The Nebuchadnezzar magazine

By E.K. Anderson

The mayhem began with the book.

In truth, it was a case of mistaken identity, made manifest with a simple utterance I should have never said. 

In my early twenties, I’d taken solace in notable sacred texts, then : certain spellbound volumes, and Vaedic scripts of incantation. Some would say, I was deranged for a time.

Thus, I took solace in these texts, wishing respite from my inner tempest of restlessness and woe.

          I’d met the merchant of purple in Ionia. He’d been selling artifacts on a pier, off the stern of his boat.

Despite my marriage, I wondered what worldly spectacles would beset me in the New World. 

My answer came at this very bazaar in the town of Kratos, during the Festival of Ides from which the blood moon rose. I neared a tent from which a seller of purple dwelt, and so accosted me in passing. Under the awning of his tent, he introduced me to his volumes of leather bound books; all except one – which he glossed over with senseless muttering. But still my attention was piqued, and I could not forgo the thought of that one black book, with an embossed silver spine: an emblem not unlike the Fleur de Lis. 

“How much does this one cost?” I said, wanting to set myself apart as an erudite scholar of literature.

“This one,” muttered the old man, “is not for sale.”

His fingers trembled, and I noted a particular ire – a glint of malice in his eye.

“Come now,” I began annoyed, “For what price?” I carried on, for I was relentless in those days.

The elderly miser took this for a jest, and simply dismissed me with a wave of his hand. The gesture appeared as if shooing away a fly.

“As I said sir, this book – if it can be called such a thing – is not for sale.”

“What do you mean, it cannot be called such?”

“Brigadier, as this text is called is not meant for reading,” said the old man. “It is a grimoire, meant for summoning.”

He shook his head. “I only keep it for protection.”

“Against what?”said I.

“Against the machinations of evil forces,” sputtered the dealer. With that thunder struck from afar; resonating for far longer than any natural timbre, as if the world groaned in distress. The trader noted this and shuttered, a comical action as the — had the appearance of a turkey ruffling its feathers.

“If that is the case,” I said, “So be it.” 

I bid the seller of purple a good day of earnings and set off through the festivities of the bazaar. I laughed to myself in the night like a loon, thinking his superstitions incomprehensible.

Now, though I regret such an action; as my laughter was undoubtedly a taunt to Fate.

Of course, though my intent had been clear upon seeing the black book. This otherworldly grimoire had caught my attention to such a degree that I could not forget it.

I sought to, but I grew restless most nights, and could only dream of phantoms thrashing in an abyss, and lightning taming them. 

The melancholy I felt bordered a malaise, and for weeks onward I neglected my commodities, allowing my brother Talbot to manage our late father’s estate. I stayed within my study, a small enclave where I could look outside on the street, and observe the commoner’s fanfair. 

I ate little in those months, barely peeping out for the exception of my meals – which my beloved wife prepared. Our exchanges were few in that time, and the worry had set in her face like an old mask. I reckon this experience aged her, but she knew I engaged in my life’s work

_

My descent into madness began on the night I stole the book. Had I heeded the miser’s words, such calamity would not have befallen me.  

To this day, I imagine my other life had I not found the grimoire.

In my dreams I see the lodging I could have built on the cliffed coast of Kratos. The seminary school.

The arable land in the region of Ionia, traded purple, or ventured to the Silk Road. 

I could have been a merchant; the richest of traders. 

And on it goes. 

But such things I will never know, for they are not the life I lead.

More than ever, I wish to — be safe would not have lost my wife upon the forsaken Isle of Absalomos. 

Every part of my being – my fascinations – became so entrenched with its contents that I could neither sleep nor eat. I did not know then, that this obsession was a product of the grimoire itself; namely its preying subterfuge on those who examine it with naivete. 

I sought an acquaintance with the unspoken darkness within. 

The cipher, a derivative code of Sumerian cross-referenced with Davidic manuscripts took a year’s worth of study. I taught myself Greek, and Latin throughout this period: all to no avail.  

But the toil soon paid off, when during one night I deciphered the title of the text. 

“The Order of Absalomos,” it read, and I stricken with the year’s worth of grief felt a relief as I have not experienced since. 

