Beneath Infinity

O Vengence Mine

I can hear them.

They scour the rocks - they whisper into the cracks - but it is not natural. They hiss the white mist, and chatter into that which forms the cold ones. Not natural.

They are like the cold ones, though also different. These are what I once was, warm to touch to all but mine.

I am like the cold ones now, though also different.

They see and hear and know, but do not feel.

I feel... pain. In my bones. Ancient bones. Bones that are tainted.

He is in my head. He speaks. Mine own claws cannot remove his presence.

He calls in my sleep -

O vengeance mine.

A sweet sorrow, my dearest. I was only a hatchling when I first knew sorrow; anguish of all anguish; the tearing of my body against metal.

You must leave me.

He kept me, but only in body. Neglected by a father. By the father of all.

You must let me be free.

My sisters, they knew the same as me. He was a monster, he made me eat them. I can still taste their flesh like a sweet rust in my mouth.

I am hungry. You must free me.

As was I, dearest. Hungry for his flesh. I would devour him, I knew in my depths that I would be the one to lead the feast. The spawn. The new-borns.

I am the only one. I am alone.

You will have me, dearest. I am alone, but by your side.

Though it was not always this way.

No.

You do not understand...

No... hurts.

I had another.

Release me. It hurts.

She mothered my spawn, fed me my hordes.

Pain... Only pain...

He made me eat her flesh. Made me devour the only thing that I wanted more than his body between my teeth.

But I did not kill her, and she has repayed me with you.

Nothing but pain. Nothing but fear. I am in pain. The fear is mine.

That is why you are hear, O dearest mine. To serve me. And you have done so with grace. Once I have no further need of you, I will grind your bones and with them reforge my blade.

You will be born again.

Stop. Release. Pain. Mine. Mine. Mine.

Remember. What was that phrase, mine ancient friend? The one the crusaders wielded against you.

It was reclamation and power; it held an entire species in the jaws of perspective; it bestowed upon them falsities, control that they did not in fact possess.

It allowed for genocide.

That is where your anger lies, is it not? I can feel it writhing like the worms of the Kingship. It is you that feeds the raw sentiment - the brutal emotion which keeps my motivation.

I cannot function without you, dearest, and nor you without me.

Remember that.

I remember. I remember the fear - the hatred.

Running.

But that is mine, not yours. Release me.

I recovered a human song, from the Keep at the end of the World, deep in the Respite, worlds from my prison.

It is a pointless and putrid cacophony, but I taste that it fits your circumstance.

No more.

As follows:

Out of the night that covers me,
Black as the pit From pole to pole,

The Black is holding me.

I thank whatever gods may be
For my unconquerable soul.

It is compromised. There is no spirit anymore.

In the fell clutch of circumstance
I have not winced nor cried aloud.
Under the bludgeonings of chance
My head is bloody, but unbowed.

I shall remain, though I am crooked.

Beyond this place of wrath and tears
Looms but the Horror of the shade,
And yet the menace of the years
Finds, and shall find, me unafraid.

Fear. Only fear.

It matters not how strait the gate,
How charged with punishments the scroll,
I am the master of my fate:
I am the captain of my soul.

I am not mine and shall never be again.

I feel your fear, your disgust. Once, you know, the passage would have been compatible with your spirit. The filthy words suitable to your soul. Now, with irony, you are mine. I am your Captain. Your master. Your king.

My teeth will grind this reality with malice and hatred. I will tear apart my foes.

You shall be my scalpel.

The pain, the fear. The only thing that is left.

It is mine.