A Black House (edit) (408 hits)
Category: NoneLabels: Fiction
Rating: 1.46 on 16 reviews (Rate this item) (V)
Submitted by kaos-king (antius777) (View user info) at 2006-08-29 09:54:34 EDT
"It is in a black house," whispered the broken angel, bleeding and weeping.
"I know," I replied with a sigh.
"Do you think it will ever be possible to regain my former glory?"
Without looking at him, I simply stated, "I doubt it."
I stood before the castrated member of the Heavenly Host. It's wings still smoldering, it's breath lingered with the scent of honey. It was neither man nor woman, nor animal seen before on these shores. I wanted to laugh at it, for it truly made a wretched sight. I did not out of my debt to the creature.
"A black house, you say," I asked again, already knowing the answer.
"Yes, it sits by the ocean," the former Divine mused.
"That is good to know."
"Yes."
I looked up at the sky that hovered above us, so delicate in it's balance. A caged baby universe is all we are. I knew the truth behind the mission. Why else would my sickly sweet companion be here beside me? I gazed upon the upper levels and thought about the role I had placed myself in. Not entirely the position I would have chosen.
I gathered my hands together above my head and drew down the stars. They followed a pathway into my palms, where they formed into a ball, a sphere of light. Ten thousand suns in my grasp. These were only the visible stars, those the naked eye could perceive. It was good enough.
"Such Magick is brilliant to behold," said the angel.
"Indeed," I replied.
I released the stars back to their positions. They knew their places on the map. I thought upon the black house. If it did exist here in my lands, it would have to be examined. Oh, not by me, of course! Such an attempt would be fool hardy. No, I would have to find a someone pure. Someone not yet tainted by the mistakes of this life. A babe in a forest full of wolves.
"I still hear your thoughts. They spread like a cancer," spoke the Fallen.
"Who are you to question the ways of man?" I asked, truly in jest.
"I remember a time before the Waking Word," said the Frail One. "We were beloved and played in the void as if we were feeble things. We had no idea. The sickness of thought had not come to our kind, the disease of identity."
"Our people are so truly plagued?" I asked.
His charred face curled into a scowl. "Do not mock me, I can still erase the lineage of beauty with a whisper."
"Even now your feathers float away on the breeze. Don't threaten me, angel. I am in your debt only so far. Do not tell me about my people, tell me of the black house."
"It sits on the land found twice by man, overlooking a sea of ice. It holds many rooms, each filled to the brim with nothing. It has been built many times, but finished never once."
"Riddles," I spat at him.
"Of course," he replied.
I would need a youth. I would have to find one so pure, the snow would cringe from the white essence in this child. The secrets I would have to keep would be monstrous, not any more so than the ones I kept now.
How terrified my masters would be to see me now, consorting with these creatures of other realms. It would sicken their tiny, weak little hearts. Such the fools they were. It pleased me that they were firmly trapped in lower pockets of hell now. I, of course, had put them there. Along with the dancing god that claimed to be my father. He was securely locked in the Founder's Room, along with so many other of the first who roamed out of the Crimson Portals. So much for destiny.
"You will never claim the box," offered the angel.
"You do not know that."
"You are not strong enough to control it's might," the former Divine tried.
"Neither was Pandora," I added.
"So true..." the angel trailed off.
And that was the end of it, really. I had no more to say to this thing that was now a lesser being. The black house held all of my answers, all of my dreams. It's conquest would consume me as readily as the flames had consumed my companion. The Box of Unsaid Names and Tasks. If it did reside in the black house, I would have to use everything at my disposal to obtain it. The enigma of the black house would be unraveled at my whim, that much would be done. Such a thing would not live upon my rock without a siege laid upon it. Just out of principle, mind you.
I left the angel there by the edge of the forest, letting it devour itself. Had I bother to glance back, I undoubtedly would have seen it tearing at the flesh that it was bearing. I did not give it that satisfaction. I made my way through the trees, letting the night envelop me.
That was almost a year ago...
I stood on the edge of the forest starring up at the stars. They twinkled at me with their mocking illumination, their secrets kept silent. Cursing the ancient ways that I was still forced to pretend allegiance to, I poured the chalice of blood out onto the scorched ground. Tossing a few pieces of gold into the puddle, I spoke the words so rarely heard in this realm and waited.
It did not take long. Flames spurted up from the dirt and the soil began to form to flesh. I watched with irritation as the creature before me screamed like a human infant in birth. This thing was not spilling from a loving mother's womb, however, no. I was resurrecting it from oblivion and I suspected it would not be pleased to see me. Not again. But I could not be held responsible for my actions, it was the one who had lead me astray.
"You," it belched smoke, still on it's hands and knees.
"Greetings Fallen One," I said in a conversational tone. "How has your eternity in darkness been?"
The former Angel tried to speak but vomited up earth instead. I gave the once Divine a moment to catch itself some semi-balance of self. I wanted it fully aware of its transgression against me.
"Why..." it began.
"I went in search of the black house," I said. "I followed the clues, the riddles you provided. Do you remember, Angel? Yes, I found this place but it was a lie."
The entity cast forth from the Heavenly Host looked up at me with something akin to fear. I don't believe the creature had ever experience quite this emotional sensation before because it also appeared a bit confused. As it tried to stammer out a response, I continued.
