It started with a private tarot reading in the home of the client. While the deck’s message to the client was encouraging and only slightly chiding, the deck’s private message to me was I should go straight home at once and not look “to the left nor to the right”. As I was paid (in full), I heard a commotion coming from the street before the home, so I planned to make my exit via the back door. The shouts at first sounded like an argument, but as they came closer, I recognized the tones of ecstasy. I did not want to be caught up in that today.
Just as I reached the rear door, the front door was roughly opened. A friend of the client invited herself in, looking for “the stranger”. Behind the intruding woman was a man with a dingy cloth wrapped loosely around him. I recognized the ceremonial death shroud immediately and sought to escape the house with quickness.
As my client shrieked her offenses at the invasion and the manhandling of her guest (me), I opened the back door but the intruding woman grabbed my other hand and pulled me enough to prevent me moving through the door.
“Come with me!”, she demanded.
“No. I must go, now. I have no further business here.” I kept my voice steady and emotionless. I stared through the open doorway as if by will alone I would escape.
“I’ve been waiting for you! I have sent summons many times, and you did not come to me! Now you will come!” She pulled harder.
“Your summons were unauthorized for what you claimed, and those above you did not give me sanction to comply. You have other issues to deal with before I can give you lawful attention.” I heard the dense form of the man approach, but I did not look towards the sound. The deck said to look neither to the left nor to the right, and I did not want to find out why the hard way.
“DO YOU KNOW WHO I AM? You can not enter this neighborhood without permission from me! Since you would not answer to glory, I summoned you with coin. Did you think I did not know she wanted your attention? I allowed her to summon you and now here you are. YOU WILL ATTEND ME!”
Her grip felt like heated iron shackles on my wrist. I smelled a scent of decay filling the room. There was something off here, but I could not identify it. “Your ego is blinding your sight. I do not know what you want of me, but extracting it by force will only harm you in the long run no matter how much you benefit immediately. Who you are is irrelevant. You are claiming authority that is not yours to wield, and even if you do overpower me, you will have to answer for your hubris. If not to me, then to those that you do answer to. Those powers I answer to said for me to stay away from you. Don’t like it? Take it up with them.”
My client was imploring the intruding woman to release me, and did all she could to wave her away without actually touching her. The man stood beside me, in a posture I was only able to recognize as ready for action, but for what kind of action, I did not know. The client waved her arms, and the intruding woman’s scent came over me.
Rotting roses. Sweet and sickly and gangrenous. I’ve been around death worshippers before, and they have all reminded me of ash, dirt, or stone in some way no matter what pantheon they are involved in. When there is the smell of decomposing flesh, it is in a way that implies the decay cycle is being allowed to complete, that the bodies are returning to the earth and the spirits within are free to move on. (Yes, even the initial retch-worthy stages have a certain finality to them.)
But this… this isn’t “natural” death. This is laboratory nurtured plague and intentionally maintained uncleanliness. This is a festering wound leaking into the bloodstream. This is sought-out contamination and a willful blindness to the consequences. This is someone who should have had medical attention long ago and is now past the point of no return, but still says they are better than ever.
This is what arrogance against the gods smells like. And I want nothing to do with it.
I hear my client yelp in surprise and pain. Fearing for her, I turn my head to the right to see the shrouded man had brutally pulled her away from the intruding woman and all but threw her down upon the floor. Just as I start to take a breath to voice my concern, the man blows powder into my face.
*cough* Fuck. *wheeze*
*nothing*
“AH!” Cold hands cradle my face softly, bringing me to awareness. The cold hands pat my shoulders gently and I hear a familiar pattern of chuckling in an unfamiliar voice. I open my eyes to find I am lying in the lap of a different shroud wrapped man. One that smells of dry dirt and cold ash. I am relieved by the scent until my eyes adjust to the faint light and I see the ash markings on his face.
I now can’t decide if to be pissed as fuck or completely relieved.
“Rest here a bit, Girl. You’ve been through a thing and your body is spent.” Girl. There is only one that persists in calling me that.
“Fine, Rummer John. But only if you tell me what the fuck just happened and where is that bitch because I still have some complaints to deliver on her ass.”
