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November 2018

Cur Chapter 13 ‘Dyed in the wool’

Yeah so I spent way too long proofreading this and procrastinating to have anything interesting to say above hello and goodbye.

No seriously, really happy with Cur, could be better, I think it needs another going through before an edit. Gonna rope in Chrissy again for that when it’s good and ready. The story is reaching the apex, it’s about to get really good. I was considering putting this next bit earlier on but my good buddy that got me into the witcher which I know hate (the witcher not my polish pal) convinced me to put it later on for more of a reveal.
I didn’t really want an ‘epic reveal’ because I wanted the story to sort of stand on it’s own. I’m still not 100% I’ll need to come back to and decide, I’ll have some other people read it and give me a general feel. I just need to set aside some time to really do a deep dive on it and get some feedback from everyday plebs haha.

But I like what’s there, I think it’s solid, it’s got a good foundation. I loved writing it, I loved getting into celtic folklore, it was really like a journey for me. I loved every minute of it, I literally have like 80+ pages of notes I took from all over the place, no not just from wikipedia.

So yeah, Diana aside this one caught me off guard and is probably the most ambition and most exhilarating project I’ve done and I can’t wait to keep it going. I’m predicting like five books but we’ll see, there may be more because there are massive gaps in the actual folk lore. It doesn’t really have an ending so that’s going to be the big thing for me. Finding a place to end is hard because the folklore is written like real history and history has no end.

But that’s about it, didn’t get a lot of Diana editing done because of irl shit and I’m staring down the barrel of a lot of day job drudgery leading up to christmas, so that should be fun. Unironically of course.

So yeah now I want to make sweet french toast that I saw on a facebook ad, bye now!

See you…

–

They fled Slaghtaverty before daybreak, taking a steep path out of the valley. Cur walked silent and solemn in front of the cart with Tuan at his heels in the form of a dog once again. Birog trailed behind on the cart her side lighter without the sword but her heart heavy. She looked back at Slaghtaverty and over the other side she saw smoke coming from Newgrange.

 

–

 

The streets of Slaghtaverty were bare and made a hollow ringing sound as the horses hooves struck the cobbles.

 

“Where is everyone?”

 

It was midday now and the streets were barren and silent as the grave. The only sound heard was the occasional shutter slamming as presumably a dweller locked their house up tighter than before.

 

“Some kind of peasant holiday perhaps” Bres joked atop his elegant horse. His men laughing nervously as their eyes darted here and there.

 

“I smell magic in the air” Dian said led along as their prisoner on the back of Ogma’s horse.

 

Ogma himself had a bandage over his ear that Dian Cecht saw fit to administer with a sly grin at the corner of his mouth.

 

Their procession continued through the empty streets slowly. Cautiously looking at every window and door frame until they came upon a stream that flowed adjacent the outer wall.

 

At that stream was an old washer woman on her knees furiously scrubbing something in the water.

 

Their processions stopped with a clattering of hooves and chainmail hauberks. Bres motioned to one of his men to approach the hag by the stream.

 

He did so with an air of caution which seemed puzzling even to him. Everyone felt it, a sense of distinct and terrible foreboding, they could smell it.

 

The old woman began to hum over the sound of her thrashing the clothes in the water.

 

Bres and his men approached her but she didn’t seem to notice, continuing to wash her clothes in the stream unburdened by their presence.

 

The soldier approached close enough almost to touch her rags and then he saw the water, red and thick with blood. “Hag, who’s clothes do you wash?”

 

Her humming sank low and then stopped. “I wash the clothes of those fallen in battle.” She muttered flatly.

 

“What battle? Who’s clothes?” The soldier craned his neck to try and see the clothes and stood stunned and frozen at the sight of the crest emblazoned on them. For it was their own.

 

“I wash your clothes sir knight” She said. “The one you seek, the broken king, he waits for you in the glade- blood and bone and death he wears as his mantle.”

 

The hag turned, her face hideous, ravaged by age and twisted by evil. She let out an ear piercing shriek which made all clutch their ears in pain.

 

Ogma acting quickly covered his remaining ear and with his free hand clubbed the hag from his saddle. With a sickly thudding crunching sound felled her in one blow.

 

The soldier fell back gripped by fear “It’s an evil spirit, a tide of ill omen sire! We must abandon this quest!” He screamed. “We shouldn’t have burned the newgrange! We’re damned!”

 

“Silence, superstitious nonsense, some mad old woman means nothing of our luck, now away with you!” Bres realigned himself in his saddle and spoke softly “We’ll find somewhere to recoup, a bit of rest will do us all good.” His words felt practised and empty, his eyes fearing to rest on any of his men.

 

Despite the initial summation, the town was not empty but sealed and covetous. Bres and his men stole away to an inn of which they made up the majority patron.

 

The inn was dark and cold and squalid and smelled of ash and dried blood. The barkeep a skinny potmarked man with a round gut greeted them sheepishly. His hands shaking and his skin ashen.

 

“We seek food and drink for me and my men” Bres stated.

 

“Oh” He said shakily. “And how will sire be paying may I ask?”

 

“You speak to the king of Inish veil, that is payment enough.” Bres bellowed.

 

“You’re pulling my leg, Bres, the king of inish veil would never set foot in-.” The man took aside the events of the past evening and gazed at their crest and at the visage of Bres the beautiful himself. “R-right away my lord, forgive me my king, I should’ve known by the crest, by your face, your noble voice alone! It’s just we’ve had somewhat of an upset here-“ The barkeep as if forgetting something paused and darted into the back to prepare viddels for the troop.

