#People of the Dark age and the Ancient ghost called him Arthur

[ecto-stone]

Hey... Jude.

[inthedayswhenlandswerefew]

Eccentricity [Chapter 14: Love Keeps The Monsters From Our Door] [Series Finale]

A/N: Thank you for your encouragement, enthusiasm, laughter, rants, screeches of anguish, and unapologetic thirsting for “sexy undead Italian man” Joseph Francis Mazzello. I hope you love this conclusion more than Baby Swan loves pineapple pizza. 💜

Series Summary: Potentially a better love story than Twilight?

Chapter Title Is A Lyric From: “Til I Die” by Parsonsfield. (The #1 song I associate with this fic!)

Chapter Warnings: Language.

Word Count: 7.7k.

Other Chapters (And All My Writing) Available: HERE

Taglist: @queen-turtle-boiii @bramblesforbreakfast @maggieroseevans @culturefiendtrashqueen @imnotvibingveryguccimrstark @escabell @im-an-adult-ish @queenlover05 @someforeigntragedy @imtheinvisiblequeen @seven-seas-of-ham-on-rhyee @deacyblues @tensecondvacation @brianssixpence @some-major-ishues @haileymorelikestupid @youngpastafanmug @simonedk @rhapsodyrecs​

Mercy

We have to stay in the Vladivostok palace until her transformation is complete, and I hate it.

The floors are cold and sterile and every clang of noise ricochets off them like a bullet. The earth outside is stripped bare and hibernal. There is no green to interrupt the bleakness of the sky, the cruel absence of color: no spruces or hemlocks or bigleaf maples, no evergreen forests, no verdant fields, only a grey that bleeds from the sky in sheets of hail and driving rain. This land is a stranger. So many of the faces, too, are strangers, although they try. Honora sits with me—her large dark eyes, like mirrors of mine, polished and wet with aching pity—and braids my hair. Morana invites me to bake homemade bread with her. Austin tries to make me smile. Cato visits me as much as he can, because he feels responsible; or maybe he would do it anyway, maybe lessening suffering is as instinctual to him as bloodshed is to so many of our kind. And when Cato is with me, I do feel a little better, like my story might belong to somebody else, like it’s a name I can’t quite remember, like it’s a transitory moment of déjà vu I can catch glimpses of but never touch. And yet, still, I send him away.  

I don’t want to be with Cato. It’s painful for him to be around me, I can see that. It’s painful for Rami, and for Ben, and for Joe, and for Lucy and Scarlett. It’s even painful for the Irish Wolfhounds that Cato found locked up for safekeeping in Larkin’s study; they skulk around the palace vigilantly but leave great swaths of uninterrupted space around me like open water. So I conjure up a mask of brave, hopeful acceptance and wear it everywhere I go.

Joe says very little, never leaves the girl he calls Baby Swan’s side, dabs her scorching skin with washcloths soaked in ice water and murmurs in sympathy when she screams through the unconsciousness, from beneath the ocean of fire we all know so well. He nods off sometimes, snatching minutes of sleep like fireflies in a jar, before jolting awake to make sure her heart is still beating. When Ben isn’t checking on them, he’s with Cato, helping to draw up plans for the future, reminiscing about the past with slick eyes and clinking midnight glasses of whiskey. Scarlett sprawls across the desk in what was once Larkin’s study and spends hours on the phone with Archer as she gazes up at the ceiling, telling him how to care for the farm animals and the garden, reassuring him that we’ll be home soon, whispering things to him that I try not to hear; and I know she wouldn’t want me to anyway. Lucy weeps delicate, ceaseless tears as she perches on the staircase landing and Rami entombs her in his arms, never having to ask what she needs from him. And I wander meaninglessly through the echoing, unfamiliar hallways like a moon without a planet.

I know what they all think about me, perhaps even Rami, for I keep it buried as deep as all skeletons should be: that I’m irrevocably kind, effortlessly forgiving. That I’m as incapable of bitterness as I am of aging. But they’re wrong. It’s a choice, and it always has been, ever since a late-November dusk in 1864 when madness eclipsed mercy. Every day I choose whether to surrender to the beckoning, malignant hatred that lurks in the back of my bedroom closet, in the dusty and ill-lit loft of the barn roped with cobwebs, in the twilight tree line of the western hemlocks crawling with shadows that whisper through fanged teeth. Every day I decide whether to become a monster. And it has never been harder to remember why I don’t.

My future is unimaginable. The nights are endless. I feel black, razored seeds of what I am horrified must be bitterness burrowing beneath my skin and taking root there. I am consumed by infected, fruitless questions that I can’t silence: Why Gwilym? Why Arthur? Why Eliza and Charlotte? Why is it always fire?

The first words that Gwilym ever spoke to me, as I unraveled from unconsciousness under a grove of sycamore trees with smoke still clinging to my unscarred skin, rattle around in my skull like windchimes beneath thunderous skies. His voice was colored with an accent I couldn’t place, and yet it sounded like home: You’re in a dark place right now. But you don’t have to stay there.

That might have been true once. That might have been true in the ruinous autumn of 1864. But now I can’t find my way out.

Seventy-three hours after our arrival in this barren corner of the world, Charlie Swan’s daughter  wakes up as a vampire. Her heart is perfectly still, her skin faultless, her senses sharp, her mind as impenetrable as ever; at least, that’s what Lucy says when she finds me. And Lucy tugs at my hand, wearing her first smile in days, insisting that I have to come meet the newest member of our coven, to welcome her. I don’t know how to tell Lucy that I’m afraid I don’t have it in me to love this girl, that I don’t have it in me to love anyone but ghosts. And yet—compliantly, yieldingly, expecting nothing but disappointment in the monster I have become—I follow her.

The door is already open to the Swan girl’s room; chattering, beaming vampires flood in and out like the tides. I step inside. And I see the way that Joe looks at her, the way that Ben does; and all those seeds that I had feared might be bitterness blossom into nothing but open air.

It’s Not A Fucking Wedding (A.K.A. 13.5 Months Later)

The ocean is a universe. Its arms are not ever-expanding, spiraling galaxies of suns and planets and nebulae and black holes, this is true; its belly is not a vacuum of inhospitable oblivion, its bones are not invisible strings of gravity, its language is not a silence older than starlight, older than eternity. But the ocean is a universe nonetheless, its borders tucked neatly around the seven continents, slumbering there until the next hurricane or tsunami or ice age comes conquering; and inevitably equilibrium is restored—like defibrillator paddles to a heart, like naloxone to an addict’s blood—and our two worlds can coexist side by side once again.  

The ocean’s arms are sighing waves, bubbling and brisk, grasping and retreating in the same breath. Its belly is swollen with life from immense blue whales down to swarming clouds of single-celled, sun-hungry phytoplankton. Its language is ancient whispers; not parched and blistering and brittle sounds like the desert’s but cool, serene, supple, engulfing. And I can hear them all, if I listen closely enough. I can hear the sentient whistling of orcas, the breaking of waves against rocks, the scrabbling of sand crabs beneath the earth, the gruff distant barks of sea lions, the rustling of evergreen pine needles in the breeze. And I understand now why it was always so easy for vampires to be introspective, to lapse into thoughtful, unhurried silences. I could imagine spending decades just sitting here with my knees tucked to my chest and my hair whipping in the brackish wind, watching the seasons roll by like a wheel.

Joe was coming back from the gravel parking lot. I turned to watch him: red U Chicago hoodie, messy dark auburn-ish hair, a pizza box clasped in his hands. The GrubHub delivery driver was returning to his car with the toothiest of grins.

“Buon appetito!” Joe announced, dramatically presenting me with the pizza box. It had become our post-finals tradition each semester: pizza at La Push beach, half-pepperoni, half-pineapple.

“Grazie, sexy undead Italian man. Your accent is getting so good!”

“I know, right?! I’m on a twelve-day Duolingo streak. I can’t let that little green owl dude down.”

“I’m impressed, I’ll admit it. I gotta brush up on my Welsh. Why’s the GrubHub driver so cheery?”

“I tipped him $500.”

I smiled, opening the box and lifting out a semi-warm slice of pineapple pizza. Elastic strands of mozzarella cheese stretched like rubber bands until they snapped. “Aww, really?”

Joe plopped down onto the cool, damp sand beside me. “No. I lied. We’re actually having a torrid love affair.”

I laughed, shaking my head. “How could you possibly have time for all that?” Between school, business ventures, family activities, and me, Joe was very rarely unoccupied. And he preferred it that way.

“I’m so glad you asked. I’m very speedy, if you recall. And that’s just one of the exclusive services I offer. I am a man of many talents. I make people’s wildest dreams come true. Who am I to deny the GrubHub delivery man the wonderland that is my spindly, annoying body?”  

“You are the fastest,” I said, winking.

“Oh shut up! I mean, uh, uhhh, silenzio!” He pointed his slice of pepperoni pizza at me reproachfully. “That’s not what I meant. I’m not the fastest at everything.”

“Whatever you say, mob guy.”

He lunged for me, pinned me down in the crumbling sand, both of us laughing wildly as the crusts of our pizza slices bounded off and were snatched up by diving, screeching seagulls. He growled with mock savagery, braced his hips against mine, kissed his way from the corner of my jaw to my lips. That oh-so-familiar commanding, craving ache for him came roaring to the surface; and now there was no bittersweet edge to it, no inescapable backdrop of lambent numbers ticking down from five or ten or fifteen years to zero. Now there was only the calm, unurgent promise of forever.

“Joe—!”

“You have besmirched my honor, Baby Swan. I am left with no recourse but to refresh your clearly flawed memory and prove you wrong.”

“Public indecency? That’s illegal, sir.”

“Okay, you gotta stop stealing my catchphrases. It’s extremely difficult for me to come up with new ones. I’m almost a hundred years old, you know.”

“Alright, I guess you’re not bad in bed for a basically-centenarian.”

He smiled down at me, his dark eyes alight, the wind tearing through his hair, one palm resting on my forehead, uncharacteristically quiet.

“What?” I asked, worried.

“Nothing,” he said. “I’m just really glad we’re a thing.”

“You better be. You’re kind of stuck with me now. You’ve stolen my virtue, you’ve made me fall in love with your entire demented family, you’ve forced your torturous immortality upon me. I’m not going anywhere. Unless you ever stop funding my pineapple pizza addiction, of course.”

Joe chuckled as he climbed off me and took my hand in his, pulling me upright. “It’s absolutely ridiculous, by the way. Your insistence on being a sort-of vegetarian. It’s embarrassing. You’re the wimpiest vampire ever. You’re a disgrace to the coven.”

“I eat animals!” I objected.

“Yeah, when you have to.” And Joe was right: I steered clear of flesh outside of the two or three times a week when I hunted. For environmental sustainability reasons, I mostly consumed deer or rabbits; although the very occasional shark was my guilty pleasure. Joe gnawed on his second slice of pizza and peered out into the overcast, dusky horizon, wiping crumbs from his stubbled chin with the back of his hand. “We only have one more of these left,” he said at last, a little sadly. “One more finals season at Calawah University. One more celebratory dinner at La Push.”

“We’ll just have to get used to a new view. Pizza by the Chicago River, maybe.”

Joe looked over at me, thoughtful again, smiling. He had received his acceptance letter to the University of Chicago three weeks ago. I got mine eight days later. “It won’t be hard for you to leave Forks?”

“It will be. Once upon a time I didn’t think that was possible, but I will miss Forks. And not just because of Charlie and Archer and Jessica and Angela and all the Lees. But it was hard to leave Phoenix, and I’m sure one day it will be hard to leave Chicago. Just because change is hard doesn’t mean it’s not the right thing to do.”

Joe nodded introspectively. “Every new beginning comes from some other beginning’s end.”

“Don’t quote classic rock songs at me, mixtapes boy.”

“You love my mixtapes,” he teased, circling his left arm around my waist, pulling me in closer, touching his lips to my forehead. Mint and pine and starlight sank into my lungs like an anchor through the surf. “And that saying actually goes all the way back to Seneca, my dear.”

“Don’t tell me he’s still philosophizing in some cloudy corner of the world somewhere.”

“Not to my knowledge. Although that’s an intriguing thought. We need more famous vampires. Caligula would have made for very interesting conversation. Lincoln, Napoleon, Cleopatra, Shakespeare, Dante...I guess it’s possible that anyone is still around. Maybe we should turn Meat Loaf. You know, for the good of posterity.”

“Is it not enough that they’re already cursed with student debt and global warming?”

Joe cackled, took my face in his palms, kissed each of my cheeks one after the other, then nudged my nose with his. “You ready to go, Baby Swan? I suspect we’re expected to participate in some holiday festivities tonight.”

“I’m ready,” I agreed. We threw our leftover pizza to the seagulls, disposed of the grease-spotted cardboard box, and walked back to my 1999 Honda Accord with our pulseless hands intertwined.

The evergreen trees along Routh 110 fled by beneath a sky freckling with stars. Sharp winter air poured in through the open windows. And I could feel that it was cold, in the same way that I could feel the warmth on Forks’ rare sweltering days; but there was no discomfort that accompanied that knowledge. Pain only came when the sky was unincumbered by thick clouds churning in off the Pacific, and then it felt something like staring into the sun had as a human. Sunglasses helped, but the surest remedy was avoidance, was surrender. And what an inconsequential price to pay for forever.

