The Book of Eschaton
Vampire the Requiem - Covenant - Lancea Sanctum
Vampire the Requiem - The Testament of Loginus
Vampire the Requiem - The Testament of Loginus
Finally, Eschaton contains a number of prophecies spoken by Longinus to guide his descendants and prepare them for the judgment of God. Unfortunately, Longinus chose to mask his visions in cryptic verses that defy easy analysis, and Eschaton has produced more schisms than accurate predictions of historical events. However, many Sanctified scholars fervently point to specific passages of Eschaton to show that Longinus predicted everything from the rise of Charlemagne to the Protestant Reformation to the assassination of JFK. Eschaton is most important to the core body of Lancea Sanctum faith for its predictions regarding the ultimate fate of the Damned. While vampires, obviously, can be meet Final Death, they are deathless unless slain, and thus potentially able to endure until the Day of Judgment. The final chapters of Eschaton suggest that a vampire who fulfills the role for which God has chosen her and survives until the End of Days may seek absolution for all her sins. If her contrition is genuine, God will grant her absolution, thereby proving that His Infinite Grace is available to even the most corrupt and debased creatures. The vampire, now truly Sanctified, will ascend to Heaven as a reward for her acceptance of the burden of vampirism. The book cautions, however, that absolution will not be available to those who deny their vampiric natures. Those who believe that Humanity can be retained through personal willpower alone are guilty of the sin of Pride and will not be welcomed into the Kingdom of Heaven.
The Book of Eschaton
The Book of
the Eschaton
1. I am the bearer of the Spear. I am the one who pierced the side of Christ, who bore the curse for my sins as Christ died and rose for the sins of humanity. 2I set these things down so that you who are Damned, as I am, might understand what I have seen and learn from it, and understand.the Eschaton
3This is my vision, granted to me by God.
4I saw these things, and I know they are to come. But I do not know when they are to come, and so you, my descendants in blood and faith, must be prepared. It shall come like a ghost in the night, silent and invisible and made of terror.
5I was a sinful man, the most sinful of men, and I blasphemed, and for my blasphemy I commit even more blasphemies, so that I may be redeemed. I am a monster, but I am a monster for the sake of Heaven, and I am a monster so that others may become monsters with purpose. 6For having no purpose is the foundation of all sins in the eyes of God.
7This is the vision imparted to me by the angel Amoniel of the Dominions and the archangel Vahishtael.a b
8To all you who read this prophecy, you share in my curse; hear these words, and take them and make them your own, and you are Sanctified.
9Woe to you, Jerusalem! For you crucified the Savior of the Living, and placed upon the shoulders of the Soldier the burden of carrying the word of the Damned. The curses that await Jerusalem are terrible. 10War shall take
a One of the choirs of angels. The Latin, rather than use dominatio, as it does elsewhere in Esch. uses here the Hebrew hashmallim in three texts; in the remainder the variant qashmallim. According to most Christian hierarchies of angels, the Dominions are the highest angels of the Second Sphere, above the Virtue and Powers; they come below the angels of the First (Cherubim, Seraphim, Ophanim) and above the angels of the Third (Principalities, archangels, angels), meaning that in occult terms, Amoniel is above Vahishtael in authority. On the other hand, the scheme found in the Apostolic Constitution attributed to St. Clement of Rome places archangels above the Dominions, at ninth and eleventh place in the hierarchy respectively. Here, the two figures are barely differentiated, nor are they described in any physical terms. VB
b The lack of description or personalities ascribed to Amoniel and Vahishtael beyond their names suggests simple abstracts, the psychological mechanics of prophesy personified in the most basic terms. Whether such beings exist is outside of the scope of our work, but the appearance of such beings in the Testament in such abstract terms should not be seen as evidence, let alone proof of the existence of these beings. CP
you, war upon war, and the Damned shall rise up from beneath your city and feast upon the blood that shall run through the streets like a river, the blood of the young man, his body impaled on sword and javelin and arrow; and they shall feast upon the blood of the child, his head smashed against the stone walls of the city; and they shall feast upon the woman, violated and dismembered. 10Woe upon you, seventy woes and seventy times seven, you Damned who reject the true purpose of God, 11who crucify the dead and face them to the sunrise that they might be consumed!
