Worse Than Death
Nov. 30th, 2009 08:20 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
tinhuvielI was telling ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
gunslingaaahhh that there were fates worse than death when it came to encountering Cadmus Pariah. This cautionary piece, which was reworked to become a chapter of The Chalice was my first example of that.
BEAUTIFUL PETS
“We are dust and a shadow under the naked light. We are dust and a shadow ~ wishing that everything stood still tonight. We are dust and a shadow ~ the dream of history. We are the hungry ghosts crying ‘remember me, remember me.’” ~ Shriekback “Dust and a Shadow”
Piety had knocked so, when the door swung open, she considered that to be her permission to enter, even though she was alarmed to find no one inside. The great hall and chambers were sparsely decorated with mahogany chairs and divans, and plush black and jade cushions. No lights of any sort were evident, although a solitary black candle flickered gently on the mantle. There was no sign of any inhabitants. Feeling only a little discomfort at her singularity, Piety spoke as she wandered forth. “Hello?” her voice small and powerless in the oddly acoustic rooms. “Is anyone at home? Cadmus Pariah? It’s Piety ~ y’know from the other night? You ~ you invited me?”
“Yes….” A voice with the modesty of reptiles came out of the darkness. “I did didn’t I?” And from the shadows Piety saw him: Cadmus Pariah, the beloved of Piety’s heart. He drifted towards her, long dark cloaks, black, green, and violet swirling around him like poetry.
Bony fingers fluttered birdlike within the priestly sleeves, white and graceful. His eyes, like shark’s, glittered in the candle light as he gazed at her. Cadmus seemed smaller now that he wasn’t on stage. Piety could tell that he wasn’t much taller than she, who was only average, and she could clearly see the periwinkle-hued powder dusting on Cadmus’ bald pate, giving him that glow of the just recently deceased. Cadmus reached out and lightly brushed Piety’s cheek with his cool knuckles.
“You travelled far to come here, child. Your love must be strong.” He examined her closely. The white skin, the electric black hair framing an innocent face that had seen too much depravity in a world lost to terror, the dark, ripped garb. So many younglings all with the same look, the same attitude, the same hopelessness. And all quite willing to sacrifice themselves to the Beast, Cadmus mused to himself.
“Yes,” she replied fervently. “I’ve loved you ever since I saw you in Magnificat for the first time way back in 1990. I just can’t believe I finally got to meet you….and that I’m here.”
Piety’s thoughts drifted back to that fateful eve when she had slipped out of her family’s squalid flat, past her father sleeping off the cheap whiskey in front of the blaring television and her mother crying in the back room. So thrilled she had been to escape the drudgery of her everyday life and enter the dreamworld of The Poison Rose with her newfound mates from school. Such sights had they shown Piety! And such wonderful music had she heard since Mercy, Jasen, and Threnody had accepted her as one of their own. She took the name Piety to complement that of her closest friend Mercy, donned her now trademark ebony waif vesture, and followed where her friends roamed. That night they roamed a Goth club called The Poison Rose where Piety was to join them. Mercy had told her that a most wondrous band would be playing that night and that she couldn’t miss them: Magnificat! The perfect mixture of blessedness and blasphemy, with a lead singer whose elegance could only be experienced firsthand. When the band took the stage, every one of the musicians except for the lead singer danced about as they played their driving, ethereal techno sounds. But the singer…….well, he stood stock still, the image of dignity. Only his lips moved at the microphone, sometimes whispering, sometimes barking the words at the audience. And sometimes, but rarely, his eyelids would flutter minutely. Piety saw in this enigma something alien to her until that sublime moment of revelation: calm order in the midst of chaos. That, in a world of dread decay, there could be such a constant, standing emotionless, singing from and into the Void, transformed Piety utterly. Cadmus became Piety’s rock, her inspiration.
When the fights raged at home, Piety drew from that first night of seeing Cadmus and developed the ability to stand emotionless, a dark ember of control, at least in her own small and decrepit world. How could she not love Cadmus for a gift such as this? Cadmus dipped his head fluidly to the side and swirled like a spectre around his new pet. Piety thrilled at his motion. No real human could move as the Pariah ~ boneless, like a panther too fraught with animal beauty to be tamed or hunted to the death. It made the rumours surrounding the singer more believable.
Some said that the Pariah was a vampire; others, a phantom made flesh. All were certain that he harboured a dark power surely bestowed upon him by some infernal god. With his ebony eyes and bluish complexion, joyless smile and entrancing voice, Cadmus had to be supernatural. There was just no other explanation.
Behind her now, Cadmus wrapped his arms around Piety’s shoulders. “My beloved Piety ~ ah! Such a sweet sweet name. What is it shall I do with you? Why truly did you undertake this journey to my cold lair?”
