Järjejutt 'Minstrel's Song' (by Gilraen)

[Die]

Tuli idee, et hakkaks üles panema üht LUGU järjejutuna. Ilusti peatükk korraga, ja nii iga päev (või paari päeva takka, ma ei ole suutnud intervalli välja mõelda...)

Vabandused inglise filoloogide ja nende ees, kes keelt ei valda.

Sissejuhatuseks: Selle loo autor on üks iidsetest. Teda arvatakse deemoniks. Teda kutsutakse Molock. See on tema lugu, pühendatud ühele naisele. Kirja pandud minu poolt.

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I wanted to call this story ‘A Minstrel’s Song’. Not ‘saga of the blind bard’ or ‘story of the beginning’ nor any of such kind. And I wanted my sister to write it for me. Write it for you.

Make it a fairy-tale if you like.


1. I am Molock

There was a land of marvel and magic. I was younger then but not young. I cannot remember ever being young. I cannot remember ever being anything but what I am – a lonesome demon. Already they called me a ‘demon’. But I do remember being an outlaw. My kind was chased and I was chased. I always knew I was older than those that hunted me. I think this is why they did.

We were not called by any names that could have belonged to us. There were another eight of my kind.

And there was a king that ruled that land and a queen, his mother and wife. I cannot say what his name was or even, what her name was. You see, people and things usually did not have names back then. Nobody called ME Molock. But there surely was a king and you were the queen and the mother.

I’ve been told I ran for you and fell for you. That’s not HOW it happened. In time, yes, I did ‘run’ and I did love. But if you truly want to know – you came to me.

People mostly suppose those of royal blood are happy, or at least content. And as the Mother and the Queen was both worshipped and loved, everyone thought she would be easy going and pretty satisfied with her life.

Well, you weren’t. And even you could not tell, why. There was something that bothered you, something deep hidden inside your brain and heart. It started with little thoughts and little irking; it ended with every molecular of brain and every blood vessel screaming out in agony you could not bear nor understand.

You kept screaming. Your magick screamed out. Back then, it was not the sophisticated kind of magick but raw power, mostly uncontrolled by brain. People were pretty used to all kind of magick going round and through, so they paid little attention. They blocked it out and when they no longer could, when your pain and confusion had grown terribly fierce, they just called what they were experiencing ‘nightmares’ and went on with their lives. Everyone was having dreams and visions and even those least in touch with magick felt ‘something’ was going on. Some heroes even dashed out to chase a supposedly villain that must have been causing this. And nobody learned it was the Mother.

It might have been the same with me. But it wasn’t. When I said I was different, I was telling the truth. In what ways different I never knew and basically, I still don’t. I, too, tried to block out the raw energy that was hitting me from inside. However, when all others somehow succeeded, I failed. Perhaps I did not try hard enough, who can tell. Instead, the more I tried to rid myself of the pain this mysterious source was causing me the more intense I felt it. Soon I had no energy to get up. I could not move I could not think. I could only lay back and dream. What I was experiencing was draining me. Then I started hearing a voice. Screams, terrible screams of anguish and pain. I grabbed for my head, pressing fingers to my temples and I moaned but I could not, would not wake up.

I could no longer recognize my own thoughts. Was I screaming, too? I knew that pain; I knew that anguish, why shouldn’t I scream from the top of my lungs?

I opened my eyes – was I still sleeping? – And saw you. I saw the Mother. I saw MY Mother. And I saw you asleep and weeping, moaning. You saw me walking right into your dream, right into your head. And still sleeping you opened your eyes and saw me staring at you. Just a moment. As if we had looked into a mirror but the reflection was not that of our own; as if we could see right through the mirror to the Mirror Land and someone was standing at the very gate of it, staring at you and me. I stopped screaming; you swallowed your tears. We were just looking into the bottom of each other and thus back into ourselves. And we both realized what we had done. At first we could not speak, would not dare to speak. We kept looking, observing. Draining each other but if felt rather good and not tiresome at all for we were the same being. And then you spoke:

Come to me…come to me.

You bent closer to me and your lips and skin touched my face. It felt like someone had stirred still water. Words were dripping from your lips into my watchful mouth like pearls of dew.

Who are you?

I don’t know, I thought, whispered.

Who are you? I could see my eyes in your face that looked like my reflection.

I don’t know. I don’t know who I am. I panicked, I was sobbing. I could hear I was weeping, feel the tears on my cheeks – your cheeks?…

You are Molock. Now, who are you?

Molock.

No. who are you?

I am you.

I wanted to kiss you, hold you and I reached out but the reflection vanished out of my sight and my hands went through a pool of mirror, cold, so cold. I woke up in silence. The cave was dark and cold. I rouse and went out. Sun was rising. It came over the faraway hills and glittered on the flower petals, grass, and trees. Never had I felt so lost. Had I ever belonged to this world at all? Tall dark figure standing in front of a black cave, all this marvel glistening in front of him. Why? Why had I come to this place at first? I could not remember; I could not make any sense of any of this. Is this how world had always been? So pretty, so twisted, so utterly different from all that I was.

Mother, what did you do to me?!

But I already knew the answer was nothing. This is what I was, this creature they all feared for they could never truly understand because I held within something ancient, something hideous and my glance startled even my brothers.

I knew then I would have to start a journey to find you. You could tell me…I could tell you… It would not matter. Mother, I loved you. I loved what I saw, I hated what I saw, and there was so much meaning that I could not capture any.

I had been raped. Turned worse AND better than I had been.

I could no longer stay. I could not bear the silence, the cheeping of birds. I could not understand any of it. I longed to hear the screams again, those I could understand, and those I could cope with. They lit something in me that had always been there - the fire in my eyes that could make pyres if only I chose to. I’d make a special pyre for you. I’d burn myself with you oh Mother my Mother.

I am Molock.

I am Molock, I said aloud. And I am coming for you.

I heard my voice the way I had never heard it before and I liked it. I could hardly remember what had been before the screaming started; I had overcome the confusion of knowing nothing. There was something I knew now, something I could whisper speak shout if I wanted to:

I am Molock. And I am coming for you.

And this is how I left the safety of my cave and began to fly towards the Royal Court to meet my Queen and my Mother.

[Die]

2. The flying

Flying was rather rare those days. Not many possessed the ability to rise to the heavens simply by wishing so and those that did were considered…peculiar, strange, and scary. I have always had the ability, I cannot remember of having ever had to learn it. I could always fly. I could also do more than fly – I could wish myself from one place to another and in instant, I’d be there. But that was too risky and for that old trick to work I had to know the place or the person I was transporting myself to. I could never really get the idea how exactly I did it and thus I almost never used it.

You see, we all had all sorts of powers but everyone mostly wanted to go as regular. To walk on solid ground with normal speed is much more fun then wishing yourself from one spot to another and see it happen in a matter of microseconds. Then again, flying supposed you had wings. Which I had because I rather liked having them and I had always had them. Wings that looked like those of a huge black swan. Most people like to go around without anything huge and feathery on their backside. What I’m trying to say is that there were loads of magick but when things could be done without it, most folks preferred it.

One could always ask why create stones with imagination and then horses and carriages to carry those stones from faraway fields to build a house when you can so much more easily imagine the entire house? But I think you know the answer…

And so, ignoring the regularity as I’d always done, I rouse high to the sky and headed towards the royal castle. I had no difficulties finding it; everyone knew where the King lived, everyone knew about Mother and everyone loved them in a bit different way. Everyone, mostly, was welcome in the castle and many were often invited guests of the King and Mother. Getting into the court was no problem; its doors were opened to everyone.

Well, everyone but my kind and me.

No demons allowed.

But I was Molock now.

Night and day, I flew through the heavens. I was cold from the ice and soaking by the rain and my hair and robes were torn by winds and hurricanes. I had never flown as high as I did now. I did not want to be seen, I did not want to become a prey to any rambling hunter that would desire my head or my power. I was hurt and tired from my constant flight but I rather liked it. I felt alive again. I loved that nature could actually affect me.

I had really challenged the heavens and the gods of rain and wind were quick in their revenge upon such a heretic as me. I could already feel the stench of their fury in my nostrils and lungs. And then there came the winds metamorphosing into hurricanes; came blizzard and heavy snow. I was strangled, thrown carelessly from one spot to another; sometimes it seemed they would drop me in the sea or crush my scull on the rocks. I fought them, I fought them with fury and courage based upon the knowledge that there is little to nothing I can do to seize control of the situation. I could no longer see where I was going and though I was greatly confused, I finally managed to use my own final trick; – I wished to be in the courtyard, I pictured you, and I tried to imagine you walking in the royal garden. From what I had heard and been told I could summon up a little pretty picture and wish myself there.

I tried to concentrate but I must say it is rather hard if you are ferociously blown around like a feather.

I almost succeeded and ended up above the royal garden. However, my sudden disappearance had infuriated all gods of sky and they came after me, now longing to teach me a real lesson. They were neither cruel nor unjust; this is not what I’m saying, no. I had challenged them, I had violated every law ever created by them – the first being that one must never fly that high, and now I was to be punished.

Before I could even think of landing bolts of lightning struck everywhere around me. I tried to descend dodging them but all I could hear was mocking laughter from above. Thunder roared and deafened me; almost blinded by sky that seemed to be lit in thousands of shades of white and yellow I was struck by arrows of pure light and electricity and swirling fell towards ground. At first, I could neither see nor realize what had happened. But then I saw myself as if my soul was no longer in my body. And I saw this black winged creature falling and falling, his black garments torn into shreds, wings transformed into two terrible torches. I could see and feel myself. My soul seemed to be linked to my wings and I could feel the tongue of flame going for my hair. I was burning and I was falling and there was absolutely nothing I could do about it.

Before I hit the ground, I heard people screaming but I could hardly tell what. Their voices pierced my ears and I tried to cover them but my fingers were burning bright. Somebody cried - Look, a demon! And then came the tumbling and moaning and I lost consciousness.

I drifted. I could not feel nor see nor hear. I could not tell what was going on around me. For some seconds I felt as if I was being carried to some place, lifted up by innumerous arms but my soul was trapped inside my body and it could not find a way out to look upon it. Was this death? Was I dead? Had the gods of heavens killed me in their blind justice? Death, I uttered.

No, I was saying. No. But I am saying this, thus I cannot be dead. And this is not like death. I’ve been dead before, I should know. How could I know? What does it mean I just thought – that I’ve been dead before? I cannot remember, why I cannot remember!

I woke at the sound of my very own voice into darkness. Poor wenches! It they had actually thought that shutting out all lights keeps me from seeing they had surely mistaken a little. I could not only see in the dark but I also loved it. I was still numb. I tried to move myself… but I could not. They had chained me with bonds both magickal and of purest gold. And when the channel between my body and my brain was finally crossed, I began to feel… I screamed. I tried not to but I couldn’t do anything but scream. I stopped only when my lungs and throat were so badly sour that even whispering seemed too much pain. I had never flown so high and I had never been so badly burnt. My back, the sides of my neck, backside of my skull, my lovely wings, even my fingers. And now I had been locked here so that I could get absolutely no energy to heal myself, which I could do fast if only I could drain some. I would not even need a being, I could well do with trees and grass and clouds. Mother Nature could be my well of power.

I tried to reach someone in the castle but I ended up in the same cellar where I was. I also tried to summon someone to come down to me but I suppose they had been warned from this ability of mine. No one came. And I grew weaker and weaker. I had stopped screaming because I no longer had a voice. But I could still think.