12I shall return to you, Jerusalem, and I shall repeat my prophecy of judgment upon you, 13and I and the progeny of the Sanctified shall lap up your blood, and the blood your wives and your children, and I shall watch them, and I shall laugh.
2. The Angel Amoniel of the Dominions came to me and took me to the desert, beneath the moon, and Amoniel lifted up a locust, and said, 2“See the locust; see how alone it feeds and does not change the world, and see how in its numbers it shall swarm across the earth and bring devastation, because it is the vessel of God’s judgment.
3“And see how the locust shall survive.” 4Amoniel took me to the edge of a pit, and took me to its edge and said, “See inside the pit, Soldier,” and I saw inside the pit, and saw that it was black inside and deeper than I could see, 5and I said, “I cannot see to the bottom.”c 6Amoniel said, “Just so,” and thrust me into the pit and I fell for a thousand years, and a second thousand years, and I came to the bottom of the pit and I was dashed against the rocks in the darkness. 7And my body was broken, and my blood flowed out over the rocks, and I saw as my face was pressed to the ground, that the locust was there, and beside it all of its brothers, millions upon millions, 8and they were divided into five armies, each a different color: red, green, white, black and yellow. 9And the yellow army devoured the white army; the red army devoured the yellow army; the green army devoured the red army; and the black army devoured the green army. 10The black army turned and looked at me, as though one creature, and swarmed upon me and gained ingress to my body by every orifice, through my nose and ears and mouth and nethers, and through my eyeballs, 11and they ate me from within, and took a hundred years to do so, and I was aware of them, and knew every bite, 12and I felt every brush of their fingers. 13I knew pain. 14And finally I was a hollow skin and locusts swarmed in my gut and my lungs and my mouth and in the sockets of my eyes, and in my flesh, 15and I stood, and I was like a bag made of leather, filled with leaves, and my flesh rattled, for it was filled with locusts. 16Amoniel appeared and said to me, “The locusts shall endure forever, indeed, up to the execution of all things.”
3. He turned and pointed. 2I saw illuminated at the bottom of the pit a far-off city that looked strange to me, for it was made of towers of glass and silver, and I saw it fall into ruin, and I saw black locusts swarm over the build-
c A note on translation: the language of the whole of Esch. is associative, headlong and hallucinatory; chapters 2 through 4 are in fact a single sentence in the original Latin. This offers challenges for the translator, obviously, but demands at the least a document that reflects that to some degree, while still being intelligible to the modern reader. CP
ing. 3Amoniel motioned again, and I was in the city, and shrieking things like birds or bats grew and swarmed through the broken glass of the city towers. 4The city was full of bones, and the sky was black, for the sun was black, and I said, “How can this happen?”
5Amoniel said, “It is the ordained end of all things, as God has decided in his plan” 6and I looked again, and I saw the souls of the righteous swept away in light that blinded, and people weeping in the streets, and the black locusts everywhere, 7and as I watched, I saw that the black locusts were the Sanctified, in robes of charnel black. 8They swarmed through bloody streets of rubble, and pounced upon the living and drank their fill, 9and they drank with abandon and joy, 10and they sang praises to God for ending all things and making them the tools of His judgment. 11Their voices rose to the sky and the black sun sand back.
12Amoniel said, “Your progeny will be like the locust, and survive until the end of all things, because their purpose is to test the human race, 13and to visit God’s wrath on the remnant of humanity that remains, and none shall survive.
