benmiff

[benmiff]

The Parable Of The Masters Of Thyro

Alright then - a non-dressverse standalone this time. Had a burst of inspiration and was feeling somewhat mythological and wanted something that felt like it might be being recounted around the dying embers of a campfire. (As a side note, Esena is not one of my characters but one of a friends, but fit perfectly in the initial idea of the story.)

“Sit, sit. Let me tell you a tale of old, a warning of the nature of gods and the perils of hubris and the dangers of assuming greatness beyond your station. Like all the tales of gods, it is a tale of hope and a tale of tragedy, and that if you listen close and are wise you might learn a secret of the world, namely why you should cry for vultures.”

“This tale begins so very long ago, when the gods were young and the world not all that much older. Our tale begins in the great desert that was the centre of the world in those days, and though there were a number of oases’ strewn across it only one of them deserved to be called the jewel of the sands. So great was this jewel of the sands that a great many routes across the dunes chose to rest their caravans by its waters overnight, and over time a great city arose around it. This city was Thyro, the first great city, and as cities tend to do it soon grew fat on trade and opportunity.”

“Now, this being when the world was young, the gods were much closer to the world and the people in it, and so it was that Esena visited Thyro, and what she saw disgusted her, for she was a goddess of the sky and of birds and of freedom, and above all other trades one stood dominant in the markets of Thyro – that of the buying and selling of people. No more than one in every four people were free, and all other were slaves, and even among those who were free only the masters were truly without any bindings as all the rest of Thyro lived in fear of debt or obligation leading them also into indenture.”

“Of course, Esena could not let this abide, and yet, she could not lay down the punishment she wished – not immediately, anyway, for even though the gods were young and impulsive such a deed might attract the attention of her cousins. Normally, she would have little concern for such a thing, for many of her cousins were dour and serious and such she would play with their favoured toys in order to provoke a reaction, but at that time she far from the top of the world where she was meant to be guarding the birth of yt another piece of the world and so her wanderings needed to remain hidden so her travels would not be unduly commented upon. (The birth of the great frost at the top of the world and how it tried to seize all the lands before being forced to relent is another story to be told another time, however.) No – there would have to be a trial, a test, a way to make their downfall just and righteous and leave the people of Thyro with no recourse to complain to the other gods, and it was with this thought Esena strode into the main square to address the masters of Thyro.

“ “Masters of Thyro,” Esene said, unfurling her hair scintillating with shifting hues of pink, green and blue and revealing her halo glowing with even more colours, all shining with divine glory so that all present would know her as the goddess she was. “I have seen your city, and it sickens me. No-one should be kept in chains, and yet many of your people are bound by collar and shackle. No-one should own another, and yet your people bear the brands of possession. This cannot stand, a people kept low and restrained. I will not have it, and so you have a choice – either let your people free, or prove that this slavery is truly what they wish; should but ten slaves weep honestly for the fate of your city should all here be free, I will leave your city as it is now. You have ten days to decide, and should you not, I will decide for you on my return.”

“Esena’s warning and demands made, she soared into the sky, leaving those in the square to ensure her words reached the master’s ears. Her words were dismissed at first, the masters not wishing to face that they might be made somehow less comfortable and none of them willing to risk the appearance of weakness in the face of a threat, and hollow mockery was their only response.”

“It took three of the ten allotted days before the masters considered Esena’s words seriously. During those days clouds had gathered above Thyro, an angry black mass blown in by the four winds. Clouds were rare in Thyro for it was still a desert no matter how much they hid it under carved stone and channels of water from the oasis, and such a mass of potential rain had never been seen before in the memory of all the people of Thyro. Words were muttered in alleys and soon the whole city was talking about the unnatural event, and it became clear the masters would have to act. Fine, they thought – they had control over their slaves, and wealth beyond compare, so how difficult could it be? And so, each masters summoned their most loyal slaves to them and commanded them to weep, and so they did. No-one had even considered the idea of freeing their slaves, of course – it was a foolish demand none of them were willing to countenance, and so proof of the value of their ways would have to satisfy Esena instead.”

“The weeping brought nothing. The masters had not grasped the nature of the demand placed upon them and could not understand why their commands had not brought about the desired outcome, and how could they? They lived in a world where people could be bought and sold, and thought that owning a person’s body and their obedience meant they owned their hearts and their souls as well. Nothing could be further from the truth, and yet they persisted, exhorting their slaves into ever more elaborate and outlandish displays of grief, and yet there was no response. Perhaps, they mused, the slaves needed to be suffering for their grief to ring true? Such an assumption showed only their foolishness, for they understood force and used it frequently, and so when faced with adversity fell back into familiar and comfortable methods. So it was that a great scourging and numerous burnings were carried out, and yet, still nothing.”

“All manner of displays of false sorrow were carried out, wasting four of the precious days that Esena had granted the masters. Some of the masters even resorted to bribery, desperate to try any means at their disposal, but this only earned them derision from their fellows as no truly competent master had any need to pay their slaves when they were skilled enough to force their obedience by other means. Still, only three days remained, and the masters were truly worried now even if they were pretending as if all was fine whenever they thought they were being watched. The storm cloud that had been building blanketed the whole sky now, and any hope that Esena had been bluffing had long since vanished.”

“It was one of the younger masters who first proposed a new plan, one that would ensure that the slave had Thyro’s history and virtues embedded deep in their heart. They would find ten freepersons of suitable merit and induce them into slavery with promises that it would only be temporary, a momentary discomfort that would last only long enough that their tears would satisfy Esena and not a day more. All the masters agreed for all other avenues they had considered had failed, and after they had finished congratulating one another for their genius the plan was put into action.”

“It will come as no surprise that this plan failed, for once again the masters only revealed how little they knew of their people. They had not seen the bitterness that laid in the hearts of the free people of Thyro, and so while they did indeed weep it was tainted by the promises the masters had made and the fear they had lived with for so long, rendering their lamentations untrue. The masters were incensed, and condemned the ten enslaved free people to remain slaves for ever, such was their fury and so empty were their promises, and with this another day passed and had been wasted.”

“With only two days left, the masters were becoming truly desperate, and some were even considering freeing their slaves however briefly to avoid an unknown wrath. It was not until the younger master spoke once more that these thoughts abated with the promise of a new hope. The problem was simple and clear, they surmised - even the free people of Thyro could not be trusted with such a simple task. As such, the initial plan had no flaw – only the people chosen had failed it. With only two days left, they could not afford more failures, and so the most drastic plan yet was proposed. Each master of Thyro truly believed in the city, or they would not be a master, and so ten of them would have to be made into temporary slaves to deliver the city from its destruction.”

