Grotesque, A Gothic Epic

• Preface   ~  Book Of Enoch 12:1-12:2   ~   And then Enoch disappeared and none of the sons of men knew where he was hidden, where he was, or what had happened. And all his doings were with the Holy Ones, and with the Watchers, in his days.

  Book of 1-Enoch 6    Book of Genesis 6:2    Dead Sea Scrolls ~ Book of Giants: 1Q23; 4Q531    Book of Jubilees 7:22-23    Apocrypha Compilation    Book of Revelation 12:7-9    Book of Revelation 20:1-3 And it came to pass when the children of men had multiplied that in those days were born unto them beautiful and comely daughters and sons. And the angels, the children of the heaven, saw and lusted after them, and said to one another, 'Come, let us choose wives and husbands from among the children of men and beget us children.' And the sons and daughters of God took them wives and husbands of all which they chose. And of the Angels, the sons and daughters of God, a great number of them lusted after the creatures of the earth, and chose mates from them and bore children with them. And from this miscegenation, from this perversion, grotesque beings emerged, and they were all unalike. They were Giants, Nephil, and the Eljo. And these angels, who were the Watchers and the Grigori, and who begat the Giants, the Nephilim, and the Eljo, taught them divine secrets: of working metal and stone, of enchantments, of astrology, of clouds, and of all the signs of the earth, sun, and moon. And the heavens were divided, as angels turned against their kind and against God ...    [ more ]

• Chapter 1   ~  Fall Of Angels   ~   You will become a thing of horror to all the kingdoms on earth. Your carcasses will be food for all the birds of the air and the beasts of the earth, and there will be no one to fighten them away.
  
  Awash in a still mist, the mountain forest seemed a perfect Eden. Clamorous birds fluttered in the canopy, and morning sun bled through the treetops, casting shards of slanted light through the haze. Ever so often, the mist parted for a wandering animal inspecting roots and grubs, only to swallow the creature up once again and become what it had been, an unbroken diaphanous wall. A single leaf spiraled lazily through shafts of sunlight, disappearing into the mist. Another leaf trailed the first, then another. The birds fell silent ...    [ more ]
• Chapter 2   ~  Battle Of Crecy   ~   And they worshipped the dragon which gave power unto the beast; and they worshipped the beast, saying, 'Who is like unto the beast? Who is able to make war with him?'
     City of Avignon, France ~ 1342
  Situated on the banks of the Rhone River, Avignon was the Babylon of the West and the very heart of the Christian Empire in the fourteenth century, a city teeming with tradesmen and soothsayers, drunkards and craftsmen, soldiers and ambassadors, jezebels and thieves. High ramparts encircled the town to protect it from outside invasion, but with so many people pressed together within its walls, adequate sewage disposal proved a daunting task, and a foul odor hung over the enclosed congestion like an invisible but tangible pall ...    [ more ]
• Chapter 3   ~  Abbey Of The Guards   ~   Turn away from me so I can have a moment's joy before I go to the place of no return, to the land of gloom and deep shadow, to the land of deepest night, of deep shadow and disorder, where even the light is like darkness.
     Abbaye des Gardiens ~ Auvergne, France
  Gardiens Abbey was a walled monastery upon a great stony hill that brooded over the untamed lands of central France. Beneath the abbey, an elaborate labyrinth of catacombs snaked through the bowels of the hill. Friar Ivan Gogu, senior amongst the mendicant brothers of Gardiens, had assumed responsibility for the catacombs upon his arrival at the abbey more than a decade before; and in that span of time, the vast sepulcher had become a kind of stony penance that weighed heavily upon his heart. His coarse robe whispered in the weaving passages as he hurried, keeping ever straight and traveling ever downward. Most friars rarely ventured to such great depths, as attested to by the sparse array of dry torches wedged into the stony walls. The pitch-dark passage had no branching vessels. The hollow artery simply plunged into the earth like some Black-bricked road to Hell ...    [ more ]
• Chapter 4   ~  Holy See Conspiracy   ~   And upon this rock I will build my church, and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it.
     City of Avignon ~ May 1347
  The afternoon air hung thick with the smell of rain, and the western sky lay Black. Cardinal Lean arrived in Avignon from England, blustering into the courtyard of Chateau Mallow in a heavily guarded carriage. Dust churned around the striding entourage only to be swallowed up by larger whirling dust clouds born of the encroaching storm. Lean sat forward and peered out of a window as the coach neared the entrance, and he discovered that some members of his advance guard wandered about dazedly ...    [ more ]
• Chapter 5   ~  Abbey Under Seige   ~   I was about to write; and I heard a voice from heaven saying unto me, 'Seal up those things...and write them not.'
     Gardiens Abbey ~ August 1347
  The tunnel torches had long since been extinguished, save one that now leaned from a wall bracket as it illuminated the entryway of Lazarus' quaint quarters in the catacombs. In its good light, Ivan pressed his large frame against the doorway, his eyes consuming a letter. Within the room, Lazarus sat on the edge of his bed, supping from a wooden bowl ...    [ more ]
• Chapter 6   ~  Devil In The Midst   ~   The tares are the children of the wicked one; the enemy that sowed them is the devil; the harvest is the end of the world; and the reapers are the angels.
  
