Wielder of Names 5-93
Aesma and the Red Eyed King
Part 4
Aesma was in such a great rush when she arrived at the battered iron gates of the Crucible that she made a very ungainly landing and sent the whole fortress swaying side to side. She rushed through its dreary halls, thick with the howling of the evil beings imprisoned within, and arrived with great haste at the tiny red-hot cage of the Red Eyed King.
“I’ve come back!” gasped Aesma, out of breath.
“What are you doing?” said the Red-Eyed King, for indeed he saw Aesma was trying to accomplish something that she seemed to greatly struggle with.
“I’m trying to prostrate myself,” said Aesma. It took her the better part of the morning, and even then she could only manage it for five seconds at a time. But in those five seconds she said this: “I promise you that if I become your wife, I will tend to your meals, and darn your clothing, and obey your every command without question. In return, you must be my protector, guide, and counselor, and you must not lift your hand against me in violence.”
The King mulled this offer over, and saw that there were many fine things for him to exploit, for his wicked mind was as twisted as Aesma’s, and he too could bend the world into shapes to his choosing. This was the source of his power.
“I accept,” he said, and his evil red eyes burned every brighter. Aesma could barely contain herself, and jumped for joy, which only sent the entire fortress swaying and shaking more violently. “What should I do, oh husband of mine?” said Aesma. “Let me out of this cage,” said the Red Eyed King. So Aesma struck the cage with all her might, and bent the bars asunder with a shower of sparks. The bars were very hard and white hot, and Aesma was burned quite badly, but Aesma was so love-struck she hardly noticed.
“Ah, I am so weak,” whispered the Red Eyed King as Aesma carried him out of the cage. And Aesma saw that this was true, for the King’s form was charred and pitifully thin from his confinement, so that he could barely stand. She cradled him and fussed over him. “Oh what I can I do for thee, my husband?” she said, desperate for his affection. “Please make for me my favorite meal,” said the Red Eyed King.
“Your favorite meal?” said Aesma, who hadn’t anticipated ever having to actually cook.
“Yes,” said the Red Eyed King, and his eyes flashed with an evil glare. “It is a plum from YISUN’s private garden. I used to eat them all the time when I was free, and I crave their sweetness now. If it is thy wish to be my wife, then that is the succor I crave.”
“Oh, that’s easy!” said Aesma, who was privately very relieved she wouldn’t have to cook, and didn’t give one thought to what the king had asked for. For the plums of YISUN’s garden could grant eternal life, and their juices nourished the flame of the body to an immense, roaring brightness, so that any who ate one would be almost impermeable to harm. Aesma dropped the Red Eyed King with very little ceremony and leapt to it, and very shortly she had returned with a glistening plum from YISUN’s garden, plump and ripe. Normally the garden was guarded by a red ten-antlered buck, who was resolute in his duty, exceedingly calm, and the most powerful fighter in the universe, for the wide trunks of the plum trees were littered with the bones of his foes. But when Aesma had arrived there and asked for a plum to please her husband, the buck had been so taken aback by the notion of Aesma submitting to marriage that he was completely stunned for a whole three seconds, which was more than enough time for Aesma to snatch a plum and leap out.
“Ah, excellent,” said the Red Eyed King, “Now feed it to me, wife.” And Aesma did, bit by bit. And bit by bit, the Red Eyed King fleshed out, and the char and scabs fell away from his flesh, and his wounds sealed, and he grew more and more in stature until he stood three times Aesma’s height. And Aesma saw that he was a tyrant king with night-blue skin and a wild mane of hair like a tangle of shadows, and great fangs and tusks jutting from his black lips. His nails were wicked claws, his arms were like corded iron, and his hands were large so as to easily snap men’s necks. For this reason Aesma fell in love just a little bit more.
“Oh but husband,” said Aesma, blushing and giggling, “You are quite naked.” She was thoroughly enjoying being a wife so far.
“Yes,” boomed the King, and gave a mighty evil laugh. “Wife, attend me!”