“Wait,” I said, spying the mailbox that marked the start of the Lees’ driveway. “They still deliver mail on Christmas Eve, right?”

“Uh, I think so, why...?” And then he remembered. “Oh, yeah, let’s check!”

I pulled up beside the mailbox and Joe leaned out, returning to his seat with a mountain of Christmas cards and business correspondence and advertisements from Costco and Sephora. He sifted through them until he found a single white envelope from the University of Chicago Pritzker School of Medicine. It was addressed to a Mr. Benjamin August Hardy. Joe held it up to show me as we drove down the driveway, the Lee house coming into view and ornamented with a frankly excessive amount of multicolored string lights and inflatable reindeer.

“Oh my god!” I squealed, drumming the steering wheel.

“You want to be the one to give it to him?”

“Are you serious?! Yeah, can I?”

Joe passed the envelope to me as I parked my geriatric Honda, which Archer had pledged to keep alive as long as physically possible. In return, Ben let him and Scarlett borrow the Aston Martin Vantage no less than once a week. I dashed out of the car, up the steps of the front porch, and into the house that bubbled over with the sounds of metallic kitchen clashes and frenetic voices and Wham!’s Last Christmas.

“Ben?!” I shouted.

“Hi, honey!” Mercy called from the living room, where she and Lucy were putting the final touches on Scarlett’s gown. Scarlett was playing the part of semi-willing victim, wearing gold heels and an impatient smirk and her hair out of the way in a milkmaid braid; her train of vivid red lace billowed across the hardwood floor. From the couch, Archer and Rami were playing Mario Kart on the big-screen tv and nibbling their way through a tray of homemade gingerbread cookies.

“Oh wow,” I said, clutching the envelope to my chest, mesmerized. I kept waiting for Scarlett to start looking like a normal person to me, and it never happened. Tonight, in the glow of the flameless candles and kaleidoscopic Christmas lights and draped in lace the color of pomegranate seeds, she was Persephone: a goddess of resurrection, a face that death himself could not pass by unscathed. “You’ve outdone yourself, Lucy. Seriously.”

“One day I’m going to get you out of those thrift shop sweaters,” Lucy threatened me, placing a pin in the fabric at Scarlett’s waist.

“Yeah, okay. Let me know when that shows up in one of your visions.”

“Bitch,” Lucy flung back, snickering, knowing how improbable that was. I still appeared in her visions extremely infrequently, and then only when I happened to be standing next to whoever the premonition was actually about.

“Language, dear,” Mercy tutted, inspecting the hem of Scarlett’s gown.

Joe arrived beside me, his arms still full of mail. “ScarJo, I almost didn’t recognize you! Why do you have, like, no cleavage or fishnets or thigh slits?”

“Why do you have like no eyelashes?” Scarlett replied. “See, I can ask unnecessary and invasive questions too.”

Joe frowned, wounded. “What’s wrong with my eyelashes?”

“Lucy, darling, I think it’s just a tad uneven on this side,” Mercy said, showing her. “Maybe by half an inch...?”

“No, seriously, what’s wrong with my eyelashes?!”

Mercy replied distractedly: “Nothing, honey, you’re perfect just the way you are.”

“Mom!” Joe groaned.

“It really is gorgeous,” Mercy marveled as Lucy flitted around her to investigate the hem situation. “And so Christmasy. So perfect for the season. Scarlett, dear, you were right after all, and I’m so sorry for doubting you. I’d just never heard of a red wedding dress before.”

“Mom, it’s not a fucking wedding!” Scarlett exclaimed, for probably the thirtieth time since Thanksgiving. “It’s a nonbinding, informal celebration of an egalitarian romantic partnership. Will somebody please inform this woman that it’s not a wedding?!”

“Yes, yes, of course, whatever you want, sweetheart,” Mercy conceded dreamily.

Joe pointed to Archer. “Isn’t he supposed to not see the dress until the day of or something?”

“What a great question!” Archer replied, still deeply invested in Mario Kart. “You see, that would be the case if this was a wedding. However, I’ve been informed in no uncertain terms that it is most definitely not.”

Scarlett grinned triumphantly at Joe. “There you have it.”

She might snap petulantly, and she might complain, but Scarlett wouldn’t be doing this if she didn’t want to; we were all intimately familiar with the futility of trying to force Scarlett into anything. The not-wedding, as improbable as it seemed, had been her idea from the start. And she wasn’t doing it for herself. She wasn’t even doing it for Archer. Scarlett was doing it for her mother.

The first six months had been hell for Mercy. She didn’t resent me, as I had feared she might; Mercy made that clear, and Rami confirmed it. But she was gutted. She wouldn’t speak of Gwil, wouldn’t listen to us talk about him, locked every photograph of him away in dark drawers, wandered around with a remote, uncanny, unseeing smile until she walked straight into walls; and then she would blink inanely up at them, as if they had dropped out of the sky rather than been built by her own hands. She baked hundreds of cakes and almost never slept. She told us she was fine every time we asked, which was more or less constantly. But on the very rare occasions when she was left alone, Mercy would unfailingly end up in the field behind the Lee house, gazing out into the forest of western hemlock trees with tears snaking silently down her cheeks, the muted light of the cloud-covered setting sun flickering red and furious on her face like wildfire.

And then one afternoon, a package had arrived from Arviat, Canada, where Cato and the rest of the surviving Draghi had relocated shortly after the rebellion at Vladivostok. It was five feet tall and another three wide, and what we found after carefully peeling away all those layers of foam padding and packing tape was a portrait of Gwilym so skillfully painted that it could have been mistaken for a photograph. Mercy had stared at it for a long time—ignoring Lucy’s attempts to guide her away, deaf to any of our concerns—until she at last picked up the portrait herself and said, quite evenly: “I think we should hang it in the living room, don’t you?”

Things had been better since then—very, very gradually, and yet unmistakably—and Gwil’s portrait remained mounted above the living room couch like a watchman, his eyes sparkling and blue, his faint smile stoic and fond and omniscient. But even in the wake of Mercy’s continued improvement, none of us kids were about to risk another agonizingly despondent Christmas. So the solution was obvious. We would keep Mercy preoccupied with what thrilled her more than absolutely anything else: the pseudo-weddings of her children. Rami and Lucy had already secretly volunteered to go next year...and after that, who knew? And there was one other thing that was making Mercy’s burden a little lighter these days.

Charlie sauntered into the living room, wearing an apron covered in cartwheeling Santas and wiping white dust like snow—powdered sugar? flour? baking soda?—from his ungainly hands. He was palpably proud. “The sugar cookies are officially in the oven. And I managed to fit them all on one baking sheet, isn’t that great?! Cuts down on dishes!”

“Why, yes, I suppose it does!” Mercy said, alarm dawning in her eyes. Had my beloved father placed the globs of dough too close together? Would we end up with one hideous, giant monster-cookie? Only time would tell. Providentially, Archer and Joe could be counted on to eat just about anything.

Joe sniffed the air, his forehead crinkling. “What’s burning?”

“Nothing should be burning,” Mercy replied, almost defensive, forever protective of Charlie and all of his profound, incurably human imperfections. Sometimes I thought that she preferred him that way, that he was a link to a simpler world in the same way I had once been, that he was a puddle of memory she could drop into, that maybe he wasn’t so unlike her first husband Arthur. “Not yet, anyway. The cookies need at least ten to twelve minutes at 350.”

“Wait, 350?!” Charlie exclaimed, horrorstruck. “I thought you said 450!”

“Oh, this is tragic,” Scarlett said.  

“I can fix it!” Mercy trilled buoyantly, breezing off to the kitchen as Charlie followed after her with a fountain of apologies. She shushed them away affectionately, patting his chest with her soft plump hands, chuckling about how luckily they had fire extinguishers stowed away in almost every closet just in case. And there were other reasons for that besides Charlie’s perilous baking attempts, but he didn’t know them. Now the record player was belting out Queen’s Thank God It’s Christmas.  

Archer lost another round in Mario Kart and exhaled a great, mournful sigh. “Hey, Baby Swanpire, can you do something about this guy?” He nodded to Rami. “This is criminal. It’s nowhere near a fair fight. He knows every freaking time I’m about to toss a banana peel.”

Rami smirked guiltily up at me from the couch, not bothering to deny it.

“Do you mind?” I asked him.

“Not at all,” Rami replied. “I want to show this loser I can beat him even without the benefit of mega-cool extrasensory superpowers.”

“Rude!” Archer cried.

“So rude,” Scarlett agreed, smiling.

“Okay, here we go.” I sat down beside Rami, still holding Ben’s envelope in my right hand, and laid my left against Rami’s cheek. And I felt a fistful of numbness—like instant peace, like milk-white Novocain—pass from my skin into his, rolling into his skull, deadening whatever telepathic livewires had been ignited there in the August of 1916. The effect would last anywhere from thirty minutes to a few hours; and it worked on every vampire I’d met so far.

“Whoa, trippy,” Rami murmured. “It’s still weird, every single time.” He peered drowsily around the room. “It’s...so...quiet?! You guys really live like this? No one is constantly bombarding you with sexual fantasies or romantic pining or depressive inner monologues? How do you function?! Now I’m alone with my own thoughts, that’s actually worse!”

“Hurry up and beat him while he’s all freaked out and vulnerable,” Scarlett told Archer.

Archer laughed, picking up his Nintendo 64 controller, radiant with the promise of vengeance. “Yes ma’am.”

“Any good mail?” Lucy asked Joe.

“Yeah. Coupons and a ton of Christmas cards from random people. The vet sent us one with alpacas on it, so that’s cute. Oh, and here’s one from our favorite Canadians.”

Joe held up the card so we could all see. The picture on the front showed Cato and Honora sitting on a large velvet, forest green couch with a hulking Christmas tree illuminated in the background. The others were arranged around them: Austin, Max, Ksenia, Charity, Araminta, Akari, Morana, Phelan, Aruna, Adair, Zora, Sahel, and a few new faces I couldn’t name yet. They were all wearing matching turtleneck sweaters. And every single one of them was smiling.

Joe cleared his throat theatrically and read the text on the inside of the card:

“Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays!

(Oh, and Scarlett, congratulations on your not-marriage.)

- Cato Douglass Freeman”

“That bastard,” Scarlett muttered.

Rami offered me his controller. He had just slipped on a banana peel and rocketed off a cliff. “You want a turn?”

“No, thanks though. I have to talk to Ben. Is he around?”

Rami shrugged ruefully. “I would help, but my brain is temporarily broken.”

Scarlett rolled her eyes, taking a gingerbread cookie from the tray and biting into it as Lucy batted crumbs from the red lace dress, exasperated. “I think he’s out in the hot tub.”

“Cool. I shall return.”

Joe took my spot on the couch as I departed, shoveling cookies into his mouth, seizing Rami’s controller and kicking his feet up on the coffee table.

I opened the door to the back porch, and frigid December air rushed in like an uninvited guest. The field was coated with a thin layer of snow, the animals safe and warm in the barn, the garden slumbering. And in the spring and summer, when blossoms of a dozen different varieties came open beneath the drizzling grey skies, Mercy’s calla lilies didn’t bother my allergies at all. Nothing did anymore. Ben was indeed in the hot tub, puffing on his vape pen, wearing only a beanie hat and swim trunks.

“What flavor is that cartridge?” I asked as I approached. “Gummy bear?”

“Close. Strawberry doughnut.”

“Ohhhh, yum!” Ben passed me the vape pen, and I took a drag as I kicked off my boots and sat near him on the rim of the hot tub, slipping my bare feet beneath the steaming, roiling water. Then I handed his vape pen back. “So. Guess what I have for you.”

“Uh.” He glanced at the envelope. “Jury duty.”

“Better.”

“Someone I hate has jury duty.”

I flipped the envelope around so he could see the University of Chicago logo on the front.

“Oh god,” Ben moaned.

“Don’t you want to see what it says?”

“Not really,” he admitted, grimacing.

“Come on, Ben. Open it.”

“Nah.”

“Why not?!”

Ben sighed. “Look, if I open it and it’s bad news, it’s gonna make Christmas weird. Rami will know. They’ll all know. They’ll all feel bad for me and it’ll be pathetic and depressing and awkward. You can look if you want to, just don’t tell anyone else yet.”

“It’s not going to be bad news,” I said, tugging at the floppy top of his beanie hat. He swatted my hand away, but he was smiling grudgingly.

“You have positively no way of knowing that. Unless Lucy’s had a vision I’m unaware of.”

“She hasn’t. You know she never sees anything important.”

“She saw you coming,” Ben countered.

“She saw human-me and Joe in love and gobbling down pretzels at a Cubs game. So I’d say there were at least a few minor details missing.”

“There’s no way I got in,” Ben said, his green eyes slick and fearful and now fixed on the envelope. “We can’t all be geniuses like you.”

“That’s an unfair accusation. I’m far from genius. I’m just obsessed with the ocean.” I’d written my senior thesis on the feeding habits of Pacific angelsharks, and my advisor was still trying to figure out how I, an amateur scuba diver at best, had managed to get so many quality photographs with my underwater camera. The secret, of course, was superhuman agility and not needing to breathe.

“I fucking hate calculus. The MCAT wrecked me. I got a 517.”