“This proposal sent all the masters in pandemonium, all of them arguing amongst themselves. Maybe the plan could have worked, but there is no way to know for sure – it never got off the ground. Each master agreed it was a good plan, of course, but each of them thought some other master should be the one to carry out. Some demanded the proposer should be made a temporary slave since they should have faith in their own plan, but they argued they had already done their part in coming up with the plan and that other masters should contribute equally where they can. Elder masters argued their seniority, younger their wit, and all argued their wealth, their dignity and their being owed respect. Esena saw all of this, of course, and though the masters of Thyro drew near to saving themselves through thinking that they might save their city and earn all the plaudits such a deed would entail, this was not to be. Each master held tight in their hearts their own freedom which they held in such esteem, the same freedom that they denied all others, and it was a simple thing for Esena to inflame the worst of their impulses, the fear and the pride that had brought them to their current plight. With newly bolstered egos, it came to be that none argued their true reasons for not taking up the mantle, namely that they did not trust each other. No master kept their possessions without constant vigilance, and each had reached the same conclusion – slaves had no rights, and so once made a slave nobody had a duty to return them to their previous position of master, and all their wealth as a compelling reason not to.”

“The rest of the day was wasted on these arguments, and they only stopped once one of the elder masters sealed the fate of Thyro, proclaiming loudly that none of them would be made slaves and all of this was because Esena’s demands were unreasonable beyond all consideration. They were the masters of Thyro – why should they bow to her? There was a day left before she returned to the square, plenty of time for them to get ready for battle. After all, they had the wealth and the armies they had amassed over the years, and what was one petty goddess against all their might? Some masters were uneasy at the idea, remembering their faith, but none had any better ideas and so none disagreed, and so pride and ego overtook them all as they congratulated one another on finally solving one of the thornier problems of their time.”

“Esena returned the next day as promised, landing in the square from the skies with grace and light. However, to her dismay, she was not met by the masters or even by the people of Thyro. Instead, the square was filled with archers and warriors, with more waiting in the surrounding streets. An army in those days was nothing compared to a goddess, but the masters of Thyro had grown overconfident and forgotten such things. Still, Esena had to ask, and ask she did – would the masters of Thyro let the people go free? Silence filled the next few moments, and then Esena got the only answer Thyro was going to give her – a loosed arrow aimed directly at her centre, which was easily diverted by a stray gust of wind.”

“That was Thyro’s last mistake. Up until the arrow had been loosed, only the city was to be lost if Thyro remained incalcitrant – the people would have been unharmed, scattered across the world and the many trade routes but ultimately free and alive. However, to attempt to harm a goddess? Well, that could only be answered in one way, and before the massed army could begin their attack in earnest, Esena shot back up into the sky and to the safety of the storm cloud. The archers loosed arrows up to no avail, and Esena’s punishment of the city began. Great peals of thunder rocked the very foundations of Thyro, blasting its stones to sand, and lightning lanced down to strike down the very tallest buildings. Such violence soon kicked up a great amount of sand, and soon the whole city was consumed by a violent sandstorm none could dare enter.”

“For the next ten days, the city was wreathed by storm and sand. The caravans continued to come, words travelling slowly in those days, and it is from them that we know what happened in the final days of Thyro. Misshapen figures were sometimes seen in the sands, but all that emerged from the storm were freed people who had once been slaves. Their collars and shackles had been shattered, and the sands had scoured any brands from their skin, and yet they remained unharmed. All that took them in to their caravans did not dare to re-enslave them for fear of the wrath it might bring, and after five days had passed every slave was now free.”

“The master’s fates were not revealed until the full ten days had passed and all the sands had settled, however. No trace of Thyro remained, all blasted away, and even the great oasis was gone, the jewel of the sands that was the heart of the city filled in and drained away. All the remained was a great flock of vultures, the very first that the world ever knew, and the new forms of the masters. This was their punishment, condemned to pick at and live off the weak and the dying for all time, revealing their true nature ever day lest they starve otherwise.”

“And what of Esena? She left, went on her own way, unaware of the attention that would be brought to her from the other gods in the following days as they learnt of the events that had passed in Thyro. However, that is a story for another time to be told of another night, for there are as many tales of the gods as there are stars in the sky.”

“And with this the tale of Thyro comes to a close, and yet, the hidden lesson remains untold, for there is one secret left to reveal. The masters of Thyro still have one last hope, one way they might resume their previous forms and finally be free. Esena’s curse retains all of its original potency, and it still holds the means in which it could be broken within the words laid down - should ten slaves honestly weep for Thyro, they might finally be free. Of course, vultures only have power over the dying, and so only the dying are sufficiently under their control to be slaves, for the vulture can eat freely only of the dying. Still, should the dying weep honestly, they might be freed, though of course none can, for none can remember Thyro such that they can hold it in their heart truthfully, but the vultures will still leave you alone should you weep, for they cannot tell the difference between honest and false tears, and so they have no need to force obedience if you do. Remember this, for a death by inches as the vultures pick you apart slowly is a terrible thing, and they will have the tears they desire, one way or another.”

#writing #mythology #curse #character: esena

[benmiff]

The Folly Of Insurrection

So, this is basically a story about what happens when a dragon decides to cut loose. It’s dressverse, but this one is very much a Mezzabareen story.

The Jade Mask

“So, why are they rioting again?” I asked.

I looked over the dark elf cowering in front of me, his hands full of shuffled papers detailing the latest reports from my agents in the Kalaton district – my district. He’d already wittered on about the difficulties of collating the information, of contacting my myriad agents and his own contacts and of putting it all together into a coherent report; such early excuses did not bode well for the likely quality of the upcoming report and my patience was already beginning to draw thin, an attitude he seemed to be overlooking despite my drawing myself up to my full height to loom imposingly over him. His eyes were flickering back and forth uncontrollably and shot through with amber in the capillaries, some of which had burst to leak in a blooming stain across the whites of his eyes; it was a sure sign he’d been railing Lightning and the kick and the alertness had kept him going all through the night to fulfil my demands that he come to me in the morning with a full explanation. I wanted to know how this riot had slipped past the people I paid exceptionally well to keep a lid on any unrest, and the stack of papers he had arrived with suggested he’d pulled together enough details that before he had started talking I had been considering not melting him where he stood for his incompetence. Of course, he’d be jumping at his own shadow and the other terrifying hallucinations that came with the drug while he came down and a great many weaklings eventually succumbed to the effects if not forced to come clean; many of them overdosed trying to keep from ever having to come down again while the rest simply killed themselves or forced others to do so as they fought the phantom hallucinations of their previous failures and their worst dears. Still, it was entirely possible he could pull through, and if he did I would have considered the experience suitable punishment for the earlier failures not to prevent the riot from starting; however, it didn’t look good for him right now, given he was still wasting my time and refusing to get to the point of the matter.

