Click here for Part 1.
I keep scooping.
The crying recedes into the distance. The mists begin to close in around the riverbank once more, choking the sounds around us except for our own groaning. Most of us stop shaking, and the river reeds take our place.
I keep scooping.
I see myself, and my mother. I am young, and she is not dead yet. She hugs me, and I fling myself from the side of a cliff. The skin on my back peels away--more than it already is--and I sprout wings. I claw out the eyes of the village boys, and then I fly to where the rivers pour out of the sky. The water smells like dog.
There is a hard crack, and this time the pain throbs inside of me. I lean over and cough. Fragments of tooth litter my lap. The molar finally finished crumbling. I rub some honey against the hole. It bleeds, but the blood mingles with the honey and I stop noticing.
The crying stops, but something else takes its place. The sound of wind, and churning water. The branches weeping over the river flail and bend, making way for the mist as it flees back down the current. I turn my head, and I can see the boat over my shoulder, naked and still in the waters. The pale man is speaking now, and the laughing man is arguing with him over something. They thrust their poles into the riverbed, but the boat doesn't budge. They strain and push. The aft end rises up and the prow dips, but they go nowhere. I see clutching, scrabbling little things clinging to the bottom of the boat. They look like waterlogged hands, and overgrown fingernails.
I hesitate, and keep scooping.
The wing blows harder, howls louder, and we hunker down and cry, or shout and leap up into it to be bowled over. The trees bend and rattle, and people are screaming in the village up the bank. My hands squeeze tightly around the jar, and I hold it to my heart.
Then everything is still. The wind dies. People lift their heads again.
There is someone else out on the river. He is looking at the men in the boat. But he is not in a boat. The surface of the water is breaking beneath his bare old feet, and gnarled bones are clutching at them, propping him up. He is wearing faded old green and blue that blinds me to look at, and his staff is as black as a yawning pit in the earth that I could fall into. He lifts the staff up, and the men in the boat start to shout or move. They do not finish whatever they are doing before the thunder cracks.
His staff hits the water, and it splits open.
The boat splits open, and the chest splits open.
All of the jars come crashing down into the hole in the river, and we hear the shattering of glass beneath the splintering of wood. We hold out our hands and cry in anguish. Some of us that can still walk leap down into the shallows and try to wade out toward the red-dinged water. More grabbing little things reach up out of the silt and stop them, hold them, and keep them from thrashing.
The laughing one and the pale one are clinging to the sinking halves of the boat. They are shouting out and cursing at the man now. I do not see the man that they were taking away any longer.
He breaks his silence, and the boom of his voice makes my ears throb. He speaks like us, but he is not like us. He looks like the old grandfathers in the village, but he is not bent by time.
His eyes are so bright.
They hurt the most to look at.
I stop scooping.
One of them swings a pole at him, and he raises his hand to meet it. The wood cracks in half and splits down the middle, and the laughing man falls down into the water with a shout. They are all yelling now, but the wind and the river grow louder. The current swells, and a wave rises up to scatter the last pieces of the boat. The laughing man and the pale one cough and sputter, and climb up onto the bank. They drag themselves into the forest.
The water glints and glimmers with honey and coins until they all wash away.
The old man is looking at us now. He is dragging the honey-drinker by his collar as he walks across the bones in front of him. He is coming toward us, and the hands in the shallows stop grabbing at us.
But they take our jars with them. Bony fingertips and split nails scratch over the glass and clay and pull them into the earth like it was sand, and we bloody our hands trying to dig them back out of the dirt.
I try to pull a root out of the way, but it is too deep, and my knuckles feel like they are going to pop. My face is wet now. I am sobbing into the dirt.
The man is standing over me when I look back up.
He is tutting at me, but he is smiling.
He says he is sorry that he has arrived so late. That he will do what he can.
The swirls start to fade from behind my eyes, leaving only the blur of my tears, and the pain comes back. It hurts less than it usually does. I can lift my arms when the old man extends his gnarled hand.
I take it.
Showing posts with label Hital. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Hital. Show all posts
Saturday, January 12, 2019
Wednesday, October 31, 2018
Crimson Honey (1/2).
We always know they've come when we hear the laughter.
When the fishermen draw their nets in from the river and the village matrons usher the children indoors. When the mist settles so heavily over us that we can barely see our shaking hands in front of us. When the raft people have long since left, for fear of those cursed evenings.
This is the time when they come to us. This is the time when we go out to meet them again.
We come out from many places. Most of us have no homes anymore. No families. We crawl down out of mangroves, or up out of covered ditches. The way toward the river brings us down the path through the village. Candles are snuffed out. Children cry or question.
Families shut their doors and cover their windows before they even see us. They don't like to look at us. They stopped wanting to look long ago.
We walk in a line down toward the bank. We always move slowly. Most of us can no longer walk straight. We do not help the ones who trip and stumble. They will have to crawl after us, and then we will get first pick.
The laughter comes again, louder and closer. It laughs at nothing, and everything. The boat's hull pushes aside the reeds and strikes the side of the dock. Ropes tighten and creak. Bottles clink and rattle, and our ashy mouths water until our cheeks ache.
The mist slowly peels away to reveal them. They stand as they always do. They tower over us, even sitting down in their little boat. They are always taller when we fall to our knees.
Words form out of the laughter, as the one with a face like an elbow rubbed raw looks to us. He folds back the sleeves of his neat robe and slowly opens one basket. We don't need to look inside to know what it is. The smell wafts over us.
Sickening sweetness coats our throats, and we choke.
He asks us how we have been. If we are all still here. Someone lifts their head to tell him that Sibe has died. He feigns sorrow, and then asks how it happened. How much it hurt. Where the body was now.
No one says anything, and no one looks up to see the smile we all know he has.
The boat rocks, and the other stands up with his stick and his tablet. He is so pale, we all thought he was a ghost at first. Now we know that he is something worse. He taps the stick upon a bottle impatiently, and all our hands fumble.
Coins spill out onto the sagging pier beneath us. Stones and cowries clatter together on strings. A grey ring, still with a finger attached, is lifted up in bloodied palms beside me.
The laughing man collects, offering congratulations at bigger piles, and tutting at the small. He does not stop or look at the ones who bury their faces in the wood, weeping and empty-handed. He stops to look down at me for a long time. If the hairs had not fallen out of my skin a long time ago, they would all stand on end beneath his gaze.
I know not what the thing I hold is.
Only that it is made of metal, and glass, and that it has a weight which makes me hope for its value.
He asks me how I came by it. I spare no detail.
The raft man had separated from his fellows to walk through the trees. I tackled him and came down hard on top of him, grabbing for the knife that they all carried with them at their hips. But it was dull, and the point was broken. Twenty-eight times before he stopped moving, and I could take my hand away from his mouth. I took the thing from around his neck. I lie and tell myself that I don't know why I counted the stabs.