  Bench tables placed end-to-end lined the periphery of the refectory hall. Behind the tables ran parallel rows of massive pillars with flying buttresses and ribs that spread out against the high vaulted ceiling as ungodly claws. A row of massive iron cauldrons were in the center of the hall, their hellish embers warding off a perpetual chill. Having finished their meals, a handful of monks remained in the hall, whispering the latest rumors surrounding daily confrontations between resident friars, squires and the unwelcome soldiers who stood guard seemingly at every door and in every corner of the abbey. Ivan lifted a bowl of fish stew and bread from the table and left the sparse gathering, stepping outside the refectory as a breathless Friar Odino nearly ran him over ...    [ more ]
• Chapter 7   ~  Breaking The Seal   ~   In that day...the king and the officials will loose heart, the priests will be horrified, and the prophets will be appalled.
  
  The crisp night air lay silent, save the fading screech of a distant owl. Stars illuminated the dim abbey grounds, and the faint glimmer of several oil lamps shone from two stories of dormitory windows. Across the courtyard, a row of stained glass windows also glowed, but brilliantly - the cathedral was alive ...    [ more ]
• Chapter 8   ~  Opening The Gatestone   ~   And the Lord said unto the Devil, 'From whence comest thou?' And the Devil answered the Lord, saying; 'From going to and fro in the earth, and from walking up and down in it.'
  
  An unusual condition loomed over the abbey grounds, revealing itself through cast shadows, which looked too tall, wide, or twisted for the objects that cast them. The objects themselves appeared much further away than they actually were, and the soldiers' torch flames seemed to flicker too slowly or even backward. Other movements seemed equally amiss, and the new condition also presented itself through lesser revelations, like the shouts of men, which were as muffled calls beneath water, and a persistent ringing in the men's ears as they repeated themselves in conversation. The horses were also continuously spooked as if the skittish beasts stood upon a shaking earth. Then there was the peculiar odor - not as pungent as eglantine, but rather, noxious, with the taint of intoxicating mushrooms. A deep breath of the new air might easily confuse the senses as would a dizzy spell, and the scent was as perceptible as the smell of a coming storm, however foreign to any lingering memory. Truly, an unnatural state loomed over the abbey, as ghastly as the newly opened gatestone that brought it about ...    [ more ]
• Chapter 9   ~  Catacombs, Cobblers, And Caves   ~   And surely your blood of your lives will I require; at the hand of every beast will I require it, and at the hand of man; at the hand of every man's brother will I require the life of man.
  
  An ocean of early morning stars dotted the Black heavens. Within the creaking boughs of a towering poplar tree swaying beneath the dying moon, a spider clung to the last tattered threads of its broken web. A gust of wind rolled the insect into its own silk and swept it away, the tangled cocoon drifting over moonlit treetops only briefly before a bat snapped it from the air. From the lower branches of the same large tree, the hoot of an owl carried through the shadowed canopy of the untouched forest, its haunting call giving way to the growing noise of breaking twigs, hasty footfalls, and labored breathing. Leather boots broke through shards of moonlight and disappeared into the thickets. Except for wind in the branches, silence again settled over the forest before new sounds followed - the din of trampled underbrush, growls, and snorts. A blur of animal paws tore through the brambles and charged after the wearer of the boots ...    [ more ]
• Chapter 10   ~  The Black Death Sweeps Europe   ~   And I stood upon the sand of the sea, and saw a beast rise up out of the sea.
  
  Hell and History were now as intertwined, as were the sins that once plagued a mighty Babylon. As it happened in 1331, a secluded temple in Central China exploded, and from its most guarded secret, a dead bird carried Lucifael's message across the lands. For seventeen sickening years, the rancid odor of putrefaction rolled over the Kingdom of Mongolia like a divine and malignant breeze - the Black Death was the Devil's Disease. Radiating from out of the heart of the continent, Lucifael's lethal concoction continued its corruption of the vast Asian Kingdom, and by 1347, the wave of mortality and malady had spread to its furthest southern shores, reaching the Black Sea and its fledgling Genoese port city of Kaffa ...    [ more ]
• Chapter 11   ~  Fall From Grace   ~   Two men shall be in the field; one will be taken and the other left. Two women shall be grinding with a hand mill; one will be taken and the other left.
  