“Meletis won the gladiator contest. People on the streets are saying it was a fix, that his opponents were drugged and they were cheated out of their bets,” he said; yet more useless information, telling me nothing that I did not know already. Of course they said his opponent was drugged, given that’s what they always said. No-one seemed to mind when the drugging went in their favour, and besides, it was standard practice to fix the spotlight fights, and Meletis’ current popularity made it well worth maintaining his streak for a few more duels to lure in some truly extravagant bets on him before I brought the whole thing down. The dark elf in front of me had stopped talking, finally noticing the frown crossing my brow and assuming I would want to interrupt, and so I waved a claw at him to continue. “They say Vrychos should have won. Vrychos is leading the riots, but he’s just the figurehead – someone is behind it,” said the agent in front of me. I sighed at how very useless the whole report was; it was obvious to anyone with even half a brain that the people wouldn’t riot without someone behind it to provoke them, given the common folk were far too cowed by the collective might of the Horned Masks and the fear of provoking us to take action against them for not showing sufficient respect and obedience. I would have to look up who recommended I hire the imbecile in front of me and have them punished as well for not recognising a halfwit when they saw one – all he seemed to be capable of doing was testing how long I would tolerate his uselessness.

“Get to the point already. Who’s behind this?” I said, reaching out a claw to pin the dark elf to the floor and pushing just deep enough to pierce the skin between the ribs; perhaps the pain would focus his mind, and washing the small dribbling spots of blood from his clothes later might just reinforce the lesson. I held court in a large spacious chamber and the spatter of blood on the smooth marble tiles was no real trouble since it would easily be cleaned by the servants later; they were used to such demonstrations and it was always nice to start conversations without evidence of any previous violence lying around. It looked like it might be a bigger job than initially expected – he was too busy squirming, and I dug the claw a little deeper to remind him that he should be focused on giving me what I wanted as soon as he could.

“I… I don’t know. I’ll keep looking, I’m close, but I need more time! The Obsidian Mask couldn’t release enough investigators until-“ the agent said, but now he was just babbling pointlessly, proving he hadn’t found anything pertinent at all and had simply been trying to cover up his failures with excuses and a story built from what little details he did know; one deep breath, and I bathed him in the thick venomous acidic fog that roiled out from my jaws to douse him before spreading out across the hall as it dissipated. An unpleasant end to an unpleasant little man, his flesh bubbling and melting and his initial screams choking away to become wet viscous gurgles as his throat and lungs liquefied. I left the mess to congeal on the floor – servants would clean it up later, and I had a riot to suppress. A runner came up to receive my commands, knowing that I’d expect her and would want to move on to whatever my plan was immediately; at least one of my servants was being suitably attentive, the runner having been waiting for me by the giant oak doors at the end of my hall ready to sprint up as soon as the agent was dismissed or otherwise disposed of.

“Inform the Obsidian Mask that I’m going to be retaking the Kalaton district, and there might be some stragglers that manage to evade me that will need to be collected and punished. I assume they still need indentured servants and I really can’t be bothered with the tedium of hunting down the last few survivors. Oh, and contact the Feather Mask too – there will probably be enough dead left intact that he can use, and some of the remains will probably be solid enough to render down into something useful too. I’ll be putting down the riot alone – it’s small enough that I don’t any support and I want this dealt with now, and a demonstration is needed. Rallying mercenaries would take too long, anyway,” I said, waving the runner away to deliver the messages to the right people in the proper way. Kalaton district was only a short flight away, maybe half an hour if I didn’t rush and saved my energy so I could crush the riot with sufficient bombast and style, and as strode to the back of my court chamber I unfurled my wings, stretching them out and limbering up to take to the air; the whole back wall was little more than a grand arch giving access to a massive balcony that looked over my most private holdings. Below were the best of my gladiators and courtesans and other fine entertainers, all under my gaze from the grand tower I resided in when not on travels. Suitably loosened up, I leapt from the edge and plummeted with wings pulled tight against my body as I rushed towards the ground; only when the ground drew close did I unfurl my mighty wingspan and angled up, riding the momentum to shoot onwards into the sky and heading directly for my destination, the collected people caught in the wind that followed me scattering them and reminding them of who ruled them and by whose grace they remained alive.

Mezzabareen was quite comfortable to fly in despite being a predominantly subterranean city; over the years it had expanded to fill the series of massive caverns it had started in, growing ever deeper from the initial giant ocean cave that the docks had been established in. A few towers like mine even stretched up to the ceiling and had begun to anchored their tops amongst the stalactites there, reaching for more building space and the cleaner air that they reached once they climbed above the stench of the hundreds crowded below. Those towers were not all that common, being far between at the moment despite several more being under construction; only the Horned Masks and a few favoured servants could afford such a building project, and we focused on the quality of our towers in imposing architecture and pure presence rather than racing to build as much as well could. As such, there was still plenty of open air, with free passage only occasionally interrupted as I had to fold in my wings to sweep through a smaller tunnel connecting two of the caverns rather than trudge through the ground level passages with the massed common folk. A few people on the ground looked up from whatever pointless thing they were doing, but for most the sight of a dragon crossing the air a great distance above them was not worth noting, having gotten used to my going wherever I wished a long time ago and not fretting since I was not diving towards them in particular. As I drew nearer, I could hear the protests and shouting, and saw the flickering lights of hundreds of little fires started by the rioters; off in the distance two great carriages strode towards the riot on long stilted legs, each adorned with the finest decorations to ensure that no-one would fail to recognise the riders carried over their heads. Styling on one of the carriages was such that it bore an uncanny resemblance to a raven sculpted in silver, indicating the approach of the Feather Mask; the other carriage was a black glassy salamander wreathed in gouts of flame that could only belong to the Obsidian Mask. Clearly, my missives had been sent by the fastest messenger birds available as I was befitting to the recipients, and my fellow Horned Masks had accepted my invitation as I knew they would. That was not all, though – further back I could see a third stilted carriage, not styled as a recognisable animal but rather as a fusion of octopus, shark and some other creature that I couldn’t even place. The whole ensemble was a fleshy construct that slithered as much as it walked, and only one Horned Mask would control such a creature; I hadn’t invited the Bone Mask but clearly they felt their presence was also justified, perhaps thinking they could see sell their medical expertise to the Obsidian Mask to increase their take of indentures from this riot or alternatively they thought they might observe some new injuries and maladies that would further their own knowledge. Either way, the riot was in full flow already, with agents of the Obsidian Mask having arrived soon after the riot had started and long before their master to contain the problem; they had surrounded the afflicted area to keep order or at least to stop the chaos spreading any further, lashing out with clubs and the like in the hopes of reducing the length of their indenture by fighting with distinction and getting recognised for doing so. I had little concern for the outskirts, though, and headed for the centre of the riot where I had already spied Vrychos rallying the core of the rioters; very little escaped my gaze unless I chose to ignore it even at these long distances, and I had to marvel at his sheet foolishness at remaining in the open and not even attempting to hide from me.