Prickles of excitement trailed up Piety’s spine at his melodious voice and words. “To know you,” she answered, her voice trembling. “To see if the rumours are true and….” She faltered.
Suddenly the Pariah was in front of her again, his gaze filled with a vague and hungry menace. “And?”
Piety swallowed and, before she lost her nerve, said “And to make love to you.”
Cadmus smiled, no emotion reaching his endless eyes, and he kissed her on her eyelids.
Cadmus turned to Piety and gazed, unblinking, into her eyes. “This is my private chamber, although I rarely sleep here. Here is where I bring my chosen ones, my companions, as a crossroads of sorts to see if they truly wish to be with me or if they belong somewhere else.” He drew her to the television, turned it on, and placed a video tape into the machine.
Images of flowers sprung forth. A blazing morning sun. Children in a park. Lovers on the beach. Old men muttering over a chess board. A quilting bee. Lions in a pride. Birds in flight. Teens in a shopping mall. A science fiction convention. A parade. Humans and animals laughing, crying, learning, dying, living! Piety did not understand.
“Is it not wondrous?” Cadmus asked her almost silently, his lips moving softly like snow against her ear. It was all he could do to feign the joy of these sights he despised it all so much, but he had to be sure of the girl’s intentions. He could not take the child without her full cooperation. “The ebb and the flow of Life? You are a part of that you know ~ all the human strengths and frailties ~ the capacity to learn and laugh and cry and love. All there within your heart and mind.”
A child being born. Protesters driven back by police. A zebra downed by cheetahs. Tribal dancing. Doctors in an emergency room. A spider building a web. An old woman sleeping. A homeless man. A woman petting her cat. A football game. A fakir resting on nails. A Romany dance.
“Piety ~ this is your life.”
She shook her head adamantly. “No Pariah, I dwell in dark. None of that has meaning for me ~ I’m not a part of it. I’m on the outside.” Piety turned to face Cadmus, her throat catching from finding his ghostly beauty so close to her. “I wouldn’t be here now if my life were so common as that. I left it behind long ago, the ugliness of it all. I’ve chosen a more….pure path.”
“And so,” Cadmus said, his voice like dried flower petals. “You reject the wonders of life and choose to celebrate the blessed dark with me?”
“To be near you? Yes….”
Cadmus kissed Piety on the cheek. His lips were soft and bloodless. “One of your greatest philosophers not so very long ago warned that if you look into the abyss, the abyss will also look into you. You share with me, you’ll be looking into that abyss, child. Are you prepared for such as that?”
“I follow where you go, Pariah.”
And Piety’s dream began to unfold for her. Cadmus kissed her gently on the lips. He tasted of rich ginger and papyrus, so precious, so exhilarating. And he lingered there as though waiting for her to draw away, but Piety nestled ever closer to her saviour and surrendered herself to his devices. Cadmus cradled her face in his hands and moved his head back to stare fiercely into Piety’s eyes.
“Piety, child, my pet, look closely. Behold the life you have freely chosen.”
And Piety did look and she did see. She saw all the ones before her screaming from the Pariah’s eyes, desperate for release or at least some shred of life from without. And she felt the drain upon her ensue. All she had ever done, or seen, or heard, or tasted, or touched, or felt flowing out of her as the emptiness that held the terrors screaming at her filled her own void utterly.
Cadmus watched as all recognition of Life faded from Piety’s face and he smiled. Picking up a jewelled chalice from a nearby table, he led Piety to the scarlet bed and, from under the layered fabics of his robes he pulled out a knife. Wielding the dagger, Cadmus cut the girl’s left wrist only barely, letting the blood splash the lining of the chalice. His eyes fluttered from this stimulation and he surrendered to the passion, kissing Piety deeply, letting his tongue, which was everso slightly split at the tip trail along her unresponsive face and linger on her eyes. The blood flow ceased and Cadmus stood, the chalice in one hand, leading Piety with the other to one of the many rooms in the darkened hall. Empty, save for a humble cot, the room was bleak and cold. Cadmus placed Piety on the cot and snapped a collar ‘round her throat. He heard her wail from within him and shivered in the warmth of his possession.
gunslingaaahhh that there were fates worse than death when it came to encountering Cadmus Pariah. This cautionary piece, which was reworked to become a chapter of The Chalice was my first example of that. BEAUTIFUL PETS
“We are dust and a shadow under the naked light. We are dust and a shadow ~ wishing that everything stood still tonight. We are dust and a shadow ~ the dream of history. We are the hungry ghosts crying ‘remember me, remember me.’” ~ Shriekback “Dust and a Shadow”
It was as though no breath was allowed to enter Piety’s body as she entered the brimstone and pitch-coloured chambers, so overwhelmed she was with their mesmerising beauty. The moonlight cast long shadows across the shimmering floor before her as her steps echoed a muted song for any nearby to hear.
