"Call Me 'Tim'!"
The Journal of Feng Liang, Xianese Imperial Xenotheist
The 16th day of the Month of the Eagle in the 4,493 year of Her Imperial Majesty the Empress of Great Xian, Daughter of the Silver Dragon's Reign as Immortal Sovereign of the World
The Empress sent word that we were to wait for her in the courtyard of the cenobium. Her Presence came in commoner’s clothes and brought only the wizened, blind Alvus that had served as her Augur since before any could remember.
The Empress spoke thus: “The barbarian lands of the west roil again. The undead king has stirred that which had settled, and the long-dreaming horrors of the Second Age are waking from their slumber. The barbarians lack the knowledge and will to stop whatever is coming. We must prepare.”
Her Presence turned to the Augur who then produced a pure white duck from his satchel and ran a fine small blade through its belly. It felt no pain, only surprise as its entrails unspooled onto the stonework of the courtyard. We could not help but notice the foetid nature of the organs and that they were coal black with the slightest goniochromatism.
“Hmm, yes…” the ancient Augur croaked, “with the fall of the Collegium of Mages, many are seeking dangerous paths, old paths that the learned would fear. The ruins of the Djeti and Myrmex will be sought out. The old gods who had been subdued by the Rexans and their 'Ouranic Church' will be loosed by those searching for power who are too young to remember their horror.”
The Empress gave us full use of the occluded library, where the scholar-eunuches of the Imperial Censor kept books seized from cultists to be “burned.” We would be given access to the network, safehouses and supplies of the Saffron-Robed Guard1. If possible, we would contain any upwellings of chaos in the barbarian lands, recruiting locals to our purpose if necessary. If it was beyond our abilities, agents of The Empire would act more...aggressively.
...
The 26th day of the Month of the Elephant in the 4,495 year of Her Imperial Majesty the Empress of Great Xian, Daughter of the Silver Dragon's Reign as Immortal Sovereign of the World
When we reached the waystation at Balahk we were given our initial targets; brother Zhuge was being sent to the frontiers of Aerisca and I was to find a trade caravan and begin making my way south toward Ar-Shem, to study the rising al-Tariqa faith, then to Khemia in search of a Djeti temple mentioned in several tomes of the Rexan Collegium.
...
The 15th day of the Month of the Dragon in the 4,496 year of Her Imperial Majesty the Empress of Great Xian, Daughter of the Silver Dragon's Reign as Immortal Sovereign of the World
I have barely survived the Djeti temple-crypt. I evaded all of the traps and used the necromantic charms from Brother Xian to avoid the roaming dead.
In the deepest chamber of the temple there is a statue that seems carved from the heart of the world itself. It towers above the room both substantial and ethereal: a broad, flat, toad-like face sits high above the cavernous chamber as if resting on an invisible water line. It surveys the room with obsidian eyes set high and forwards on its face; the eyes have the sickly oil-slick sheen of the duck’s entrails from so many years ago. Whether the body is a tangle of tendrils or organs, I could not be sure. As I looked at them I began to have intrusive thoughts of venomous jellyfish, snakes, the entrails of an ancient warrior whose belly had been sliced open by a barbarian’s blade, eels who had been skinned alive and writhed exposed to the air in a bucket while an old woman with a homemade knife chittered gossip to her friend. If I looked anywhere but directly at them they would squirm like a serpent’s mating ball, but would snap back to solidity when I turned directly toward them. I knew that these... tendrils continued below the floor, wending their way into the roots of the world.
I remembered my training and slowed my breathing. I crept closer to a Djeti inscription near the statue. The dialect was odd and I realized that glyphs I did not know had meaning and sound in my mind.
Scratched below it was an even older inscription barely legible to my eyes but sharp to my mind. Certain glyphs had crumbled under the weight of time, leaving on “Look upon me and call me 'T-IM'.” I laughed at how ridiculous it was and looked up to joke “Well hey 'Tim', I’m…” but as soon as I spoke his name, I felt the wind leave my lungs.
I do not know how long I lay there floating in the space between worlds. Eventually I awoke to an alien world seen through alien eyes. Clouds of orange and white floating on a clear sea with eddies of pale blue and silver. I felt long tendrils draw nourishment into my being from the waters below and felt the presence of others like me. It was peaceful.
"Tim," in some ancient past, had sown strife and had gathered followers promising them unlimited power and immortality. He gathered them together, united them under his will and channeled esoteric energies through them igniting his world into a sun which would be his vehicle to the heavens. For a moment he had glorious communion with the universe, but it was not enough, the sun died before it was born and his world was left a fiery tomb. The collapse cast him out, in energetic form, among the stars where he floated senseless.
Aeons passed and he was eventually stirred by the emanations of a world he did not recognize. The Myrmex and Djeti were performing experiments with Second Age energies they did not understand and it drew him from the void. He appeared to them and saw greed in their hearts. He promised them unlimited power and immortality if they submitted to his will. The Myrmex rejected him, but many Djeti believed and followed him. For tens of thousands of years, the Djeti sacrificed countless Men, Alvi, and Kazma upon their altars of blackest obsidian to slake their dark god's eternal hunger.
I woke on the floor of the temple, my grandfather’s silver circlet said to protect against invasions of the mind had become brittle and cracked when I fell. I could feel the vexation of this Tim in the back of my mind, trapped in stone, and thwarted, at least temporarily, by a family heirloom. I gathered myself and escaped the temple as quickly as I could. Tim is clearly beyond me...possibly beyond the Empire. I will find a caravan tonight and send this journal to the spymasters of the Saffron-Robed Guard.
Source: Xianese journal scrap, partially burned, found in the middle of an abandoned Cynocephalian settlement. Date unknown.
