The sun—that bloated, blinding eye of A’H—crawled over the jagged horizon of Kra with an offensive, almost personal amount of enthusiasm. It didn’t just rise; it assaulted. I winced as a stray beam of light caught the edge of a discarded silver tray, lancing through my temples like a needle of pure light worse than even the Dark Sun of the Lemuria. My skull felt less like a vessel for the divine intellect that I was and more like a hollowed-out drum being beaten by a particularly energetic mountain troll.
A full lunar cycle had passed since my little celebration, and the initial, electric euphoria of self-restoration—of snapping my own rib back into its rightful place—had settled into a dull, rhythmic thrum within my chest. Or perhaps that was just my evil heart trying to pump through the sludge I’d overindulged with.
I was slumped in the obsidian curves of my chair on my bedroom balcony again, the same locale where I’d languished a month ago in a state of transcendental triumph – only now I was merely a monument to excess. Around my feet lay a graveyard of empty carafes, their glass stained with the dried, iron-scented dregs of Blood-Wine. True it was a rather fine vintage of Amorosi Red from more than a century past, but even that couldn’t overcome the fact that I’d simply drank too much of the stuff.
My robes—woven from the finest shimmering silks of the deep void—were a particularly profound disgrace, stained with grey volcanic ash and more than a few sticky splotches of spilled vintage. In short, I was a mess – a pathetic excuse for a deity who still fancied himself the future God of ALL.
“By the pit,” I croaked, the sound of my own voice vibrating painfully against my ancient teeth. “If this is what godhood feels like, I can see why A’H stays behind the clouds. It’s a wonder I haven’t accidentally unmade the moon in this state.”
The Day Unfolds – Painfully
Since I hadn’t yet invented any painkillers, I suffered through my hangover for the rest of the day.
Every sound was an enemy. A mile below, the rhythmic clack-hiss of the mills in the Derk factories rose up the thermal vents. Usually, it was a lullaby of industry; today, it was a rhythmic stabbing behind my left eye. Even the sulfurous wind, which I normally found bracing, smelled vaguely of burnt goblin hair and regret.
I attempted to shift my weight, and my joints let out a series of dry, audible pops. I felt ancient. Not the dignified, eternal kind of ancient, but the ‘forgotten-relic-at-the-bottom-of-a-swamp’ kind of ancient.
Reaching a trembling hand toward the stone table, I searched for some water—or at least a wine that wasn’t sentient. My fingers brushed against a cold sliver – for a moment, a jolt of genuine terror bypassed the hangover: was it a blade? Had the assassins finally come?
I forced my eyes open a crack. It was a spoon. A simple, silver, ornamental spoon for stirring nectar. I stared at it with profound loathing.
“The Master of All,” I whispered, my lip curling in self-contempt. “The Architect of the Abyss, currently being defeated by a sunrise and a piece of cutlery. If Lucifer saw me now, he wouldn’t even bother flaying me. He’d just laugh until his horns fell off.”
I closed my eyes again, the violet light of the Dagaal in my chest giving a sympathetic, low-wattage pulse. It, at least, was functioning perfectly as a part of my self-sustaining divine anatomy.
“I guess I am the only thing in the tower currently malfunctioning.” I chuckled as I leaned my head back against the obsidian chair again, planning to take a nap.
The movement was a mistake. My brain felt like a loose stone rattling inside a metal bucket. I rubbed my eyes, trying to force myself to relax, but instead of the merciful dark, the the jagged memory of a ‘dream’ surged back with the vivid, unwanted clarity of a lightning strike!
That’s when I saw them again—the iron-faced human, the lithe elfess, and that hulking, furred shadow of a Drokka. I saw their fingers digging into the stone of my balcony, their eyes burning with a murderous, coordinated light.A cold, sudden spike of fear flared in my gut, sharper than any hangover. I bolted upright, my hand flying to the hidden hilt of the Dagaal at my ribs – ready to rip out the Bone Dagger and defend myself as I lumbered toward the railing, expecting to see a blade aimed at my throat or the snarling face of a beast.
