parting words; he

  listened.

  01:26, she’d arrived to the subway a while ago, he was supposed to be there by now, hadn’t responded to her phone calls, angst! Where could you be?

  Dusk urinated on stiff of the Priest, when underneath his cassocks, the thorny twig from an acacia divulged to his notice, he was about to extract the branch out of where it’d been sealed, until a crescendo of shrilling sirens rent the silence, he walked away, leaving behind him the beast gorging those remains, and its unknown fate.

  Whenever dark fell, the cryptids that dwelt the ranges circumferent to the Devils Thumb, would reach to the banks of the channels meandering through the archipelago, towards the boroughs; the unnatural hogs were natural born swimmers, riding the waves of fog that broke on the umbrageous side of Juneauton, they pervade. Haunted women, they fed on men; their urine had an odor, a strong scent that lured their preys, men in particular, into the desolate wards of the boroughs; there, they were devoured, and partly eaten were to be left; a peculiarity of the cryptid. Thence, once done with their night long practice, they retreat before the venus girdle occurred, back to their cavernous dens at slopes of the ridges; so quite, that the burghers seldom observed them. The disputed accounts of their appearances and behavior came down to us from those who thought they’d survived them; they were later to be diagnosed with symptoms of nematomorpha, the Gordian worm.

  That was the urban myth, most people had faith in. All spawned from a recent revival of La Bête du Gévaudan; a historical record of man-eating incidents dating back to early modern France. This is while the authorities in their effort to counter such heretic shambles, ruining the morale of inhabitants of the Zentrum, they spread about rumors of the believed-extinct Alexander Archipelago wolf, something of a black canid, rabies carrying, no more.

  VI

  LATE NIGHT AT ARENITHE’S STORE

  March the 26.

  Later that night, they boarded the subway heading home, Borough 3.

  Hoyden rested her head against his chest; while the man in the seat before hers, that rape face he had, studied each of her movements, her lips, her breast. She didn’t notice that, had been thinking of the days to come, her reflection blurry on the glass, ghosted the streets and paid little attention to what’d remained of the queueing ramblers, frisked over by bouncers at doors of the cabarlours, that gradually went out of sight, as the train headed for the Channel, before it minimized to the elevated rail that crossed the Douglas Bridge; the architectural genius which survived the great tides of the arctic meltdown epoch, the only man-made structure from antique Juneau, to hold up well into the ebbs and the global cooling phase. This contemporary version of the bridg
e, combined bascule mechanism with a three thousand feet of wire strand cables, eyebarred iron frame-worked suspenders.

  Dusk, whose forehead bruised and fist clenching, kept a minatory eye back on the man. At one moment, the man turned stupefied, surged over with swivet, found those lowers instigating paranoiac affliction upon him; peeking at the transit map panel, his focus settled at the first upcoming stop, just as the train’s gear wound down by, perplexed the man left his seat to no return; perhaps really did he reach his destination.

  Dusk was profoundly aware of how much this world is, perverted. He’d the unshakable belief, it was amongst his noblest of responsibilities, that’s to protect her, whether it was a physical threat or emotional. But he shunned to demonstrate anything to Hoyden unreasonably, didn’t want her to feel confined within his criterions, restrained by his superintendence; her undemonstrated guardian angel, not a hector.

  ‘So of the hag,’ Hoyden said,‘gonna bring you big trouble, what’s your excuse? She more than twice urged you, no mensur, no duels!’ Apparently, a little conversation had taken place between him and the girl, when she noticed his wound, Dusk had to make up a story, the least banal of which he could come up with, was that he for whatever reason, had engaged in a duel, a mensur duel; and Hoyden just as she always had done, took it as gospel.

  ‘Let her deal with it,’ Dusk told her,‘she’s exceedingly required to rely on her blunt vision, before she’ll get me to own up, tomorrow who knows how to afford her a brand new.’

  ‘You know, recently I’ve noticed she’s been enjoying to make count of ants scurrying crumbs of scones.’

  ‘How inconvincible and mulish you are!’

  ‘You better not play mind games with me!’ Hoyden retorted, as the train moved on.

  At Arenithe’s.

  ‘It’s necessary that your brain get wont to the absence of analgesics, so it eliminates the pain automatically!’ Madam Arenithe elucidated, talking him out of consuming the drug.

  ‘I’m already aware of these little things, unfortunately not that forbearing.’ Dusk had to argue, by then having a stand at the hag’s store, while she served the customers at a high-octane tempo, her stern standards.

  ‘Hey son, it’s nothing, we all have engaged in those silly duels, just go in and delve for the Acetaminophen, you know where you find it.’Said the old man, Arenithe’s sole assistant, Spenser the expert.

  ‘Yeah.’

  ‘Sir, I got to attain some Amitriptyline, are you going to give me anything at all? I’m really in a hurry, can’t you see!’ Then came this obstreperous creature, some woman dictating to him, how he should behave.

  ‘Triple it, that’s what I’m in miss, I’m trying to do my best here, plus we’re all burning rubber here.’ Spencer maundered, ostensibly a not so mean a man given to fits of deranged temperament, who’d lose it every once in a while, he was asked about something; nevertheless, the person inside of him, was Don Quixote of his times. A great storyteller, a misogynous who wore wigs, and without tots as far as he knew, he’d many in common with her, the hag; whiling away their free hours playing monopoly. And likewise, Spen, proceeded shouting out loud,‘hey Dusk, why not lending us a hand and bring me a Neuraminidase inhibitor 500 mg.’ Then he cooled off pontificating his locally far-famed notion of good business,‘if you were to become something, you got first to be of service to others in need, they’ve all went through that at one point, the best of businessmen, it’s the disciplined man who’s got a financial stratagem whetted to kill, and the solid most ideology to shield against the rampant currents of thought.’

