HENBANE GRAVITY (Pt. 1)

Never has nothing existed, for there has always been The Promise, and from The Promise issued The Vanfiri and The Tolteain. For incalculable ages the twin races of Deities worked in concert with one another, but had intelligent beings witnessed Their intimacies, they would have trembled before the mutual animosity. It was only a matter of time before the crucible that was The High War erupted, and when it did, The Vanfiri and The Tolteain made manifest every shred of destructive force at Their disposal, Each determined to destroy the Other. In time mankind chose its side, and the fortunes of war began to turn from The Tolteain. In a bout of desperation Elltennix, Tolteain Keeper of Secrets, opened the gates of His sepulcher and released to the world all knowledge hidden from mortal man. All the crimes he hid from his neighbor, every sin he had committed away from judging eyes, the unseen latticework of the natural world, the origins of this universe and all those that preceded it. Elltennix unleashed all His secrets, and a flood of madness subsumed mankind. Amidst the anarchy a crime was committed, a crime so unspeakable Uros-on-High has decreed it never be recounted. Its monstrous byproduct, an abhorrent violation of the laws of God and man, was the Charchilla. Of undefined and constantly changing shape, the Charchilla was a pulsating mass of interconnected tumors. One after another they would burst, producing a fountain of blood and pus, only to be replaced by a new tumor that would ripen in turn. Tufts of barbed cilia sprouted from its body, emitting a stench of sulfur and methane. It seeped across the ground on the muscular contractions of its undercarriage, secreting and sliding along a layer of feces. Upon the triumph of The Vanfiri over The Tolteain, Olemphia, Goddess of Cruelty, captured the Charchilla and consigned it to the island of Ioru, where it would trap and devour shipwrecked sailors and traders. An utterly loathsome creature, the Charchilla inspired hate and fear in all who encountered it.

Aberras was the first son and heir to Phyton, king of the mighty city-state of Dthalymci. Born and raised as scion to the greatest king of the True Golden Age, Aberras, heeding his father’s admonition that “a sharp mind will cut through steel,” developed his mind into the most powerful weapon in Dthalymci. Studying under both Bolbol and Sarmiche, he quickly surpassed his teachers in both wisdom and knowledge. Aberras grew proud. While in Morxos with his father, he engaged Lultaeil the Pedagogue in a public debate and won. Aberras’ pride grew. Upon asking for the hand of Euklepthea in marriage, her father, High Priest of the Cult of Uengru, challenged Aberras to pit his intellect against the Librarians of Kaalenmiir. If Aberras could confound just one of them, the High Priest would accede to the marriage. Aberras confounded them all. His pride grew further, as did his boredom. Aberras had come to believe there was no man alive who could teach him anything, but still he thirsted for all he did not know. So Aberras set out from his home, crossed The Skyward Bridge over The Endless River, and entered Nargory, home of The Vanfiri. There he implored Ruut, God of Knowledge, to teach him. Ruut told the man to return home, that Ultimate Knowledge was beyond the ken of mortal minds. But Aberras was prideful. In his anger he doubted the limitlessness of Ruut’s Knowledge, he challenged Him, and finally he cursed Him. Enraged, Ruut turned Aberras’ body backwards. His legs were now at his shoulders and his arms at his hips. His eyes now book-ended the small of his back, his nose had grown from his coccyx, and his lips ringed his anus. Ruut then turned Aberras inside-out, exposing his organs to the elements and condemning him to an eternity deprived of the blessed relief of his own mortality. Aberras was forced to roam the world, forever the embodiment of all that is wrong and should not be. Hence, it is from his name that we have derived the words “aberrant” and “aberration.” Recently it was also thought that the story of Aberras served as the inspiration for the expression “talking out of your ass,” but this has been proven erroneous.

Uros-on-High had grown concerned, for mankind, still a newborn in the cradle of The Gods, had developed the ability to Create. Man’s effrontery had begun in innocence, in fact purely by accident. Those few in command of The Art did not at first know what they were doing or how they were doing it. But through trial and error strong minds soon unearthed the fundamentals of Creation, and The Age of Sorcery began. This age was a brief one, for man had quickly learned much more than petty spells. Man had learned how to alter Existence to suit his desires—not only to Create but to Re-create. Creation was the province of only The Gods and The Promise, and mankind had grown from emulating Them to openly undoing Their Divine Work. Uros-on-High deemed it a blasphemy, judged that the world must be cleansed, that humanity must be destroyed. He opened His mouth and inhaled deeply, creating a great wind that swept across the whole earth. Humanity in its entirety was uprooted and sailed between the jaws of Uros-on-High, spending its last moments of Existence in the digestive tract of The Divine. But then Uros, King of All Gods, grew ill. A pain in His belly persisted and worsened until He was crippled in pain. He called for His Wife and Queen, Lyuemper, Goddess of Life, to give him succor. Lyuemper took up Her scythe, Paumnanox, swung, and sliced open Uros’ belly. Two soft, gleaming hands rose from the wound, parted Uros’ flesh, and Ieajaita emerged. A beautiful female of dove-white skin, with long flowing hair and eyes that could cast away Darkness, all of sorcery, all of mankind’s potential, had concentrated and assumed Divine Form. At first Uros-on-High wanted to kill Ieajaita, but Lyuemper warned Him off His murderous course. She reasoned that if mortals could develop the ability to Create as only The Gods and The Promise could, and the Gods had not taught them to do so, then only The Promise could have inculcated the ability in man. Therefore Ieajaita also was by The Will of The Promise. Lyuemper argued that The Promise clearly wanted man to command The Art. Who was He, Uros-on-High, to defy The Promise? The King of All Gods heeded His Wife’s wise words. He created a new humanity, and He named Ieajaita Goddess of The Art. It would be Her Divine Duty to guide, protect, and when necessary punish those mortals who practiced The Art.

