tinhuviel | Entries tagged with the_harming

Yes, I am still writing. No, this has not been proofread/edited. I still wanted to put it here, in a kind of commemoration. It seems that the emotion for this particular Harming Tree short story is going to be lust, and that's why the words are coming so slowly, so fraught with difficulty. Lust is such an alien emotion, even to Cadmus, who is so endowed with the entrapments of both human and Vampire after the Augury incident. I just have a problem with emotion" when it comes to Cadmus, especially anything bordering on love or the entrapments of the physical body. Still, it has to be done if any sort of realism is to be brought to the character. Anyway, here's the continuance of the story I'm currently and will probably continue calling The Star Watcher.
( Cadmus meets Litania )

Mood: exhausted
Where? home
Music: 'Manhunter' on telly

It's the beginning of another Cadmus short story that may or may not show up in 'The Harming Tree' simply because I don't really want to kill the Vampire that Cadmus encounters in this one. I still haven't figured out how Flint will actually survive meeting Cadmus so, if he doesn't, the story will go into 'The Harming Tree' anthology. If he does, well, I don't know what I'll do with it. This is the rough draft of part of what I have so far, introducing Flint, a Darkblood Vampire.

Flint let his large hazel eyes dance across the endless stream of Los Angeles traffic as he sat on a high hill that was one of the more secluded spots just outside the city. There had been quite a few bodies found on this very spot, which would have given him a case of the creeps if he had not been guilty of placing a couple of bodies there himself.

An almost sentient went blew across Flint's face, making his long dark-blonde hair tickle his high cheeks and worry his fluttering eyelids. He absently brushed the hair away, waiting...watching... The lights of the city below him reflected in his eyes, making them ripple into a phosphorescent malachite strangeness before returning to the more human hazel. It was his eyes that gave him away to humans as being something other than they, and to Vampires as being one of their own.

But Flint was a kind of aberration in the New Hive. He was several hundred years old and had never transformed anyone into a Vampire. It wasn't because he was a Redemptor, which he was not. He simply had never really thought about it. And he had never encountered anyone else he wanted to take that kind of responsibility for. There was that oddness, and there was his name. The Vampire who had transformed him had named him Absinthe because of the odd effect his eyes displayed upon coming into the Hive, but he did not keep it; instead, he reverted back to his mortal name of Simon Flynt, and then modernised it decades later to the simple name by which he went today.

Flint.

Being ordinary in every way he could when he was essentially anything but made him irresistible to a wide range of potential food sources. It served him very well. Even though he preferred not to kill, mistakes did happen, but those mistakes were usually straight men who came to their so-called senses before Flint was finished with his meal, and tried to fight Flint off in some misguided attempt to reclaim some imagined gender-centric honour. Many of those men ended up right here on this dusty desert hill with their necks broken.

Thinking about it, Flint shrugged. He identified as straight...ish. Vampires really couldn't be bothered with mortal sexual hang-ups, but even when Flint was mortal, he simply just didn't care about trivial things like this. All of his mates, both mortal and Vampire, had been female, but it did not bother him to admire the male form or be admired by other males. His male-bonding bordered on the romantic simply because when Flint was fond of you, he was very very fond of you. And if he were not fond of you, you simply did not exist in his world.

Mood: accomplished
Where? home
Music: U2 - Exit

After the song of the Augury of was sung, the Great Hive was terribly decimated by the mortation and purging of the Vampires. Gone were the last Tarmi of the Hive of Purity, finally rejoining their brethren on the holy isle of Meybhelahn. With them went the only human to grace that hidden home since the Night of the Blood Moon. Eve had filled her destiny and was given her reward of sanctity, despite being Cadmus Pariah’s sacred garden of Blood. The Hive of Redemption collectively mortated back into the human population along with a number of Darklings of the Darkblood Hive. Most of the Tribe of the Tomb perished, finally being released from their crippling burdens. Those who were left also mortated and led short lives in human form. The only Vampires left were most of the Darklings and those of the Hive of the Beast. Less than five thousand Vampires walked the blessed dark, feeding upon the blood of the living.

