8FOLD: Mighty Medley # 19, July 2015, by Messrs. Brenton, Perron, Russell, and Stokes

[Tom Russell]

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-------------- ISSUE # 19   JULY 2015 --------------
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-------------SAXON BRENTON--ANDREW PERRON-----------
--------------TOM RUSSELL---COLIN STOKES------------
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--------------- Editor, Tom Russell ----------------
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CONTENTS OF THIS ISSUE

"The Creative Process" by Andrew Perron
A story about words, and pain, and longing. Despite what you believe,
you are enough, and always were. Creative magic.

"Seven 'Gainst Thebes" Part 17, by Tom Russell
In which, at long last, we meet the big bad. The prostration of Jack
Peake, and the humiliation of Dash Adams. Cruel magic.

"Beyond the Fields" Part 18, by Saxon Brenton
Concerning careful preparations, meticulous misinformation, cowardice
and cruelty. Contemplation of the ultimate sacrifice. Karmic magic.

"Empress of Pages" Part 6, by Colin Stokes
In which backstory is revealed, and an understanding is reached. New magic.

"Ailuromancer" by Tom Russell
The fate of the old tom, the significance of a hair: of dandy-boys,
scratchers, and kneaders. Cat magic.


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---------------THE CREATIVE PROCESS-----------------
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-----------Copyright 2015 Andrew Perron-------------
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It was at about the one hundred thousand word mark that I'd stopped eating.
  I wasn't a great writer. I'd never been. It didn't matter much,
though, because at this point I didn't think anyone else was ever
going to see it. It didn't matter.
  It wasn't just that she'd died. I could've dealt with that, you
know? I could have mourned, and probably drunk a lot, and moved on.
  It was what her death meant. It was that there was no safety, no
stability, no trustworthiness in the bricks and mortar of this world.
There was a void rushing up to meet me, and I had only one stable
point, one island to stand on - my own words.
  So I wrote. First, I wrote to get out the pain; then I wrote because
it was the only thing that was fulfilling, the feeling of talking to
myself, of telling myself that it would be okay, the only thing that
mattered. I filled page after page with stories, about a woman - no,
not her, though she was reflected in every drop of sweat - someone who
could fight, but not just fight; who could love and argue and dance
and sing the world whole.
  I wrote instead of eating. I wrote instead of sleeping. Words poured
out of me, as did sweat, as did breath. I was no longer human; I had
made myself a conduit for the words.
  But finally, there were no words left. The story had ended. To push
it beyond this point would be a betrayal. I added a final period and
fell, aching, on the floor.
  The air was filled with a thick fog of ideas. Concepts and the
emotional attachments they brought expanded like plumes of smoke,
resonating between the close walls. I could feel victory bursting blue
in the corner, grief like a dense purple streak just out of arm's
reach, a slowly crackling yellow dandelion of electric wonder in the
back of my head.
  The colors scintillated, radiating thru each other, drawing together
before me. It seemed like there was a hole in the clouds - a window,
or a door, booming with the hammerblows of some faraway heart. And she
stepped through.
  She was brighter than everything around her, more intense, like a
childhood memory or an acid trip. She looked just like I had imagined
her, but with all the little details that the decadence of reality
affords.
 "But how...?" My clumsy tongue tripped over a question I wasn't even
sure meant anything. "You're *you*! You're *here*! You can't be here!"
  She grinned the grin that had destroyed tyrants and toppled empires.
"Remember the tlonic event?"
  I shook my head. That couldn't be. "Those require hundreds of
thousands, millions of people, a massive shift in belief systems and
perception!"
  She shook her head right back. "You've never believed that you're
enough, have you?"
  Tears formed in the corners of my eyes, liquid light lifting away
from my face and rising, smacking into the ceiling like raindrops.
"What will you do?"
  "Fight."
  "Where?"
  "I'll take you." She bent down, and clasped my head, and she was
alive and flesh and real, and I rose, and we walked, together, back
into the light, and I