Piety had knocked so, when the door swung open, she considered that to be her permission to enter, even though she was alarmed to find no one inside. The great hall and chambers were sparsely decorated with mahogany chairs and divans, and plush black and jade cushions. No lights of any sort were evident, although a solitary black candle flickered gently on the mantle. There was no sign of any inhabitants. Feeling only a little discomfort at her singularity, Piety spoke as she wandered forth. “Hello?” her voice small and powerless in the oddly acoustic rooms. “Is anyone at home? Cadmus Pariah? It’s Piety ~ y’know from the other night? You ~ you invited me?”
“Yes….” A voice with the modesty of reptiles came out of the darkness. “I did didn’t I?” And from the shadows Piety saw him: Cadmus Pariah, the beloved of Piety’s heart. He drifted towards her, long dark cloaks, black, green, and violet swirling around him like poetry.
Bony fingers fluttered birdlike within the priestly sleeves, white and graceful. His eyes, like shark’s, glittered in the candle light as he gazed at her. Cadmus seemed smaller now that he wasn’t on stage. Piety could tell that he wasn’t much taller than she, who was only average, and she could clearly see the periwinkle-hued powder dusting on Cadmus’ bald pate, giving him that glow of the just recently deceased. Cadmus reached out and lightly brushed Piety’s cheek with his cool knuckles.
“You travelled far to come here, child. Your love must be strong.” He examined her closely. The white skin, the electric black hair framing an innocent face that had seen too much depravity in a world lost to terror, the dark, ripped garb. So many younglings all with the same look, the same attitude, the same hopelessness. And all quite willing to sacrifice themselves to the Beast, Cadmus mused to himself.
“Yes,” she replied fervently. “I’ve loved you ever since I saw you in Magnificat for the first time way back in 1990. I just can’t believe I finally got to meet you….and that I’m here.”
Piety’s thoughts drifted back to that fateful eve when she had slipped out of her family’s squalid flat, past her father sleeping off the cheap whiskey in front of the blaring television and her mother crying in the back room. So thrilled she had been to escape the drudgery of her everyday life and enter the dreamworld of The Poison Rose with her newfound mates from school. Such sights had they shown Piety! And such wonderful music had she heard since Mercy, Jasen, and Threnody had accepted her as one of their own. She took the name Piety to complement that of her closest friend Mercy, donned her now trademark ebony waif vesture, and followed where her friends roamed. That night they roamed a Goth club called The Poison Rose where Piety was to join them. Mercy had told her that a most wondrous band would be playing that night and that she couldn’t miss them: Magnificat! The perfect mixture of blessedness and blasphemy, with a lead singer whose elegance could only be experienced firsthand. When the band took the stage, every one of the musicians except for the lead singer danced about as they played their driving, ethereal techno sounds. But the singer…….well, he stood stock still, the image of dignity. Only his lips moved at the microphone, sometimes whispering, sometimes barking the words at the audience. And sometimes, but rarely, his eyelids would flutter minutely. Piety saw in this enigma something alien to her until that sublime moment of revelation: calm order in the midst of chaos. That, in a world of dread decay, there could be such a constant, standing emotionless, singing from and into the Void, transformed Piety utterly. Cadmus became Piety’s rock, her inspiration.
When the fights raged at home, Piety drew from that first night of seeing Cadmus and developed the ability to stand emotionless, a dark ember of control, at least in her own small and decrepit world. How could she not love Cadmus for a gift such as this? Cadmus dipped his head fluidly to the side and swirled like a spectre around his new pet. Piety thrilled at his motion. No real human could move as the Pariah ~ boneless, like a panther too fraught with animal beauty to be tamed or hunted to the death. It made the rumours surrounding the singer more believable.
Some said that the Pariah was a vampire; others, a phantom made flesh. All were certain that he harboured a dark power surely bestowed upon him by some infernal god. With his ebony eyes and bluish complexion, joyless smile and entrancing voice, Cadmus had to be supernatural. There was just no other explanation.
Behind her now, Cadmus wrapped his arms around Piety’s shoulders. “My beloved Piety ~ ah! Such a sweet sweet name. What is it shall I do with you? Why truly did you undertake this journey to my cold lair?”
Prickles of excitement trailed up Piety’s spine at his melodious voice and words. “To know you,” she answered, her voice trembling. “To see if the rumours are true and….” She faltered.
Suddenly the Pariah was in front of her again, his gaze filled with a vague and hungry menace. “And?”
Piety swallowed and, before she lost her nerve, said “And to make love to you.”
Cadmus smiled, no emotion reaching his endless eyes, and he kissed her on her eyelids.
“Ah, the act of love. Mayhap this eve we’ll go further even than that. Come with me child. I have wonders to show you before you decide to give yourself to me.”