But there was nothing there.
“It had felt so real.” I gasped as I fell back in to my chair. The memory wasn’t soft or blurred at the edges like a proper wine-hallucination should be. I could still see the raw, jagged texture of the basalt cliffs. I could still hear the rhythmic, wet thud of the Drokka’s fist punching handholds into the living rock.
But it was the human who haunted the backs of my eyelids. He hadn’t looked like a larger than life hero from the mortal worlds cliche tapestries; instead he looked like a man made of scorched earth and old grudges. In my dream, he had reached the final lip of the balcony, his fingers hooked into the stone just inches from my feet. I remembered the way the moonlight had caught the notched blade on his back and the way his eyes had locked onto mine with a terrifying, quiet certainty. Worse yet, I could see in his eyes that he carried a secret – a secret that could destroy me!
I tried to brush the image away and be matter of fact in my analysis.
“It was the coordination,” I muttered, clutching my head as if to squeeze the images out. “Elves don’t climb with Drokka. Drokka don’t follow humans. It’s a biological impossibility, like a hawk sharing a nest with a field mouse. My subconscious is clearly losing its grip on basic taxonomy.”
Despite my logical dismissal, a cold, oily prickle of dread bypassed the throb of my alcoholic pains. I forced myself to stand. My knees buckled for a second—a dignified god-king doesn’t wobble, I told myself—and I stumbled toward the railing again.
I leaned over the edge again, the wind whipping my hair across my face like a lash. I scanned the vertical drop of Nektar’s Cauldron more intensely this time, my eyes searching for any sign of a breach. I looked for scratches in the obsidian, for the glint of a discarded piton, for the blood of a torn fingernail.
Again there was nothing. The stone was as smooth and unforgiving as a mirror. The only things moving on the cliffs were the heat shimmers from the vents and a few scuttling rock-lizards.
I pulled back, letting out a long, shaky breath that tasted of copper and stale grapes. I wiped a bead of cold sweat from my brow and smoothed my rumpled silks.
“Of course there’s nothing,” I hissed, the sound of my own voice echoing off the balcony walls. “It was a fever dream brought on by Dagaal’s integration. Simple over stimulation. My soul was simply vibrating at a frequency that tuned into my deepest anxieties. I am the only one who can reach this peak. I am the only one with the key.”
Trying to take my mind of this unsavory dream, I looked at the Eye of Seraphiel sitting dormant on its pedestal. It looked bored. I felt a surge of irritation at the sphere, at the dream, and at the sun for being so damn loud.
“If three misfits actually managed to scale my mountain without me noticing, I’d deserve to be assassinated,” I chuckled, more confident now. “It would be a feat so impressive I’d almost feel obliged to applaud before they cut my throat.”
I retreated toward the shade of the inner sanctum. I was safe. I was secure. The “dream” was just a ghost, and I had already proven I was the master of ghosts.
But I still needed to take that nap.
Delusions
Some time later, who can say how long, I lay in bed – a bit more relaxed. The momentary panic of the “assassin dream” from earlier was replaced by the much more comfortable, intoxicating warmth of megalomania. My head still throbbed, yes, but it was a rhythmic, kingly throb now.
I picked up the Eye of Seraphiel and gave it a lazy, proprietary flick. The first thread to pull itself from the ether was a dusty, sun-bleached view of a dusty portion of the Easton-Weston Road. Two squat but massive, furred shapes occupied the center of the frame—Drokka. They were lumbering toward a far away forest with a persistent, annoying gait, their thick hides matted with the red clay of their underworld realm.
I curled my lip in a sneer. I recognized the clan markings—they were from the Rhokki Pass. One of them, a particularly hulking brute with a notched ear, carried himself with a certain stubborn gravity that felt vaguely familiar, like a half-remembered face from a dusty portrait in a hallway I never visited.
“More animals migrating to the greenery,” I muttered, my thumb flicking the glass to dismiss the image before it could even fully coalesce. “I am not in the mood to count the lice on a Drokka’s back today. Pawns, the lot of them. Whether they’re heading to Primcitta for trade or to find a softer patch of dirt to die on is of no consequence to a mind like mine.”