I know why.
The man delights. He takes the thing from me and clasps his hand upon my shoulder. I recoil, but I start breathing again at his passing.
When his hands are filled, he turns and walks back to the boat. He empties them into a chest which weighs the aft end down and thrusts the prow upward. The pale man makes more marks in his tablet and nods or shakes his head. Coins and cowries land upon many more of the same.
We are not their first stop today, and we will not be their last.
One by one we stand up and step into line. It is the longest walk to the end of the dock. Tremors run through us. The one in front of me doubles over and vomits. The tight skin of his back stretches and then tears around a sore next to his backbones. It oozes. I walk through his puddle as the line moves.
Golden-red at the edges of the vessel, darkening to a deep, bloody red at its deepest. Murky, and always swirling. Glowing in the dim light. The cork and one side of the neck sticky and slimy, insects landing upon it and then falling off dead.
Before he lets me have it, the pale man grabs my jaw. I open my mouth and he peers in. He counts my teeth, checks my arms and legs. I turn around once for him, raise my fingers up to my nose. He grunts and then lifts the bottle up with a gloved hand.
When the bottle comes into my hands I have to force myself to stop shaking. I can't drop it. I turn and hold it close to my heart as I hurry back onto the dirt. Others are already sprawled out with their own bottles. Some get it thicker, if they've done well. The ones who brought less get the bottles that are cut with water. The ones who brought nothing at all are still crying on the dock.
The stupid ones pull the corks out and tip them right back, drinking it like they would water.
I squat down and use my fingers to spoon it up a bit at a time. That way it will last longer. Last me until the next time they come.
I suck my fingers clean. Something comes off in my mouth. After swallowing the honey, I spit the thing out. I've lost another fingernail. There is no blood this time. The hole underneath it looks like it should hurt. But the honey is working, and I don't feel anything at all.
I keep scooping.
Old Koge falls down in front of me. He can't drink anymore. It makes him sick, and if he vomits he loses all of the honey in it, even if he tries to scoop it back up. So he uncorks his honey and brings the neck up close to his cheekbone. Old Koge leans back and holds the mouth of the bottle over his eye- the one that doesn't see anymore. I can see his eyelid open through the murk. It takes him a few seconds to cry out in pain, but he holds it until enough of it absorbs, and the pain stops. He brings the bottle back down, honey running down his cheek. I don't know if it is honey or blood in his eye.
He across grins at me.
One voice is louder now. I look up, and everything leaves a trail of color behind my eyes when it moves. A man whose name I do not know is raising his palms toward the laughing man. He is begging. He says that he cannot bring enough anymore, not without his leg. I did not notice the festering wound until now.
The laughing man puts a hand on the top of his head and pats him. He tells him that there is a way. He takes his hand and helps him up. The pale man moves things around on the boat, emptying a space. He brings the man down into the boat and sits him there, but he ties his hands together before he can reach for the honey. He will come with them back to where they come from, and where the honey is made. He says that there will be plenty.
We all know what will happen. We will not see him again.
I keep scooping.
The line is gone now. We are all taking our honey. The laughing man holds his hands on his hips and smiles. He smiles when he is disgusted. He always smiles. The pale man finishes his writing. He puts the tablet away under a sheaf of dried leaves. He takes a new one out. He speaks to the laughing man in their tongue. The laughing man barks something back at him.
They argue.
The laughing man grabs the handle of the bullwhip he wears like a belt. The pale man lifts his coat to show all of his gleaming knives.
They both stop, and start to laugh together.
The boat pushes away from the dock. The crying man is crying harder now.
The laughing man waves his hand and begins to bid us all farewell.
His hand blurs into a smear of fuzzy light, and his voice is like the sound of bullfrogs in the swamp.
My toes tingle, and I start to taste orange.
The color. Not the fruit.
The mist begins to cloak them again.
I keep scooping.
Click here for Part 2.
When the fishermen draw their nets in from the river and the village matrons usher the children indoors. When the mist settles so heavily over us that we can barely see our shaking hands in front of us. When the raft people have long since left, for fear of those cursed evenings.
This is the time when they come to us. This is the time when we go out to meet them again.
We come out from many places. Most of us have no homes anymore. No families. We crawl down out of mangroves, or up out of covered ditches. The way toward the river brings us down the path through the village. Candles are snuffed out. Children cry or question.
Families shut their doors and cover their windows before they even see us. They don't like to look at us. They stopped wanting to look long ago.
We walk in a line down toward the bank. We always move slowly. Most of us can no longer walk straight. We do not help the ones who trip and stumble. They will have to crawl after us, and then we will get first pick.
The laughter comes again, louder and closer. It laughs at nothing, and everything. The boat's hull pushes aside the reeds and strikes the side of the dock. Ropes tighten and creak. Bottles clink and rattle, and our ashy mouths water until our cheeks ache.
The mist slowly peels away to reveal them. They stand as they always do. They tower over us, even sitting down in their little boat. They are always taller when we fall to our knees.
Words form out of the laughter, as the one with a face like an elbow rubbed raw looks to us. He folds back the sleeves of his neat robe and slowly opens one basket. We don't need to look inside to know what it is. The smell wafts over us.
Sickening sweetness coats our throats, and we choke.
He asks us how we have been. If we are all still here. Someone lifts their head to tell him that Sibe has died. He feigns sorrow, and then asks how it happened. How much it hurt. Where the body was now.
No one says anything, and no one looks up to see the smile we all know he has.
The boat rocks, and the other stands up with his stick and his tablet. He is so pale, we all thought he was a ghost at first. Now we know that he is something worse. He taps the stick upon a bottle impatiently, and all our hands fumble.
Coins spill out onto the sagging pier beneath us. Stones and cowries clatter together on strings. A grey ring, still with a finger attached, is lifted up in bloodied palms beside me.
The laughing man collects, offering congratulations at bigger piles, and tutting at the small. He does not stop or look at the ones who bury their faces in the wood, weeping and empty-handed. He stops to look down at me for a long time. If the hairs had not fallen out of my skin a long time ago, they would all stand on end beneath his gaze.
I know not what the thing I hold is.
Only that it is made of metal, and glass, and that it has a weight which makes me hope for its value.
He asks me how I came by it. I spare no detail.
The raft man had separated from his fellows to walk through the trees. I tackled him and came down hard on top of him, grabbing for the knife that they all carried with them at their hips. But it was dull, and the point was broken. Twenty-eight times before he stopped moving, and I could take my hand away from his mouth. I took the thing from around his neck. I lie and tell myself that I don't know why I counted the stabs.
I know why.
