Taken from the transcript of recordings by psychiatrist Dr. Strukely at the Koczewye Mental Institute, name of subject witheld
Father, I have sinned. I nearly wished I could say those words then. But I had not sinned. I remained untouched by the corruption and the devastation of the scenes that unfolded. I remained aloof, clean. Yet the very events of that strange day did impress themselves most deeply upon my soul. It was a day as unlike today as could be. The sun was strong and warm, a kind a nurturesome influence. Honey and nectar were on the air, blooms on the fields. Gentle breeze, the tang of brine as the pulp writers say.
Today, the rain pelting the cold grimy window, the mires outside soaked and treacherous, the mountains cloaked in fog and smoke. A day quite unlike that day. A day for memories, if memories they were. For truths if a Truth there were. It brings to mind the memories, if that they were, that I remember (I think) recorded in the writings of a master writing of another writing of a third. These images (or my memories of images) evoke that day, when the sun was strong and warm and the sea fit for a postcard.
That day I saw a lewd and licentious woman, naked and butchered, being eaten by revolting toads and sucked by snakes, besides her a satyr with swollen belly and the legs of a griffon, covered in disgusting hairs, with an ugly, gaping mouth screaming of his own damnation, and I saw a miser, paralyzed in the rictus of death upon a lavishly ornamented bed, now the hapless prey of a cohort of demons, one of which was tearing the child-shaped soul from his gasping mouth (ah, the sentence of eternal damnation), and I saw the arrogant man, being ridden by two demons who stuck sharp claws in his eyes, while two gluttons bit and chewed each other in a sickening duel, and other creatures, creatures with the head of a goat, the mane of a lion, the maw of a panther, trapped in a forest of fire, whose burning breath I nearly felt upon my face. And around them, intermingled with them, above them and beneath their feet, there piled up other faces and other limbs, a man and a women, grabbing each others' hair, two adders drinking the eyes of a damned man, a deformed man with bent arms prizing open the gullet of a hydra, and all the monsters of hell's bestiary, united in chorus and arrayed on guard around the throne in their midst, singing the glory of their damnation, fauns, hermaphrodites, freaks with six fingers, sirens, hippocentaurs, gorgons, harpies, incubi, dracopods, minotaurs, lynxes, 'eetas, chimeras, canoperas with dog muzzles shooting flames from their nostrils, dentyrants, polytails, hairy snakes, salamanders, horned snakes, water snakes, pythons, bicephalics with teeth growing from their backs, hyenas, weasels, crows, crocodiles, hydropi with saw tooth horns, frogs, griffons, monkeys, dogheads, leucrottas, manticores, vultures, parandrines, otters, dragons, odiocavers, banshees, basilisks, hypnaliai, presters, spectafics, scorpions, saurs, sea monsters, scitallics, amphisbaenas, joculas, dipsadians, green lizards, polyps and unguars, morays and turtles.
They were all there, the chorus of hell, the lovers of decay. There, hidden in the sunlight, crouching in the blades of grass and the fragrant flowers. Somewhere deep, in our gut, I felt them and knew them and was close to them. I saw the darkness and the lightning and the pelting rain. Men heaving and shouting and screaming and dying upon cold steel. The red, reddening mud that clung and filled all wounds and covered all traces. And there the Vampire and the Mindflayer did battle and did slay one another.
But they did not die. And there they awoke, in that warm and fragrant land. And the land was fine and the land was warm and it was as paradise, as payment, as afterlife for a life of sin and gluttony and horror. And it was truly now seen that heaven is not for the meek.
"The sun is high, it burns my skin, makes me ill," said the Vampire.
"Let us then follow the path," replied the Mindflayer. And so they did, the ordinary looking Vampire and the vibrant blue-black Illithid. The path was yellow and of brick and did lead down from a wooded meadow into a narrow, manicured stretch of land, huddled between red-black cliffs and the warm, salty sea. They walked not as men would walk; instead they levitated and seemed to float, elegant and serene yet dreadful and deadly.