Looking over the area around Vrychos, I could see a building near the square that would make an appropriate perch to address the masses in the street below; it appeared to be the roof to a long row of kennels, now empty of the customary slink-dogs that should been sleeping there awaiting their next race in the stadium a couple of streets away. They had probably been released by one of the rioters and were now stalking the street to hunt and tear apart some small animals or perhaps even a weak child or two; their instinctive behaviour as to hunt the frail and vulnerable in great packs, after all, and they would bound out of the shadows from all sides to corner their meals once they found a tempting prospect. Catching them or putting them down would be a nuisance for whoever ended up tasked with the job, but it wasn’t my problem and might even help me as it would sour any nearby districts against the rioters now their actions threatened their own flesh and blood. I had more immediate concerns that needed to take precedence that the future exploitation of this riot to my own ends, though, and tiles scattered as I slammed down onto the roof, gripping the ridge in massive claws and crushing the timbers underneath. The crowd below looked up in shock at the loud crash before recovering their senses, and then began to hurl bottles and rocks that bounced off my scales – not the reaction I was expecting and not the show of respect that should be shown to someone so clearly superior to them such as me. Under normal circumstances, such an entrance would have caused most of them to scatter and even a few to kneel in supplication, but their inability to recognise their own oncoming death would not matter for long.

“Enough!” I roared across the crowd, my voice echoing off the surrounding cavern walls and making my displeasure known to everyone within a good few miles, but even that had little effect; there was definitely something more going on here, but I had little desire to investigate patiently. Most of the rioters before me would be deaf from my initial roar, and it was testament to their fervour that they had not fallen to the ground clutching burst eardrums; I had tried to leave them alive enough that the Obsidian Mask might be able to make some amusing examples of a few select individuals through public excruciations, but now my last ounce of tolerance had left me and I readied my toxic breath once more. It only took one deep breath and the street was a foot deep in acidic fog, rioters struggling to stumble their way out and failing, and Vrychos still standing on his raised platform above the horror, drawing his blade to fight me in a truly outlandish display of bravado. I suppose that gladiators were never really chosen for their intelligence, and he clearly could not recognise that he had no hope of even landing a single wound on me, but very well – if he wanted to die, I could indulge that desire even if his behaviour so far did not merit the honour of a personal execution and I would have to make it particularly disgraceful. I leapt down into the fog, melting away into the gaseous form I kept for ambushes as I sank into the acid; mixed among the billowing poison I could ambush Vrychos from any direction, approaching him from outside of his guard. I would usually use this trick to toy with my prey, but Vrychos had annoyed me enough to earn defeat in a single decisive strike so that I would have to tolerate his lack of proper deference for as little time as possible, and so I watched from the inside the mist to judge the exact moment to emerge. His face was contorted in anger, not like him at all – his usual style in the gladiator pits was calm and precise, bleeding his opponent with graceful arcs and playing with his foe to the pleasure and applause of the assembled audience; fans clamoured to be right at the edge of the pit when he fought, and many considered a soaking of blood from one of his strikes to be the highlight of a night out. He had remained in a ready stance, sweeping the blade around him in a manner he had learned when we had ruinously trialled putting on fights where the opponents were ensorcelled to be unable to see each other; the fights were a boring affair and the idiot that proposed them forced to make up for the deficit of pleasure with his own execution, but clearly Vrychos had retained the initial lessons. Still, he was unable to keep up such a taxing defence for long and soon faltered, leaving a brief opening; as soon as I saw it, I launched myself out of the mist, grabbing his sword arm as I returned to my solid muscular form. In my grip he had no way to land a meaningful blow and I crushed the bones of his arm, forcing him to drop the sword and forcing his submission. I didn’t want to kill him just yet, managed to retain enough sense to tolerate his existence just a little longer; I needed to find out who put him up to rioting, gathering knowledge of who to kill where my incompetent agents could not. The street wasn’t a suitable place for such an interrogation; any interruptions would be easily dealt with, sure, but they would break the flow of the inquisition nevertheless. With him firmly in my grasp, I leapt up to a nearby half constructed tower and perched on one of the walls, dangling him over the edge where a several hundred foot drop awaited him. There was a certain twisted significance that he would die on this tower and that warmed my heart; the tower was being built as a reward for the best of my gladiators, and the reigning champion would live there until they were defeated once it was fully complete. It could have been Vrychos’ one day – he was certainly a strong fighter, or at least he had been before he decided to face me; perhaps I would inter his bones in the walls as a reminder to future champions of the price of disobedience. Before then, though, I needed to know who had put him up to all of his; perhaps I might even find him some companions to be cemented into the walls next to him?

“Who convinced you to rebel?” I asked, shaking him. He just stared at me, refusing to even answer me, and I was about to swat him to loosen him up and get him talking before I realised he was probably just deaf as well – he was still only an elf, after all, and even he was so fragile compared to my glory and presence. No matter – his will was likely weak enough that it would be easy to just speak directly into his mind instead, and I locked eyes to send my words into his thoughts instead.

“I said, who convinced you to rebel?” I said, making sure to keep the threatening tone in the force behind the words; just because I couldn’t speak them aloud to hang in the air didn’t mean that I couldn’t make sure they held all the menace they should possess.

Vrychos shook his head, glared at me.

