Utterly Out of Context
Jun. 1st, 2008 10:03 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
vulgarweedSo in that Whoring My WIPs poll a couple days ago, the narrow winner was the 20+-thousand-word sprawl beast "Morning in the Bowl of Night." Thanks to everyone for voting!
Have a chunk. From the middle, for maximum disorientation.
Should probably be noted this story is tending to get angsty on me whenever I turn my back on it. Revenge, I'm sure of it. In this segment, Aziraphale and Crowley have had a spat, and temporarily gone separate ways. Aziraphale has gone to Baghdad, and its famous library had nothing to do with his decision, of course. Crowley has gone north to the mountains of Persia to look in on his old pals the Assassins (whom he last, er, broke bread with during the First Crusade, in "Breathless Mouths May Summon"). Gone downhill since Hassan I Sabbah's day, that's for sure. In a sort of dreamtime, he encounters an acquaintance he'd rather not see. And he gets a warning of the Mongols' next bloody move.
There you have it, thought Crowley as the chill night wind raked the sands far below him. Haven’t learned a thing.
All above him, the stars blinked stupidly. All around him slept the most feared men of the age, so dreaded they were hardly men at all but phantoms, legends, dagger-clawed nightmares taking shape out of shadow, disappearing back in there as quickly as they’d come and leaving a fresh round of power vacuum in their impeccably tidy wake.
If they hadn’t existed, sultans and princes would have had to invent them to keep the fear going, because that was always productive. So was having someone to blame for the unfortunate accident of an inconvenient relative, even when the work was revealingly messy.
They worked cheap these days, Crowley had noticed. Didn’t have the pride they used to in their work. That was the whole point of what they did, Crowley’d thought – it was craftsmanship. You couldn’t mass-produce it. And you shouldn’t be able to buy with money the kind of horrific crimes that only ideology ought to inspire. The current Sheikh of the Mountain was the kind of spiritually-inbred twerp that the original would’ve used for novice practice.
Crowley stretched out his wings over the high walls of the mountain fortress where he lounged like a harem-gargoyle, and munched another chunk of greasy black hashish about the size of a dried fig.
It was probably a mistake, because wine had a way of making time go faster, but this stuff could slow time down to its very atoms. Another side effect it had was making Crowley’s access to human dreams not just easier, but downright involuntary. There were lots of them in this place—or rather, lots of humans dreaming pretty much the same dream, and it was generally a relaxing one, if terribly trite.
Crowley preferred not to dwell too much on the reasons why he might enjoy peeping in on rather kitschy dreams of Paradise and performing silent critiques. The babbling fountains, the roaming game, the trees with their improbable fruits of gigantic gaudy jewels…oh, for fuck’s sake, the trees…and for fuck’s sake, the virgins. Nice to look at but insipid. Blank-eyed dolls who never did anything that their imaginers didn’t imagine, and their imaginers didn’t have much imagination. At least Eve was capable of appreciating something resembling an original idea in her pretty little head once somebody else put it there.
Dying for these bland, unchanging tableaux was like dying for the privilege of watching paint dry. Or maybe something darker and duller than paint, considering who was involved.
The voice in Crowley’s head that argued with him was almost like Aziraphale’s. “Have you ever gone hungry long enough to envision Paradise as a whole lot of food?”
“No, I don’t think I can. And before you ask, I never went that long without sex either. Not since I’ve known what it is anyway.”
But Aziraphale wasn’t there, and so Crowley had to lie to himself, and that was no fun because he knew he was doing it.
So the dreams in themselves were dull as dirt and not nearly as earthy. Sometimes Crowley entertained himself by inspiring nightmares—baroque ones (Hieronymous Bosch. What a weirdo he would be). He still wasn’t sure where that incident with the tree of gold and the tree of silver and the giant spider that killed them came from (Now that’s a proper tale to scare the houseplants with) but it made a great diversion to make off with one of the virgins to see if she couldn’t be made a little less mindlessly demure. (She couldn’t.)
Not all the nightmares came from Crowley’s meddling, though. Sometimes he came face to face with something that naturally dwelled beneath the surface of a human mind, and if it could make an Assassin wake up screaming, chances were it was something that as yet unheard of in Hell.
In the present dream, that of a novice from just over the Amu Darya, the black-eyed houris of wordy and tedious praises looked a little rougher than the usual, which was promising. There might be a little spark there. As Crowley wandered about inciting a little dream-rebellion, his gaze locked for a moment on one most immodest, wearing a tunic and trousers that skimmed her long legs with lingering shivers, all in a very unvirtuous shade of red. When she pulled the veil from her red hair and her flawless feline face, Crowley froze as her very knowing eyes met his and her white teeth flashed.
“Good evening,” she said.