By night, I encoded the cryptic letters, of g

I learned of The Order of Absalomos, as it was called was in need of an heir. A 

Rife with —

Ours is a silent order, shrouded in the lands of the east by way of gloom, and our only trifle is with those waging war. For in Shangri La, there is peace and we have kept it peaceful. 

Now, I must tell of my last voyage – the one that brought me, and my kin here to the celestial shores. No tale, or any of its ilk have fallen upon mortal ears. Such is only known by the fowl of heaven. 

*

We had come aboard the Leviathan for the sake of necessity. The lore in those days had done much to inspire our wanting for new beginnings from ours, a Begotten World. At the news of my wife’s conception, we boarded the vessel with our few belongings. We took our luggage, I packed my father’s garments; his pocket watch, an heirloom which had passed from my brother Talbot, and a booklet through which I could chronicle our journey. I’d also kept his armlet of which I kept sanctimonious about my arm under my garments. 

He’d called it the hex of hexes, a band of protection to arm myself against unseen forces. I’d taken my brother’s words as folly, as he was a superstitious man, but wearing it gave me a strange sense of hope and longing, as if he and I still shared a connection after his passing. 

My wife, having no immediate family kept her necklace–of which I offered as a marriage gift–in a lace shroud.  

In a rush, we’d purchased a month’s worth of food –or so we deemed a sufficient amount for the seafaring sojourn–from the local market. She purchased a few unleavened loaves of bread, dry fish and fruit. 

Once aboard we’d kept to ourselves. I’d done this as a precautionary measure, to hoard our denarii from thieving occupants, and to protect our unborn child. 

This measure served us well, and towards the midpoint of our journey, our little sum of riches, 30 silver talents, had been meticulously wagered to an acrimonious degree.

Then, the sound came from out at sea, and the water trifled with it. And all we could see was the froth of the Lady the sea, and her pounding fists resounding upon the starboard side.

The storm was a great storm, and the upset- I suspect- was due to the lore of which we heard from drunken misers: a misappropriation of prayers to the Unknown God. I had taken this 

Furthermore the rogue swept on over us and we could not see the day. Nor could we see the luminaries, by who’s light we used for our direction.

The captain had fallen ill from a most unsanctimonious fever: one which took the rest of the ship and his fellow seamen.

From this sickness, I was grateful to be spared, but my wife had taken it, and so I feared for our child. 

Despite the malady she kept fast, by what supplication I know not, but after my prayers to the Unknown God, the sea quieted though it did not rest.

On one particular morning my wife, laden with a fever of a most insidious sort, remained in bed. Her hair was matted down in places where her perspiration had flowed. Her skin had reddened with blotches of red, and parlor though the type of sickness was foreign to me.

I feared that it might be leprosy.

Then she spoke, and her voice was weighty like some beast had taken the reign of her throat. It spoke in a cavernous sort of way, as if the voice had come from the ages.

“When I birth the child, you must throw it overboard to the Sea,” she said. 

I, thinking it was a condition of her abominable fever, cut her off.

“I will do no such thing,” said I, and at once she fell silent, and I had feared that she had died. But her breath was faint. I heard a slight rasp, her bosom rising and falling. Her head still hot so I thought to sleep beside her bedside until morning. 

Though the sea did not let up, and I did not sleep I held fast to my wife. I did not rest, even for a moment by night.

A particular thing happened that night. What though transpired, I am uncertain unto this day.

I’d felt a villainous chill near my bed, and utter silence. Such a silence, I have never sensed nor hope to experience again, but it lingered for so long a time that I’d thought myself a somnambulist.

I smelled a decay, like necrotizing flesh.Then, the figure came from the ship’s corridor, through the oaken wood of our door. It rose to its full height – stressing the floorboards, and entered our room. It’s proternatural, a form of a weakened and fickle man with glassy eyes. His beard swept clear to the floor, and as the apparition so gazed at me, I gazed back.

It sombered nearer, encroaching upon the form of my wife. I tried to yell, but my fear was the great silencer. 

He, stooped near the bedside and looked at me through hazy eyes, the eyes of which saw ages pass and go. All-seeing eyes by which no mortal man had ever acquired, except through visions and libations.