“Not talking? You can tell me of your own free volition, or I’ll just get it out of you later. Now will be quicker and moderately less unpleasant for you. Talk,” I said, taking his other arm between two claws ready to crush if he continued his disobedience.

“No-one. I just got fed up of fighting your fights, that’s all. We all have,” Vrychos said. Not the answer I was looking for, and I crushed the other arm, twisting once the tips of my claws met to ensure that it hurt as much as possible; he simply gritted his teeth, and stared at me with even greater anger. He had a high tolerance for pain, a gift learned in his fights in the pits, but even he should have been crying out in pain as his flesh tore from the twisting, and yet his rage smothered all the pain; simple torments were unlikely to work, and it looked like I might need to get a bit more creative in my threats.

“Who?” I asked again, drawing a writ of assignment and showing it to him to make my intent clear if he didn’t start talking; all gladiators knew what it meant to be made a feral fighter, reduced to instinct and concerned only with killing anything in reach with all other drives and loves burned away. The process of making a feral fighter was torturous to begin with, a few month locked in a small cage like an animal with regular torments from outside the dark room one was kept in supported by a regular infusion of nightmarish drugs; by eliminating any personal contact and forcing them to squat in their own squalor, they all eventually broke and devolved into little more than savage beasts. That wasn’t the worst of it, though, and it was what followed that meant that all gladiators feared such an assignment; the drugs and the cruelty meant there would be no going back, and a feral fighter was only ever used in special fights. The most popular option was to have their fight against their loved ones or old friends, forcing them to put down the feral or be torn apart by them, and it was the drama these fights elicited which made them truly special. Of course, such a severe sentence meant that the fights were rare, and audiences flocked to them as a result, and lucky them – it seemed there might be another such feral very soon.

“I told you. No-one. All this, that’s what happens when you wreck lives. You can’t even see it, can you?” he replied.

Persistence in the face of such an extreme threat meant I might have believed his interpretation of events, farfetched as it seemed, but I saw that there was something else here, a flicker across the eyes as he responded. He was ensorcelled with potent magic and wasn’t going to know who caused his, making all of this was pointless. Still, I could at least figure out the spell  even though learning that would deny me the satisfaction of giving him a truly drawn out and gruesome death. I ate him in only a couple of bites, and I could taste the magic as I chewed and swallowed; emotional manipulation, enflaming his passions and his anger at where his life had dragged him. This wasn’t something I knew to be a hallmark of any of my enemies, which meant that either one of them was branching out to a new field or someone new was involved; my agents hadn’t told me anything, and I would probably have to arrange for some public punishments to motivate them to get on top of this issue; it appeared that I had become lax on discipline given the recent plethora of failures, and while it was an irritating inconvenience to have to waste my time with minutiae of management to sort out just who should be executed and who should be maimed I knew there was at least no shortage of replacements looking to get a leg up in Mezzabareen.

The rest of the riot was put down relatively easily, the ringleader no longer inciting the crowds to riot. The Obsidian Mask’s agents were holding the line perfectly well and they were smart enough not to venture past their cordon and risk getting caught in my attacks. I doused entire streets in venom as I flew past to great effect, and after a few such fly-by attacks most of the rioters were panicking, making it a good time for the grand finale; rising up above the streets, I poured my venom down in an unending stream onto the centre of the disturbance, and a great wave of death flowed out across the streets, seeping through every crack and crevice to reach those who thought they had found safety hiding inside one of the many buildings. Only those who had fled to the Obsidian Mask’s agents and either surrendered or been beaten unconscious survived the final cleansing, a fitting sentence for anyone stupid enough to be involved in such an insurrection. Job done, I surveyed the results of my work before spotting my fellow Horned Masks waiting for me on a nearby rooftop, animate carriages parked next to the flat expanse high above the chaos. They had convened there to overlook my work, and as I landed to ensure their people hadn’t seen anything on the ground that I could not see from the sky they made it clear they had questions of their own. The first question was the easy one - they wanted to know what pickings there were for their scavengers, and that I waved off to the few people I had on the ground observing event for me so they could report any unusual details about the rioters.

“And what caused this?” asked the Obsidian Mask, looking for the culprit in case she needed to hunt them down as was her right and duty amongst us. She had come out in full regalia, executing her office and wanting to make it abundantly clear that she was claiming her authority regarding sentencing; her Mask was solid obsidian, glassy with the runes of the oaths she had sworn burning beneath the surface. The rest of her garb was just as imposing; thick black robes hung from her shoulders down to her feet, chains woven through and a huge burning morning-star strapped to her back.

“Some kind of emotional manipulation. Magic, not something common to any of my enemies,” I replied, and as I did the Feather Mask shook his head. He was the most expressive of all of us, great black feathers wreathing his eyes but covering nothing else of his face. We didn’t know who he was behind the mask even with being able to see most of his features; the deep lines on his face told us he was old, but as far as we could tell he was nothing more than a lowly member of his church before he had donned the Mask. We didn’t expect to learn much more, either; the last attempt to divine some further details had lost me a fine seer as her eyes rotted away in her skull and overflowed with maggots, and that was not a failure I was keen to repeat.

“I had something similar in one of my churches. Someone stealing the silverware, bolstered by the same magic. I took care of it, but it sounds like this might be more than it seems. Obsidian, anything like this for you?” said the Feather Mask.

“I had one of my wardens kill a few servants during punishment, said they deserved it. They would have been useful and it wasn’t an execution, so not the intended outcome. Same thing,” she replied.

The Bone Mask had just been standing quietly to the side, listening, but now they coughed politely to interject. Their Mask was solid bone as was to be expected, the skull of some unknown ancient creature, but unlike the rest of us they had grafted it onto their face never to be removed, and used their skill in manipulating flesh and bone to achieve more alterations beside just the face; they had removed any sign of their gender, declaring they did not think of themselves as male or female, and they now possessed an uncanny beauty that attracted and horrified in equal measure. “It would seem,” they said, “that the hallmark is an extreme of emotion. A dissection of a brain revealed the same to me – the folds were shot through with magically induced lust. A shame, really; she was one of my best surgeons before she decided to maim a group of patients to make them suitably beautiful, the problem being she found diseases to be the most beautiful thing. I’ll spare you the trouble of imagining – you can’t, and all you need to know is it was not a productive use of her talents. As I said, a shame – I couldn’t even transplant any of the brain, given how shot through it was with magic.”