Few of the Vampire Blood Royalty survived. Orphaeus Cygnus remained the High Prince of the Beasts, happy in his position and undesiring of any greater responsibility. Rebekah and Mephistopheles had never sought power within the Great Hive and had no desire to rise to power now that the King was dead and the Queen had passed into the Tarmian realm. Thaddeus Brannon had retaken his name of Dmitri and had disappeared into the Blue Ridge Mountains to mourn his departed lover. The only one left was the true heir to the Throne of Blood...Cadmus Pariah. The newly-born Vampire, aged to a certain regal beauty, had achieved all that he had dreamt, save for the death of his mother, Kelat. He had outlived his former master, the Apostate, and risen to power within what was now called the New Hive. Humanity was his for the taking, a resplendent and neverending feast.

But he was not King. After Thiyennen, there could be no other king and, as long as Queen Kelat lived, the leader of the New Hive was considered a regent of the night. It rankled Cadmus, but he was barely concerned with this technicality because he knew Kelat would never return to the world of humans and Upyr. He was truly the ruler of the New Hive, but his title had to reflect his position on the throne. A coterie of Darklings and Beasts convened with Cadmus, despite their fear and hatred of him, and they decided upon the title of Plenipotentiary, the Ruler of All. Cadmus accepted this cognomen and rose to power over all the New Hive, his dark eyes watching the Upyr with dread magicks.

Still, he fed upon the Blood of the New Hive, reminding them of the Sanguinem Mittat and who was their eternal master. But he mostly took humans for food now, and basked in the ability to eat and drink the vast banquet of human food. He was more of a sybarite than ever before, and his veiled castle home was the center of the pleasure palace he called the world.

Mood: thoughtful
Where? home
Music: Roy Orbison vs. The Foo Fighters - You Got To Learn To Fly

After a little over five year search, I finally found my DVD that I had lost which had treasured upon it all the old and rare Shriekback footage that Barry had entrusted to James for conversion to a friendlier format. James sent the material to me since I could get Llew to convert the PAL-formatted material to NTSC and DVD. Llew was kind enough to do the job and I sent the old footage along with the converted material back to James, keeping a copy for myself. Well, I lost my copy, and James found himself in a situation that separated the material from his possession. It looked like all this wonderful old stuff was going to be released to the aether without any hope of it ever being seen by Shriek fans.

Until day before yesterday. I was looking for my copy of Haunted Box of Switches when I chanced upon a white recordable DVD with the name "Shriekback" on it. Curious, I popped it into the computer, and out came the wonderful visions of the old videos, rare interviews, and performances that may not have ever been seen by anyone, save for those involved in the filming. For the past two days, I've been working on converting the files to a friendlier format so I could pull out the footage that has not yet been posted to You Tube by others (like 'Nemesis' and 'Despite Dense Weed'). The easiest file to separate so far has been "Tosh (Shriekbackwash)" by Fluke and Shriekback, a collaboration which happened in the Nineties when Barry Andrews was involved in recording of Fluke's album OTO.

What's so special about this performance is that Barry makes extensive use of The Harming Tree, the crafty creation that inspired the collection of Cadmus short stories I'm currently writing. It slays me that The Harming Tree has its own microphone set up, as though it were a sentient member of the merged bands.

Mood: happy
Where? home
Music: barking dogs

The only reference to the Harming Tree I've ever found, sans the visual found in the 'Captain Cook' video.

94and 5 Cockroach Music for the People. Shriekback morphs in to a strange accoustic hybrid (see sleeve-note to ‘Demonstration’). A good time is had by all and there’s a nice crossover with my growing obsession with metalwork and sculpture -I make the giant Reco Reco and the legendary ‘Harming Tree’. Eventually I head off to Camberwell Art college to try to learn more about the crafty world.

I wish he'd find that dandy relic and then bestow it onto this lowly writer-thing, who would garner so much inspiration just listening to its strange vibrations.