I turned to the walls of stone surrounding me, beseeching them to refrain me some of their energy and they were willing but as hard as I drained I could not get anything. These stones were dead. They’d been dead since the day they had been killed, made into this castle.

I fell back. Now I knew I was dying. It felt like death. It was amazing. Just the ocean and the starry sky. I was so high; I was so deep. I lost touch of everything and it felt perfect.

Molock… Molock. Was that you whispering all that I had been? But I was not to be Molock, not for long. I was to be nothing and everything. This is what you become when you die – the Universe. This is what I become.

I came for you. But I am dying, I more than whispered, forcibly dragging words come forth from the bottom of my being.

You shall not die. You hear me! Ah, the voice, the voice. Such a crystal, so cold, so soothing. Right into my poor little brain. Embracing me, kissing me. You shall drink from me and you shall live.

I cannot. I will not. I’m dying, just let me die, mother let me die…

You shall live! Ah, but you were screaming again. And then you kneeled before me…kneeled. You took a small black knife hidden between your breasts. You slashed your wrists from palm to elbow. Blood was gushing out. Again. And then deep cuts into your breasts. On your knees before me, bleeding, red fountains running over your body, splashing on the stones beneath you. How white the skin… My mother my auburn haired beauty…

The room was swirling. All the blood, all the lively energy built a hurricane. You were embracing me, kissing me, feeding me forcibly though I had no strength nor will to fight you. What was happening, how, why? Just you, just you. And me. Molock. Me.

Does it still hurt?

Yes. No. What does it matter? Is there anything at all that would matter now?

You stood up and leaned against the wall. Your garments were as dark as mine were. I could still smell the blood that had drenched your sleeves and your dress. How little you looked, how utterly lost. And at the same time, how royal. And with a tone full of controversies, you spoke:

Alas! I must leave now. You shall live. Whatever happens, remember. The king will judge you and he will be just.

I bit my lip. The king shall surely see my death as an act both just and fair.

You shall not die. I promise. But I must go now. There is nothing more I can do for you.

You hesitated.

I shall return.

I partially closed my eyes and you saw it. Bending very close to me, touching me with your hair ever so lightly you spoke:

Molock…Have your faith in me.

And thus, she vanished, my queen. I was alone with one syllable yet unknown to me – faith. If there was something I had very little faith in then it was faith. All I knew surely was that soon I would be on trial and convicted to death for crimes unknown to me. And they would surely burn me and I would have to live because I had promised to your blood that I would.

You came again next night, dressed in stars and the black-bluest heaven. My eyes had never seen a woman so beautiful. Not the fragile beauty as the rest; not any of the mystical priestesses filled with religious passion. Something so different, something that looked almost like…but the word was lost in me.

Had I somehow interested you? I wanted to ask you about my dreams. But I could clearly see you were scared to speak of what was haunting you. You would tell me in time, wouldn’t you, my Queen?

You came to look at me and I felt your eyes almost blistering my skin. Just stood in almost complete darkness, the gorgeous mother of all that any of us knew and stared at me as if you had never seen one like me before. What was it that attracted you to defy the rules of you grand kingdom and come down from your throne to set your eyes upon a demon?

And then I knew; you revealed your thoughts to me. It seemed almost as if you had undressed in front of me.

Naked, and cold, oh so cold.

Your flight.

My flight? The heavens, the gods, the bolts of lightning. An arc of pain shot through my back and my brain.

Molock, teach me to fly.

I realized you were rather terrified telling me this; you had just revealed a secret. How could it be that I can fly and my mother cannot? Why, you bade me! The anguish again. Something so familiar.

Can I ask you something? Why were you screaming?

Had you come if I hadn’t?

I was puzzled.

My lady, who am I to teach you anything? How can this be that the Mother of All, Queen and Lady even converses with one soon sentenced with death?

You shunned.

I don’t know why. Do you?

Did I know this? I was confused. If only I could have back the dream. Inside a dream, I knew it. Inside a dream, I loved you…

Love? Who speaks of love? Who would love me?

I was stunned. But my lady, everyone loves you - you must know that…

Nobody loves me. They do not know me thus, they claim to love me. If they knew me, they would seek to hate me. Aye, they would tsiribiribimming hate me!

And having said this, you dashed out.

Those days in prison were more than strange. My only visitor was my Queen. As if everyone else had totally forgotten me. But I knew they had not. Why they had not come to me yet, I was wondering. They must have known I had grown strong, having fed upon the forbidden blood and power. They must have listened to the silence my screaming left behind. They must have felt I did not despair. They must have known I was hardly alone. My strange visitor was unable to cloak her presence. I could have sensed her from miles and miles. The magick of mirrors, the magick of blood – and yet she appeared to consist so little of sophisticated magick.

And then there was this interest in my ability to fly. You clearly let me know that you possessed no such ability; or at least had never tried it. From your mind, I had drawn the picture of myself falling from the heavens to the royal garden. My trick had worked and you actually had been walking there. And imagine the shock of everyone when a burning demon fell from dark heavens, two black wings torn by the wind appearing like huge torches flapping in the air, spreading burnt feathers around him. All fair maidens cried out, guards were running and screaming. Such a picturesque sight!

And how still I had lain when guards fell upon me; a whole army of them.

You said you had seen me flying though I hardly think I was anything but falling with terrible speed, slowed down merely by some breezes that were stuck in my wings and pulled me back and forth. However, your imagination had drawn me almost phoenix-like.

Aye, I had come as I had promised only that I had managed to make a pyre of myself. Oh how our innocent words avenge us…

Teach me to fly…

How? For I am chained with bonds I cannot break!

Then again, I was wondering, am I so unable to break them? I am anything but weak and surely not the poor unconscious body they locked up. I decided to try it and should I fail I shall try no more.

I could say I frankly walked out from the cell where I’d been held before I had a chance to give it a proper thought. Now, invisible. And block everyone out, even her, should they scan her to keep an eye on me.

Next thing I know I was walking around the castle through all the narrow little corridors and long dusty stairs. Nobody saw me. I was indeed invisible. HOW? I had surely not changed a molecular in my body. But it seemed I had somehow twisted everyone’s minds so that though they looked at me they could not see me. Instead, they saw me still in the cell, chained up nicely. Whereas I was rushing towards the garden to find you.

I saw you walking by a creek. You could or would not see me. Rather blank face, followed by only some maidens and small boys. Until that moment, I had not figured why I had broken my bonds and come here. Seeing you there and then I suddenly knew what exactly it was I had come for.

I am Molock. And I am coming for you.

It was a matter of seconds. To appear beside you, to uncloak my presence and identity, startle your escorts; take you in a firm embrace and rise to the heavens. And again, I was going up and up, until I was as high as I’d never been before. But this time there was nothing to fear. No god would ever touch you. Higher and higher we were going. My wings ached from the memory and of the solid pleasure of flying again after such torments.

I wanted to say something, explain, perhaps, what I had done and why, but your lips had locked my mouth in a kiss so sealed I could hardly even think. And imagining all the gorgeous panic somewhere deep down was hilarious. I began to laugh. Why, I had stolen their Queen right from the middle of them! And now they could panic about the demon and their beloved Mother somewhere in the private chambers of the gods of heavens.

And in the bedroom of the gods of Storm, we made love for the very first, second, third, and so forth time. Words are poor as always to describe how it felt. How do gods and goddesses make love? Heavenly. Was it that the lightning were to strike me again I would probably paid little attention if any. Fire of storm was nothing compared to the fire in you. My Queen of Heavens, my sweet mistress, my ladylove, my ladylove. We were in the bottom of the ocean and the topless Universe. We were in my old cave and in your private chambers. We were in the Mirror land and in forests dancing with the elven people. We witnessed the creation of humans in their nakedness and frailty. And all your anguish and despair were combined and vanquished in one cry of pleasure. And all my past, all my vicious fire and sadness flew into you like a savage mountain river and through you into Universe, which took and made it all into stars that shone bright around us while we were rising and rising, endlessly loving each other.

[Die]

3. Queen of the Heavens

I could see the morning come and imagine that perhaps the oval of sun was beneath us. Weight of my deeds struck me. Surely, they would come after us. The question was could they fly as high as I had. But they would surely try. And we had to descend sooner of later. I could not fly forever. And if they laid their eyes on us, they would take us and separate us. I had been selfish taking you like this. What would befall you if they ever caught us? I had not thought of this; what happened to me I could not care about.

Wind blew now, the silence of cosmos was gone, and I realized we were falling. You had grown heavy in my arms; I had to hold tight to not lose you. Your cheeks were watery. Had you been crying?

Before I could ask you, I saw them coming. Hands outstretched, eyes gleaming in just fury. The king was the first to fall upon us. I could not escape I could not fight. You were sleeping in my arms and I was screaming at you, telling you to wake up, crying out that we must save ourselves.

I was shaking you violently. Fly! Fly and save yourself!

Indeed you rouse from my arms, your body shifting violently, arms outstretched, eyes still closed. But no more than a moment, I lost your weight from my grip and then you fell back, exhausted from the effort.

Your sweet body in my arms rendered me powerless. There was to be no battle in heaven. They would not lay a finger on you. But the king was enraged, obviously. It was a relief that they had no idea what had been going on between the hideous demon and their fair queen. Or else they had killed us both for their honor. Now they were only to kill me.

They had to tear you from my arms. I wished not to hold you too tight but you had dug your nails into my shoulders. Bits of flesh were torn loose and I could see tears of blood reflecting in your eyes as they were taking you away.

Now, there was to be no jury. Only the pyre. That is the one and sole way to destroy any of our kind. This is the only way we can truly die. Burnt into ashes and even the ashes burnt so there would not be anything left to revive.

I could feel magick boiling inside the king. And his energy bubbling as some mystery potion. Yet he was a sophisticated man, also a great magus. Nevertheless, I knew that were we ever to confront in a duel of magick, mine could easily be compared to his. But you, my queen – I had realized something about you: you WERE the magick thus you possessed almost no control over it. You would never need spells, chants, or any sort of magickal items. You could move mountains by wishing and kill simply with a flicker of thought passing through your mind.

Alas! This was dreaming. There was to be no duel between anyone and me. Already they were evoking the gods of fire. Such a rare appearance and now happening on the account of my death. They would not hate me, those gods. They had their lives and in such manner, they were ignorant to all suffering. Energy was their food as it was mine and one like me was a pretty banquet to them. They would burn bright for me.

I was surprised the king had left me be untouched by his magick. Oh well, he had his court warlocks to do that. They were to conjure forth the fire gods, they had to assure I could not move myself until there was still something left of me. There was no special punishment for kidnapping their queen. All this would have been done to me shortly after my previous imprisonment. Only now, it was all happening much sooner and faster.

Where were you? Where had they sealed you so that I could hear anything from you, not even the signal of our mutual blood? What had they done to you? But the queen and mother was to go unharmed, this I was sure. It was the law.

The entire guild of mages and wizards was standing around me in a circle. They were old men and women, youngest of them appeared 50 of human age. And there was the king standing but he wasn’t doing anything, which was weird.

They all gave way to the master wizard, the greatest warlock there had ever been.

Instinctively I closed my eyes. At his request, the gods of fire were to rise from beneath me whereas other wizards were to hold me still and sealed. I could feel them moving, drawing breath at his appearance and I just had to peek to see what he looked like, he that comes to seal my death.

It was a she.

