Golden Wire

The faint, metallic ring arrested his pace with heart-sinking fear. He craned his neck, trying to listen to the sound, trying to reassure himself it was just a trick by his over-taxed imagination.

But again it came, a metallic ring as if the smallest of bells bounced down a tower. A few seconds and the ring came again, louder and closer. He whipped his head about, trying to find the source.

His eyes settled on the stairwell. The bouncing ring was now clearly audible, louder with passing seconds. He almost imagined he could see a faint glimmer of reflected light growing nearer. And, all at once, the source of the noise came into view. It was a sphere, a ball of gold no larger than a fist. The ball was traced through with unusual engravings, almost like joints in the unbroken metal surface. Despite its heavy appearance, it bounced against the creaking hardwood stairs with an elastic lightness, taking the steps two at a time.

The ball bounced against the ground and its momentum vanished with a noiselessness that seemed to echo through the building. It remained perfectly still for a long moment before a thin line began to leak through the engraved joints. In a blinding suddenness, the sphere unfolded itself, opening invisible cracks and pulling out a wire-thin framework that assembled itself into nothing so much as a golden skeleton.

The mechanical thing rose from its casing and pulled itself to its full height. A tremor vibrated through its frame as it twitched its arms and fingers in a systematic analysis. Seemingly satisfied, it turned its golden gaze on the man.

The wire-work assassin moved with silently liquid grace, flowing forward with inexorable precision.

Excerpt from "Patron's War"

"Du Charte, you have grown ever so werrisome to us. It is quite unforgivably rude."

The Count Du Charte tried to pull his head up, shaking the hair from his face. He opened his mouth, but all he could manage in response was a dry, hacking hiss. The red plaster mask affixed to his face had no eye slots, but Du Charte could see Marquess Eros all the same. The Marquess seemed aware of this. He turned to face the chained Count with a sympathetic smile.

"Now, now," he soothed, "we're not going to parade you out for Indulgence or donate you to Hubris- that would be most unkind of us, wouldn't it?" Eros wore a black suit with a white tie and cravat. The tails of his jacket fluttered when he moved, like anxious tendrils, searching for prey.

Du Charte allowed a gasping chuckle, despite his blinding hatred. He clenched and unclenched his fists.

"You understand, of course, the perils of High Society," Eros continued, authorally. "Though you have been a member of the Devils' Masque for but a brief while, you have managed to accomplish much, and earned very powerful friends." The Marquess managed to sound magnanamous, nodding at Du Charte respectfully.

"But," Eros concluded sadly, "There are no places for artisans in the New Order. The ancient corruption must be purged, and lackeys meet the gallows with their kings." Eros' smile was a savage one- made more savage by the wolf mask that his his face up to his mouth. The bone teeth of his mask glistened hungrily.

"Not literally, of course," the Devil Corelli added, striding into the cell, his voice echoing softly from within the metal sheath that covered his head like a joint-less helmet. The Marquess stiffened, but maintained his composure.

"My Lord, you are unexpected," Eros offered. "Please don't concern yourself with these prisoners. They'll be dealt with soon enough."

"I do not question your efficiency, Lord Eros," Corelli replied slyly. "I daresay you could rid our fine city of half its inhabitants without the other half realizing what was happening." Corelli's mood was unreadable behind the mesh-grating that covered his eyes and mouth. His gaze seemed to turn critical as he regarded Du Charte.

The Count flashed a winning, half-mad smile. "Lord Corelli," he gasped, "your timing could not be worse. I was just about to break free of my bonds and dispose of Eros here," he explained in a voice hoarse and thin with pain. "But I would not presume to damage your fine shackles in front of you, so I must play the helpless victim a while longer."

"And he even manages to maintain his humor!" Marquess Eros chuckled, putting a hand on one of the Count's shoulders, diggins his fingers into the Count's open wounds as he did so.

"I confess, I was listening in, earlier," Corelli addressed to Eros. "If Mr. Du Charte is not to be surrendered to the Sins, what is his shedualed execution?"

Eros' composure began to crack under the gaze of Corelli's steel mask, the featureless face of the Coup. "With due respect, my Lord, this man was specifically remanded to me, to do with as I pleased."