Mood: bored
Where? the hospital
Music: hospital noises

I'm stuck on The Last Acolyte. My heart just isn't in it. There are so many other Cadmus stories I want to be writing, one of which where he actually lets his hair grow out as a part of some arcane ritual. Maybe that will become The Braid in my list of short story titles. It had always been my idea that Cadmus would allow his hair to grow back at least once, since he does indeed shave it and has ever since he was initiated into the Darkness by the Apostate. Now with seeing Straw, I'm just really super inspired. I just need to get it through my head that I don't have to finish one story before I can start another. That's always been a thing with me. The Chalice, The Blood Crown, and The Augury of Gideon were all written linearly. I wonder if that's normal now. Either way, I think I'm setting aside The Last Acolyte and turning my attention to The Braid for a little while. Then again, I'm also keen on exploring The Witness Tree, where the first artifact of the Apostate is introduced.

I don't know.

Maybe I'm thinking about it too much. I'd leave it alone, but I feel I've left it alone for too long already.

Blah! I don't know what to do.

Mood: confused
Where? home
Music: Patti Smith - Looking For You (I Was)

Throughout the planet Earth there are hidden artifacts fashioned by the Apostate for his own dark amusements. These artifacts were sometimes chanced upon by hapless humans who fell slave to their magicks. One such artifact became known as The Shroud. Its sole purpose was to show whomever was unfortunate to don the accursed cloth a world filled with death, disease, and the inescapable inevitability of enslavement and imprisonment in a world so terrible as to make the wearer and all those about whom the wearer told The Shroud gabble with sorrow and madness.

This was the first of the Apostate's dabblings into magick solely for magick's sake. And it was the first about which Cadmus Pariah learnt after his apotheosis into the role of Plenipotentiary of the New Hive. He discovered that it belonged to a human child of misfortune who had lost everything to The Shroud. Her name was Shirley Manning and she had lost her children, her husband, her very way of life to the lies told by The Shroud.

Cadmus suspected that taking The Shroud away from Shirley Manning would most assuredly kill her, but that really was not his concern. He had made it his mission to collect and perhaps destroy the Apostate's final stain up this planet.

And there were others.

There were the Crystals of Khemeth, quartz stones created out of the tears of bound Tarmi. When worn, the Crystals would cause the wearer to cry uncontrollably and produce even more crystals, thus compounding the sorrow perpetrated by the original magicks fashioned in the dungeons of the Apostate. The Dagger of Aramathea, fashioned out of stone that no longer even existed in the bones of the Earth and, if plunged into the flesh of a mortal being, that being would be transformed to salt for all eternity, a poisonous salt that would taint all around it. The Apostate could have easily poisoned the oceans of planet Earth with the corpse of one murdered soul. There was the Spiritus Wine that, when drunk, the drinker would die of insomnia and its ensuing madness. One such family, dwelling in the heart of Italy, had fallen victim to the legacy of this wine, believing it to be the very blood of Christ as they took, in their ignorance, the libation of the Saviour.

And there were so many more, dotted along the surface of the Pariah's playground of night. It was his intention to collect them all and, if not eradicate their existence from the knowledge of Humankind, add their terrible power to his Harming Tree. With such dark magick at his fingertips, Cadmus Pariah could once again reclaim the invincibility that had once almost been his as the bane to the Great Hive.

This would be Cadmus Pariah's final vengeance upon the mummified relic that had once been the greatest sorcerer on Earth.

Mood: creative
Where? home
Music: Aimee Mann - Fifty Years After The Fair

What's going on today?

I'll be giving Chester his Summertime shaving, and I'll be clipping all the dogs' toenails. At the very least, this will take me a couple of hours. Right now the dogs are all chillaxing like they haven't a care in the world. Once the toenails start flying, they'll know that the day isn't going to be a business-as-usual day of relaxation. I can hear the angry growls of protest now.

Blake is supposed to swing by for a visit so he can pick up his birthday card and gift. Aunt Tudi and I scrimped and saved like crazy in order to give him $20. I'm certain he'll be thrilled with the dough. In this day and age, people are thrilled to get monetary gifts, and they know how fortunate they are to be receiving such a gift. Ten years ago, $20 wasn't that big of a deal. Funny how just a handful of years can make all the difference in the world.

Sometime after the dogs' grooming and family visitation, I'd like to squeeze in some quality time for writing. I haven't sat down to seriously commit some wordage to virtual paper in about a week, and I'm beginning to suffer from the writing withdrawals. Ideally, I'd like to finish "The Last Acolyte" today and begin on the third story in the Cadmus anthology.