I clutched my wife’s hand. The ice I’d felt made me shutter, and I had not known whether to leave her, but the apparition stayed. 

He did not speak. Yet, I knew it was he who the shipmates had mentioned. He was the Silent One of ages past, ridden with the fears of men- and he had come to visit me in my mourning.

Passing through me the Silent One reached out a decaying hand, the apparition clutched her hand. Then, he pointed to my wife’s womb. 

Her eyes opened wide, but the condition of her eyes was not as of the living. No, this husk – this golem was not my wife. 

She spoke in a language I could not discern, muttering loose utterances. She turned her head, at an inhuman rate, and simply gazed at me and smiled: bile forming at her lips.

She spat

I knowing, what she’d meant obstinately declined. 

Then after blinking, the apparition was gone and I’d come to know the sound of the sea, and the rush of its torrent as a great comfort.

My wife’s condition worsened throughout the day, and by evening her body was no more than a cold corpse. The condition was of the most insidious sort: rising when the day was overcast, and sleeping when the sun rose.

Even so, I being no coroner, would not leave her side. I could not – for fear of deeming her dead, and later resuscitating. 

I locked the door to our quarters, ensuring none of the shipmates, or passengers would see her.

Then in the early evening she breathe her last, and my wife’s soul was no more. I did not know what deity had robbed her of life, or if it was the Silent One.

At her last exhalation, the sea calmed. I searched for a pulse, but felt none.

I decided to stay in our quarters until the night came, and so with arduous effort proceeded to walk outside of our quarters to walk upon the deck of the Leviathan.

I saw no one upon the deck, as I had suspected of seeing no one besides the captain’s designate, and so I continued ruminating at the state of my affairs, with the passing of my wife and our unborn child. I did so for the sake of respite, and self loathing. I sought solitude.

I looked upwards at the moon, at the cloudless night. The moon lacked its luster, and had instead turned a blood red.

At this omen, I walked back to our quarters, but my wife had gone. Instead of her place I noted the silence yet again and the man stooping over her body.

“Get out.” 

I spoke with an aggression and fury unlike any I’d ever known. But the figure kept standing and when I approached I saw an ectoplasm streaming from his mouth that flowed into her nostrils.

The figure glanced at me yet again, and vanished.

I looked down at my wife, now miraculously resuscitated.

I felt her head for the fever but it had in fact passed. The ice remained. I noted no natural breath from her nostrils. But she was alive- or appeared to be so and when she rose I yelped with such appreciation.

You didn’t listen,  said the golem of my wife. Her eyes held on to mine with such malice that I could not recognize her. Her face looked bleached and worn, her countenance wan, and contorted as if an animals.

She stood with such rapidity, that I had hardly the chance to rise and stop her. As She headed for the door, I attempted to block her, but she shoved me with such remarkable a strength that I’d failed to regain my balance in time.

At this, I became aware that this was not my wife but a fledgling malevolent spirit that had taken control of her.

She sped past the corridor and up the stairs, at such an inhuman speed that I could not keep up with her.

She walked upon the deck, dragged by some unseen force. She looked above at the bloodied moon, and her body rose upon the rail of the ship.

She began an incantantation, at once my feet fused me to the ground. 

« Bind him, » she said.

My movements stunted, I could only gaze at her through imploring eyes.

“Merriam,” I implored, “Merriam!”

but she did not heed to my piteous cries.

The flash of the blade shined in the moonlit gloom. She raised it…

And then the sun peaked it’s crest from the edge of horizon, and felt the warmth of the morning sun.

At this, the spell broke and I could move yet again. In my desperation, i sought to catch her from falling into the sea as her body dropped.

My wife looked at me with terror, and I having seen an innocence in her eyes realized her naïveté concerning the matter which befell us.

Again Her color had returned to its noticeable hue. The other occupants aboard the ship crept from out of their resting places – and I expecting a certain supernatural possession amongst their number – took my belabored wife to the quarters.

Then in that hour her birth pangs came, and I had not known what to do. I prayed yet again to the Unknown God, for a swift delivery.