14I saw riding through the streets of this strange city one of the Damned, and he was riding a white horse, and he carried something like a bow. 15He wore a crown on his head and carried a bow. Amoniel said, “His name is Pestilence.” 16A second horse followed, a red horse, and its Damned rider carried a great sword. And Amoniel said, “His name is Conflict.” 17There followed a third horse; it was black, and the Damned on the horse held a pair of measuring scales, and he cried out: “A cup of wheat for a day’s pay, and a spoonful of barley for a day’s pay, and the olive oil and the wine shall not be shared,”d and Amoniel said, “His name is Famine.” 18The next horse was gray, and its rider held in his Damned hand a pair of dice and a sling, and Amoniel said, “His name is Chance.”e 19And the last horse was pale and ridden with pus and scabs, and its rider was not Damned, but wore a hood and could not be seen, except that he carried a scythe, and behind him followed an owl. 20And Amoniel said, his name is Death, and he has been given the authority over one fourth of the living to kill with sword and famine, pestilence and chance.” 21“And what does the Owl signify?” I asked. 22Amoniel replied, “The owl is charged to bring to justice the Damned.” 23And I saw that the owl that pursued Death was made of smoke, and that its eyes gleamed in the light of the black sun.
4. Amoniel led me to a high place overlooking a plain, 2and on the plain every one of the Damned of earth was made to kneel, 3and a chain was put around every neck. 4And the Owl multiplied in number, and became a swarm of wings and eyes. 5And the Owl and its brothers rested on every head; 6on some, the Owls wrought terrible tortures, and gouged holes in the faces of the Damned, and nested inside them, and destroyed them. 7And some begged the Owls to enter inside them, and they became
d Compare Revelation 6:1-8; but particularly v.6. CP
e The Apocalypse of St. John must, by the time that Esch. was written, have been wellknown. Which is all the more confusing that a fifth horseman was added to the ranks of the Horsemen of the Apocalypse. We are inclined to think it an invention of the author. CP
demons, chained forever on this plain. 8And some the Owls abandoned, and the chains of these Damned loosened, and they strode forward, and the ground opened up, and they rushed into the chasm, rejoicing. 9And one of the Damned who stood, a woman in red, stood alone, and fell down on her knees and prayed. 10She begged God for forgiveness, and begged that Christ accept her, and vowed that she would drink no more of any blood save the Blood of Christ, and the sky opened, and the light of Heaven consumed her. 11I saw that she was taken into Heaven, and that she was no longer Damned, but living, and perfected.
9I asked Amoniel, “What does this signify?” 10Amoniel replied, “The ones whom the Owls consume are the Damned who strive to retain the semblance of their human nature without accepting the will of God and the way of the Sanctified. They deny that they are Damned, and will always fail, and the will of Hades destroys them.
11“And the ones who accept the Owls into themselves and become the Owls’ slaves and demons chained forever, 12they are the Damned who do not even try to retain their human natures. They were monsters, all of them, with no thought of God or man.
13“And the ones who are freed, they are the Sanctified, and they shall be freed, and they shall be taken into Hell, because they are Damned, and there they shall be kings, and administer the torments of Damnation upon the guilty and the ignorant forever, and rejoice in it.”
14“And what of the woman in red?” I asked. “That is not for me to describe,” replied the angel.f 15And he took me away from that place.
5. We turned away from the plain and came to a field on the far side of the mountain. Amoniel took me now to an even field, where a battle raged between two armies of men and women alike; 2they were naked and bore no weapons, and as I watched, some became wolves; some became huge beasts something like a bear and something like a wolf and not in whole like either; and some became terrible beasts with the heads of wild dogs, and matted hair, and claws, 3and the army on the lower ground, who were less numerous, surrounded a crowd of innocents, whom they sought to protect, and were outnumbered; 4And the larger army on the higher ground protected no one and sought to devour the innocents and licked their lips and screamed their intent at the innocents and their protectors. 5Behind them were spirits of every shape, spirits like spiders and rats and spirits like columns of stone and spirits like great wheeled wagons and the Owls who had judged the Damned, 6And I knew that the hope of the innocents of the earth lay with the smaller army on the lower ground. 7As I watched, the two armies of beast-who-were-men joined in battle and the smaller army was killed, and the greater army
f The controversies surrounding this passage, from which many infer that the Damned can somehow regain a state of living grace through prayer and repentance rage more fiercely than any other Longinian doctrinal schism. Myths among other Covenants of some mythical state of “Golconda” encourage some commentators to see this as an affirmation of that belief. But many believe that this apparent state of grace is only likely to happen at the very end of time, and not before. VB
fell upon the innocents, 8and pulled them limb from limb, and sank great teeth into the innocents’ throats and pulled out their entrails and draped them from bushes and tree branches.