"And you may! And you may, my friend." The Devil Corelli patted Eros' back comfortingly. "Your rivalry with this Du Charte is well known all through the Nero District and I am not without ears," he said as he tapped the smooth steel of his mask where his ears would lie. "I only ask that you let me speak with the condemned alone. Briefly."

Eros stared daggers at Du Charte, as he felt his long-awaited revenge slipping from his grasp. He glanced at Corelli's implacable, faceless mask, then back to Du Charte's eye-less grin, etched on his face as much from satisfaction as from pain. Eros clipped a sharp turn, and strode from the room, his coat tails stretching, reaching vainly for the Count.

Alone, Corelli stared at Du Charte for a long moment. "Can you actually do what they say you can?"

Count Du Charte nodded.

Corelli considered this. "You would make a powerful assassin." He paused. "But you feel such a base employment is well below your position, am I not right?"

"Quite right," Du Charte responded, blood welling up at his lips.

Corelli nodded, as if making up his mind. "You'll have to do, I suppose," he shrugged. "You will be liberated momentarily by one of the Thorns, looking for disenfranchised members among the Devils' dungeons. Follow them out and lay low for a couple of years."

"Oh, and I'll need your help, eventually, Count Du Charte, so try to not get caught again," Corelli added, with what Du Charte assumed was supposed to be a conspiratorial wink from under his mask.

A Faustian Revelation

I look upon the world that we have been given and I feel a sense of profound, overwhelming, and disgusting fear.

My fear is profound in the scope of its worry and the implications of its mere existence. The horrors visited upon the multitude, the absence of responsibility, the speed at which blame is assigned and aid is forfended- these are the roots of my fear and have long nursed it in the dark hours of the night. When time seems longest and the creeping shadows reign in the silence, I have found the simple complacency of my waking life strangely... unsatisfactory. The willingness with which we submit to our fell masters and the eagerness we display to sate their unnatural appetites... These come back to rob me of my rest and keep my eyes open, staring at the darkness as if it were an ebony mute, standing in judgement of me and my generation. And under those withering eyes, within the silence so encompassing and so violent and so PROFOUND, I begin to fear. As sleep is denied me, I begin to awaken to the life I- and a million million before me- have been leading. And thus, fear is born.

My fear is overwhelming in its universality, incomprehensability, and its paralyzing touch. For, if we awaken to the life that we live, if we really begin to understand how we have systematically made ourselves the handmaidens of ideas far worse than any fevered dream of the most reprehensible sociopath, if we become aware of the chains of words that we have been enslaved in and wish to enslave future generations in- without end- then what can we do? At what point in history did the process begin? Did we condemn ourselves to this abyssal future with some misstep or with some covertly harbored sin? Did anger begin our history of violence, or was it love? And if we- we who live as mere slaves to those emotions that bubble within us as some blood-stained geyser in the deepest recesses of the earth- if this great multitude of filth and wretchedness becomes cognizent to the victims we have made and the crimson stains on our own fingertips... how can we do anything but weep? And thus, fear is ripened.

My fear is disgusting for reasons which should be abundently clear to you by now. I am disgusted by our ancestors who compromised and sacrificed and victimized. I am disgusted by those who exploit the Tragedy called "Man" to their own ends, blind to the chains that enslave their own lives. And I am disgusted by we wretched men, who labor in anonymity and who live without meaning. Every man who dies without a curse upon his lips for the infectious evil that has consumed our souls, dies a coward and a traitor. A traitor to no political agenda or nation or race- but to the race of Men who began with the simplest of thoughts: "I am." And this, my friends, is the grim harvest of that pestilential fruit.

And allow me to be perfectly clear in this, my explication to those among you who have learned to fear as I have: I am.

And I am no traitor.

A Black Journal

There was once an educator who was beloved by his students and admired by his peers. This teacher knew of the subtle and invisible workings of the natural world, he knew of the infinite complexities of mathematics, and he knew historical accounts of a thousand civilizations. But what he taught was the nature of philosophy and ethics, for he felt that- more than science, math, or history- an understanding of ethics made students into good people.