  In an age long since gone from all but a handful of fractured historical records and the waning recollections of angels, there was a time when the Eljo was hardly an exceptional breed, and not susceptible to being undone by sunlight. When the world was young, their numbers were as vast as the grasses of the once sprawling green fields of Eden, and they roamed the open skies, unhindered by the light of day. Yet, as the Rule of Time marks every season, as every dawning sky dims to a drawing curtain of stars, so too did the once radiant days of the Eljo fade away ...    [ more ]
• Chapter 12   ~  The Great Pestilence Spreads   ~   The earth is broken up, the earth is split assunder...the earch reels like a drunkard.'
     Reims, France ~ Chateau de Blasi ~ June 1348
  A late afternoon in June embraced the beginnings of a painted sunset as burning hues of color layered a dying sky. Blasi stood with his face pressed his face firmly against a pane of glass as he peered out of Alsae's upstairs bedroom window, his breath condensing on it to cause an opaque halo near his full beard. In the stubborn summer heat that lingered in the room, a bead of sweat traced his temple. Even with the disfiguring scars of pitted and discolored flesh that ran the length of his legs, he stood without a cane and in otherwise excellent health. A wooden table stood beside him, supporting a dusty vase of paper flowers that Renee had given Alsae only days before his final engagement at Crecy. The tattered flower petals were evidence to hungry moths that had since dried into a heaping row against the base of the windowsill ...    [ more ]
• Chapter 13   ~  The Epic Journey   ~   Remember that in your lifetime you received your good things, while Lazarus received bad things.
     Mountain Mouth ~ April 1351
  Outside Mountain Mouth, Auvergn's luminous hills sprawled beneath a curtain of stars and the westerly wind was warm, blowing hard and steady. Like aimless ghosts, whirling dust devils rose and dove over uneven terrain. The eastern horizon flickered, lightening bursts growing brighter within an advancing storm. The sky rumbled, distant thunders blending as unending kettledrum rolls. The storm's front was massive; it was an electrified blanket, hugging the curve of the earth, swallowing up the sky. The encroaching tempest was a spinning supercell, crushed into perfection under a rare combination of climatic pressures; hence - a densely molded sky-monster ...    [ more ]
• Chapter 14   ~  The Inquisition   ~   Then the chief captain came near, and took him, and commanded him to be bound with two chains; and demanded who he was, and what he had done.
  
  Over the rolling hills of Southern France, the slow-moving and glowing ensemble was a torch-lit company of men that, in the darkness and from a distance, might have appeared as a flotilla, aflame, and adrift on a Black ocean. Lazarus, now tightly bound in chains, stumbled amongst them. His party ascended the crest of yet another ridge and he abruptly stopped, halting his escorts. Lazarus laid his ears back; his pupils collapsed to mere pinholes as he gawked at a Gehenna-like horizon that seemed all but engulfed in a crimson sea of fire. At his feet, the sombrous land dipped and spread evenly toward two opposing wood lines that revealed, betwixt them, a more distant raised and glowing plateau. Atop the moorland, hundreds of burning torches encompassed a walled and towering castle, the combined light of them casting the edifice into a formidable display of iron sway and ubiquity. And when Lazarus attempted to turn away, guards shoved him forthwith, weapons at his back. Soldiers leaned on his chains, pulling him onward, into the shadowy valley, and toward the luminous grounds of its lucific moor ...    [ more ]
• Chapter 15   ~  Right Side Of Wrong   ~   "He that leadeth into captivity, shall go into captivity: He that killeth with the sword must be killed with the sword."
  
  Get up, this moment!” the washwoman exclaimed, stooping over Lazarus and poking a finger into his side. “Arise, I say, Master Lazarus!” Lazarus awakened with a gasp, grabbing his gut, unknowingly clutching her hand as well. She pulled free her hand and scolded him; “Look at you – soiling your new shirt even before your audience with m’lord!”
  Lazarus sat upright and looked down at his wine-stained belly. At once, he grabbed his head, winced, and fell back onto the bed. “Dear God; everything moves in circles.”
  “Oh, no you don’t,” the washwoman barked, “You give me that shirt! M’lord shortly comes. Now, get up from there!”
  Lazarus moaned and struggled to his feet before leaning himself heavily against the wall. He looked about warily, as though to see the room anew. Then he rubbed his eyes and pinched the bridge of his nose, groaning. “Friar Odino; you never told me of the wicked side of wine.”
  “Is there a good side to any wicked thing?” The woman complained, pulling Lazarus from the wall and escorting him toward the table by a fistful of his shirt ...    [ more ]
• Chapter 16   ~  Moonwindow   ~   "What is it to gain the entire world, only to forfeit your soul?"
  
