Arnulf the Destroyer Read Online Free PDF Page B

work now is to improve the finished product, not criticize it.  I work so others can criticize.
    I am still a food snob.  With tastes like mine it is even more impossible to eat the antiseptic and plastic-tasting trash that fills our supermarkets and restaurants.  But I am a different type of food snob.
    My favorite foods are the simple ones now; an apple that holds all the taste of autumn, tomatoes full of summer goodness, carrots rich of the earth itself, a simple steak that carries in it the flavor of grass and open pasture.  The food made by God is still the best.
    Finally, I have found that wine I have searched for my whole life.  Every Sunday I taste what has been missing, the piece that fills up the fullness of wine, the words for the blank pages in the book.  You can scoff all you want, turn your nose up at me, but you can’t taste like I can.  You don’t know what it’s like to experience the true depth of the eucharist, the communion, when I gather with my greater family and we all partake together.  I wish you could taste it too.  It’s the most beautiful thing I’ve tasted in my life.
    It tastes like redemption.

The Faceless One
    Yodis hated the blood-stained altar.  He hated the scars cut into its stone surface by countless mad strokes of the sacrificial knife.  He hated the eerie feeling he got whenever they approached Numa Din, the sacred place.  But most of all, he hated the stares of the idols that surrounded him, that sent chills through him with their wild and distorted faces.
    Yodis had no choice but to be around them.  He did nothing to mask his contempt though Oron didn’t seem to care.  The shaman continued with his rituals, heedless of the revulsion on Yodis’ face.
    “Are you paying attention Yodis?” the shaman asked.  Though he spoke gently his voice carried the full weight of his authority.
    “Yes, honored one,” Yodis answered, trying to focus on the shaman as he walked around the altar singing quietly to himself instead of the stares of the idols.
    “You don’t have to call me that,” Oron reminded him for the tenth time, not taking his eyes off the altar as he spoke.  “You’re my apprentice now, just call me Oron.”
    It would be some time before Yodis could get used to that.  After a lifetime of referring to the shaman as “Honored One,” he couldn’t just turn it off.  Even if his lifetime had only lasted twelve years.
    Yodis let his eyes drift away from the shaman patiently preparing his cleansing rituals upon the altar.  At first glance, Numa Din seemed quite pleasing.  Semi-circular in shape the space was laid out in gray, polished stones situated on a high hill affording a breathtaking view of the vast jungle.  But quickly the appearance turned morbid.
    In the center of the space sat the ghastly altar, stained in brown coats of dried blood, gouges dug into the stone.  Behind the altar the firepit was dug to hold the sacred flames for the festivals of Asher.  The pit had long been blackened with soot.
    On the outskirts of Numa Din, surrounding the paved semi-circle, sat a wall about twice the height of a man.  It was here that inspired Yodis’ most dreaded fascination.  For atop this wall sat the thirteen idols that gazed into Yodis’ soul and haunted his nightmares.
    Over the past months Yodis had come to know each of the idols intimately.  Beautifully carved out of pink and white marble, they still looked frightening despite the talent and care that went into their making.  Or perhaps because of the fine craftsmanship the idols looked terrifying.
    Standing the tallest, perched in the center of the curved wall, loomed Keltis, god of the dawn and sky, one of the first beings of the world.  To his left coiled Sifli, serpent goddess of the night, also one of the first beings.
    At the dawn of time Keltis rose up and warred with Sifli.  Upon his victory he forcefully laid with her and from their union sprang Shota, the many-armed goddess of