Vision of Lushaka is also known as The Phylactery and is the namesake of the anthology.  Chronologically, Vision occurs before all prior stories and is paired, in the end, with Eleventh Hour of the Aeons.  I place immense importance on these two works since The Phylactery will not function without their success.  Vision draws on several literary notes and I am implore you, give me your feedback and how the story makes you feel.  As of my writing this, I am about chapter and a half in, I am suspecting there will be at least three chapters.

Chapter One – The Antediluvian Somnambulist

In those early days, there was no good and no evil, there was simply what was and what was not. I was Lushaka, THE Aut’strii, not the “first”, simply “the”. Manifest of the Lord Dau’lush in his world and messenger to his people. I took forms unique to all these people but no matter the metamorphosis, I was always of his likeness.
In those early days, the Lord would walk beside me in his gardens. I was his agent in the world and in this place, we could speak candidly to one another apart from the rest of creation. He would express to me his concerns, his worries, and his insecurities. He told me how, in creation prior, he gave the people control over what they felt and how they could live. Yet he could not satisfy them.
In those early days, he tried to limit his contact with them, the created, but he always had a goal in mind them. Sometimes he would express impatience, other times disgust. He would tell me that, though it pained him, he would start anew if his creation displeased him. To cement his trust, he showed me his deepest secret.
I had a chapel in the world and deep in the basement of the chapel there was a shrine, a phylactery. This was a dingy place I probably would never had seen or found had it not been brought to my attention. To all appearances, a dank driftwood-flanked cupboard. He implored me, in all earnestness, to stay away from this place and to not even think of it.
“Why allow such a place to exist?” I asked.

“Sometimes such places must exist,” He responded.

I must confess I did not find such a response becoming of my creator. Regardless, he WAS my creator, so I obligated to cease this question, turning to another. “May I touch it?” I inquired.
“No!” He commanded, “You mustn’t see it, you mustn’t touch it, you mustn’t think it!”
He lifted a hand towards me and bloodlessly extracted a rib from my torso. “Lushaka, beautiful Lushaka whom I have blessed above all other women,” He pronounced, “Know this: I have created you by saying, ‘Be’. Uncreating you, I say, simply, ‘cease.”
The Lord placed the rib inside the Phylactery as a warning. That should have been the end of it. Except it was not. During my days, I preached and endorsed the will of Dau’lush to his people. But by night, my mind always returned to the Phylactery. I always reached out to touch it but I darest not.
One day (I believe it was a feast day), my curiosity clouded my thoughts. Noting this, The Lord came to me and presented me with a drawing. It was the kind of sketch one might expect from a child. Although this was the norm. “I have noticed you have been distracted,” he noted, “Perhaps it is not good that you are alone.”
“This is Bauldier, the second of Aut’strii,” he continued.

It was a brindle-furred batty thing with a frilled skull, an unagi face, two tails, three nostrils, four wings, seven dorsal sable horns, and two icy stalactite horns of the nose. His drawings always reminded me of his earlier creations: the Martians, whom I never met. Although my disgust was rank, so was my devotion. I did not wish a fate similar to those past to befall anything which existed, even in potentiality. My mind paused to consider my words, “Lord. Do not overcontemplate, simply do as you will,” I half-muttered as though speaking to a child.
The Lord nodded and accepted my words. A likeness of Bauldier came into being, fully real and actual in all respects spare one: it was not alive. “One who knows his limits and to keep balance in morality and all things,” he said, “Bauldier, second of Aut’strii. Is it not good?”
There was something nightmarish about the androgynous entity before me. I did not wish to go against my Lord’s desire, but I wished to prove myself worthy. My honesty won the day, “its okay,” I said sheepishly.
Dau’lush gawked at me and I could feel his frustration, the kind an artist feels when his efforts go unnoticed. Yet there went that spark. That childish pettiness. Someone who could do no wrong. Until he did. If the slightest imperfection was found in the work, then the artist was forever haunted. Dau’lush snatched the parchment from my hand and tore it in two. The likeness of Bauldier faded from sight as the parchment baring his head blew to the heavens and the piece baring his body fell to the earth.
Night to night, my doubt grew and, day by day, my cynicism over Dau’lush grew. I certainly wished to serve him. Ultimately, my piety came not from a desire to obey the Lord but because I feared him, and I feared what my dissidence might bring to his people. Wanderings in my dreams always returned me to the Phylactery, that simple sacred sinful shrine which masqueraded itself in my bleak basement.
In my dreams, I usually kept to myself. I did not interact. I simply could be. I was not Lushaka, the Aut’strii of Dau’lush. I was Lushaka. I could be whomever I wanted. But my loyalty kept my options limited.
On the night where it began, I found a Stranger in my basement. In the dim, I could not quite distinguish his features. I asked him why he was there, and he explained that he was lost. I led him to the stairs and offered him a cup of water. Resting him on my shoulder, he was very tired. “They always told me the first time was…unlikable to any prior experience, sickening and refreshing,” he muttered. I ascended the stairs and presented him to the moonslight.
In times past, the Lord had taught me the names of each of his animals. Here was a something that I did not know. Certainly, I did not dispute there were things I did not know for I only knew as my Lord had instructed me. Yet it was not in his character to not tell me something like this. The Stranger’s features were difficult to discern in the moonslight, but something about his form did not lend itself to anything I recognized. His smell, I also had trouble pinpointing.
The Stranger thanked me for helping him to the surface but informed me that this was incorrect. I asked him, “How so?”

