An excerpt from the lastest chapter of the novel in progess:
Silence again, though different. The silence of incredulity, of disbelief, of the faintest glimmer of hope at riches unimaginable. Ledgers of souls, libraries of secrets, knowledge and possessions worth more than all the Mad King's realms.
An advantage on the competition.
"You can't be serious." humbled tones lacking accent and affectation.
"I just spent nine days and nights as a sacrifice of myself, to myself hanging from one of the last standing data lines of the information age. I cut out my own eyes and cast them into a Heimdell's Well mixed with the accumulated run off of the industrial revolution. I surgically implanted the third eye of the Dalai Lama's tulpa into my own head. I have replaced my nerves with silver thread and fiber optics to interface with the server's of every hell. Of course I'm fucking serious."
"You're offering to pay us with something you can't possibly deliver." a grudging pause, "Yet. How do you plan to relieve the greatest trickster in all of story of his accumulated life's work?"
"Simple. I know his Name."
The three figures glance amongst themselves, look back at Quis. He has steadied considerably, concealing beneath tattered cloth that was once white the considerable tension that keeps him up right. If his flesh were still capable of colouring, his knuckles would be red and swollen where they grip Muzai's shoulder. While the flesh is weak, the spirit is not. Quis' chakras burn white hot with the ultimate prize of his self mutilations: a secret only he knows.
"It's a deal. Nine days. Delivery and payment on the seventh day of the seventh month." The largest figure holds out his hand. The smallest one places a blade of cold iron, tarnished silver and milky jade in his hand; a Waylon Smith original. With a pained sound he slices the flesh of his right paw/palm and extends it towards Quis. It is taken by a hand already ragged and ravaged. Hot blood that smells of deep snow and fresh kills mingles with cool blood that reeks of chemcial waste and stolen moments.
Without a rustle of corrupt vegetation or discarded offal, the three figures melt into the shadows, not leaving even the barest sign of track or trace.
"What now?" comes a childish lisp to cut the changing monotony of electric throb.
Quis lifts his hand from her shoulder, rests it instead against the gritty side of tarnished steel. He feels the low vibration course through the decaying vertebrae, along the failing nerves of a passing age. Fossils of the past, just as the broken tracks of the iron beasts that once crossed the land. A useless relic in the Age of Arcadia returned.
"Change. Always change."
(C)2006 Divers Hands
Silence again, though different. The silence of incredulity, of disbelief, of the faintest glimmer of hope at riches unimaginable. Ledgers of souls, libraries of secrets, knowledge and possessions worth more than all the Mad King's realms.
An advantage on the competition.
"You can't be serious." humbled tones lacking accent and affectation.
"I just spent nine days and nights as a sacrifice of myself, to myself hanging from one of the last standing data lines of the information age. I cut out my own eyes and cast them into a Heimdell's Well mixed with the accumulated run off of the industrial revolution. I surgically implanted the third eye of the Dalai Lama's tulpa into my own head. I have replaced my nerves with silver thread and fiber optics to interface with the server's of every hell. Of course I'm fucking serious."
"You're offering to pay us with something you can't possibly deliver." a grudging pause, "Yet. How do you plan to relieve the greatest trickster in all of story of his accumulated life's work?"
"Simple. I know his Name."
The three figures glance amongst themselves, look back at Quis. He has steadied considerably, concealing beneath tattered cloth that was once white the considerable tension that keeps him up right. If his flesh were still capable of colouring, his knuckles would be red and swollen where they grip Muzai's shoulder. While the flesh is weak, the spirit is not. Quis' chakras burn white hot with the ultimate prize of his self mutilations: a secret only he knows.
"It's a deal. Nine days. Delivery and payment on the seventh day of the seventh month." The largest figure holds out his hand. The smallest one places a blade of cold iron, tarnished silver and milky jade in his hand; a Waylon Smith original. With a pained sound he slices the flesh of his right paw/palm and extends it towards Quis. It is taken by a hand already ragged and ravaged. Hot blood that smells of deep snow and fresh kills mingles with cool blood that reeks of chemcial waste and stolen moments.
Without a rustle of corrupt vegetation or discarded offal, the three figures melt into the shadows, not leaving even the barest sign of track or trace.
"What now?" comes a childish lisp to cut the changing monotony of electric throb.
Quis lifts his hand from her shoulder, rests it instead against the gritty side of tarnished steel. He feels the low vibration course through the decaying vertebrae, along the failing nerves of a passing age. Fossils of the past, just as the broken tracks of the iron beasts that once crossed the land. A useless relic in the Age of Arcadia returned.
"Change. Always change."
(C)2006 Divers Hands
Josh
P.S. Fan-tab-a-rific!!!