"The time has come, my son," the woman said.

"The time has come, my son," the woman said. Her dark eyes shown with anticipation.

"I...I do not understand, mother," Chakrii replied. He was nervous. His mother had never acted in such a fashion before.

"Follow me," she said, leaving the cool walls of their palace home and stepping out into the muggy summer heat. The sounds of insects and water were everywhere. Without looking back, the dark-haired woman intoned, "It is time to claim your birthright, Chakrii."

The prince was quickly becoming worried. His mother seemed to be walking and talking as if she were in some sort of dream. As they crossed the narrow bridge across the palace moat, she seemed to almost be floating. He reached out and took her dark brown hand. A deep rumbling sounded all around him, but he ignored it, more focused on what was ailing his mother, the queen.

The anxiousness and worry were apparent in Chakrii's tone. "Mother!"

Dark eyes drafted around but finally settled onto the prince's face. "What is it my son?"

"You must tell me what this is about. I fear for you. You are acting...strange." Chakrii didn't quite have a word to describe his mother's behavior. He had never encountered such before.

The queen looked to the sky, where only a sliver of moon rode in the sky. Her dark orbs trailed to the moat and the many pairs of eyes gleaming there, in the wan silver light. Finally, she looked back to her son. "As I said, my son, it is time to gain your birthright."

"I am not the King. Not yet. Father still lives, despite his sickness."

The dark woman laughed, her head thrown back. "That weak man is not your father. You are the spawn of King Chalawan and now-" she pushed her son into the mire-filled moat, where hundreds of crocodiles waited. She continued, her voice rising to drown out her son's screams as he underwent the rite of transformation. "Now you shall take on your true form, and rise as the new king of Thailand, and the world!"

When Chakrii rose from the muck, he was much changed.

Art Source: "Crocodilian Brawler" (c)/by KatieHofgard
Story and Characters: (c)/by Brannon Hollingsworth

#MMWW, #Makes, #Me, #Wanna, #Write, #BrannonHollingsworth, #Thailand, #legend, #Chalawan, #Chakrii, #Queen, #King, #crocodile, #originstory

"There is nothing for us here."

"There is nothing for us here."

My voice echoed flatly, dully, off the corroded cavern. When I say corroded, I mean it. This wasn't one of those lovely, well-maintained underground attractions that you see on the side of the highway. Garishly painted signs visually blare, "COME VISIT DEEPING DARK CAVERN!" or "SEE THE NINTH WONDER OF THE WORLD TODAY!" No, not this hole in the ground. It was apparently all some twisted trick.

I began to wonder just who was in charge of this place, and if I stood any chance whatsoever of getting my sixty drachmas back from the half-asleep, half-bored-out-of-his-gourd attendant. This place was filthy: there were actual bones littered around the mud-slicked floors and untold decades of trash and detritus that the living invariably leave behind. Graffiti was sprayed and splayed all across the walls and I was pretty sure that the massive grey lump in the corner was some sort of grimy, mold-covered mattress.

Yeesh.

I rubbed my thin hand over my face and worked a weary sigh out of my sunken cheeks. I could sense the build up even before it happened. My Darling Little Princess was about to unleash her wrath... "But Father! You promised that this cave would be different! You said it would be enchanting and exciting and wonderful and amazing and-"

I held up a hand and tried to stave off the mounting tirade. "Yes, yes, I know Princess. I thought it would be much nicer than this, believe me." My attempt failed and she continued to wail. A part of me, deep down, just wanted to throw in the towel. I could tell by her ever-increasing pitch that my wonderful spawn, Gloriana, was settling in for a long, screaming fit.

Princess: 1, Father: 0.

I heaved a sigh and accepted the fact that this was a battle I was doomed to lose. It was that exact moment that my wife wailed into me and things changed from the mere loss of a single battle to the decimation of the entire war. "I thought you knew where we were going, Harold! You said that this place would be a delight and is it a delight? NO! It is NOT a delight at all, Harold."