And she was a girl perhaps in the age of 25, if not younger. Dressed in snowy white robe with a heavy hood, a mass of black hair that looked as messed and crooked as those of a storm raven.

She looked at me intensely. Everybody was waiting for her but she was merely standing and looking at me. Our eyes linked.

She knew! She knew why I had come, how I had taken away her Queen, of us making love inside the Universe! She knew it all. And it became clear to me that she loved you as keenly as I did, perhaps even more for she actually knew you – knew you better than you ever knew yourself.

She roused her arms… The flames were about to sprout.

I shall not! Go in peace!

Having said this she turned around and left without as much as turning her head a bit to scan the bewilderment stricken crowd she had left behind.

Fire! King said this.

The guild was hesitating a little but obedient.

I shall not die, I promised myself as gods of fire began their dance around me. So fierce, so beautiful. The kind of music, the kind of dance you can enjoy only once and the price of eye witnessing it is death.

I was yet untouched and the heat was merely kissing my skin. I could not afford to think of you; least of all I wanted you to see what was happening. I was thinking of the pain that wasn’t yet but was sure to come so soon. Perhaps I could glorify it, make a poem of my death. But I knew that however intense it would go I would have to stay conscious, alive.

I did not want to die but I had no choice but to struggle until the very end and give in when the final end comes. In the end, everyone gives in.

Again, I listened to the silence. I wanted to see if you were all right. They had not harmed you, had they?

And then I sensed roaring. Waves of heat and cold and of purest energy making their way towards me. Gushes of wind caught the gods of fire and rattled them around the courtyard. Rain and snow fell from the heaven, sun was appearing, and disappearing, clouds were running like maniacs. Great hurricanes swirled around. I was standing as still as bound, waiting, amazed but never afraid. This was all so familiar, so beautiful, this new death.

Waves of energy surged around me in circles, ferociously throwing everyone aside. Guards had been blown and knocked unconscious. And the guild of mages were torn apart and chased by all this chaos.

Another fierce wave of raw energy. I could have feasted upon the plain fear that I smelt around me. Suddenly they all were very still, eyes locked towards sky. And then I heard them screaming with voices I had never heard coming from a mouth either immortal or mortal – and I am not sure I would ever like to hear it, again.

MOTHER!!!

They begged for their lives, they were so struck with horror that they were mumbling like a pack of lunatics without any reason whatsoever.

I was still standing in the very same spot I had been bound, all my chains broken, though, captured only by the very sight my eyes were witnessing.

Queen of Heavens, descending from the sky, cloaked by clouds of blizzard, lightened by arcs of heavenly fire and the great burning opal called Sun.

Winds broke loose again when your feet almost touched the ground. I looked at you but you would not see me. Your hair and dress so torn that you were close to naked. And mad you were, positively mad.

They ran, all those wizards and sorceresses. I bet even the unconscious and wounded ones ran for their lives, hiding in places as far as possible. But they knew no place was safe enough.

In moments, there were only you and I left in the courtyard. And the king.

He had not left, he had scarcely moved. And now he was glaring at you, challenging you. Though, he, too, must have been bewildered.

Alele, he spoke.

Next moment you had raised your hands and struck by an invisible huge something, he was fiercely thrown against the iron gate. Not quite unconscious, but baffled he looked to me. And yet he was a great king.

Alele! He was shouting and I could track a fiber of panic in his voice.

You were still standing, unmoved by his call, quite beside me. You turned your head a little towards him. And every loose thing around us and in the garden and castle was suddenly flying at him. Small things like seeds and pebbles and big things like chairs and loose bushes were all aimed at him and he could not move then how hard he tried. And he was struck and beaten, having had to look at you standing like a marble statue with nothing than pure hatred to him in your eyes.

Then I realized that if I will not stop you, he shall die very soon. Aye, in next couple of minutes or even less he’ll be dead and you will have had murdered your son and legitimate husband.

I moved towards you, quite unsure what exactly should I do or say.

Don’t. I reached my fingers to touch your hand. Don’t kill him.

From a corner of eye, you caught my apparition and aimed at me. I was carelessly tossed against the wall.

Mad. Quite positively mad.

Isabeau!…

Where had I taken this name? Why was I calling you thus?

You went limp. Tears of blood were dripping from your eyes. I was lifting you up, embracing you, soothing you.

Isabeau, Isabeau we have to go, we have to leave now!

You looked up at me, eyes bright and almost as blue as the heavens now.

Will you marry me, Molock?

I took your hand, rouse into air, lead you away from the castle, muffled your words with thousand and one kisses.

Yes I will yes I will yes I will, I whispered into your marble ears.

Quite positively mad, the both of us.

[Die]

4. The outlaws

Now we had both committed a deed punished by death. Everyone would be free to become our hunter for we were a most valuable prey. King would surely have it announced – what we had done and that we should be captured and delivered to him. And then everyone could decide whether to join the grand chase or us. Not even the king could force anyone to do his will. Everyone made their decisions by themselves. This was the law. And if someone would choose to help us, he or she, too, would go unpunished. This, too, was the law.

Back in those times, we had the law and we believed the law. For law was not made by juries, judges, and lawyers but by Mother Nature and everything part of Her. Heavens had their law; forests and lakes had their law; and the law of fire was not much different from the law of river and law of wizards from the law of stones. There was a rather simple logic in everything and it was to be respected. If someone defied the law, punishment was immediate and the injured party would justly avenge.

However, in late years there had been written another sort of law: one made by king and his magicians. Naturally is was based on the Law of Nature but it gave him the right no one had had ever before – to punish for crimes that had not been committed against him. He could basically punish anyone for anything and get away with it, unless the forces of nature were to intervene.

He was not a tyrant. He never was. He was just a man and he had perhaps a bit greater lust for power than the rest. But he had always made a jolly good king. People loved him. I respected him, though his law and his guards and soldiers constantly chased my brothers and me.

Aye, soldiers. That was another weird mood of the king – to have and command soldiers. What or who they were nobody knew. They were less robust and dumb than the guards but neither very bright. They looked plain but well armed. The kind that would go almost unnoticed and strike most efficiently. Soldiers to fulfill king’s law.

And those soldiers drew their magick from the king. It was believed they had no magick of their own and thus they were rather outlaws themselves, chasing the real outlaws, such as the few of my kind and me. For in those ancient times everyone had two kinds of magick, sources of power – that which they drew from the Nature, from the Mother, and that of their own. The second kind was more like experience, little tricks learned during years and the older one got the more personal magick he or she had. It was wisdom and conclusion, it was knowledge based upon books read and nature observed. Everyone varied in personal magick and it made each unique.

The magick drawn from and through Mother was the same one and unique for each and every. It was history, times they could not remember themselves but all the stories they kept telling, songs humming. It was the very source of power and magick. It made people what they were when they were born. It created races and draw a line between each, making each one of their kind and marvelously different. It was all that they were all they had ever been and all they would ever be. It was the most primal force that made each mighty and magickal. And the gate and as commonly believed, the source of this magick was the Mother.

And thus, there were laws about Mother, too. Laws everyone had made together: nature, people, and even magick itself. The Mother would always be respected and cherished; she would receive small offerings in her honor and in honor of what she symbolized. And, the second most important law about Mother said that whatever happens, She should never be harmed.

It was a big and happy world with people loving each other, loving life and being content; a world with their little silly follies and great ‘demon-hunts’; a jolly fair place to live.

It was a world I was very keen. I loved its beauty its simplicity. I had respect in law of nature – for I must say I had much less respect in king’s law. And though always a lone beast, I enjoyed roaming the world and observing different races and their everyday habits, pleasures and sorrows. The elven people – most gracious, very much in touch with nature, making their ways through shady forests where others seldom walked. Dwarves in their huge caves inside dark mountains, feasting upon berries and crystal clear torrent water. Dragons, the little cunning beings, a most marvelous sight when they took into flight in flocks. Giants, enormous in their size yet few in their number – not the sloppy type imagined nowadays but most elegant beings with their half transparent bodies, moving slowly upon fields and over mountains. Shape shifters – the ancestors of spirits – a race that had a substance of no firm shape dwelling anywhere and everywhere taking every form that they pleased. What a jolly crowd they made. And men, oh yes, the humans that I always so much fancied to observe. They were the most in number. Though latest creation they had spread so fast and eloquently that they now covered the lands. So beautiful, so gracious, so fragile in their mortality. It was said king had created them and indeed, he had had it planned, but as he, too, drew his energies from the one primal source we all used and came from it was not his making but Nature’s. And it was Nature that had given them this special opportunity, this special gift – not to be just of one kind and forever so, but to die in about 100 years or so and be born again as some other being. Shape shifting was nothing compared to this unique ability – when a shift was merely temporary and needed energy to keep it up then humans when reborn gained a form closest to the type of person they had been before dying. Those that worshipped the forest and were of elegant and peaceful nature became elves. Those that fancied going around happy and gay always making jokes at everybody were born as shape shifters. And so forth and so forth. All other races simply adored them and took keen care of them. And they loved everybody back.

This was the world that was now being turned upside down. Almost every law had already been defied and most harshly violated. There would be a punishment; there would be a just revenge.

Only that I did not care if it was to be just or not, if the cause and purpose of anybody and anything was fair or not. I wanted to be with you and I wanted to be safe and love you and marry you. Aye, marry you! This is what I wanted more than anything else.

Had there been only the law of nature we would have received a just punishment for intervening into heavens and disturbing the fire. But it was not solely nature’s law we were up against; it was king’s law.

I should never have been chased as a villain that I was not. You should never have been driven to the point where you had to start screaming because you could no longer bear your burden. Then I had never gone to you and never kidnapped you and all this would never have been.

But I love you.

And I was determined to marry you and there was very little that I regretted.

If I had died on that pyre, everyone would have merely known that one vile demon tried to steal their Mother. Now they were to know that we loved each other, that I had taken you and made love to you, that you had almost torn down the castle, beaten up the entire court, disgraced and wounded the guild of mages and almost killed your son and husband the King.

This world had never seen greater villains than us. And were the king to tell them all, a couple madder sadder happier.

We were still very high in the heavens. But I knew – and I think so did you – that eventually we would have to descend. We would run out of energy or the gods of heavens would come and strike at us. And even if they let you go untouched, they would surely fire all their justified rage at me.

No, we would have to go down and travel by foot; we’d have to find our hiding places; we’d have to mingle in the crowd. Who would hurt us? Who would dare? And could we not protect ourselves from anyone? But this was the tricky part – how could we tolerate to commit an assault against anyone? How could we use magick to do evil even if this evil was used to protect ourselves? We were against the law now – and anyone to seize us and capture us was going by the law; we would have to strike against those loyal to the law thus we would commit against the law. Could I do it? Could you do it? It was we against anyone and everyone. And we were yet innocent. So little that we had done and yet so much. If crimes were committed by us, we yet held no understanding of them. So innocent, so childlike, so naïve.

I was thinking of the elven people – would they see for our shelter? But I could not overcome the thought that we should remain in solo, the two of us. We should bring no especial decisions upon those we’d seek as our benefactors. It was terrible enough that we had been brought to such decisions. But to put anyone choose between us and King plus law? This was outrageous.

I tried to explain you all this that scurried and rambled through my mind but you were reluctant to listen. Why, we could do everything we chose to – this you were very sure. There would be nothing you would not do for me and for the love you felt for me. Oh how easy it all was for you. You were happy, you expressed. And all we should do was to seek a place and a way to be united in marriage. You had this marvelous little idea that if only we found appropriate place you could summon your best and only friend – the same girl who had declined to seal my death and told me to go in peace – and she would wed us with full authority.