The man delights. He takes the thing from me and clasps his hand upon my shoulder. I recoil, but I start breathing again at his passing.
When his hands are filled, he turns and walks back to the boat. He empties them into a chest which weighs the aft end down and thrusts the prow upward. The pale man makes more marks in his tablet and nods or shakes his head. Coins and cowries land upon many more of the same.
We are not their first stop today, and we will not be their last.
One by one we stand up and step into line. It is the longest walk to the end of the dock. Tremors run through us. The one in front of me doubles over and vomits. The tight skin of his back stretches and then tears around a sore next to his backbones. It oozes. I walk through his puddle as the line moves.
Golden-red at the edges of the vessel, darkening to a deep, bloody red at its deepest. Murky, and always swirling. Glowing in the dim light. The cork and one side of the neck sticky and slimy, insects landing upon it and then falling off dead.
Before he lets me have it, the pale man grabs my jaw. I open my mouth and he peers in. He counts my teeth, checks my arms and legs. I turn around once for him, raise my fingers up to my nose. He grunts and then lifts the bottle up with a gloved hand.
When the bottle comes into my hands I have to force myself to stop shaking. I can't drop it. I turn and hold it close to my heart as I hurry back onto the dirt. Others are already sprawled out with their own bottles. Some get it thicker, if they've done well. The ones who brought less get the bottles that are cut with water. The ones who brought nothing at all are still crying on the dock.
The stupid ones pull the corks out and tip them right back, drinking it like they would water.
I squat down and use my fingers to spoon it up a bit at a time. That way it will last longer. Last me until the next time they come.
I suck my fingers clean. Something comes off in my mouth. After swallowing the honey, I spit the thing out. I've lost another fingernail. There is no blood this time. The hole underneath it looks like it should hurt. But the honey is working, and I don't feel anything at all.
I keep scooping.
Old Koge falls down in front of me. He can't drink anymore. It makes him sick, and if he vomits he loses all of the honey in it, even if he tries to scoop it back up. So he uncorks his honey and brings the neck up close to his cheekbone. Old Koge leans back and holds the mouth of the bottle over his eye- the one that doesn't see anymore. I can see his eyelid open through the murk. It takes him a few seconds to cry out in pain, but he holds it until enough of it absorbs, and the pain stops. He brings the bottle back down, honey running down his cheek. I don't know if it is honey or blood in his eye.
He across grins at me.
One voice is louder now. I look up, and everything leaves a trail of color behind my eyes when it moves. A man whose name I do not know is raising his palms toward the laughing man. He is begging. He says that he cannot bring enough anymore, not without his leg. I did not notice the festering wound until now.
The laughing man puts a hand on the top of his head and pats him. He tells him that there is a way. He takes his hand and helps him up. The pale man moves things around on the boat, emptying a space. He brings the man down into the boat and sits him there, but he ties his hands together before he can reach for the honey. He will come with them back to where they come from, and where the honey is made. He says that there will be plenty.
We all know what will happen. We will not see him again.
I keep scooping.
The line is gone now. We are all taking our honey. The laughing man holds his hands on his hips and smiles. He smiles when he is disgusted. He always smiles. The pale man finishes his writing. He puts the tablet away under a sheaf of dried leaves. He takes a new one out. He speaks to the laughing man in their tongue. The laughing man barks something back at him.
They argue.
The laughing man grabs the handle of the bullwhip he wears like a belt. The pale man lifts his coat to show all of his gleaming knives.
They both stop, and start to laugh together.
The boat pushes away from the dock. The crying man is crying harder now.
The laughing man waves his hand and begins to bid us all farewell.
His hand blurs into a smear of fuzzy light, and his voice is like the sound of bullfrogs in the swamp.
My toes tingle, and I start to taste orange.
The color. Not the fruit.
The mist begins to cloak them again.
I keep scooping.
Click here for Part 2.
Tuesday, August 29, 2017
Ergil-Who-Is-Death.
"He does not punish. He does not reward. He doesn't judge at all. He simply is; a withered hand to hold on the last, long journey."
- A literal translation out of Esgodarran prose taken from Nares Saton's Elegies.
"Don't fear Death- fear where he's taking you."
- A prominent graffito scrawled over the threshold of a funerary home in the Lower-East Tier of Deneroth.
"Relish the sting! It means the Horned One hasn't yet claimed you."
- Hital, elated as always to be performing burn debridement without any anesthesia handy.
When death comes, not everyone has a tribe to cut them apart, or a bird-spirit to whisk them away to the sky. For many, the only company to be had in death is silent and solitary Ergil.
As his epithet "Ergil-Who-Is-Death" suggests, Ergil is the state of death, and everything which is dead is entered into his being, at least temporarily. He is not a god, at least not the kind which needs worship and sacrifice, though he does receive both on occasion. He is somewhat closer to a force of nature, in a restrained and creeping sort of fashion. But he is also an individual, acting separate from or within himself in a manner surprisingly personal to each lost soul.
Upon death, the individual is commonly believed to be lost for a time without time ranging from hours to years, in which the soul is tossed back and forth upon the currents of some roiling sea of unbeing. But this transient phase ends, and then the dead "wakes up". They are greeted with a place not too vastly different from the location in which they died, with certain marked differences. In some stories this is a pallid mirror of the world of the living, while others hold it to be the actual, physical world through different means of seeing. Without the veil of mortal eyes, the spirit can see the world quite differently- perhaps, as it truly is.
Regardless of what the nature of this place is where the dead find themselves, it is somewhat of a dreary place. The sky remains perpetually overcast, and though the constant wind can feel quite damp, no rain ever falls. The world stretches out in all directions, silent and dead but for the wind in the grass or the flowing of stagnant-smelling water. Geography wears thin the farther away from one's site of death one goes, and beyond that, space itself begins to deteriorate, until a truly alien landscape stretches out before one's unveiled eyes. If this is the land of the dead, it can give the impression that one is the only dead thing anywhere, ever, for not a single other soul is ever to be seen. Black-feathered birds or small flies can occasionally be seen, as well as brief and distant views of dark shapes shifting about, but nothing pays the dead any heed. None but Ergil.
He appears sometime after the dead's wakening, typically from a great distance at first, no different from the other furtive black spots on the horizon. But though he moves slowly, he advances inexorably toward the spirit. Some flee what they see as this approaching apparition of doom, and beat a hasty retreat through the weird land which now keeps them. And because the spirit needs no sleep, nor food or water, the chase can last indefinitely. But Ergil's slow and steady approach never leaves him farther away than the horizon, a constant reminder of the inevitability of death.
Some remain quite ignorant of their own death, while others refuse acceptance, traveling through as many stages of grief as the living they left behind might feel. Though countless ages and trackless wastes may separate the dead soul from where they began, the time always comes when they stand in silent acceptance, and the master of that self-same domain comes to rest before them.