“And their median score is a 519, so I’d say you still have a fighting chance. Plus you have like eight million volunteer hours.” Ben had spent the vast majority of the past year either in class or at the hospital. The psychiatrist-in-chief, Dr. Siegel, had been more than happy to take one of Gwil’s foster children under her wing. Every human in Forks except Archer believed that Dr. Gwilym Lee had drowned in a tragic boating accident while he and Mercy were on vacation in Southern California, and that his body had never been recovered. The town had held a wonderful remembrance ceremony and dedicated a free clinic at the hospital in his honor. “Now open it.”

“You do it,” Ben relented finally. “My hands are wet. Go ahead, open it up and tell me what it says. And then kindly euthanize me to end my immortal shame.”

“That wouldn’t work,” I pointed out, tearing open the envelope. I pulled out the tri-folded piece of paper inside, flattened it against my thighs, and read the typed black text.

“...Well?” Ben pressed, vaping frantically.

I looked up and smiled at him.

“No way,” he whispered.

“I hope you like pretzels and bear-themed baseball teams, grandpa.”

And for a second, I thought he might bolt up out of the hot tub, hooting victoriously, splashing water all over the back porch as he danced around bellowing that he’d gotten into one of the best medical schools in the world, that he would be following me and Joe to Chicago. But that wasn’t Ben. Instead, a slow smile rippled across his face: it was small, but perfectly genuine. Pure, even.

“Goddamn,” he said, watching me. Venom doesn’t just resurrect or ruin; it forms a bond that is simultaneously intangible and yet immense. It’s an evolutionary adaptation, a way to facilitate stability and the building of covens in an often violent and ruleless world. And now that he had turned me, Ben had family here in Forks in more ways than one.

“Gwil would be so proud of you, Ben.”

“I hope so. I really do.”

The back door of the house opened, and Joe stepped outside. He studied Ben for a moment, and that was all it took for him to know. “Benny!” he shouted, elated.

“I know, I know. Fortunately, I look amazing in red. Thanks, supermodel genes.”

“This is going to be so fun!” Joe said, sprinting over to wrap Ben—who was characteristically lukewarm on this whole physical displays of affection business—in a hug from just outside the hot tub. “We’re going to go furniture shopping, and eat deep-dish pizza, and find apartments right next to each other, and mail home Chicago-themed care packages, and get you hooked up with some gorgeous Italian woman...or whatever you like, I guess I shouldn’t assume. Women. Men. Gang members. Marine mammals. Jessicas. Whatever. There are options.”

Ben laughed as he playfully shoved Joe away. “Sounds like a plan, pagliaccio.”

“Oh my god, stop learning Italian without me! You realize you have to tell Mom now.”

“I will,” Ben agreed, with some trepidation. “I’ll wait until after Christmas.”

“It’ll be hard for her,” I said. “But she knows it’s what you want. She knows it’s what’s best for you. So she’ll get through it. I think it would be worse for her if you didn’t get in, if she had to see you unhappy.”

Ben nodded, exhaling strawberry-doughnut-flavored vapor, gazing up at the stars, Orion and Auriga and Lynx and Perseus reflected in his thoughtful jade eyes. “She’ll still have Rami and Lucy and Scarlett here with her. And Archer. And Charlie.”

“Especially Charlie,” Joe said, grinning.

Mercy would have to leave Forks eventually, of course. The Lees had already been here for nearly four years; they could stay another ten, perhaps fifteen at the absolute maximum. And there had been a time when ten or fifteen years seemed like quite a while to me, but now it felt like I could doze off one afternoon and wake up on the other side of it, like swimming a lap in the sun-drenched public pool back in Phoenix. We would find a new home somewhere after Joe and I finished our PhDs, after Ben finished medical school, maybe Vancouver or Buffalo or Amsterdam or Edinburgh or Dublin or Reykjavik. Wherever we went, I hoped it wouldn’t be far from the sea. But Mercy couldn’t bear to leave Forks yet. It was the last home she had shared with Gwil, the last house they would ever build together, and leaving it would make his loss all the more irrevocable. She would be ready to leave someday, but not today.

In the meantime, there would still be visits for breaks and holidays. Scarlett and Archer had the shop to keep them busy, a brand new eight-car garage that held a virtual monopoly on both the Forks and Quileute communities. Lucy had opened a bohemian-style clothing boutique downtown, which confounded most of the locals but attracted more adventurous customers from as far away as Seattle. Rami was interning for a local immigration lawyer and entertaining the possibility of applying to U Chicago’s law school in another few years. And Mercy had the farm; and she had Charlie. He had asked her for cooking lessons to try to help rouse her a few months after Gwil’s death, and it had grown from there. If it wasn’t romantic just yet, I believed it would be soon. And there were moments when I thought my father might have figured something out, when his eyes narrowed and lingered on me just a little too long, when his brow knitted into suspicious, searching lines, when the hairs rose on the back of his neck and some innate insight whispered that we weren’t like him and never could be again. But then he would chuckle, shake his head, and say: “You’ve gotten weird, my gorgeous, brilliant progeny. But Forks looks pretty good on you.”

“Can I talk to you upstairs?” Joe asked me suddenly; and did I see restless nerves flicker in his dark eyes? I thought I did.

“Sure,” I replied, climbing down from the hot tub. “Ben, are you coming inside? My dad is trying to bake Christmas cookies and failing miserably. It’s pretty hilarious. Not that you should be the one to critique other people’s kitchen-related accidents.”

“I do enjoy your company a lot more now that I don’t want to murder you and slurp you down like a Chick-fil-A milkshake,” Ben said. “Yeah, give me a few minutes and I’ll be there.” And as Joe and I headed into the house, I saw Ben pick up the acceptance letter that I’d left on the rim of the hot tub and read it for himself with incredulous eyes, grappling with the irrefutable fact that it was his name on the opening line, that he had somewhere along the way become the sort of man who dedicated his immortality to saving lives rather than ending them.

In the living room, Scarlett was back in her yoga pants and absolutely brutalizing Archer in Mario Kart. Rami and Lucy were entwined together on the loveseat, murmuring, giggling, feeding each other pieces of gingerbread cookies. In the kitchen, Charlie was leading Mercy in a clumsy waltz to Meat Loaf’s I’d Do Anything For Love, and each time he fumbled his steps or mortifyingly trod on her feet she would cry out in a peal of laughter brighter than the sun she had learned to live without. Joe spirited me up the staircase, into his bedroom—which, honestly, was more like our bedroom now, in the same way that my room in Charlie’s house had become Joe’s as well—and closed the door.

“You’re in luck,” he said. “Your dad totally ruined our song. Now I can’t hear it without thinking about some moustached guy in plaid trying to seduce my mom.”

“It’s the best Christmas gift I could ever ask for. Meat Loaf is vanquished. Oh, just so you’re aware, Renee and Paul are getting an Airbnb and coming up for New Years.”

“Cool. Do they still think I have a super embarrassing sunlight allergy and will break into hives and asphyxiate and that’s why we can’t visit them in Florida?”

“Yup.”

“Spectacular. Also, can you please tell me what’s wrong with my eyelashes?”

“They’re just a little sparse, amore. But I still like you.”

“Well, I am only moderately attractive, you know.” Then Joe steeled himself, taking a deep breath. Uh oh. He was definitely nervous. I still couldn’t believe I had the power to make him that way, but here we were. “So I get that we’re doing presents with the whole family tomorrow morning, and you do have some under the tree, so don’t worry about that. But there’s one I wanted to give to you alone. You know. With just us. Without an audience. Or whatever.”

“...Okay...?” A secret gift? A naughty gift? “I hope it’s a new vibrator.”

“Shut up,” Joe begged, laughing. “Here.” He reached into the drawer of his nightstand—our nightstand—and produced a small blue box topped with a turquoise bow. It wasn’t a ring, I was sure of that; I didn’t feel especially attached to the idea of marriage, and neither did Joe to my knowledge. How could rings or papers seal commitment when you already had eternity? I was right: the mysterious present was not a ring. When I removed the lid and emptied the box into my palm, what appeared there was a small plastic airplane.

“What is this?” I asked, amused but puzzled.

“Are you not college educated? It’s a plane.”

“Well, yeah, I can see that. But it’s also like two inches long.” I scrutinized the plane. “Are you magically transforming me into a tiny, tiny, little plastic person? Is that my gift? Because I actually got you something good.” And I really did: there was a collection of vintage Chicago Cubs photographs from the 1910s and 20s downstairs under the Christmas tree, packaged in Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer wrapping paper.

“We’re going on a trip,” Joe said, grinning. “The day after Christmas. It’s just a short trip, nothing huge, don’t get too excited, we’re not going to Mt. Everest or Antarctica or anything. I think you’ll still like it. But I don’t want you to know where we’re going until we’re there.”

“How will that work? Considering the tickets and signage and pilot announcements and obnoxiously noisy other passengers and all.”

“ScarJo’s going to fly us.”

“Really?!” We were taking the jet. We almost never used the jet. “What’s in it for Scarlett?”

“She found out that Archer’s never had In-N-Out Burger before and is very much looking forward to initiating him into the cult of deliciousness.”

“Oh nice. I could go for a vanilla milkshake myself, now that Ben mentioned them.”  

“Obviously I’m gonna buy you all the milkshakes and animal-style fries you want. Bankrupt me, bitch. But we have to get one other thing taken care of first.”

“So it’s somewhere they have In-N-Out Burger...” I pondered aloud. California? Texas? Las Vegas? I felt a brief but unambiguous pang of homesickness for Phoenix. But there was nothing there for me anymore.

“Stop,” Joe pleaded. “I’m sorry. I’ve already said too much. Please forget that. Get a traumatic brain injury or oxygen deprivation or something.”

“I hate to disappoint you, but I’m rather indestructible at the moment.”

He smiled wistfully. “I wouldn’t want you to be any other way.”

There was laughter downstairs in the living room. I could detect the aroma of a fresh batch of sugar cookies baking in the kitchen, mingling with the cold night air and pine trees and peppermint candy canes. I loved Christmas. The entire world smelled like Joe. The U Chicago décor, classic rock posters, and Italian flag were now interspersed with National Geographic pages and photos of the two of us together. The Official Whatever You Want Pass hung in a small, square picture frame on the wall above Joe’s bed. Our bed.

“How real is it, Joe?” I asked quietly. I climbed onto my tiptoes, linking my hands around the back of his neck with the tiny plane still tucked between my fingers. “Seriously. The wishes thing.”

“The world may never know. Akari never met me as a human, so she wouldn’t be able to say. But if I had to place a bet...” He shrugged, grinning craftily. “Kinda real. Kinda not real. Just like vampires, I guess.”

“I am alarmingly glad that you’re real, mob guy,” I said, abruptly somber. “I never thought I’d meet someone who saw me as remarkable, who could make me see myself that way. And it’s miraculous. And it’s terrifying too, honestly. Being a thing with you. Falling for someone you could have for centuries and lose in a second.”

“It’s the scariest thing there is,” Joe concurred, taking my hand to lead me back downstairs.

Joseph

Scarlett looks like a goddess, and she knows it. But she’s not one of those magnanimous, fragile, harp-plucking, pastel-colored goddesses. She’s ferocity and wildness and crimson like blood, and that’s exactly why Archer loves her. And as they stand in front of the Christmas tree with their hands clasped together—ivory on bronze, snow on sun—with matching sprigs of holly in Scarlett’s hair and pinned to the jacket of Archer’s suit, reciting truths but no promises, I can’t help but watch the other faces in the room: Rami, Lucy, Ben, Charlie, Mom with her beaming smile and shining eyes, the woman I met sixteen months ago and now can’t fathom life without. And it occurs to me for the first time that love, in its cleanest form, isn’t something that changes people as much as it allows them to become who they truly are.

On the evening of December 26th, as soon as the sun dips beneath the western horizon, we board the jet in the Forks Airport hangar. It’s much easier for Scarlett to fly at night; otherwise she has to wear two or three pairs of sunglasses on top of each other, and even then it’s still painful, it still feels like blinding needles burrowing into the jelly of her retinas. That’s not a wrench in my plans or anything. It needs to be night where we’re going, too.

Vampire hyper-acuity notwithstanding, FAA regulations require Scarlett to have a copilot, so Archer joins her in the flight deck with his newly-minted license and spends most of the journey flipping through the latest issue of Motor Trend. As we begin our descent, he peeks back at us and teases: “It’ll be your turn eventually, guys. Scarlett and I did our time. Rami and Lucy can go next year. And after that...unless Ben happens to find someone worthy of a not-wedding...” He wiggles his black eyebrows.

“Bring it on,” I reply casually. “Fake wedding are my jam. It’ll be ocean themed. Or Roaring ‘20s themed. And we’ll all do the Cha-Cha Slide in the living room and shame Ben as a bonding activity.”

“Mercy can set up a mashed potatoes bar,” Baby Swan adds.

“Yeah. With pineapple.”

“No. Not on potatoes.”

“Yes on potatoes.”

“Over my dead body.”

“Too late,” I tell her, touching my lips to the knuckles of her cool, steady hand.

We touch down at a small noncommercial airport just outside the city, and Scarlett and Archer stay back to secure the plane as Baby Swan follows me outside. And she realizes where we are as soon as the wind hits her, as soon as her eyes soak up the sand and cacti and cloudless night sky like rain swallowed up by parched earth.

“Phoenix,” she whispers, smiling like a child.

“But wait, there’s more!” I announce in my best Billy Mays voice. I take the little glass bottle from my pocket, walk across the runway to the naked desert, crouch down when I find a suitable spot, and fill the bottle with dry, sandy earth that crumbles in my palms. Then I seal the bottle with a tiny cork and bring it back to give it to her.

