Wielder of Names 2-21
Het and the Rakshasa
(Part 1)
In the days when the King’s Road was scarred with the tramping of soldier’s boots and littered with the detritus they left behind, there was Het, who was a watchman. Het was very tall and straight, and she had arms like sinewy boughs. She was very good with a staff but very poor with a straight sword, which drew her constant disapproving looks from the Sergeant, since the staff was a peasant’s weapon, and not befitting a proper executioner of the Old Law.
The Sergeant’s name was Ramys, but that is neither here nor there, for he was a proper Sergeant. He was very calm, and very handsome, and he had a flawless Watchman’s Eye – that’s why he was promoted. Het pined for him piteously but in vain, for it was astounding how completely dry he was of anything that could possibly resemble love. He took his morning tea bitter, he sat rod-straight, and his nails were exceptionally clean. He was an excellent policeman.
Het and the Sergeant traveled together with a third person, who was very uninteresting. He was the Centurion, and he was a blunt instrument that had been hammered into the shape of a person. He had a neck the size of a tree trunk, and about as knotted. He loved his sword, and the shape of his sword, and most of all, he loved to use it. He was masterful at killing with the sword, which made him an exceptionally poor swordsman.
So it was that Het, the Sergeant, and the Centurion were summoned to kill a demon, for that was the job of watchmen in those days. The demon was a Rakshasa, which was a special kind that crawled down a person’s throat or nostrils when he was sleeping and filled him up with bile. Since it wore a person about it like a skin, it was exceptionally hard to find and root out. It fed on blood, stole milk, and abhorred the sound of lying. This was known to Het, who was studious, and the Sergeant, who was very intelligent, but not the Centurion, who cared only about swords.
The Road was on fire with war most of those days, so their travel was exceptionally slow, and the Sergeant kept them to the back paths. It was no place for men of the Law, for the Law had abandoned heaven. So it was a full six turns before Het, the Sergeant, and the Centurion reached their destination.
When they arrived, they saw at once that the Rakshasa had been exceptionally cunning. For this was a land of mires and muck, a low, sulfurous land where people eked out their living in filth. So covered head to toe were they that everyone looked almost exactly alike. Passing her gaze from person to person, Het could scarcely tell the young from the old, the man from the woman, or anyone at all, and she shivered, for she was exceptionally clean, as all watchmen were. Watchmen were men of class and stature in those days. They wore shiny boots and spotless uniforms with gleaming buttons.
They were met by the lord of that place, who lived in a palace built on a promontory rising out of the muck (the only promontory around, in fact). The lord was exceptionally beautiful, and had perfect nails, just like the Sergeant. He was borne aloft by four servants who sweated and heaved his palanquin far above the filth below, even though they themselves were often buried up to the waste. It was necessary, in those days.
The lord expounded to them at length about the trouble he was in. “Oh please,” he said, fanning himself with great consternation, “Do something about this filthy Rakshasa! Why, just the other day, it broke into the palace and left a terrible mess. A flock of my prized doves were all torn apart, and its muddy footprints were everywhere!”
“You’ve not to worry,” said the Sergeant, with the utmost confidence, “I rarely fail in my quest to root out evil. We’ll smash your Rakshasa within the week, in the name of the Old Law and the fourth name of God.” Het could attest to the Sergeant’s efficiency, and gave her firm affirmation.
The Sergeant, indeed, seemed to have a terrifyingly strong sense for evil, a pre-natural ability to sniff out even the tiniest bit of it’s stench clinging to a person. This was his Watchman’s Eye. It was a fine instrument of justice, and a great source of admiration for Het, who still thought herself a rough-spun peasant girl in braids. In fact, she was a head taller than the Sergeant, and twice as brawny, but that’s a tale for later. For now, she saw the Sergeant’s perfect fingernails, and his handsome mustaches, and his dramatic brow, and felt a strong swell of pride and longing.
The lord was very happy. He promised to give them proper accommodations at his high palace and a bath everyday to clean them from the muck of the land and keep them in proper watchmen shape, as long as they returned by the time the gates closed.
