Location: Monthaven
Timeline: Sixth Age, 46th Year, Spring
Still burning with Alyssa’s unauthorized use of my Baals, I distracted myself with a story about the mundane, pathetic, and utterly delightful world of childhood games. How perfectly… boring. But even in the simplest of mortal pursuits, I find a glorious opportunity for a new kind of terror. So yes, let’s talk about a game of “tag-ball” and the “terrors” that plague a child’s mind. It’s a tale of innocence, of faith, and of the blissful ignorance that makes my work so terribly easy.
The pathetic little creature, Emcorae, shouted his taunts to the wind. “Over here! Over here! Throw ME the ball!” The boy was a study in arrogance—a tiny, wiry thing who, because of one paltry talent (running), believed himself to be a demigod. “You all know you can’t catch me anyway!” he chirped, utterly unaware that his “god-given” speed was a small gift from the gods that we might I soon twist into a torment he could not possibly outrun.
It was spring, a season that fills mortals with such nauseating optimism. The cold was a distant memory, and the world was alive with the kind of hope that makes me want to burn it all down. These “pre-teens,” as you call them, were chasing a ragball through the fields of some farmer named Pryde. They laughed, they rough-housed, they cajoled, and they got covered in dirt. A perfect picture of rural bliss. I found it quite sickening.
Their game, “tag-ball,” was an uninspired brutality. The object was to get hit with the ragball, pick it up, and run to the other end of the field while everyone else tried to bring you down. The very thought of it makes me laugh. A “full-contact, physical sport,” you say? How quaint. I have seen wars fought for a single grain of sand that had more grace and dignity. The other boys, of course, were pathetic cowards who feared the “painful reward” of being the runner. They preferred to be the “Pursuers,” inflicting pain on the unlucky few.
But Emcorae, bless his foolish little heart, was different. He was too small to be a good tackler, a fact that he, in his juvenile mind, saw as a weakness. So he turned his one strength—his speed—into a source of pride. He “relished every chance he got to play as the marked man.” How adorable. A small, self-serving ambition, born of a need to feel important. It’s the kind of ego I live to exploit.
He wasn’t perfect, of course. His “best mate” Curk took a particular delight in tackling him, and “more than a few occasions” he went home with bruises and a bloody lip. His mother, Beckali, would forbid him to play, and he, like all mortals, would disobey her. This small act of defiance, this “right of passage,” was just another step on the path I had laid out for him, a path he would follow whether he knew it or not.
But this particular day was special. It was the day a new player would soon entered the game. A player with far more sinister designs than simply tackling a boy for a ragball.
I watched, a shadow against the noonday sun, as Curk drilled the ragball into Emcorae’s back. The sound—<WHAM!>—was so utterly satisfying. “Ha, you’re ‘it,’ Em!” Curk heckled, already racing toward him, his eyes filled with the kind of joy that only comes from inflicting pain. “We’re going to smear you!”
Emcorae, frantic, rolled away just in time, sending his two attackers, Curk and some boy named Seth, colliding into one another with a loud <crunch!> He then “raced like the wind” toward the safety of the opposite fence, his small mind rejoicing. Ha! Those nitwits will never catch me!
Once more, it appeared that he would win another game of tag-ball – for he now realized that nobody anywhere close to catching him, and he could see the opposite fence rapidly approaching. Yet, even more importantly, Emcorae was just happy to be “one of the gang” again – for much had happened to the eleven year-old boy in the moons following his first nightmare about the gargoyle and his creeping mist.
For starters, Emcorae had continued to have bad dreams. Prior to last fall, he’d been no different than any other pre-teen – more often than not, his dreams involved the same hopes as any other boy his age and centered around the various fair maidens of the town. However, after his vision of the gargoyle, Emcorae’s dreams changed for the worse — although none of the nightmares were as “powerful” as the first one, they still frightened the boy.
The “terrors” that plagued Emcorae were more than just “bad dreams.” He called it a “soul-sucking mist” and a “terrifying shadow,” and he assumed it was a “demon.” [I suppose that’s as close as a mortal can get to the truth].
His family’s reactions were a masterpiece of mortal ineptitude. His father, Alboris, a man consumed by his own petty disappointments, told the boy to “grow up.” When that didn’t work, he avoided the problem by drinking, a most effective method for mortals to forget they are pathetic and insignificant. His mother was no better – her “motherly pain” and “pity” were useless, a testament to the frailty of her kind.
His grandfather, Alfranco, offered a brief, tantalizing glimpse of the truth before drowning it in ale. “So, it’s happening to you too! Damn them!” he cried, a whisper of a shared torment. But of course, he would not explain and while Emcorae initially took heart in knowing that his grandfather also suffered from nightmares, this potential spirit-lifting fact soon became a downer. For it quickly became apparent that Alfranco’s only means of coping with nightmares (drowning them in ale) was a resource (as yet) unavailable to Emcorae. Worse yet, once Alfranco realized his beloved grandson was at risk and there was nothing he could do to defend him, the old man began to frequent the Brandonale more than ever – if such was even possible!
The only one who took any action was his grandmother, Paullina. It was she who, upon hearing of Emcorae’s “temptations,” immediately told Pastor Kastelli – the town’s passionate, yet overbearing, religious and civic leader. Paullina, in her desperation, begged the Good pastor to help Emcorae, to “rid him of these temptations,” to stop him from “ending up like Alboris or Alfranco.”
And what did this glorious priest do? He made the boy the town’s “first altar server.” A perfect solution! He would “drive out any temptations which Baal is sending his way.” Oh, the irony. Baal is a godling of no true power, a pathetic little plaything of mine. And the priest’s solution? More rituals, more robes, more empty gestures. It was a beautiful display of misplaced faith.
Emcorae, in his desperate naivety, “wanted to believe what the Pastor told him.” He wanted to be “cured.” He performed his duties flawlessly, adding “a little flair” to his movements, and growing to “relish the spotlight.” He even lied to his family and the priest, telling them he was “cured!”
And while Emcorae knew that he was ‘sinning’ by lying to others about his ‘cure,’ the boy justified it by telling himself that the more he worked at the church, greater the chance something miraculous might happen by which he might become truly cured of his bad dreams. In addition, Emcorae well knew that Pastor Kastelli was often boasting to the townsfolk about his success exorcising demons, and Emcorae rightly guessed that it would be a bad idea to make the beloved church leader appear to be a liar.
And so, despite his continued nighttime terrors, Emcorae quested on. The boy continued to believe what his grandmother told him — that Yahway made the world, his son Mannah was the Savior of the World, Father Enok had guided his people to safety here in Monthaven, and that he (Emcorae) should be thankful for all his blessings. Pallina had also told her grandson that he should constantly pray to Mannah’s mother, Maree for help that all would be well for his family and friends and for the future good of all mankind. And that’s what Emcorae did.
Yet, neither his religious obligations nor his nightly terrors were on Emcorae’s mind at present; instead, the boy had but one thing in his sights – making it to safety at the end of Farmer Pryde’s field and thus winning another game of rag-ball.
He thought he was running toward the opposite end of a field, winning a game. He thought he was outrunning his friends. He thought he was in control and he shouted more taunts: “Fools! You really think you can catch me? Come get me if you can!”
And that’s when a new player joined the game – a player with rather sinister designs…
The Apocrypha of Azazel 