The avatar of death is quite featureless. He stands immensely tall, twelve feet or more at times, perpetually enveloped by a cloak of frayed black feathers and scraps of fur. His arms and legs, when visible, are as black as his garment, long and gangling, and terminating in gnarled claws. Contrasting with these dark hues is the dingy whiteness of bandages wrapped haphazardly around his body, stained with blood or antiseptic here and there- some believe these to be the remnants of dressings stripped from the bodies of those who died in agony under the ministrations of physicians, who finally came to know release from Najis the Healer. A more bleached shade of white is his head. Or, what passes for one.
Ergil has no visible face, for the head which caps his eerily long neck is mounted by the immense skull of a bovid shaped into a mask. Because of this, plus the large wooden staff or crook he is sometimes depicted with, he is known as the Horned One, or the Moldering Shepherd. His gender is inferred as male only due to the large and impressive horns which adorn the skull, suggesting that it had once belonged to a great steer. Either Death cannot speak, or he does not care how any including his newest guests refer to him. All he will do, is extend his hand.
He does not force the spirit to take his gesture, and will even continue to follow the dead on their aimless journey across the vast and empty vistas of that place, ever a silent companion walking a few paces behind and beside, as tireless as his charge.
When the hand is at last taken, he will not take initiative even then. Rather, the land seems to reorient itself and regain some measure of coherence around the two, and the correct path reveals itself. And so it is that Ergil and the spirit walk together, hand in hand, neither leading the other, until the destination is reached. Other times, if in life one was too young or old to walk, or some disability gripped them, Ergil effortlessly carries them in his musty yet gentle embrace, going where the dead would go as if they themselves were walking that way.
The final destination may be an opening into a vault in the earth. It may be a craggy pinnacle enveloped in a shaft of light piercing the ever-present clouds. Whatever it is, the immediate and profound sense of belonging which takes over the wandering spirit ends all travel. Ergil acts as final witness to the departed and their departure, and then he vanishes again over the horizon.
Ergil-Who-Is-Death has accumulated a great deal of frightening iconography over the ages, making him appear sinister and even violent in nature. The addition of a cruel-looking harvesting scythe in some depictions contaminated by a certain grain-god has not helped matters. But to those who pray to him and officiate funerary rites and interment, his even-handedness and gentleness are emphasized.
He is no one's enemy. Only another step to be taken.
- A literal translation out of Esgodarran prose taken from Nares Saton's Elegies.
"Don't fear Death- fear where he's taking you."
- A prominent graffito scrawled over the threshold of a funerary home in the Lower-East Tier of Deneroth.
"Relish the sting! It means the Horned One hasn't yet claimed you."
- Hital, elated as always to be performing burn debridement without any anesthesia handy.
When death comes, not everyone has a tribe to cut them apart, or a bird-spirit to whisk them away to the sky. For many, the only company to be had in death is silent and solitary Ergil.
As his epithet "Ergil-Who-Is-Death" suggests, Ergil is the state of death, and everything which is dead is entered into his being, at least temporarily. He is not a god, at least not the kind which needs worship and sacrifice, though he does receive both on occasion. He is somewhat closer to a force of nature, in a restrained and creeping sort of fashion. But he is also an individual, acting separate from or within himself in a manner surprisingly personal to each lost soul.
Upon death, the individual is commonly believed to be lost for a time without time ranging from hours to years, in which the soul is tossed back and forth upon the currents of some roiling sea of unbeing. But this transient phase ends, and then the dead "wakes up". They are greeted with a place not too vastly different from the location in which they died, with certain marked differences. In some stories this is a pallid mirror of the world of the living, while others hold it to be the actual, physical world through different means of seeing. Without the veil of mortal eyes, the spirit can see the world quite differently- perhaps, as it truly is.
Regardless of what the nature of this place is where the dead find themselves, it is somewhat of a dreary place. The sky remains perpetually overcast, and though the constant wind can feel quite damp, no rain ever falls. The world stretches out in all directions, silent and dead but for the wind in the grass or the flowing of stagnant-smelling water. Geography wears thin the farther away from one's site of death one goes, and beyond that, space itself begins to deteriorate, until a truly alien landscape stretches out before one's unveiled eyes. If this is the land of the dead, it can give the impression that one is the only dead thing anywhere, ever, for not a single other soul is ever to be seen. Black-feathered birds or small flies can occasionally be seen, as well as brief and distant views of dark shapes shifting about, but nothing pays the dead any heed. None but Ergil.
He appears sometime after the dead's wakening, typically from a great distance at first, no different from the other furtive black spots on the horizon. But though he moves slowly, he advances inexorably toward the spirit. Some flee what they see as this approaching apparition of doom, and beat a hasty retreat through the weird land which now keeps them. And because the spirit needs no sleep, nor food or water, the chase can last indefinitely. But Ergil's slow and steady approach never leaves him farther away than the horizon, a constant reminder of the inevitability of death.
Some remain quite ignorant of their own death, while others refuse acceptance, traveling through as many stages of grief as the living they left behind might feel. Though countless ages and trackless wastes may separate the dead soul from where they began, the time always comes when they stand in silent acceptance, and the master of that self-same domain comes to rest before them.
The avatar of death is quite featureless. He stands immensely tall, twelve feet or more at times, perpetually enveloped by a cloak of frayed black feathers and scraps of fur. His arms and legs, when visible, are as black as his garment, long and gangling, and terminating in gnarled claws. Contrasting with these dark hues is the dingy whiteness of bandages wrapped haphazardly around his body, stained with blood or antiseptic here and there- some believe these to be the remnants of dressings stripped from the bodies of those who died in agony under the ministrations of physicians, who finally came to know release from Najis the Healer. A more bleached shade of white is his head. Or, what passes for one.
Ergil has no visible face, for the head which caps his eerily long neck is mounted by the immense skull of a bovid shaped into a mask. Because of this, plus the large wooden staff or crook he is sometimes depicted with, he is known as the Horned One, or the Moldering Shepherd. His gender is inferred as male only due to the large and impressive horns which adorn the skull, suggesting that it had once belonged to a great steer. Either Death cannot speak, or he does not care how any including his newest guests refer to him. All he will do, is extend his hand.
He does not force the spirit to take his gesture, and will even continue to follow the dead on their aimless journey across the vast and empty vistas of that place, ever a silent companion walking a few paces behind and beside, as tireless as his charge.
When the hand is at last taken, he will not take initiative even then. Rather, the land seems to reorient itself and regain some measure of coherence around the two, and the correct path reveals itself. And so it is that Ergil and the spirit walk together, hand in hand, neither leading the other, until the destination is reached. Other times, if in life one was too young or old to walk, or some disability gripped them, Ergil effortlessly carries them in his musty yet gentle embrace, going where the dead would go as if they themselves were walking that way.