 

He returned shortly with a caske of ale, some bread and cheese and dried meats of which the men took of without hesitation.

 

Bres approached the cleanest looking bench and prepared to sit when a strange man slipped into his path.

 

“Good day sire” The man said calmly.

 

“Good day” Bres said with a puzzled indifference.

 

The stranger was slight and had a flowery way about him with brightly coloured clothes, wearing a goose feather cap.

 

“It is I Coirpre, I was on my way to Dun Bresse but as you yourself reside here, noble King Bres. I see no point in making the journey, I ask only the price of an ale and a good meal”

–

Read the rest on inkitt Dyed in the wool

0

Mirror kisses

I’m alone again,

Only your pictures remain,

A video too.

Picturing your sky,

The one that you dream under,

Sound of the crickets.

How can you miss me?

One day you might forget me,

I might want you to

0

Loverman Chapter 4 ‘Let love in’

Bonjour,

Sort of rushing because I’m totally consumed working on Diana, reaching completion. I almost completely forgot about blogging and proofreading other stuff. All my attention is on that right now and it really has to be.

All other stuff is taking a backseat right now until that is done and dusted and as near as perfect as possible until it can fly off to some cold hearted person to shit on.

Ok so that’s all you’re getting and haha, sorry about that but this really is important, this could be it and it needs all my energy and time and love and effort.

See you…

–

I felt the room grow darker and the air heavier as if the room were sinking into an inky black abyss.

 

Jorge leapt from his corner and gripped the writhing tattered figure with his huge brawny arms as Ericcson howled and cried “They were always there waiting! They’ll come for you as they came for me!”

 

Jorge seemed to struggle to keep the much smaller man in place and as I watched in horror I saw odd depressions on his dark skin as if he fought against some invisible colossus and then came an ungodly cracking noise and his arms twisted and snapped back as if he were an insect in the hands of some veracious child.

 

Then I saw Avery, his face drawn in silent horror, his eyes locked on the scene of the large Indian fighting with this invisible force, fumbling blindly in the drawer of his desk.

 

Another hideous cracking noise, sending spurts of blood and vile smelling marrow across the room, hot and viscous as it was, Jorge’s deep booming cries growing louder and then muffled and high pitch and shrill like an animals. I tore my hands from my face glued as they were by sheer fright and I saw his head squeezed as if through shrink wrap, compressed and then pop like a watermelon dropped from ten stories. The rest of his limbs spasmsing with some electric impulse, torn asunder by the invisible tendrils.

 

Avery, his aphable bearded face was white as a sheet and his hand was ever whiter as it gripped the handle of a pistol he aimed in the general direction of Ericcson firing wildly and hitting only the walls of his tiny office and me in my gut, the burning pain seering my flesh like a hot iron.

 

Then his hand was gripped by some unseen impulse and it was snapped as if it was a twig, the bone protruding out of the skin, his heart beating fast pumping out tiny spurts of dark red blood over his desk as he coughed and hiccuped the gun dropping into my lap glazed in a warm sheen of his vital fluids.

 

I fumbled the thing frantically with one arm, the other to stem the bleeding from my wound. The gun was hot and wet and I’d never even seen one outside of a film before let alone handled or fired such a thing. I gripped it in both hands and tried to make it hold still but for it’s incessant shaking in my boney fingers. I squeezed it aiming at the mass of opalescent tendrils stretching out from Ericcson and he vomited the vile things into this world.

 

Avery eyes bulged out of his skull as the invisible arms squeezed him, the veins in his face growing long and distended and then bursting, the blood of which seeping into his clothes.

 

I squeezed the trigger as hard as I could but it felt hot and slippery in my hands and it wouldn’t stay still, I had to fight the thing to stay straight and will the trigger to fire and the hammer to fall and when it did there was only a distinct pinching sensation around my neck and then blackness.

 

Only a feeling of falling, an emptiness, a deep black nothingness, tumbling forever and then a light, a horrible light and a screaming which could only have been my own but seemed to be that of a babies first, a new birth, a new horrible world born before me as I opened my eyes.

–

Read the rest on inkitt.

