T E N E B R A E
On my body, the grace of shadows
and in my heart: all Hells
and in my heart: all Hells
He moves, leonine and black, beneath the festival lights strung over the maze of paths between stalls.The light skims across black, only to be swallowed by his shadows that breathe dark and thick into the night. The heavy crowds part for him as the sea once did for Moses. The air falls more still as his shadows press upon passing bodies.
It is easy to forget when he is here, deep within the vibrant heart of Denocte. Here where vendors sell their exotic wares that gleam with a foreign beauty that is at once strange and alluring to the beholder. There is no beauty here to catch Tenebrae’s eye. What are jewels to a man dedicated to charity? A man who vowed to live upon nothing and give all to his goddess and her court? All of him is for Denocte and as he steps through its busy streets, the darkness gathers to him and swallows him down, down. The Disciple is but shadow here, a piece of Denocte come alive, a piece of Caligo’s temple come loose.
Moonlight and lamplight gleam off daggers that line a swordsmith stall. Tenebrae studies them each. The metal is cold as dawn water in his hands, it is pale as moonlight in his hands. It cuts the air with a song and his shadows splice along its pointed length. The air trembles with smoke and fire-heat. It hums the the melody of song that radiates through the star-speckled sky from a streetband playing in the square.
Tenebrae lowers the silver blade and his shadows linger but a moment more than he as he steps away and back through the sea of souls. The small shrine calls to him where it sits in candle light and shadow. Caligo’s statue sits atop it and Tenebrae prays, his voice low and smooth as whiskey. His prayers taste like liquor in his mouth, his nerves numb with the rhythm of them. It is a chant and a song and soon it is over, soon he lays a tribute to his goddess upon the small shrine’s altar top. It is a sacrifice of roses, they lie healthy and in full bloom. They are pale as bone and lie like twin moons upon the goddess’ altar. They cut stems are dry and Tenebrae knows they will wilt overnight, he ignores the thought, for it feels too much like the parts of him that are dying.
The monk moves on, deeper and deeper into the markets. He follows the thrumming arterial paths until Denocte’s heart lies before him, beating, beating with the passing of the moon at its core. Tenebrae drinks in the sigh of the great half moon, a stone mirror to his own half-moon sigils that blaze atop his brow and on each shoulder. There is moonsong here, here where the silver light bathes all in diamond liquid. Here is where Caligo’s magic nests, here he stands and drinks her deep into his soul. Here he stands and feel that he is a pious man and not a sinner, an angel falling out of the sky, his wings broken, his feathers dying.
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