Legends of Belariath
Mozenwrathe
Ebon Ivory II - Thoughts On A Parchment
**This set of scrolls was found outside the village of Elkwalk Hill, three hundred years before the coming of the Magi. It was written with regular ink, but with two bloodstained butcher blades marking its presence. Beside the scroll was the body of an older man, around his fiftieth year. The man had been blatantly tortured, but in no way that would impede his ability to see, hear, or write. Instead, his mouth had been filled with sea salt and then sewn partially together a few times. One could see this, as there were points where it was obvious the seams had been violently torn loose. Along with this, the man's back had been carved up - more than likely with the same two kitchen knives that had pointed out the scroll. Upon the man's skin, some old poem had been written in the elven script. The translation would have been added later by a few historians for the village with some help from sylvan elves that lived close to the settlement. It should be noted that the pair of elves, when hearing who was suspected to have written the parchments, first wanted to have it burned to ash. The reaction was so vehement, the high elves whom were also there had to hold them back for a time. (Not that the high elves did not want similar, but they had a far more controlled response.) Oddly enough for a victim of Syndel Voidwalker, the man's legs and feet were not marked up terribly. It was as if he was bound, but not to the point where circulation would be cut off. Later on, it would be discovered that Syndel had started to learn how to use various magics of paralyzation. That, and the rope that was found less than a stone's throw away looked to be long enough to attach to one if not two of the closest trees.**
Born in a barrel of butcher knives? That was never my beginning. Though many would insist my wit it sharper than your little swords you wish to cut me with. Oh yes, am I the arrogant one. Always wanting you and taunting you, making you think I am right behind you when instead have I been before your eyes the entire time. It is nothing for me to fool your little human minds with but a song and a few pebbles. You should not feel too terribly bad about it, as you were born inferior and shall die just the same way. It is a mere trifle for your kind to be caught and captured, controlled and culled. I could go on about the many ways that you set yourselves up to be consumed by that which is this land, but by the time I was done reciting everything, your grandchildren would be dead from old age. Of course, that would be assuming that after we finished here I didn't hunt down your kids. After all, they've just hit the age of adulthood now, have they not? Two boys and one girl - or should I say now two men and one woman.
Oh, be sure to write down everything I say here. If you believe you have missed something, be sure to ask. As the more you get wrong, the worse things will be for you after you have done my scribing for me. I know you are having a little trouble breathing with the rock salt in your mouth, but you'll get over it. In fact, let me open you up a little more before you start choking again, yes? There we are, see? All better now, aren't you just? And you already know what I want to hear, so by all means respond properly. I am very glad you know how to be obedient. It means I don't actually have to emasculate you and slide a roasting pikestaff deep into that lovely tight butthole of yours. You know I find your ass such a wonderful fit around my cock, don't you my fair scribe? It's hard to get such a snug grip around my shaft some times without some tearing.
**It should be noted around here on the parchment, there are dried stains of blood and what looks like rust. As well, crystals of crushed rock salt permeate the blood stains, speckled about on the parchment like splashed ink. There are some trails of ink as well, as if a hand was shaking violently while holding a quill. It is assumed the villainous half-breed forced the man's mouth open at this part, before apparently "washing off" part of his lips with what looks like a rich wine vinegar. The stench was on the poor fellow's body down the left side of his jerkin. Thankfully there was no trace of bile, so it was believed the man managed to keep down what little was left in his stomach.**
The daggers I prefer you would call swords, as you well should. I have always liked them in preference to longer blades. Scimitars, I will freely admit, are a lot of fun. The way they sound as they whistle through the air has always been scintillating to me. Yes, I am certain that's the very word I want to use: scintillating. You look at me as if I do not know what that means or something. Or is that because one of your teeth is trying to come loose there? Either way, it matters little as you are there to write down my words and service my cock until I either choose to allow your miserable life to continue or I cut you into ribbons. So be a proper little crafter of calligraphy and continue to follow my tongue with your quill. It's not as if you really need your tongue for anything at the moment. I could simply cut it out of you with one of these longknives, but then you'd end up bleeding all over yourself even more. I couldn't have that now, could I? It would distract you from your writing, and that would just be a mortal sin.