Let love in

0

3 Ring Samurai part 2 Chapter 5 ‘The lost highway’

Ok well at least you couldn’t say my week was boring, went from being on top of the world to being under it, straight up into space and right now I’m falling fast, but that I’m used to haha.
Needless to say everything blew up in my face as it usually does because I fell in love with someone who can never leave well enough alone just like myself. And when they push I push back twice as hard as is my nature, not to be out done when it comes to being a stubborn prick.
It goes without saying that my life is a fucking joke and no one should try and emulate it haha. At the very least I’m less lonely than Lovecraft but that’s not saying much and loneliness would probably help me more than harm me. Relationships only seem to be a hindrance and a time sink when it comes to my work, filler, if you will.
Well I’m cutting that shit right out, that is until someone else comes along to fuck it all up again haha. Can’t wait -_-.
Speaking of my work for a nice segue, finally I have the final piece of Diana and I have diverted all efforts to putting the lady back together again. So I’m putting Loverman writing on hold for the time being and focusing totally on editing and proofreading and the eventual debut of Diana to agents here and in the US. I’m still gonna put out regular chapters of completed work like 3 ring and Cur but Diana must take precedent because that is the real deal. Not all my eggs are in here basket but enough of them to make me nervous so here’s hoping to the first big step on the this journey I’ve undertaken so many years ago now.
(Insert one hour of looking for pictures of clowns) Sigh.
Ok better stop talking about it and get on with it, all those rejection letters aren’t gonna write themselves.
See you…
–
Achoo! Pookie rubbed his red nose and looked around the saloon sleepily amazed how similar it looked to the one in the town he just escaped from.
“Ya know, they say when you sneeze it means people are talking about ya” Canard said as he sat opposite him in a booth whittling a piece of wood.
“What are you whittling?” Efron asked.
Canard smirked “You’ll just have to wait and se-“
He was suddenly cut off by the weird dog thing Garfield biting the end of the bit of wood and fighting to take it.
“Hey ya dumb whatever ya are! Let go” He said as he tugged at the bit of wood the dog was gnawing on “Ahh you’re drooling on it!”
Efron hid her snickering behind her hand.
“What are you laughing at?” He said.
“You’re funny” She said.
“Yeah I’m hilarious, would you buzz off kid, go play or something” He said shooing her away.
Efron giggled childlishly and disappeared from sight.
He turned around in his seat furrowing his brow and cocking out his lower lip. “That’s better, I think you and me need to talk some more”
Pookie sniffled not looking at him “About what?” he said petulently.
“About what we do next?”
“’We’ there is no ‘we’, I don’t owe you nothing.” Pookie said in a disinterested way.
“I saved your life back there” Canard had an easy meaningless smile.
“I don’t remember that” Pookie raised an eyebrow and waved his hand away.
“Yeah back in the cave- nevermind, it’s not important, what’s important is we need to find someone who can look at that weird mark on the kid and tell us what it means?” He said emphatically, his movements overcooked exaggerations like he’d put too much thought into them.
“Why do we need to that?” Pookie asked with his eyes closed.
“To propel the plot dummy”
Pookie blinked.
“I know a mutual friend of ours who might know something.” He spoke a little softer and seemed to lean forward.
“What’s in it for you if we take her to see this guy?” Pookie reclined in his seat with his arms folded and his eyes half open.
He looked around before leaning in more “I owe her”
“I don’t get it.” Pookie sighed.
“The guy owes me a favour, if we can find him maybe he can hook the kid up and we can part ways.” Canard almost whispering now.
Pookie sneezed again.
“Or we could just kill eachother” Canard said letting a little ice slide into his voice as he leaned all the way back in his seat.
Pookie’s eyes narrows and his fingers crawled closer to his sword that was resting under the table between his legs.
Canard eyed him and gripped his whittling knife firmly.
“Hey!”
They both turned to see Efron pointing her gun at them “You promised you wouldn’t kill eachother!” A look on her face like someone was turning the car around not going to get icecream.
They looked at eachother “No we didn’t” They both said in unison.
“Yeah you did, when we were in that cave and I saved you from the zombies and there was like a cave in. And we thought it was all over but then the leader was all alive and like ‘I’m gonna get you rawr’ and I shot him and saved you both”. She said in a matter fact chipper way rising at the end as if expecting applause.
“Literally none of that happened” Pookie said as he rubbed his nose.
Canard just shook his head.
“So you’re just gonna kill eachother, that’s pretty boring” She huffed stomping her feet.
“You got a better idea?” Pookie asked cocking his head to one side.
“I just might” Efron said. She quickly cracked open the revolver and proceeded to empty the shells into her dress which she held out at the bottom to catch them. When she was done she snapped the heavy chamber back into place. “There’s one bullet in this gun, you each take turns pulling the trigger at your own head until one of you blows your brains out.” She said throwing the gun on the table like it was a chew toy. “But if neither of you are dead after four turns you have to both be my bodyguards for life, deal?”
“Ey esse’ I challenge you to a duel hombre!”
“Who me?” Efron said starry eyed “What’s a duel?”
“No not you!” The stranger said “This gringo with the funny face!” The man said as he pointed at Pookie who looked like he was going to sneeze again.
They turned to look at the stranger, a rotund Mexican of average height wearing a sombrero and a flannel shirt with imitation snake skin boots. A big ridiculous moustache on his face, his smile sporting what looked like gold teeth.
He waited for them to say something but they just continued to stare at the odd character waiting for him to burtst into song.
“Ahem, allow me to introduce myself. I am Juan Sandwich phillysub Ramirez of the infamous Ramirez brothers, known as the masters of swallowing. Surely you’ve undoubtedly heard of us” He said smirking and putting on a posher accent trying to sound like zorro or something.
Efron, Pookie and Canard all looked at him and shook their heads.
“Nomatter, after I kill the wasteland famous Pookie the clown, killer of a thousand men. My name will live on forever.”
“Look guy, we kinda just got done with a wacky misadventure so can you just buzz off and come back later?” Pookie sighed.
“-Long ago when we were very young we dreamed of being in the circus, fame and fortune, travel and the women-”
“He’s already doing an anime backstory monologue” Canard said dryly. “Is this what I sounded like?”
“Ah crap” Pookie said. “Come on buddy can you give us the cliff notes?”
“Huh?” Juan froze his lips pursed, sweat beading on his forehead, totally dumbstruck by the heckling.
“Summarize” Canard said.
Juan cleared his throat and began to speak plainly, all the theatrics drained from him. “Me and my brothers were rejected by the Ringmaster because he said our act wasn’t original enough. But, if I kill you he’ll have to let us in and then we’ll be super famous and get all the chicks.”
“Thanks.”
“De nada.”
Pookie looked around the table and back at Juan and sighed. “Ok, lets get this over with I guess.”
“That’s what she said” Juan remarked.
Canard looked at him shaking his head “You’re a terrible character.”
–
Read the rest of the chapter on inkitt The lost highway
0

Miracle

You’re my miracle

So send me your love again

You make the sun shine.