He was well liked, as I have mentioned, and his lectures were well attended, as often by fellow professors as by his students. One day, this teacher delivered a lecture on the nature of good and evil. Evil, he said, was a by-product of moral capacity. The ability to choose between right and wrong, he argued, could alone make a person evil, for without choice, there is only nature. A thing cannot be, he concluded, of its nature, evil. A wasp may sting you, but it does not do so out of malice. A gun may kill you, but it may also save your life. Objects are neither good nor evil, merely tools that may be applied to either end.

When the teacher returned home after delivering his lecture, he found a small packaged, tied up with string, bearing no return address or hints to its origin. Assuming it to be a gift from one of his students, the teacher opened it to find a small notebook with a black leather cover and crisp, white pages. The notebook was empty but for its very first page, which read:

"Be they men, groups, armies or nations; two philosophies are as impossible as two skies. A mind divided can not last."

The teacher found this gift exceedingly odd. Searching in vain once more for a sign of its origin, the teacher placed the notebook on his desk and paid it no more mind. Three days passed before he remembered the notebook again. Flipping through it, he was surprised to find that three more pages had been filled in. The second page read;

"War is a tactic favored by the mad and the desperate; a clean cut early enough forfends a messy amputation."

The third: "Avoid crass pleasures and the people who worship them. Pleasure can enslave a man as surely as any collar."

And the fourth: "Anonymity is a shield used by the fearful and the vulnerable. To be known is to taste immortality."

The teacher, living alone, could find no explaination for the new text beyond some trick accomplished with ink pigmentation. Even going over the blank pages, he could find no trace of future entries, but was not surprised when, the next day, a new entry appeared on the fifth page;

"To be sensitive is to be fragile. A peice of art may be destroyed any of a thousand ways, but cold mountains stand immovable and impregnable."

Each day thereafter, the teacher found a new entry, each as cryptically Machiavellian as the last. The frustration of the mystery began to toll on the teacher, and he grew more gaunt, more haggard as the journal began to occupy his thoughts more frequently. He found himself repeating the messages to himself, in his head at first, then under his breath as he paced in his office, his home, or his classroom.

At last, the thoughts of his journal began to spill over into his lectures. One day, he caught himself echoing one of the notebook's lessons to his students;

"Intent is the only true measure of morality. Do what must be done and history will forgive your transgressions."

And while the popularity of his lectures did not dim, his students and peers began to regard this once beloved professor as increasingly more erratic, inaccessible, and stand-offish. Students began to grow alarmed by the shocking immorality of their professor's lessons, and many even complained of headaches, manifested perhaps sympathetically to the growing darkness of their Ethics course.

One night, after reading the newest entry in his journal, the professor picked up a pen and, in a careful and measured script, wrote on the next page. What he wrote was;

"Aggression motivates the idle to greatness. In this way, cruelty becomes a kindness without exposing yourself to the myriad dangers inherent in generosity."

The teacher felt a wave of relief sweep over him. It was as if these sort of messages had formed a backlog in his mind, and writing them out relieved that pressure. He turned the page, and wrote another;

"Tolerence, pity, mercy; these are the chains that bind us to the past and deny us our future."

And another: "Faith is a poor replacement for wisdom. Your mind should be the only God you need."

The teacher continued writing into the night, his mind feeding his hand message after message. In the barest hour of dawn, he found himself at the last page, with a single peice of advice left in his mind.

With a trembling hand, he wrote out: "You can expunge anything you find undesirable. You need only have the will."

As he finished the final entry, he closed the black, leather cover and set his pen down. The teacher stood, rubbing the sleepiness from his eyes and walked to his window, gazing out at the layered redness that had just begun to bleed into the deep blue-black of the sky. For the first time in months, the teacher's mind felt clear. He was in full possession of his senses, and no longer had the grim lessons of his journal crammed into his skull.