I didn’t wait to see what they were carrying. I didn’t care to listen to their grunted conversation about ‘The Father’s Blade’ or the ‘Deepest Depths.’ Had I watched for even a minute longer, I might have seen the ancient, etched map one of them held—a map that didn’t point toward the mountains I was so obsessed with. But I was bored by the mundane. I wanted the grand. I wanted the cold, sharp taste of the end-game.
With a violent swipe, I cleared the beasts and focused the Eye on the frozen, jagged peaks of the Akka Mountains. Deep within the lightless veins of the earth, I saw them: thousands of miners, their backs scarred and bent, swinging pickaxes in a feverish, desperate rhythm. They were tearing into the aforementioned Deepest Depths, convinced they were digging toward a legendary prize.
“Dig, you pathetic worms,” I purred, watching the soot-stained faces of the overseers. “Unearth the vault. Clear the path for my ‘partners’ to retrieve the Grim.”
I assumed, with the easy arrogance of a god who believes he’s seen the end of the book, that the Dagger was still there, waiting in the dark like a patient spider. I didn’t care for the details of the excavation; I only cared for the result.
The Eye shifted, drifting down to the filth of Fubar. There was Ramssee again, that golden crown still perched precariously on his reptilian brow. He was carousing, surrounded by sycophants and stolen wealth. But then, the shadows in the corner of his throne room began to bleed.
A form emerged—a flickering, ethereal Djinn, a creature of smoke and ancient malice – Sssara!
The malevolent creaeture didn’t strike with a blade; it simply existed afor Ramssee, its presence so foul and terrifying that I watched the “King of Fubar” slide off his throne and cower on the floor like a beaten dog.
I barked a laugh, the sound echoing sharply in my quiet chamber. “Look at him. The ‘Viper’ finds himself outmatched by a bit of sentient smog. How entertaining. Let the Djinn keep him humble; it saves me the trouble of doing it myself.”
I brought The Eye closer to my face, the orb reflecting the violet pulse of my eyes. The Grim was the final piece I needed. Once my pawns delivered it to me, the sequence would be irreversible. The Flat Earth was merely my footstool.
“First,” I whispered, counting off my destiny on my long, finger bones, “I shall erase Inanna and Gwar. I’ll turn Karkamesh into a charcoal pit and use their ‘glories’ to fuel my furnaces. Then, I’ll sweep the remaining Lumenarcs from this disk like dust from a table.”
The thought sent a jolt of pure, dark adrenaline through me, momentarily curing the last of my hangover.
“Then, I descend. I’ll return to Illusia not as a fugitive, but as a conqueror. I will tear Lucifer from his throne and watch Ze burn in his own eternal fires. And when the Deep is mine? Then, I look up. I will shatter the Firmament with the weight of my will. I will meet Michael the Mighty on the celestial plains and show him what a true ‘Light-Bringer’ looks like. The Illuminati will fall. The Great Creator, A’H, will find His throne occupied by a God of the Abyss. Meree and Mindos will bow or be extinguished. I will be the High God of All. The beginning and the end. The Architect of the Void and the Master of the Light.”
I was breathless, my heart hammering against Dagaal in a frantic, joyous duet. It was so close. I could taste the ozone of the shattered heavens. I could hear the silence of a universe finally under my thumb. My fingers gripped the obsidian railing so hard the stone began to weep dust, my gaze fixed on a future where I was the only thing that mattered.
But I was still tired.
I let violet light of the Eye dim as I settled further into the comforts of my bed. As I closed my eyes, the single, cold thread of that cursed “dream” flickered at the edge of my mind—a ghost of a hand on a ledge.
I ignored it, but Dagaal gave a sudden, sharp twitch, as if the rib itself were trying to point toward something I had already turned my back on.
“Enough. I am a god.” I reminded myself as I cleared my mind. And with that I fell back asleep.
The Apocrypha of Azazel 