Then our son came, and I’d wrapped him in our curtains and blankets.

My wife held him for but a little, and then I took him. I’d kept him close, lest my wife resumed her uncanny condition. 

Whatever condition had befallen her upon the ship called Leviathan, was a nocturnal disease. Secretly I sought out a method of escape for myself and my infant son.

I will take a walk, I told her. So you can sleep. Id tried to reason with her that I would take our son for only a moment, but she declined to consent and so wanting her to retire in peace from her birth I let her have him.

This was a mistake.

I’d begun making arrangements, seeking out some plywood I could strip amidst the rafters so that I might construct a makeshift vessel. I did this inside the prison within a lower hull, where the deconstruction and subsequent desecration of the ship could not be heard. 

I took the rivets  from the prison bars and hammered them into the oak. 

By midday I’d constructed a quarter of the vessel, crude though it was, but that which I deemed buoyant enough to float.

The sun had dipped by the time I’d bound the makeshift vessel with excess rope the sailors housed in the belly. 

Rising to the deck I saw the captain and his ship mates, all gazing toward the moon. 

The moon had reddened again, and all I could see in their eyes was the glossiness id seen in the eyes of the old apparition with the bejeweled beard of silver. 

The captain having readjusted the wheel steered the wheel in some unknown direction with pallid eyes set upon the moon and about it he kept fast 

Luna Veni mortem 

As a seafaring man, and one who loves the sea I will give this denunciation:

Steer clear from The Isles of the Wanting, where the dead have no mirth.

We’d sailed near and far, and the cave of which I speak was one of trivial legend. I’d overheard a learned man speak of such things on our ship, yet I paid him no heed. 

In the evenings my attention was diverted to my companion: my wife, sick with child.

(The escape from the ship)

After rowing the makeshift catamaran for several leagues I neared the vast bowed shoreline – with pockmarked cliffs, and mangrove trees along the inner flank. 

Albatross birds dipped and gullied in the gale. Besides them there were no other inhabitants. 

Within the cave, I crept down through the outcrop. I walked down through the crevices, into the basin of the lair. Braziers lighted the conduits, a sort of unending vicious flame that glowed white. An altar, I saw before the great abyss and in the vestibule with the arch of a rotunda I saw jewels like diadems – each refracting the light of a myriad of earthen stones. 

I felt an uncanny reverence for such a place, as if I’d trodden some barbaric sacred ground as if some tabernacle, or temple.

Etched upon the stone, written like some sort of cuneiform in a language I was unfamiliar with read:

“Escriptan Volan Serpentis Absalomos”

Oddly, I did not struggle over the translation – as this dialect was neither latin nor greek, but a _of the two. From my discerning I believe this was its translation:

Here in lies Absalomos, The Winged Serpent King

And i heard a chant from deep within the recesses of the cave, and a disembodied light arising from deep within the basin. The putrid odor rising like incense to my nostrils, I kept my son close to my bosom. 

I stifled his cries, in the linen of my cloak, and carried him away from the grand vestibule. Had I known the condition of my fate, I would have stayed. But the half-men came in droves, and like an encampment they circled us. 

Seeking refuge behind a large stone, I saw the lot of my shipmates: entering single-filed like poltergeists from the gloom. 

I heard a rumble from deep within the cave, from where I’d fled. The roar – if it can be described as such – was of such low a timbre that I could feel it in my bones. 

Despite every inkling within that restrained me from looking back, I did so. I looked back from the abysmal plane from which the sound emanated, and sat affixed behind the crag. 

Then the beast rose, a single serpentine neck protruding, and elongating – as if some extinct beast from a time immemorial, and untarnished. I beheld a single gray cyclopean eye, in the center of the feathered god’s forehead, with the same haunting expression I’d seen in the sailor’s eye – the same pallor of the moon. 

And as its head grazed the ceiling of the monumental cave, I saw its height and breadth as high as ten fathoms. And the sailors bore it witness, each one with the same gray expression in their faces – and I knew then that this King – This winged serpent god – had heralded them from afar by way of the moon and the Silent One. His vice had tainted them, as a poison. And for what reason?

I looked upon the face of my son, and knew. 