Before I begin my work, I'm having a late breakfast and watching 2012. That movie is like porn for me as I see global mass destruction on an unprecedented scale, and hope that this actually happens next year. The more I watch this movie, the more I get the warm fuzzlies. The only thing I hope does not happen is that anyone survives the cataclysm. Only the animals should survive the 2012 disaster. After all the horror our species has imposed upon planet Earth and our fellow inhabitants, Humanity deserves extinction.

After my work, I need to do some online research on Ramtha for Todd. I've known about this grifter for decades, and Todd and I have discussed her in the past. He was invited to a dinner party last weekend where the folks discussed a variety of spiritual matters. A few days later, he asked his friend to what group they all belonged because I had asked Todd and Todd didn't know. His friend told him that they belonged to Ramtha's School of Enlightenment. My knee jerk reaction was "Ohhh nooo..." I've already sent some information about JZ Knight/Ramtha to Todd, but I need to send him more. The aim is to ensure Todd does not associate with these people at any depth because RSE is a cult and a dangerous one at that.

So this will take up the majority of my Bealtainne. One more Bealtainne to be had before the Alpaca Lips. I may have to find me a gawgeous man with whom to celebrate my last Bealtainne... If only Vin Diesel would volunteer for God to my Goddess duties, I could leave this mortal coil a happy happy woman. Heh.

Mood: recumbent
Where? home
Music: Peter Gabriel - Steam (Radio Edit)

I have had nothing but beans to eat all day. Goddess help all those around me. But OH! how I love beans. Any kind of bean, I don't care. I could eat beans every day for the rest of my life. Legumes are my friend and the enemy of my enemies. I am a walking weapon of mass destruction when I get what I want to eat. Add pork-soaked greens to that and I am a deadly weapon worthy of a James Bond film.

At night, I've been watching the movie Inception. The film is brilliant. I've long been a proponent of dreams and how they can be manipulated lucidly, so this film is right up my alley. The only problem is that it's too loud on our TV in the living room, so I've been watching it with headphones on the little TV. I can clearly hear the dialogue and follow the plot despite the explosions and gunfire. Quite simply, the film is brilliant. It should have won the Oscar. I believe that Christopher Nolan was robbed. And I'm not jut saying that because Tom Hardy was in it. Anyone could have played his role and been a part of the whole that made up the core group of the movie. I'm just glad it was Tom Hardy. I like to watch him act. It only further convinces me that he's the one to play Cadmus. Oh, and I've learnt that he wore a nose piece for his role in Shinzon. His nose is much straighter and has a slight knob to it in Nemesis than it does in his other movies. If he played Cadmus, he would keep his own nose.

I have not written today. I have slept instead. I was up late last night, all excited over Khanada's version of the artwork for the second edition of The Chalice. Sophie also has some plans for the The Harming Tree, which I won't mention here. It'll be up to her to mention that first, then I shall reveal it here. It's exciting to have a group of people excited about my work. Cadmus Pariah is truly hearted, I can tell you that. Later on, I shall probably write, hopefully finishing or coming close to finishing up 'The Last Acolyte.'

Right now, I'm watching Manhunter, with its ethereal use of Shriekback music to enhance the atmosphere of the serial killer movie. Who knew such a gently sad song like "Evaporation" would end up in a movie about a vicious killer?

Mood: recumbent
Where? home
Music: Shriekback - Sexthinkone

If I have approximately 10 stories, each of them 20-25 pages long, I should have a book-long collection of stories revolving around The Harming Tree. That's not too shabby. I work kind of backwards when it comes to writing tales. The title inspires me to write to justify its existence. That said, here are the list of titles I have so far, including the ones for which I've already written stories.

Taking Isobel

The Last Acolyte

The Witness Tree

Hush Now

The Vestments of Reptiles

Midnight Blue

Touching Grace

The Shepherd's Pipe

The Colliding of Realities

The Braid

That's ten titles. Of course, some may never become any more than titles and could be replaced with something else. There could also very well be more titles and stories yet to be written. We shall see. Nothing is impossible. I'm not even finished with "The Last Acolyte" which is proving to be my most violent story. Of course, it has to do with rage, so what else could it be? I'm hoping to be finished with the first draft in the next couple of months, then go through on the second draft and on to

gunslingaaahhh and the Mother Unit for vicious editing.

