EXCOLO

I hear the Rapture's coming;
They say He'll be here soon.
Right now there's demons crawling all around my room. [x]

Yet I hold this against you: You have forsaken the love you had at first. Consider how far you have fallen! Repent and do the things you did at first.
(Rev. 2:4-5)

Before dawn

The death of their child draws Management's attention, as I had hoped. For even in their ancient, strange heart they have room for affection, and for rage. In their fury they let their attention fall from the river, and I could see clearly my opponents. Mere humans, most of them!

I sent out what followers I have, in this place. Men, and beasts, and god-things; crawling and walking, they went out with my power in their mouths and hands, so that they breathed blood and flame. I intended them as distraction, mainly, to stop the goddess's work being done. If they were delayed long enough in their magics, the tear in the world would be too far gone to be mended. So the sky rained not just with Nanshe, but with fire and with plague, and I saw men strangle their neighbours on the banks of the Pontarlier. Gaueko came out to me, and I thanked him, and said I would take him with me when I fall for the very last time; but my immediate business could be done by me alone. He would be welcome to wait. I think a part of me is glad that though I may burn myself out of existence alone, he may follow me into the dark.

Meanwhile, Management came for me.

I knew that they would challenge me; but it seems my pride had not let me realise how very much of a challenge they are. We moved between worlds and times as we struggled, and there was a strange fierce pleasure in it, the difficulty of it. Have I ever been so pressed? Not since I wrestled with my brother and he flung me down. It took a century, our struggle, in the places between moments, and in the end I had them by the throat (figuratively, for they have never had throats) and could have cast them beyond this world for always...

And I saw Tezcatlipoca die. My Night Wind. Not dying as a god, but as a boy, as stupid simple Micah, falling crumpled to his knees, and although I know the end is coming for us all I still cried out, a high keening sound that broke the windows of the abbey one by one.

Management had me under them, then, their fist curled into the heart of me, the spark of creation in the palm of their not-hand, ready to be blinked out

My dear, he told you he would betray you, they said, all laughter...and I realised they had deceived me. It was a cheap ruse, a false vision. And so Tez has betrayed me again, though not by his action, no. It is my feelings for him that have betrayed me, and if I have ever been a fool in my thousand thousand years on this earth it is overshadowed by this moment.

"That seems to be stretching a technicality," I say coolly, and their laughter is broken glass and bells. I am thinking of how to free myself, for surely I can; I am al-Shairan, إبليس, Iblis, He who Brings Despair; I have thrown over civilisations. I was most Beloved, and now I am most Feared.

But I feel that the tide of the battle has turned, and the moment has been lost. There will not be another moment aligned like this for centuries, perhaps millennia, and all these weary years I have waited have been for nothing.

"Do it, then," I say, with the weight of my despair behind me. "You have won. Crush me and be done." Part of me is relieved, that I can be done, even if I have failed. For I have always known in my secret heart, have I not, that I would fail? That I am Despair, and I can have no success, not in the end.

Kill you? Blot you out? Our dear friend, whatever makes you think we are merciful?

It takes a long time, what they are doing, and it is very terrible. But I am used to pain, and if they want to torture me before they kill me, I can endure.

And then I realise what it is they have done to me. I feel nothing beyond the boundaries of my own flesh; I can hear nothing but with my ears, and my sight is clear and small. I feel the press of flesh around me like a prison.

We bless you, they say, still laughing, with long life, and a natural death.

I scream, then, until my throat is torn, and I have scratched my face open with my nails. But it is not a scream that breaks glass, and my skin does not heal when I will it. I am just this. Only this. Man.

Evening of Tuesday, 12 June; The Tavern of Hell

It is these pauses that are our undoing. It is then that sedition enters the fortress and our troops rise in insurrection. Once before he had paused, and love with its horrid rout, its shawms, its cymbals, and its heads with gory locks torn from the shoulders had burst in....

I wore this body here once. It was a wet night; I remember how this body stumbled, a knee going down into the dirt. The witch's mouth on mine, tasting of cigarettes. I was grieving for the Night Wind then; I am always grieving for him, it seems. Or myself. It is a fine line.

That grief was for how he had betrayed me, what he had made me feel. This grief... If I did not know better, I would say it has a taste of regret to it. That is a different savour than other sorrows; a bilious feeling, a sick pain under the ribs.  (Bodies are so useful for these articulations.) Something that feels regret can feel remorse, and that can lead to reconciliation; and those are things I will never have.

I thought I had known sorrow; but these feelings are - different enough in a way that is... unbearable. I have endured for so long. But not for much longer. I have decided to move matters on apace, faster than I planned. I had thought to wait until Rose was ready for her first blood; the symbolism appealed. But though I think she would reach that in three years, I am impatient now, as I have not been in a long time.

Come, reap.

I pick up my glass and drain it.

[Open]

[From here.]

I hear his ribs crack as he hits the wall, and I think he may have dislocated his shoulder. He crouches on the floor, and his nose has started bleeding again.

"You're welcome."

Insolent. You were always insolent, Tepeyollotl. I cross the room, faster than a boy could move, and I lift him up with one hand and pin him against the stone wall.

"What is wrong with you?" I say, exasperated. I am holding him above my head, and blood from his nose drips onto Brant's white shirt. And then I start laughing, because this is ludicrous, and I drop him onto the floor. "Of course you always have had a death wish."

[Open to Tez]
[closed]