Inside what you call my mind lies naught but plans of torture and torment. Okay, I am kidding. Occasionally I think of song lyrics as well. You do know I am a bard, right? I love the singing and the storytelling as much as the next one. It just so happens I like my lyre strung with something that isn't catgut. And as there are just so many different places to get quality string material, I thought it best to make my lyre with nothing but freshly acquired insides. Oh, worry not my writing minion, for your stomach is completely safe from my intentions. After all, I don't do dead things. That's something that those icky, nasty, dirty necromancers do. And to think, I actually loathe necromancers more than I despise humans. Elven ones, chirot ones, torian ones - all of them I'd actually tear apart with such relish I'd forget about the humans I had hanging on the walls behind me for hours, if not days on end. I know, I am such a sadistic bastard, and yet I have that level of hatred for those who play with the dead? There's a limit to what I am willing to do, you know. Once something or someone is dead, the most one should do is pose their body in a way that will cause the most grief and suffering for those who will come across it. Making it walk and talk again, or whatever it is those people do? That is just a crime against nature, and it should be punished with the utmost vehemence. There are lines that should not be crossed, and that is one of them. Perhaps I am a bit of a prude for thinking that way, but I refuse to apologize for beliefs. After all, if I was wrong in them, would not the gods themselves have told me such?
Your terror excites me, sort of like how a forest puma starts to salivate when it sees a wounded antelope. It is a natural reaction for me, you see, and something I only started embracing after a strange twist of fate pitted me against my own terrors... and I lost. Imagine that, yes? Me, with all my years of being alive, falling prey to a fear coming to life. Strange, I know, but so very true. I have to say, the fear is still there, and I face it more often than I truly care to admit. Some days do I beat it, and other days does it bugger me bastardly. Though I find in those nightmares of mine, the harder the fear thrusts itself into me, the stickier a mess I wake up the next day. Oh, stop your sniveling and cringing there, fair scribe of mine. You should be used to me naked by now. After all this time we have spent together, you are even now trying to inch away from me? By the Goddess Above and the Goddess Below, you ought to stop squirming like that. All you do is get me hot and bothered, and as much as I love the feel of your ass in the morning as you squeal through your sewn lips, this is far more imperative. The sense of impending doom that is created when I capture my latest victim is almost intoxicating. Sometimes, it very well is I am not ashamed to admit. For you, it would be like sipping upon some scummy, overdone batch of ogre's lager that had been heated, frosted by an ice mage, and had the top layer of snow-like crystals removed and thrown onto your favourite flower garden. The taste would be sweeter and the strength of it like a well-aged wine. That, my little quill-master, is how it permeates my senses: that aura of abject dread and dismay.
When humans for some reason think that somehow they will defeat me in individual combat, I scoff. Not because I believe I am so much better than your short-lived kind, but because humans pray and hope and insist they are anything more than meat to be devoured. Not literally, of course. At least not by anything that knows true civilization. Why do you think those wemic and wolven, trolls and ogres are so feared by your fatty and facetious selves? They will roast you over an open fire and use the grease from your skins to flavour you. I've seen them do it, and yet so many of your blind and miserable brethren suffer them to live within your towns and villages like they were your friends. It's as sickening as it is amusing, when I think about it. How much humans invite disaster in, and yet feel betrayed and horrified when it finds them. I find a challenge to destroy the little walls of normalcy your kind build around your minds and hearts. It takes more than a simple murder with walls painted with blood and gore to rake away the haze from before your eyes. No, every so often it is an entire campaign, complete with whispered lies and half-sung truths in a key that spreads your eyes open and seizes your throats. Your resistance to what truly is when you all wrap yourselves in what you think there is reminds me of cracking an egg by scraping around the shell with a shaving razor. It takes so very long, but the end result is a moment of satisfaction and beauty that is barely matched.
**It is here that the scrolls legibility ends. The rest of the ink was smeared in tears and some other liquids or liquors. Given the strong smell of alcohol, it was thought Syndel chose not to have the last words he said to the man available to any. The ruining of the scroll at the very end was done deliberately, as a few glyphs were carved into the birchbark parchment in the middle of the final - and unreadable - paragraph. As for the poem itself at the beginning of the poem, this is the translation: "upon this day do I wish my life free "of strife and woe. as never more will I "know pain and perdition both, my soul I "gladly bequeath to the eternal and "glorious service of Elania. "once was I lost within my own blindness "and delusions, weaving myself into "coccoon of misery, mysterious "dread and malaise. now have I been cut free "of such bondage, knowing within my old "and delicate heart has been granted naught "less than new and most beautiful life. wings "only divine wisdom bestowed upon "such lowly spirit as mine could lift me "to such blissful elevation. may this "gift of sagacity allow me to "kiss the winds and heavens with same gentle "and wholesome love I once gave to my wife. "no longer will I fear fallow shadows "of winter, for as I weep beloved "tears of wonder, shall spring forever know "my blood and body as its own. starlight "above, when night does come, raise these ancient "limbs of mine and dance me anew, for to "blessed reaches of She whom I praise with "unfettered devotion will I soar to. "