Mood: excited
Where? home
Music: Midge Ure - Sinnerman

Cadmus' Harming Tree isn't an exact replica of Barry's Harming Tree. It inherited the look of my contorted filbert, making Cadmus' Harming Tree a twisted enigma and offering up the opportunity to carry numerous souvenirs from Cadmus' many excursions into the Vampire and human world. Here's a picture of the contorted filbert for reference.

And Barry's Harming Tree.

Put them together and you have the Harming Tree in the book of the same name. I'm still working on the second story. It's gonna be a bloodbath, I'm afraid. But, you know, anger makes you do crazy things sometimes.

Mood: still freaked out
Where? home
Music: Phil Collins - In The Air Tonight

So this is the first draft of story #2, dealing with anger...rage even. Suffice to say Cadmus' eyes turn completely black at one point. Heh. Alrighty. Let's get this party started.

The Last Acolyte

Things that used to shock us, these horrors and delights, it’s disappointing that they all went down without a fight ~ Shriekback “Pointless Rivers”

The Order of the Crimson Cup fell on the night Kelat attempted to take the chalice away from Cadmus. The Pariah’s followers dropped like snowflakes after beholding the face of their beloved leader. Blood flowed and soaked his boots as he walked through the massacre of his perished Order. No one was left to know his face and Cadmus left confident that he was safe from any identification.

But he was wrong.

One follower survived, an Acolyte no less. Narcissa had beheld everything that fateful night from the safe haven of the forest in which she had chosen to meditate before the Order’s Great Ritual. The Lord of the Chalice, Landon Dunlevy, was in attendance, so she knew the Blood would be abundant and she would be graced with a libation from the Crimson Cup. Instead of the holy ritual, though, she watched Landon reveal himself to be Cadmus Pariah, the cherished lead singer of Magnificat, and she watched that demon incarnate destroy his Order in the blink of an eye. Even she was compelled to exit the forest and go to Cadmus so her blood could mingle with that of her congregation. But she resisted, closing her eyes against the tears and kneeling against a tree, hugging it tightly, for her life depended on it.

Narcissa had been one of Dunlevy’s favourite Acolytes. Her thirst for Blood was strong and unceasing. She killed without hesitation at his holy behest, and she followed him without question. He often called her Black Narcissa and he bestowed upon her the book The Black Narcissus, so she would know where the nickname came from. Narcissa treasured the gift and loved her benevolent Lord even more. There was no doubt that she was in love with Landon Dunlevy. To be honest, everyone in the Order of the Crimson Cup was in love with him. He gave them a taste of Life Eternal, and filled their hearts with sweet sacrilege. Even though she had never seen his face, she knew that he was the most beautiful man on Earth.

She had been right.

When Cadmus Pariah unmasked, Narcissa clasped her hands against her breast and wept with joy. She had beheld him countless times as he sang the songs the defined the Order but now, as she saw him in person, , the dreadful beauty carved its name into her soul. Her elation turned to horror and her love turned to revulsion when she watched Cadmus dispose of the Order of the Crimson Cup like so much garbage. That was all they were to him, refuse to use and toss away at whim. That is all she was to him, his beloved Black Narcissa. It was all a lie, a terrible lie.

Before she gave into her compulsion to walk out to Cadmus Pariah and sacrifice herself to him, she turned and dashed further into the forest, running blindly and peeling off her robes, exposing the street clothes she had worn on her way to Cadmus’ secret cabin. Tears poured from her eyes as she ran. She soon ran out of energy and lay down on the mossy ground, petrified and stricken like a hunted animal.

After a time, Narcissa shook herself out of her terrified stupour and started jogging through the woods, hoping that they would open up to some area in the mountains that she knew. She was a born and bred Ashevillian and had been an avid hiker before finding the Order of the Crimson Cup, so the Smoky Mountains were like a second home to her. Her hometown of Asheville was so familiar to Narcissa, she could have been a tour guide.