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--------------SEVEN 'GAINST THEBES------------------
---------------------Part 17------------------------
------------Copyright 2015 Tom Russell--------------
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They came up to the homestead, and there was a man sitting on the
porch, and that man was Edward Strife. While Skin of Snake had
captured the particulars of his appearance with his usual accuracy--
the build, the complexion, the moustache-- he realized that in truth
he looked nothing like him. It was a matter of his attitude, his
poise, the lazy hate in his eyes. There are men where you can only see
their flesh, and nothing deeper: Silke was such a man. That sort of
man Skin of Snake could impersonate reasonably well. But there are men
where you can see all of them at once, where their souls are showing
like the heat coming off the sand in the desert, and that was Ned
Strife.
   "For the quickest man in the world," bellowed Ned, "you sure do
take your sweet time. I was afraid you got yourself killed, or had
taken liberties with my bride."
   "I'm here," said Peake, "and so is she. I did run into a bit of
trouble, though, sir." He paused, tight-lipped, and in that pause Skin
of Snake observed that Peake was different now. Before he exuded
control, and an easy, unhurried menace, but in the presence of his
master, he was nervous and stooping. "Had to kill your brother, sir."
   If Ned was moved, he didn't show it none. He fixed his glare at
Skin of Snake. "And who's this?"
   "I'm your new--"
   "Weren't talking to you."
   Peake glared at Skin of Snake, as if to say that it would be his
own fault if he were to be shot dead on the spot. "Mr. Clay here is
just arrived from Pinkerton, sir. Body double for yourself, sir."
   "And over his shoulder?"
   Skin of Snake didn't know if it were the right thing to do, but he
did it: he threw the man down on the ground. Adams pretended to wake
with a groan.
   Peake made the introductions. "This is the famous Mr. Dash Adams,
of late in your brother's employ."
   "We could use a man of his particular talents."
   Adams said something unprintable.
   Ned's soft mouth twisted into something hard, like a sneer. Then,
it relaxed again, settling into a bemused little smile, which somehow
was worse than the sneer could ever be. "Then I will leave him to your
tender mercies, Jack."
   Peake thanked him a half-dozen times; it made Skin of Snake cringe.
   "But breakfast first," said Ned. "Mr. Adams will be my guest. I
don't want my new wife to think me inhospitable."

Skin of Snake had expected to be shown to his quarters, as it was
nearly midnight, and so was much surprised when the lot of them were
crammed into an intimate little breakfast nook just off the kitchen.
>From the smell of grease and butter, he ascertained that the staff had
been working at breakfast the last twenty minutes or so.
   The nook had a little wooden table, with a wooden L-shaped bench
built into the wall. Ned Strife sat on the short end of the L, like it
was the head of a great table. They put Adams on his left, but first
Peake and his boys stripped him bare, the better to deprive him of the
tools of his trade. One of the boys, who Peake called Trumpet, made a
remark about Adams's soft and pretty complexion, and it was soon
decided, with Ned's blessing, that they should dress Adams up as a
whore. To Adams's left, they sat Celine, still tied up with her hands
behind her back. Strife said he wanted to see what she could
accomplish only with her mouth. Then, on the end of the L, they
squeezed in Skin of Snake.
   Peake pulled up a chair, and sat on Ned's right, the place of honor.


