Beholding the Gods
1. Introduction
We live in a world of gods and monsters.
So it seems, that is. It appears that way to those who only know the surface of what they see, who ascribe the ability to move at will to magic rather than to interplanar travel, who misinterpret extraterrestrial and extradimensional beings as demons or ghosts or bogeymen, who see the way that those who know too much about these things go mad and assume this means they are unholy rather than that they simply cannot be understood.
But what is a god? What is a demon? What is a monster? In practice, what distinguishes a being of so much power that we are ants to it from a deity? What distinguishes an inhuman creature that stalks the dark corners of the world, taking victims by surprise, from a monster? What distinguishes any of them from demons?
2. The King of the Dead and the Dying
The king of the dead and the dying is dressed in yellow tatters and a golden crown. He is the uninvited guest wearing the morbid mask of death. He is the hanged king who presides over decaying courts. He is the rotting god of those without hope, of those consumed by the nothing in their soul, soon to be consumed instead by the swarms of flies that buzz about corpses.
3. The Prince of Many Faces
The prince of many faces can walk among us. He is a god, a ghost, a man. He is a king, a scientist, a priest. He wears the clothing he needs to, the mask he needs to, the face he needs to.
He can blend in perfectly when he chooses, so perfectly that he could replace you and nobody would even notice. He can wear whatever face he needs to, every face there is.
He is able to persuade people to his obscure religious practices, for he is so very charismatic, and he knows who to choose for them to enter his outstretched arms that he appears comforting rather than horrifying, the realization of what he is only hitting them when he rips them apart and leaves their pieces scattered in the trees.
For he can make it clear what he really is. He can show himself to be a being of masks and faces and skins, a monster hidden in the trees, in the darkness, in the fog.
He is a being of so much power that we are insects to him. And he is a child plucking us apart for his own entertainment.