"Yes, dear." I gasped. "I'm going to go see if we can get our drachmas back." I don't even think she heard me, because I could still hear her wailing all the way at the entrance of the cavern. As I made my way out of the staggeringly disappointing hole in the ground (I mean, honestly - how hard is it to have an impressive hole in the ground, anyway?), I must admit that I was a little confused. A stiff autumn wind whipped around me, stirring the golden leaves into an eddy around my form. Everything that I expected to see before me had changed: the parking lot was deserted, the gate attendant utterly absent, and his post was little more than a mass of moldy wood. I figured that my sixty drachmas were gone too.

Figured.

A couple of kids--living kids--had replaced all that and stood before me, looks of focused curiosity plastered across their pimply, post-pubescent faces. They both held small, odd-looking devices in their hands, and they seemed to be looking through them at the world beyond. It was almost as if they were wielding two tiny windowpanes, through which they were able to glean something about their environment that their eyes alone could not covey. As they panned slowly across the mouth of the cave, their spying eyes finally fell upon me.

The looks on their faces switched from honed interest to outright fear. The girl mouthed the words, "It's...HIM" while the boy screwed up his nerve enough to stammer out a question, despite his quivering lips.

"O, gloomy and ghostly King of the Deeping Dark Cave, please tell us why you look so full of despair."

I heaved another sigh. "Kid, you have no idea...."   

Art Source: "KING OF THE DEAD" (c)/by RM73
Story and Characters: (c)/by Brannon Hollingsworth

#MMWW, #Makes, #Me, #Wanna, #Write, #BrannonHollingsworth, #ghost, #twist, #king, #queen #princess, #cave, #spooky, #ghostworld

If it had not been for the thing’s smell, the demon would have killed me.

177 B.C.
Nesactium, Istria

If it had not been for the thing’s smell, the demon would have killed me. The wind had shifted unexpectedly, blowing in off the Mediterranean Sea at my back and it was only amid that clean, salt-laden breeze that I caught the whiff of it’s peculiar scent: a stomach-turning combination of ozone, sulfur, and decomposing bodies.

The whistling head of the chain mace barely missed my unprotected skull as I dove headlong over the still smoking ruins of what had once been a family farm. A part of me wished I had taken up Epulon’s offer for a helm, but I knew without doubt that the Illyrian King would have never let hear the end of it if I had done so. I spun, drawing upon the very fires of Creation deep within me. Speaking words of Power to give the Force a Shape and Purpose, I wove a blade and shield of pure holy fire into being.

The flames of Heaven itself ripped through the darkness, revealing my foe. Nearly eight feet tall and covered with corded muscle layered beneath ornate armor, the demon was essentially humanoid: two arms, two legs, a head and a tail. The thing’s torso and arms were that of a man, though powered by far more than the mere muscle, bone, and sinew utilized by the human race. This thing’s power came from death and all the things thereby tied: killing, battles, the dead and the dying, rotting corpses, and all of the lies and manipulations whose harvest was fatality. Its legs were those of a horse and it possessed a long tail that seemed to be equal parts rat and steed. It was the creature’s head that revealed its true nature: a twisted and wicked parody of a dog with a single eye.

“Psoglav”, I spat, the very words drawing a foul taste to my tongue.

The demon laughed, drawing itself up to its full height and unsheathing a five-and-a-half foot long Iberian falcata. The blade flickered red and black with dried blood and hellish power. As the death-eater enjoyed its moment, I saw the horned ram emblem proudly emblazoned upon its breastplate.

My blood ran stone cold.

If this creature was allied with Kherty, the ancient Egyptian “god” of slaughter, the harvest, and death, then that meant bad things for Epulon and his men.

“You are too late, Tenet”, the psoglav growled. “Too late to save yourself, or your pitiful Illyrian King, and his entire nation.”

I waded in, screaming...

Art Source: "Psoglav Sketch" (c)/by Max-Dunbar
Story and Characters: (c)/by Brannon Hollingsworth

#MMWW, #Makes, #Me, #Wanna, #Write, #BrannonHollingsworth, #TenetsTales, #Tenet, #psoglav, #Kherty, #Epulon, #King, #Istria, #Illyria

Interested in reading more about Tenet - head here: http://www.amazon.com/Brannon-Hollingsworth/e/B00DP1O4W6/