Part XVIII: The Darkest Day
Chapter 1: To Serve Baal
Timeline: AO326
I might seem to you as if Hacktor’s war would continue forever—that’s what the commoners of both the Derkka and Drokka feared. But fear not, for the day when The War of the Ghast was to come to an abrupt and unexpected end was always written into the plan.
My friends, sometimes the course of history is determined when men of action risk everything in a bold play to change the fates, but more often than not, it’s determined by… shall we say, more nefarious means.
[The writers of your modern day history books would have you believe their tales of ‘brave men who fought valiantly to protect truth, justice, and blah blah blah.’ It’s fodder for the masses and you mindlessly eat it like the good little sheep you are. Don’t you see that that by focusing the narrative on the valor of said Brave Men, the real story (greed for control of resources) is hidden in the shadows? Don’t you realize the rich get richer off your backs? As I told you in the last chapter, when will you wake up to realize that History is…fluid?]
Such was the case with Hacktor’s little war. If you remember, I laid plans in place nearly a century before that culminated in such a war because I wanted to gather bones from the dead that I interrogate in my Necronomicon death communals. My goal was to learn more about the dagger Dagaal without Gwar or Sindra finding out – and it didn’t hurt that I’d get a near limitless supply of fresh souls to gorge myself with. But the fact is that after twenty-some years of war, the Derkka and the Drokka had combined to contribute nearly a million bodies to my cause, perhaps more. And yet, they kept dying. The sheer excess disgusted even me. Not because I had any qualms about bloodshed, but because it had become inefficient. Pointless. This was far more than I would ever need – in fact, most of those bones simply went to waste, unneeded and therefore unused by me, and in truth, largely forgotten as well.
In short, the deaths of these mostly young men who were chewed up in the war machine were largely pointless – their blooms were cut short before they ever had a chance to flower and soon even the memory of them was forgotten. Never would they walk on your world again, never would you know what good they could have contributed.
[Apparently, you people enjoy this sort of things because I’ve witnessed countless wars throughout your history in which the well-to-do older men of your societies feed the younger men into similar military industrial complexes that are not only great at destroying these potential threats to the older ruling class but also serve to line the pockets of that ruling elite – and yet strangely enough those wars never seems to resolve the situation that they claimed you were were ostensibly fighting about in the first place. It’s really a brilliant plan].
Did I care about any of that? Not really.
The point is that I didn’t need Hacktor and his war any longer. Besides having all the bones I needed for my communals about Dagaal, I was tired of Gwar hanging out in my lands. But perhaps most importantly, I came to the realization this war, once my great symphony of chaos, had begun to serve another – Sindra.
Ah yes, Sindra. The Goddess of Temptation and Lust, subtle as she is dangerous. I’d begun to notice her handiwork, her sickly sweet influence upon Garrick, the Derkka Marduk who was supposed to be mine – after all I created the Derkka. But Sindra was always an opportunistic gal – she saw the potential to take advantage of The Golden One – twisting him into her pawn right under my nose. Her whispered promises, no doubt, filling his head with lies of destiny, grand power, and eternal glory. And Garrick, ever hungry for more power and desperate for beauty, had obviously swallowed it whole. I’m sure Sindra relished pulling one over on me – and I was all too happy to let her continue to believe that lie.
I first discovered her treachery during one of my communals with the dead. I was sifting through the fractured remains of a fallen Derkka captain when a faint whisper of Sindra’s name caught my attention. It took only a moment to realize what had happened—Garrick had been tainted by her vile essence, led astray by her seductive lies. My marduk, turned into her puppet.
The realization set my blood boiling. The audacity! Sindra and I both served our mutual master Lucifer – at least on paper – but we’d always been rivals in ambition. She sought to extend her grip over TerraVerde just as I did, and I imagine she thought if she could gain control of Garrick, then her influence would spread into the heart of the Gor and Kra – which would in turn allow her to not only dominate a large swath of TerrVerde and but would also cripple my plans in the process. Obviously this underhanded little ploy wasn’t going to be something I was going to take lying down.