He glanced about his home once more, going from bedroom to bedroom; from the dining room to the kitchen, to the family room, and back to his den. His black journal lay on his desk exactly as he had left it, next to a pile of unopened mail. Picking up a letter, this teacher looked at the envelope with a glazed expression, not really seeing it. He pulled the long, thin blade of his letter opener from its recess, and held it against the seal of the letter for a moment.

Then, turning the letter opener around, he placed its tip against his eye, and thrust it into his skull as hard as he could, killing himself instantly.

Days later, the police found his body, lying in the den with a look of beautific peace on his face. They found the bodies of his wife and children in the freezer of his basement, months dead. There was no trace of a small, black, leather journal into which the deceased ethics teacher had commended the synthesis of his re-education, along with his final thoughts, just as dozens had before him.

Ending from "The Tragedy of the Marionette"

Author's Note: I'm rather proud of this one. I need to get the whole work (around 300 pages) published.

---

Alistair's hands shook slightly as he descended the curving, sulphur-coated stairwell. The cold air had become like ice as he made his way into the sub-basement level of the fortress. Whatever the Ava Complex was, it was kept well away from the denizens of Romain's Keep.

As the darkness of the pit crept around him, Alistair's thoughts returned to his quest- its end so close at hand. He thought of the destruction that had torn his home and his family from him, of the countless innocents who had been slain by Romain's ruthless Executioners in their mad purge of the country-side, of the hundreds of zealots Alistair himself had been forced to kill in the resulting riots that had burned the last vestages of peace from his land. Fate had been cruel to send Alistair on his mission, but he could not live with the consequences of his failure.

Naomi had said, "History may forget you, but it will not forget what you have done." Alistair had thought that sounded trite when she first said it, but now her words at last began to ring true. If his crusade against Romain's henchmen was lost in the following centuries, it would be no great loss. What was important was that Butchers like Crimson, Kai, and Yael were dead- that their body counts could not grow any higher. That history would be written at all would be Alistair's great gift; a gift already assured by the scarlet-black blood that stained the mad King Romain's chest. All that was left was to discover the mystery of the Ava Complex.

The Complex. Alistar's hands began to tremble again, just thinking of the fabled object's name. Romain had been the last man to know what it really was, and some say that had been the knowledge that had driven him insane. There were theories, of course. Some thought it was a weapon- a device capable of ending all wars, or perhaps simply ending all life. The Vallin Church saw it as a gift from God himself. Alistair's old wounds flared with pain as he remembered the assassins the Church had sent after him, and his jaw tightened as he again saw the way Miro's face froze in an expression of astonishment when the hidden knife cut through his throat. That face that had always been so stern, so judgemental, and yet so compassionate, forever frozen in uncharacteristic surprise. Alistair's breath came ragged and hot, as he tried to clear his mind of those painful memories.

"Revenge his death, if you must," Naomi had said, "But don't let the seas of blood drown out his memory." God damn you Naomi, Alistair had said, tears running down his cheeks as Miro's blood poured over his hands. God damn you for being right. If only... but now, revenge would not bring Miro back, no matter how many of the Vallin Church died. And despite the schemes of its rulers, good men like Jagger and Royce operated within the Church, turning the evils of their superiors into blessings and mercies for the innocent. No, the fall of Vallin would be no legacy to honor Miro's life. But the destruction of the Ava Complex would.

No two legends agree on what the Ava Complex is, but Alistair had come to side with Jagger's interpretation of what it had become. The Ava Complex was the sum and total of humanity's fears. Every darkly whispered curse, every horror-stricken cry, every subtle act of cruelty- that is what the Ava Complex had become. It was the rationalization of a thousand tyrants and the nameless threat of a hundred doomsayers. The Ava Complex was a demon more real than any illuminated in Vallin's holy scriptures and an evil more pervasive than even Romain's Executioners. And Alistair was going to destroy it once and for all.

The stairs terminated in a gate sealed with steel bars and heavy, iron chains. It stood, resolute and solid, almost more secure than the walls it was affixed to. Holy seals of a hundred religions were affixed in wax and parchment, some so ancient that even the memory of their existence had passed from the world. As he stood before that portal, Alistair couldn't help but wonder if it had been constructed to keep intruders out, or to keep its contents within.

