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He entered the chambers much like he'd entered them many times before. Slowly, somnolently. Staring at the black flames burning through cracks of the pavement-like surface of rock floor, forming serrated aisles of cold heat. He presents himself in supplication. Bowing his head before The Master. Who sat, on --s fat, spindly throne. A throne made of human bones, the willing sacrifice their own. "You have come to seek answers?" An almost imperceptible nod. "You know you will find none." He bites his lip, and a part of it falls of. The Master beckons with one open arm. He walks, a bit unsteadily, with the slightest of hesitations, to bow before the raised platform which holds the throne. "You know it is almost time. You are falling into pieces, Mister -, and there is nothing more to be done. Not with the way things are going." "But there must be--," his voice is hesitant, on the surface, but no less determined and desperate, a thread of steel barely covered. "I have given you tribute." "I desire more." "There....there is nothing left to give." The Master is quiet at this, inspecting Mister -'s querulous features, his attempt at not betraying the anger beneath the whining eyes, and the bitter, barely unquivering mouth. "Go to the fire, and fix your face." He obeys without a glance, bows down to a nearby receptacle which curiously looks like a hollow cylinder garbage can, fire errupting out of it like a poor hobo man's hearth. Except the fire is black, the tongues licking Mister -'s face, and the chunk of lip that was even now dissolving into the rock floor, and turning into lumpy dust, seems unmissed in his features as the begin to rearrange themselves. Mister -'s shoulders quake, almost imperceptibly, as a sudden feeling of overwhelming dread and hate and fear and loathing take him over. "Have I not given you everything you have asked for?" --s voice is merciless, relentless. "Fame, you asked for." He feels his toes curl up. "Power, wealth." His kneecaps long to knock. His knees hurt from locking. "Sex, health, relatively." It seems to him, his penis shrivels up and dies. "Was it not almost happiness?" A little death. It chokes his heart. "After you had turned thirteen. Seventh, blessed one. And you looked at all that you'd achieved, and you feared it wouldn't be enough. Haven't I given you more than enough?" It would reach his soul, were there any left to curdle. "All your grievances, with those who'd abused you. As a little one. A helpless one. And all the world knows how much you love the little ones." His lungs collapse, disappear. "And when it was almost perfect, when you'd created your perfect country----" His liver tears into shreds. "Do you remember what you asked me then?" A croak: "Death of desire means nearly death itself. I begged for desire; I begged for something, always one thing, I could not have..." (his voice reaches in whispers into the dark) "And did I not give you Desire?" (mute, his mind: -- hears, though, like -- always does. _ yes. _ "I will tell you something. I did not give you Desire. You had it all along." Lungs, liver, spleen, *heart* returns. "It is the seed that is lodged in your bowels." He takes gasping breaths. "I merely watered it; my blessing for your litle offerings." Something happens which has never happened before. The Master rises, and walks over to him. -- puts --s hands on Mister -'s shoulders. "Turn." He obeys. And is handed a mirror. The gilt blade is without handle. It is merely a fat sliver, large and shaped vaguely like a pentagram. He cannot tear his eyes away from the monster before him. It is himself. (still, like marble. dead, like plastic.- - - _ there is nothing left for me to give. _ "Oh, -. Child. There is always something." (even my voice is gone; he half-thinks- "You have three little ones..." Throat parched, burning cold, he makes out the words as a whitish fluid which is not blood leaks from the side of his lips. He claws at his throat with brittle, breaking fingernails -and fingers- as though trying to bleed scratches might force some trailing humanity out of his mouth. Or perhaps, gasp for one last particle of something like his soul. "No." Stridently. The effort has caused whitish fluid to leak out of all visible orifices. This is how The Master works. He is never forced. He knows the terms quite well by now. There is silence; the final answer sinks into the cavern/cavernous doom/doom. Something like respect glints in --s eyes. He melts away. |
QUI TECET by Jill.