The Charchilla limped across the basement floor, every inch an ooze of wet, impatient castigation. Aberras scuttered on all fours into the corner by the rust-choked water heater and shivered. Both beasts loosed a hungry, beset-upon moan.

The house sat on a shadow-draped street in of one of Madsen, New Jersey’s least auspicious boroughs. Long abandoned by even the most discerning of reprobates, Blue Orchard was an open scab making witness to its own decay, and 433 Mellon Street was ground zero for the desiccation.

Ieajaita slipped Her glowing hands into a pair of long, black gloves as the ululations of the two beasts reached Her ears. She let out a small, impatient breath. Every night the same thing, / They know I’m going out,/ They know they’ll eat,/ be it beef or fowl / or salmon, cod, or trout.

She crossed Her makeshift bedroom. She had done Her best to make the dilapidated living room habitable, at least enough for Her. Ieajaita had never gone in for the grandiloquent trappings favored by Her fellow Gods, columns and colonnades and the like. Prints of some of Her favorite paintings hung on the walls. A full bookshelf ran the lower perimeter of the room like a readable baseboard. Her feloniously powered computer was filled with Her favorite pieces of music. She had never warmed to cinema—too technological a medium for Her—but She would sometimes search the internet for videos of Her favorite bits of theater.

But none of it was the same. Artistic prints couldn’t compete with the originals. The few pieces She had ever bought from the Artist had invariable been stolen, and She held no sway with collectors and dealers. Recordings were pale echoes of a live performance. She couldn’t feed off them, commune with the musicians through the airy vibrations. And so much had been lost over time. Same with the plays, and as with poetry and prose, translation always left so much to be desired.

Ieajaita stooped to inspect Her hair in the mirror. She still liked it. Not yet time for a change. She slung Her purse over Her shoulder and started down the basement.

The Charchilla and Aberras perked up at the sight of Her and b-lined for the foot of the stairs, whimpering ravenous lamentations the whole way.

She bellowed as the monsters neared, ““Know you not the hour I make My egress? / Intellect nor memory is no stranger to you two / that lurch and prattle tears at Me, largesse / the only virtue that endears My hand to you.”

The Charchilla slunk back a step and trembled, its cilia waving with a stutter. Aberras bowed his head and looked up at Her from under a guilty brow.

“Look at My face,” She said, smoothing Her voice as She would’ve the comforter on Her bed. “Look in My eyes, / Do you not know Me by now? / Do you think I would really let you starve? / Is that something I would allow?”

The two walking nightmares perked up and shuffled closer to their Benefactor, the memory of Her anger already lost amid the scent of an impending meal wafting under their noses.

Ieajaita kneeled before them and smiled. “You fear too deeply / an impossible winter. / Sustenance will come.”

She remembered when She would reserve Haiku for the world outside Her refuge, when it was one of the few forms She could safely employ should She need to speak to a mortal. Thank Uros for free verse, She thought.

“Don’t think I’m oblivious / to what you two must endure, /” she said. “Cages are insidious, / I feel it too, I assure. / Were there to grow a forest / so dark no man would venture / into, there I’d let you rest / and end would your indenture. / Man, however, must own all, / Even that which he must hate / and cast upon it a thrawl. / Never would it, friends, abate. / No place is safe for you two / where Magic is for purchase, / for the world is but a zoo / all across its vile surface. /”

The two oddities shuddered at the mention of a zoo.

Ieajaita resumed Her chanso. “There are times I envy you. / While I pass, free of danger, / through the mortals’ cockeyed view, / Feel I more the stranger. / Please do not impede Me, friends. / Need you for My own defense.”

Aberras and the Charchilla looked at Her, an almost doe-eyed confusion turning their heads to one side like a dog’s. Ieajaita smiled at them, stood, and started up the steps to the first floor. Before She’d gotten to the front door, the duo’s tremulous wail filled the house. She slammed the door behind her.