9And the spirits like spiders and rats and the spirits like columns of stone and the spirits like great wagons swept across the world and made its people their playthings, and hollowed them out, and dwelt within clothes of flesh. And the Owls had dominion over all. And I said to Amoniel the angel, “What does this mean?” and the angel said, “This is not for you to understand. This is only for you to set down that others might understand.”
6. And we turned away, and came to a place like a garden, and in the middle of the square was a high statue of a maiden wearing a robe; 2its feed were of lead, its legs were of iron; it had guts made of tin and its breast was copper. Its head was gold.
3Around it stood a throng of creatures that looked like men and women. 4I saw that some were made of clay, and some were made of stone, and some were made of the members of corpses, sewn together in some haphazard fashion that I could not fathom. And the ground beneath their feet grew filthy at their touch, and the grass yellowed and died, and the flowers wilted. 5And as I watched, the throng fell to their knees as one, and prayed to God to free them from their torment.
6The statue opened its mouth, and vomited a stream of vitriol that covered the throng and blasted the ground. 7The creatures screamed, and some of them fell and were consumed, and were no more. 8And some were changed by the vitriol, and grew limbs and eyes where they had had none and screamed in hate and fear, and ran away. 9But a few, five in number, stood, and when the flow from the statue’s mouth had ceased, stood among the corpses and the dead earth, and they were men and women, 10and they waited for God to judge them, and Damn them or raise them up.
11And I said to Amoniel the angel, “What does this mean?” and the angel said, “This is not for you to understand. This is only for you to set down that others might understand.”
7. We came to a great mountain, and a vast door of iron was set into the mountainside. 2A thousand times a thousand men and women who had skins of snow and rain, and the claws and feet of beasts, and eyes made of night and many other things. 3They hammered at the door and clamored for it to open. 4The door opened, and the people rushed in, and the creatures behind the door looked like demons, and some of them were beautiful and some were hideous. 5The demons begged for mercy, and vowed that they had loved the people and had not meant to harm them, 6and the people stormed the place behind the mountainside and put the demons to the sword, and took their place, 7and they despoiled the earth and went out, and took slaves just as the demons had once done.
11And I said to Amoniel the angel, “What does this mean?” and the angel said, “This is not for you to understand. This is only for you to set down that others might understand.”
8. Amoniel took me to the top of the mountain, and he pointed upwards. 2A war raged in heaven. 3But angels did not fight; the soldiers were men and women who wielded fire in their hands, 4who spoke in a language I could not understand and made the words come true, who lifted stones without touching them and moved without seeming to move. 5And they carried the standards of angels and dragons, and slew each other with abandon, 6and their corpses fell to the ground like rain.
7When only two of the soldiers remained, Heaven cracked open, and the two, a man and a woman, 8rushed to the door in the sky and fought to gain entry, 9and neither gained entry, but the fire they wielded destroyed the door in the sky and broke open the sky, so that each was consumed and died, 10and the sky erupted in light, and I cowered, for I thought it would destroy me. 11But the angel Amoniel said, “Look,” and I looked, and saw that the Earth below was consumed in fire. 12And then darkness came, and I knew that in the battle, God had died.
13And I said to Amoniel the angel, “What does this mean?” and the angel said, “This is not for you to understand. This is only for you to set down that others might understand.”
9. In the space below the war in Heaven that had destroyed Heaven and killed God, a few people stood, men and women. I saw that they were dying: some had been run through with spears, and some had fallen, and some had been eaten by wild beasts, and some had been poisoned, and some had starved, and some had tripped and fallen and had died thanks to nothing more than ill fortune. 2And as the ghosts of the dead rose from the ground and tried to reach Heaven, but could not, the dying men and women reached up with weak hands 3and seized the ghosts and swallowed them, and became whole again. They stood up and said to each other, 4“God is dead, and mortals can do whatever they want, without fear of judgment or hell, and we shall conquer death and receive with joy this second chance we have received.”