I growled – we were being toyed with. “So, we have a new enemy, or so it would seem,” I said, and the others murmured their agreements. “Well, we can talk to the other Horned Masks, find out what they’ve seen. But then we find this enemy. We find this opposition to us. And we make an example of it. Agreed?”

“Agreed,” said the other three Horned Masks at the same time.

“Excellent,” I said. “We start our search tomorrow.”

#dressverse #writing #character:the jade mask #character: the bone mask #character: vrychos #character: the feather mask #character: the obsidian mask #dragon #mezzabareen #riot

[benmiff]

A Letter To Anubis

Been meaning to write up some stuff for the post-game for the Ancient Egyptian-ish Numenera game I was in for a little while, and finally gotten around to the first piece. As the title suggests, this is a letter that Iry has written to Anubis pretty soon after settling in to his new role as advisor to Tu, an unfinished responsibility he has to address (and one he hopes can be resolved happily, though ultimately that is up to Anubis.)

Anubis,

I have been trying to find the right words for what I need to say to you for some time now. I appreciate that there is an irony in a priest of Thoth having difficulty in finding words, but conveying the full scope of what has passed is difficult with the limitations that language imposes. Still, I have to be honest with you, have to be honest with myself and those I care about. This is something I have to say, and I need to believe you know what I mean where there are things that won’t fit in this letter; you must surely know the feelings I speak of, and the nature of what you have done, even if they cannot be completely detailed here.

It’s important that you know I’m not angry with you, not really. No, I’m just disappointed in you, and sad that you seem to have lost your way. You are one of the gods that laid down the laws of man and gods, and yet you are in breach of your own rules. You say that you should be able to truthfully claim that you have not acted with arrogance, and yet you have decided what is best for another without any consideration of what they wished. You say that you should be able to truthfully claim that you have not done less than your daily obligations require of you, and yet you have foisted your duty to oppose Ramesu onto Tari and let her take the costs of that duty. You say that you should be able to truthfully claim that you have caused no wrong to be done to any workers, and yet your influence has led to the death of someone who followed your guidance faithfully. And you say that you should be able to truthfully claim that you have not caused the shedding of tears, and yet you have caused Tari to die and those who loved her to believe in her betrayal. Your deeds are not in keeping with your ideals – you took an innocent, and you used her in ways she did not deserve.

I admit that I am not blameless in this endeavour either, and I know that I have my own reckoning waiting for me when I face Ammut and Thoth for their final judgements. I should have seen that Tari was hurting; with my abilities, I should have felt that she was hurting, should have reached out and made her feel less alone. Perhaps if I had she would have come to me or Seth or Tabiry and confided in us, and all of this could have been avoided, but I was too wrapped up in my own trials and burdens to realise she needed my help. That is something that I will have to bear for the rest of my nights, true, but it does not absolve you for your deeds in this affair.

You knew Tari was vulnerable. You knew she needed someone who would show her that she could trust us and that would show her that together we could stop Osiris and Ramesu, that there was no need for her to sacrifice herself. But it was easier for you to keep her isolated and to use her vulnerability. It was easier for you to let her sacrifice herself rather than extend yourself. Easier, though, is not the same thing as right or good; such a choice is never truly the better choice, for though the decision was simpler you have only delayed the costs of your actions until a later time. You have to live with yourself afterwards, knowing that you betrayed what you should have protected. Perhaps you think you can live with that price, but over time you will find you have changed, and there will be a day where you cannot face who you were in those moments. Please, trust me when I tell you this – I am speaking from experience that was most painful to learn, and if you learn from this it will spare you the same suffering.

Sadly, this was not even the end of your misdeeds. You had the rare chance to alleviate a good amount of the pain and suffering that you caused when you manipulated Tari into dying for you. But you didn’t take that chance, and instead chose to use the opportunity to earn at least some forgiveness as an opportunity to extort further benefits for yourself. Love is a powerful thing, and there are few who would not pay any price if it meant that a loved one is returned to them. I have no issue with spending a time in your service – in truth, I feel that I will need to remain near you for a time to bring you back to being the honourable god you used to be and can be once more. I doubt you will often want to hear my advice, but I will give it anyway, and in time I will no longer need to act as your conscience as your own should have returned. However, I am not the only one you forced into service – you also extorted both Tabiry and Seth, and that is unjust and cruel. Release them from the binding to serve that you laid upon them; such a deed would at least start you on the path back to redemption.

As I have said, I write none of this out of anger or hatred. I want you to come back to us and the people of Egypt as you once were, and I hope you do so willingly. However, I know that it would be easy to reject what I am saying, more comfortable to believe that you know what you have done is right and just and that you have committed no sins that could not be excused. However, it is the kind of easiness that you will pay for in the future, as you lose sight of who you should be and the things you should care about. I do care for you, much as I care for all the gods, but I fear that my concerns alone will not prove sufficient to say you from the path you have chosen; as such, I have sent copies of this letter to Thoth and Ammut as well so that your closest allies can also help to bring you back. We will be here for you, and we will not let you fall – none of us want to see you become another Osiris, reduced to a pitiful shell of what you once were with centuries of painful work needed before there is any hope you are returned to the side of light. I’m afraid for you that you seem to be on such a road and steadily heading towards darkness – please, turn around before it is too late.

Yours in faith,

Iry Resseneb.

#numenera #ancient egypt #character: iry resseneb #bad god #bad dog

[benmiff]

A Polite Conversation

This one comes in a couple of years after The Wedding.

The Thorned Lady

Keeley had been a good friend to me over the last couple of years, even if our friendship had started as a matter of professional respect for one another before it grew into something more significant. She was a fellow specialist at night work, and we had met when it had been deemed that a particular act of sabotage would need both our talents; there had been a theft of one of House Borado’s many secrets and we were chosen to go and destroy their copies before the thief could successfully make use of the arts they had pilfered. The job required my arcane knowledge to distort the stolen spells so they looked plausible so we could bring ruin to the thief when they tried to use them and Keeley’s mechanical talents to get into the Clockwork Vault where they had been safely locked away; the Vault was one of House Kalis’ newest architectural wonders at the time and until our raid believed to be impossible to subvert, but our superiors believed that she was their best chance at getting past the many defensive mechanisms. She didn’t know me as the Ivory Mask, of course – we kept that identity strictly separate from my night work and I had developed a persona around a mask of animate thorny tendrils that continued to hide my face while also serving as a weapon should things become problematic and violence become necessary. As the Thorned Lady, we had recognised each other’s talents and artfully complemented each other when the Clockwork Vault proved as perilous as had previously been claimed; the traps were bad enough, articulated arms conveyed by springs and gears to slice through the air and take off a limb, but once we had delved deep enough we soon had to evade several clockwork golems far smarter than any spell should have made that were able to work in tandem to try to corner us before taking us down. We pulled each other clear of what seemed to be certain death several times that night, and such life and death moments do not pass without a bond being formed. Such events did not go unrecognised when we reported back on the details of our little night raid either, and we were paired up somewhat frequently from then on as and when House Borado’s needs demanded; in time, our friendship grew to the point that we would meet for evening drinks and talks, sharing what we knew about recent events and generally catching up with each other, enjoying each other’s company whenever we met as some of the few people in House Borado who truly understood what our roles were like while indulging in the luxury or the view of whatever place we had commandeered for the evening.