Your smile shines a light

With divine intervention

I’ll feel that warmth soon.

I’m a castaway

Its like somebody sent ya

To bring me to shore.

0

Loverman Chapter 3 ‘Man of constant sorrow’

The name of this chapter is only a coincidence haha.

Hell of a week, had the worst shift of life at work to date, I almost got down on my knees and prayed to Trump to get me through it haha. And then more unpleasantness followed that was to a point where I wondered if my life was actually a practical joke. The events being so farcical I doubted I was awake. None of which I can really go into, needless to say if I could afford a therapist he would hear about the whole humiliating affair at length.

And I would be way more bummed out about the whole disaster if something great hadn’t happened directly after, well I should say something terrifying and then wonderful. Well I’m not counting all my chickens yet but I’m also not thinking about sticking my head in an oven to make God laugh. So that’s something.

I got a message that the one of the most important people to me was sick and my heart hit the basement until I was told she was ok and I saw her sunshiny face again. So relieved and happy and then something weirder happened, I got swept back up into something I was sure was dead and gone with something as easy as a smile. It only took a smile to shine a light on feelings I was sure were gone. We’re taking it slow for now, for the first time in our history together but I know it’ll be worth it.

That’s all because I’ve been reading bugger all this week but what I did read of the shadow on my way to work I really loved mainly because of the way the story is told. It’s all third person from the perspective of someone who is witnessing the shadow and it makes it delightfully creepy. The shadow is almost some kind of monster and it’s really good, like the main character is the right hand of the devil almost. I really like it, it’s old but still manages to be engaging and creepy and interesting.

Anyway gotta get down to doing some editing or proofreading, it’s not gonna do itself after all haha.

See you…

 

 

–

I turned in horror and revulsion, could it speak, was it listening to us?

It seemed to shudder for a moment and then a noise like air escaping a tire, a dull low hissing as air came to it’s dry cracked lips and then a voice from far away, like someone talking at the end of a far flung hallway.

“Had to” The voice was strained and it seemed to amount to a strange buzzing as if there were bees caught in his throat, his voice giving off a strange vibration. “Coates”

“What about Coates?”

“He wouldn’t stop”

“Wouldn’t stop?”

“Asking about my dreams”

“So what did you do to him?”

“Stopped him”

“Would you mind telling Henry about the night you lost your wife, would that be alright?”

I swallowed waiting for his response, all at once his eyes focused and he looked at me with a pained searching glance that I couldn’t describe.

“Yes”

“Well go ahead.”

“I was- trying- trying to find something.” He swallowed, his voice brimming with that strange buzzing noise scratching at his throat. “My work, it became stale, the spark- died and I was having to dig deeper to find inspiration. Using a form of meditation and salt solution I could induce trance like states to better commune with the great darkness.”

“The great darkness” I asked dreamily.

“A place inside, a dreamstate, source for my inspiration.”

All at once I remembered the paintings in the day room, the strange vistas and odd creatures and remembering in the past his work seemed quite benign. Not post-modern but classical almost, capturing a singular beauty from nature but the market has no great demand for paintings such as those these days and I could recall his style had become quite abstract and strange almost terrifying, beastly in their suggestion. Some far flung horribleness that could only be glimpsed in dreams.

“I knew what I was doing might be- dangerous, but I had little choice, I feared that everything I had built would come crumbling down if I turned back. That if I did not press forward I might have to resort to painting children’s faces on the boardwalk to put food on the table. I feared my wife might leave me if I couldn’t keep her in the life she’d grown accustomed to, so I had no choice – for what we do for love is risk damnation itself.” He let out a pained airless cough. “and I did love her, a fearful terrible quaking love that every fibre of my being feared to lose.-

It started like nothing at all at first, my dreams only having the vaguest hints of the nightmares I later saw. I had thought my dreams were just a result of an elaborate imagination, growing up I had fanciful notions as most children do, of knights and castles and great dragons. But this was so alien it hardly fit into any mainstream folklore at all.

It seemed like every day I spent meditating I could feel myself getting closer to something awesome. And in my dreams I felt even less inhibition and control. As if something were drawing me further down a long a stairway, odd shapes twisting in the distance.

Something I remembered most distinctly were fish. Not unlike our worlds fish but these glowed with a cosmic opulence and danced around my head as if in water, drawing me closer down into the dark waterless ocean.

I felt myself growing lighter and more lurid with each step I took the path behind me a sturdy rushing wall of water.

Each morning I woke feeling unrested, like I’d been walking all night just like my dream, my mind had no retreat and I could feel a strange pull even in my waking hours. I meditated and felt myself slipping away and pulling myself back from the brink with whatever morsel of inspiration I could pluck from the torrent of black madness down there in it’s depths.

I felt as if I was an invisible watcher a voyeur, dis-embodied floating above the strange eon old city under the waves. Nothing could see me or touch me, I had the invulnerability of the watcher and I could glance at the strange structures before me with their haunting shapes and maw-like open doorways, windowless and dark.

I would wake and sketch them as best as I could remember but as time went on I felt myself feeling more and tired and withdrawn like I’d never slept those nights at all and I was just lying there awake.