  Lazarus lay on a bed of hay; yet his head was elsewhere - in his familiar but boundless body of dreams. And he was quite aware that, should a dream bloom into a nightmare, he could easily stir himself, enough to conjure a more agreeable dreamscape. However, perhaps, in a peculiar turn of perception, Lazarus gathered that the only nightmare, from which to awaken, was the reality of his confinement behind a crude door. With that, he sank even deeper into his dream. After all, he sat alone, atop the crest of a grassy hill, hearing songbirds, and basking in the warmth of a summer sun. Brilliant green against a deep blue - the rolling hills and sprawling skies continued in every direction. Looking about, only then did he spot the castle, sitting on the hill directly behind him. The narrow and wide structure towered into the heavens, breaking through the green and blue horizon with a brilliant shade of white. The many facets of its staggered and terraced walls seemed completely smooth, having no windows or doors. He rose to his feet and strode toward it, looking back only once, as if by chance, he might catch a glimpse of his body, still sleeping in a hay bed whilst he ventured away from it ...    [ more ]
• Chapter 17   ~  The Fish House   ~   "Evil shall slay the wicked: and they that hate the righteous shall be desolate."
  
  Like warring angels, stars dived behind the western horizon as others rose up and gave chase from opposing directions. Between them, whole constellations drifted across the black heavens; and beneath Orion’s sword, a lone pair of beating wings commanded the night sky. On an ocean of wind, Lazarus soared between heaven and earth, flying high above the French countryside, pressing onward, upward, and deep into the twilight hours. The vast face of the world rolled steadily beneath him, with its many forests, fields, hills, valleys, streams, and rivers. Nevertheless, as heaven and earth remained in motion, his easterly migration never wavered. Nor did his determination falter – to fetch a friar and fulfill a squire’s promise to a priest ...    [ more ]
• Chapter 18   ~  Shell Of A Man   ~   "So ought men to love their wives as their own bodies. He that loveth his wife loveth himself."
  
  In the heart of one of France's southernmost provinces and atop a narrow ridge, tall grasses parted to offer a hare that hopped into a moonlit clearing. With a twitching nose and perked ears, the wary animal inspected an open knoll. It crept forward and froze to stone, its head cocked sideways, and with a single ebon eye affixed on the heavens and upon that which might have resembled a dark spec, adrift against the stars. The rabbit remained motionless beneath its perceived bird of prey.
  
  Yet the spec bore little resemblance to any bird, save its spread wings; and a trained eye might see it more completely as being every bit as big as a flying man. Nevertheless, the startled hare spun and tore into the long shadows from whence it first emerged. And even in the apparent safety of thickets and deep shadows, a ghostly and glowing, human-like hand quickly parted weeds to snare the thrashing hare. Bones popped and a new silence fell over the grassy ridge...    [ more ]
• Chapter 19   ~  Not As Jonah   ~   "No man hath seen God at anytime..."
  
  With Lazarus close on his heel, Medicci pressed south, down the conifer-covered Franciscan coastline and toward the port village of Saint Maxine. To their right, the irregular edge of the seashore was a bouncing blur, appearing to leap forward and fall back again as the two of them carved a rigid course past its many peninsulas and inlets. To their left, the spreading ocean and its thin red line remained unchanged; both of which lay outwardly frozen in motion. Appearance aside, Lazarus felt a subtle graduation in that line - a familiar rising heat and swelling radiance that accompanied the hasty approach of dawn ...    [ more ]
• Chapters 20~33   ~  More At The Site Guide
  
  The Site Guide provides an expanded directory listing of key regions of interest located throughout the site. It includes quick links with brief descriptions that escort you directly where you wish to go. For users who's internet browsers do not support frames or javascript functionality associated with animated menus, the Site Guide offers a single page view of static links and a starting point to launch other independant windows containing additional website content. Because the Site Guide is a road map of sorts to the entire website, you might wish to save this link in your browser favorites list for future return visits ...    [ more ]
• Glossary   ~  Online Hyperlinked Reference Tool
  
  To use the glossary, select the first letter of the search term from the alphabetically ordered menu items below. All definitions are categorized by the first letter of the keyword search, and organized alphabetically. For example, one would click on the menu item: 'C' to search for 'Cardinal Jean-Francois Blasi'. The glossary is arranged in [title][,] [first name][,][last name] alphabetic order, with words of lesser importance appearing lastly. The provided scroll bar is also available for quick navigation through the glossary entries ...    [ more ]
• Downloads   ~  Download Center
  
  To download a file for printing or later reading, select from the following table, noting desired file and format. By downloading or handling any materials from this website, you automatically agree to abide by current U.S. and international copyright laws as they apply to this novel. Be nice and enjoy ...    [ more ]