Crowley stammered. “So does this mean you’re a…”
“Watch it.” She had a wicked sharp dagger, curved like an elegant lie. Of course she did. She’d probably never have to use it, though.
You could raise impervious walls on a hostile mountain in a treacherous desert.
You could cultivate a reputation so terrifying demons told stories about you to frighten the imps.
You could steer empires with your hand by who you killed and who you didn’t.
You could even ban women from your colony.
But you couldn’t keep her out forever.
Crowley sat up shaking on the wall. The night was cold and sharp, like a blade hidden in snow.
He could see it now, as though she’d told him; they were coming. They were coming from the north. Suddenly Crowley got the feeling he was being surrounded by horses. Coming in in all directions, black, brown hairy steppe studs with their noses in flame, he saw horses.
They were stopping here to swat troublesome hornets. They were headed for Baghdad.
*** An Interlude of Narrative ***
--And the merchant said to the sultan, I shall tell thee my tale, and if I tell it not true, may Allah the All-Compassionate, All-Merciful strike me with lightning of agonising pain all through my body, boiling the water in my mouth and my eyes and my bowels until I am nothing but dessicated hunks of charred jerky littering the desert for the jackals to…
--Yes, yes, I get the idea. Go on then.
--Very well. As you are well aware, in the holy city of Baghdad there is a library that is like the very vaults of Paradise. A visitor here might naturally be mistaken in thinking at first that this is the palace of the Caliph himself, may blessings be upon him. Yet that would be only from his first glimpse of the stairs of marble veined in gold; should he venture further, past the fixtures of the door in the purest gold and silver, with gems glittering beyond all accounting, and gaze upon the very first doorway inside the courtyard where royal birds sing hymns from fountains of musk and milk…
--Musk and milk? Together?
--Bear with my artistic license, please. This is before the visitor even gets to the rooms of books, in which is accounted all the knowledge of the earth, and much that was thought lost in the fall of Adam, and much that was thought lost in the flood and the plagues, and also wise prophecies, but many of these treasures are buried in dusty chambers and have not been read for a thousand years, for atop them are still more books than can be read in seven generations, at the very top the latest debates of the greatest theologians of the present day.
--And these are the most beloved books of the wise people of the Holy City, these theological debates?
--No, that’s probably Sixty-Nine Exotic and Difficult Sarmatian Positions, actually. Although the prophecies concerning the racetrack and the end of the world are nearly as popular. Please stop interrupting, my lord.
--In truth I know you do not deceive me. You lack the imagination.
--Ahem! May Allah the All-Seeing tactfully ignore the insult you bear me. ANYWAY, this library was such that all beings on all corners of the earth who love knowledge could not help but to turn their hearts toward it, and one day a man arrived who was indeed a spirit in the flesh of a man, perhaps one of the djinn who follow the True Faith, for such exist, or perhaps even one of the very messengers of the Most High, like unto one who spoke with the Prophet Muhammed (PBUH).
--It’s not pronounced “pubuh,” you idiot. It’s an abbreviation.
--There is no acrimony in the heart of the True Faith. Do you speak apostasy and slander the most holy PBUH family?
--It’s not his surname, either.
--Excuse me. Allah the Keeper of All Wisdom understands that some of the worthier and wealthier classes were able to attend the madrassah and fall asleep over their Most Holy Book in the pleasant shade while others of us had to walk uphill both ways in the sandstorms to feed our families. On the Day of Judgment He will explain this better to the both of us.
--That Day may arrive before thou finishes this tale. So a djinn or an angel walks into a library…
--And when he saw the hallways of books that extended for many days’ journey in all directions, the light of the world was dark in his sight, and he crieth out, “Oh Allah Keeper of All Time, would that I, who liveth forever, had come to this place a thousand years sooner, for the world is mortal and I shall never finish all these books.”
--Now we’re getting somewhere. What happened then?
--He picked one up and started to read.
--And then?
--He kept on reading.
_And then?
--That’s it. He got really pissy when anyone bothered him, and after a while, no one did. As far as I know, he’s still there. The End.
--Hmm.
And the sultan spent the rest of the night pondering the meaning of this parable, for he was certain that such a pointless story must have a very profound one.
“Hmm,” said the sultan outside the tale, who was reclining naked in a bed and eyeing the approaching dawn. “That’s really not one of your better ones, sweetheart.”
“Oh dear,” said the young woman who’d told it, surreptitiously fondling her neck. “It’ll get more exciting soon, I promise.”
***
Just this past week I read Pratchett's Sourcery and shrieked with laughter over Creosote and the general piss-taking of the Orientalist tradition. I can't compete with the master, but I sure enjoy flopping along in my merry derivative way.