The final destination may be an opening into a vault in the earth. It may be a craggy pinnacle enveloped in a shaft of light piercing the ever-present clouds. Whatever it is, the immediate and profound sense of belonging which takes over the wandering spirit ends all travel. Ergil acts as final witness to the departed and their departure, and then he vanishes again over the horizon.
Ergil-Who-Is-Death has accumulated a great deal of frightening iconography over the ages, making him appear sinister and even violent in nature. The addition of a cruel-looking harvesting scythe in some depictions contaminated by a certain grain-god has not helped matters. But to those who pray to him and officiate funerary rites and interment, his even-handedness and gentleness are emphasized.
He is no one's enemy. Only another step to be taken.
Monday, August 7, 2017
Mersind of Serminwurth: Select/Salvaged Excerpts Concerning Blood Wasps.
"My expulsion from the township surrounding Serminwurth is at present still a point of annoyance for me- truly, how could I have known that surgical paralysis as a cure for C.S.D. had been outlawed for a century and a half? My patient was happy for it, and would have offered his signed consent, were he literate, and had his hands not have sooner stabbed me in the throat with that same pen. Regardless, I have resolved to make the most of my new situation, rather than simply make due. I have met a somewhat like-minded fellow in my flight from home, though his practice and interest in discovery has something a theistic bent to it. He is a devotee of the god of healing, and thus his familiarity with anatomy and patience with the agonized will both come in handy as we embark upon this new project together. He is one Hital, of the village Ferrith."
- Personal Journal Entry #1
"My companion and I have found the distant and, to be perfectly honest, forgotten town of Uiten in our hasty travels east after certain unfortunate occurrences manifested themselves around Hital's latest rendering of services as a barber-surgeon. He seems to have taken a hint, and no longer offers me a shave. Uiten was apparently forgotten by the rest of the region just as much as it was by the geographic archives back home, because the area is in a state of advanced disrepair and administrative neglect. We have received word that the local prison has recently overflowed- yet another negative side effect of the peculiar practice in this region of using imprisonment as a punishment in and of itself, rather than as a brief interlude to proper financial or corporeal discipline. But, one man's rot is another man's fertilizer. We will contact the local authorities in the morning."
- Journal Entry #4
"We make a surprisingly effective team of negotiators, Hital and I. His forwardness and bombasticity make an excellent entry-point, while my comparatively more reserved nature and technical language "seals the deal" so to speak, where his energy might otherwise turn toward less-than-appealing quirkiness, or reveal something of his "fixations". The pouch of gold which we passed to the magistrate and chief bailiff also seemed to turn them around toward our cause. Regardless, our methods have earned us a signed and sealed certificate which transfers to us the responsibility and authority over one of the prison's condemned inmates. We have assured his former keepers that there is no end more ethical and just than one which serves the progress of human knowledge."
- Journal Entry #5
"The prisoner, whose name I cannot recall being spoken, does not seem to be so fortunate as to be bilingual. This tells me that he belonged to the somewhat plebeian majority back home, and likely would not be a terribly good source of intellectual stimulation in conversation. This is just as well, since he seems more concerned with fruitlessly pulling at his restraints and causing Hital to have to use the bullwhip which he inexplicably carried around all of this time. Still, we are making adequate time on our way to the facility."
- Journal Entry #6
"The buzzing of alert activity was almost deafening four miles from our secondary destination, forcing us to stop and thoroughly hide and veil the horses and our friend before progressing on foot with suits and earplugs donned. It could not mute the pounding of our hearts in our heads as we progressed into Blood Wasp territory. Our target was the smallest functional hive which we could access at the edge of the zone of infestation, but unfortunately for us they happened to be quite closely packed this season. By the time we found a suitable hive which vaguely resembled the shape of a waxy, prismatic squirrel, the thumb-sized colony drones were boring holes into our protective clothing and barbing at our skin. We carefully cut the structure open and harvested a trio of galls from within before beating a hasty retreat. The left side of Hital's face was bloated from an envenomed sting, but it only dragged half of his ever-present smile even farther up toward his pronounced cheekbones. He seemed quite pleased with everything."
- Entry #10
"The "facility" of which Hital spoke so highly has failed to live up to my expectations. At one point, it was supposedly a quite refined retreat for the priests of Najis in the region. But it has since fallen into ruin, and the wooden portions of the structure have rotted and collapsed. The stone structure which superficially resembles a gatehouse shall act as our domicile as well as staging grounds, and so I am grateful that I kept a hold on my earplugs, though they have become quite nasty, waxy things in the summer humidity. The nights will be loud for some time."
- Entry #12
"Fortunately for Hital, the operating room is marvelously more preserved and clean. The heavy external locks on all doors and windows leading to the chamber kept the elements from spoiling the instruments and facilities within, to the point that we believe even the wooden operating table will suffice. After two days of sitting and stewing, our prisoner has become increasingly paranoid. Perhaps he has an inkling of what is in store for him. Certainly, he has noticed that we are feeding him significantly more than in the past week. Hital believes he has worked out some of the rudiments of the man's language, and has conducted a handful of halting conversations with him up to this point. I was unable to transcribe them, but the end result seems to be that he is more distressed now that the "Smiling Man" has taken such an interest in him. The uncanny nickname has, incidentally, reminded me to begin a separate and more disciplined log for what is to follow. Were this to be read by anyone but myself, I would apologize for my subsequent dryness."
- Entry #13
========================================================================
"Observation Log Day One. The subject was transferred to the operating room after the inclusion of a sufficient dose of remphanth extract to his food. My associate and I agree that we should have tightened his restraints, as the constant rattle of chains upon the table is growing already so tiresome. We have placed a low-hanging mesh net above him containing the galls, which have shown signs of greater activity over the past eighteen hours. My associate tells me that the subject insists that he can hear them humming. We both confirm that there is perfect silence in the facility other than his own exclamations. Perhaps they are already growing acquainted."
---
"Day Two. A reflected light aimed to shine through each of the galls confirms that the larva are highly active and in a more advanced state of development than we had hoped. The subject continues to rant and rave, alternating insisting that he had not committed his crimes, and begging forgiveness for them. He simply wishes for the humming to stop. My associate agreed to contribute his own plugs, and for the moment the subject is pacified."
[...]
"Day Four. The galls are beginning to rupture. I began to mix several doses of anesthetic which I believe necessary to the process, but my associate insists that the procedure will have a much higher rate of success if the subject is conscious and able to provide the larvae with the needed levels of aural stimulation. I am skeptical, but will defer to his greater experience in this field, for his treatment of several cases following the Festering River Blight was what allowed for this all to happen. Fortunately he does not dare to call me his assistant, in jest or otherwise."