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-----------------BEYOND THE FIELDS------------------
---------------------Part 18------------------------
-----------Copyright 2015 Saxon Brenton-------------
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   Marcus watched the passing countryside through the train's window
as his mind continued to wander. A man with lesser willpower would
have been overwhelmed by the sheer scale of the threat that he had
discovered, turning away in trepidation. Marcus Oustler was not that
weak, and instead simply set about trying to fix the problem.
    However, neither was he stupid. Marcus understood enough of human
nature to know that people would not want to give up something that
was useful or even just convenient. If he had tried to go through
proper channels and warn the Reich overtly, the reaction would have
been a blanket denial that the problem even existed. So instead he
carried out his research under the guise of still grieving for his
wife, and secretly he made his plans to destroy the means of magic
generation and clean up its side effect of thaumaturgic pollution as
best he could.
   The first step had been to subtly alter any spell descriptions,
engineering plans or arcane schematics that could have used to
recreate the necessary mystic rituals and technologies. Simply
removing those plans had been out of the question. The principle of
proof of concept meant that once these things were known to be
possible, then the Reich would throw unlimited resources at trying to
recreate them. So instead Marcus had replaced the originals with
disinformation that would send anyone who tried to use them off into
useless dead ends. Logistically that hadn't been too hard, since the
processes had been classified top secret and as a result had hardly
been available in encyclopaedias in every public library. There had
only been a few copies kept in secure locations, which Marcus had been
able to sneak in and replace with his carefully designed forgeries.
   Even easier to corrupt had been the copies stored holistically on
the astral plane. Occult tradition held that all knowledge and fact
about existence was stored in precise and crystalline detail in what
was known variously under names like the Akashic Record, the Astral
Light, or the Cosmic Chronicle. That had turned out to be folklore
hokum. When Marcus had investigated he had discovered that the Akashic
Record was as all-encompassing as described - but nebulous and fuzzy,
like a mirage. No wonder divination spells were so difficult to get to
work: there was essentially no precision in the Cosmic Record for a
divination of the past to grasp ahold of. Nevertheless Marcus had
methodically set about smudging out and replacing the details with the
same forgeries that he had used on the material plane.
   With those long term distractions laid out Marcus had next faked
his death in an explosion, then gone racing about the world,
destroying the death camps left, right and centre. All in all it had
been a successful campaign, and now all that was required was to kill
himself.
   Although Marcus' actions so far would prevent new magical pollution
from being created, it would do very little about the already toxic
state of the planetary arcanosphere. To correct that situation would
need a sacrifice.  And in the antithesis of the unwilling sacrifice of
the many who had died in pain and fear and horror, there would need to
be a sacrifice that willingly suffered in return.
    It would be enough, but he wished he could do more. The problem
was that although he knew intellectually what needed to be done, he
could not commit himself emotionally as much as he wanted. He had
resigned himself to the necessity of it all, and had achieved a state
of calm determination. And the ritual of self-sacrifice would work
just fine with calm determination. But a better way, a more effective
way, was that he do this out of love, out of the pure spiritual joy of
knowing that the world would be a better place because of his actions.
   Marcus Oustler could not do that. He has tried repeatedly over many
years to achieve that kind of emotional state. And he had failed. In
the end he had shamefacedly realised that he was merely human, and
that deep down he could not erase the sense of resentment and regret
that came from knowing that he - who had not been involved in creating
this mess in the first place - had to give up everything in order to
clean it up, while those who men who had been responsible had waltzed
away with all the benefits and none of the costs. It was an extremely
human reaction. An extremely petty reaction. And it had shocked Marcus
to realise that he was not one of Nietzsche's overmen, that he did not
possess the Olympian detachment to carry through with what needed to
be done at any cost.
    Well, life was not fair. He would have to make do with what was
within his abilities, and hope that it wouldn't slow down the
cleansing of the arcanosphere too much.
   Marcus watched the passing countryside through the train's window.
Soon now. Very soon.


