— Aeternus — the Casino
Of course he had lied to Ilaria and, contrary to his claim, his departure was not to continue his shift.
Tāwhaki manifested, instead, inside the grand game floor of a casino in a pseudo-hell known as Aeternus, the very place Ilaria named as her destination. His sleek, smoldering frame slinked through a mirror serving as the backsplash to a massive, central service point of all manner of alcoholic beverages. With true cat-like grace, he high-stepped his way around the numerous bottles of inebriants and nectars that stood palisade-like around him, their variegated colors and necks reflecting in the mirror.
More and worse projected out of that pane, its utility briefly exposed: a thin membrane, a place between baleful places.
Beyond rows of distilled natures and on the semi-tarnished surface writhed a smog of souls and wailing, spectral faces. Reflected through the translucent bottles, their agonizing forms took on unholy hues and emblems, terrors nocturnal distorted by the geometric heresy of black label and baroque vampiric draughts. Brief scenes for which a passing glance might imagine are conjurations of the mind and are absent on subsequent appraisals. Even so, invisible, tense, they linger, refusing to abandon their hold on attention: held by the phantom outlines of long, sharp, black fingers against a backdrop of pale steam, needle-thin blades penetrated their victims’ mouths, grinding tips against crowns and exciting the tender, vulnerable nerves. Struggling, twitching, their binds were unyielding: each strand of hair ensnared in sap, pulled taut in that interstice between agony and relief, but never quite hard enough; jaws penetrated by spears, forcefully held open; eyelids reduced to tattered bands, there but made useless, able only to offer the briefest, most haunting obscuration. Behind sagging ropes of flesh, pupils pulsated, unable to avoid beholding the effigies of things once dear yet before them animated, dismembered, and compelled into their forcibly-open gullets. Semi-molten spears rotated their jaws, forced them to chew, a self-consuming rotisserie, forced them to devour those precious memories — a family pet, a newborn child, their father: a finger, an ear, a patch of ripped out hair. All dipped in feces, so as to be swallowed easily and digested poorly.
I wonder whether Ilaria is enjoying her time in Entobalti, Tāwhaki pondered, not at all sincere.
Patiently, his ears perked up. He panned the interior of the casino’s lavish main gaming room, and found what he sought. It was easy. The bar was conveniently elevated, and its attendant could monitor all the guests. From it, Tāwhaki watched all the same people, figures who roamed listlessly the large hall and wasted away their pathetic potential in search of the next stimulating experience.
Sharp in his scrutiny, he beheld the most interesting figures. No demons. Yes, they were present in abundance: such simpering fiends he felt were far less interesting than the true torturers from those more potent proxies humans, in their stupid terror, dubbed Hell. Bipedal false-cats lingered near elevator doors that were never to open. Ironically, from an adjacent elevator (which read exit only) emerged the semblance of a zombie dressed as a flapper. By the entrance and plain enough to, in his mind, be conspicuous, stood a woman who was no woman, but did well to quell her aura. She, like he, surveilled and assessed. How very predatory, he mentally purred. Meanwhile, behind her and pinned to the wall, a tapestry forlorn and quite enraged by its consuming circumstance. Poor thing, doomed to become another boring topical piece in the lavish expanse of clutter and décor that inundated anywhere that the eye might settle in Ealdorman’s casino.
Whoever it was that Ilaria sought, she was not here; not in this room, anyway.
Alas.
Outside, a din penetrated the nonstop carnivalesque atmosphere of the casino. An ongoing demolition, perhaps. A dumb beast audibly rampaged in another, smaller anteroom. Ealdorman’s problems, both. What Tāwhaki wanted was to instigate. Thus, he sauntered paw across paw from the bar and toward the desiccated would-be femme fatale and purred, “Gre~etings, madam. Has your time at the Pleiades been to your liking?”
Of course he had lied to Ilaria and, contrary to his claim, his departure was not to continue his shift.
Tāwhaki manifested, instead, inside the grand game floor of a casino in a pseudo-hell known as Aeternus, the very place Ilaria named as her destination. His sleek, smoldering frame slinked through a mirror serving as the backsplash to a massive, central service point of all manner of alcoholic beverages. With true cat-like grace, he high-stepped his way around the numerous bottles of inebriants and nectars that stood palisade-like around him, their variegated colors and necks reflecting in the mirror.
More and worse projected out of that pane, its utility briefly exposed: a thin membrane, a place between baleful places.
Beyond rows of distilled natures and on the semi-tarnished surface writhed a smog of souls and wailing, spectral faces. Reflected through the translucent bottles, their agonizing forms took on unholy hues and emblems, terrors nocturnal distorted by the geometric heresy of black label and baroque vampiric draughts. Brief scenes for which a passing glance might imagine are conjurations of the mind and are absent on subsequent appraisals. Even so, invisible, tense, they linger, refusing to abandon their hold on attention: held by the phantom outlines of long, sharp, black fingers against a backdrop of pale steam, needle-thin blades penetrated their victims’ mouths, grinding tips against crowns and exciting the tender, vulnerable nerves. Struggling, twitching, their binds were unyielding: each strand of hair ensnared in sap, pulled taut in that interstice between agony and relief, but never quite hard enough; jaws penetrated by spears, forcefully held open; eyelids reduced to tattered bands, there but made useless, able only to offer the briefest, most haunting obscuration. Behind sagging ropes of flesh, pupils pulsated, unable to avoid beholding the effigies of things once dear yet before them animated, dismembered, and compelled into their forcibly-open gullets. Semi-molten spears rotated their jaws, forced them to chew, a self-consuming rotisserie, forced them to devour those precious memories — a family pet, a newborn child, their father: a finger, an ear, a patch of ripped out hair. All dipped in feces, so as to be swallowed easily and digested poorly.
I wonder whether Ilaria is enjoying her time in Entobalti, Tāwhaki pondered, not at all sincere.
Patiently, his ears perked up. He panned the interior of the casino’s lavish main gaming room, and found what he sought. It was easy. The bar was conveniently elevated, and its attendant could monitor all the guests. From it, Tāwhaki watched all the same people, figures who roamed listlessly the large hall and wasted away their pathetic potential in search of the next stimulating experience.
Sharp in his scrutiny, he beheld the most interesting figures. No demons. Yes, they were present in abundance: such simpering fiends he felt were far less interesting than the true torturers from those more potent proxies humans, in their stupid terror, dubbed Hell. Bipedal false-cats lingered near elevator doors that were never to open. Ironically, from an adjacent elevator (which read exit only) emerged the semblance of a zombie dressed as a flapper. By the entrance and plain enough to, in his mind, be conspicuous, stood a woman who was no woman, but did well to quell her aura. She, like he, surveilled and assessed. How very predatory, he mentally purred. Meanwhile, behind her and pinned to the wall, a tapestry forlorn and quite enraged by its consuming circumstance. Poor thing, doomed to become another boring topical piece in the lavish expanse of clutter and décor that inundated anywhere that the eye might settle in Ealdorman’s casino.
Whoever it was that Ilaria sought, she was not here; not in this room, anyway.
Alas.
Outside, a din penetrated the nonstop carnivalesque atmosphere of the casino. An ongoing demolition, perhaps. A dumb beast audibly rampaged in another, smaller anteroom. Ealdorman’s problems, both. What Tāwhaki wanted was to instigate. Thus, he sauntered paw across paw from the bar and toward the desiccated would-be femme fatale and purred, “Gre~etings, madam. Has your time at the Pleiades been to your liking?”
⇝⛧⇜