---
"Day Five. I have invaginated the subject's navel with a metal rod and spaced out the entryway using a specially-treated hollow reed, pointed upward at the rupturing galls. One has already begun to drip effluvia upon the table.
Addendum to Day Five. By the marked increase in yelling, the subject seems to have finally come in direct contact with one or more larvae. The reed's effectiveness as a channel made from the material of the wasp's native habitat is noted for future research."
[...]
"Day Twelve. All three galls have ruptured and emptied fully, though several offspring died or were insufficiently developed to migrate to the host. Perhaps they were damaged in the direct handling of their galls, or perhaps it is the result of improper incubator formation. Future cross-referencing will hopefully illuminate this issue. The subject is behaving very erratically, fighting against his restraints until his wrists and ankles bleed and significant bruising across his limbs indicates the separation of muscle tissue from bone. The influence of adrenaline on the human body is remarkable, but must wait for another time in order to receive full study."
[...]
"Day Fifteen. The subject has stopped screaming."
[...]
"Day Twenty-Eight. After a significant period of unresponsiveness in which the subject was deemed to be expired, its extremities appear now to twitch and flex randomly. My associate has explained that this marks the point where the larva has transitioned from feeding on gut fauna and internal organs to engaging directly with the central nervous system. The relative lack of innards explains the surprising lack of foul odor- I was incorrect in believing that the subject's tissues were somehow being preserved by the process of incorporation."
[...]
"Day Thirty. After one month of observation and gentle goading, we have confirmed the presence of wasp nymphs in and around what remains of the subject's respiratory and digestive tract. The entry-point is now a far cry from a human torso meanwhile, having been sufficiently converted into hive structures that it resembles in crude shape some of the larger, dome-like colonies which I glimpsed at the heart of the Blood Wasp infestation during our brief foray. Soon, the entire subject--blood, tissue, and bones--will become the strange, uniform substance which houses a hive. It is with cautious celebration that we confirm that the process of hive conversion may be duplicated in a controlled environment. This will effectively pave the way to a greater understanding of the ecology of parasitic colonial insects, assuming we ever find a publisher willing to stamp its name upon our soon-to-be compiled reports."
[...]
"Day Forty-Two. Thus far we have met with very limited success in obtaining a professional audience for our discoveries. Measures have been taken to keep the hive contained as more advanced wasps lay claim to the host's surroundings. A thick, soupy atmosphere has begun to take hold in the operating room, accompanied by a sickeningly sweet smell which even manages to seep through our more air-tight seals. My associate has explained to me that this is a byproduct of the process, used to nurture and sustain more advanced forms of the wasp which quickly molt the teeth and enlarged stomach found in larvae. It is reportedly used as a highly effective yet highly addictive painkiller and recreational drug in the river delta towns to the south."
========================================================================
"We have officially deemed the project to be completed, though Hital and I will continue to make careful observations on the growth and development of the hive- the appearance of a queen would be a spectacular event neither of us would want to miss. Additionally, standards of safety must be kept at an all-time high, lest the facility and surrounding area become a new infestation zone. I would be deeply grieved if undue ecological damage and loss of life followed this momentous success. I have proposed that in the interim while we seek for scholastic partnership, we harvest and process some of this "crimson honey" and make a few minor business arrangements with the locals.
Hital is in strong disagreement with this, citing his religious disinclination toward the use or, indeed, even the existence of anesthesia. I have assured him that the proceeds would allow us to do much more good than ill, offering us a fast track to publication. I have also reminded him--perhaps somewhat manipulatively--of the severe withdrawal symptoms known to manifest from honey abuse, and of the subsequent need for trained medical professionals which would be sure to follow.
He is beginning to come around."
- Journal Entry #14
Beyond this point, no other journal entries are legible through the thickly-caked dirt and grime of nature, though there did appear to be many more pages written. Given the eventual publication of one very polarizing academic journal within Deneroth and select associated cities which contained elements of the above as well as both names, the pair met with some success. But the article which began this new wave of study was published without followup just shy of a decade ago at this time, and these journals were found among several other hastily-abandoned personal effects amid the effective ground-zero of the recently exterminated northern Blood Wasp infestation. No recently-parasitized human remains could be found on location, leaving the fates of the forested hilltop building's occupants uncertain.
- Personal Journal Entry #1
"My companion and I have found the distant and, to be perfectly honest, forgotten town of Uiten in our hasty travels east after certain unfortunate occurrences manifested themselves around Hital's latest rendering of services as a barber-surgeon. He seems to have taken a hint, and no longer offers me a shave. Uiten was apparently forgotten by the rest of the region just as much as it was by the geographic archives back home, because the area is in a state of advanced disrepair and administrative neglect. We have received word that the local prison has recently overflowed- yet another negative side effect of the peculiar practice in this region of using imprisonment as a punishment in and of itself, rather than as a brief interlude to proper financial or corporeal discipline. But, one man's rot is another man's fertilizer. We will contact the local authorities in the morning."
- Journal Entry #4
"We make a surprisingly effective team of negotiators, Hital and I. His forwardness and bombasticity make an excellent entry-point, while my comparatively more reserved nature and technical language "seals the deal" so to speak, where his energy might otherwise turn toward less-than-appealing quirkiness, or reveal something of his "fixations". The pouch of gold which we passed to the magistrate and chief bailiff also seemed to turn them around toward our cause. Regardless, our methods have earned us a signed and sealed certificate which transfers to us the responsibility and authority over one of the prison's condemned inmates. We have assured his former keepers that there is no end more ethical and just than one which serves the progress of human knowledge."
- Journal Entry #5
"The prisoner, whose name I cannot recall being spoken, does not seem to be so fortunate as to be bilingual. This tells me that he belonged to the somewhat plebeian majority back home, and likely would not be a terribly good source of intellectual stimulation in conversation. This is just as well, since he seems more concerned with fruitlessly pulling at his restraints and causing Hital to have to use the bullwhip which he inexplicably carried around all of this time. Still, we are making adequate time on our way to the facility."
- Journal Entry #6
"The buzzing of alert activity was almost deafening four miles from our secondary destination, forcing us to stop and thoroughly hide and veil the horses and our friend before progressing on foot with suits and earplugs donned. It could not mute the pounding of our hearts in our heads as we progressed into Blood Wasp territory. Our target was the smallest functional hive which we could access at the edge of the zone of infestation, but unfortunately for us they happened to be quite closely packed this season. By the time we found a suitable hive which vaguely resembled the shape of a waxy, prismatic squirrel, the thumb-sized colony drones were boring holes into our protective clothing and barbing at our skin. We carefully cut the structure open and harvested a trio of galls from within before beating a hasty retreat. The left side of Hital's face was bloated from an envenomed sting, but it only dragged half of his ever-present smile even farther up toward his pronounced cheekbones. He seemed quite pleased with everything."