Alistair placed his palm against the cold metal of the gate, feeling its marred and uneven surface against his grief and toil-hardened skin. There was the faintest sensation of vibration coming from beyond, almost like a pulse in the air that shook even the monumental barrier. Returning his hand to its thick leather glove, Alistair withdrew the silver-wrought key he had pulled from Romain's chest. The madman had burned the device into his flesh so deeply, it had nearly been fused to the bones of his rib cage. The key reflected a dim shadow of Alistair's torch against the gaping blackness of the vault.

Alistair carefully put the key into each lock and turned, the rolling of tumblers greeting each turn like the rumbling approch of some great and distant doom. As the last tumbler fell into place and the locks simultaniously disengorged their iron chains, the multitude of holy seals adorning the chamber door crumbled, as if succumbing to the antiquity that their entombment had staved off. A thrill of anticipation electrified Alistair, even as he tightened his left-handed grip on the blood-stained sword he wore at his hip. The battle with Romain had nearly killed him- he would not allow some ancient guardian of a sealed vault cut his mission short.

A slight push, and the vault's portal fell inward soundlessly, leaving the tomb of the Ava Complex yawning before him. As Alistair took that first step into the subterrine chamber, he couldn't help but whisper the last thing Naomi had said to him. Lying bandaged in her bed, with Royce standing beside her like a beautific guardian angel, she had cast her arm up and, with fingers outspread, had called out to him, "End our nightmare. Make a dream worth living for." Alistair's murmur echoed around the chamber, as if the very walls called on him to do Naomi's bidding.

The layout of the chamber was lost on Alistair, his vision focused solely on the pillar at the center of the vault and the crimson-stained chest that it bore. The chest's wood was a red so deep that it almost seemed to ooze, and the bindings were a polished gold so clear that it seemed almost silver. The coldness of the stairs vanished like a midsummer storm, and all around Alistair, an intense warmth quivered in the air, bringing sweat to his forhead.

He took a halting step toward the chest, then paused. The gravity of his situation came rushing up over him at once. Here was revenge for the thousands of innocents that had died for a madman's delusions. Here was retribution for the maiming wounds Naomi had condemned herself to, in order to save Alistair's life from Yael's cowardly sword. Here was a legacy to honor Miro with. Here, within Alistair's grasp- at last- was the Ava Complex.

He touched the chest with the tips of his gloved fingers, tenitively, at first. He rubbed the smooth surface of the wood with his palm before pulling his gloves off, and grasping the box at both ends. He held it for a long moment before running his fingers to the dual locks that held its lid down, and kept its secrets hidden. Alistair's breath grew short, his heart racing. He rested his thumbs on the golden hitches and took a series of short gasps. His skin felt like it was on fire, and sweat trickled down his face in streams. He flicked the hitches, and the lid fell backwards on oiled hinges. The light of Alistair's torch poured into the chest.

There was a parchment inside that looked old enough to have come from the very creation of the world itself. Around it, a band of pure, alabaster silk that gleamed with a pale luminescence. Securing the silken band to the parchment, a waxen seal bore a marking that seemed to Alistair at once utterly alien and intensely familiar. With unsteady hands, Alistair picked up the parchment, broke the seal, and let the cream-colored silk fall to the floor. Unrolling the scroll, he gazed on the Ava Complex.

Alistair stared at the scroll for a moment, before letting his eyes fall to the ground. His body shivered. He looked up once more, studying the paper for seconds, then minutes. He trembled slightly. Raising his gaze up to the ceiling, he let his arms fall to his sides, the parchment slowly slipping from his grasp to settle on the floor.

The parchment bore only eight letters, forming but two words. It read, "Your Face."

The Dirge of William Ablis

William Ablis, aged 27 years.

Died of music.
---

Music had been young William's first companion.

In his childhood, William saw little of his mother or father. They had buisness that needed attending to. Always more buisness. They worked so hard that they did not have friends, so no visitors called on them during weekends, no relatives visited over the holidays, no neighbors stopped to chat. William grew up in the image of his parents- always focused on some small, insignificant thing, too busy for the world around him. And when young William began to feel the coldness of his isolation settle on him, he turned on music.