My son’s eyes had taken on the same sepia glare of the mauve sea. His cries stifled, his tears sept into rivulets of blood. His head turned in the direction of the grand beast, and I could see that he had been lost to its enchantment. 

In fact the beast had summoned my son for sacrifice.

Then, my wife entered the cave, with a veil upon her head like sackcloth. She entered with the Graying Man of ages long ago – hand in hand. 

They entered last, as if some funeral procession. And i heard her cry out in the blackened dark, with a cry so shrill the sound pierced it.

Mirat Absalomos, my wife said. Her voice was as many – not as one, but in unison with the rest of the ship mates. Then the ship’s captain genuflected before her, and offered him his sword. 

This she took with such strength, and superhuman rapidity that i shuttered. She took the blade, and released it from its scabbard raising it to the glint of the moon for all to see. The captain, bowing his head, accepted his fate. Then, she administered her deathstroke – a single hack to the dear captain’s neck – and he was no more. 

I heard the captain’s head roll down upon the steps of the cave.

His head rolled down the floor of the cave, until it stopped – quite abruptly upon the crag of our hiding place. It was then, that I looked upon the face of the captain. His mouth opened as if to make some utterance, but silence only ensued. His eyes, open and gazing, shifted to me and my son. 

With his infant hand, my son reached out to touch the dreaded decapitated head. His might was such that I could not restrain him. He plucked a finger in the mouth of the captain, where the blood fell, and resolutely – as if to spite me – tasted of it. 

It was then that I knew that my son’s fate had been sealed to this dreaded Absamolos, this Winged Serpent God, whose hand delved cistern of ages – who could stir the murk and froth of time to his bidding. 

What power the being possessed I could not absolve, but perhaps by some ill will bestowed by that of a greater god could i save my son, despite my greatest reckonings.

I uttered a swift prayer – one of desperation and partial lamentation to this unknown God of ages; that this winged serpent King Absalomos would spare my son for me, and that I might take his place.

With all my might I took him away from the lure of the disembodied head. Struggling against my greater judgment, I grasped the head from its greying, and thinning hairs and took it. 

MEanwhile the sound of Absalomos was one of distress. He had been robbed of his bounty, his subsequent worship, and so needed to feed upon the shipwrecked crew. Had I denied him the head, the slaughter of the captain so too would too would I have denied him his corporal meal of ages. I knew, then, that the god would dispute his birthright with blood. 

She peeled back her lips like some rabid animal, with teeth like thorns. 

She lashed at me with such might that I could not 

But we could not leave the island until morning, until that forsaken moon had left us. 

And so I took the head and tossed it back into the sea, the captain’s last bidding were he to die at sea.

And my wife came at me from the crags and she lashed like a phantom, with tooth and nail – but still I would not offer up our son. And the crew followed her. 

And with the sword she’d impaled me with, and struck her arm. Despite the affliction, she did not slow. In fact, this action did more to inspire her fury than all else. 

Then she fell over the precipice to the jagged stones below.

But even despite this fall she did not falter, for with the remaining limbs that hadn’t broken she climbed with such furocity. 

And when she rose above the outcrop i took the sword and blinded both her eyes in which case, the spell of whatever ilk was broken and the ships men – having been monstrous- were now tamed. 

My wife screamed with such a cry that I could hear the groan from deep within the earth. And I knew that such pain as id inflicted upon my dear wife, had been the same pain of Absalomos, ever blinding his sight.

With sword in hand, I sought to take her out of her misery, but by absistence of conscience could not, for or her blind plight was already a destitution – and despite her relative animosity, I could not give her the deathstroke. 

We left the island, my son and I watching from afar as my construct bobbed in the gales of the sea. I saw the herald of Absalamos watching from the hollow of the cave, his eyes set – affixed upon some celestial tapestry. He gazed onward, and in some manner I beheld that he was in search of the Lost Heir of Absolomos, the Prince of the moon. 

I heard the wailing of my wife from off the distant shore. She was a banshee crying for her lost child upon the Isle of Absalomos.

And I turned my gaze toward the sea, where the light of the sea dwindled upon the horizon, away from the Isle.