Day 12: The Black Ratios of the Great Shadow Serpent, Hiss, and His First Head, the Dark Mother, Cannibal Queen of Antumbra
(Which is also a facet Called RATIOS. The Red Braid or Infinite Acts of the One Head of Matriarch Helena, whose Face is another Head. Taelsaemz DCCLXXVII (Book 666))
Being an Accounting of Hiss’ Eyes in the Twin Realms and a Naming of the World-eater’s Movements, the Worlds He Has Eaten1
Herein be a recounting not of only of the Great Serpent’s deeds but of the founders of Helena, his doctrines; and its authors, the histurns; and of the Serpent’s prophet and avatar, Helena the Sister Serpent of Antumbra, the Dark Mother.
It tells how Helena ate the Serpent’s first numen, the Unholy Shadow, in the bowels of the volcano Mount Antumbra, and gained the power to Raise the Dead and the Slit Eyes of Eternal Fire. Because when one eats the Shadow, it in turn devours them from inside and neither survive. With this newfound sight and power, the Sister survives the Cull of the Tidebringer by bringing the wicked Orions into the Volcano where it burns forever. Atop the peak, she became the first Serpent Queen and founder of the City of Umbra.
After a betrayal and dismemberment during the War of the Trees, her journey into the Underworld and back to the Light to save the last Orions, bringing them to the Land of Darkness to begin the Orion Empire, which is also called the Third Reign of the Dragon. When she raises the Orions a third time, concurrent with the third Orion Ziggurat, She will return to conquer all of Halcyon and the Underworld, creating the Kingdom of Empires and devouring the Sky as the Great Serpent Hiss.
There are three volumes in the canon of the Ratios: The Measures of Ur (a codex recanting of the rise and fall of the Disgraced Ur Empire and Helena’s treatise on warfare), The Book of Limbs (a non-euclidean grimoire featuring the hexes of the Red Priests), and The Lesser Key of the Queen in Black (a secret book known only to Sister Serpent and the Snake Handlers, containing the hidden meanings of the codes of Ore and the glyph of Lies). Each of the three Tongues of the Serpent has one volume and is forbidden to read the others. It is said that only the Sister, who knows all three volumes, knows the full truth of reality, and only she can handle it without dying. The Ratios are a trypticon2: a book separated into three volumes so that every story begins in one volume, continues in the next, and finishes in the third. Each book stands alone but only reveals a third of reality.
The Measures of Ur is a history book, a genealogy, a book of laws, and a strategical codex. It tells the story of Ur, how it dominated the world into Empire, and the betrayal of Helena in seven acts:
I. To Start
II. Listing of Escapees of the Culling
III. The Call of the Shadow Council
IV. Accounting the Forest
V. The New Proportions of Q’ex Khan
VI. The Cannibal Hymns
VII. The Unmasking of Q’ex Khan’s Skull
The Book of Limbs is a grimoire that tells the story of Helena’s return to life, walking Hearth to make her Coven, to pick a new Sister Serpent to lead them, and the Red Witches to watch over the New World. Its events are simultaneous with the Measures, but more metaphysical:
I. The Litany of the Worldeater
II. The Book of Proportions
III. The Unquiet Codex
IV. The Sedge and the Bee
V. The Kurgan Texts
VI. The Witch’s Map
VII. The Lesser Key of the Queen in Black
The Book of Unmaskings’ parts are thus, though no one knows their contents but the Sister:
I. The Glyphs of Survival
II. 5-666
III. Engrammaticon
IV. The Music of the Solids
V. Love Is the Enemy of the Night
VI. The Seals of the Moon
VII. The Taming of the Priest
VIII. The Empire of Night
This entire section is a sort of dramatis personae-cum-table of contents, and not counted as an actual book, but as a rambling, schizotypal title page. Keeping in mind, this is the rewritten text, all imagery inverted, I thought the preamble would actually help. In another section, I may provide the bits from Jenna’s legendarium, of which this was the only part she actually constructed.
This word, so far as I can tell, is an invention of Orenda’s, that of a codex that is only comprehended when contextualized, but encoded when separated.