The ridden man laughed again and patted me on the forehead. “She has a complaint against you, you know. She says you make a terrible vessel and that you are a faker in the worst possible way. She expected something authentic and instead you treated her like she was some stupid blan. She meant to use you to gain legitimacy for her [power] and instead a devouring shadow came out of your mouth and ate her all up!” His laughter was so deep, I could hear the tones of the ridden man as well as the one riding him.
“If she was eaten all up, how come she could still be bitching? I’d like to finish the job, if you’d let me.” I tried to rise up, but my bones ached to the marrow and I felt terribly empty inside. Whatever had happened had used up all of my personal power, and I was helpless in his hands.
His cold hands smoothed over my face and shoulders again. A comforting touch, even though he had the same ambient temperature as the concrete pads covering the graves that surrounded us. “Non. This was never your field to fight on. You warned her and that was enough to keep your hands clean of what followed. You were used as an agent of [righteousness], and that is enough.”
I was so tired. And his lap was so comfortable, stolen or not. And I felt so safe in the graveyard. So I knew I was being set up. “And now what happens? You have an empty clay pot in your hands, [Lord]. What will you do with it?”
That familiar and terrifying chuckle returned. “Fill it, of course. But not just any dirt will do. Oh, no. You failed to keep your promise and complete the making of [a thing], so now you will be the container instead. But you knew this was coming, anyway. You knew this when [that epiphany] happened, and you understood why your arm is a root. [That thing] was to make [this thing] easier to bear. But you never was one for doing things the easy way, were you.” His stroking changed in rhythm and touch. With each passing over, I felt my consciousness numb and relax.
He’s right. Sometimes the easy way is too easy so I don’t trust it. And I did know what was coming. I surrendered without any willful resistance.
The fire that filled me, filled me completely. It did not extinguish my own, but assimilated it completely. I was devoured by what filled me, until there was only an earthen shell of flesh for the [powers] that have waited so patiently.
I was. I wasn’t. I will be after.
*nothing*
“Here. Drink this. It will fire up your arrogance again.” Dutifully, I swallowed the amber hued contents of the glass. And immediately started choking.
“God damn it, are you trying to kill me before it’s time? Every time I think I’m used to your rum, you come out with a harder brew!” I slammed the cracked glass down on the table while ghostly laughter mocked and encouraged me.
Rummer John sat back in his wicker chair and laughed until the ash fell off the tip of his cigar. “Welcome back, Girl. Did you like your little trip?”
I found myself at his small table in the swamp again. A place I have long recognized as safe, and accessible only by explicit invitation. A far distance away from concrete covered graves and the unclean scent of sepsis. I turned over the recent events as well as my fractured memory would allow. “So, it’s done then. The endgame has started for me.”
“Endgame? Oh no, Girl. The only thing that ended is your naiveté. You’ll still be the Bastard, the Mongrel, and the Outsider. But now you’ll be You as only you can be.” He chuckled again. “Full of yourself and Your Self, as always.”
The boundary between river and land is always indistinct in the swamp. He didn’t bring me here on accident. He’s making a statement. “Funny how you’ve become midwife to this process. Who’d think that it would have taken Death to keep me living.”
“Now don’t you go talking blan to me, Girl. You know better.”
I took off my hat (which I just now noticed), and made a mockery of hiding my own smirk. He’s right. I do know better. It took a lot to strip me of what I thought I knew and introduce me to what really is. And even then, there are still blinds and misinformation obscuring my understanding. I have a lot more work to do.
“So… what now?”
“You keep doing as you do. When Duty calls, you perform it. When Duty is not calling, you keep running up and down that tree [of life] and keep fixing yourself. You remember why you have [the things you have] and why you don’t have [the things you don’t have]. And for fuck’s sake, Girl, stop letting others piss you off with their crowing. You ain’t them. You’ll ain’t never gon’ be them. And they ain’t never gon’ be you. And you fucking know that.”
“And the end of it?”
He poured me another shot of dark amber rum in the cracked glass. Without verbally answering me, he placed the glass beside my hand. I understood, just the same. Not all endings, end things. “Right. Lemme chug this down and then go find someone to piss off for the day.” I could feel the rum burn inside my ears and for a moment, I was blind from shock.
“You do that, Girl. You do that.”
So I am.