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---------------- EMPRESS OF PAGES ------------------
----------------------Part 6------------------------
-----------Copyright 2015 Colin Stokes--------------
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The Librarian lifted the Netherguard plate to her lips and, to
Fn'ordh's surprise, took a small bite out of it, a muffled metallic
grinding sound coming from her mouth as she chewed it up.
   "What are you doing with-" Fn'ordh began, mildly perturbed at this display.
   Turning her head to the side, the golden-eyed lady spat, a small
glob of dull gray gel splattering on the floor - all that remained of
the armored plate, or so it seemed. =Gathering data,= she returned
evenly, with a serene expression apart from the slightly smoldering
embers in her eyes that reminded the daemon just who he was dealing
with at the moment. =Now then; you shall hear of me, and of my
desires. And then I shall hear much the same of you.  So long as we
are honest,= she continued with the vaguest hint of a smile, =there
need be no further... hostilities between us. I have need of you,
Fn'ordh the Lesser, and perhaps you of me as well. Shall we each
benefit the other, then?=
   Fn'ordh weighed his words carefully. It was one thing to keep
secrets from the Throne, and another thing entirely to divulge them
himself. But did this monster simply want to test his honesty, already
knowing the answers after having violated his mind? Or was she lacking
some key piece of information - or some function only a daemon could
provide? And ultimately, did he want to find out the /hard/ way?
   "Let it be so, Librarian," Fn'ordh finally returned, evenly.  "I
shall listen."
   =I come from a realm far removed from this one,= the Librarian
began without preamble, =where magic flows freely and without
restraint; like a vast, fathomless river it was to me, and I immersed
myself in it - gloried in it. For a time,= she added, her gaze
darkening just a touch, the embers in her eyes coming to the fore.
   Fn'ordh remained silent, nodding his understanding, or at least
acknowledgement.
   =I drank too deeply of the river for the taste of the gods and
goddesses; and so in order to preserve their realm from my
'machinations', they- no, I /allowed/ them to sequester me in a...
place, where I would not upset the order of All Creation. There, I
could exist without consequence, experiencing the realm solely through
the use of my surrogates, while I myself remained... in stasis.=
   There was a deep-seated bitterness in the golden-eyed woman's
words, and Fn'ordh could not help but recognize it as kin to his own;
it was the same bitterness all daemons carried as they were only
temporarily granted access to the physical realm by others, unable to
delight themselves in it on their own terms, their own time.
   =I had companions, once,= the Librarian continued, quietly. =I had
steadfast friends, mighty warriors of mind and heart; and together -
had we stayed together, why, nothing would be beyond us...  But even
those were denied to me, in the end, and I was left with only myself
and my Self for company.=
   Fn'ordh noticed the difference between the last two, observant as
ever, and his eyes narrowed just slightly as he nodded once more and
silently pondered her words.
   The Librarian's burning golden gaze fixed upon the daemon's face.
=I know not the full truth of how I came to be here. But I know that I
am free; even without my companions, without my Legion or even my
Library, I am free of the Pantheon and their restrictions. And while I
may not yet understand fully how magic functions in this realm, it is
clear that I need a source of power with which to conduct my
experiments... thus,= she concluded with the finality of the grave
itself, =the Wellspring /shall/ be mine, whatever the price. Nothing
less will suffice.=
   "... I see that," Fn'ordh returned quietly, his mind racing. Here,
then, was a being of singular purpose and - likely - the strength to
see it to completion. Never mind that the loss of the Wellspring would
throw the Netherworld into utter chaos; that the balance of power
would be shattered, and the denizens would fight like animals amongst
the broken shards for what scraps they could prise from each others'
grasp. Even an unsuccessful attempt on the Jade Throne's source of
power would embolden others to challenge the Netherlord's might; and
perhaps if the golden-eyed nightmare succeeded in her mission, by his
cooperation - what glorious riches could be in store for him?  The
Netherworld itself - all of it?  Or even...
   =Now, Fn'ordh Rael,= the Librarian continued, her use of even
merely /part/ of his true name making the daemon shiver involuntarily,
=I know full well I ask much of you, and more yet that you do not
know. But I propose not servitude; rather, a partnership of sorts.
With you, and with others sympathetic to my aims - but you would be
the foremost among them, if you so choose.  I make this offer but
once,= she added quickly, the note of warning in her voice louder than
any words.
   "You drive a hard bargain, Librarian," Fn'ordh murmured, feeling his pulse
quicken in anticipation. A golden opportunity from the golden-eyed lady...
   =I intend to succeed,= she returned. =That is my one desire; I
/will/ have it.=
   "As I see," Fn'ordh murmured. "Now, Librarian, I shall speak of /my/ desire."