And so it was that Het, and the Sergeant, and the Centurion set about the land on the first day, looking for the Rakshasa.
So, the Thorns want to destroy the multiverse by turning everything back into just Yisun, again?
No, 6 Juggernaut Star does. However, the mysterious Founder of the Thorns wants the Successor prophesy to come to pass and 6 Juggernaut Star is bowing to his wishes.
When your end goal is entropy, you have plenty of time to let other people try their own thing.
No, ‘Heaven’ is just Throne-he wants to purge Throne of everything but angels, I think. And then maybe angels as well.
No, he says he wants to restore Singularity, which is the state of existence before Division, when everything was just Yisun. If they want to restore Singularity, then, that would mean that they’d want to get rid of everything *but* Yisun.
But isn’t everything already Yisun? For they are one and one is all and all that?
I love all those giant blobby eyes just staring at them from above in the last panel.
Oh wow, that means the thorns aren’t just mercenaries out to make a profit. They’re trying to kill EVERYONE
The angels on the Path of Petals are the mercenaries, I believe. Thorn Knights are just the brutal, unforgiving counterparts to Root Knights like White Chain. They don’t protect; they punish.
So, can we guess from this that No 6, Juggernaut Star’s Master is actually YISUN from that line about Causality? That they are “Outside of Causality” due to all things originating from them? Or could we think along the lines of the karmic/transmigration type of thinking; stating that it matters not what they do, they won’t be affected adversely through reincarnation?
Abaddon, you plague the mind with questions
Perhaps they were founded by Koss, considering we’ve already seen him speaking to Alison after his own death. He could have planned his own assassination and replacement, to make sure the unavoidably violent transition in leadership that occured eventually goes in his favor. Though I wonder then why this would be a matter to leave unspoken.
I believe it was The Conquering King Zoss speaking to Alice-Un. The angels certainly were “founded” by Koss, although most would say “Forged”.
Is it bad that I want 82 to become a Thorn? If thorn is all about your personal wishes, then why not do it? Her personal wish is justice, after all.
You can only be truly free if you become a mad dog, slave to emotions and desires.
I disagree, on the grounds that White Chain is more complex than that. She still values the law, it is important to her. And she values life, evidenced by her attempts to help Alison and her guilt at having to put her into danger. The Thorns, with their lawlessness and solipsistic disregard for life, are abhorrent to her.
The problem she has, though, is that she doesn’t fit in with her fellow Angels either. The very fact that she identifies as female is among the reasons she was destroyed in the first place. She wants to uphold the Law, but the standards of Angels do not allow her to be who she wants to be. Nor can she become a Thorn, as the thought is repulsive. She’s a being trapped between two extremes she cannot abide, with no side of her own.
None, save perhaps a side of her own making.
A critical misunderstanding. The Thorns value law. Indeed; as 2 Michael might tell you, it might be argued they value it above and beyond all the other angelic paths.
The reason the Thorns are anathema to White Chain is in the fact they accept her despite her deviance. In the eyes of the Thorn Knights, all things have become deviant. All things must be cleansed; this is truth. But so too is it correct that several forms of deviance may be turned against their fellow deviants. And with this knowledge comes a simple, inexorable fact.
There must, therefore, be an optimal path by which the Thorn Knights may accomplish their holy task with the maximum possible speed. And it involves wielding the correct deviants as the correct weapons in the correct time at the correct places.
Useful knowledge should you cross paths with one.
The Thorns are anathema for their rigid adherence to law inconsiderate of those it rules. They do not comprehend the true priority: life, which is a perfect design created by YISUN. They consider it aberrant, and thus justified they seek genocide.
White Chain knows within her heart the Law is secondary to the Life. But understands that one cannot live without the other. Hence White Chain’s decision to lie, and the personal damage that lie afflicted.
So, you would like to see 6 Jug play Kyuubey to 82’s Tomoe Mami?
…
Credens Justitiam.