I argued with you, I tried to explain you the whole picture. I assured you there was nothing I wanted more than to be your legitimate husband but we’d have to find a way quite different. We could not just drag people into something they had never chosen. Again, you said you’d do anything. You’d kill if you had to. Kill for me.

This drove me mad. For it was all true – all that I said and all that you said. And there was nothing we could do about it for we could not halt nor deny what we felt about each other. But how many would you kill? Would you destroy the world for this love? Would you destroy the world for me?

I would do it for you.

But not until I had to. Not until your life was on stake.

Who could hide us? Who would be least suspicious and suspected? Who could possibly give us shelter until we figured out what to do and where to do it? Who would love us and never fear us?

The final question led to answer – humans. How young they were, how unspoiled by superstition; so courageous and brave, intense in their feelings, so little in fear. They had never feared me, never called me a demon. And I had helped them for their kindness and their extraordinary beauty that lavished freely. We had something in common. They were as young as I was old and we understood each other on the level only the very young and very old can reach. And who could better protect us than humans with their firm bodies and souls so little capable to be touched by evil magick. Children of their creator would surely turn against him was he to commit any deed unjust.

And thus, it was human race that we went.

[Die]

5. Children of the Creator

It was an early evening that we descended in a human village. It was a little place located by a mountainside, with a turquoise blue river flowing through the village square, fields full of ripe corn, and trees of multicolored fruit. Not far from the village was another settlement of similar kind and uphill there was a lovely big town with its towers and mansions.

How I loved this place! I tried to explain you how I felt walking around without people yelling about demon and scurrying to seize and sometimes destroy me. But these lovely beings here knew no such superstition. They took me for what I seemed and revealed about myself. And that was a lonesome traveler that possessed wisdom and magick, and had kindness towards them and their doings. Also, they liked me for my ethereal beauty as much as I did them for their firm elegance. I had taught them my personal magick and I could clearly witness them taking kind advantage of it. They loved the stories I could tell them, the songs I sung and poems recited. And I could always make some simple pretty magick that the children so much loved that they never came to fear my wings and dark appearance so unlike to their own.

This was the first time I had come with a companion but I feared little for you – they had never frantically worshipped the Mother and were very far from being scared of her.

Already we encountered some peasants. They sent a little smile towards me and a glance full of surprise and love towards you. Already they fell for you as I had done. I would not have been surprised if they had forgotten me for you – for never had they seen a woman of such ethereal elegance and beauty. They knew you for a Queen immediately simply by the royalty of your simplest gestures.

There was no big gathering on our account. My regular visits had had an effect that I very much enjoyed – they had grown use to me. I was no longer a god come down from the heavens but an old friend, a sibling living far and paying visits from time to time. And this time the old friend and sibling had come with his bride.

This is what I told them when we were sitting inside a cabin of some kind people, half of the village gathered as they did each night, the other half soon joining the rest.

In simple words, I told them our story. I could not lie; I felt no need to hide from them the situation I was putting them. If I could not withheld a choice I at least made sure they knew what it was.

It had been an easy choice to make, we were told. Why, there was no such choice; of course, they would take care of us and we could stay with them as long as we pleased. They felt for us, they cried tears when they heard of our love. Why, they understood completely! This was marvelous. I loved these beings more and more.

Sitting by the fireplace, I could feel the cushy warmth in my entire body. I could see it reflect in your eyes and entire face. How nice the fire made by human hands – it took no terrible gods of fire but pieces of wood and some other magick only humans possessed. All their magick was as natural as this and thus the more enchanting. They had no wings to fly but I was sure it would only take a little time and they would use their lovely hands and excellent wits to build vehicles that would set to flight at their command. They could not actually travel great distances at their wish but they had their carriages and animals to move those and traveling thus, they witnessed so much more of the beauty of world. No prenatural speed could be compared to this. Their bodies were magick and they did magick with their hands and feet.

They looked at you with adoring eyes, the entering men would bow their heads a little in respect, and the women lift their skirts a bit and take a small bow, too.

It felt like we had come home.

And when the small children gathered around you, asking you for a story I saw a loving light in your eyes as your hands touched their hair and limbs and began to tell them something you called a faerie-tale.

Told them a story of how things had begun and times that world was not yet so much inhabited as it was now. As the story went on and took turns, women let their hands fall into their laps; men stroked their beards thoughtfully; they were all in eyes and ears listening to you.

It was a story only you could know and only you could tell. On and on it went like life itself. You told them their very history and even more – their future. Of how they would be the greatest race in world and how they should never envy others for things they don’t have for nothing is compared to the magick they have and the ability to learn everything from everyone. And what a beautiful place the world will be some day when there will be no need for any king or queen but everyone will live in peace and harmony – and it is not that all the races would submerge into one but that they would live side by side in brotherhood.

I wept hearing of it. And I was not the only one that did. I knew it all – indeed, I knew even of the very beginning you had told about – how, I know not – and yet it was fascinating to hear it. This was what you believed in, this was all that I believed in and my dear humans would surely believe in it, too. And it would surely be very much as you predicted.

In human bed, we went to sleep the fireplace still blazing nearby. And my body became less and less ethereal, turning into that of a young human male, and you, my love, had a body of a young girl. Nothing left of the ancient Mother, nothing, and nothing.

And the stars shone bright above us all.

[Die]

6. Treachery

How beautiful was all the time spent in that village. And seeing you dancing in the village square amongst human girls and boys, I realized what you had always looked like to me, why your beauty was so unique among your kind: you were so human. Aye, indeed, you were the very essence of humanity.

Indeed, you were their mother and they were your children.

You kept telling me how happy you were and mocked me when I rambled around grim and deep in thoughts. There was something about you I could not understand and yet loved: it seemed you were simply unable to think about tomorrows. You lived to the moment you had. There were moments when your joyfulness and something that seemed almost ignorance drove me crazy.

Finally, we managed to come up with a plan. We would send messengers to the uphill town and have some place prepared where we could get married. Meanwhile you would summon for your friend and my dear sister – for I swore this she would be, to come and join us to wedlock. It seemed safe to call for her – nobody could surely trace her thoughts and her loyalty was above any questions. There was nothing I would do for you and she would not. And in this sense, we were not only sister and brother but also twins of blood and soul.

Immediately I called for some older villagers, asked them if they were so kind, and went to the city to arrange this for us. Why, of course they would, if only we allowed them and the rest of the village folk take part of the ceremony. I loved those old men for their naivety – that we the outlaws could have a real wedding ceremony and festival to celebrate it.

In time, you would call for Diana.

I had shut out all my fear and doubt. And there was a chance that perhaps I had overestimated the size of king’s revenge. Perhaps they’d let us be. After all, nobody could force the Queen to be married to the king. And maybe they had considered and found us not so very guilty, after all. For all I had done was of love for you and all you had done was to save me of love for me. In time king would overcome his anger and sorrow. And after all, nobody was killed and doubtful if even seriously injured.

Indeed, if humans could understand us why could not those older and possibly wiser? They must have. Crimes were committed but the reasons were most obvious and would they not show mercy, would they in their wisdom and kindness not forgive us? They loved their Mother, would they not let me be though they called me a demon and wished to destroy me for the sake of her and her love for me? Wasn’t the king, though undoubtedly jealous and hurt, a noble man of great wisdom and kindness? And Diana, my fair sister, could surely talk some sense into guild’s wounded pride.

I clang to that as a madman clings to a piece of thread hanging from a cliff.

And just being near you wiped everything but pure joy and happiness off my mind.

Soon the villagers that had been sent to the uphill city hurried back with most excellent news – not only had the noble men and ladies of the city agreed to arrange us a place to get married, but it would take place the very next day.
You sent Diana a message but it was obviously pointless for she had undoubtedly read from our minds what we were planning to do and she would surely be there in appropriate time.

If we wanted we could go to the city tonight, spend a night there and in the morning get married on a city central square.

Most naturally, we wanted. I had scarcely been to a human city and you had never even laid your eyes upon such place. We were thrilled by the opportunity. Thus, we bade fast farewells and promised we would return briefly after the ceremony. Both women and men sent us their blessings and little children waved their chubby fleshy hands.

I suggested we would walk uphill but you insisted taking into flight. After having discovered the skill of flying you felt so enchanted by it that you used each opportunity to ascend into heavens. I agreed. Only this time we would fly low following the path.

Sun was still up, shining brightly with only a blush of red around the opal. Landscape was of brightest gold and emerald green like your eyes.

We stopped a million times to kiss and cuddle each other and the entire flight was one great embrace.

Ah, and the city, when we finally saw it ahead us. I immediately liked it for its marble walls and ash white towers, its iron gates and narrow streets we walked having entered the gates. And the multitude of people it consisted. Never had I seen so many humans before gathered to one place. It was a most splendid city and all the people looked so wise, noble, and elegant that we got dizzy at the sight. And none of them feared us but it rather seemed they were expecting us and awfully glad we had come.

By the time we reached the central square a huge crowd had gathered, surrounding us. I could see a multitude of faces, feel their heat, beating of their hearts, thousands of millions thoughts rushing through their minds. And all of them pretty, so pretty. Their garments were made of velvet and silk and fabrics which name I never knew. All the exquisite jewellery they wore. Why, they were like huge flowers, each gorgeous, each unique.

Closer and closer they pressed their eyes, somewhat hungry at the sight of us, a fiber of frantic worship in their minds. But this was nothing new to me and I simply considered you were the occasion of their behavior.

But they were coming so close, much closer than I finally could bear. I shouted at them not to smother us, I tried to take into air and held you tight in my arms were they to stumble on you. What the hell was matter with them? I had never seen humans nor any others behave in such manner.

I heard you scream and point at something up above my head on the rooftop. A soldier!

Another and another and another, closing their circle around us.

I looked at the humans and I realized they had known. That they had actually known the soldiers were here and this was why they had suggested we would come over and spend the night. Perhaps they had even summoned them here. By heavens, they had set us a trap, these lovely humans! And those in the village… no doubt they knew!

TREACHERY! TREACHERY, I was screaming and aiming at soldiers, at everybody that stood on my way but first of all, I had to take down the regiment of king’s army.

All of a sudden I saw them going up in flames and when I glanced at you I realized it was your doing.

And as you stared at me eyes full of terror, I realized it was my doing, too. We were burning them, burning them right into nothingness.

But I could still feel sweaty warm hands grabbing me and tearing you from your garments. They were mad; they were ugly for doing this to us. Oh traitors traitors! I aimed at one that was most aggressive and saw him going through the air till he hit marble wall of some house and crushed his head, brain flowing out of it as if from an overripe watermelon. Ah, so this could be done! I switched target and struck another one, hurling her high and falling down she broke her back. Now they were running for the soldiers were already dead and there was none to protect them and they had already witnessed some of their kind dying, killed by our powers that they so much envied.

Alas! I had just read from their minds why they had done such a thing, what they had been promised for this treachery. Magick, such as yours and mine. Oh gods, in their envy for our skills they had sold their souls! Fools, fools! You should never have wanted more than you have! And if they promised you could get more they were lying, cheating you! It is not theirs to give! And now you die for your treason! Alas! You die for your stupidity…

I was telling them this and killing them. I don’t know if you were telling them anything but you were killing them, too. And there was no safe place to run or a place to hide. Like two furies, we rouse to the air and thus aimed our bolts of vengeance at the few escaped ones. We would not stop until we could still hear breathing or a single mumbling human thought.