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--------------------AILUROMANCER--------------------
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------------Copyright 2015 Tom Russell--------------
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There was an old stray tom that June used to see on Ulthar Street
now-and-again. He was stocky and gray, lazy but cunning. His tail was
not a thin and pointy line, nor a fluffy curl, but a club, perfectly
straight, rounded at the tip, the hair all bristles like a pipe
cleaner. He never looked entirely kempt or wholesome, but he possessed
a broad handsome face that always looked pleased with itself, and he
purred in little whispers when June scratched his chin. This she did
whenever she saw him, usually once or twice this week, then perhaps a
fortnight later, and then a week after that. He came and he went, and
so it had not seemed unusual as the days and weeks passed without a
renewal of their congenial acquaintance. But one day, June thought to
ask after him of the other cats on Ulthar Street. They all knew the
old tom; he was the oldest cat in their living memory.
   Soon June discovered that he had gone to the Dark Place, and that
apparently this was not entirely in character for the old tom, as no
cat who ever went there ever came back again. Something more than
instinct but less than knowledge compelled them to give it a wide
berth. Even so, some of them were able to advise June as to its
general direction.
   It was a rather sinister looking house of gray-blue vinyl siding
that looked black in the twilight. Its three stories stood like a
monolith over a large corner lot of dead grass and dead black trees. A
waist-high wall of bleached stone ran along the perimeter. June
nimbled up to the porch, a simple stairless slab of cement. In lieu of
a welcome mat, there was a black spot that looked at first glance to
be the result of a fire, yet had the shape of a liquid that had long
ago slowly oozed and spread. Looking at it made her mancer's mark
burn, and so she didn't step on the spot. Carefully, she leaned over
the spot and rapped on the screen door.
   The master of the Dark Place was very hairy, with long sleek brown
whiskers that seemed to grow from just beneath his eye-sockets. June
asked him if he had seen a cat, an old gray tom? He hadn't. In fact,
he had not seen any cats in many months, and further, he was quite
glad of it.
   The sun had gone down by the time she left the porch, and that
seemed altogether too fast. Its final rays of light splashed against
the wooden gate, and June saw the scratch marks there. She brushed her
fingers against the tiny splintering wood. She found something white
and clear, dagger-shaped. Upon touching it, she recognized it as one
of the tom's nails.
   She closed the gate behind her. A few of the local cats were
staring at her, startled. They then explained, in their wordless way,
that June was only the second cat that had ever returned from the Dark
Place. The first was a stupid kitten a few weeks previous. The old tom
had gone in after him. A moment later, the kitten came out, but the
tom never did. After that, the kitten, who had been unusually
rambunctious, even for a kitten, had become listless and withdrawn.
This suited the other cats just fine, as they had all liked the old
tom, and blamed the kitten, perhaps justly, for his demise.
   "No, not his fault," said June. She pointed at the black shape that
a few minutes previous had been a house. And the cats understood what
she intended.
   That night, every cat within five miles of the house disappeared.
Strays and squatters, backyard serenaders and park-prowlers,
sneak-thieves and mousers, scratchers and kneaders, all gone. For the
outside-cats, few noticed their absence, but the inside-cats caused
several hours of panic as their "owners" frantically searched for
their dandy-boys and haughty princesses, checking all the favorite and
familiar hiding places over and again in frantic rotation. Then: there
he was the whole time, but didn't I look there, and what do you have
in your mouth, some kind of hair, it's slick and long and brown.
   The next morning, the house on the corner was gone, but none of the
humans (not even June) remembered it ever being there in the first
place. There was instead a small walled garden in which the local cats
congregated, and, it seemed, had always done so. Chief among their
number was an old tom with fur like bristles who liked to be scratched
on the chin.


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-----------------SEE YOU NEXT MONTH-----------------
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