Dhul-Qarnayn, he of two ages

[Hesitation marks]

There was hate, unbridled and fervent in the Highest Praetor's eyes. The scar that ran over his face writhed with every spat curse, every enunciation and denouncement, a disfigurement animated by anger. Saliva dripped from his lips, hitting the floor and the stone of his scarred podium.

I sat, garbed in my father's clothes with his blood marking my lips, marking my tongue, marking my teeth. Marking every word I said, only stoking the flames of the Praetor's rage. What I said was irrelevant; he only heard the sound of my father's tearing flesh and the splatter of crimson that followed obediently after speech. He only saw my father's helmet clutched in my greedy fingers, like the prize that it was.

The crowd behind me murmured, and I felt their narrowed eyes rake my back, scratch and tear into it with disgust and I heard the acid that tumbled from their whispers. I was stained by more than blood, and with every syllable the Praetor dirtied me further.

My judgement was summed up quickly, with only a modicum of pomp.

"To wet one's dagger in the blood of yourself is a crime with no equal," he began, not even deigning to look at me, "but this creature, no longer Orc, no longer truly an individual, has taken it further. He has whet himself on his own flesh, ripped and torn, drank," the Praetor paused then, politely allowing the crowd a few gasps, "the very thing that has brought him forth from nothing-"

In a truly bureaucratic fashion, he continued on like this for an extraordinarily lengthy period of time, before surprising me with an act a stauncher traditionalist could have construed as dishonourable.

"-and so I will take his life myself, with my blade. I will wipe our Gathrillmogg clean in his blood!" With that he drew his bejeweled blade from its place with a loud screaming sound probably enhanced by a scabbard designed to do so. In retrospect, perhaps it was the scream of the crowd. I find that moment particularly hazy.

I put on my father's helm, and with it I dressed myself with my father's face. I leapt for the Praetor.

It is a feeling like no other to let what I am bubble forth from my hands, with intent to drain and wither a thing until it is only dust. Until it is only ash. It is beyond pleasure, beyond orgasm -- it defies language in a way that can only be described as so.

When I pulled myself from the thin, broken bones of the Praetor, the acidic whispers had evaporated. There was fear now, for the moment, and I rode that fright and that tremble to escape. Not a single soul dared to even raise his voice in protest as I pushed open the Great Gate.

An endless, yawning darkness stretched before me, and I marched into it.

[Hesitation marks]

-and for much time I wandered, lost. I know not how many cycles I spent amidst the stone and the dark. All that I know is of how it felt, and it felt as I imagine an eternity might, an eternity flecked still with the dried life of my father. It was a stain I could not seem to ever wash; to look upon those now blackened droplets brought nothing to me aside from brief, hollow flickers of memory.

Within the dark of tunnels that stretched on without remit, I grew careless and heedless with my magick, enjoying an emptiness in the air that I had never felt before. I sent it splaying unto all living things that I found, turning all of them to dust and bone. To ash.

In time, I realised I could not stop. It was a reflex, a rapid spasm of muscles and lips that occurred at the sight of any creature unfortunate enough to have my eyes lay upon it. To go without, those long periods where there was nothing but stone upon stone upon stone I became consumed with an acute, hunger. Sweat rolled from my face and my body ached with the shrill screaming of agony.

I was an animal, driven by base instinct. The thing that had elevated me over all others of my kind, had turned me into a beast, a ravening thing that knew only hunger and urge.

It was like that I would have perished, as a creature indignified and ugly, were it not for the witch. She whispered unto my ears soothing things, and showed me her own ashes; this witch taught me of myself, of how to control and suppress the hungering gnaw in my soul.

In time she took me for her own, the ultimate vanity -- she had taken now her teachings in every way, including the closest thing they could be to the physical. Still I wore my father's clothes, somehow still stained by his blood and upon my head still rest my father's helm.
For a long time I stayed there,-

***

"You are too beautiful," I ventured, carefully, "like a dream."

"Yes, Magog," she nodded in slow assent, "but it is time to wake."

I ran my hand over her empty scalp.

***

I ran my hand through her ashes. There was nothing left to teach.

I walked into the dark, yet again.