“I know what it’s like to have to leave home,” I say. “You’ve had to say goodbye to Phoenix, and soon you’ll have to say goodbye to Forks, and next will be Chicago, on and on forever. You’ll always be leaving the places you learn to call home. Every five or ten or fifteen years, we start over again. Like a snake shedding its skin, like a hermit crab swapping shells. Like the water that travels from rain to seawater to mist and then back again. But now you can always have a little piece of home with you, and maybe that will make it easier.”

She takes the glass bottle and shakes her head in disbelief, in wonder. Because this is exactly what she wanted, what she needed, even if she didn’t know it yet. “Joe...how did you...?”

“What’d I tell ya? I’m a talented guy. Now you have to dance with me.”

She laughs. “Oh no. Hard pass. I don’t dance.”

“When we’re alone in my bedroom you do. So just pretend we’re alone now. In, like, a really really spacious, sandy bedroom. With probably some lizards.”

“Fine. But only because I’m willing to degrade myself for milkshakes.”

She slides the glass bottle of Arizona earth into her pocket and takes my hands. She’s still a pretty terrible dancer, honestly. She hasn’t lost that. And I love that about her. I love damn near everything about her. And it took me a long time to figure out what exactly her subtle yet peerless cocktail of fragrance is, because it wasn’t somewhere I’d ever been. The scent that drifts from her pores—the scent that now lives in my bedsheets like a shadow or a ghost—is sunlight and heat and clarity and resilience and wisdom older than the pyramids. Her scent is the desert.

Now she’s mischievous, her eyes gleaming with the reflections of the Milky Way and the full moon and the stars that are dead and yet eternal, just like us. “So what, you think you’re Vampire Boyfriend Of The Year material now or what? Some dirt and In-N-Out Burger? That’s the height of your game? Is this what I have to look forward to for the rest of my perpetual existence? I totally should have pursued that polyamorous triad with Scarlett and Archer when I had the chance—”

“Yeah,” I say, very softly, smiling, tilting up her chin to kiss her beneath the universe and all its eccentricities. “I love you too.”

[rowaning]

The Complete Fiction of HP Lovecraft rated by me, someone who read them all* but has a terrible memory

The Beast in The Cave: uh a guy goes on a cave tour and finds a creature that was like a human that got lost and adapted to its surroundings. 0/10 just because im pretty sure there was another one with this exact premise and neither of them were memorable at all.

The Alchemist: dude achieves immortality and lives in the narrators basement and has pledged to murder his entire lineage or something. 4/10 the alchemy stuff was actually kind of interesting

The Tomb: im pretty sure this is the one where a guy starts hanging out in a tomb and like travels back in time/becomes one of his ancestors? 5/10 if its the one im thinking of i did enjoy reading it

Dagon: guy lands on a mysterious island with signs of a long dead civilization. 1/10 i do not remember what happened in it

A Reminiscence of Dr. Samuel Johnson: 0/10 i have no memory of this

Polaris: also 0/10 i forgot all about it

Beyond the Wall of Sleep: could be any of the dream focused ones. if its the one about the dude sailing into the void or whatever than 4/10 not too bad

Memory: ironically, i dont remember it. 0/10

Old Bugs: 1/10 for the title god i wish i remembered this one

The Transition of Juan Romero: i got nothing. 0/10

The White Ship: this might also be the one about the dude sailing into the void? i liked that one he lived in a lighthouse and boarded a dream ship and just fucking left it was fun. 4/10

The Street: uh i think really steep street that didnt actually exist. 3/10

The Doom that Came to Sarnath: i wanna say another one of the dream centered ones where a town discovers some old relics and blatantly disrespects them and gets exactly whats coming to it. 5/10 they deserved what they got

The Statement of Randolph Carter: ok this dude shows up several times. i think this one is about how he returns to his childhood home then travels back in time and creates a time loop paradox thing. 1/10 meh

The Terrible Old Man: uh some thieves harrass a weird old guy and get got. 5/10

The Cats of Ulthar: someone is mean to a cat in a dream city, all of the rest of the cats get revenge and are revered for the rest of time. 2/10 (-3 because lovecraft has a specific name he gives to apparently every fictional and real cat he encounters and wow i wish he hadn't)

The Tree: i feel like this is something to do with a person becoming a tree but i cant actually remember. 0/10

Celephais: yeah no i got nothing 0/10

The Picture in the House: also nothing 0/10

The Temple: nope 0/10

Facts Concerning the Late Arthur Jermyn and his Family: is this the one where the dude's great grandfather married an ape? i dont think so but im not sure. 0/10, -5/10 if it is that one cause that one was especially shitty

From Beyond: nope 0/10

Nyarlathotep: charismatic dude shows up and is like get in bitches we're going to the void. i love nyarlathotep cause hes the one who directly interacts with humanity and like wears a human suit or whatever so hes just some dude whos like hey im gonna feed you to azathoth 5/0

The Quest of Iranon: got nothing 0/10

The Music of Erich Zann: narrator makes friends with an old musician whos being hunted by supernatural forces. 2/10 because i remember it but it was just ok

Ex Oblivione: 1/10 for the title but i have no clue what it was about

Sweet Ermengarde: lovecraft's sole attempt at comedy. not to my taste like at all 0/10

The Nameless city: nope 0/10

The Outsider: also nope 0/10

The Moon-Bog: sounds cool, dont remember it. 0/10

The Other Gods: dude tries to find the gods of humanity where they live on a big mountain, actually finds them, is immediately smited by the Other Gods who protect the gods of humanity. 3/10 he deserved it

Azathoth: dont recall, 0/10

Herbert West- Reanimator: Arkham man Herbert West and his assistant ressurect the dead with little thought to the consequences, then get murdered by a band of said resurrected dead. 5/10

Hypnos: nope 0/10

What the Moon Brings: also nope 0/10

The Hound: still nope 0/10

The Lurking Fear: again, nope 0/10

The Rats in the Walls: dude returns to his ancestral home, hears rats, excavates the basement and finds out that his ancestors ate human flesh, eats his friend. 1/10 it was an interesting read but can lovecraft please stop calling cats that.

The Unnameable: no clue 0/10

The Festival: nope 0/10

*Under the Pyramids: ok im pretty sure this is the one with houdini which is the only one i could not read. i went into this mentally prepared for lovecraft's bigotry but i was not mentally prepared for him dropping harry houdini, avid skeptic who absolutely would have beat the shit out of him for this, into the middle of his super racist paranormal horror. -1000/10

The Shunned House: nope 0/10

The Horror at Red Hook: also nope 0/10

He: cool title, no memory of the story. 0/10

In the Vault: wow im bad at this. 0/10

Cool Air: still no 0/10

The Call of Cthulhu: kind of all over the place, there was a thing about artists and then a thing about a cop investigating a cult. 3/10 meh but ill give it a bonus for being a staple of horror fiction.

Pickman's Model: uh artist sees some wild shit and draws it and then it eats him. 2/10 i forget the details

The Strange High House in the Mist: if this is the one im thinking of, dude does a dangerous climb to find a mysterious house and meet the inhabitant who is kind of interdimensional and also being hunted by interdimensional things. also maybe the house eats people? 2/10

The Silver Key: another Randolph Carter one, and i think this is actually the one about him travelling back in time so idk what the other one was. 3/10

The Dream-Quest of Unknown Kadath: randolph carter goes on a quest in the dream world to find the gods of humanity and ask why they wont let him check out this cool city he can see from his window. lots of action and very wordy and went a lot of different places. 4/10 good read but extremely xenophobic

The Case of Charles Dexter Ward: guy investigates his ancestor who looks disturbingly like him, ancestor comes back to life and kills him and takes his place and a bunch of other stuff happens. mostly a dramatized genealogical study. 3/10 not bad, very suspenseful

The Colour Out Of Space: meteor lands on a farm, scientists get weirded out by it, everything in the area gets weird then dead, alien thing gets enough power from draining nearby life-forms to escape earth. fun twist ending. 4/10 bonus for being one of the better ones, detraction for writing out a 'rural accent'

The Descendant: nope, 0/10

The Very Old Folk: nope again, 0/10

History of the Necronomicon: very dry. fake history of lovecraft's fake book thats super important to a lot of the stories. 0/10

The Dunwich Horror: isolated witchy family has a kid who no one likes that grows up real fast. graphic descriptions of renovation. a horror gets unleashed on the area and the local folklore scholars have to deal with it. 1/10 nothing good enough to counter the xenophobia

Ibid: i remember this one. no idea what it's deal was. pseudo-bibliography? it was weird. 0/10

The Whisperer in Darkness: guy has a correspondance with another guy about local folk legends based on evil crab things. other guy gets straight up replaced by an evil crab thing and first guy doesnt even notice. imagine if you followed up on a scam email and didnt realize anything was up until you saw that the face of the dude you were talking to in person was a mask. 4/10 for the comedy this guy would not last in the internet age at all

At The Mountains of Madness: guy whines about penguins and how awful it would be if there were civilizations that predated humanity. also commits grave desecration. i get hit by the realization that if lovecraft was less of a racist coward he wouldve made a great speculative sci fi author. 3/10 i would love to watch that old asshole get absolutely torn to shreds by the monster fucker community

The Shadow over Innsmouth: Fish People! Leave Them Alone! Or Else! 5/10 the protagonist gets to live the dream by escaping human society and becoming an immortal fish person

The Dreams in the Witch House: dude rents an objectively haunted room, doesnt listen to people trying to help him, gets murdered by a weird rat. later they find a shit ton of bones in the attic. 2/10 meh

Through The Gates of the Silver Key: Randolph Carter transcends time and space, then de-transcends time and space and immediately gets stuck on another planet in the distant past, makes a long and difficult journey back to earth to find that his estate is being divided amongst his heirs. the comedy potential of a man stuck in an alien body dealing with a legal system that has declared him dead is not examined. 2/10

The Thing on the Doorstep: narrator's good friend marries a fish person witch who steals his body. thats basically it. 3/10. at this point im like wow these narrators really refuse to believe the heavily foreshadowed supernatural explanations that turn out to be correct huh.

The Evil Clergyman: dude is in a room. some ghosts (?) show up. dude has a UV light for some reason. Gets his face stolen i guess and just has to live with it. 5/10 for being absolutely buck wild and refusing to explain anything

The Book: nope 0/10

The Shadow Out Of Time: dude gets his body stolen by ancient scholar species. agonizes about it for a while. finds archaeological evidence of said species. finds a book he wrote while living with said species. almost gets eaten by something. 3/10 more cool speculative sci fi but lame protagonist

The Haunter of the Dark: you'd think id remember it bc this was the last one and i read it last night. oh wait, nvm i do remember it. dude finds an old box in a run down culty church and unleashes a horror that then comes and fucks him up. 1/10 meh.

[save-the-spiral]

Wiztober Day Six: Worlds

Welcome to day six of Wiztober2020. This is the first arc of my main timeline regarding the majority of my Wizard101 ocs. Set in order of when they happened, and some worlds were switched around. Content Warnings for war, school expulsion, sickness mention, torture mention, starvation mention, general colonization attempts (Marleybone @ Krokotopia), gangs mention (Marleybone), attempted murder, and murder (Malistaire).

(link to prompt list)

Grizzleheim’s civil war of ravens, bears, and wolves was resolved decades before the first great threat to the Spiral. Phuong Jade, a recently expelled life wizard from Ravenwood Academy (where she had attended under the name of Morelle Jade), had also been exiled from Wizard City. With limited Spiral Door Keys at her disposal, she ended up in the trading world of Grizzleheim. She was willing to settle, to wait until her girlfriend graduated Ravenwood Academy and came to find her. But upon living in Northguard for only a month, she realized the war between groups would not end until every group aside from one was wiped out. So she dug deeper, taking small quests and using her life magic as well as what little Shadow she had secretly learned and got expelled for. She dug deep and found the root of corruption in the few individual ravens that caused this very war, and she brought them to justice. After this, she stood before the leaders of the bears, ravens, and wolves, and was given the title RavenHunter, a name she would eventually give to her girlfriend, as Morae came to Grizzleheim not long after, and proposed as soon as they met after two long year of being apart.

Mooshu’s lands were revitalized and its emperor healed by two children of a healer, who had grown up in a small village and were some of the few wizards willing and able to stand up and fight. Mahamari ‘Mari’ Jade, a twelve year old theurgist, and her older brother Emrys Jade, a thaumaturge of thirteen, adventured out and began healing a sick world in search of a cure for a sick ruler. Right before they reached the Ancient Burial Grounds of Mooshu, the siblings fought, Emrys’ need for control in order to feel safe and Mari’s endless anger and ability to push her brother’s buttons making them clash horribly. Mari returned home, and not hours later Emrys was attacked and kidnapped by vengeful spirits who claimed to be restoring their lost honor. After weeks of torture and starvation, he was rescued by his sister Mari and their father Quyen Jade. The family worked together to finish the quest, and the emperor was saved. As a gift they were given priceless swords, and a key to Dragonspyre, more of a tradition than anything else. It took a full year for Emrys to physically recover, however.