“Oh what can I do for thee, my husband?” said Aesma. “Mend my clothing!” commanded the Red Eyed King, “I had one time a hauberk made from the scales of the Ur-serpent that coils beneath the ash of the world. The feathers of the screaming Roc I took for my mantle, my shield was of the tail-hide of the Leviathan that haunts the deep, and my sword was carved from the bone that is found in the heart of a World Tree.” This was all a fantastic lie, of course, for the King had never had such fine or rare clothing. And if he had been girded in such armament, so empowered by the plum he had eaten, the Gods of justice would never have had any hope at all of defeating him in battle. He would have laid such waste to the universe had never been seen before, and burnt it to a cinder, so that his red eyes could lay their baleful gaze on only smoldering ashes. This was his one and true desire, for like Aesma, he was an idiot and did not understand the true nature of Royalty.
Aesma, of course, did not detect his hidden intentions, for she was smitten with love. “At once, my husband!” she said, almost tearful in her joy, and strode off to gather what she could. She was so focused in her matrimonial bliss that she scarcely gave any thought to the monumental scale of the tasks she was accomplishing. First she dug until she found and tugged upon the tail of the mighty Ur-Serpent, whose body was thicker around than a city. Yanking it from the earth, she wrestled with it for three days, during which she bashed enough scales from its body for her purpose. Then she dove into the black and limitless ocean, and swam until she found the leathery and ancient Leviathan of the deep. Aesma was very bad at fighting underwater, and couldn’t hold her breath for very long, so the battle went very poorly for her at first. But very shortly, she became so fed up that she summoned a score of transcendental fist arts and rained such horrific blows upon the water around her that she beat it back for a full day, turning the bottom of the ocean into dry land for a short while. The Leviathan was very slow on land, so Aesma bludgeoned it into unconsciousness and stole it’s tail while it slept.
Next Aesma tracked the Roc, and clung to its back for a full week while it pecked her viciously, but she was able to pluck enough feathers to make a fine mantle. Then she rode her chariot to the edge of the universe, and fought through the howling winds, the scouring cold, and the limitless demons that poured in from the edge of existence there. And after a harrowing journey, she was able to hack out a heart-slice of the fourth World Tree that held up creation using a vorpal shard of void-ice. The tree was mighty enough to withstand its mutilation, and it recovered in time. But until that time it was injured enough to bow, just a little, so for a while an entire corner of the universe sagged quite terribly. This caused great consternation in YISUN’s speaking house and among the multitudes of star-gazers, astronomers, sorcerers, and techno-saints that measured such things, but Aesma was scarcely aware of this. In a fervor, she fled to Koss’s workshop and stole his lesser chisel when he wasn’t looking. Then she crouched over a public hearth for a full week and banged her husband’s armaments into shape.
When Aesma returned, she was truly a terrible sight. Her skin was puckered and swollen from the venom of the world serpent, she was frost burned from her trip to the edge of the world, and she was bitten and punctured all over from her great battle. But she was beaming, for she was still terribly lovesick, and in her arms she had a great hauberk of shimmering dark scales, a glorious feather-mantle, a mighty hide shield, and a white and curved sword carved from the iron-hard heartwood of the world tree.
“Here is your armament, O husband,” she said, out of breath and beaming with joy. “This is a sword that will cut thirty six ways at once!”
The king was greatly pleased at the gullibility of this poor fool, and he donned his impermeable garb.
“Oh what else can I do for thee, my husband?” said Aesma, totally consumed with love.
“I am not thy husband yet,” said the satisfied King. “I think it is time for my return to the surface world. Who are the sorry fools that sent thee?”
“Oh yes, I almost forgot!” said Aesma, prancing about in joy, “Will you return to the Temple of the Disc of the Sun with me and join me in marriage? We can have a massive wedding ceremony and I’ll invite everyone in YISUN’s speaking house to attend. No, everyone in creation! We can have drinking, and dancing, and fighting, and fighting and dancing, and afterwards I can build us a great big house and we can have lots of magnificent and gigantic children!”
“Yes, let us attend this ceremony,” said the King. “Make of thee a beast I can mount and we will be there promptly.” And Aesma did. She turned herself into a massive black beast with wings of the darkling sky and talons the size of a man. And the king sat astride her back and rode her out of the pit, his red eyes flashing the entire way.