She eventually exited the woods to a large meadow and, beyond that, a narrow road that she knew led to the more populated Swannanoa Avenue. Narcissa trudged across the meadow, scaring wary deer back into the safety of the forest. She smiled mirthlessly as she could not help noting the similarity between her and the deer at this grim moment. Narcissa eventually reached the road and headed toward Swannanoa Avenue. The night had deepened and Narcissa felt weary and heartbroken as the moon illuminated her journey.

It was not’t until morning light before Narcissa made it home. She was picked up on Swannanoa Avenue by a couple of dreadlocked hippies, just the kind of folk the Order would sacrifice to the Cup so they might take libation. Narcissa felt a pang of guilt as their innocent kindness saved her life that night.

The last Acolyte took to her bed that morning and did not stray from it for three days. She simply lay there and shivered from fear and shock. She had been reduced to using nothing but her reptilian brain, thinking only of self-preservation.

Narcissa remembered that night vividly and she shook with anger and loss. Afterward, she began the long suffering of withdrawals from the chalice Blood. The longer she lived without the Blood the weaker her connection to Cadmus became. She had desperately held on to that psychic link. She knew that Cadmus returned to England, disbanded Magnificat, and went into hiding. There he remained until Narcissa’s Blood-bond with him faded completely as her withdrawals came to an end.

As an Acolyte, Narcissa had the phone numbers to several other Acolytes to other clutches within the Order of the Crimson Cult. They needed to know the truth of Landon Dunlevy. But, when she called, each Acolyte said that their Clutch crumbled when their Lord disappeared. None of them believed her revelation and none of them seemed to care now that their withdrawals had diminished. Narcissa plead with them, but they would not hear her, so she became completely isolated in her knowledge and more scorned by Cadmus’ betrayal. So she forged a plan…

Narcissa sought out and found one of the last of the Tribe of the Tomb, and she trapped the crippled Vampire and kept her in her apartment. This would be Narcissa’s beacon. If Cadmus ever came anywhere near Asheville, Narcissa would know. If she ever had the chance, Narcissa would hunt Cadmus Pariah down and kill him with her bare hands if she must. He would pay with his life for his deception and betrayal if she had her way. Even if it took her life trying, Narcissa was determined to face the Vampire and destroy him utterly.

Narcissa’s life was consumed by her plans. She lived in isolation, her parents footing the bill for her upkeep. All she did was research Vampires and any shred of lore about Cadmus she could find. She provided blood for her captive shambler and pried every bit of information she could from the crippled Vampire. The Vampire was surprisingly forthcoming and full of information. The Tribe of the Tomb was quite familiar with Cadmus Pariah since he had hunted them relentlessly throughout the long ages. So easy they were to find and capture. Even mortal Narcissa had no problem doing so, and the undead were nearly extinct.

And so, Narcissa waited in the dark, cradling her vengeful thoughts.

Mood: excited
Where? home
Music: Peter Murphy - Cuts You Up

You can get a good look at it starting at :28, but you should watch the whole video.

Mood: okay
Where? home
Music: Robbie Robertson - Broken Arrow

I just finished the first story for The Harming Tree. Combined, the prologue and "Taking Isobel" gives me a word count of 10,195. I have an idea for the next tale, but I'm gonna let it percolate for a while. Stu sent me the new Jen Olive tunes and wants me to review them, so I need to focus on that. I also need to create a fan page on Facebook for Restaurant for Dogs and The Caretakers. Bruce gave me some tunes and pictures for that project, so I need to get cracking on that. Sometimes I wonder what I've gotten myself into. Ha!

Mood: accomplished
Where? home
Music: XTC - The Ugly Underneath

I did a little research last night to find out that Barry referred to his relic as the Harming Tree. He sometimes has more than one name for things or will change things around just to have fun, but I wanted to make sure I had things right. I did not. The tree is not called the Singing Tree. It is, in fact, the Harming Tree. That actually fits better in the story anyway. So my job today is to change the title and references in what I have written from the Singing Tree to the Harming Tree. I feel like a doofus.

Mood: embarrassed
Where? home
Music: Nine Inch Nails - Reptile