Krokotopia had one protege of Alhazred who was able to fix the problems created by the Marleybonians that had destroyed ancient tombs and desecrated old homes of the dead. Irisi, at thirteen years of age, was the only one able to stand up to them, unwavering as she insisted they leave the pyramids and instead camp in the Oasis, receiving the undeserved hospitality of the manders. Irisi methodically set each pyramid to rights, carefully preserving what was left, and sending the undead back to their rest with her magic, utilizing balance to restore the equilibrium between life and death. She was brilliant, though learned of her own intense fear of ghosts, how their whispers and haunting only reminded her of how little life her adoptive father, the aged krok Alhazred, would have left. She powered through until she reached the Tomb of Storms. While on her way to defeat Krokopatra and ensure the safety of the Krokonomicon, she came face to face with her namesake. The first human queen of Krokotopia was now a memory of what she once was, a ghost bearing the name and withered face of the first Irisi, but nothing else. It was the hardest battle of the entire adventure, and after that Irisi secured the Krokonomicon with ease from Krokopatra. The Marleybonians left, and Alhazred had the Krokonomicon destroyed, but not until he was able to transcribe the text in a place where it could not be stolen, the only people alive who knew of its location being him and his daughter.

Wizard City was cleared of its monstrous invasion by four students of Ravenwood Academy who had fallen behind in their studies, whether by simple procrastination or by other extenuating circumstances. Noah Dreamtamer and his twin Haley Raintamer were one half of this group. Ianthe RavenHunter and their partner Leo Nightside were the other. They split the streets between them, uncomfortable with the other pair of students. Noah and Haley relished in being able to find a practical use for the skills they were being taught, and found it a much easier way to understand their magic. Ianthe and Leo were quiet, intent on mastering the use of their spells, and explore Wizard City outside of their home in Nightside. The four of them gathered again for the intense final battles, realizing that they worked best as a team, and became awkward friends, both pairs still distant in their mistrust of outsiders, yet still they had forged a bond.

Wysteria held its tournament, unaffected by the threat an ex-professor from another world could wield. Outstanding wizards from many schools were called to join, but those we follow in this world are from Ravenwood Academy and Krokotopia’s small school, run only by Alhazred and his few mander students. Mari Jade was invited to join, as now she had been attending Ravenwood since she was thirteen, and now was fifteen, the top of her class, though quiet and easily pushed around by her peers. Irisi was also invited, as the best of Alhazred’s students, now fifteen, two years after her eventful cleansing of her world. This was the first time Irisi had seen fellow humans, as well as those who were not a krok, mander, or dog. Irisi was starstruck by visiting a new, much larger world for the first time, though many there treated her as a rarity, a foolish stranger who did not know the basics of common life. Mari was different, as were some other kind souls. But Mari was far different. Irisi saw her and felt the quiet, joyful thrill of realizing a flower was blooming, as so few did in her home world. Both were inclined to shyness around strangers, and so rarely spoke, even when they were framed as a pair, and sent to find the true culprit so they were not punished. The subtle brushes of their arms, the few times they had to grasp each others hands for stability, the times when they would tend to the others wound, wrapping bandages and brushing fingertips over heated skin in order to check for breaks and bruises. They would spend extended moments staring into each other’s eyes, Mari’s a dark brown of rich earth and endless potential, and Irisi’s an amber that whispered of gold and bronze, of sunlight. They found the Spiral Cup, and then were able to compete in the final battle of the tournament, against each other. Irisi won, bringing glory and recognition to her small and easily dismissed home world, and was able to publicly speak of how she had to save Krokotopia from the ignorance of Marleybonians who saw the place people lived as nothing more than a museum exhibit to be made. 

Marleybone had no problems on the surface, and made a perfect world for Irisi and Mari’s first date. They had spent a year apart, sending letters across worlds to each other, as they both had studies to attend to. Slowly, over their year of letters to each other, they shared their lives, their hardships, and fell in love with a girl a world away. After this date, Irisi would begin living in Wizard City, assisting Arthur Whethersfield (who happened to be practically a brother to the her) in teaching balance magic, and hopefully beginning to set up a proper school building. Before that, they were to meet in Marleybone, and walk the streets at night, simply talking withe their hands intertwined, until they were to have a picnic at night, lit only by small balls of magic and the moon. It was not to be. Their moonlit walk in a park was interrupted by a cat on the run, who stumbled into them and pleaded for their help. Out of duty, Irisi agreed, and they assisted Baxter in running from a gang he had gotten on the wrong side of. This was how they ended up running across the rooftops of Marleybone, breathless and laughing as they ran from gang members to assist a very unlucky cat. It was after helping Baxter that he gave them information, having been told of Irisi’s Krokotopian origin. He told them of how there was still an exhibit on what little the Marleybonian had stolen from Krokotopia before Irisi intervened, and then he was gone, into the safety of his house. Mari seemed even more furious than her date, and they both entered the museum later with their magic flaring in bronze and brilliant green. Then, of course, they were informed by a rather terrified museum curator that the infamous Meowiarty had already stolen everything from the exhibit. They ran across rooftops yet again, this time chasing a mastermind to make him face justice. In this race, Meowiarty taunted them, claiming he now had the Krokonomicon. Irisi, enraged, told him that the Krokonomicon had been destroyed by her and her father’s hands, as she had explained clearly in her public speech only a year before. They had to chase Meowiarty to the top of Big Ben, fighting his cronies along the way,  and at the top, that was when Meowiarty grinned, and told them that he had already known Irisi was one of the only people alive who knew of the contents of the Krokonomicon, and that this had been a long con to bring her here, to this moment. They were both knocked unconscious, and Meowiarty’s ally, Malistaire Drake, who needed the Krokonomicon to wake the Dragon Titan, kidnapped Irisi. Mari woke to an empty room at the top of Big Ben, and a deep rage was unleashed from inside her.

Dragonspyre was the known home world of Malistaire Drake, and the resting place of the Dragon Titan that would destroy the Spiral to bring one woman back to life. Mari knew this, and was intent on going there, but she couldn’t do it alone and risk Irisi’s life like that. She returned to Wizard City, single-minded to the point of roughly shoving a bully she frequently avoided, making many students shocked to the point of finally noticing little Mari Jade, sixteen and five foot two, the long hair she had when entering Marleybone now cut short, as her braid had gotten caught in some iron fences during their chase and was swiftly cut by her own hand. She entered the ice school without hesitation, finding the nearest ice wizard near her age and demanding for her brother, who now went by Emrys Pyre. Emrys, age seventeen, was a closed off, easily annoyed prodigy. He had only three friends, and adamantly refused having any friendships at all. He always regretted the years long distance between him and his sister, even when they went to the same school, but he was ashamed of his own weakness and trauma after Mooshu, and hadn’t held a proper conversation with her since. Until now. His friends, lead by little Genevieve, had freaked out upon learning that he had a sister asking for him, and dragged him out into the main classroom of the ice school to properly see her again. Mari, covered in dirt and blood and missing a majority of her hair after her ordeal in Marleybone, told him in simple words that they were going to go rescue her girlfriend from the ex-professor of death, who had kidnapped her and likely brought her to Dragonspyre. At this deluge of information, Emrys insisted she rest for a day before insisting they go on a quest to murder a man. Mari allowed it, but while she stayed in the dorm of Castian and Jen, his friends, she ended up spending most of the night restless, and so the two took it upon themselves to assist her in a style transformation. That morning she met her brother over breakfast with half of her head shaved, a leather jacket, and a new appreciation for some of Jen’s favorite American and British bands from Earth, all of them punk and/or rock. Emrys just sighed, and was convinced by his sister to use their Dragonspyre Keys, given to them by the emperor of Mooshu years ago. They went, just the two of them, and with their skill and knowledge in magic, they spent only days going through Dragonspyre to reach Malistaire. Mari was fueled only by rage, her magic manifesting in a mass of writhing vines she could stand atop of and use as a method of transportation. Emrys, ever analytical and cold in order to cut off his emotions and cope with his trauma alone, was silent and expressionless as they cut down draconian soldiers (who looked so much like his draconian friend, Castian) and the ghosts of dead warriors. The siblings never spoke, they simply fought and defeated and repeated over and over, resting only when one of them collapsed. They reached the Great Spyre, and using Mari’s climbing vines and Emrys’ spikes of ice, they scaled it. The pair battle Malistaire’s small army of the undead and evil creatures who would gleefully see the Spiral rendered into nothing but stardust. The two of them faced Malistaire finally, but Mari only had eyes for Irisi, who was injured and barely conscious, her face a mask of agony as she was held by Malistaire’s hand over a river of everflowing lava. Using the siblings as a distraction, Irisi managed to push away Malistaire, though she herself fell in a heap by the deadly river. Mari and Emrys battled Malistaire, both far more powerful than the man expected. Emrys summoned creatures of immense strength, as well as creating shields for himself and his sister to save them from the necromancer’s draining attacks. It was Mari that struck the final blow, the sharpened and rage filled centaur she summoned firing a volley of thorned arrows, piercing Malistaire’s chest and killing the man before he hit the ground. They saved Irisi, as well as the Spiral, though Mari secretly, guiltily, thought that Irisi was more important, and knew she was no better than the man she killed.

The first arc was completed then, the first threat to the Spiral destroyed. Vines covered Malistaire’s body and bloomed at Mari’s first sigh of relief upon finding her love alive. The rage and need for vengeance spilled from Mari alongside her tears, and that magic sunk deep into Dragonspyre, life magic infecting and infesting into the deep core of the world.

Mari and Emrys walked into Ravenwood after that, Irisi on a conjured stretcher behind them, and they never returned to Dragonspyre, far more occupied with the trials to come.

They would never know that within years, the life magic Mari left in Dragonspyre would manifest itself and flourish. The corpses of the world’s dead would become the heart of a forest. The deep chamber of magma that fueled the volcano would cool, soothed by lullabies of life magic, fragments of the Song of Creation, and the skies would clear, no more smoke and fire to pollute it. Dragonspyre would become a green, flowering thing, a place of nature instead of a ravaged husk, now an overcome ruin. And water, finally water, would rule. The Dragon Titan would sleep under a blanket of moss, roots clinging to the small spaces between scales, and life would make a home of what once would destroy everything.

[rpgmgames]

Happy New Year from RPGMGames! Let's take a moment to reflect on 2018 and look back at all of the incredible projects and developers that were featured last year.

January’s Featured Game: HELLO CHARLOTTE

GENRE: Surreal, Horror, Dark Comedy WARNINGS: Gore, Body Horror, Graphic Content SUMMARY: Meet Charlotte - a puppet you will control. Meet her alien friends, maggot cat and a certain Observer. Dive deep into horrors of junk food, TV world, religion and romance novels for middle-age women. Keep your puppet safe at all times. Or don’t. Have fun dying! Check it out here: EP1 | EP2 | EP3 | DELIRIUM

February’s Featured Game: LONE STAR

GENRE: Western, Action, Adventure SUMMARY: Lone Star takes place in the far-flung, sunbaked desert country of Diamondback, where sheriffs struggle to maintain civil order and protect the public from the deserts’ many vicious outlaws. The demand for someone to enforce the law led to independently operated training programs for citizens who want to help keep the peace. Elmer is a student of one such program held in the little mining locale of Bulk Rock City, who ventures into the chaotic wasteland alone in an effort to do his part as a sheriff-in-training. Check out the developer's blog here!

March’s Featured Game: CERESS AND OREA

GENRE: Puzzle, Adventure SUMMARY: Ceress is sentenced to death, because she’s in love with the ‘wrong’ person. But stubborn as she is, she calls out to an old deity, demanding a chance to change this unrighteousness. Can Ceress overcome death to be reunited with the woman she loves, Orea? Play the game here!

April’s Featured Game: FOLKLORIA

GENRE: Adventure, RPG SUMMARY: Folkloria is a lighthearthed turn-based RPG set on a floating island inhabited by mythological creatures. You play as Weaver, a young and unassuming griffin determined to rescue his family from the clutches of Dr. Zeralidius, a shady businessperson from the world below the clouds who plans to modernize the peaceful island. Check out the developer's blog here!

May’s Featured Game: MARE

GENRE: Horror, Adventure, Fantasy, RPG WARNINGS: Listed here SUMMARY: The game follows Naomi, who awakens to find that they cannot remember their name, memories, and where they are. All they know is they can hear a lone voice calling to them, “Naomi, come find me.” Play the demo here!

June’s Featured Game: QUEEN MARY'S SCRIPT RETOLD

GENRE: Adventure SUMMARY: Queen Mary’s Script is a tale of a young girl who finds a happy escape in her own dreams. She lives in a shell closed off from the world and only in her own room can she express her feelings. That is, until she happens upon the doll Clause and all at once, the magic she yearned for in her life is thrust upon her. However, she soon finds that magic isn’t always what it looks like in books and dolls are just as selfish as humans. Play the demo here!

July’s Featured Game: BLACK CRYSTALS

GENRE: Fantasy, RPG WARNINGS: Alcohol Reference, Drug Reference, Use of Alcohol, Use of Drugs, Use of Tobacco, Mild Blood, Fantasy Violence, Sexual Themes SUMMARY: Starsio, a street performer, finds himself in the stickiest of situations. Starsio was kidnapped off the streets of his home town and brought to the brothel Paprika where he is forced to become a performer. One rainy night, Starsio gathers his courage and wits and plans an escape. He convinces Arthur, an apprehensive and fidgety new found friend, to accompany him. Starsio sets his escape plan in motion with one last song… Check out the developer's blog here!