The first bit of dialogue seems a little off… when did the Queen mention that she had something in particular to say, or some offer to make?
just before the ball.
That is the offer. Nadia would make an offer to our Rising King, AL-YIS-UN with the condition of life eternal, and would only voice it in the privacy of her husband’s company. The offer is to gift AL-YIS-UN 1/7th of the Wheel, in return for the freedom of death.
She mentioned, before she ate the fruit, that she would make a bargain with Allison. The first condition was immortality, the second was to maintain the court in her stead, and third was to feed Hastet Om. In return, Allison would receive one seventh of Creation.
Allison, being a fool, would never consider this to be a good deal, which is why she is the heir of Zoss.
She did when being a scary hag to Alison, after Alison asks what Mottom wants from her. The whole ball, youthfruit and husbandtree are part of Mottoms conditions.
It seems a bit like she is saying that Alison can become a unstoppable demi-god and whatnot, but in return, she needs to clean up Mottoms shit.
Back when Allison confronted her at the “feist”.
If I recall correctly, she said that just before sharing her peaches with our dear heroine. Hence all the talk of conditions.
I think you’re thinking of 4-78 http://killsixbilliondemons.com/comic/wielder-of-names-4-78/
Seven foes… I just realized that.
I would have realized the significance earlier, but Abbadon distracted me with pretty pictures.
Whats the significance? It feels a bit vague me at this point.
I mean the Seven Black Emperors being representatives of the seven main sins is an obvious one, but as far as I know the seven main sins are seven because in (western/christian?) numerology it represents wholeness of things the cosmos and wholeness in general.
I feel this is supported by what we know of YISUN. After all, he pretty much is the whole cosmos and is closely tied to the number seven in the psalms book 1 (where 7 is central in 2/3 chapters).
On first glance the Seven seem very much tied to a specific sin each, but none of the sins have I think been mentioned as such in the comic, making me think that in universe the seven are more representatives of The Glory, The Tower, The Flame, The Diamond, The Blade, The Mind, The Beast then of the seven deadly sins.
The thing that I feel is iffy about calling them that however is that that is those are the seven syllables of Royalty, IE complete godhood, while the thing about the seven black emperors is that they are splintered in regard to their claim to whole godhood, and thus cannot be whole. After all, something that has all seven is without equal, and the seven are equal to each other, or at least they were at some point. This sorta contradiction works pretty well given YISUNs fondness of paradox.
All in all, you could take the seven big bads as a representing a whole of corruption with the sin angle or a whole of divinity with the Royalty angle.
What I am missing here is why Allison would have to face this seven-headed beast to reach godhood, while as as far as we know, the conquering king only needed to best the prime angles two times to become true royalty, and I don’t think that there have been other stories within the comic where seven opponents or obstacles have been important.
Please let me know what you think.
Exactly… One for every liberal arts subject!
So if this is what’s happening to Nadia how have the other six endured for so long?
They probably didn’t.
One rages, one covets, one slumbers, another hoards, one just fucks their way through life, and the last simply remakes herself through her own force of will.
That is the question. I thought that, with the keys, anything was possible. But it seems they alone cannot prevent the ravages of age.
The Grand Dragon and Queen of Worms are inhuman. Of Incubus, we know little.
Where Mottom has erected walls borne of fear, Solomon David has erected walls borne of pride. Great and terrible shall be their fall.
Jadis, who has seen the Shape, endures in glass, her power a fraction of what it was, her words broken to compensate for their truth.
And Jagganoth, well.
From what we have seen he is not holding it together well.
Each demiurge must find their own source of immortality.
They don’t share.
I’ve heard that Solomon embodies Pride. It would be easy to walk that same road if you’ve absolutely purged self doubt from your mind.
Seven sorrows the priests give their Virgin;
But thy sins, which are seventy times seven,
Seven ages would fail thee to purge in,
And then they would haunt thee in heaven:
Fierce midnights and famishing morrows,
And the loves that complete and control
All the joys of the flesh, all the sorrows
That wear out the soul.