In several of the devil-tongues of Throne, the words for “angel” and “slave” are one and the same. The path of Thorns is not the path of ‘personal wishes.’ Such thought is anathema to angelkind: an angel without a master is a flame without fuel.
That said, some masters are more… ecumenical than others.
Wow, I just noticed the extra text. interesting.
Give him a couple more arms and a coat of paint, 6 Juggernaut there could cosplay as the Shrike!
As far as I can tell, 6 Jug’s plan is for Alice to succeed Zoss and kill everyone who constitutes “the old regime”, and then to kill Zoss by some means involving a bit of time travel, abduct Zaid while he’s at it, and then bring Alice to his master to restore singularity. I’ll bet Zaid ties in to that plan to bring Alice to 6 Jug’s master. Pretty straightforward, as timeless plots go. Of course, I wouldn’t have any confidence saying whether or not killing “the old regime” is the same as “omniversal genocide,” or just who is 6 Jug’s master, or exactly how Zaid will be used.
I will now append another nickname, with love, to 6 Jug (in addition to calling it 6 Jug): 6 Doctor. Abbadon’s timeless scheming fills me with optimism for this comic.
Also, how do we like 83 as a candidate for that new love interest Ms. Cio wants for Alice?
Jug is aware that Allison is a woman, and yet all the time he’s talking about “the new king” and “get the key to the boy”. As far as *I* can tell, his plan is to install Zaid as a puppet king under his mysterious master’s thumb (assuming said “master” is real and he isn’t just working for himself)
I believe 6 believes he’s already killed Zoss in Offering 1-6.
Judging from previous information about the Thorns, can we assume the ‘master’ mentioned here is Jagganoth? Perhaps. If so, Allison has gotten a very brutal ‘ally’.
In which sense, then, would Jagganoth be “outside causality”?
Jagganoth is immune to harm. This is a clue.
Physical harm, if my memory doesn’t cheat me.
I wonder, does this mean one can only defeat him in the Void?
Something about the way this guy talks reminds me of Rorschach.
the drinking of tea was merely a formality, as No 6, Juggernaut Star’s tea merely evaporated on contact with his jaw.
6 Star Scours the Universe can’t be working for Lord Jagganoth; he was the one that intercepted the thorn nights in the first place.
If he isn’t just talking bullshit, his “master” ought to be someone who’s been already introduced. Maybe the Metatron? Apparently, Zoss spared him; and off the top of my head, I can’t think of another being close enough to Yisun that he could be considered “outside causality”. Will have to re-read the whole story as soon as I can, though.
Perhps 6 star is leading white chain to metatron 1 in the last panel? Afterall, there must be a reason he brought our beloved aeon to a “charnel house”.
One must consider the wings White Chain and No 6, Juggernaut Star walk beneath. They appear identical to Metatron 1’s. I feel rather foolish for only recognizing this now.
Abbadon why can’t Metatron 1 hear the voice of Yisun any longer?
Just a few typos in this sentence, “He was born aloft by four servants who sweated and heaved his palanquin far above the filth below, even though they themselves were often buried up the waste.” I believe the lord should be “borne,” and his servants ought to be “buried up to the waist.”
Admittedly it is possible that the lord’s mother gave birth to him on that palanquin, and certainly the servants might find themselves buried out in the wastes from time to time, but that is neither here nor there.
Aha! Thank-you!
Yes, Clean…..well, there will be a lot of blood to mop up, but THEN it will be clean…
Viscera Cleanup Detail: Throne
I suspect that would end up playing more like Katamari Damacy.
Or, quite possibly, Jenga.
Wait…what the heck is in that cage in the last panel?
It’s part of the motorcycle. see http://killsixbilliondemons.com/comic/wielder-of-names-1-10/
or would that be skeletonclycle….
Rakshasa don’t sound a whole lot like the devils we’ve seen so far. Are Devils and demons back to being separate things?
mmm…suddenly the words of the Master about good and evil resound with silvery meaning…
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