Tag Archives: monsters

The Bestiary

Eleventh Entry: Rakushinpu

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joro

The sound of the water rushes overhead. Beside us, the great fall is a roar and in its shadow the gleam of spray and the shadow of leaves overtake the world, together with drowsy promises. 

The spirits of the mountain speak in murmuring voices, a whisper to calm the senses, a low, red sound. Of love, it speaks, with the sound of a lute  and the eager harmony of all night’s darkest passions.

Come to me.

The voice does not belong to the water.

Stay with me.

The words are a plea from which an answer will summon only regret.

Is it not quiet here? Are you not tired now? Stay a while and sleep with me…

The lady of the falls trades on her whispers, and when the sun dips past the high of noon toward the horizon, when the laziness of the afternoon is full upon us – then, at the edge of the water, climbing in silken coils, the threads come one at a time.

Each one attaches to a man. An ankle. A toe. A calf. But we are prepared, as not many before us have been. The threads are not broken, but hooked to trees, to stumps – one rooted life in exchange for each marked man. 

As the sun begins to go down, the threads are pulled, one by one, and one by one pieces of the forest crash over the cliff-side, down the mountain, into the rage of the river and the waterfall’s roar.

A woman cries with it, and the longing has not left her voice. 

Stay with me, won’t you?

There is no laughter, no speech, as we make our way down the night blackened sides of the autumn mountain. We return to our camp – to the nearest village. It is there that we count our number and find that twenty-four has been reduced to twenty-three. 

Stay with me…

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Read more in the erotic horror novella Rakushinpu, free on Amazon KDP!

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Rakushinpu/Jorogumo References
Jorōgumo Wiki
Jorōgumo Legends

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The Bestiary

Tenth Entry: Gǎ-oh

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indianwoman5

From the edge of the sea, we come to a new land, the westernmost reach of our journey so far. The coast leads inward to a wide land peopled by many nations, the world growing green and gold around us. At the edge of a lake so wide it might be a sea, the feathered warriors tell their stories, and we listen with interest.

Here, among other tales, the people speak of the wind as a giant, four reins in his hands, holding the Beasts of the Wind back from destroying the world. He is Gǎ-oh, King of Winds, but we do not speak his name in his presence.

His home is in the far north, and we follow the legend, rumor that flows inland and upward, over the water to the lands of ice. When we come to his home there is the blast of the tempest to greet us, and dark haired in the distance we see him shining at the horizon’s edge.

From the north of the world he controls the four winds – Ya-o-gah, bear of the north, breathing cold fire. The fawn in the south, Ne-o-ga, who sits waiting, gentle as morning. The wild panther of the west wind, Da-jo-ji, who bears the whirlwind on his back and raises the waves…  O-yan-do-ne, the moose of the east wind, chills newborn clouds as they drift into heaven.

In silence, contemplating, we watch the reins snap, the wind’s release, howling out of the north and down to the nations of men.

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Gǎ-oh References
Gǎ-oh Wiki
Iroquois Legends

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The Bestiary

Ninth Entry: The Gancanagh

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gancanagh

Out of the woods, he comes as if he knew that we were there.  Dark haired, dark eyed, the sound of his voice is a song that comes faint over the shallows. Only the music carries, not the words, but that is more than enough to begin tying down the enchantment. 

He is gancanagh, love-talker, and the sweet of his words can imperil as much as the sweet of his skin. He walks the edge of the water,  slow steps that signal his readiness to stop, to wait – for the slightest reason, or no reason. It is the beginning of his game.  Already the women among us are turning to him, lifting their eyes, their hands, fingers curled as if they could touch the softness of his hair from where they stand. 

The beasts and beings that do not belong to the human world are dangerous monsters, most of them, but this one is dangerous because he is not a monster. Because he is beautiful – because, as long as he stands smiling, it is easy to believe he could be tame. 

The air turns sweet, beguiling dust moving in motes golden as honey. The taste of it flows like wine on the currents of the breeze. He stares at us, and then at one among us, and the woman who has caught his eye is still as a statue despite the deck rocking beneath her, despite the whipped up surface of the sea. 

We turn away from the shore, before the sugar in the air overcomes her – before it addicts her, turns the core of her being to nothing more than a seeker after that dust. He watches, and the sound of his laughter follows us. 

He watches, and she watches back, as we sail away toward the dusk. 

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Gancanagh References
Gancanagh Wiki
Love Talk

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