5They left that place, then. And they sang songs, which were not of praise for God or the Devil, but songs of hope and life and the body.
6 And I said to Amoniel the angel, “What does this mean?” and the angel said, “This is not for you to understand. This is only for you to set down that others might understand.”
10. And I turned, and Amoniel was gone, and I was surrounded on the mountainside by poor men and women. 2They bore candles, and stakes of wood. 3They meant to kill me. It was as if I was already bound, for I could not fight. 4And a stake of wood pierced my heart and I did not know any more.
5I awoke at the bottom of the pit, in the darkness, and my body was broken. I stayed there for seven nights, and fed from the rats. 6The blood of the rats turned to ash in my mouth, but I could still use it to mend my bones and heal my skin. 7When I had healed my skin, I slumbered again, until such time as I was ready to climb to the top of the pit. 8I dug my hands into the earth of the pit and climbed its side for two nights, until I came to the top. 9I pulled myself out of the pit and stood, and screamed at the sky, 10And when I had finished screaming, I looked down and saw in the earth at my feet the dice that the Gray Horseman had borne.g
11I praised God and my Damnation, and thought of the visions I had seen, and thought to write them down. 12I slumbered, and awoke. 12God supplied for me a Naziriteh and I praised God that I could feed and be strong once more. 13I buried the Nazirite’s remains, because he was a holy man, and 14the remains of a holy man must demand respect, even if I torture and kill him.i 15And then I waited in the desert for the other angel.
11. Vahishtael came to me and said, “It is coming soon!j
2“Red suns and rains of fire will take you all.
3“You must build a sanctuary underground, in the catacombs, in the manner that Noah built a great Ark to sail over the waters with the animals of the Earth, and kept a pair of every animal that was not good to eat, and seven pairs of every animal that was good to eat.
4“And your kine must be hind-legged. You must take twenty for you and each of your disciples, and ten more that you may make of them progeny when the forty nights have passed.”
5I said to Vahishtael, “Why not make progeny of the ten when the time underground begins?”
6Vahishtael said “For they will fight you for the kine; no, better to feed them the remains of the other kine and instruct them in their Damnation, so that they will be ready for the Embrace.”
7So in my dream, I went to Jerusalem and I found disciples, and there were six, and I instructed each to find twenty hind-legged kine, and to chain them around their necks, and to cut out their tongues and to castrate the males and shave their hair and brand them with my mark.
8And I found twenty of my own kine and ten more, five males and five females, and with regards to these ten, I chained them round the neck and
g Chapters 5 through 9 have always engaged readers in heavy controversy as to what they mean, but while a few concrete theories exist, and have numerous proponents who are sure of their truth (see Moon, A Survey of the Imagery of Longinus, pp49-71), the significance of the dice eludes even the most doctrinaire of Sanctified ideologues. A separate tradition maintains that Longinus gave the dice to the Monachus and that they were thrown at the deconsecration of the Black Abbey. The Sanctified of Milan claim to have the actual dice in their possession. VB
h A kind of holy man. Specifically, a holy man who had taken a vow of chastity and poverty. The name is misleading, since the true Nazirites had died out several centuries before, but understandable. John the Baptist was an example of the kind of man incorrectly labeled this way. CP
i Early versions of the Catechism contained v.14 verbatim as a commandment. CP
j If chapters 1-10 could be said to be opaque in meaning, the remainder of Esch. is practically pathological in its bizarre imagery and inconsistent language. The earliest texts are all but indecipherable in the later chapters, as if the scribes didn’t know what to do with it (indeed, a legend among the medieval Sanctified suggests that it was the fate of the scribe who copied Esch. to go insane). CP
I shaved their heads, but did not cut out their tongues, nor did I castrate the males. 9I led them into the catacombs, and confined them. 9We appointed a vast chamber under the ground with places for the kine we were to consume would stay, and we chained them naked to the walls and to each other, and we gave them no beds, and let them flow their filth onto the ground where they stood, for they were only kine, and the Sanctified do not need to excrete or give water. 10We made a smaller chamber for the kine to whom we intended the Dark Gift, and they were chained together and to the wall, but they had buckets for their filth, and blankets on the ground, and they wore robes.