And when we finally stopped, we rouse high above the city and wished that a fire would rise from beneath and feast upon it as if it had been a plate of shrimps we had laid out for them.

We witnessed marble turning black and red when gods of fire came forth and began their dance, their grand supper. In less than half of hour, it was finished.

I told you I want to descend, I want to go there and see. You would not come, you said. You would go to the village and wait for me there. Alas, I let you have it your way. In very short time, I would meet you and we’d find some settlement very far from here with no beings where only the greatest mages could actually trace us.

I told myself that I wish to land on the central square of the city and thus I did. All the pretty marble was black and all the wood was ash. But the corpses… It became obvious that gods of fire had for some reason disliked them thus leaving them completely untouched. Men and women, children were lying in piles or then again, hurled into spots of most impossible kind, all dead, all dead.

I could hear not a single thought; there was nobody of them to accuse me for what I had done. Thus, I began to hark to a voice that was my very own.

I had murdered them. These dead bodies were here because I had killed them. We had played gods but we had been plain murderers!

I wanted away from this place. This silence was too much for my ears and the stench of cinder and already rotting flesh was making me want to vomit. I just wanted to go back to the village, gather you, and leave. I wanted to run away like a coward that I was, hide from judgment like a murderer that I was.

Flying, as fast as possible I was soon to reach the little settlement we had so merrily left just a few hours before.

This could not be. This that I was seeing before my eyes, feeling in my nostrils. All the huts, all the cabins were in fire, fields of corn and grapes were set into mighty pyres. And the stench was so nauseating I could barely keep myself in air. What was this smell? If not….

Flesh. Burnt flesh.

All my beautiful humans all turned into little pretty torches.

Gods, who had done such a thing…

And then I saw you.

I began screaming and I was still flying and taking you away and holding you close to me and screaming.

I could feel your tears on my cheek and running down my chest and private parts. And I embraced you and whispered to you soothingly:

Do not weep. We are murderers now.

But I was weeping, too. And neither of us could stop.

Now I knew there was no place for us to go in this world and if we ever wanted to live, we would have to find a place and time outside of this one. For this world would no longer accept us for what we had done.

It was the beginning of the end. It was the day innocence died.

[Die]

7. Wedlock

So strange, I thought I would be calm and cool but I am bitterly weeping already. And yet I have written no word. One could say enough time has passed. Obviously, it has not. Not for me. It was so easy when I could not remember. Now I am wise. I remember everything. I know everything. Now there are tears in my eyes.

If only I could skip some of the story. But I cannot and there will be many chapters speaking only of unimaginable pain and horror. How can one bear such torments and yet live? Is that why they call us immortals? …

On and on we flew like a pair of lunatics. Clouds of storm followed us everywhere like huge birds with claws of steel. They looked black and red, claws red of blood.

Murderers! Murderers!

Gods what had we done!

And why?

I clang to you and wept. You held tight to me and we both cried bitter tears. But what were tears worth now?

So seemingly innocent, so monstrous. Ah, a prefect couple – Queen of Death and her demon!

Could I that ceased loving you. But I had never loved you so much, my mother my murderous whore.

On and on, racing mindlessly for there was no place to go. Suddenly this world had grown too small for the two of us. I could not bear to look at it.

I could still smell blood and rot and ash; yet if I had had to, I would have killed the entire world for you. One had mattered, but only one and the first. Rest – I could kill them all, what difference would it make?

It was your sadness, your eyes that I could not bear to look into. I would have to be strong. But how? If you, my one and only strength were slipping through my fingers to some hellhole and I was panicking that I am unable to follow.

Oh my beauty my monster…

What had I done to you, what had I ever done to you! Cursed, so cursed. Doomed to love you, share your misery, and still love you, love you with such passion and fury that all my being seemed to explode…

No place for us, no chance for us. And if they came, we would have to kill them all. But we mustn’t. You must never kill anyone you don’t love. That should be the law.

No crime should ever be punished with love. That, too, should be the law.

I wished that I could be truly miserable but I was not. I was still happy. Love creates such ignorance, such monstrosity, such bliss.

There was no way out. I was screaming. I could not bear the helplessness. In the deepest forest we were, far even from the elven people when you whispered into my ear:

We can still fly.

I could not understand.

We can fly. Then let us fly higher than we ever had, higher than when you came to me, higher than we made love. Let us fly away from here. Let us fly right into eternity.

Right into eternity, you had said. Right into eternity. With you. I wept again. This is all we could do. This is what we must do.

But I don’t want to die, I was crying.

Oh Molock, listen to me… and in soothing tone you explained your plan. We would not die but actually fly into a place you called no-time no-space. We would have to fly very high and hold very tight to each other so that we would not lose one another on the way; we would have to wish from the bottom of our beings to really be there. And thus we would die for this world but we would live forever. Oh yes, forever.

But I could not stop crying (and I am flooded with tears telling this now) and I was terrified of eternity. Yet, if this was what you wanted, I would come with you. There is no place or time I would not go with you. Aye, I would even go to that hellish no-time no-space of yours that looked to me like an endless black pool of slime that would surely eat us up.

Asham ra, asham ra I was telling you over and over, embracing you, kissing you. I was so lost, so lost in you.

And I shall marry you, my Isabel.

And I shall marry you, Molock.

I wanted to kill you. I wanted to kill us both. For everything was simply too much to bear. We three know the feeling.

Oh, Diana - she was looking for us; she was seeking. But neither of us wanted to think about her or else we should have thought about another unjust and terrible crime committed by us – leaving her here. And thus, we cloaked our whereabouts even from her.

However, she could not be kept unaware for a long. And as only she could do, she appeared silently beside us, her feet going deep through emerald green moss. She looked as torn as we did.

I have sold my soul for thee, she told you, tears flashing in her eyes of green and brown. And I shall join you and him in wedlock. This is said. It shall be.

She took a brief pause before continuing. Don’t think of me - try at least. There is no time. I shall find my time and I shall find my means to join you. I have sworn. But now you must go and I shall set you free and seal your happiness. For happy you shall be. There are none that would deserve it better than you… and you. She sent a flicker of glance towards me and it struck me painfully.

Just go! And I SHALL follow I swear. I shall follow thee wherever thee go…

We nodded at each other and we would have gone…

But the heavens turned black and a wave of heat so terrible befell me that I fell down unconscious and nearly dead.

What had been done to me I never knew. I still don’t. All but that I can guess, it was part of King’s terrible magick.

[Die]

8. Crystal Coffin

I opened my eyes and I could not see anything but blackness. Drifting out of my body, I saw myself lying on the dead leaves, two fiery sockets deep inside my skull, eyes torn out.

I was blind. I was blind and buried in a pile of dead leaves. I touched things around me and they were dead. Magick of the leaves was gone. Moss felt plain and dry, all its emerald slain. I could not feel the sun. Was she dead, too?

I knew the King had taken you and I had to follow wherever they were hiding you. But what was all this death about?

I stumbled my way out of the forest. It was cold, it was hostile, and all the faeries were dead. Magick of forest had ceased. I had no eyes but I could still see with my mind – though it was merely bits and pieces; I could still touch and feel.

Dust and ashes in the air. And cold, so cold.

On and on I walked. I dared not to fly. It seemed unimaginable to ascend into that pitch-black place. Nay, I would have to follow the dead. They would lead me to you, finally. You and Diana. For you were together, that I was sure.

I walked over meadows and the grass was dead. I felt flowers under my feet and they grew upside down, their tiny little faces buried deep into earth.

I fell into lake and all its little faeries were gone. It was just dead water, still and freezing. I could not swim in it nor walk upon it.

I picked up a frozen bird. It lay on my palm like a lump of ice. Poor creature! I bent over it and tears of blood fell from the fiery sockets that had been my eyes.

Closer and closer I came. There were piles of dead bodies, dead things. And I was merely one huge eye very far from my body, somewhere up in the sky looking down at the land and weeping dry tears. Tears that burnt deep into flesh.

Air became even more still, wind more freezing and tantalizing, I was walking on granite and glass. What was this place? All I knew was that I had followed you here.

So quiet now. Not a whisper, not a single breathe though I sensed people around somewhere. And the worse, not a sign from you.

I called out, a terrible cry that echo brought back to me mockingly.

Silence.

Ice broke where I stood. What was this place made of glass and granite and ice and crystals?

Come closer you wench! I heard the King’s voice. It was chilling. Come closer and look what you have brought upon you! He hurled my eyes towards me; blew them right back into their sockets. I saw him standing upon a cliff, his entire body seemingly made of ice. It was blue it was terrible.

Come here, demon! It is I, the King that beckons you! Be not afraid I shall not kill you. I swear you shall be spared. Moreover, I make an oath here and now that you shall be forever spared. I grant you immortality, Molock! He laughed bitterly, with a fiber of mocking.

My heart was already frozen. Where is she, I spoke to him.

She is waiting for you, that lovely bride of yours. She, my queen, your queen, is waiting for you. Dressed up for the ceremony. Go and claim her! You have my blessing… AND I SHALL WED YOU!

With these words, he dealt me a blow so that I fell down from the cliff into abyss that seemed endless. With a crash of my frozen limbs, I landed on my back on something very solid and still. Before I could turn I felt it with my body and fingertips that so carelessly embraced the edges of the crystal coffin.

I did not know what a coffin was. Nobody knew what it was. It was human race that invented coffins. My lovely monstrous humans with their terrible magick made boxes to put the dead deep into earth inside them. This was a part of their future that I knew. You see - this was the very first coffin they had ever made. And it was crystal.

I could not feel my body but I knew I had to turn my head. I had to look what was inside the thing I lay upon. I blinked my eyes and turned myself around so that I was now lying on my stomach. I was broken and I turned my head, loose hair falling and embracing smooth surface of crystal.

And I saw what was inside…

And I saw what was inside…

And I saw what was inside…

White bridal gown, black emeralds white bridal gown black emeralds. Green emeralds for eyes shining at me. Lying so still. Hair combed. This was death.

But you were alive. Inside that house of death inside that numb body was life and that life belonged to me. Every cell, every tiny fiber was mine and mine only!

Why would we not smash this silly crystal?

And I smashed it with my head until a torrent of blood flew from my temples and between my eyes. Red fountains running over crystal. I almost saw them running over you.

Don’t weep my love I shall wash that blood off your face.

It is I, Molock.

Isabel, Isabel.

Asham ra…

I tried to lift the lid with my magick but my magick was dead. And as I glanced upwards and saw the old white man peering down at me I realized there was no magick in him, either.

All the magick was here, underneath me inside this crystal.

All that had ever inspired magick.

My sister, sitting somewhere near to us, cold and mad, remembering nothing of nothing.

And all the cliffs were now full of peering faces. Human faces.

I looked at them and I wept, I cried terribly at the sight of those monsters. I held tight to the crystal as if it could protect me from them.

Your eyes, they looked so big. Big and grey. I was swirling.

Water poured down at me. Dams were opened and it came tumbling and flushing down at me.

Old man, the King, was looking at me almost sympathetically. He suffered as I did. It was humans that suffered none.

Ocean, I whispered. Ocean. Human magick.