Enjoy! may it prove tantalizing to me and readers both. I am completely averse to the stick and very susceptible to the carrot. If it weren't for temptation I'd never have achieved anything ever in my life.
Have a chunk. From the middle, for maximum disorientation.
Should probably be noted this story is tending to get angsty on me whenever I turn my back on it. Revenge, I'm sure of it. In this segment, Aziraphale and Crowley have had a spat, and temporarily gone separate ways. Aziraphale has gone to Baghdad, and its famous library had nothing to do with his decision, of course. Crowley has gone north to the mountains of Persia to look in on his old pals the Assassins (whom he last, er, broke bread with during the First Crusade, in "Breathless Mouths May Summon"). Gone downhill since Hassan I Sabbah's day, that's for sure. In a sort of dreamtime, he encounters an acquaintance he'd rather not see. And he gets a warning of the Mongols' next bloody move.
There you have it, thought Crowley as the chill night wind raked the sands far below him. Haven’t learned a thing.
All above him, the stars blinked stupidly. All around him slept the most feared men of the age, so dreaded they were hardly men at all but phantoms, legends, dagger-clawed nightmares taking shape out of shadow, disappearing back in there as quickly as they’d come and leaving a fresh round of power vacuum in their impeccably tidy wake.
If they hadn’t existed, sultans and princes would have had to invent them to keep the fear going, because that was always productive. So was having someone to blame for the unfortunate accident of an inconvenient relative, even when the work was revealingly messy.
They worked cheap these days, Crowley had noticed. Didn’t have the pride they used to in their work. That was the whole point of what they did, Crowley’d thought – it was craftsmanship. You couldn’t mass-produce it. And you shouldn’t be able to buy with money the kind of horrific crimes that only ideology ought to inspire. The current Sheikh of the Mountain was the kind of spiritually-inbred twerp that the original would’ve used for novice practice.
Crowley stretched out his wings over the high walls of the mountain fortress where he lounged like a harem-gargoyle, and munched another chunk of greasy black hashish about the size of a dried fig.
It was probably a mistake, because wine had a way of making time go faster, but this stuff could slow time down to its very atoms. Another side effect it had was making Crowley’s access to human dreams not just easier, but downright involuntary. There were lots of them in this place—or rather, lots of humans dreaming pretty much the same dream, and it was generally a relaxing one, if terribly trite.
Crowley preferred not to dwell too much on the reasons why he might enjoy peeping in on rather kitschy dreams of Paradise and performing silent critiques. The babbling fountains, the roaming game, the trees with their improbable fruits of gigantic gaudy jewels…oh, for fuck’s sake, the trees…and for fuck’s sake, the virgins. Nice to look at but insipid. Blank-eyed dolls who never did anything that their imaginers didn’t imagine, and their imaginers didn’t have much imagination. At least Eve was capable of appreciating something resembling an original idea in her pretty little head once somebody else put it there.
Dying for these bland, unchanging tableaux was like dying for the privilege of watching paint dry. Or maybe something darker and duller than paint, considering who was involved.
The voice in Crowley’s head that argued with him was almost like Aziraphale’s. “Have you ever gone hungry long enough to envision Paradise as a whole lot of food?”
“No, I don’t think I can. And before you ask, I never went that long without sex either. Not since I’ve known what it is anyway.”
But Aziraphale wasn’t there, and so Crowley had to lie to himself, and that was no fun because he knew he was doing it.
So the dreams in themselves were dull as dirt and not nearly as earthy. Sometimes Crowley entertained himself by inspiring nightmares—baroque ones (Hieronymous Bosch. What a weirdo he would be). He still wasn’t sure where that incident with the tree of gold and the tree of silver and the giant spider that killed them came from (Now that’s a proper tale to scare the houseplants with) but it made a great diversion to make off with one of the virgins to see if she couldn’t be made a little less mindlessly demure. (She couldn’t.)
Not all the nightmares came from Crowley’s meddling, though. Sometimes he came face to face with something that naturally dwelled beneath the surface of a human mind, and if it could make an Assassin wake up screaming, chances were it was something that as yet unheard of in Hell.
In the present dream, that of a novice from just over the Amu Darya, the black-eyed houris of wordy and tedious praises looked a little rougher than the usual, which was promising. There might be a little spark there. As Crowley wandered about inciting a little dream-rebellion, his gaze locked for a moment on one most immodest, wearing a tunic and trousers that skimmed her long legs with lingering shivers, all in a very unvirtuous shade of red. When she pulled the veil from her red hair and her flawless feline face, Crowley froze as her very knowing eyes met his and her white teeth flashed.
“Good evening,” she said.
Crowley stammered. “So does this mean you’re a…”
“Watch it.” She had a wicked sharp dagger, curved like an elegant lie. Of course she did. She’d probably never have to use it, though.