It got worse as I’d paint, I could swear it, those fish, they’d followed me. I saw them while I was awake, only fleeting glances of them in the corners of my eyes, just enough to tell myself I didn’t see them at all but to give a gnawing feeling of coming darkness. That crushing blackness closing in on me.

I had no idea what I was doing, I was just an aimless wanderer in a world I didn’t understand, glimpsing behind the curtain of night not knowing whether something was looking back at me from the darkness.”

“And was there? Something watching?” I asked almost shaking, without even thinking of my words as I stared into the strange man’s milky eyes.

–

Man of constant sorrow

0

Cur Chapter 12 ‘The burning of the temple’

–
 
The smell of smoke, darkness, crawling, blackness, air.
 
Dian Cecht coughed and spluttered as he dragged himself crawling and blackened out of his escape tunnel. Gasping at the fresh air.
 
“Well it’s good to see you again, old friend” A mocking voice said above his head.
 
He turned over, scrambling in the ashes, stunned to hear the familiar voice, his face black with soot and his eyes wide and frightened. He waited on his knees in the dark for the shapes to emerge from the smoke laden sky.
 
“Y-you!” Dian Cecht mumbled grasping at a clump of black earth beneath him.
 
“Me” Bres smiled atop his horse, his men behind him, looking down at the great healer.
 
Dian Cecht lowered his head, his hands splayed out in front of him. “You’re too late, she’s already gone from here, a day’s ride ahead of you, you’ll never find her.”
 
“Of course I will, you’re going to help me” Bres laughed and crossed his hands over his saddle.
 
Dian Cecht put his hands on his thighs and looked at the dirt knowing that he was right. “I may be a coward, hiding in that place but you! You are cursed by all the gods for desecrating that holy site!”
 
“Desecrating? Me? The king of Inish Veil?” He laughed looking around at his men. “Surely you are mistaken, it was a mere accident. So many candles in Newgrange, this was bound to happen sooner or later. A little mouse must have knocked one over and set fire to some old dry parchment and woof! The whole temple up in flames” His men who chuckled, all but one. Ogma gritted his teeth holding his hand to his ear wishing that both his ears were cut off and his eyes gouged and his tongue pulled.
 
“You should kill me now” Dian Cecht said almost begging, his hands tightening above his knees.
 
“Why would I do that, we’re in need of a good healer, we have a wounded man after all, Ogma show him your ear” He said turning in his saddle. Waving Ogma to approach.
 
Ogma tried to smooth out his face. Remove any of the disdain he was feeling as he removed his hand from his head showing Dian Cecht the place where his ear ought to have been.
 
“I can’t grow back an ear, not without my lab that you just burnt to the ground” His tone suddenly changed from wounded animal to righteously indignant.
 
“Tsk tsk, these accusations are very dangerous, we all agree it was just a mouse, don’t we” He said to his men who nodded and laughed.
 
“That temple was-“
 
“That temple was here long before us. Some robed fools with long beards decide it has mystical significance, it means nothing to me – or the mice as it seems” He laughed.
 
“So what is to be? Will you come with us or return to your burning temple?” Bres asked, already knowing the answer but enjoying it all the same.
 
Dian Cecht face gave up an elasticity it once had and he slumped visibly. “I will”.
 
“Good, take him” Bres instructed one of his men turning his horse to ride on along the path.
 
“You didn’t have to do that” Ogma said through gritted teeth holding his ear once more, looking past the king.
 
“No maybe not but you’re yet to understand the stakes of this game, allow me your trust in this matter.” Bres said softly.
 
“You could have talked to him.” Ogma said through gritted teeth.
 
“I just did talk to him” Bres smiled “What’s one dusty old tomb?” Bres breathed in heavily looking out at the lush pastures, the sweetness of the dew mixing with the bitter scents of smoke and ash.
 
“It sits in the shade of the stone of destiny itself” He cursed.
 
“And yet the stone is untouched as it rests on the hill of Tarah, do you wish to make a pilgrimage to it brother?” Bres turned his head, his voice full of scourn and accusation and derision. His eyes scanning Ogma up and down as if it was the first time they’d met.
 
Ogma could say nothing, his tongue seized in his mouth. His anger simmering below the surface of his stony grey flesh.
 
“We don’t have time to sit around flapping our gums, the fate of Inish Veil is at stake.” Bres straightened in his saddle, pulling at the reins of his horse, looking over the horizon.
 
“How is that?” Ogma shrank from him, his face twisting.
 
“Your job is to follow my orders, not to question them, now ride on!” Bres said sternly.
 
Ogma grimaced, swallowing his pride. “Yes sire.”
 
–
 
“It was the Fomori.” Abhartach said, his eyes fixed and glassy as if he were manically reciting a nursery rhyme.
 
“That fairytale again” Birog scoffed.
 
“It won’t be like last time” Abhertach scolded, looking at Birog as if she had grown another head. “They have a new king. In the time of Nemed they used force, might was all they knew. They forced the people to submit, enslaved them. They put a tax on them; two thirds of their corn, two thirds of their milk. And two thirds of their-“ Abertach’s jaw grew tight and he swallowed, his throat clacking dry.
 
“-Children” Birog shuddered.
 
“You know the stories then? You know what happened. “His eyes lit up and the dwarf became enervated with wild hand gestures. “The people, our ancestors the children of Nemed rose up and killed one of their kings in his tower, Conand. But their other king Morc retaliated and decimated the people of Nemed with a great wave and a plague that came from the sea. A cataclyism that scattered our people and changed us forever.”
 