I did it old King spoke at me. My children and me. Your bride my wife and Mother of All shall lay there for evermore. And there will be no magick to break those seals. Buried underneath an ocean she shall sleep. Sealed inside a coffin my children crafted. And she shall be forgotten and you shall be forgotten. We all shall be lore not more and my children shall rule this world and banish us as criminals to times and places so far that it is almost impossible to return. And all shall bear the craving to return but none ever shall.

All this shall take thousands and thousands of years. And you shall be the one that shall see all. You shall travel all worlds with no home in any but your seal is with this world and here you shall spend your eternity.

I know you will not cheat on me, Molock. For we both know she is alive down there. She is alive and wants you to wait for her. So you shall live forever. You would never let her down, would you?

He laughed bitterly, that old man, that old horrible king standing upon a high cliff, with only torn blue clouds behind him.

You have killed my children. And you shall kill them again if I let you. I must stop you. So hark to what I say: a thousand years you shall spend in darkness, imprisoned inside a mountain cave so tiny that you cannot move but only count the moments and when the clock strikes thousand you are free to go and kill as many you can or remember…! You will be free-ee-ee!

Time stood very still for us.

Wake up and let’s get the hell out of here…

Come, fly with me!

I am Molock. I am Molock. I am…

Darkness.

[Die]

9. Madness

Perhaps this dark cave, my capturer for a thousand years saved my life. The king wanted me alive and he was a man of great age and wisdom. If I had not been imprisoned, I would have found a way to end my life sooner or later. It was said to be impossible but I surely would have tried innumerous times. I would have stood under ocean for so long that I would have lacked energy to return the surface. Just laid on the crystal lid, peering into your eyes, remaining thus for thousands of years, too weak and dead to move.

I might have tried to destroy the world or the King and though I had been robbed of magick, I still had powers they knew nothing about, most terrible powers.

Now darkness had taken me into her. I was to be Her child. The cave was not my cell; rather I was its cell, a molecular of its firm body.

I had died that morning when I woke into blindness.

I had no will to fight, not after what I had seen.

Death.

And I was here to share my sister’s destiny, her madness. She roamed the world upon my head, I traveled only deep into my own mind.

There was nothing and nothing.

Past was all that I had and past was dead. I could not venture out of my body to travel the worlds. My body was a cell of my soul and my cave held tight to both.

Perhaps the Universe had ceased. Perhaps there were only two coffins now, two deaths – one made of crystal and the other of granite.

But I knew the world did go on. And I knew the mankind spread with speed and ferocity of a mad eagle, casting out all that stood on their path.

It was not madness. I actually felt I would walk out of this cave when the time strikes, calm, cool, and full of vengeance. Molock would once again inhabit this world, he would be the demon he is and always has been, and he would be the scoundrel of the children of man.

And he would build a castle made of the very same granite upon the ocean that would be no more and become a guardian of the Eternal Sleeper.

It is difficult to speak of those times inside that rock. Nothing happened but inside my mind. And I am afraid of my mind, afraid to reveal its secrets to any, even to you.

What must I speak of? How my brothers seek me and called for me and I told them I was dead and they should forget me? Of how Diana came looking for me and I sent her away in terrible rage? How I avoided any thought that could have led to you lying inside that crystal monster.

It is all so irrelevant. Why must I speak of this?

What matters is that I truly became the child of Darkness, he that stalks the shadows and brings death. He that is silent and ferocious in his madness.

Evil was my comfort. Evil was my sole treasure.

I believe that if anyone seeks deep enough in him/herself, evil is what he/she shall find. We all withhold two great desires: one to create and the other to destroy.

I was to become the Creator of Destruction.

I had been emptied, a chalice of goodness poured out of me and buried underneath the ocean.

Diving into my mind, into my very being I could have found the essence of good. But with my bitterness, I reckoned only evil. And it was the very essence, I realize now.

It might have gone the other way. I might have turned out the opposite. But the irreversible fact is that it did not. And it was not as if I had gone out after 1000 years and momentarily become the Molock humans know as The One To Whome Newborn Children Are Sacrificed. I already was, still numb, and captured inside my mind.

Just that I did not know that, yet. I believed myself to be innocent. In that sense, I indeed was.

For hundreds and hundreds of years I lay sleeping. I kept seeing one and the same dream. I could rebel and cry but it would not go away.

Upon a cliff is a throne. And upon that throne, a noble woman is sitting. I cannot see her face but her white hands are embracing a human child. I bow upon the child and it looks at me with its baby blue eyes. I raise my sword – one I do not have, an ancient one, made of blue iron and white magick – and aim at its heart. The woman lifts up the baby to feed it and I pierce them both, my sword going right through two hearts.

Then I see her face. Emerald green inside ghostly pale. And I realize the baby with its pretty blue eyes is my child and I can still feel his tiny heart on the tongue of my sword.

I begin to scream but I cannot wake up and I keep dreaming.

I see myself reaching out my hand and touching my dead son’s eyes. I pluck them out, those dead eyes and smear my face with the cold liquid on my fingertips.

That is when I wake up only to fall asleep again and begin seeing the same dream, again.

[Die]

10. Now that Moloch, the Horrid King hath risen.

And the clock was ticking. I could actually see the hands of time moving with terrible speed, the whole universe sucked into a great whirlpool.

I was still inside the rock but I knew the time was close and soon I would rise and once again walk on the surface of Earth.

I thought I would go out and build the castle upon the coffin.

I also knew the world had changed in itself and for me.

I could not go like this. Old Molock would not suit this new world, this brand new era. I would have to be all new and better.

Thus, I made a decision I have so much regretted later – to create a double, a doppelganger of myself. He that would bear all I do not want to bear; he that would consist of the things I want to get rid of, he that would be my brother and my slave.

I was to walk out of this cave a pure demon; he was to remain here forever in a shape of me in a form of an angel.

I needed blood. My blood. And thus, I made an effort to rise upwards through granite. If I was a demon, I could surely do it. It was a test.

I closed my eyes, but it did not matter, I could still see different shades of blackness. I reached out my hands and spread my wings – wings that I still had. I loved them, those black wings. And I began to rise – the solid rock gave away and I was in a cone-shaped cave. I could almost see the light. It was so near and so far. I spurted upwards like some kind of demonic bird; I did not care the cave turned narrower and narrower. Flesh was rubbed from my bones; feathers fell spiraling on the solid floor, into darkness deep beneath me. Fountains of blood sprout from my veins and arteries. I was flying and I was dying and I could not care less. I could go just up and up, unstoppable and ignorant to everything.

I could see the light I could smell the sun. It was burning, it was hurting and blinding, but I would not care.

The clock had struck thousand and I might have been dead but I was free again.

Seeing the light I had almost forgotten the task I had borne in mind only moments ago. And now, as I reached out and crawled to reach the exit a hand grabbed me and pulled me downwards. I rebelled and fought to free myself from the solid cold grip. I would not look down, no I would not look down into the face of the one that was holding me and pulling me. Silent, oh so silent.

It was I screaming and cursing, but he was silent.

Witness, children of man, I was crying out. This battle is for your sake! This battle between a demon and an angel! Witness the blood of the demon shed for thee! Witness the blood of the angel shed for thee!

Thus, I dealt him a blow and he fell downwards.

MICHAEL!!!

My brother, my brother, oh Michael my brother my poor twin my poor innocent Michael.

White face, eyes closed, body numb scarred and bleeding, white wings spread, flowing and flowing downwards right into the pit of death and blackness. Lips so mute, no voice in him, no never no never.

I reached my hand out for him but he would not see me though his eyes were wide opened now. A pair of crystal clear blue eyes. I could not bear to look at him. My flesh my blood my feathers my brother!

Forgive me, Michael.

I reached out for the closest rock and tossed it at him. More and more rocks and stones I hurled towards him and I did not stop before I had filled the pit and buried him deep under a solid pile of granite and volcanic glass.

Forgive me, Michael.

I know you never will.

Sun was brightly shining, it had just risen, and merely a few clouds were scattered on the surface of heaven. I could see fields glistening embraced by golden beams, little birds, and locusts filling the air and land with unstoppable stirring sounds. Cottages, villages everywhere, rooftops of great towns.

So alien.

So alien.

What was this world I had risen? This was a world of men. Where was my world?

And yet I know it had to be the very same world. I harkened my ears for familiar sounds, my eyes to some sight I would know and reckon, my senses to the flow of magick.

Silence. This beautiful land was dead under its surface. And all these people scattered upon the fleshy solid ground were dead inside. I peered into their minds and I was stuck in the flesh – it was all about flesh and nothing of the spirit. And yet they had gods – gods for a single man and gods for a tribe, gods for the nation and gods for all of them together. Gods full of superstitious magick and evil pettiness.

Men were gods, gods were men, and it was all evil.

How terribly suiting for me! With my demon senses, I could read them as parchments spread out in front of my eyes.

I scurried through their minds telling them who I was and they did not know me. They knew demons, spirits, gods, faeries, elves, dwarves, and another hundred types of creatures but they did not know me and they would not know the Mother. Why, they would not know anything about the times of Beginning. They knew there were beings different from them but they did not know anything about them. By heavens, they did not know how they came to existence themselves! And what they knew about the ‘abnormal’, the ‘inhuman’, the ‘unnatural’ they had so utterly twisted that is was nothing even close to the truth.

Most of old races they had banished to distant areas of Earth, a good deal was dead and quite a few were worshipped as gods and goddesses under various names supported by innumerous priests and fanatics.

Would I be an outcast or would I be a god?

Would I be a god?

No, I would be Molock.

And they would know me and they will know me.

I will be your god and your demon; I will be your faith and fear; I will be your present past and future; I will be your Alfa and Omega.

Now that Molock, a horrid king hath risen a New Era shall be.

Thus, I swore, standing under sun on mountaintop, tears unstoppably flowing from my eyes.

[Die]

11. The New Era

I wonder how many are there those that fully realize what a thousand years is?
Was a mortal to sleep for a thousand years and then wake, come to his senses, what would he meet that he would know? All his loved ones would be long gone; he would never trace his family or roots. He would walk the land in search of the place he was born and hardly ever find it – for even if he was born on the peaks of highest mountains a millennium is enough to move mountains and turn them into seas. We all think we are quite solid – what we need is a thousand years to prove us just how much featherlike we are, how deeply we give in to changes. He would find, perhaps, some tracks of his nation, and those would leave him to the desert of ashes and bones – or, then again, into a city of thousands of thousands of people that would walk and talk the way he has never seen nor heard before. Were there books or pieces of art he held precious those would have been scattered into nothingness or given way to sweet forgetfulness and deception.

His own mind would be the very desert full of things no longer reckoned, no longer needed; in his heart he would bear feelings that have no place in this new world. He would look at the world so alien and be the alien. Soon, madness would come.

Unless he had a purpose – a destination so solid and clear that nothing would matter but fulfilling this one mission, reaching that one final landmark of sanity.

Unless he had something to live for, someone to wait for…

Unless he would not care of anything at all.

Unless he be strong and ferocious enough to change the world by his likings.

And yet, I say, he would be maddeningly alone and alien. We are so used to reckon ourselves in comparison with the great mirror we call Universe. And yet there is so little we understand of it. We cling to one or two worlds and that is the best we can do. We know one hundred, perhaps two or three hundred people and call that our world, our people. And yet we have two or three of those that we can seriously call friends.

What are we?

A molecular of the Universe changes and we collapse for we are no longer able to reckon ourselves.

Our link with the grand system is so fragile.