- Entry #10
"The "facility" of which Hital spoke so highly has failed to live up to my expectations. At one point, it was supposedly a quite refined retreat for the priests of Najis in the region. But it has since fallen into ruin, and the wooden portions of the structure have rotted and collapsed. The stone structure which superficially resembles a gatehouse shall act as our domicile as well as staging grounds, and so I am grateful that I kept a hold on my earplugs, though they have become quite nasty, waxy things in the summer humidity. The nights will be loud for some time."
- Entry #12
"Fortunately for Hital, the operating room is marvelously more preserved and clean. The heavy external locks on all doors and windows leading to the chamber kept the elements from spoiling the instruments and facilities within, to the point that we believe even the wooden operating table will suffice. After two days of sitting and stewing, our prisoner has become increasingly paranoid. Perhaps he has an inkling of what is in store for him. Certainly, he has noticed that we are feeding him significantly more than in the past week. Hital believes he has worked out some of the rudiments of the man's language, and has conducted a handful of halting conversations with him up to this point. I was unable to transcribe them, but the end result seems to be that he is more distressed now that the "Smiling Man" has taken such an interest in him. The uncanny nickname has, incidentally, reminded me to begin a separate and more disciplined log for what is to follow. Were this to be read by anyone but myself, I would apologize for my subsequent dryness."
- Entry #13
========================================================================
"Observation Log Day One. The subject was transferred to the operating room after the inclusion of a sufficient dose of remphanth extract to his food. My associate and I agree that we should have tightened his restraints, as the constant rattle of chains upon the table is growing already so tiresome. We have placed a low-hanging mesh net above him containing the galls, which have shown signs of greater activity over the past eighteen hours. My associate tells me that the subject insists that he can hear them humming. We both confirm that there is perfect silence in the facility other than his own exclamations. Perhaps they are already growing acquainted."
---
"Day Two. A reflected light aimed to shine through each of the galls confirms that the larva are highly active and in a more advanced state of development than we had hoped. The subject continues to rant and rave, alternating insisting that he had not committed his crimes, and begging forgiveness for them. He simply wishes for the humming to stop. My associate agreed to contribute his own plugs, and for the moment the subject is pacified."
[...]
"Day Four. The galls are beginning to rupture. I began to mix several doses of anesthetic which I believe necessary to the process, but my associate insists that the procedure will have a much higher rate of success if the subject is conscious and able to provide the larvae with the needed levels of aural stimulation. I am skeptical, but will defer to his greater experience in this field, for his treatment of several cases following the Festering River Blight was what allowed for this all to happen. Fortunately he does not dare to call me his assistant, in jest or otherwise."
---
"Day Five. I have invaginated the subject's navel with a metal rod and spaced out the entryway using a specially-treated hollow reed, pointed upward at the rupturing galls. One has already begun to drip effluvia upon the table.
Addendum to Day Five. By the marked increase in yelling, the subject seems to have finally come in direct contact with one or more larvae. The reed's effectiveness as a channel made from the material of the wasp's native habitat is noted for future research."
[...]
"Day Twelve. All three galls have ruptured and emptied fully, though several offspring died or were insufficiently developed to migrate to the host. Perhaps they were damaged in the direct handling of their galls, or perhaps it is the result of improper incubator formation. Future cross-referencing will hopefully illuminate this issue. The subject is behaving very erratically, fighting against his restraints until his wrists and ankles bleed and significant bruising across his limbs indicates the separation of muscle tissue from bone. The influence of adrenaline on the human body is remarkable, but must wait for another time in order to receive full study."
[...]
"Day Fifteen. The subject has stopped screaming."
[...]
"Day Twenty-Eight. After a significant period of unresponsiveness in which the subject was deemed to be expired, its extremities appear now to twitch and flex randomly. My associate has explained that this marks the point where the larva has transitioned from feeding on gut fauna and internal organs to engaging directly with the central nervous system. The relative lack of innards explains the surprising lack of foul odor- I was incorrect in believing that the subject's tissues were somehow being preserved by the process of incorporation."
[...]
"Day Thirty. After one month of observation and gentle goading, we have confirmed the presence of wasp nymphs in and around what remains of the subject's respiratory and digestive tract. The entry-point is now a far cry from a human torso meanwhile, having been sufficiently converted into hive structures that it resembles in crude shape some of the larger, dome-like colonies which I glimpsed at the heart of the Blood Wasp infestation during our brief foray. Soon, the entire subject--blood, tissue, and bones--will become the strange, uniform substance which houses a hive. It is with cautious celebration that we confirm that the process of hive conversion may be duplicated in a controlled environment. This will effectively pave the way to a greater understanding of the ecology of parasitic colonial insects, assuming we ever find a publisher willing to stamp its name upon our soon-to-be compiled reports."
[...]
"Day Forty-Two. Thus far we have met with very limited success in obtaining a professional audience for our discoveries. Measures have been taken to keep the hive contained as more advanced wasps lay claim to the host's surroundings. A thick, soupy atmosphere has begun to take hold in the operating room, accompanied by a sickeningly sweet smell which even manages to seep through our more air-tight seals. My associate has explained to me that this is a byproduct of the process, used to nurture and sustain more advanced forms of the wasp which quickly molt the teeth and enlarged stomach found in larvae. It is reportedly used as a highly effective yet highly addictive painkiller and recreational drug in the river delta towns to the south."
========================================================================
"We have officially deemed the project to be completed, though Hital and I will continue to make careful observations on the growth and development of the hive- the appearance of a queen would be a spectacular event neither of us would want to miss. Additionally, standards of safety must be kept at an all-time high, lest the facility and surrounding area become a new infestation zone. I would be deeply grieved if undue ecological damage and loss of life followed this momentous success. I have proposed that in the interim while we seek for scholastic partnership, we harvest and process some of this "crimson honey" and make a few minor business arrangements with the locals.
Hital is in strong disagreement with this, citing his religious disinclination toward the use or, indeed, even the existence of anesthesia. I have assured him that the proceeds would allow us to do much more good than ill, offering us a fast track to publication. I have also reminded him--perhaps somewhat manipulatively--of the severe withdrawal symptoms known to manifest from honey abuse, and of the subsequent need for trained medical professionals which would be sure to follow.
He is beginning to come around."
- Journal Entry #14
Beyond this point, no other journal entries are legible through the thickly-caked dirt and grime of nature, though there did appear to be many more pages written. Given the eventual publication of one very polarizing academic journal within Deneroth and select associated cities which contained elements of the above as well as both names, the pair met with some success. But the article which began this new wave of study was published without followup just shy of a decade ago at this time, and these journals were found among several other hastily-abandoned personal effects amid the effective ground-zero of the recently exterminated northern Blood Wasp infestation. No recently-parasitized human remains could be found on location, leaving the fates of the forested hilltop building's occupants uncertain.