O garment not golden but gilded,
O garden where all men may dwell,
O tower not of ivory, but builded
By hands that reach heaven from hell;
O mystical rose of the mire,
O house not of gold but of gain,
O house of unquenchable GLORY,
Our Lady of Pain!
Mayhap the queen is without lies nor manipulations at this time
And mayhap my dick will turn into a dragon and fly away.
Seriously though, that happened to this one god I knew. You got to be careful to read about the possible side-effects, when you consider supplementing your divine creative essence
It seems hard to believe that someone who has been playing this game for so long could be so bad at it. Your royals are giving you grief in their hunger for spoils? Arrange a purge. Or better yet, engineer a scenario in which they do it to themselves (some sort of tournament in which the nobility plays a deadly game for Mottom’s favor, perhaps). Your antiagathic is failing you? That would have been something to look into when it started taking 2 peaches instead of 1, not letting the problem fester for millennia. If only you had the combined minds of 100k worlds or so to think of a solution. Oh wait, you do. And one of those worlds might have a better treatment in the first place. Mottom’s opponents all seem to have found a workaround so immortality is hardly a unique proposition.
And I’m sure that a younger Mottom would have. However, what she is ultimately fighting is the rot within; the tendency of all things to end. Or as some would insist on saying the universal truth of her own oneness with the universe. It is the oldest battle, and I do not envy her the burden.
But that’s the point, she’s rotting now because she didn’t take action when she was younger. A stitch in time saves nine, and she’s been knitting for centuries.
Arrange matters such that your servant-warriors start killing one another. Certainly, no rival would be so gauche as to exploit this moment of self-induced weakness on your part, smallest of fathers.
If Mottom’s forces comprise some 100k world’s, and she allows the 1000 (arbitrarily chosen) most ambitious rulers (not the troops, but the rulers) to battle it out on some sort of regular basis in the hopes for her favor, what has she lost? Several hundred figureheads die and are replaced. Her forces are diminished far less than the aggregate cost of pillaging a world to ruin, something we’ve been told she does with depressing frequency.
There is no question that reform will lead to greater strength in the long term. But while one’s soldiers are being reorganized, there is a moment of weakness in which one’s foes may strike.
There is no gain without risk, and Mother Om is a creature too petrified of potential loss to dare seize a greater gain; such is the first trap of aspirants unto royalty, and it is named by the wise Empire.
Those who grow strong through crushing the weak are made prisoners of terror: that should they fail to take a single opportunity for short-term gain, leave a single insult unanswered, a single resource unconsumed, their rivals shall crush them as they have crushed the weak.
Great is the Glory of Empire.
We build our cities among its rat-gnawed bones.
You appear to be assuming mass reorganization, which isn’t what I was suggesting. Mottom’s own words indicate that her strength regularly fluctuates (as her planetary ravenings are driven by the begging of King’s and guilds, and irrespective of that, themselves represent occasions where a sizeable chunk of her forces are committed and thus in disarray), and so far no opponent has used the opportunity to invade.
More broadly there is no risk to her, and hasn’t been since the stalemate was established. No other demiurge could attack her at any point, regardless of the readiness of her forces without weakening themselves so dramatically as to immediately become the next target. Jagganoth is a possible exception, given the balance of powers earlier described, but if he could attack her with impunity then the balance is already overthrown and he could attack any of the others.
It may be that she simply does not realize this, but that brings up my original point, that she is impossibly bad at being a demiurge given the length of time she appears to have been one.
There is nothing sweeter than knowing someone else will inherit your position in life for only than can you be free from the madness known as want. But sometimes even that isn’t guaranteed with the monsters of the multiplicity and their wanton ignorance.
What can you know of thDdivine Want that fuels my Thirst, Aeon?
Even the most divergent of minds can be brought together in divine synthesis given enough time, when they are willing.
feel free to hold on to your isolation as long as you wish. When the time is right you will come.
Well I guess that’s one down?
Good work, Allison.
Holy YISUN, maybe Mottom will commit suicide right away, and everyone will tell the story of the girl named Alice who killed the Bloody Imperiatrix.