  ‘Got it.’

  ‘Excuse us dear client, my man’s evidently not so into the fancy-schmancy talk of sorts,’ Arenithe in explaining to the woman, in hope she’d understand. ‘We’ve been forever too busy at our out-of-hours service, no shifts, just by choice! You see that intertwining caduceus sign over there! we had it have as much exposure so it is unmistakable, for every helpless nightingale out there badly seeking an out-of-hours aide. We want to serve people, not to rebuff them away from us. So should I give you a packet, two? of Elavil?’

  ‘Right, but don’t expect me to change my mind this easy,’ and turned out Spencer was right; ‘first impressions do count, here’s my headshrinker’s prescription anyway.’ She added; to the dismay of Arenithe, she didn’t look twice at her thereafter.

  Lost into the store’s interiors, the hundreds of medication packages methodically placed along the shelved aisle, were in order-ness somehow delineated his own clean freak spirit; Dusk ruminated over all that he’d been through that day unlike any other; thinking of the man’s last words, and his meeting with the beast; through which the truth was half revealed, bringing the string on which reality and myth played a false note, unblurred. So henceforth, he must preserve the verity about the cryptid for himself. Assuredly how, truth sometimes gives herself away, without us, asking for it. To him was the only echt aspect of truth itself; tonight and erst.

  ‘Third an hour and we close.’ As he moved from one room to the next, the security made notice; a man of age, kept on the job even after they pensioned him off, they liked him; at the Phronesis Public Library, the publicly funded library system of the Zentrum.

  The only person left at the main study room, lit a cig, slick strong brown hair he’d got, five o’clock shadow on his face, on the back of his neck he’d a tattoo, tattoo of a Virtuvian woman, and the Leviathan on the table set in between his elbows, the book opened on Part IV.

  ‘You there,’ called at him the old officer, in high dudgeon,‘who’re you takin’ yourself for, puffin’ in middle of a place like this! Are you outta your mind??’

  The man with the Vitruvian tattoo didn’t argue, dragged on his cigarette quietly, stubbed it out on the table, placed it into the book he read, then he closed it,‘when did the books have lungs!’ he said.

  ‘I’ll ask you to leave,’ told him the elder,‘and be assured never will you step in this room again, you disgusting soul.’

  ‘I was about to leave anyway.’ He replied, grabbed the book and passed the security towards out of the study room, right into the bookcase aisles, and before returning the book where it’d been shelved, on the sly he opened it once more, straight on Part IV that the filter marked, he ripped the page out, and back set the book on the shelve, unflinching.

  Humans, pathogens capsulized, digested throughout subtle intestines of the materialistic garbage, pathetic antagonists of intrinsic supremacy they’d once germinated.

  VII

  AT THE MOGUL’S QUARTERS

  April the 1.

  ‘Mrs. Yang on the second line.’Informed the secretary over the IP phone, at the very moment Sean Yang the IV, a blustering emphatic character, a declamatory half Asian man greedily meticulous in his forties, brandishing a paunch of average girth, with a hankering will for the attainment of a mass media mogul status. He got the call, hung it on forthwith; in an act of defiance against the distraction made to him by his negligent main mistress. The contingent idiosyncrasy of bona fide long adopted by philanderers, editors-in-chief of major fourth estate orgs, so as to dump their battle-axes on certain circumstances. The Zentrum Gonzo weekly, no exception, a free of charge publication, the magazine concerned itself with a mix of gobsmacked issues exploring ranging from bizarre crimes, to the war on sub-rosa auctioning, religious life in the Regnum, voyeuristic vogue and a shitload of other news topics. Generating revenues entirely via advertising, though keeping up with a professional status, at all costs the Gonzo was Juneauton’s favorite.

  It was somewhat early that morning, at their headquarters, a closed meeting was going on.

  ‘Too many Indians and not enough chiefs,’ Yang inveighed, while with fine motor skills did some pen mawashi tricks,‘that’s what it looks like this round, amiright?’

  ‘So, is this like a riddle or something?’ the photo guy wondered, Matthias Hayens Jr., who’s snickers, low quality jeans, Letterman jacket, and least last a threadbare
satchel, put him in total irony with his boss in the lap of lux.

  ‘Huh! Here we go.’

  ‘C’mon man,’ Natalya barged in; the publication’s brightest journalist, their spoiled girl, Natalya Alkatrase, her russet hair stylized into a bob together with a vivid sense of fashion, she was a role model for the modern self-directed woman, ‘it’s crystal-clear, the festivals, Matt! The festivals!’ assuredly she offered.

  ‘Do you know that you’re the best thing ever happened to this firm miss? After me of course, hoy hoy!’ the way Mr. Yang flirted with her.

  ‘Oh—’

  ‘Oh yeah,’ the man interrupted her,‘our survey says there is increasingly an excess of demand over supply! Too many singles in the Ordo, too few brides available for the mating, See.’

  ‘That is,’said Matt, as though it fell upon him as a great revelation,‘we weasel into the the inner circle, I’ve those moles, old acquaintances, they get you the recherché info, honcho!’

  ‘Would you not utter these french buzzwords? no?’ he prayed him, threatened him, and now pulling off his suspenders instead,‘all that is, heard of the incident during the last festive year? Best news genre to induce the long lasting shock value, we or our clientele alike, seek.’

  ‘No, I don’t assume you want us to take proper care of the next tragedy!’ She enquired.

  ‘From a watchdog’s perspective, oh yeah!’

  ‘Sure, only that, it ain’t my game, I’m more into movies and stuff, if you see what I mean.’ She demurred at his suggestion.