10When all was prepared, we closed the entrances to our sanctuary with stones and I gave confession to my disciples and to the ten kine we had chosen to be Damned.
11We fed each night from the kine, and when one died, we ground him up and gave him as food to the other kine, to those whom we favored and those whom we only sought to consume. But we were Damned, and we fell to fighting among ourselves. 12And some of use grew too hungry, and gorged themselves on the kine, and many more kine died than should have; 13and some argued over the kine that remained, and the Beasts within us made us attack each other, 14and by the seventh night, all of the kine and all of my disciples were dead.
15I could not move the stones alone, and I lay in the blood that filled the catacomb and laughed at how absurd this was.
16Vahishtael came to me then through a doorway of dark light, and I could hear the bells chime, and the creak of the rack, and the ringing chains, and the screams of the Fallen behind him.k
17He said to me, “Why do you laugh?”
18I replied, “For I have learned that the Damned must not make our own salvation.
19Because we can only destroy what plans we make; because we are Damned.”
20Vahistael said, “And so you have learned wisdom.” I awoke then, and hunted.
12. Vahishtael came on a second night. 2He lifted me up and carried me to a place by a black sea that extended forever, where vast waves crashed out on rocks, 3and the rocks screamed for mercy, and no one heard them. 4The archangel set me atop the cliff and said, “Look, and tell me what you have seen, Soldier.”
5I looked, and I said, “I have seen Jesus’ sleeping cavalry,l who stare out across the open sea behind closed eyes.
6 “I have seen Jesus’ sleeping cavalry, and they seem like they might sleep forever.”
k Often interpreted to mean that Vahishtael is a fallen angel. VB
l Translated most popularly, of course, as the anachronistic “Sleeping Knights of Jesus.” CP
7We walked between them, as they waited on their dead horses, and as we passed each man, I saw that each had on his breastplate the thing that had killed him: 8this one had died of hunger, and had lain in a gutter; 9this one had given himself to wine and had ruined his body, and had died in his own effluent; this one was killed in fire; 10this one clutched his head one day and died; this one had died of tumors in his chest.
11The angel said, “They wait for the return, and they are fools. For they put their faith in God, and he does not expect them; 12better for them to put their faith in Death, for Death asks nothing and gives no more than God, or in the void that surrounds the bowl of the sky, which does not exist. 13But God will not bless those who waste their faith on Him.m n
14And Vahishtael pointed, and said, “See, here comes Christ, to judge the earth in glory.”
15I looked to the edge of the sky and the horizon of the infinite sea, and saw Christ walk towards us over the water, and saw him in light and power, 16but saw also that he was in decrepit old age, and only the eyes I recognized as the eyes of Christ, but in those eyes I saw fear and anger.
17I asked Vahishtael, “How long has He waited to come?”
18Vahishtael replied, “Thousands of years.”
m Which sentiment, indeed the whole sentiment of this passage, runs almost directly counter to the doctrine of the Sanctified patriarchy, and which is hence ignored, swept under the carpet or explained away weakly. This, in my opinion is the essential problem with fundamentalist interpretations of any Scripture: although the fundamentalist claims that his is a holistic interpretation of the Scriptures, and decries any alternative interpretation as the intellectual fallacy of one who “picks and chooses,” the fact is that the Testament is, as a whole, the work of at least three authors, maybe as many as eight, and is undeniably, aggressively contradictory.
Everyone who takes the Testament of Longinus as a significant religious text, “useful for teaching and rebuking,” picks and chooses the aspects and attitudes he finds that conform with his view of the world. Mostly, these are the patriarchal interpretations imposed upon us by hierarchies and power structures that inhabit our philosophical discussions and evict new ideas.