And Cadmus took Piety by the hand, leading her further into the labyrinth of his home. She could see very little in the darkness that permeated this place. Just shades and hints of ancient paintings hanging regally on the walls of the long and endless halls down which Cadmus led her, and the countless doors Piety sensed had not been opened for ages. She could feel Cadmus’ exquisite hand on hers, tugging, gently prompting, pulling her onward to what she was sure would be a destiny of dark and dangerous pleasure. Piety shuddered from the thought of it and squeezed the Pariah’s soft cold hand in anticipation.
Cadmus turned to Piety and gazed, unblinking, into her eyes. “This is my private chamber, although I rarely sleep here. Here is where I bring my chosen ones, my companions, as a crossroads of sorts to see if they truly wish to be with me or if they belong somewhere else.” He drew her to the television, turned it on, and placed a video tape into the machine.
Images of flowers sprung forth. A blazing morning sun. Children in a park. Lovers on the beach. Old men muttering over a chess board. A quilting bee. Lions in a pride. Birds in flight. Teens in a shopping mall. A science fiction convention. A parade. Humans and animals laughing, crying, learning, dying, living! Piety did not understand.
“Is it not wondrous?” Cadmus asked her almost silently, his lips moving softly like snow against her ear. It was all he could do to feign the joy of these sights he despised it all so much, but he had to be sure of the girl’s intentions. He could not take the child without her full cooperation. “The ebb and the flow of Life? You are a part of that you know ~ all the human strengths and frailties ~ the capacity to learn and laugh and cry and love. All there within your heart and mind.”
A child being born. Protesters driven back by police. A zebra downed by cheetahs. Tribal dancing. Doctors in an emergency room. A spider building a web. An old woman sleeping. A homeless man. A woman petting her cat. A football game. A fakir resting on nails. A Romany dance.
“Piety ~ this is your life.”
She shook her head adamantly. “No Pariah, I dwell in dark. None of that has meaning for me ~ I’m not a part of it. I’m on the outside.” Piety turned to face Cadmus, her throat catching from finding his ghostly beauty so close to her. “I wouldn’t be here now if my life were so common as that. I left it behind long ago, the ugliness of it all. I’ve chosen a more….pure path.”
“And so,” Cadmus said, his voice like dried flower petals. “You reject the wonders of life and choose to celebrate the blessed dark with me?”
“To be near you? Yes….”
Cadmus kissed Piety on the cheek. His lips were soft and bloodless. “One of your greatest philosophers not so very long ago warned that if you look into the abyss, the abyss will also look into you. You share with me, you’ll be looking into that abyss, child. Are you prepared for such as that?”
“I follow where you go, Pariah.”
And Piety’s dream began to unfold for her. Cadmus kissed her gently on the lips. He tasted of rich ginger and papyrus, so precious, so exhilarating. And he lingered there as though waiting for her to draw away, but Piety nestled ever closer to her saviour and surrendered herself to his devices. Cadmus cradled her face in his hands and moved his head back to stare fiercely into Piety’s eyes.
“Piety, child, my pet, look closely. Behold the life you have freely chosen.”
And Piety did look and she did see. She saw all the ones before her screaming from the Pariah’s eyes, desperate for release or at least some shred of life from without. And she felt the drain upon her ensue. All she had ever done, or seen, or heard, or tasted, or touched, or felt flowing out of her as the emptiness that held the terrors screaming at her filled her own void utterly.
Cadmus watched as all recognition of Life faded from Piety’s face and he smiled. Picking up a jewelled chalice from a nearby table, he led Piety to the scarlet bed and, from under the layered fabics of his robes he pulled out a knife. Wielding the dagger, Cadmus cut the girl’s left wrist only barely, letting the blood splash the lining of the chalice. His eyes fluttered from this stimulation and he surrendered to the passion, kissing Piety deeply, letting his tongue, which was everso slightly split at the tip trail along her unresponsive face and linger on her eyes. The blood flow ceased and Cadmus stood, the chalice in one hand, leading Piety with the other to one of the many rooms in the darkened hall. Empty, save for a humble cot, the room was bleak and cold. Cadmus placed Piety on the cot and snapped a collar ‘round her throat. He heard her wail from within him and shivered in the warmth of his possession.
“Welcome to the abyss, my pretty Piety. You are in honoured company.”
And Cadmus left, locking the door behind him like he had done with so many others on this hall. His beautiful pets, the herd for his nourishment and the companions to his sinister and vacant soul. Behind each locked door, a precious jewel, one among the legion of Cadmus’ most faithful fans. Their names began to dance in his mind ~ Lirit, Benjamin, Eddy, Akasha, Molly, Phasmata, Finian, Tragedy……his thoughts floated in the reverie. Cadmus sipped delicately from the Chalice, which had already remade the blood for him, and returned to the front rooms, leaving his followers behind for another time.
