…And we’re back! Did you miss us? Hopefully our latest Symposium was able to tide you over during the one week posting absence.
But now that we are back into the regular swing of things we begin this week with a great piece of fiction from the great
. Does he ever miss? I’ve yet to see any evidence of it, and at this point I think I may well have read everything he has ever posted. Which is something that I would advise everyone to consider doing, including the works over at the excellent Pulp, Pipe and Poetry Substack.Enjoy.
TJB.
He crawled through the underground tunnels, in the thickness of sewage and excrement. The slop seeped its way throughout his ragged threads and coated his body in dark muck. Such a rancid stench of waste was overpowering and emptied his stomach as he continued to claw through the tunnel, hands grabbing onto the clay-like thickness of dung.
Toussaint pressed on, crawling, gagging, thinking he'd finally become what his Lords referred to him and his people - filthy village rats, a name he'd always remember. He needed to remember it all: the invasion of his village, the rape of their women, the killing of their fathers, and the theft of their children. A foreign power, supported by great war machines of iron and black magic, ravaged their homeland to build their temple of power, the Ziggurat.
There was light just ahead peaking through the darkness, a small opening at the center of a wooden panel. Toussaint balled his fist, dung squishing through his fingers, and punched his way through the wood to break it open.
Tiny glimmers of light peaked through the splintered wood. At the final blow, the panel burst open and Toussaint pulled himself through the opening dragging the muck on to the stone floor.
He regained his balance as he tried his best to scrape off the caked on waste from his body. He reached the wash room of the Ziggurat, such a small, dark, and empty room with no soul in sight. There were hardly any souls among the old men of the temple. There he stood, lean, bare foot, strong, angry. Through the doorway he unsheathed his dagger and be became one with the shadows.
The night patrols had routine checkpoints in the north and south wings of the Ziggurat, a great tower of technological might, a monument to the gods and spirits the old men worshiped, manifested by beams of electric waves and pulsing sounds of an incomprehensible language only those high priests understood. The Ziggurat represented the marriage between the foreign priests and the machines they served, a reward in exchange for the young souls of the provinces that powered their mechanical toys. They needed the children. They needed their vibrant youth and innocence to supercharge the machines, to feed it. Toussaint remembered the screaming of the slaughtered parents and moans of agony from those consumed by the fire.
The same fire raged within the Toussaint, the last known survivor - the last of the White Eyed Warriors.
He reached the end of the darkened corridor, hearing only a mechanical hiss closing in. He stood firm, gripping his dagger. Waiting. Watching.
The patrol guard, a towering figure of flesh and metal with wires grafted to its body rolled in on mechanized wheels and whined as it scanned the dark corridor.
Toussaint held his breath, gripped the handle of his dagger, and plunged at the patrol guard. He struggled before overtaking the bot fully. His blade severed the wiring then ripped into its spine. Black puss and thick oil escaped its robotic body giving out a final squeal and then silence.
He heard the security bells ring. The guards would come for him, they’d come for the village rat and place his head on a pike by morning.
So he ran, seeking the main chamber where the unholy priests gathered. Toussaint had no fear of death. There was only shame in submission, to die in a cowardly manner was not his calling. He would resist the technological terror or die trying.
Toussaint found his way to the center of the Ziggurat, breaking his way through the chamber doors and witnessed the true horror of it all. Six old men naked showered in black oil worshipping the towering, faceless machines. Their bodies tossing side to side in erratic fashion, a ritual dance where they gave their flesh to cold, liveless machines as it gave out a high pitch that rang throughout the chamber.
The priests didn’t notice their unwanted guest standing high above the platform, disgusted by their hellish display. Instead they dance as they eagerly awaited the commands from the great machine. They waited three days, in fact. But there was no command given to the high priests. Through blood, dance, sacrifice, and war they waited for their master’s call and in their hubris failed to notice the White-Eyed Warrior descend upon their altar with blood lust and unforgiving rage.
Toussaint’s blade made short work of the old men. One by one, he tore through them, opening and gutting them until his arm gave out. He turned to the Great Machine as he laid in a pool of blood catching his breath and sheathed his blade. A high pitch rang in the room and the lights dimmed. There was silence at first, then from the distance a young voice crying out,
“Papa”
Toussaint looked out behind him. A boy hiding behind the pillar. Toussaints’ boy. Malnourished, weakened, and afraid. They embraced. Toussaint smiled as he held his child tightly feeling the warmth of his whole world return to him. The child spoke again, “There are others. Down below.”
The warrior’s smile disappeared. He took the boy’s hand along with his blade and they made their way out of the chamber to rescue the other children.
“Stay with me, my son,” Toussaint said. He held his dagger close and his child closer.
“The night is not over yet.”
Love myself some sweet revenge on a weekday evening. Thanks a lot, Frank.