But even in the age of the Testament, readers picked and readers chose. The separate books that comprise the Testament may not have taken as long to compose and compile as that text, but they come from different sources and reflect different attitudes to religion and Damnation. Longinus, the Monachus and the anonymous narrator of Sang. are mouthpieces for several voices with several agendas, from the authors of Mal. through to the writer or writers of Esch.
How can we as believers hope to reconcile this strange, violent collection of texts with the agendas of a patriarchal power structure that applies hard and fast rules, and appoints officials and scholars by committee on the basis that they are least objectionable to all parties concerned? Scripture is slippery in its meaning, and difficult in its interpretation. CP
n The passage here is problematic, but not without interpretation in the light of the other writings of Longinus. The simple fact — confirmed by the Catechisms and the deuterocanonical Teachings (see Appendix II) — is that the Damned and the living alike are not required to have what living Protestant Christians might recognize as justifying faith. The faith of the Sanctified is a faith of praxis, of deed, as presented in the martyrdoms of Sang. where the Five each become perfected in their miracles and the way in which they each face a final death for the sake of the Spear and the believer. The personal, individualistic faith of the Protestant is worthless, because it has no corporate basis (as expressed in the Catechism only corporate, active expression of faith can Sanctify. This is clearly what Vahishtael means. VB
19I lowered my head. But Vahishtael said to me, “Wait! They are awakening!”
20The dead men on the horses awakened like a child awakens, and looked up and recoiled in horror from the sight of Jesus approaching, because he was old and weak, and they had expected the Christ to return in power, not in decrepitude.
21And one turned and saw me standing in their midst, and he recognized me for what I was, and as one the sleeping cavalry now awakened, reared their dead horses, and rounded on me, and began to pierce me with spears, and Vahishtael was not anywhere.
2I screamed, then, and felt the wood pierce my heart once more. And I did not know any more. And my dream ended.
13. A third night, Vahishtael came to me again, and said to me, “Come, and I will show you the creatures that you must know of, and understand. 2You shall teach your disciples of their existence.”
3He showed to me a vast book. On every page was an engraving of a demon, and the engravings moved, and looked out at me, and the angel spoke and laid all these things bare.
4 He showed me a dead man, gnawing at the hand of a child, and sucking at the blood. And its eyes stared at me, and no mind was within. And it was a beast with the semblance of a man. 5Vahishtael said, “Know the Larvae, that rise when you are careless, or when you do not have the will to create progeny, or when you are cursed, or when you are lost to sin and cannot return. 4Spurn those who make the Larvae with knowledge. Do not accept them into your assemblies. 5And do not allow a Larva to walk. Destroy the Larvae when you can.”
6He showed me one of the Damned, but a Damned man so mired in his sin that he could not repent, and could only hunger. 7I recognized that such things exist, and I told Vahishtael, and 8he said to me, “But see how this one hides what he is, so that the Damned think him only one mired in sin as are they, and not a beast with no desire other than to feast on the living and the dead alike. 9Destroy those who have sold themselves to their sin. Do not allow them to speak to you. Do not hear their lies.”
10And then he showed me a child, and I looked upon her and could see only an innocent, 11and I thirsted, and wished her nearby, so that I could feed from her. 12But the angel said, “If you fed from her, you would meet you doom, because your blood would be poisoned and would not call to blood. 13She is a child of the union between the Damned and the living, and her blood is made as a lure to you, 14so that you smell it, and want it, and drink of it, 15but when you drink of it, you lose your way, and you lose your perceptions, and you are doomed. 16Do not allow the Damned to procreate with the living. 17Do not allow the children of such unions to live. Kill them, and do not drink their blood, 18for the blood of the half-Damned is unclean, and anathema to you.”
19He showed me a statue made of stone, put in a high place, that looked like a twisted man with wings, and horns and teeth. 20I watched, and its wings flapped, and its hands twisted and moved. 21And below, I saw one of the Damned raise his hands and direct the thing, and it did his bidding. 22Vahishtael said. “This thing has no will; it is mute stone. But it is a blasphemy, and the Damned who creates it must pay account.”