“You expect us to believe all this?” Birog tutted.
–
Behold the rest of the chapter over on initt, huzzah! The burning of the temple
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Loverman Chapter 2 ‘The weeping song’

I got back the second to last part of Diana and I spoke to my editor after blowing my wad on the last round of editing and she says I should get it back soon, whatever that means haha. But yeah so that’s happening, that other thing is probably happening. Compared to how shitty I’ve felt for the last couple of months I feel pretty good, I’m really happy right now and honestly I don’t like it, I wish it would stop haha.

Maybe playing more red dead 2 will make me more miserable. Probably gonna do a review of that because everyone I know says it’s pretty underwhelming and honestly so far I can’t disagree. Like there’s nothing really about it that blows me away honestly. It kinda just feels like another red dead game, it’s not really that special. Definitely falls short so far comparing it to GTAV. I don’t mind the slow pace as long it’s building towards something and it’s immersive like Kingdom come deliverance. I loved the slow beginning of that game. Really need to do another playthrough of that game. I can’t remember the last time I was so immersed in a game.

Anyway, dying need to nap or do some proofreading or something.

Bye!

–

She kept up a dizzying pace through the old building, but I could hardly object to the brevity of the tour since it appeared to be just a series of long hallways looking all alike.

 

“This is the day room”

 

She opened a door that looked no different from any of the rooms we’d seen before. Despite that it had no viewing window and opened onto a large rectangular room with almost greenhouse windows on the walls and in portions of the ceiling.

 

“This is something like a solarium, they used to think the sunshine had medicinal effects, we use it as a common area, they have art supplies and games they can play.” She said directed me to deshevelled pile of soiled board game boxes and art supplies collected in a half closed closet. The room itself was empty but for a series of rounded tables made of a cheap chipboard wood with a few simple plastic chairs dotted around them and a few beanbag chairs. The carpet was a dull cream colour and the ceiling tiles were deeply sodden asbestos tiling with neon lights running in parralles across the ceiling.

 

I looked around the room as it stood empty, littered as it was with papers and crude paintings on the walls. The paintings depicting oddly shaped buildings. Or so it seemed, although obscurest in nature, following no known Euclidian geometry and copying no style I had ever seen before. Despite that they were quite skilfully reproduced as if from memory.

 

“Oh you noticed that”

 

She said spying my eye caught by the odd painting.

 

“We have a number of artists budding or otherwise that come here.”

 

“Oh really?”

 

“Are you a fan of the arts Mr Tilinghast.”

 

“Henry, please, to my friends.”

 

She seemed to scoff and then smile.

 

“I’ve eyes like anyone else” I said attempting something close to aloofness.

 

“The director seems to think artists are more susceptible to madness than ordinary men”

 

“Oh, why’s that?”

 

“It’s nothing he would publish for peer review, but he seems to think your mind has to be half gone already to be an artist in this economy.” She smiled and I stifled a laugh which cooled to a morbidity as I studied the sad truth in that statement.

 

I sighed in agreement and continued to study the room. It was bright which was odd due to the weather being as grey and dim as it was. The room seemed to glow with an eerie effulgence, it had to be something to do with the placing of the room and the windows harnessing the light.

 

“Please take your time to look at some of their work, the room is closed for today.”

 

I took her up on her offer and started to perouse some of the paintings, most of which were marked with the same signature. The scribbling did seem familiar but I couldn’t make out the name. The paintings seemed to correlate with the others, odd cyclopean structures, strangely shaped humanoid creatures. It seemed almost like the interpretation of a childs drawing done by a skilled hand.

 

“Closed?” I said idly not taking my eyes off an etching of a bust done in charcoal. The bust was some strange abstract creature that seemed to have the head of octopus and the body of some kind of reptile with wings with large clawed feet sitting prone on a pedestal.

 

“We had an incident the other day with one of our patients.”

 

“An incident” I aped thoughtlessly losing myself in the strange chimera like creature in the etching. Noticing then that were some very similar drawings done like but in what seemed like a childs hand, and still more in differing styles until it seemed to be something of a contest to draw the eldritch squatting thing.

 

I turned to her and saw she was motioning with her eyes at a patch on the floor. My eyes following her to see a portion of the cream carpet that had been removed in a large square with a box cutter a slight shadow of a brown stain on the exposed wooden boards below it.

 

“We’re having someone come in on Friday to replace it”.

 

“I see”.

 

“I’ll take you to see the director now if you’d like, he should be in his office.”

 

She led me down another hallway indistinguishable from the others we’d just traversed to a door with golden sign with the name Avery Fournier – Director Pink Bird Sanitarium embossed on it.

 

The door itself was a firm red oak with the top panelled cut out to make way for an ornate opaque glass screen. And as the light was shining I could seemingly make out two figures and could catch something of a conversation going on inside.

 

“He must be busy, should we come back later?” I asked.

 

“No he’s expecting you, he might just be recording something, if we enter quietly it shouldn’t be a problem”. She smiled and motioned towards the door holding her clipboard tightly to her chest and pushing her glasses up on her nose as if touching up a careful costume.

 

I clasped the door handle getting a slight jolt of something but not removing my hand. A sudden striking feeling of unease came over as if I was about to open a door to a party of people dancing over my own grave.

 

Opening the door as gingerly and as politely and inobtrusively as possible I entered with my head bowed like a monk seeking safe passage through some savage mongol land. But to my surprise I was greeted by a most affable and rotund looking old gentlemen sat smiling warmly above a great and bushy mustache.