But first, I had to pull Garrick from her grasp. Initially I considered simply destroying him outright, but I quickly dismissed that idea. Yes, it would have solved the problem, but where’s the fun there? That kind of brute force move is more of the realm of Gwar than me. If Sindra wanted to play the game of the gods with me as her opponent, I was up for the challenge. After all, when you live uncounted eons like me, even the things that make you mad can be interesting.
So Garrick got to live – lucky for him. But where did that leave me? After giving it some thought – I knew I had to respect Sindra’s skill at manipulating the minds of mortals – and the obvious advantage it gave her because of Garrick’s desperate motivations that played into her strengths. I didn’t want to underestimate the situation. I knew I had to be cunning, patient. So I decided to let her continue to think she was pulling one over one me – I let her continue to pull Garrick more and more into her webs – all the while secretly monitoring the situation with The Eye of Seraphiel [which she still had no idea I possessed]. Watching Sindra’s temptations dominate Garrick during the past two decades allowed me to gain a better understanding of how my opponent operates – and it’s always insightful for one god to learn how the mind of another god works.
When I finally decided that Sindra’s influence had gone quite far enough, I chose to sever her hold quietly, all while ensuring that Garrick still remained useful to me. And so it was that the dark halls of my Cauldron echoed with the whispers of the dead as I made that fateful decision – I would visit Garrick personally. After all, I had created his race and had used my influence as Baal to raise him into the leader of the Derkka. It was high time he remembered who his true master was.
It was a stormy night in Babelon when I arrived. I found Garrick in the Temple of Baal. The Derkka priests in their black robes moved like shadows in the halls, whispering chants that echoed throughout the temple, their voices a constant murmur of dread. Statues of Baal—the hideous half-beast creature with its twisted horns and gnarled talons—loomed from every corner, watching, waiting. The smell of burnt flesh and incense filled the air, a stench of devotion.
I found Garrick alone, kneeling before the main altar – which was his right at the Hgigh Priest. His once-deformed body had been transformed, his once-mangled face smooth, handsome even. And this was without the benefit of The Glamour or the need for skin masks. For this was Sindra’s handiwork – I could still smell her magic on him, like perfumed oil masking rot. But I was here to break her chains—and re-forge my own.
“Marduk,” I rumbled, letting my voice emerge from the shadows. The stone walls trembled with my arrival. Naturally I appeared to Garrick as Baal – the god he and his people both feared and worshiped. The beast’s form, hulking and grotesque, was a reflection of the darkness I so easily commanded. My body swelled, my skin hardened, and my voice dropped into a guttural snarl. “You kneel before Baal, but do you truly serve him?”
His hesitation was brief, but I caught it. “I have always served Baal,” Garrick said, his voice quivering, though he tried to hide it with forced reverence. “I am his high priest, and I serve only him.”
I stepped out from the shadows and closer to my prey, my monstrous form towering over him, the heat from my breath making the flames of the torches flicker. “You lie.”
The word echoed in the chamber like the crack of a whip. Garrick tensed, his knuckles white as he gripped the stone floor. He remained silent, but I could hear his heart pounding in his chest. He knew I saw through him.
“I gave you power,” I snarled, Baal’s voice shaking the foundations of the temple. “I made you what you are. Without me, you and your family were nothing—pawns of the totem pole of the elites. I alone allowed you to rise up. Yet you dared to seek her out?” I spat the word, letting my fury spill over. “Sindra may have given you the illusion of beauty, Garrick, but do not mistake illusion for truth.”
Garrick swallowed, his breath coming faster, but still he did not move. I could sense him calling out in his mind, reaching for her, for Sindra. A desperate whisper, a silent prayer to the goddess who had transformed him, who had promised him everything.
“You think she will come for you?” I growled, stepping closer as my hooves scraped the floor, the sound like nails on stone. “Do you think Sindra cares for you? She used you. Just as I used you.”