August’s Featured Game: SHROOM SOUP

GENRE: Adventure, RPG, Psychological Horror WARNINGS: Listed here (may contain spoilers) SUMMARY: You play as Arnika, a gloomy teenage girl. Perpetually tired, you live off excessive sleep, lime juice, and instant soup. You look into the vortex forming in your cup of said soup, this time mushroom flavour. Next thing you know, you are in an entirely different world where everything, from buildings to people, is being devoured by fungi. It seems like you have no choice but to walk on… Your journey involves exploration, puzzle-solving and battles. Play the demo here!

September’s Featured Game: GHOST HOSPITAL

GENRE: Adventure, RPG WARNINGS: Anxiety, Body horror, Implied child harm SUMMARY: Ghost Hospital is a game about anxiety, depression, despair, mental rock bottoms, and, of course, ghosts. You play as Robin, a twelve-year-old girl who has an anxiety disorder and is very much alive in this hospital meant for beings that are not alive. Frankly, her anxiety was already bad enough before she landed in a hospital full of dead people, the still-shambling shells of ancient ghosts who try to take her down for a sweet taste of life, and the hospital directors hellbent on keeping her contained, and more importantly, away from the reason she’s REALLY there. Thankfully, you have your new friends Jay and Sarcastic Ghost- Jay is a ghost about your age, and still a very new arrival to the hospital, and Sarcastic Ghost…well, he’s an amorphous blob of a ghost, who talks a lot despite not having a mouth. Play the demo here!

October’s Featured Game: OVERCAST

GENRE: Horror, Supernatural, Action, RPG WARNINGS: Graphic Violence, Body Horror, Drugs and Alcohol, Obscured Nudity, Mild Gore, Suicide Reference, Religous References SUMMARY: Overcast is an Action RPG with two separate protagonists. Violet; the modest yet strict Spirit of the Sun, and Nico; the relaxed yet distant Spirit of Rain. In a world where humans and spirits live alongside each other, Nico is a lonely spirit that resides on Aarat, an obscure city on an island in the middle of the sea shrouded by dark clouds. For some mysterious reason it rains at all times. After a catastrophe forced Nico into hiding; Violet emerges from her home in the heavens; Paradiso, to take the island by storm and bring an end to the rain. Check out the developer's blog here!

November’s Featured Game: SHOOTY AND THE CATFISH

GENRE: Adventure, RPG WARNINGS: Course Language, Gore SUMMARY: Shooty and the Zaat are a dynamic duo solving monstrous mysteries! Play the demo here!

December’s Featured Game: SOMA SPIRITS

GENRE: RPG SUMMARY: Soma Spirits is a choice-driven Role-Playing Game in which players will face heavy dilemmas with a colorful cast of characters. Unlike many games of choice, the decisions you will make in the world of Soma are not so black and white, and characters will undergo different changes depending on how you wish to proceed. The world of Soma is a land divided into two similar, but distinct versions of one another. At certain locations, you will be able to travel back and forth between the World of Joy and the World of Sorrow and find different inhabitants, monsters, and clues on how to proceed. How you decide to help the people you meet along your journey will determine which of the game’s five outcomes Heart and Soul will find themselves in. Play the game here! Check out the extended version here!

We look forward to many more exciting interviews and new projects in the year to come!

[swipestream]

New Release Roundup, 16 June 2018: Fantasy and Adventure

Psionic mechs face down werewolves, Gawain fights besides Arthur, and the Marx Brothers enjoy a time-traveling disaster in this week’s roundup of the newest releases in fantasy and adventure.

Equal and Opposite Reactions (Look to the West #3) – Tom Anderson

The Jacobin Wars have devastated Europe. With the defeat of Lisieux’s Republic, the reactionary powers of the postwar order seek to return the spirit of revolution to the Pandora’s Box from which it came and stamp down hard on the lid. Britain, ravaged by French invasion during the war, groans under the increasingly authoritarian rule of the Duke of Marlborough, while across the divided kingdoms of Germany, men of new ideals seek to create a single nation. Slavery is debated in the Empire of North America, the Spanish royal family plots a return from exile in Mexico, and the United Provinces of South America emerges from defeat to build a new place for itself in the world. In China, two rival dynasties struggle for supremacy, while Japan falls increasingly under the Russian bootheel.

But know this: as Sir Isaac Newton wrote, every action must come with an equal and opposite reaction. As nostalgics try to dial back the clock to the ancien régime as though the French Revolution never happened, pressure is building from below. The fires of revolution are rising once again, and this time it will truly be a people’s battle, a global struggle: The Popular Wars shall begin. As men fight beneath flags not for the legitimacy of their rulers, but for the spirit of their nation and the welfare of their people, the world will never be the same again…

Fade (Paxton Locke #1) – Daniel Humphreys

Family drama is bad enough without adding magic and human sacrifice. Ten years ago, Paxton Locke’s mother killed his father in a mysterious ritual that – thankfully – went incomplete. Now, Paxton makes his living as a roving paranormal investigator, banishing spirits while Mother languishes in jail.

When a terrified ghost warns him of a dangerous, newly-freed entity, Paxton faces a fight far beyond simple exorcism. In a battle for his very soul, will he be able to endure – or simply fade away

Harry Dresden’s sorcery goes on a Supernatural-style road trip. Cool car sold separately.

Ghostwater (Cradle #5) – Will Wight

Sacred artists follow a thousand Paths to power, using their souls to control the forces of the natural world. Lindon is Unsouled, forbidden to learn the sacred arts of his clan. When faced with a looming fate he cannot ignore, he must rise beyond anything he’s ever known…and forge his own Path.

Long ago, the Monarch Northstrider created a world of his own.

This world, known as Ghostwater, housed some of his most valuable experiments. Now, it has been damaged by the attack of the Bleeding Phoenix, and a team of Skysworn have been sent to recover whatever they can from the dying world.

Now, Lindon must brave the depths of this new dimension, scavenging treasures and pushing his skills to new heights to compete with new enemies.

Because Ghostwater is not as empty as it seems.

Hail! Hail! – Harry Turtledove

Fresh from Duck Soup (1933), Julius, Leonard, Arthur and Herbert Marx – or as the world knows them, Groucho, Chico, Harpo and Zeppo – are transported by a freak electrical storm to Nacogdoches, Texas in the year 1826. Landing in the midst of the Fredonian Rebellion (the first attempt by settlers in Texas to secede from Mexico) and into the company of the only other Jewish person in town, they are in deep dreck.

Falling in with Stephen F. Austin and inadvertently filling his head with knowledge of what is to come, our heroes risk tampering with the future of Texas, and perhaps the entire U.S.A., in their quest to return to their own time.

Will they find their way back? Or will they be doomed to live out their lives without indoor plumbing?

Psi-Mechs, Inc. (The Darkness War #1) – Eric S. Brown

When things go bump in the night, the government calls Psi-Mechs, Inc. With a combination of technology and psi powers, they alone have the tools and training required to bump back.

Geoff Ringer was a police detective, who never wanted to be more than that. Although he knew he had a telekinetic talent, it wasn’t something he wanted anyone to know about. Even though his reticence made him a loner, he hid his power from his friends and colleagues. Using it also reminded him of that night, which he never wanted to think about again.

When a werewolf attack in the police station forces him to expose his talent to save the lives of his colleagues, Ringer is forced to flee to Psi-Mechs to hide. The company is at war, though, and Ringer finds himself on the losing side of a battle to the death.

Will Ringer and the Psi-Mechs team be able to defeat the ancient evil, or will it claim the Earth for all time? One thing is certain for Ringer—the time to hide is past. As Ringer learns to embrace his powers, only one question remains—will they be enough to turn the tide?

Psi-Mech, Inc. Because things do go bump in the night.

Relic of the Gods (Echoes of Fate #3) – Philip C. Quaintrell

The final days of hope have come and gone. The kingdoms of Illian stand on the edge of ruin, threatened by the armies of Valanis. As evil spreads across the land, too few are left to hold the line.

A world away, the children of fire and flame may be the only hope for the realm. But the dragons have been defeated before, and Verda’s future now hangs in the balance.

Reeling from their losses, Asher and his companions journey north, trying to outrun the savage Darkakin. A confrontation awaits the ranger, but even with Paldora’s gem, he dare not challenge Valanis yet.

The days of the Dragorn have come again, and with them, a relic of the gods has been brought into the light. The knowledge of Verda’s true history weighs on Gideon Thorn, and he would see the world rid of the evil that has cursed it for so long.

Amid such calamity, even the gods can feel a great change coming, and a new age dawning. Whether it be light or the dark that finds victory, one soul will suffer the burden of destiny for all…

The Retreat to Avalon (The Arthurian Age #1) – Sean Poage

Frustrated with living in the shadow of the elder warriors, Gawain dreams of glory in a time of peace. After three generations of struggle against a flood of ruthless invaders, Britain has finally clawed its way back within reach of security and prosperity.

Across the sea, Rome is crumbling under an onslaught of barbarian attacks, internal corruption and civil war. Desperate for allies, Rome’s last great emperor looks to Britain and the rising fame of her High King, Arthur.

Events sweep Gawain along in a tide that takes him far from his home in Britain to a terrible war in Gaul. Intrigue and betrayal vie with loyalty and valour in an epic adventure at the last, bright flash of light before “The Dark Ages”.

Sandfire (Cain: Rapid Fire #3) – Andrew Warren and Aiden L. Bailey

Thomas Caine is back in action…

As the CIA’s deadliest operative, Caine is tasked with eliminating America’s most dangerous enemies. But Caine is a professional. His missions of death have rarely been personal. Until now.

A fellow operative is killed on an icy New Zealand mountain. A shipment of vital medicine disappears from a UN cargo container. And a CIA cargo plane is shot down in the vast Empty Quarter desert. These seemingly unrelated events are all linked to a shadowy operation, known only as SANDFIRE… and if exposed, the fallout could compromise the U.S.-Saudi alliance, and engulf the Arabian Peninsula in war.

Caine travels to Yemen to locate the missing plane, and track down his friend’s killers. But his investigation reveals other secrets lost in the wreckage. Secrets powerful men will go to any lengths to keep buried in the endless sands…

Sky Hammer (Cloak Games #11) – Johnathan Moeller

The powerful Elven lord Morvilind has a hold over me. If I don’t follow his commands, my brother is going to die.

All my life I’ve carried out the Elven archmage Morvilind’s dangerous missions.

But now the game has spun out of Morvilind’s control.

Because the Rebel warlord Nicholas Connor has seized the Sky Hammer nuclear doomsday weapon, and he’s going to burn Earth and rebuild human civilization in his own twisted image.

And unless I stop Nicholas, my brother and billions of other people are going to die.

The Wicked (Black Force Shorts #7) – Matt Rogers

Will Slater — one of the most violent and effective operatives in Black Force history — finds himself in California, drinking and partying and trying to forget about the horrific deeds he’s performed for his country. Then one morning a stranger kicks his motel door in. Sent by the organisation Slater works for, the man reveals his newest assignment — head to San Francisco, locate a private VIP club reserved for Silicon Valley’s tech billionaires and other uber-rich types, and befriend the Sinaloa cartel’s chief interrogator, in-country on one of his routine benders.

The cartel fiend is known only by his nickname: The Wicked.

What starts as a simple plan to extract information descends into anarchy as Slater struggles to maintain his cover under the influence of enough drink and drugs to kill a lesser man…

Sometimes, it pays to have a tolerance.

  New Release Roundup, 16 June 2018: Fantasy and Adventure published first on https://medium.com/@ReloadedPCGames

[cult-of-death-blog]

Geiler von Kaiserberg and the Furious Army by Claude Lecouteux

Und es war die Zeit des Vollmonds In der Nacht vor Sankt Johannis Wo der Spuk der Wilden Jagd Umzieht durch den Geisterhohlweg [And it was the time of the full moon, In the night before Saint John’s, When the apparition of the Wild Hunt Moved through the haunted hollow.] —Heinrich Heine, Atta Troll, XVIII

For more than two thousand years, legends have been circulating that tell of the passage of a troop of the dead, either by land or through the air, on certain dates of the year.(1) Depending on the form of the narratives, the country, or region, this phenom­enon has been referred to as the Wütendes Heer [Furious Army], the Mesnie Hellequin [Retinue of Hellequin], or the Chasse Artus [Arthur’s Hunt], among others. For more than a century, scholars and researchers—following the lead of Jacob Grimm and Elard Hugo Meyer—have asserted that Wotan/Odin was the leader of this dead host, but Lutz Röhrich, bringing clarity to the matter, quite rightly notes that “In no instance is the equivalence of Wode [the Low German name of the wild huntsman]—and Wotan certain.”(2 )Leander Petzoldt correctly distinguishes between the Wild Hunt and the Cursed Huntsman in his Dictionary of Demons and Elementary Spirits.(3 )The confusion between the two legends is based on a body of beliefs maintaining that the dead can come back, which has then been coupled with a Christian interpreta­tion of the facts: these dead are sinners who are going through purgatory as members of this host, or they are, quite simply, the damned. These beliefs took the form of legends that cross-con­taminated one another to form, at the turn of the fifteenth to sixteenth century, a complex web whose various threads can be delineated as follows:

1. The belief in nocturnal hosts led by Diana, Hecate, or Herodias, and the belief in revenants. 2. The belief that the spiritus, or psyche, remained near the body for thirty days immediately following death. 3. The belief that death only entailed an exile to the grave or to another world, during which time the deceased person retained all faculties, kept watch over the activi­ties of friends and family, and intervened in human affairs, either in corpore or in spiritu (as is the case with dreams).(4 )

This type of belief concerning death, which went hand in hand with ancestor worship and specific funerary rites, was too deeply anchored in people’s minds to disappear when they were converted to Christianity. The Church had to make do with it and divert these beliefs for its own benefit. As a result, a compound legend arose that concerned the damned who wander the earth on certain dates,(5) and the notion of impiety punished (which is the source of numerous legends, including those of the Cursed Huntsman and of the Man in the Moon).