I found the air pleasant, the sun not too hot or too cold, and I saw the house where they were headed. It was the only structure visible and seemed more an organic composition than an actual building, grown and sewn and sculpted through the centuries and through the various architectural styles in haphazard yet mellifluous design. Gothic portals and modern glass, brickwork and stucco, Romanesque columns and colonial walls, classical windows and oriental railings. The Vampire and the Mindlfayer approached the door, which was green and of fine wood. The wood itself seemed to shine with green and upon its surface was chiseled a face, at once serene and annoyed.
The Mindlfayer reached for the door, but found no handle, rather the eyes of the face flared open and it squealed, "What do you think you're doing, young runtling? Have you no manners, touching other people around the face?"
"We would have entry," replied the Flayer. A short dialogue ensued; I will not repeat it here, as authority would say that pointless speech that lightens the mood also lessens the weight of the written word. But it was with the arguments of Servilius Onesti that the door did send the message that indeed it was the coin of gold that would by admittance through the narrow door of the righteous path and gain indulgence.
The Bloodsucker and the Mindflayer did thus away to a nearby village or town, to garner coin and perhaps see to some enjoyment of that day.
As per the door's directions, the village was where it was - fifteen miles and no more, nestled at the head of a narrow bay on a slope between the mighty cliff and the gentle green meadows and the brilliant white beaches. It was an old village, of stone houses and stone streets, red roofs and hanging gardens of fragrant flowers and vine trellises. Its streets thronged with appealing young maidens dressed in revealing triangles of fabric, swollen, sweating, gold-chained, grey-maned and short-trousered bulky middle-aged men and locals. I could have sworn that the only reason there were so many fair ladies there was the bulky wallets that stretched the already tight and woefully unfashionable shorts of the sweating mid-life crisis sufferers, but perhaps I was being uncharitable and a doughnut did much to calm my angst, though the shoppe owner was most rude and seemed to have difficulty noticing me.
The respectable men in trunks sweated by their easels as they painted amateurish aquarelles of the harbor, which happened to include large numbers of young women bathing in the sun and reading cheap literature. The smell of sun screen, fish and sweet pastries filled the air and the Vampire and the Mindlfayer alit by one such shop, the Vampire taking the form of a nondescript and quite invisible young, pimpled adolescent while the Flayer took the skin of one of the ubiquitous jowly, grey-haired men. There by that shop they, or rather the Flayer, for the Vampire was quite unseen, asked an officer of the law the location of a coin of gold. They were instructed to a jeweler between bites of glazed donut and gulps of glazed cola.
I saw the small jewelry shop, in a romantic narrow street, perfectly positioned to attract and detract from the wallets of passers by. They entered the shoppe, which was filled with golden trinkets and a young beauty standing behind the altar-like counter. I saw her full, firm and most delectable breasts which tho' large were not too large and certainly not pendant. They stretched the satiny fabric of her skimpy top, which served to accentuate her cleavage. Her midriff was bare and pierced, tanned to perfection and muscled to definite attraction. She wore a short black skirt, which barely covered her nudity (for I could see she wore neither thong nor any other garment beneath). Her legs were long and shapely, with the characteristic musculature of a distance runner. Her shapely feet occupied a pair of stiletto sandals that laced up to her knee and generously outlined her smooth skin. Her arms were strong but slim, her hands delicate, well manicured. Her neck was perfect, an upright column that supported her face, which captured my attention and held it. A dazzling, practiced smile, a small and just slightly quirky nose, shining blue eyes, velvety skin and a long, luxuriant waterfall of blonde hair.
The Flayer approached her, while I continued to stare at her full lips and slightly flushed cheeks.
"May I help you, sir?" she asked politely, smiling all along. As she turned I saw her round, firm buttocks that stretched her skirt and curved in the most erotic way.
