IoM: A Lucky Accident
Sep. 3rd, 2006 02:33 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
runicloreThe Egyptian Book of the Dead is called "The Book of Going Forth by Day."
. . .
His transition from human to whatever he became - she wouldn't say - was not as difficult as Judas expected when he first awoke. It wasn't hellish in the way he'd heard described in tales, which usually involved convulsions, screaming, and damnation as a palpable experience, as if the old storyteller envisioned descent into evil as something akin to being lowered into a pot of boiling oil. Yet it was hellish in its own way, and his imagination wouldn't have summoned something so mundane at the thought.
The city was dank and chilly, and worse, it was empty. The first week of his sojourn there was spent shuffling around her chambers with his stomach churning and nothing to vomit up to relieve the feeling. There was nothing to eat and he wasn't really hungry anyway. He tried once, and the food sat in his stomach like a stone. Water only moistened his mouth; he found it wanting, but couldn't think of a better alternative.
Yet the greatest crime by far, to his memory, was simple and not easily remedied in a deserted city at the top of a mountain: there was nothing to do. Nothing.
Her books were in a language wholly alien to him. She had an impressive library, preserved by magic she said, when he remarked on their resistence to the damp. They contained knowledge lost to the world, and her gaze was expectant when it rested on him at those words, but he merely shrugged that time and let it go.
In time, he begged her to teach him. Anything to relieve the monotony, even knowledge he didn't care to have.
And when he grasped the old language, finally, and was able to read on his own, he found what he least expected in her archive: a fragment in pictograqphs he remembered from home, and a translation entitled "The Book of Going Forth By Day."
That, Judas said on the rare occasion he had to tell this story, was the real beginning of his new existence. That papyrus fragment made it all worthwhile.
. . .
Word: unknown
Time: 15-20 minutes
"She" etc. is his mistress. I never really gave her a name, because her title was more important. I meant to make some ironic statement at the end of this - because Judas would - but it went in a completely different direction than what I intended. As usual.
. . .
His transition from human to whatever he became - she wouldn't say - was not as difficult as Judas expected when he first awoke. It wasn't hellish in the way he'd heard described in tales, which usually involved convulsions, screaming, and damnation as a palpable experience, as if the old storyteller envisioned descent into evil as something akin to being lowered into a pot of boiling oil. Yet it was hellish in its own way, and his imagination wouldn't have summoned something so mundane at the thought.
The city was dank and chilly, and worse, it was empty. The first week of his sojourn there was spent shuffling around her chambers with his stomach churning and nothing to vomit up to relieve the feeling. There was nothing to eat and he wasn't really hungry anyway. He tried once, and the food sat in his stomach like a stone. Water only moistened his mouth; he found it wanting, but couldn't think of a better alternative.
Yet the greatest crime by far, to his memory, was simple and not easily remedied in a deserted city at the top of a mountain: there was nothing to do. Nothing.
Her books were in a language wholly alien to him. She had an impressive library, preserved by magic she said, when he remarked on their resistence to the damp. They contained knowledge lost to the world, and her gaze was expectant when it rested on him at those words, but he merely shrugged that time and let it go.
In time, he begged her to teach him. Anything to relieve the monotony, even knowledge he didn't care to have.
And when he grasped the old language, finally, and was able to read on his own, he found what he least expected in her archive: a fragment in pictograqphs he remembered from home, and a translation entitled "The Book of Going Forth By Day."
That, Judas said on the rare occasion he had to tell this story, was the real beginning of his new existence. That papyrus fragment made it all worthwhile.
. . .
Word: unknown
Time: 15-20 minutes
"She" etc. is his mistress. I never really gave her a name, because her title was more important. I meant to make some ironic statement at the end of this - because Judas would - but it went in a completely different direction than what I intended. As usual.
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no subject
Date: 2006-09-04 10:39 am (UTC)I have to wonder, now, since I can't remember if we mentioned it or not: is he teaching Raeger to keep her from going crazy-mad with boredom, too, or simply so that she can be useful somehow, at least? Both? Or is it just because she pesters him to? I really can't quite remember how that sort of thing began; probably an offshoot of the 'Raeger sticks to him because of his neat stories' idea. >>
no subject
Date: 2006-09-04 07:00 pm (UTC)Judas can probably feel a little superiority with Raeger, which he couldn't with his mistress before she died. :P I'm sure he has a ton of hilarious complexes after her.
Anyway, he's teaching Raeger partly for practicality. And, although he's not thinking of it this way, passing the knowledge on also keeps it alive, and he's kind of gratified that she even likes learning about this stuff. He feels a personal connection to the old culture, so maybe it's like she cares-- no, never mind. :P It's probably a little bit of everything.