We were due for another such meeting, having agreed to use the long abandoned bell chamber at the top of the old Champion’s Bell Tower on the Vasari estate; the tower had slowly passed into ruin when the families’ fortunes fell and they had to limit which holdings they bothered to maintain, focusing on the central estate with not a penny to spare for such a grandiose celebration of long past glories. It was my turn to bring the wine (red as always), and Telesforo kept a good cellar and had no objection to my taking a few of the decade or so aged bottles for such evenings. Scaling the bell tower was not too difficult, with the walls shaped into great reliefs of past Vasari greats that had won plaudits for their cultivation and discovery of great artists; time had taken its toll and the tower’s walls were now ruined and decaying with cracked stone and fallen bricks providing more than enough handholds to easily pick ones way up. The vines of my mask reached out and anchored themselves into deep crevices and around protruding stones to pull me up, and soon I had found a suitable path and climbed up to the top room. The old bell still hung in the ceiling above, heavy bronze cracked by the great hammer that hung within never to ring out again without some expensive repairs that the Vasari family would never likely be able to afford; old furniture in the best styles of several decades ago cast from brass and softened with now decaying cushions sat around the room on old dusty laminate flooring that was once lovingly oiled and maintained but now had grown old and even rotten in a couple of places. I tossed the cushions aside, perfectly content with a hard seat, and arrayed the glasses and bottles I had brought for the evening upon the small table on one of the balconies ready for Keeley’s arrival. From here, the view of Pelhure was spectacular, looking down upon the lamp lit harbour one way and up to the forested mountains and other private estates in the other, all lit by the silvery light from the night’s full moon, and as I watched I saw little vignettes occurring in the streets, arguing couples or someone sneaking through back alleys believing themselves unseen; little narratives sprung into my mind to amuse me, with the squabbling pair arguing about the husband’s infidelity as the sneak-thief who was his secret love slunk away, and it was in this way I passed the time as I waited.

I did not have to wait all that long, perhaps a quarter of an hour, perhaps a little more; the quiet sound of a metal jointed apparatus clicking as the ratchets tightened and released their gearwheels repeatedly came from behind me, and as I turned I saw Keeley throw herself over the railing of the balcony at the other side of the room and onto solid footing. She was quite thin despite her half orc heritage, favouring speed and wit and intelligence rather than the usual brawn typical of her kind, but her most distinctive feature was the mechanical gauntlet over her dominant hand that was a device of her own making, aiding her grip and providing any tools she might need for lock picking or other such tinkering; it was hardly needed for a friendly conversation, though, and as she approached she folded it away until it was little more than a thick bracer around the wrist, all the little tools and mechanical parts hidden away under a golden covering plate.

“I do hope you haven’t been waiting too long, dear,” she said, taking a seat by the table and tutting as she realised she had folded away all her tools without realising she still needed the corkscrew to open one of the bottles. Fortunately, it was one of the easier ones to get to, and she unfolded a little arm with the tight metal spiral at the end to open up a bottle before pouring a pair of generously full glasses.

“Not too long at all. Well, where shall we start? Salacious rumours?” A telling smile broke onto my face as I talked, or at least the half that could smile, the other side of my mouth frozen from ruined muscles under old scars. The thorny tendrils of my mask had receded to show my lower face so I could drink and talk more freely, and I had heard rumours of my own, some pleasant and some most certainly not; there was one topic in particular I was not looking forward to bringing up, but we could talk over pleasant subjects first and get what enjoyment we could from the evening before bringing an unsavoury end to things.

Keeley smiled back and waved a hand in the air, taking a sip from the wine glass to wet her lips before she spoke. “Oh, I’ve got plenty of those. I think the best one is the Duncombe’s, though; you know Imogen, their youngest? Seems she’s got quite the appetite since she’s come of age, leading on Tomlan of the Rawnsleys and Jacob of the Thorburns and Marcellin of the Loffners; can’t see what she sees in Jacob, mind, but the other two? They’re decent enough young men, but when they figure out what’s going on, well, things are going to turn spectacularly ugly. How about you, Thorn – anything good your side?”

I had to consider carefully what I was going to tell her; Keeley was an incorrigible gossip, and anything I said would no doubt be spread across half of Pelhure by the end of the week, no doubt distorted and embellished in fanciful ways as such things always were but with the core truth still running through all the versions for those who were inclined to look. That was useful sometimes and I had planted lies before to draw targets into the open, but I had no such need for that at the present time; everyone I was working on did not yet know I was coming and were still dangerously (for them) in public. That left me with rumours about those a little closer to home, and I had no real desire to slander most of them; while I knew things that if revealed would hurt them, they were better left unharmed if there was no real benefit to it. Still, I knew of a particularly insidious rumour floating around in hushed corners regarding someone distant enough from me that indulging Keeley’s joy in muckraking was worth more to me than their comfort, and I was sure that Keeley would not have heard about it yet; the rumour was part of the reason I had picked the Bell Tower for our meeting spot, knowing I could use it to further illustrate the story. “You know the Vasari’s, right? You found their tower without any trouble, so I would imagine so. Well, if you look over there,” I said, motioning at another tower across the estate that was ironclad and in much better condition than ours, “you’ll see the Vasari’s old prison tower. No-one’s seen Varek in a long time, right? It’s unusual for a patriarch to be missing for so long, no? Well, that’s because he’s locked away in those cells. Went mad, apparently, starting shouting in some unknown tongue at the moon and had to be sealed away for everyone’s good. Such a shame, really; the Vasari’s just don’t have the luck.”

