Entropic Bane

[Apollyon]

Here's a new epic I'm writing (unpuncutated at the mo):

Entropic Bane

I

This is a tome of knowledge

But it is not the knowledge you should seek

it is what every man must know

But none can understand

It is all the things you see and yet do not

all the things creeping in your skull

a soul that's torn by bone.

And he stood on that dusty hill.

A bible in his hand

But no whisperings of Jesus

or any jewish land

lay in that learned book

And the sky was dark and meaningful

With sorrowful echoings of doubt

That cast the heavens in bronzed fury

'Gainst the denizens below

The stars looked down in kindness

from their dwellings up above

with a gaze as a father

or a sheepherd with his flock

they knew things that time forgot

an alphabet creative

that man had brought to rot

A brooding force condescending all

transcending those below that heed its call

an awful power that clogs the air

filling it with dark despair.

It knows things different to the stars

it knows the fears of man

and what they do not fear

but why they are.

Why they act in this way despite their words

why they cast all to nothingness in a single gasp

and why they cry at what they have wrought on the land.

And he took up that book from within the folds of his robe

And he sang out delight to all celestia above.

"Truxna-tois ixilori-mois nean

Trunois-omnus inti nant

Portois undevast ti chet relmos

Ignetor indorma nean."

He did not understand the words nor letters in that book

But he could say them all the same

And he thought he knew what result might be

But isn't that the way with man?

A swirling mist enveloped the rocks

And it formed into a man

He was black and vague as shadow

and he shimmered round the edges with darkness

that looked like blackened light.

The voice was a wretched thing

A wretching thing

Like a mountain speaking

or an avalanche crushing

It could not be heard

A hinted at thing that spoke unto the mind

in bludgeoning tones of harshness.

"Truxna-mois, tinis unimorta?"

"Heed your master who summoned you, fiend!"

A smile cracked the darkness so he could see straight through

But through that thing there was not the sky or the earth or the wind or the flame

It was a translucent thing but he could not see the other side

What he saw was somewhere else

He saw the future, he saw fate

Blood. Dark blood. The sword and the slaughter.

Destruction.

He cried in fear, in abhorrence, at this, the antithesis of what man believed

And yet it was what man himself was.

That terrible smile broadened more and an echoing laugh like a death rattle came forth

Came forth. Came forth.

The laugh smacked him like a club and he clutched his face in pain and desperation.

He screamed, he screamed, he screamed for mercy.

And there would be mercy. This man would no longer feel pain.

The darkness grabbed him and sucked out his life and soul and very being.

He lay dead and turned to dust.

And now, and now there stood a thing.

Horrible.

A thing so awful to the mind that only silence might comprehend.

Seven foot tall and black as night

Ringed with fire.

But tangible now, a living thing.

Brought to this world by man's foolishness.

And those eyes, those terrible eyes.

Glinted black in devilish conspiracy.

A laugh like a screech.

And he turned to look beneath the hill

To where a village lay.

[Apollyon]

II

The grass swayed in twilight calm

For a century and more grass had grown here

These earthen blades of green pride

that spiked the ground in mass

And the stars watched them with a caring eye

and let them bask in their blue-white light

Until that light was cut

cut like life

As a monstrous paw crushed them into the ground

where they lay dying

once more in the caressing light

The beast thumped down the slope

to the sleepy village down below.

fire burned in those eyes

those hideous eyes

and it was gone again

like a forgotten memory

or smoke on a breeze

but this changed nothing

The thing stopped. Still.

Those eyes closed.

And suddenly

Suddenly there came a great explosion of sound

As if a god were breathing in.

And then

Silence

Until-

And the ground shook

and those black orbs opened once more

And from the evil thing's maw

came a deafening roar

Not the roar of an animal

the roar of a force with which man cannot fight

It was the sound of death.

The ground rippled

the very earth

And as the earth ripped upward

all fell

and as the building shattered

all cried

Cried out at this thing so evil

Cried out

Cried out

And died.

The dark thing stalked forward

setting fires with its hands

fire that instrument of destruction

and in paradox an instrument of life

everything would be gone

the thing wanted it

the thing would have it

it did not hope

did not fear

did not wish

but it knew

it knew more than man ever could

knew more perhaps than gods

and it knew its goals would be fulfilled

destruction and death.

Of everything.

Everything.