The two variants of pagan folklore that had been Christianized continued to influence each other and, because they provided an open narrative structure, receptively incorporated motifs from other legends relating to death and to the beyond (for example, the legends of Mount Venus and of “Loyal Eckhart”). The Christian texts are starkly didactic and deliver a clear message: there is no prayer of posthumous salvation for those who have not respected the commandments of God and his Church. They fall into the category of “pedagogy through fear,” similarly to the literature of revelations (incidentally, the last example of the latter genre, and a humorous one at that, is Alphonse Daudet’s Le Curé de Curcugnan).

In order to rediscover the primary meaning of the Furious Army (I will use this name here to avoid any confusion), a distinc­tion must be drawn between the original content of the legend and the later accretions. For example, we must avoid blending— as was so often the case until now(6) —this theme with that of the Cursed Huntsman who succumbed to his passion for hunting on a day sacred to the Lord, or who unwittingly swore an oath committing him to this activity for eternity. If I must venture a simple definition of the Furious Army, I would say that it was originally a group of revenants which had the right to leave the Other World for a limited time, as was the case with the ancient Greek festival of Anthesteria (February 11–13). The last day of this festival (chytroi) was dedicated to propitiating the dead and their leader, Hermes Chthonios. In ancient Rome, the festival of Lemuria on May 9, 11, and 13 was an occasion for the dead to burst into homes.

We can refine this definition in accordance with its histor­ical evolution. While in the Greek festival all the dead were involved, in Rome the revenants were recruited exclusively from the ranks of those who had died prematurely—including suicides and the victims of violent death—and those who had not received a ritual burial.(7) In the Middle Ages, the members of the Furious Army were sinners first and foremost. In contrast with the “normal” dead who appeared during Anthesteria or Lemuria, medieval revenants could surge out on any date, but this occurred individually and not as a group. I believe that a shift between the regular dead and revenants took place here, with the latter collected together to form a troop, perhaps under the influence of other beliefs, traces of which can be found in the Germano-Scandinavian world. Here, the dead who are unhappy with their fate and are moved by feelings of vengeance gather together under the leadership of the first to die. This can mainly be seen with occurrences relating to epidemics, as we find in the Eyrbyggja Saga.

In short, whether in Greece, Rome, or the Germanic coun­tries, we encounter the essential elements of something that can be condensed into a narrative of purportedly true events. The first detectable amalgam is that of the immaturi (aori, biothanati) with the common dead leaving the Other World in February or May. Here, the Church first adopted characteristic elements from this narrative—it retained the notion of the troop, essentially a nocturnal host—but made the members of this troop into the damned or the inhabitants of Purgatory.(8) If they made an appear­ance, it was to reveal their torment and beseech the living for suffrages so that they might find redemption and be freed. In his Liber visionum,(9) written between 1060 and 1067, Otloh of Saint- Emmeram reported what he called a memorable exemplum: two brothers spied a large host in the sky; evoking protection with the sign of the cross, they requested that these people tell who they were. One of them, their father, informed them of the sin for which he was being punished.(10) He had stolen the property of a monastery and would only be redeemed when that prop­erty had been returned. In Orderic Vitalis’s work (11) (circa 1092), a certain Robert, son of Ralph the Fair-Haired, told the priest Gauchelin (or Walchelin): “In addition, I have been allowed to appear to you and show you how wretched I am” (Mihi quoque permissum est tibi apparere, meumque miserum esse tibi manifestare). He owed his torment “to his sins” (pro pecatis) but had “hopes for deliverance” (anno relaxationem ab hoc onere fiducialiter exspecto). Another one of the dead had a similar desire—“Exactly a year after Palm Sunday I hope I will be saved” (a Pascha florum usque ad unum annum spero salvari)—and added that Gauchelin should also seek atonement: “You should truly worry about yourself, and correct your life wisely” (Tu vero sollicitus esto de te, vitamque tuam prudenter corrige). Ekkehard, the Abbot of Aura, reported that a member of the Furious Army who appeared near Worms in 1123 said: “We are not ghosts (phantasmata) . . . but the souls of recently slain knights (animae militun non longe antehac interfecto­rum).”(12) The arms they bore were responsible for making them sin (instrumenta peccandi) and are therefore a torture for them (material tormenti). The chronicler adds that Count Emicho (died 1117) was said to have appeared with such a troop and declared that he would be delivered from his torments by prayers and alms (ab hac pena orationibus et elemosinus se posse redimi docuisse).

Starting at the onset of the eleventh century, several types of tales coexisted with the sort attested by Orderic Vitalis and Ekkehard. These include: the legend of King Herla; legends of demoniacal hunters (whose appearance is confirmed by the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle for the year 1127 (13) and by The Chronicle of Hugh Candidus for the same date (14); legends of friends who have sworn a mutual oath that if one dies, he will return and tell the surviving friend about the fate he has experienced after his death (this is the theme of the Reuner Relation (15) written between 1185 and 1200, as well as of a passage by Hélinand de Froidmont [1150–1221/29]); and legends of armies that continue waging their battles after death.(16)

An important motif emerges from the Christian legends: one of the members of the Furious Army speaks up to explain his fate. In the Reuner Relation, the dead individual appears on a moun­tain where his still-living friend had arranged their meeting. The friend “heard the mingled voices of a throng like a host hastening to some siege. Shortly he saw a large multitude which appeared to be riding and they were all armed” (audit cuiusdam multitudinis voces confuses quasi exercitus ad aliquam obsidionem festinantes. Videt post modicum quasi equitum grandem multitudinem et hii omnes armigeri). Two hosts emerge, followed by a third made up of the principes et rectores tenebrarum (princes and leaders of darkness). But the motif of the “revealer” broke away from the theme of the Furious Army. In the work by Pierre le Chantre (died 1197), master Silo (Siger of Brabant) beseeches one of his students to come visit him after his death to relate the situation in which he found himself; soon afterward, the other appeared and shared news of his torment.(17) Hélinand de Froidmont provides a good glimpse of how the legendary traditions spread their influence. In the eleventh chapter of De cognitione sui, transmitted by Vincent de Beauvais in the Speculum historiale XXIX, 118, he records the  story that Henri of Orleans, Bishop of Beauvais, heard from the mouth of the canon, Jean. The first part of this chapter is similar to the Relation de Reun and can most likely be traced back to the same source: the two friends swear that the first to die will come visit the other within thirty days, if he is able (intra XXX dies, si posset, ad socium suum rediret). In his conversation with the deceased Natalis (Noel), the living friend, Burchard, asks, “But I beseech that you would tell me if you are deputies in that army called the Hellequins?” Natalis responds “No,” because the phenomenon stopped once his period of penitence was over. This indicates that the militia Hellequini is a wandering Purgatory.(18)

This long preamble is necessary if we truly wish to grasp what Geiler von Kaiserberg (1445–1510) recorded at the beginning of the sixteenth century. Born in Schaffhausen, Geiler left behind a significant body of work: speeches, translations of Jean Gerson’s sermons, and most importantly Das buoch von der Omeissen (known as the Emeis), a collection of sermons published in 1515 by the Strasbourg printer Johann Grüniger and republished in 1517. In 1856, August Ströber, well known for his interest in Alsatian legend, extracted everything from these sermons relating to folk belief that was condemned as superstitions, believing this comprised a good description of persistent mental attitudes that were closer to paganism than Christianity.(19 )The very long full title of the Emeis further points in this direction: Gibt vnder­weisung von den Vnholden oder Hexen vnd von gespenst der geist vnd von dem Wütenden heer wunderbarlich vnd nützlich ze wissen was man davon glauben vnd halten soll. . . (Provides education about the Demons or Witches and about spirit ghosts and the Furious Army, wondrously and usefully for knowing what is believed of them and how one should deal with them. . .).

We will examine here what Geiler said of the Furious Army, which will allow us to raise the question of the transmission of so-called folk beliefs, with the understanding that a belief is never set in stone, but rather evolves over time.

In 1508, Geiler gave a sermon on the Thursday following Reminiscere (the second Sunday of Lent), in which he stated: “You ask, ‘What shall you tell us about the Wild Army?’ But I cannot tell you very much, as you know much more of it than I.” Such a formula is a standard classic in preaching and can often be found coming out of the mouth of Bertold of Regensburg: (20) the preacher sets himself apart from his audience, emphasizing the gap that separates him from the unfounded beliefs that smack of paganism. In a nutshell, he announces that what he is about to say is merely an echo of widespread rumors, but we shall see what kind of credence we can give him. Geiler immediately adds, “This is what the common man says: Those who die before the time God has fixed for them, those who leave on a journey and are stabbed, hung, or drowned, must wander after death until the date that God has set for them arrives. Then God will do for them what is in accordance with His divine will.” This belief is extremely old and can be seen in ancient Rome where premature deaths produced revenants. It made its way into the Medieval West by way of Tertullian (De anima 56): “Those souls which are taken away by a premature death wander about hither and thither until they have completed the residue of the years which they would have lived through, had it not been for their untimely fate” (Aiunt et immature morte praeventas eo usque vagori istic donec reliquatio compleatur aetatum quacum pervixissent, si non intempes­tive obissent).

It would take too long to follow its meandering course through the ages, so we satisfy ourselves with the testimony of William of Auvergne, whose De universo was written between 1231 and 1236. William knew of the existence of the Mesnie Hellequin (De Universo III, 12), which had been brought out of the shadows by Orderic Vitalis at the end of the eleventh century  and enjoyed a much larger impact than what is claimed by Jean- Claude Schmitt, who, ignoring many accounts, has a tendency to restrict the legend to Normandy. William says (III, 14):

On the point that these [knights] appear in the shape of men, I say: of dead men, and those most often slain by iron, we can undoubtedly, based on the advice of Plato, consider that the souls of men thus slain continue to be active the number of days or the entire time it was given them to living in their bodies, if they had not been expelled by force. (De hoc autem, quod in similitudine hominum apparent, hominum dico mortuorum et maximo gladio interfectorum, videatur forsitan alicui iuxta sententiam Platonis, quod agere viderentur numeros dierum vel temporum debitorum animae mortuorum huiusmodi, temporum dico, quibus in corporibus victurae erant, eas nisi mortis huiusmodi violentia expulisset.) (21)

There is nothing “folkloric” about this notion because the men of this time had other explanations, a glimpse of which is provided above. Geiler goes on to say that the Furious Army made its appearance during the Ember Days and especially at Christmas, which is entirely in keeping with the beliefs of the time. Christmas, and more specifically the Twelve Days (Rauhnächte), is a period when the Other World is open, which is to say that a free passageway has been established between the realm of the dead and that of the living. Geiler next states: “And each proceeds in the dress of their status: a peasant in peasant garb, a knight as a knight, and they race therefore bound to the same rope. One is holding a cross in front of him, the other a head in his hand.” Here our preacher follows Hélinand de Froidmont or Vincent de Beauvais, in any case a written source from clerical literature. In Vincent de Beauvais’s book (Speculum historiale, XXIX, 118), which borrows a passage from Hélinand’s De cognitione sui, we read:

But this false opinion … that souls of the deceased, lamenting punishments of their sins, are in the habit of appearing to the masses in the style of dress in which they had formerly lived: that is to say, country folk in rustic clothing, soldiers in military dress, just as the masses are wont to claim about the family of Hellequin. (Haec autem falsitas opinio . . . quod animae defunctorum suorum peccatorum poenas lugentes multis apparere solent in eo habitu, in quo prius vixerant: id est rustici in rusticano, milites in militari, sicut vulgus asserere solet de familia Hellequini. . .)

Here again, the blending of popular and scholarly assump­tions is clearly apparent. Ancient Scandinavian literature, which is our best witness of things relating to revenants, indicates on numerous occasions that the dead return in the same appearance as they had at the time of their death. (22) In Germany, the testi­monies are much rarer (which in no way means that this vision did not exist), but fraught with significance. In a charm from the fourteenth or fifteenth century, the speaker requests God’s protection from:

Wutanes her und alle sine man, Dy di reder und dy wit tragen, Geradebrech und irhangin. . .(23 ) [the Furious Host and all its men, who carry wheels and fetters, broken apart and hung]

The members of the Furious Army appear here bearing the instruments of their torment. The Zimmern Chronicle describes one of the members of this procession in this fashion: “His head had been split in two down to the neck” (Dem ist das haupt in zwai thail biß an hals gespalten gewesen).”(24 )

The only motif yet to be explained by scholars is the rope mentioned by Geiler. This could be a recollection from Lucian of Samosata (Discourses, Hercules 1–7), who depicts the god Ogmios, an infernal psychopomp, pulling along “a large number of men attached by the ears with bonds of tiny gold and amber chains that resembled beautiful necklaces.” It so happens that in Albrecht Durer’s Kunstbuch of 1514, he depicted the allegory of eloquence as the god Hermes pulled humans by chains that connected his tongue to the ears of his captives.25 I offer the hypothesis for what it’s worth, but these parallels merit pointing out.