“This is not right,” he repeated, “There are not two moons.”

“My friend,” I said, “There must be two moons. One moon could not balance the sun.”

“You are pulling my claw,” he chuckled.

“I do not wish to call you a liar,” she said, “But you are speaking nonsense, are you intoxicated?”

“Intoxicated?” He said, “My friend, we are dreaming. I have spent my dream stuck in your cellar, how could I possibly have gotten intoxicated?”
“I suppose you are right,” I conceded.

“This town. These alleyways. These forests. Those weird green blades along the lawn,” he mused, “These are foreign to me.”
“You mean the grass? Are you not a construct of Dau’lush?” I whispered.

“What is a Da-losh?” he asked.

His heresy was sparkling yet I could tell he was not disingenuous. “What world is this?”

“The world,” I said.

“No, no, no,” he said, “What dimension?”

“THE dimension,” I said, “There are no others.”

“There are certainly plenty of dimensions,” he said, rolling his eyes, “A stream of dimensions. Beginning and endless.”
“Where are you from then?” I asked.

“I am from the Island of Clouds,” he said.

“Show me,” I impulsively responded.

He leapt from my shoulder and led me back down, he hovered about the Phylactery. “Hmmm,” he noted, “This must be it, the portance between worlds. I guess I did not think of it with those doors shut.”
With a grip of mighty clawed hands, he pulled the doors open, at first roughly but then gently. “There is nothing there,” I said.
“Everything is nothing,” He said, “But thinking makes it so. So, too does the portal need conscience, or life, to activate.”
He reached past my rib without much hesitation. A green whirlwind extracted itself from behind my rib. The Stranger was gone as suddenly as he came. I paused a moment to think. I looked into my rib and my rib into me, the bond of death between me and whatever lay on the other side of that portal. My curiosity succeeded and I reached into the Phylactery, past my rib.
All at once, my mind and my soul were pulled inside. Emerald vortices and half-drowned bells of infrared timbre consumed me. Bending, blending, and blurring. Inside, outside, here, and beyond. Icky, beautiful, transcendent, and imminent. Surely, the feeling of everythingness. Blindness and omniscience. Ignorant puddles and lending themselves to manifestations of vainglorious sunlight.
The sunlight was blinding to me and as I stood upon on the dirt ground, I fell flat into the fern beds. The world came to black and, in that dream, I lost consciousness.

Chapter Two – The Island of Clouds

It was hot and humid. Something course ran across my face, almost like sandpaper. Then it rubbed again. I blinked as the sun blazed into my eyes, unfocused floaters, and mercurial murmurings of suggestive shadows. Something drizzled on the nape of my neck. That unspecific foreign odor but with an innocent quality to it. Hsssssshhhhh. Then the brushing once more.
I blinked and my vision slowly came into perception of a fabulous filly. The horse looked down at me with brushy eyelashes and continued to lick me to health. I lay sprawled on the cold clay, the sun in my eyes, the horse restoring me. My senses restored to me and I enjoyed the quite ecstasy of the moment with the horse-
It was not a horse.

That mouth did not belong to any horse I had knowledge of, for it was anchored in the beak of a turtle. The beak leading into a face that was nearly triangular aside from a sunset along the back. And the horrid horns! Longer than my armspan, one above each eye, and a third atop that turtle-nose!
Crabwalking into the underbrush, I could now see my friend in full. Covered in brown and grey scales, a barrel-shaped belly, columellar feet, and a tail as long as the body. Animals usually do not fear something they do not know, people on the other hand do. Unfortunately for my part, I was people. I knew fear bred fear and rather than let my curiosity get the better of me, I did not want my friend to get upset.
I kept my distance and bit my tongue.

In the early days, the Lord Dau’lush brought me down into his garden. He taught me the names of all his creations, Aut’strii, myself and first, and Zebra, last. Each of us being the first in our line, the sharedness of soul from ancestor fractured into descendent. That to know the first, was to know all.
My friend here was something wholly new to me. Something that I knew not the beginning of, much less the ending of. An alien anatomy and chronology, devoid of the Lord’s artful stroke. I must say, I did not know what to feel.