It did not matter what type of music he listened to. He heard Rock n' Roll and he heard Blues. He heard Classical overtures and he heard Spiritual refrains. And when he could not turn on music- in the dead of the night, when he lay awake in the pressing darkness, with eyes open but unseeing- he heard the music in his head.

He did not sing to himself- not really. There was just music in his mind. Whenever he willed it, he could listen to the favorite songs that comforted him when he felt sad, or the joyous songs that bouyed his spirits, or the sorrowful songs that sympathized with his secret desire for humanity.

And at first, the songs were faint and infrequent, merely music. But as William grew up, unhappy and alone, the music became more insistant. A song that he even just thought of would conjour itself up and replay itself over and over again. William began to feel like his songs were no longer the friends of childhood. They had adopted a more sinister character. They mocked him. They were the testiment to his failings as a human creature. Music was the soul of his despair.

And when William realized he had lost the only friend he had ever really known, the songs became violent. He would seize up and tremble as the music crushed his thoughts. He began to twitch whenever the music chose to control him. And, at last, William could not take it any longer. The music in his mind had beaten him. It had showed him that life needs outlet. That a mind can only amuse itself for so long before it begins to break down, before the pretentions and defenses we erect to keep our secret selves apart from the "self" we project to those who surround us.

William Ablis, aged 27, took his own life. He left behind no wife, no children, no friends. William Ablis, aged 27, left nothing behind by which he might be remembered, and accomplished nothing in his life. William Ablis, aged 27, was the product of a society that creates machines, incapable of making love, sympathy, and joy its primary concerns.

William Ablis, aged 27, died of the music in his head.

Excerpt from "Patron's War"

We are told that Hell is a place. That it is a punishment, a judgement of our lives and the misuse that we put it to. That is a mistake. It is wrong. Hell is not a destination- it is a journey. Hell is a state of mind.

Each one of us undertakes, in our lifetimes, some great task. For the lowest of men, this task may be as simple as raising an honest son or leading a life that brought comfort to those around you. For great men, the task that is set before them is equal to their powers. Some create art that seems to reach out to our very souls, some bring peace in times of war. No man is given a task that he does not have the strength to accomplish.

My task was both the simplest and the greatest of missions. My end in life was simply to be good. In an age of unrest, violence, and unmitigated cruelty, I was to be a shining beacon of virtue. A standard above all others, a man apart from the filth of corruption. I was to be something people could look back on and say, "That, children, was all that it means to be human."

But our lives are never so simple as we should like. I recognized my task in life early on, and I fought for it with every ounce of passion in my body. I excised the demons of my worse nature, and I struggled with sacrifice as much as any man before or after me. And somewhere, at some point in my journey, I took a single mis-step. I strayed from my path, to one of personal glory. And, in doing so, I took the first step into my own Hell.

I was to be a pillar of justice, mercy, and humility. But, in my faux pas, I saw only vain opportunity. The glory I would do for my king, my country, and my God was not in my sight when I crusaded for the Cup of Christ. And when I found the Grail, my mind was not overwhelmed by the glory of my God. I could not help but to try and drink from that blessed cup; the path of righteousness was distant and beyond my sight. When immortality came down upon me, I took it to mean that I was God's chosen vessal. That I was his favored son. And when the realization came that the "blessing" was, in truth, a curse, I forsook my God, throwing the pity he held for me into his face.

And I strayed in the paths of darkness long. Years and decades and centuries trickled through my wicked fingers as I wrought great evil on God's earth. I sought release from the curse of eternal life that I had taken unto myself and I did not mind the suffering or depravity that my passing sowed. When, at last, the agent of my repreive came to me and tore the agony of ages from my skin, I cursed his hands and I swore that revenge for his mercy would be mine in the next life.

And now I am here. My journey to Hell has culminated in this... this torturous city of chaos and tyranny. And while I know that I failed in my mission, I will not accept this fate. I was destined for greatness, but am remembered only as a myth. My life cannot end like this. I will not allow it.

I will wrest my soul free of Hell if I have to destroy every wicked soul in this city.