You could raise impervious walls on a hostile mountain in a treacherous desert.
You could cultivate a reputation so terrifying demons told stories about you to frighten the imps.
You could steer empires with your hand by who you killed and who you didn’t.
You could even ban women from your colony.
But you couldn’t keep her out forever.
Crowley sat up shaking on the wall. The night was cold and sharp, like a blade hidden in snow.
He could see it now, as though she’d told him; they were coming. They were coming from the north. Suddenly Crowley got the feeling he was being surrounded by horses. Coming in in all directions, black, brown hairy steppe studs with their noses in flame, he saw horses.
They were stopping here to swat troublesome hornets. They were headed for Baghdad.
*** An Interlude of Narrative ***
--And the merchant said to the sultan, I shall tell thee my tale, and if I tell it not true, may Allah the All-Compassionate, All-Merciful strike me with lightning of agonising pain all through my body, boiling the water in my mouth and my eyes and my bowels until I am nothing but dessicated hunks of charred jerky littering the desert for the jackals to…
--Yes, yes, I get the idea. Go on then.
--Very well. As you are well aware, in the holy city of Baghdad there is a library that is like the very vaults of Paradise. A visitor here might naturally be mistaken in thinking at first that this is the palace of the Caliph himself, may blessings be upon him. Yet that would be only from his first glimpse of the stairs of marble veined in gold; should he venture further, past the fixtures of the door in the purest gold and silver, with gems glittering beyond all accounting, and gaze upon the very first doorway inside the courtyard where royal birds sing hymns from fountains of musk and milk…
--Musk and milk? Together?
--Bear with my artistic license, please. This is before the visitor even gets to the rooms of books, in which is accounted all the knowledge of the earth, and much that was thought lost in the fall of Adam, and much that was thought lost in the flood and the plagues, and also wise prophecies, but many of these treasures are buried in dusty chambers and have not been read for a thousand years, for atop them are still more books than can be read in seven generations, at the very top the latest debates of the greatest theologians of the present day.
--And these are the most beloved books of the wise people of the Holy City, these theological debates?
--No, that’s probably Sixty-Nine Exotic and Difficult Sarmatian Positions, actually. Although the prophecies concerning the racetrack and the end of the world are nearly as popular. Please stop interrupting, my lord.
--In truth I know you do not deceive me. You lack the imagination.
--Ahem! May Allah the All-Seeing tactfully ignore the insult you bear me. ANYWAY, this library was such that all beings on all corners of the earth who love knowledge could not help but to turn their hearts toward it, and one day a man arrived who was indeed a spirit in the flesh of a man, perhaps one of the djinn who follow the True Faith, for such exist, or perhaps even one of the very messengers of the Most High, like unto one who spoke with the Prophet Muhammed (PBUH).
--It’s not pronounced “pubuh,” you idiot. It’s an abbreviation.
--There is no acrimony in the heart of the True Faith. Do you speak apostasy and slander the most holy PBUH family?
--It’s not his surname, either.
--Excuse me. Allah the Keeper of All Wisdom understands that some of the worthier and wealthier classes were able to attend the madrassah and fall asleep over their Most Holy Book in the pleasant shade while others of us had to walk uphill both ways in the sandstorms to feed our families. On the Day of Judgment He will explain this better to the both of us.
--That Day may arrive before thou finishes this tale. So a djinn or an angel walks into a library…
--And when he saw the hallways of books that extended for many days’ journey in all directions, the light of the world was dark in his sight, and he crieth out, “Oh Allah Keeper of All Time, would that I, who liveth forever, had come to this place a thousand years sooner, for the world is mortal and I shall never finish all these books.”
--Now we’re getting somewhere. What happened then?
--He picked one up and started to read.
--And then?
--He kept on reading.
_And then?
--That’s it. He got really pissy when anyone bothered him, and after a while, no one did. As far as I know, he’s still there. The End.
--Hmm.
And the sultan spent the rest of the night pondering the meaning of this parable, for he was certain that such a pointless story must have a very profound one.
“Hmm,” said the sultan outside the tale, who was reclining naked in a bed and eyeing the approaching dawn. “That’s really not one of your better ones, sweetheart.”
“Oh dear,” said the young woman who’d told it, surreptitiously fondling her neck. “It’ll get more exciting soon, I promise.”
***
Just this past week I read Pratchett's Sourcery and shrieked with laughter over Creosote and the general piss-taking of the Orientalist tradition. I can't compete with the master, but I sure enjoy flopping along in my merry derivative way.
Enjoy! may it prove tantalizing to me and readers both. I am completely averse to the stick and very susceptible to the carrot. If it weren't for temptation I'd never have achieved anything ever in my life.
