Rex Black: War is my destiny

[jholloway.livejournal.com]

The deck shifts and moves beneath my feet, left to right, up and down, like some living thing beneath us. The soldiers are discussing their plan and I am not listening. I know how it has to be. There are no maps, but I know the land and the waves and the cold salty polluted air and the moonlight that glints from the sea. I am not listening to them, but to it, the quiet songs of my friends the four winds, the gentle prayers of the magnetic field.

The sword is a metre long, no more than an inch wide at its base. I am no slayer like my children, but I can make it dance when I have to. There is a faint smell of the oil I use to keep its beauty free from rust. Lights on the far shore shine from it.

I became the spirit that tortured and protected them

Mist forms from parted lips as we wait. Will the plumes give us away, I wonder. I don't care, but I wonder. They don't. Heaven gives me this, this chance to take my enemy's blood and soul, Heaven that loves me so well. I can hear them singing over the rhythm of the waves as they splash their way to the soft and gritty shore. I love that sound. We will sing another song soon. I wrap myself in darkness, the soft embrace of mother night. I feel the terror coming up. I love how you fear me. I love you as much as I hate him.

Ground shifts under my feet, but it doesn't bother me; it holds me up like the strong hands of friends and I am young, strong, immortal as the water soaks into my trouser cuffs, as the screams rise into my throat, and I see the wide eyes of some poor victim and I put all my hate into the battle cry, a terrifying howl that crashes into her like a punch and sends her stumbling back into the water. Onward, onward.

And when they prayed before battle they were praying to me

This is how it should be; the harder fight is theirs, the strongest foes, but I am a king, a king of kings, and if I do not meet this animal blade to blade how will you know who I am? Black Warlord, Phoenix Emperor, enthroned by Heaven, marked with imperishable gold, the ultimate evil spirit. I laugh at my own presumption and then I flick the rapier's razor edge across his ugly face and then we are spraying water, stamping and splashing and slashing and roaring. I drown him out, my blade seeking his life, my loves the Four Winds warding his primitive weather-magic away from me and I am drunk on my own hate, drunk on my own beautiful glory and at the last minute, in an act of compromise that sickens me, I punch him above the left eye with the basket hilt and bring him down.

Standing there afterward I can feel the bile rising; we'll talk about this and they'll make the right decision and I won't bear it, won't be able to take being so diminished.

But there is still loveliness in the air and the oil and the salt and the steel, and soon I can go home and get high I can remember it.