The Fisher of The Wastes

god (n) a force or entity occupying a transcendent sphere of existence and holding influence over the destiny of men.

The bare, black rock seems to stretch on forever in every direction, and from the distant horizon rises a purplish sky that is smeared with thick brush-strokes of yellow and orange. A white-bearded man stands on the lip of a gaping hole in the rock, and behind him burns what seems an impossibly dark fire that licks at the hazy air beyond his balding head. A sequined coat covers his broad shoulders and pours over his delicate hands. Silence haunts the land, but peering within the wells of those eyes, we can see that the man is no stranger to her myriad specters. From somewhere within the darkened grotto come whispers that soon decay into echoes. The bearded man crouches, and thrusts his head into the yawning mouth. Every so often creatures would emerge there, drawn by the man's strangely discordant whistling. Often it was people who had found their way to the surface from the vast network of tunnels beneath. Often it wasn’t people at all; often it was something else altogether.

"Is anybody there?" He yells in a broken, parched voice. Mutters follow as the man's eyes strain to pierce the heavy veil of darkness. Two ashen figures appear several metres below, their eyes glistening with the reflected yellow of the drifting sulphur-clouds.

"It's the surface, the surface, you see!" A strained male voice whimpers from within the abyssal blackness.

"Men know me as the creature Dr Porphyry; Cedrick Porphyry", the bearded man again speaks, "and might I inquire as to your names?"

"Oh, a doctor!” the man’s voice screeches, “We could certainly use your expertise; you see, my sister has hurt her arm..."

Porphyry peers deeper into the darkness below. Yes, the girl has hurt her arm. She is heavy, thick-tongued and looks like an imbecile.

"Oh, no" comes Cedrick’s delayed response, "I'm afraid I'm not that kind of doctor".

"I see; are you a psychiatrist, then?"

"No, I'm a dendrochronologist. I study the manner in which trees age", Porphyry laughs to himself, "At least, that is what I did while there were trees".

For a short time the air between them suffers an uncertain absence of voices.

"That is rather curious" the man finally replies, "your name, 'Cedrick', does that not derive from the Greek word for 'cedar tree'?"

Porphyry narrows his eyes toward the man in the hole with a glance that might betray suspicion, or perhaps it is merely introspection.

"Yes" the doctor replies "Yes, you are quite right, if I'm not mistaken, Mr...?"

"Men know me as Shuttlepatch, Farley Shuttlepatch; this is my sister Charphanie".

The man below looks to his sister who holds her injured arm defensively, her eyes darting between her brother and Porphyry, who is smiling down from high above.

"You climb up, now", Porphyry nods to Shuttlepatch, feeding down a long, dirty-brown rope.

The man looks again to his sister, perhaps considering the possibility of Charphanie climbing first. Porphyry watches his gaze, and how it reflects in the face of his companion. He follows every stage of the man's problem-solving as it flows into his features like a funeral procession. The dark eyes of Shuttlepatch meet with Porphyry's smiling face once more, and he wraps his strong hands about the coarse rope whose fibres now creak beneath the man's weight as he scrambles awkwardly up the sides of the rocky shaft. Charphanie's round face is drowned in noxious moonlight as she gazes skyward. She bites at her nails without speaking as her brother clambers out from that lifeless throat of rock. Dr Porphyry holds fast to the taut rope, although it is also safely secured to some kind of bolt. As Shuttlepatch approaches the rim of the hole, Porphyry once more begins to speak:

"Did you know, Mr. Shuttlepatch, that above ground here, there is nothing left – absolutely nothing".

The climber pauses in his ascent, his expression melting from hope into one of grim shock. With a practiced movement, Porphyry slings a thin loop of wire tightly about the helpless man's neck. The creature known as Shuttlepatch tears a hand away from the rope, as they most always do, in a futile attempt to pull the offending cord from his neck. Porphyry crushes the remaining hand with his heavy boot, and the girl below looks on in a dumb expression of frozen terror. Her brother slips from his position, his palm sawing loudly against the rough rope, and with a jolting swing and snap, he dangles limp from Porphyry's cable.

The idiot below now screams like a rack-victim. She can scream all she wants. She may even come up for a visit too, if the fancy should take her. It didn't really matter. Her brother's muscles, organs, and marrow would feed Porphyry for the next month if he was careful. And besides, there was so little room to entertain guests in the frozen Outer Wastes where an experienced fisher of men may still glean a living off of the thousands of lost, scampering souls below who have been abandoned to the hidden perils of that lightless, desolate realm.