“No!” Garrick’s voice was hoarse, panicked. He finally turned to face me, his eyes wide with terror. “I—she made me whole. She… she gave me what I’d always wanted – true beauty and true power.”
“And yet, here you are,” I said, the sneer in my voice barely contained. “Kneeling before me. Because deep down, you know the truth, don’t you? Sindra didn’t make you whole. She simply dressed you up in a lie.”
I let the air grow still, let the weight of my words settle into the silence. Then, with a gesture, I released the spell I had been holding back—the one that wrapped Sindra’s magic around him like a fragile cloak.
Garrick screamed as the transformation began, his beautiful face contorting, melting away like wax under a flame. His goblin skin grew dark and leathery, his bones warped, twisting back into the grotesque form he had once been cursed with. His reflection appeared in the golden mirror on the altar, his face now a monstrous parody of the man he had been, stripped of the goddess’s magic and laid bare.
“No…” he whimpered, backing away from the altar, his eyes wide in horror. “No, please… I can’t—”
“You can’t?” I thundered, Baal’s voice shaking the temple as I towered over him, my eyes blazing with malice. “You can’t live without her spell? Without the illusion of beauty?”
Garrick looked at me, his deformed face filled with desperation, tears streaming down his misshapen cheeks. “Please,” he gasped, his voice broken. “Please… I’ll do anything. I’ll serve you again. Just… make it stop.”
I smiled then, the cruelest smile I could muster, for I had him now. Sindra had abandoned her pawn, leaving him in my hands, and now I would make him mine once again. “Anything, you say?”
“Yes,” Garrick sobbed. “Yes, I swear it! I will serve you alone, my lord, I will give my soul to you. Just… please… make me beautiful again.”
I loomed over him, my beastly form casting a long shadow across the temple floor. “Very well,” I growled, “but know this, Garrick. Beauty comes at a price. The Glamour will return to you, and you will be the most beautiful of all the Babelonians once more. Nay, the most beautiful man in the entire world! But…know this…your soul… belongs to me alone.”
He trembled at my ghastly feet, nodding frantically, his hands outstretched in supplication. “Yes… yes, I accept. Please, anything.”
I lowered my beastly hand, dark power swirling from my shaggy fingertips as I restored his beauty – allowing him to regain his desired features without the need for The Glamour to mask them. Slowly, the grotesque features of his face shifted, smoothed out, becoming once again the handsome visage that had so charmed the Babelonians and people the world over. At first he looked he hesitated to look at his reflection – fearing that he’d see the monster he was born as. But when I forced him to gaze into the glass, Garrick gasped. Touching his face, he was overcome with emotion. His beauty was not just a false image, but instead real again. His relief palpable – as was his joy. For The Golden One was back!
I knew, deep inside, he was mine again. Sindra had lost him. And I had won.
I savored the moment – another victory for me in the great game of the gods. Granted, it was but a minor one, but hey, I’m smart enough to know that if you can string a bunch of small wins together, you can turn them into some great over time.
As Garrick continued to gaze into the mirror, marveling at his restored beauty, I leaned down, my voice a cold whisper in his ear. “Remember, Garrick,” I said. “You belong to me now. You serve Baal… and you will never be free again.”
He didn’t respond, but I could feel the despair in him, the silent realization that his soul had been traded from one god to another – he was but a pawn without a future, but what could he do? As we both knew – nothing. And so Garrick accepted his fate – and his restored beauty – and I was confident I could manipulate him to fulfill his destiny.
I left him there, kneeling before the altar, still captivated at the sight of his beautiful reflection. What mattered the price of his eternal soul, when the legend of his fame would live for generations?
I knew He would serve me well in the war to come. And Sindra would pay for daring to interfere in my domain. But for now, I had my prize and it was time to relax a bit before taking the final steps to finish The War of the Ghast.
The Apocrypha of Azazel 