I knew the things I bore in mind and had sworn. Nevertheless, this new era I walked into swept me off my feet and I lay deep in the ashes, dirt, and dust, listening to a deafening roar – the very heartbeat of the world – and I cried out in intolerable pain. I found no link with this place and time, the emptiness echoed in me, rallying, exploding. I smelt and felt the strangeness surrounding me.

I took into the air and flew towards the one and only place I would know. I traveled for days and weeks, perhaps and I could not find it. I peered into my soul and I knew the place as it had been but it was no more. I flew with terrible speed or then again, floated in the air, upon the clouds, carried only by winds that trashed me from one spot to another, frolicking up and down like a bubble. And all was alien. I tried to compare this world with the one I bore in mind, spreading my memories like a map upon the lands but it did not fit. The world had so violently grown, changed its shape and texture. Nature had taken its own and so had humans.

I began to hate it. And most of all I came to hate and despise the human race.

Like diseased ants the raced upon the earth, building, tearing down, digging deep into the womb of Nature, ravaging the meadows, and burning down the forests. There was no place they had not built their huge huts and their temples. They had taken forests of the elves; dark caves of the dwarves, mountains of the giants, meadows and woods of the faeries and turned it into something violent, something illegal, and nasty.

And all that ever belonged to shape-shifters, all the places inhabited by the First and Second Ones were first deserted and then slowly taken into use by men.
I cried out for my brothers.

Silence.

I cried out for the First Ones.

Silence.

I cried out for each and everyone.

Nothing. They were there but they would not answer for they would not hear. I came to a realization that my voice was too old and strong for them to hear, my language too ancient to understand. They would not believe in my call, they would not believe in me.

I heard the stirring of thoughts of the truly old ones – those quite of my age and perhaps even older. I tried to speak to them but they blocked me out. They told me they were sleeping and I should not disturb.

I cried for gods, beseeching them to listen, to talk to me.

And I heard their thoughts filled with strong scent of incense and blood, fire and wood and of a multitude of human scents and voices. They would not talk to me; they were gods now, true gods of mankind. They were good and I was evil. I was not to disturb them or cross their paths again or they would send after me and kill me.

But you are not gods! I cried.

Oh madness madness! Had I truly lost my sanity or had I hold on to mine and everyone else lost theirs?

Finally and lastly…

I seek for your eyes. I would not care if they were still and cold, they would still be your eyes. I wanted nothing but to glance over you, touch the surface of crystal, and then go.

SILENCE!

I began to scream and I could not, would not stop. I did not care who would hear me or what would happen in conclusion. I wanted to shut out the silence which echoes ripped my soul apart.

WHERE IS MY WORLD! WHAT HAVE YOU DONE! OH GODS WHAT HAVE YOU DONE!

I fell down on my knees and wept. This, too, I could not stop.

I HATE YOU. I HATE YOU ALL. DAMN YOU. DAMN YOU FOR ALL YOU HAVE DONE.
I bared my teeth, clenching them, jerking forth like a wild beast. Then I drew back and said with a voice so little my own, with a very voice of this New Era:

Aye. I curse you all and there will not be a soul I would show mercy. There will not be a soul I would not bring to the altar or my hatred. They will all be my victims of revenge.

There will be not a day in the world that at least one mortal would not weep bitterly for the loss of his or her loved ones.

You will never know true love, you will never now peace of mind, you will bear the burden of knowledge that you are but mortal and dust in the wind.

Your only joy will be your children, those you give life to, those that are the proof of your immortality and those I shall take away from you.

Aye, I swear I shall take them and slay them and drink their blood in very front of your eyes and you shall see that your immortality is nothing to me!

And you shall know me and NOT know me; you shall hate me and cherish my immortality and I will be yours forever and ever through all spaces and ages.

You shall come to me and ask for a rhyme and a reason and I shall kill you and tell you THERE IS NO RHYME OR REASON.

It is said. So be it done!

Saying thus, I walked away from that place, my eyes dry and my emotions sealed inside the crystal coffin in the bottom of my being. This was a new Molock as this was a new era.

A weeping, lost being had fallen into the ashes, a demonic bird, a horrid phoenix king had risen cursed to live like a salamander – burning yet never dying.

[Die]

12. Baptism

I woke up hungry and I knew I would have to feed. I was weak and covered with dried blood. My body was scarred and my wings were a mess.

A vibrating scent caught my senses. I locked my mind in it.

Humans.

A most marvelous scent.

You see, almost every human bears a scent of his own, a scent by which he is identified. Those of humans that are wise and sensitive track others by their smell and build their likes and dislikes upon it.

Ethereal beings don’t have a scent. We are poorer in that. However, it does not mean as if we could not feel those. Actually, we are very keen on everything that smells – even if it were foul to human senses – and much more sensitive than children of man were.

During my existence, I have known a few mortals that lack a scent. Those are always special – for they are the human reincarnations of some very old beings, possibly the First or Second Ones.

There are also those that bear their scent like a strong perfume, an aura of a sort. If they leave a room, it will consist them for hours and days. Mortals of that sort are either very happy or extremely miserable – and mostly both. People of opposite sex – and of same sex – always fall for them – and yet they end up alone – for they are too powerful and vivid for most. Unless there is a miraculous occasion that two people of this sort meet and fall for one another.

Our world is a world of senses. We describe and understand world by what we see, hear, smell, and touch. Our feelings are based on the signals gained through the combination of those four.

And that morning I woke at the scent of a woman. A lustrous furry red scent. I could almost see her – not too young, rather close to middle age, tanned and not very bright. A common peasant woman, most likely. I also sensed she had been suffering and a mixture of pain and sheer joy.

I locked my mind to her and listened to her heart, the great drum of life. I loved that sound – a strong organ of Universe itself, pumping gorgeous red fluid through every fiber of her. Energy, so much energy in her. Simple life, simple energy, so lively, so lovable.

I loved that woman. I would go to her; I would just walk up to her. And that bond would go stronger and heavier.

She lay inside a hut upon a meadow by a cornfield. Brisk of light shone through roof made of stray. She lay on a simple common bed, with a mattress underneath her and a woolen blanket covering her feet.

Her upper body was uncovered and her breasts were naked. She was holding tight to a baby boy she had given birth about a quarter of hour ago. I smelt her different fluids: blood sweat and milk.

I stood and stared at her. She would not see me; she was busy nursing her baby.

I moved closer to her, drawn by her simplicity, her beauty, the lovely energy.

I fell on my knees beside the bed, stretching my hands out for her. I did not think of hurting her, she was a way too precious to me. I simply wanted to touch her, feel her. After a thousand years in night, I craved for a warm human touch full of bubbling lively energy.

She caught a sight of me and let out a horrible screech. I fell back my hands limp.

She kicked at the blanket; she kicked towards me but would not dare to touch me. She raised the baby up in the air and again caused that terrible howling noise.

I wanted to talk to her, tell her she should not be afraid but as soon as I uttered a few words, she drew back even more ferociously and hissed at me:

Be gone, demon!

I realized my voice had shattered every item in the room that could be cast into pieces.

Demon!

She was still beautiful.

I shot a wave at her, thrusting her on the ground where she lay whimpering and moaning. The baby had fallen somewhere beside her. I touched his forehead with my fingertips and felt a blue line of energy surging into my body.

I looked at the woman, as she lay helpless. Then I reached out my hand and it went through baby’s skin, never ever piercing it; as it came back, I was holding a throbbing pulsating heart squeezed inside my fist.

I held the heart now in both hands and merely looked at it. Dead boy’s mother was screaming now. However, I paid no attention. Slowly, as in a trance, I locked my mind around a kitchen knife lying in the corner and slashed her throat. She died with an astonished look in her eyes. Blood gushed from her; blood that was yet alive, that was energy, food.

I held the baby in my arms and bent over the woman reverently:

I love you darling, I was telling her. You are mine now. Utterly mine. Moreover, you are I. And I gave a little laugh. You are my mother now. My mother and my lover! I kissed her moist lips covered with sticky drying blood; I kissed the wound in her neck and her breasts, her nipples dripping milk.

Her scent, her energy, a sensation it sent through me was enormous, gorgeous.

I placed the child between her breasts. Such a lovely picture – a dead mother with her dead child.

I stood up to leave. I went to the exit; almost collapsing under the weight of energy and sensation, then turned back, went back to the child, and thrust my fingers into his eyes. I pulled them out and glanced intently at the vibrant color. I smelt the odor of the eyes. It was beautiful.

New emotions, new sensations filled me when I rouse to the skies. The kind of joy I could not remember ever having felt before. My mind was so clear, so cool. Why, it seemed that nothing could bother or stress me now.

This energy was magick. This energy was a true source of power. I looked at the world from heavens and I laughed of sheer joy and bliss.

And, after having rest for a while, I took forth for some more – the bliss of kill, the joy of energy and the sensation of the new reborn Molock.

[Die]

13. What is evil?

I spent days and weeks thus. Time had lost its meaning for me. I had all of it. You cannot actually count eternity. There is no system of time inside a forever. Thus, how much I spent it made no difference. A whole lot of it would have been nice.

Humans I killed did not bother me. I had stopped and judged my deeds evil and this evil did not bother me, either.

World had been beautiful once, and I had loved it and harmed it not. Now it was despicable and I filled it with my wrath and despise. Only that I could not do it in hatred for all – I had to love. I had been born to love all that I saw and touched. It was the only way for me. And thus, I loved my victims, there was no greater wrath to human race than mine and yet I loved each and every one of them. I took great pleasure in the act of kill. I cherished their minds as they gave in to my power. I loved rather those of simplicity than complexity. And the energy I drew from them was like nothing else in the Universe.

Ah, the energy! At first, I could not control the amounts I took into me and I got so ‘high’ that I lost all my sense into it. I found that pleasing, too, of course. But as it became to disturb me and set me off my track, I learned to diminish the amount of energy – basically, to kill more and take less. I could kill a person and merely watch him now, without getting into contact. That, too, was pleasurable – to see and adore yet to hold back an almost uncontrollable desire to become one with the departing one, the wounded animal, the white mare. I swore I would get to know myself wholly. I had the will to survive and I knew I would have to remain superb. I had to try and learn the nature of each unique ability that I possessed. It was very important for me to understand how and why things worked out the way they did.

And most of all I was anxious to understand the nature of evil.

What is evil?

Evil is pictured by so many as something wicked, despicable, and most ugly, something completely immoral and filthy. Evil should be a disgrace without any beauty; evil people are described as something unnatural and on stage and screen, they are mostly played by the ugly.

True, evil can be of this sort – but I am still convinced it is very rare. I have never believed in unattractive evil. And as far as I am concerned, evil is more beautiful than good. Each kindness needs to be evil to be pretty.

Evil is clever – it knows how to survive; it has a better understanding of world and itself than good. Good has to learn yet to be equal to evil. As all have, the tendency towards good, evil must be wise to have survived through millenniums.

Evil is by no means unnatural. Since the times mankind titled evil unnatural and yet kept on being evil and acting evil, they totally screwed up the big picture. Evil comes from nature and is of nature. The point of it as the point of good is maintaining balance. It is natural to want to protect your friends; it is as natural to wish to destroy your enemies.

When it comes to evil being immoral then one must ask himself what is moral. If moral is the law and basis of society then immoral is something that would stand aside it. Immoral would be personal. If moral is a code of a single human being then immoral could as well be a different code of some other being. Evil has a moral of its own and just perhaps it is more natural than the moral of good.