 

The man instantly put me at ease with his effortlessly pleasant manner and way of speaking.

 

“Henry, is that you, take a seat old boy, you must have had quite a journey.” He addressed me queerly as if he were some old friend or an uncle rarely visited but gladly accepting of any such chance encounter.

 

Finding myself caught off guard by his amiable appearance at knowing me, I had but silent stammering in answer.

 

“You must be exhausted, where did you say you were coming from? Boston was it?”

 

“N-new Hampshire actually.” I said tracing my hands feverishly along the back of one of the high wingbacked chairs in front of the man’s small but neat desk.

 

Fournier’s office was little more than broom closet in size, a very humble room for a seemingly very humble and benign figure. But despite the size, the furnishing were old and eloguent, the smell of treated leather and hardwood was thick in such a tight space and nevertheless it gave way to an informal comfiness that was quite unbefitting an office of such stature.

 

“Would you like a toffee?” He asked standing to pass me a large glass bowl of individually wrapped toffees.

 

“Erm no- no thank you” I said smiling.

 

“Hmm” He smiled and sighed before putting the bowl down and unwrapping one for himself and fiendishly popping it into his mouth grazing his bushy white moustache. He smiled again and said “I must admit I’m quite partial to them” He narrowed his eyes and then at once as if he forgot something said “Oh of course, I’m forgetting myself, would you like one Zane?” He said lifting the bowl in the direction of the wingback chair to my right.

–

Check out the rest of the chapter on inkittttt The weeping song

 

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3 Ring Samurai Part 2 Chapter 4 ‘Imaginary Folklore’

Yo,

I actually planned to and wrote a review for battlefield 1 for yesterday but it was so dull and pointless I just didn’t post it, insert rant about modern gaming haha. Basically sums up what I thought of it. It was ok, considering I paid nothing for it.

Good news just got back the second to last piece of Diana and the last piece is on it’s way, our baby gonna be whole and beautiful soon enough. Then I can make the final changes, get her looking good and get her ready to shake her ass for some literary agents which in all likelihood will be all be women haha. True fact about literary agents, the gatekeepers of the industry, most of them are women. But then again most book readers today are women I think.
Well that is you see a lot of books targeting women specifically. Mostly about sex with vampires or werewolves or handsome rich guys haha. Kinda makes me wonder why that is, when did our culture move away from men reading books? What am I talking about? I literally started this blog mentioning the reason, it’s fucking videogames of course and movies and tv obviously. Fucking videogames killed men’s desire to read, goddamn it haha.

Well maybe that was when videogame stories were half decent, now they’re either totally ass or non-existent. The non gamers are probably off watching netflix or sport. But the thing is for me, my love of books really cushioned the blow for shitty videogame stories. I never really expect much from a games story and don’t care if it doesn’t even have one, in fact I prefer it. Because if I want a good story, there’s one waiting for me in a book. In the same respect if I want to see shitty cgi and explosions I go watch a marvel movie haha.

If you go looking for good stories in a videogame you will be disappointed. Even so we see novelists working with games developers to make decent stories and captivating world like the guy that wrote the metro novels which spawned the awesome metro games and yes I will be preordering the next instalment haha. Probably, if I’m not broke still when it comes out. Spent the last of my money, i.e the banks money on the last round of editing for D. If I work all through christmas I might be able to eat sometime late january haha.

To a lesser extent the witcher, though I won’t get into that because I fucking hate the witcher books with a passion and the writer is such a jackass. The games are great, they really elevate his boring overrated writing but the asshat is still suing them for more money despite the fact he thought they would fail so didn’t opt in for royalties, he just took a cash lump sum I guess. But of course now it’s like the hottest game of the decade he’s all in wanting his cut. If you read any of his books you’d be utterly disgusted by this.

They turned his boring slog into a living world full of interesting folklore and action and memorable interesting characters and GWENT! Holy of holies. I just saw they released a gwent rpg card game and I had hold myself to resist buying it at full price.

In other news the Parker book I’m reading has got lit, it’s pretty good, like it’s all out war at this point where Parker enlisted an army of his old heist buddies to take this mob town apart. Just gutting it of money, they take like a quarter mil in one night which is awesome. But the heists are a little too easy honestly, it’s nice but the hard stuff is coming and I can’t wait.

Anyhoo, gotta get back to work, got a new piece of my lovely lady Diana to clean up and I have to prioritise that obviously.

See you…

–

A dry morning wind lashed at the dusty emptiness of the wasteland as the sounds of muted activity echoed over all the stark nothing. The ambience of a frail egg shell headache, a morn after the night before, everyone tip toeing around busily packing up their lives. Still cool and dank but the sun bright and blinding coming up over another centuries old pile of garbage in the distance.

A slight figure blotted out that bright sun and cast an angular shadow on the side of a circus tent. One of the boys taking it down turned his scruffy dirty face in the direction of the shadow maker. He squinted with his hand attempting to block out the sun, a strange blinking collar around his neck.

“Mornin’” The young carny said as if it were a phrase buttoned to his tattered coveralls. He squinted harder trying to make out the figure. Rubbing his eyes as strange images of malformed birds filled his mind and he saw a grotesque heron mask. “Oh lady Hero, I didn’t know it-“

“The Ringmaster, where is he?”

“Oh, the boss, he’s-he’s still up in the big top, they’re getting ready to pull it next.”