Wednesday, July 12, 2017
The Cruel Hands of a Healer.
"I've nearly finished setting all of the bones in his fingers, but the poor man has passed out from the pain again. If only he could relish this symphony of anguish with us! Every crack of a metacarpal, another note in the praise sung to Najis! Now, hand me my knives. These splinters must be excised before inflammation worsens..."
- Hital, overly enthusiastic barber-surgeon of Ferrith.
Najis is a name spoken in nearly every city, town, and village across the vast cultural region of the Ersuun-descended folk, including even the pristine platforms and towers of Deneroth tucked away in their small yet illustrious corner of the greater world of humans. The name is on the lips of everyone who fears injury, disease, or disorder, those who suffer them, and those who have escaped their worst effects. It is also chanted by those who would call themselves healers acting in the name of Najis, which is their deity. It is the being through which the gifts of healing and curing may be gained, assuming that the proper conditions are met.
Najis has no set facets, qualities, or appearance beyond what the most central myths, lore, and theological writings by its followers state. Besides its relationship to healing and harm, everything about the deity is mutable and wildly varied from place to place. Perhaps this is the reason why Najis is so ever-present and popular- besides the fact that people prefer not to get sick and die, of course. Wherever her, his, or its influence is felt and its healers, priests, and doctors respected, weal may accompany woe in nearly all of its forms.
But for weal to come, woe must exist. And a fact which is often glossed over is that Najis is the wellspring of suffering and respite together. This is readily understood by most of its faithful, layperson or otherwise, for the concept of gods giving and taking in equal measure is a common one to the peoples of those lands. They accept it, and accept Najis as being at least as much help as it is harm to them all. To the most deeply initiated of Najis' mystics, scholars, biologists, and esoteric surgeons, this is revealed to be a lie.
The truth is that the faceless god of healing craves the suffering of every living being by nature, whether it be mindless or fully and exquisitely cognizant of its condition- but with special preference for the latter. The world is an inherently dangerous place, and life leaves it as quickly as it arrives and can dig its claws in. But the period in between birth and death is too brief, the flavors of misery sampled too few, for Najis to be pleased. Creatures never healed from the injuries they sustained, once upon a time, but with mighty clout and insidious means, all other gods were swayed by Najis to allow its great work to begin.
And so those dark primeval days were ended, when tender mercy was first visited upon the dying and pestilent, overwhelmed with suppurating buboes and weeping lacerations. In their desperation, they accepted the gift without realizing how it damned them and all who would come after. With every cut closed or broken bone mended, there is an implicit promise that more numerous and splendid sufferings will be visited upon the survivor, until all is jaded, haggard, and worn down by a long and empty life of pain, and death finally comes to rob Najis of the last few fruits of its carefully-tended nest eggs. To heal is to help in the short term, but harm in the long run. The most cunning deception Najis ever cast upon the world was convincing the living that any life--even a truly hopeless and miserable one--is preferable to the embrace of Ergil-Who-Is-Death.
The development of preventative medicine, then, is the most complete heresy and abomination of purpose to Najis and all those who serve it without the merciful blanket of ignorance still cast over their eyes. To completely circumvent disease or maladies is to earn the ire of a god, and the punishment for this can be years in the making so that it may strike and inflict a thousandfold cruelties, according to the most fanatical of healers. But the truth is known only to these madman miracle-workers. Others seek to cultivate true mercy and compassion, unknowingly and with the best of intentions furthering the goals of Najis.
- Hital, overly enthusiastic barber-surgeon of Ferrith.
Najis is a name spoken in nearly every city, town, and village across the vast cultural region of the Ersuun-descended folk, including even the pristine platforms and towers of Deneroth tucked away in their small yet illustrious corner of the greater world of humans. The name is on the lips of everyone who fears injury, disease, or disorder, those who suffer them, and those who have escaped their worst effects. It is also chanted by those who would call themselves healers acting in the name of Najis, which is their deity. It is the being through which the gifts of healing and curing may be gained, assuming that the proper conditions are met.
Najis has no set facets, qualities, or appearance beyond what the most central myths, lore, and theological writings by its followers state. Besides its relationship to healing and harm, everything about the deity is mutable and wildly varied from place to place. Perhaps this is the reason why Najis is so ever-present and popular- besides the fact that people prefer not to get sick and die, of course. Wherever her, his, or its influence is felt and its healers, priests, and doctors respected, weal may accompany woe in nearly all of its forms.
But for weal to come, woe must exist. And a fact which is often glossed over is that Najis is the wellspring of suffering and respite together. This is readily understood by most of its faithful, layperson or otherwise, for the concept of gods giving and taking in equal measure is a common one to the peoples of those lands. They accept it, and accept Najis as being at least as much help as it is harm to them all. To the most deeply initiated of Najis' mystics, scholars, biologists, and esoteric surgeons, this is revealed to be a lie.
The truth is that the faceless god of healing craves the suffering of every living being by nature, whether it be mindless or fully and exquisitely cognizant of its condition- but with special preference for the latter. The world is an inherently dangerous place, and life leaves it as quickly as it arrives and can dig its claws in. But the period in between birth and death is too brief, the flavors of misery sampled too few, for Najis to be pleased. Creatures never healed from the injuries they sustained, once upon a time, but with mighty clout and insidious means, all other gods were swayed by Najis to allow its great work to begin.
And so those dark primeval days were ended, when tender mercy was first visited upon the dying and pestilent, overwhelmed with suppurating buboes and weeping lacerations. In their desperation, they accepted the gift without realizing how it damned them and all who would come after. With every cut closed or broken bone mended, there is an implicit promise that more numerous and splendid sufferings will be visited upon the survivor, until all is jaded, haggard, and worn down by a long and empty life of pain, and death finally comes to rob Najis of the last few fruits of its carefully-tended nest eggs. To heal is to help in the short term, but harm in the long run. The most cunning deception Najis ever cast upon the world was convincing the living that any life--even a truly hopeless and miserable one--is preferable to the embrace of Ergil-Who-Is-Death.
The development of preventative medicine, then, is the most complete heresy and abomination of purpose to Najis and all those who serve it without the merciful blanket of ignorance still cast over their eyes. To completely circumvent disease or maladies is to earn the ire of a god, and the punishment for this can be years in the making so that it may strike and inflict a thousandfold cruelties, according to the most fanatical of healers. But the truth is known only to these madman miracle-workers. Others seek to cultivate true mercy and compassion, unknowingly and with the best of intentions furthering the goals of Najis.
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