23He turned the page, and showed me a picture of one of the Damned, who clutched his throat and looked terribly ill. 24I watched, and the Damned began to vomit, and a string of white flesh came from his mouth. 25The flesh gathered itself, and became a little figure with arms and legs and with no face, only a mouth like a lamprey’s mouth. 26The creature stumbled towards the sickened Damned and threw itself upon him. 27I saw the sickened Damned scream silently, and beat at the creature, 28but it defeated him and burrowed into his flesh, and drank his blood and his soul, and he crumbled to ash. 29Vahishtael said, “He was unclean in his feeding, and took the blood that carried the worm. 30The worm fed on the blood of the Damned, and grew, and envied him, and fed upon him when it was ready. 31Make laws to ensure that the Damned feed upon the clean, and do not allow the unclean to walk among you, and make them do penance if they survive the worm. 32For the worm must not continue to feed.”
33He turned the page once more and showed me a picture of a man who stood before the altar of the Damned, and spat upon it, and dashed the censer, candles and hosts beneath his feet. 34The man turned and looked out of the picture at me, and smiled, and I could see fire burning in his eyes. 35Behind him I could see his ancestors, mothers and fathers, and seven generation in the past, 36I saw among the men and women of his line a devil from Hell, and I knew that the man carried the blood of that devil in his veins. 37Vahishtael said, “This man is one of many of his kind, the children of Satan, whose blood awakens after seven generations and who choose to serve their own ends, 38or to destroy the Sanctified. 39Fear him, and kill him, no matter his intentions, for the Devil’s childen on earth are an abomination, and must not be allowed to live.”
40On the last page, I saw an Owlo made of smoke. I trembled, for I knew that the Owls were more dreadful than any of the other monsters I had seen. 41The Owl flew towards a dead man hanging from a tree and became smoke and entered into the corpse. 42The corpse moved, and came down from the tree. 43The Owl was in the corpse’s eyes, and they glowed. 44The corpse with the Owl inside it waited by the street and ambushed the living who passed, and killed them and drank their blood. 45And each time, it stole a new body from the people it had killed, now a soldier, now a Holy man, now a young woman, now an old woman. And always, the yellow gleam was in the Owl’s eye. 46Presently, one of the Damned came by, and the Owl beat him down and entered him, and the Damned became his slave. 47The Owl kept the body, and wreaked havoc with it, and the Assembly of the Sanctified was in ruins, as I saw the Owl whisper and make strife among the faithful. 48And it opened the doors of the courts of the Damned, and a flock of the Owls came, and flooded into that place, and stole our bodies and crushed our souls, 49and made the living suffer ten or
o Latin strix, strigis. CP
a dozen times what we had, and not for the Purpose of God, but for the pleasure of it. Vahistael said, “Fear the Owls, and always remain vigilant. 50Drive them into the sunshine, and do not allow the ones who deal with them to have any hope of survival, or any trial, or any forgiveness. 51The Damned who deals with the Owls is cursed, and doubly cursed, and has no right even to Hell.”
52Vahishtael closed the book then, and took it away.
14. I did not see Vahishtael or Amoniel again.
2And so, know that this last vision is my own, and I ask you who read this and are Damned to heed it. 3Listen! My word is the word of one who holds the Spear, the Spear that pierced the side of the Jesus the Living Christ, who lived, and was dead, and rose again and ascended to Heaven, where we cannot go. 4He will come back and judge the living and the dead, but he will not judge the Damned, for the Damned were judged on Calvary when Jesus looked down upon the Soldier and gave His blood.
5No judgment awaits you, for you have already been judged! 6And this is my vision: 7The Sanctified shall always survive, and this book shall endure, and as long as judgment has been served on us, the Damned shall have the word of this book to stand by.
8The cities of the living shall become high and wide, and full of blood and sin, and we shall be the vessel through which God shall cast his judgment upon the world, 9but no more shall judgment fall upon us, for we were Damned at the beginning.
10If you heed the word of the Soldier, if you take heart in the Spear, you shall have nothing to fear. 11Your Damnation is secure, and cannot be changed.
12Know that you are Damned, and rejoice!
Type
Text, Religious
Signatories (Organizations)
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