“Thank you” Heron said flatly, slowly walking in the direction the boy gesticulated to.

The boy nervously returned to his tinkering, loosening the ties on the tent and scratching under his bomb collar.

Heron walked in between the stalls, more carny’s tinkering away to dismantle and pack away games and rides. All so they could move on to the next town, she could feel them they trying not to look directly at her.

“Hows tricks bird girl?” A voice mocked.

Heron looked coldly out of the corner of her eye, the voice came from a tall gaunt figure leaning out the window of his icecream van. He laughed and stared with his sharp dagger like beady eyes as he smoked from the corner of his mouth letting ash hit the counter without a care.

She turned her head to the front and continued saying nothing.

The Icecream man laughed and watched her go tapping ash out the window.

At the foot of the big top the dogfaced boy sat sullenly falling in and out of consciousness.

Upon seeing her he decided to be awake and quickly bound over to her.

“Ya bring me anything?” He said.

“Not this time, the big man in here?” Heron said.

“Yeah, he and Tanner are arguing about how the mutant sea lions are kept again, it’s really boring.”

“I see” She said as she patted him on the head and went on through into the big top.

Inside it was even cooler without the sun, the smell was so familiar; woodchips and blood and vomit and piss. Death and life, love and hate, there was nothing that wasn’t under this big top.

Heron looked up at the rigging, staring at it without knowing why, for a moment she couldn’t take her eyes off the tightrope.

Then remembering her purpose she pushed on into the ring.

As she was fortold the Ringleader was having a heated discussion with Tanner the animal tamer.

The Ringleader was a large man with a round belly but without hint of sagging. His roundness was almost perfect and complete, spherical and tightly packed, as if he were a baseball that could tuck in his arms and legs and roll away. But attached to the baseball were strong ropey arms and legs and a head he used to hold an oversized black top hat. His face always carrying the merest hint of a jovial smile betraying a wicked set of eyes which poked into every corner. He stroked and twirled his vaudeville mustache as he gestured wildly with his free hand.

“My good man, you realise these ‘creatures’ of yours cost an arm and a leg to feed, quite literally. I simply cannot afford any more lavish accomodations for them and certainly can’t spare the water to give them a dipping pool.”

“But you don’t understand, the heat is worse than ever this year, they’re going crazy, they need a way to cool off.” Tanner said as he stooped. Tanner was a large man with soft eyes, a lover of animals and wildly homicidally protective the particular species he’d trained from birth.

A rather unusual species of sea dwelling creatures that had with the drying of the oceans evolved to live on land. Undoubtedly with the help of the rampant radioactive fallout after the first war. One of the creatures playfully practised a routine where it would stand to attention on a podium. Then accused criminals would be dropped from the rigging for him to catch and eat. In this instance a side of beef or some other indistinguishable meat was dropped. The huge thing lumbered into position on the podium wobbling back and forth comically.

The creatures were huge twice maybe three times the size of a human. Scaly shiney skin but rough and course like sand paper. They had huge heads with large teeth and tusks but oddly reptilian features, with clawed hands ridged flippers for digging in the sand.

The ringmaster looked the creature over. The creature almost seemed to be trained to beg and look as cute as a giant reptilian mutant man eater could.

The meat was dropped and in an instant the creature timed it’s movements perfectly and snapped the meat out of the air with it’s ferocious jaws. The power of the bite bisecting the meat without need of sharp teeth, just the power of the jaw was enough to rip anything apart.

It moved with so much power, all those large muscles moving at once, spurred by instinct and training, the ground seemed to quake, the air shifting. The amount of power necessary to move that bulk would astound any crowd. The amount will to train the beast even more so.

Heron stared at the Ringmaster and he turned and noticed her out of the corner of his eye. He turned back to Tanner to dismiss him. “I’ll see what I can do”.

“Very well” Tanner said also having noticed Heron waiting. He left abruptly without saying anything more. Exiting through a large opening in the back. The creature bounded after him flopping around comically dragging it’s large finned tail.

“Yes?” The Ringmaster said crossing his hands behind his back he tilted his head as if he were talking to a child “Do you have something to say?”

“They’re all dead”

The Ringmaster showed no great surprise in his stoney features, he only let out a long disappointed sigh “I see”. He turned to walk up the steps towards his ‘throne’ on the edge of the big top. It was a monstrosity made of collected pieces of wood and metal. Different discarded weapons of the long dead clans that came before. The scattered remnants now making up most of the circus a generation or so on.

He sat and waited for her to say more “Is there more?”

“The ronin clown Pookie lives” She said flat.

He hid it well but at the corner of his eyes, wrinkles started to appear. “And why didn’t you stop him?”

Heron stood not moving, expressionless behind her mask. “That was not my mission”

“Your mission was to bring back a body, so where is it?” He gestured spreading out the fingers of one hand.

Heron said nothing.

The Ringmaster tutted “Forgive me, you’ve lost your friends and I’ve lost a headline act” He paused and thought about the implications. “I want his head atop my throne by this afternoon”

“Yes Ringmaster.” Heron said.

“Wait, I changed my mind!” He tapped his lips with a long finger “I want you to shadow him for me. Report to me on his movements through carrier pidgeon” He sighed deep in thought. “More information is necessary.” He said to himself. The ringmaster straightened his moustache and tugged at it a little more before he noticed Heron was still standing there. “You’re dismissed.”

“Yes Ringmaster”.

–

Read the rest on inkitt Imaginary folklore

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