"I found a child so pure, so untainted, that your previous Divinity would have grown warm and erect in her presence. I sacrificed this youth by sending it into the structure you had sent me to, sent her in to retrieve the Box. I did this so that I could obtain the power the Box holds, to use it to fight the future. The future your masters and mine decided must come to pass eons ago, a future few of us now agree upon."
I reached down and clutched the smoldering Angel on the side of his face. "And do you know what happened?"
"Yes," he whispered.
"Of course you do," I replied. "Now, you are going to tell me where the black house sits, or I will introduce you to a eternity far worse than everlasting darkness."
The creature smiled at me with blacken teeth. "You still don't fully understand, do you? Even as one of the Fallen, I could not lie to you. You thought the child failed, but it is only you who are the failure."
Enraged at this treachery, I began to recite his true name backwards, seeking to unmake the Angel. It howled like a common lower beast and I stopped a few syllables away from finishing. The once proud Guardian of Light twitched at my feet, feeble and wretched.
"Tell me where the black house sits," I growled at it. "Tell me how to find the Box."
"The Box," choked the Angel, "Has found you."
I pulled my eyes away from the thing on the ground and spun around. The forest had vanished along with night sky above. Now there was a new type of darkness, visceral and alive with a primal urgency. Miniature super novas of negative energy exploded all about me, creating halos of a deeper black. Both promises and threats of ideas never before conceived by mortal men swam past me. I felt an equation that equaled annihilation touch every inch of my flesh, and I knew that the algorithm looked just like me.
The Angel moved behind me. I turned to see it raise up, no longer a thing to be pitied and scorned. It brushed away the remaining matter of false earth, revealing its gleaming form. But when it spread its wings, they were not the soft white feathers of glory.
"And you found me," it said as it grew stronger, "But never once, in your arrogance, did you think to ask from where I had been cast. For not from the Shinning Above, but from the Hollow Below. I came on a mission, and exactly as planned, I have succeeded."
I tried to speak, to rage against this Demon, but I was held fast by the darkness.
"To think that anyone in this game would allow you of all beings to come into possession of the Box! But you are too dangerous a foe to be imprisoned in any realm. It was decided, not to give you the Box, but to give you TO the Box. We feel this is only fitting."
As I watched the Demon dissipate in smoke, I felt the essence of the Box tear into me. Every aspect of my being was penetrated, stabbed and bled dry. I have bonded with the truth of the Box of Unsaid Names and Tasks. But yet I remember. I remember and I plan my next move...
User Reviews
Submitted by Stagger_Lee (user info) at 2006-08-30 00:17:57 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
Already read elsewhere.
Submitted by Axolotl (user info) at 2006-08-29 20:01:20 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
I entirely loved this, except for the use of the word "magick."
I'm also starting up a series about fallen angels, though it revolves more around subatomic particles and spatial quantum metaphysics: http://www.ubersite.com/m/92393 As I Lay Dying.
Submitted by Snark (user info) at 2006-08-29 19:45:11 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
I likey.
Check this out, it's kinda in the same vein and I'd be interested in seeing your honest criticism.
http://www.ubersite.com/m/72781
Submitted by LSD420 (user info) at 2006-08-29 15:52:00 EDT (#)
Ranking: -2
Submitted by electrictoothsyndrome (user info) at 2006-08-29 12:17:10 (#)
Ranking: -2
This 'story', if you can call it that, is convoluted, over-written, grandiloquent masturbation. It's like a cliche episode of some show on the Sci-Fi Channel that is sponsored by Hot Topic.
And that's my honest opinion.
Less is more.
---
ETS, your asshole brother hit the nail on the head.
Submitted by whiskey_jack (user info) at 2006-08-29 15:45:28 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
Fucking kickass. Can't wait for the next one.
Submitted by JonnyX (user info) at 2006-08-29 15:31:12 EDT (#)
Ranking: 1
yeah, you're right, you're not ready for UberMadness, maybe after a couple more years polishing...
Submitted by electrictoothsyndrome (user info) at 2006-08-29 12:19:09 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
To make up for my asshole brother.
Submitted by electrictoothsyndrome (user info) at 2006-08-29 12:17:10 EDT (#)
Ranking: -2
This 'story', if you can call it that, is convoluted, over-written, grandiloquent masturbation. It's like a cliche episode of some show on the Sci-Fi Channel that is sponsored by Hot Topic.
And that's my honest opinion.
Less is more.
Submitted by GodChicken (user info) at 2006-08-29 11:21:50 EDT (#)
Ranking: 1
Good, but it reminded me far too much of The Talisman.
Submitted by scourge (user info) at 2006-08-29 11:08:02 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
SELL OUT.
Submitted by JoeyG (user info) at 2006-08-29 11:06:14 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
This really reminds me of......... something. Not sure what, but it was good.
Submitted by Method (user info) at 2006-08-29 10:50:18 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
Sheer, unadulterated awesome
Submitted by Davros (user info) at 2006-08-29 10:45:19 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
No Comment
Submitted by hour_man (user info) at 2006-08-29 10:30:41 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
That was fucking awesome.
Submitted by BLITZKREIG_BOB (user info) at 2006-08-29 10:24:46 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
Wait, wait. Let me guess.
The box is TV, and this is some sort of allegory about watching too much TV?
Submitted by UnderOathMeal (user info) at 2006-08-29 10:09:26 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
This reeks of Forgotten Realms.
I love me some Forgotten Realms.