That would be hilarious.
Such is the meaning of Royalty…
Also, The Red Eye king certainly has a great appraising abilities when it comes to wives and contracts; Aesma, out of all deities in the multiverse, was probably the only one willing to try those feats and capable of accomplish them; The Power of Love in the hands of The Master of Want is truly a thing to fear and behold.
There needs to be a drawing of the Red Eye King in full armor riding Aesma’s beast form into battle against the universe.
It is worth noting, though. Should Aesma ever fall out of love, she will be able to defeat the Red Eye King. Despite his admittedly greater power, she is not exactly known for losing, and she has already defeated the individual elements that make up his power.
Yeah, the Red Eyed King’s is fucked.
This one agrees!
It is at this point one truly pities Mother Om, assuming it is not merely an act to provoke Alice-un. Even if the request is genuine, it’s clear that our protagonist isn’t interested in the least.
Hum. I suspect Allyson is learning an important lesson here.
For even tyrants sleep. And what tyrant truly wishes to wake up dead, forever thirsting for virginal blood?
One wonders if this is one of Mottom’s many fears. One also wonders what her wizened corpse would thirst for.
/notices the peaches of Yisun’s garden in the story. Makes a wondering sound in her throat.
Is a tragedy or a niracle when a king forgets how to conquer?
that’s one heck of a twist/
The symmetry/mirroring in panel 5 is notable.
Yeah that is completely fucking horrific.
I have a question, if Mother Om isn’t one of the original Demiurges, why is she consistently pictured with the other Seven even before the war started? Is it just symbolism, or did she literally take power that early?
Also, if Mottom isn’t “naturally” immortal, how do the other Black Emperors sustain themselves?
Symbolism, primarily. She was -a- demiurge, but at that time there were thousands of them.
Each of the Demon Emperors have by necessity sought out their own methods of immortality. Save Mammon and Gog-Agog, of course, who courtesy of their nature as Servants need not fear death by natural causes.
And so, with such plenty, the fruits of the tree grew ripe and heavy.
And with time, fruit began to fall to the ground, there they accumulated.
All around the tree the fruit began to rot, the smell attracting great numbers of insects and vermin.
The fruit now consumed, and the pest still unsated, the tree itself is to be devoured.
Ah, Nadia. Your mockery of the tree of life has borne borne bitter fruit, and that fruit is responsibility. And you choke on it.
I hope that whatever horrific thing Nadia has to do just to convince Allison to kill her and the other six demiurges isn’t worse than the mass-murder Allison just selfishly shrugged off.
This is not the way this one perceived this conversation going. Perhaps… perhaps our Alison will turn the queen into an ally instead of over throwing her. After all, this epic tale is called Kill SIX billion Demons and not SEVEN billion.
No, SHE is called that. See /ksbd-4-70/
Did anyone ever say that Allison has to stop after killing the seven remaining demiurges? The full hit list she got when Zoss gave her the key just might be that long.
I always thought “love” to be a human creation, so fickle and petty, hotter and more blinding than even the Black Sun. Poor Aesma is a fool; her husband possesses great Hunger, but he surely has not known true Suffering. Consume him, should she, and add his flame to her own.
A child who had been subject to the hunger of preying men claws of desire that which would wrap around an all too young wife and would use them to swallow her whole and shit her out dirty and used subjecting her to become engulfed by that same endless hunger in herself and within her court a new terrible witch queen burdened by the hungering wolf and it’s kin that never ceased devouring her even when used up and rotting pray to yisun that the child might be lifted away from hunger and sated
Serious take:
I think this is an offer Alice-UN cannot accept. Given the snake-pit atop which Om perches, and since Alice-UN is a newcomer with no political/machiavellian expertise to speak of, everything that has been offered would be not only useless but dangerous to the fledgling King.
Silly take:
Om is in dire need of a Grief Seed… Maybe Cio-sempai has a spare?
By the time Mother Om learned she had become her late husband, it was far too late to do anything about it. Lesson of the day is to learn form your mistakes sooner than later, kiddies.
The more you know.