I examined my hands and my feet, that perhaps something about my own anatomy might be different. To my relief, I suppose, I was still in human form. Although I was covered in the now dry clay. I bid farewell to my friend who grunted a “hsssshhhh,” and left.
Following my nose, I came across a creek and cleaned myself. In retrospect, I should have made better care to mark my trail so that I could return. I produced for myself a simple off-gold tunic with a dim blue sash around my waist. At least my powers seemed to still be present.
Araucaria and monkey puzzle trees and flowers dotted the forest. I could hear the sounds of birds chirping but I could never seem to find them. I knew that following water would sooner or later lead me to civilization. Why had that stranger simply left me? I could have easily flown my way to wherever I needed yet, this was not my home and I did not want to draw attention.
As the sun began to set, I climbed to the top of a tree to see what might be seen. On the one side was the forest I was familiar with, but a mile or two, following the creek, there was a massive brackish wall higher than any tree. I would make it to this wall by night fall.
I was tired by that point and began to climb, but succumbing to my own laziness, I simply jumped to the top. The moonlight, a single moon, just as the stranger had told me. Honestly, the one moon was not as weird as I thought it would be as it felt just as natural as the beast which woke me.
What did strike me as peculiar was the rift the wall formed. Behind me, was the tropical forest that I had spent my day in while before me was a concrete cesspool of smog, brimstone, and industry. The lights of a thousand campfires lending light to the shadowy landscape. I could not, in full, make out, what manner of entities were there. Sardonic feral festivals of semi-erect creatures vaguely crocodilian whose coloration matched the landscape. I did not know what they were. But I did know that this was not of the same sort the stranger belonged.
There it was again, that fear which came with being conscious: the fear of the unknown. Already my mind had formulated: this was bad. These things were bad. I longed for the familiarity of that stranger found by my phylactery.

I walked a section of the wall before a spotlight focused on me, “There it is!” A voice boomed.

Two of the crocodilian creatures came up and I could see them strain to keep their hands off the ground. Their booming boxed heads of a crude iron and their backplates of the same gleaning in the torchlights of the towns beneath. “A therapsid? Here?” One inquired.
“No matter,” the other instructed, “Send the hounds on them.”

A grinding gate atop the wall pulled itself open the iron mechanication more whining than whirring. Three beasts emerged with ferrous collars on their wrists, ankles, and neck. Again, this was of a different sort than I have known. Their scales seemed to suggest reptile, but their mannerisms felt avian. Three-clawed hands and a small flat pair of horns above the eyes. Their glassy mail was as the colors of an oryx but light sprinklings of tiger-stripes, with blue caps on the horns.
My awe gave way to fear as the creatures gave chase. For as large as the wall was, it was wonderous to see creatures as large as elephants atop it. Their speed too was wonderous and they were upon me in an instant. Fortunately, my speed was better. I ducked back into the canopy and into the forest below.
“Where did it go?” One of the masked creatures said.

“It doesn’t matter,” The other responded, “Nothing could survive that fall, let alone that forest at night.”

The forest was black and no matter where I stepped, something was always in my way. Not so much animals but plants, those omnipresent bird calls, and with what I had encountered so far, caution outweighed any curiosity. “I need to find my way home, I did not belong here,” I acknowledged to myself, “And this world knows it.”
I could only be sure that the wall was behind me, what lay ahead of me, I was less sure of. The moon could not be seen, and the branches were cold and slippery. I happened upon a herd of marvelous creatures whose wide-eyes could be seen in the foggy dark, their beaks producing cat-like chitters in the dark, and their peculiar avian habits of bobbing their heads. They did not appear especially dangerous but as I approached the pond they were grazing in, they all darted in their own direction.
I decided rest would probably be the healthiest thing for me. As Aut’strii, I did not need to eat, but I did need rest. Crickets and birdcalls lulled me to sleep, that maybe in the morning I might get my bearings.
Thump. It was enough to shake me from my sleep, but I did not think much of it. Thump. My heart? Thump. Not so much loud as it was noticeably quiet, but I could feel it. Thump. A drum? Thump. No crickets, no birds. Thump. It was an impact tremor. Thump. Cause for alarm, something was coming.
I sat calm and could barely make it out by the moonlight. An enormous animal. Easily thrice the size of the “hounds” from earlier today. Its mouth bigger than my person lined with steak-knife teeth glistening juxtaposed in the small two-clawed futile hands. I dare not move. His title glared and inscribed itself into my thoughts, “Rex”, for he was king.
The quaint lapping of the pond, like a kitten with a saucer of milk. I could not tell if he was breathing heavily or this was the result of his enormous build. The sublime perfection of his majesty alone in the pale moonlight with nothing separating us but a few of his mighty footsteps. If only that I might be able to discern some of his features further, a simple peak…
Snap.
A twig. That was all it took. The drinking abruptly ceased. The massive snout now turned in my direction. As the body turned to match the head, I realized there was no place for me to duck into this time nor was there a place I might hide. That voice will never leave me. Like primordial thunder or the yowls of an ancient tiger.
I extended an arm to the branch above me in a loose tentacle and I attempted to extract myself. I am fast. I am Lushaka, the Aut’strii. I am to be first amongst all things built by Dau’lush. My arm, my tendril, being nipped and cleanly in a matter of seconds. Oh, the pain was extraordinary. But realizations set themselves into me: to be a mortal god amidst alien aboriginals. Gazing at my red trickles from my flesh, the rules, and laws, I had been raised into and had enforced in adulthood, did not apply here.