An Excerpt from the Tome of Sable Chains: Creation of Visanguka

 

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“Kanego told me that lions of the bush will not attack men without provocation, but will lie in the grass and let one pass. He added that stories of lions breaking down doors to kill people are lies; these are men. Lions have shame, man does not."   - Perfect Lions, Perfect Leaders by Allen F. Roberts

The creation of a visanguka is a mighty feat of sorcery involving perfect timing and self-control. It is a thing a mage may be proud of, for the process is long and fraught.

To begin, the sorcerer should first obtain two animals, a lion and a rat. These are starved to death. Maggots are allowed to gestate in the corpses, and are fed and fattened until they become huge and furry. The maggot of the lion will provide the visanguka with the ability to change shape and wield the weapons at a lion’s disposal. The maggot of the rat will provide the visanguka with a complete lack of shame, so that it will kill without reason or remorse.

While the maggots are grown, the sorcerer shall prepare an amulet. The amulet is to be charged with components that make one invisible: a shard of glass from a smartphone screen, which people stare at to the exclusion of all else around them; the vocal cords of one who has gone unheard – for example, an innocent man who has been hung in spite of protesting his guiltlessness or a victim of rape who screamed for help that never came, or who is disbelieved; an insect of the order hemiptera family reduviidae, who we walk by without noticing. These are the sorts of components that the evocator must charge the amulet with. This will provide the assassin with the ability to walk invisible and soundless, unseen, unheard, and unnoticed, into any compound, no matter how well secured.

The mage meanwhile should also create a child from clay and weave a basket. Let the child be as perfect as the mage can make it, of a size that indicates he is a newborn, and sculpted with his mouth closed. If the child is smaller it is well, but if it is too small, the sorcery will fail.  Let the basket have a lid that can be secured closed, and straps that allow the mage to fasten the basket to his body so that it rests against his stomach. The reeds of the basket must be woven in such a way that the sign of VULDRA VORN ZELAR is clear upon all of its sides.

When all is in readiness, the mage is to place the amulet around the neck of the child of clay. He then places the lion maggot in his mouth and blows it along with his life’s breath into the right nostril of the child. The same is to be done with the rat maggot, saving that the nostril should be the left one.

The child should then be placed into the basket and the basked closed, secured, and sealed with the mage’s emission (hence the sorcerer must be a potent male). The mage must then strap the basket to his belly, never taking it off for any reason for a time of one hundred and eleven days and nights. It is crucial that the cessation of this period of time coincides with the new moon! At the end of this time, upon nightfall and if the moon is new, the mage should open the basket. If the sorcery has been successful, the mouth of the clay child will have opened. If it is closed, no further sorcery can be worked upon this effigy and the mage must begin again! But if the mouth is open, all is well and he may continue.

The sorcerer is then to cut his wrist, giving the child to suck upon the wound. The sorcerer must wait for the child’s eyes to open and ultimately must judge for themselves when the child’s grey flesh has flushed with the color of life. He should then close the lid and fasten it again. Daily, the child will seem to change back into clay, and this feeding must be repeated again at nightfall for another one hundred and eleven days. Again, the wizard must never remove the basket from his body for any reason unless he is willing to begin anew, for removing the basket will cause the spell to fail. This is a time of great peril, for the child is hungry and will need more and more blood to sup upon as it grows! A careless wizard will be drained entirely of his life force and yet if the child is given too little to feed upon, it will die. The mage must wait until the clay child’s chest rises and falls as though it breathes and for its skin to have the hue of vitality before he withholds his blood for the remainder of the day. If the wizard judges well, the child will live and can be removed from the basket at the end of the second one hundred and elven day period. Thus released, it must be fed on the flesh of a human murder victim chosen at random and will then grow quicky, attaining the size and wisdom of an adult (though it will never talk, having been fashioned by necessity with no tongue) in not more than three months.

Once all this has happened, the mage will have a powerful servant; a visanguka lion-man who can spread terror and enact revenge at the sorcerer’s demand.