"One came before the rest,” added Geiler, shouting: “‘Get out of the road so that God may spare your life!’ This is what the common man says.” This new motif of the figure sounding the alarm comes directly from Orderic Vitalis’s narrative in which the priest Gauchelin saw the Mesnie Hellequin. Here, a giant man holding a club broke from the host and approached him saying: “Stay where you are. Do not move!” (Sta, nec progrediarius ultra). The figure delivering a warning quickly became quite popular; Jacob Trausch (died 1610), the author of the Strasbourg Chronicle, borrowed this figure and had him shout: “Get back, back, so that nothing happens to anyone!”26 In this instance, however, the legend is re-contextualized into the polemic between Catholics and reformers: such deceptions and superstitions have ceased ever since Dr. Martin Luther attacked Papism. The motif can also be found in the work of Johannes Agricola, this time with  the addition of a novel element: the warning figure is named the Loyal Eckhard (der treüwe Eckart).(27) This latter example attests to the contamination of the Furious Army by the Venusberg legend (Tannhäuser).(28)

To illustrate his point, Geiler did as all good preachers do: he repeated a story—an exemplum or historiola. In this case, he borrowed it from Hélinand de Froidmont, undoubtedly by way of the Speculum historiale by Vincent de Beauvais. His text follows the source so closely it could be called a literal translation, as the end of the story shall prove.

[Geiler:] Bist du auch in dem wütischen her gelaufen, von dem man sagt? Er sprach: Nein, Karolus Quintus hat sein penitens erfült, un hat daz wütisch heer vff gehört. (“Are you also proceeding in the Furious Army that men talk about?” He spoke: “No, Karolus Quintus has fulfilled his penitence and has ended the Furious Army.”) [Hélinand:] sed obsecro ut dicatis mihi, si vos estis deputati in illa militia quam dicunt Hellequini. Et ille: Non, domine. Illa militia jam non vadit, sed nuper ire desiit, quia poenitentiam suam peregit. (“But I beg that you would tell me if you are deputies in that army they call the Hellequins?” “No, sir. That army does not advance now, but recently ceased marching because it fulfilled its penitence.”)

The sole modification—Karolus Quintus for militia Hellequinus— stems from the fact that Geiler was using a gloss by Vincent or Hélinand, which stated: “Corruptly, however, ‘Hellequinus’ is said by the common people instead of ‘Karlequintus’” (“Corrupte autem dictus est a vulgo Hellequinus pro Karlequintus”).

In light of the preceding information, it is easy to see how clerics worked and, more importantly, the omnipresence of the scholarly and bookish tradition. Thus, when a belief or legend is encountered in the religious texts of the late Middle Ages, it is necessary to be very prudent before asserting that the author was faithfully echoing reality. The sole reality is that men believed the dead returned on certain dates. Recontextualized by the Church, the belief was incorporated into the great cycle of the punishment of sin.

What is the case with the other folk traditions recorded by Geiler? Comparative analysis allows us to see that the preacher always worked in the same way: he took a “superstition,” then reduced and destroyed it with the help of the clerical literature. But did the object of his efforts correspond to a local reality? In the case of the werewolf,29 this is subject to doubt. In the case of witchcraft, the answer can be in the affirmative if we recognize that the Church contributed greatly to forging the belief—but we can only confirm the latter and not take the descriptions at face value. Researchers have indeed provided evidence that the catalogs of beliefs were accumulated bit by bit over time and that they were recapitulations of everything lurking in the writs of councils and synods, in the penitentials, and in the treatises on the Decalogue.(30) This was how the various Mirrors of Sin were born, such as the one by Martin von Amberg,(31) as well as the great fifteenth-century collections of “superstitions.” Narrative literature followed this same evolution, as is evident from the  works of Michel Behaim (32) and Hans Vintler.(33) On the other hand, all these texts document the enduring nature of beliefs and practices—an enduring nature encouraged by the preachers who never stopped talking about them and therefore giving credence to those things they took to be errors, sins, and idolatry. The exempla with which they embellished their sermons then came into the public domain and gave birth to new narrative tradi­tions. When Geiler speaks of a haunted house in the Mainz bishopric, in his sermon “Am mitwoch nach Occuli,” his inspi­ration is The Golden Legend of Jacobus de Voragine,34 and when he mentions “the wax that runs from the manes of horses,” he is following a passage from William of Auvergne’s De Universo. In order to establish the difference between local traditions and scholarly traditions, it is necessary to work diachronically, which is the only means for avoiding errors.

(Translated by Jon Graham)

This article originally appeared in French in the journal Études Germaniques 50 (1995): 367–76. The translation here is published by kind permission of the author.

1. Hans Plischke, Die Sage vom Wilden Heer im deutschen Volk, Dissertation, Leipzig, 1914; Alfred Endter, Die Sage vom Wilden Jäger und von der Wilden Jagd, Dissertation, Frankfurt, 1933; Michael John Petry, Herne the Hunter, a Berkshire Legend (Reading: William Smith, 1972).

2. “Nicht einmal gesichert ist die Gleichung Wode–Wotan.” Lütz Röhrich, Sage, 2nd ed. (Stuttgart: Metzler, 1971), 24.

3. Leander Petzoldt, Kleines Lexikon der Dämonen und Elementargeister (Munich: Beck 1990), 186–90.

4. Cf. Claude Lecouteux, Geschichte der Gespenster und Wiedergänger im Mittelalter (Cologne and Vienna: Böhlau, 1987); Claude Lecouteux and Phillipe Marcq, Les Esprits et les Morts, Croyances médiévales (Paris: Honore Champion, 1990).

5. During the Ember Days, Christmas, the three final Thursdays of Advent, Saint Sylvester’s Day, Saint John’s Day, Saint Martin’s Day, Saint Walpurgis’s Day, Saint Peter’s Day, Pentecost, etc.

6. Cf., for example, Gustav Neckel, Sagen aus dem germanischen Altertum (Leipzig: Philip Reclam, 1935), 21–56. 4 Claude Lecouteux

7. Cf. Claude Lecouteux, Fantômes et Revenants au Moyen Âge (Paris: Imago 1986), translated into English as The Return of the Dead (Rochester, VT: Inner Traditions, 2009); and Lecouteux, “Fantômes et Revenants,” in Denis Menjot and Benoît Cursente, eds., Démons et Merveilles au Moyen Âge (Nice: Université de Nice-Sophia Antipolis, 1990), 267–82. 

8. Jacques Le Goff, La naissance du purgatoire, Paris, Gallimard, 1981.

9. Paul Gerhard Schmidt, ed., Liber visionum, MGH: Quellen zur Geschichte des Mittelalters 13 (Weimar: Böhlau, 1989), 67ff. Geiler von Kaiserberg and the Furious Army 

10. Jean-Claude Schmitt, Les Revenants, les Vivants et les Morts dans la Société médiévales (Paris: Gallimard, 1994), makes a mistake and reverses the meaning in the text (p. 63) when he says a “knight came out of the this troop and asked them on the part of their father…” The text says: Ego pater vester rogo. . . . 

11. Orderic Vitalis, Historia ecclesiastica, ed. Auguste Le Prévost, (Paris: J. Renouard, 1838–1855), vol. III, 367–77. 

12. Franz Josef Schmale and Irene Schmale-Ott, eds., Frutolfs und Ekkehards Chroniken und die anonyme Kaiesrchronik (Darmstadt: Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft, 1972), 362. 6 Claude Lecouteux 

13. Charles Plummer, ed., Two of the Anglo-Saxon Chronicles Parallel (Oxford: Clarendon, 1892), vol. I, 258. 

14. W. T. Mellows, ed., The Chronicle of Hugh Candidus (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1949), 76ff. 

15. Hans Gröchenig, Die Vorauer Novelle und die Reuner Relation (Göppingen: Kümmerle, 1981), 29ff. 

16. Vincent de Beauvais, Speculum historiale, XXX, 200, (Douai, 1624), 1225ff. 17. Jacobus de Voragine, Légende dorée [The Golden Legend], trans. J. B. M. Roze, (Paris: Garnier- Flammarion, 1967), vol. II, 326.Geiler von Kaiserberg and the Furious Army 

18. Phillipe Walter, Mythologie chrétienne (Paris: Imago 1992), cf. index 285. Translated into English as Christianity: The Origins of a Pagan Religion (Rochester, VT: Inner Traditions, 2006). 

19. Cf. August Stöber, Die Sagen des Elsasses (St. Gallen: Scheitlin and Zellikofer, 1852) and August Stöber, Zur Geschichte des Volksaberglaubens im Anfange des XVI. Jahrhunderts. Aus Dr. Joh. Geilers von Kaisersberg Emeis (Basel: Schweighauser, 1856). The text can also be found in Karl Meisen, Die Sagen vom Wütenden Heer und Wilden Jäger (Münster i.W.: Aschendorf, 1935), 96ff.8 Claude Lecouteux 

20. Cf. Claude Lecouteux and Phillippe Marcq, Berthold de Ratisbonne, Péchés et Vertus. Scènes de la Vie au XIIIe siècle (Paris: Desjonquères, 1991). Geiler von Kaiserberg and the Furious Army 

21. William of Auvergne, Opera Omnia (Paris, 1674), vol. I, 1074. 10 Claude Lecouteux

22. Claude Lecouteux, “Fantômes et Revenants germaniques, Essai de Présentation,” Études Germaniques 39 (1984): 227–50; 40 (1985): 141–60; and Lecouteux, “Altgermanische Gespenster und Wiedergänger: Bemerkungen zu einem vernachlässigten Forschungsfeld der Altgermanistik,” Euphorion 80 (1986): 219–31.

23. Johannes Franck, “Geschichte des Wortes Hexe,” in Joseph Hansen, Quellen und Untersuchungen zur Geschichte des Hexenwahns (Hildesheim: Olms, 1963), 614–70, here at 639ff.Geiler von Kaiserberg and the Furious Army 11

24. Karl August Barack, ed., Das Zimmersche Chronik, 2nd. ed. (Freiburg and Tübingen: Mohr, 1881–1882), vol. IV, 122–27.

25. Cf. Friedrich Winkler, Die Zeichnungen Albrechts Dürers, vol. III, 79. This matter is discussed, with a bibliography, in Françoise Le Roux, “Le Dieu celtique aux Liens,” Ogam XII (1960): 212–18.

26. The reader may also refer to Johannes Geffken, Der Bildercatechismus des fünfzehnten Jahrhunderts und die catechetischen Hauptstücke in dieser Zeit bis auf Luther. I: Die Zehn Gebote (Leipzig: T. O. Weigel, 1855), 37ff.12 Claude Lecouteux

27. Text in Karl Meisen, Die Sagen vom Wütenden Heer, 98ff. It will be noted that this individual has become a figure of legend; cf. Lütz Röhrich, Das große Lexikon der sprichwörtlichen Redensarten (Freiburg im Bresgau, Basel, and Vienna: Herder, 1991–1992), vol. I, 350ff.

28. Cf. J. M. Clifton-Everest, The Tragedy of Knighthood: The Origin of the Tannhäuser-Legend (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1979). Geiler von Kaiserberg and the Furious Army 13

29. Cf. August Stöber: Zur Geschichte des Volksaberglaubens, 31 (“werewolf”); 11ff.; 12; 17ff., 33ff. (“witch”). Regarding the werewolf, however, Geiler was inspired by Vincent de Beauvais, Valère Maxime, and William of Auvergne.

30. Cf. the fine studies in Marianne Rumpf, Perchten: Populäre Glaubensgestalten zwischen Mythos und Katechese (Würzburg: Königshausen & Neumann, 1991) and Karin Baumann, Aberglaube für Laien. Zur Programmatik und Überlieferung mittelalterlicher Superstitionenkritik (Würzburg: Königshausen & Neumann, 1989).

31. Stanley N. Werbow, ed., Martin von Amberg. Der Gewissensspiegel (Berlin: Schmidt, 1958). 14 Claude Lecouteux

32. Cf. Ernst-Dietrich Güting, “Michel Behaims Gedicht gegen den Aberglauben und seine lateinische Vorlage. Zur Tradierung des Volksglaubens im Spätmittelalters,” in Dietz-Rüdiger Moser, ed., Glaube im Abseits (Darmstadt: Wissenschaftliche Buchgellschaft, 1992), 310–67.

33. Cf. Max Bartels and Oskar Ebermann: “Zur Aberglaubensliste in Vintlers Pluemen der tugent,” Zeitschrift des Vereins für Volkskunde 23 (1913): 1–18; 113–36. Cf. also the article by Anton E. Schönbach, “Zeugnisse zur deutschen Volkskunde des Mittelalters,” Zeitschrift des Vereins für Volkskunde 12 (1902): 1–16. On the list of superstitions in the work of Thomas de Haselbach, see Franz-Josef Schweitzer, Tugend und Laster in illustrierten didaktischen Dichtungen des Spätmittelalters (Hildesheim: Olms, 1993), 180–84.

34. Who drew his material from the Chronicle of Sigebert de Gembloux for the year 858, cf. J. C. Migne, ed., Patrologia Latina 160, col. 163. This information can also be found in Vincent de Beauvais (Speculum historiale XXIV, 37) and in the works of many other authors.