As to evil being revolting, ugly, lacking any kind of beauty then this belief is nothing but a pile of shit. And quite more worthless. Many times, I have seen evil as something which beauty can hardly be compared with anything else. It consists all the same signs as good and much more. It raises excitement, thrill.

All this goes for balanced evil – evil that comes forth from the great gambling of Universe with balance.

I had always known that kind of evil – and it did not differ much from either balance or good. But this was a new era and the evil I was to experience was of new sort.

There was no balance in me.

My evil was an act of will. Whether it was from and of my nature, I knew not. Yet I had decided I would be 100% evil. I would deny my nature and become completely unnatural if I had to.

Instead of hating, I loved my victims and soon ended up with strong revolt towards my very own being. I had combined love and evil, the conclusion was something maddening. Instead of being happy with my evil, I was miserable.

Perhaps there are those that suit not for evil. Perhaps I was one of those. But I refused to trust in that. I had sworn and I was going to keep my promise. I had my tactics. Taking every occasion to be evil, I trusted in experience to become my teacher in all I needed to learn.

I would get used to all that did or could have revolted me. I killed most often to get used to the idea that I kill. I plucked out babies’ eyes in a style I had done it the first time. I told myself repeatedly that there is absolutely no reason why I should hate what I am doing – if I cannot hate it why should I if I can still love?

And be this love wicked, who would judge me? Who would dare? I am my court; there is no other judgment but mine.

Basically, I told myself that I am right and cannot be wrong(ed).

Also, I began to seek the edge of evil – how far could one go? Is there a law; is there a limit, a line I could not cross?

I would put balance past my mind. I knew what I had sworn to do and wanted to do – I only had to find means to fulfill my wishes.

A new category of evil – True Evil. Pure, ridden of both good and balance, everything that could disturb its true nature.

Evil that would be almost selfless.

Aye, I would become pupil and teacher of the subject.

This would put an end to my misery and suffering. Forever.

Yet, there was one thing I still dreaded – solitude. I craved for teachers and pupils, beings I could trust and show loyalty that would know the things I know and understand me in my confusion.

I could not possibly say I wished for friends – rather comrades. And yes, teachers.

It is too late to regret anything. And there is very little I do regret. But it is thee that I warn – be careful with wishes. They have this most unlikely tendency to come true.

[Die]

14. The Calling of Alfa and Omega

And thus, I began a journey to seek the truth and knowledge of evil. It was not the first time I had traveled this world – I had done it once before when searching any remnants of the old world, I had also seen bits and parts of it during my killings when I ascended from the clouds and walked upon the misfortunate.

Nature had been tamed; forests and meadows had given way to cultivated land, fields of crops everywhere. And villages, cities, only human beings everywhere, and well, of course animals. But they, too, had been tamed. And the magick was gone. It was as dead as it had been the day I died. The day everything I ever loved or knew died. And this spectacle was hurting my eyes. It was like watching murderers dancing upon the body of the one they have murdered. It was like watching them violating and raping you.

What did I care of the fact that they did not know anything about all this? Their ancestors had done it thus they had done it and they would pay for this. Would I care that they did not know you? I would know you and I would tell each and everyone before their death that they have a mother, the Mother of love and magick and life. Would I care that they do not know me? There was already gossip about me, myths of a great god or a demon that ravishes the earth and kills the innocent, kills the babies and the women, tears out their hearts, tears out their eyes and eats the blood. This was I! This was Molock!

What did I care that there were a great number of other deities? They were petty, they were unintelligent, and I could not care less if they were or not. If they let me be, I would return the favor. Should they cross my path I would slay them, cast them right into nothingness. They were nothing to me. Humans might have built their religions upon those ‘gods’. But I was no human; I was no god, either. I did not care who they were or why they had chosen to play god to this godless race. Perhaps there were benefits gained through their little games, it was no matter of mine. I considered them traitors, as a matter of fact. There were no gods – or else, the entire Nature was full of gods. Either no one or nothing was god or – all was god. Monism or animatism – it is impossible to divide the two. And whoever played god now had surely betrayed their real nature. Yet, if they turned not against me, I would let them be – for it was not them I was here to destroy.

Where were the others, those that did not give some grand act of divine being? Where were the elves, the dwarves, the giants, the shape-shifters? Where was king’s race, where was your race? Where was my race, where were my brothers? Had they all been slain by some mood of the King? Or had they slowly deceased under the ruling hand of men? Had they, perhaps, found some distant places, and fallen asleep, waiting for better times? Were they now, perhaps, unable to wake up, to regain them, and return? Or had they inhabited some world of their own, so far from this one that no signal got through? Had they taken you, too? Where were you, my lady? Where were you, my queen…? My love…

My love…

And I cried.

And I wanted to kill. I wanted one human to die for each tear I cried. Oh, then I could weep! I would dry my eyes in their blood; I would sink my eyes into their blood and weep tears of human blood.

Not enough. Not enough that I kill them. It is not merely I that has to be evil – it is they. I would have to make them evil – evil and helpless. Aye, and cherish my name and kill for me and in my name and kill those they most cherish and cry out for help and call MY NAME!

MOLOCK!

And they would come to me, oh they would come to me and ask me, indeed ask me for a rhyme and reason. They would try to make me into a religion, capture me into a philosophical formula. They would try to understand. Hah!

And I would teach them a philosophy of my own, the one I have made for them, for my dear precious humans. I would tell them, aye, I would scream that there IS NO REASON. NO RHYME. NO CAUSE. NO PURPOSE. Their only law is my will and that they cannot defile. There is no meaning to any of this because their lives are meaningless. They are born, they give birth they suffer they die and then they are no more. And they will be forgotten as they are mortal and I am immortal and they would crave for this but I’m saying NO MAN CAN EVER BE WHAT I AM – NO MAN CAN EVER BE IMMORTAL! And there are no gods and there is no redemption. All happiness is frequent and passing; all suffering bears no good cause. It comes from nothing and is good for nothing. Everything is as meaningless as it seems. Misery is the only law – and I am the court and the judge and there is NO JUSTICE.

And cursed be he that attempts to confront my law and prove me wrong – for I shall confront him and prove his mortality.

There is no justice. I am justice.
There is no rhyme. I am the rhyme.
There is no god. I am Alfa and Omega.

And I called out – I called out for my race and my kind – I called out for the worthy. I announced myself and MY rhyme and MY reason and law. And I said that those worthy in evil and determination are welcome by my side and together we would rule the earth, aye, we would cast human race into dust and recreate them, put them through all the circle of suffering again and teach them it is FOR NOTHING.

I knew I would be heard. For I knew that there was none comparable to me. I was the oldest and I was alive and awake. I was the rooster of the New Era. And my song was audible for all – mortal and immortal and, oh well, all the rest.

In my mind’s eye I floated high, wrapped inside cosmos, and I saw them rise – Eight Riders of Doom, each mounting a winged stallion. They rose from inside the Mother Earth, scattering dust and stones. A picture so noble, so grand, which my eyes had never been laid upon. It was as if I saw my very own wish and will materializing in front of me.

Suddenly I knew there was a winged horse waiting for me – and he was crying for me in a tongue almost humanlike. I would ride that horse, ride him down to the middle of my Riders, and become one of them, they would become one with me, and then it would not be just one Molock loving you but nine.

[Die]

15. Riders of the Doom

My mind is very distracted and I am sadly confused and confusingly sad having to write about one of the most dreadful and beautiful periods of my existence. How will I describe it? Where will I find the words? But I must, mustn’t I? This is the truth and truth is a terrible power, is it not?

It has already taken days and just perhaps it shall take weeks before I get it written. I cannot be too sure. Time has exceeded its limits lately.

There is yet one thing I am sure about – that I have understood evil as much as I have ever understood myself. For I have been and always am evil. It was not with swearing great vengeance upon mankind or summoning the Riders that I became evil. I was born thus. Evil takes great passion and prefect clarity of mind and I have always possessed both. I had been what I had been; only that now I began to practice the very acts of evil. I began to see the chances I had not seen before. I believe that much of our fate is determined with our birth and perhaps even before. And, so to say, a drug addict is one even with never seen nor touched the drugs; yet fully he becomes one when he achieves the means to buy them and learns to take vigorous pleasure in them. Fate is resealed and exceeded by will and knowledge.

Human history and especially its religions and mythology bear enough witness about my Riders and me – there is fairly little to add. I could always refer to some sources – for example, we were worshipped under several names by the Accad and Semitic tribes; in Old Testament we were named quite often, you can clearly witness my name being recorded several times, most or all of us are taken for the gods of Caananites; in the New Testament we play an intriguing and fabulous part in Saint Johns nightmares he gallantly calls Revelations; in pro-medieval and medieval texts you could find different lists with the names of Sephiroths; we appear in some form in almost every religion and mythology. And our dear Christians worshipped and feared us so greatly that they made us firstly the fallen angels, the very sons of their God and later Princes and Generals of Hell.

I care little to nothing of this; I have stated these facts only to show how we willingly left our foot and hoof-prints into human memory.

It is true that I started and ran what became the most famous and cruel organization ever created. Only that humans in their terror overrate the length this little community of nine demon-like beings existed. From the very beginning, we could not stay together for long or we would go mad and try to kill each other.

Who or what the other eight were I know not. They were of my age and possessed skills and wisdom quite alike to mine. Nobody wanted to boast about their past so we made a rule that revealing anything but present is prohibited. It surely made things a lot easier. They did not exactly bear the names humans gave them though from time to time they fancied several. We did not hold any meetings nor formed congregations. Mind readers don’t really need to gather up and chat. And they don’t like it, either.

I have read, heard, and often witnessed that in later centuries, they formed a highly military organization and their leader bore the name of Devil. They also cherished my name and memory – that must be why I am in their latest lists though I know very well I had not been amongst them for a fairly long time – at the same time having sworn great judgment upon me. They considered I had betrayed them with my leaving. None must ever leave them alive. Well, what could I do – after all, I was immortal.

But I rush ahead the events. I must proceed where I left of lastly, that being summoning the Riders to me.

I trod my way down and in the very center they left free for me came to a halt. I gazed around, feeling a newborn sensation that after so much time I am amongst beings of my kind, those that truly understand my will and my plans I wished to master.

They opened their minds to me for moments so that I could have time to identify them and myself, it rather resembled a welcome. They glanced upon me full of something I had never much had and long seek for – understanding, apprehension, and silent support. There was little I could have told them. I did not have to introduce my philosophy; I did not want to talk of my past though I probably would have had they questioned me. They had seen and heard me many times; they had born witness to my justified ravings.

They had made my decision and they were here.

But from their minds I found another sensation – I found my world or something that resembled the world I had left behind more than a thousand years ago. I saw flickers of it – the clouds, the surface of cool ice-cold water, and the peaks of mountains, ground of Earth, some castles and other settlings. This land had inhabitants! Many of my questions suddenly regained answers.

This was the land I wanted to go to and this is what I told to the Riders – that I would want to go this land of old marvel and magick. I was enchanted by the idea; I was blinded and muted by flashes of memories. Wouldn’t I find all I had ever lost in that land, the world reborn and recreated, the Realm inside this realm?

And I realized what it was that I wanted to achieve before setting my eyes and judgment upon mortal world again – I wanted to build a castle upon the place they had buried you. I wanted to stand guard over the remains of my old self. And none would know but my Riders and they would never tell – to assure this I believe I made the first law our small party had – the law of Silence. Knowledge must be gained but not a syllable of it must fall into foreign ears.

I told them they would take me there and they did.