“That does explain some things going around, actually,” Keeley replied, absorbing the information. I pressured her to explain what she meant, and she revealed there were whispers that the Vasari’s were pressing for marriages and generally trying to polish the reputation of some of their lesser sons and daughters, pushing to secure themselves before they were forced to announce the patriarch’s unfortunate retirement. We continued talking in this manner for a good couple of hours, trading tales and secrets, and soon enough four of the bottles were empty and we were uncorking the last bottle, a sign I could no longer avoid bringing up the subject I was trying to delay having to discuss; Keeley finished regaling me of the stolen treasures she had seen behind the glass of her last job in the Urviche’s private halls, and as the story came to an end I leant forward to speak with a lower and quieter voice, both for the threat in what we were about to discuss and from an instinctive feeling I should as though there might be a spy who could overhear or that our words might get carried to an enemy on the wind.

“I’ve heard a rumour about you, actually. Not a good one, either,” I said, and concern crossed Keeley’s face as I spoke. “Heard House Kalis had reached out to you, wanted you to shift allegiance.”

“You know I wouldn’t, right?” Keeley responded, hand on the table betraying her as the tension caused her to grip the edge tightly; clearly she knew I wouldn’t bring such things up unless I knew something more, something to give the rumours credibility and substance, and she didn’t want to give anything away until she knew the full extent of what I had found out.

“Not what I heard, Keeley. I understand, I do… love, right? Someone in House Kalis you’ve fallen for?” I asked; love was the most common reason for such foolishness, after all, even if Keeley didn’t seem the sort to be blinded by a nice rump or pretty eyes. “You have to know it won’t work. They’ll kill you, and they’ll kill whoever it is you’ve fallen for, and that’s if they’re feeling kind. There’s worse they can do. I know you haven’t done any of those kinds of job, which is fine, but I have, so trust me here. If you really do love them, you’d stay away from them.”

“No, that’s not it,” was all I got back, not a denial she was thinking of leaving, only that the reason was wrong. I had hoped that it was a false rumour, hoped that someone was merely trying to damage her reputation and that she’d deny it all outright and be able to explain it all away, but no such luck.

“So, it isn’t love. What, then? What could possibly be so important that it means risking all of this? Do you want to lose everything?”

“I can’t tell you. I’m handling it – you don’t need to get involved, Thorn,” she replied. Too late for me to stay out of things now, though; I knew and several others had enough suspicions that they were beginning to get involved, and so I needed to do something before they did. After all, even in the worst case scenario, I could be sure that my way would kinder than anything they had planned.

“Look, Keeley. I know something’s up – if you don’t tell me, then I can’t help you. And I’ll have to tell them; they probably know already, just waiting to see if I’m compromised too. I don’t really have a choice here.”

Keeley sighed deep and long, caught between two equally terrible options, the rock and the whirlpool. I saw her glancing at the open expenses of Pelhure off to the side of the table, probably thinking about whether she’d make it she just ran now, but she had to know I’d just hunt her down, and I like to think our history meant she thought she could trust me with whatever was going on.

“This doesn’t go any further than us, not even if it means they come for me, Thorn. You need to promise me that.”

“Of course. No further,” I lied; if I needed to, I wouldn’t keep it secret, and it wouldn’t be the first such broken promise either. Such things were the nature of night work, and Keeley should have known that, but she’d been compromised and wasn’t thinking straight.

Keeley took another deep breath in. “I’ve got a child. Had him before I got into this line of work – he’s eight now. He’s with the father – it’s safer for him there, and while the dad’s not much as things go he loves the kid. Well, House Kalis found out somehow, gave the father a job, paid way better than he deserves, and now they’re threatening an “accident” unless I go over to them. You know what House Borado is like – they’ll just kill the kid, remove the complication the easiest way they know how – so I can’t go to them, so I’m stuck. At least if I go over only I’m in danger, right?”

So, there it was. An idiot of a father, not realising the trap he’d dragged everyone into. “You have to know it won’t work out that way. Who’s the kid, anyway?”

“Meiran. Good kid, more of a brawler than me though. Takes after his father that way.”

“And where is Meiran now?”

“You’re not going to do anything stupid, now, Thorn, are you?”

“Of course not,” I lied, once more. There was only one way out of this I could see, but Keeley wasn’t going to be able to do it herself. She was too deep, too invested, and couldn’t do what needed to be done. “You know I can find him myself, anyway, if I need to. It’s better if you just tell me, though – less risk of collateral damage that way and all.”

I’d left her no choice, and she even though she was still scared and worried she relented. “They’re in the Marleton estate, but...”

“Marleton. Alright. You know, you should have told me earlier, but so be it. One last thing, though,” I replied, and the animate I had been carefully moving down to the floor without Keeley noticing during the whole conversation clicked into motion as I tapped it with a foot to activate it. It was a silvery metal thing, all sharp bladed legs around a small body, and up until now I did not know whether I was just going to hurt her or whether I would be forced to kill her. I was glad it was the first option, and that the situation was not so unrecoverable that the only solution was to kill anyone connected to it. I doubt she’d be pleased with either option, but messages had to be sent and it was only thanks to our friendship that I had been asked to resolve this particular matter personally rather than immediately resorting to more unsavoury means. The animate leapt into action, scuttling under the table and ripping into Keeley’s right foot, and she screamed as it tore into the tendons at the back of her heel; her mechanical bracer opened up as she moved to destroy the source of harm, forming the punching dagger she usually wielded on our missions and stabbing through the animate before throwing it off the tower. It was destroyed in a single strike, returned to little more than crushed metal even before it went over the tower’s edge, but it had done what I needed it to now her foot was a shredded bloody ruin.

“For what it’s worth, I am sorry, Keeley, but they already knew. It’s only our friendship that saved you – they let me take care of things rather than go full bore. Your foot will mend, eventually, but until then, well – this stops you entertaining any ideas about fleeing. As to Meiran… well, that does need to be taken care of. I’ll get him, bring him back, but the father, well, he’ll have to die. He sounds pretty worthless anyway. I’ve seen you get back from a mission before now with worse injuries, and I don’t think it would be good for me to get too close to you until I’ve got Meiran in tow and you’ve had a chance to realize how lucky you are this is all I have to do to you. Goodbye – I do hope you’re not going to hold this against me, but I’ll understand if you do.” With that, I got up and looked over Pelhure again, spotting the Marleton estate off in the distance and releasing the animate bird from my ruined eye socket to scout ahead. I’d have the kid soon, and then we’d go from there.

“Thorn! Thorn,” I heard as I got ready to climb back down the tower, the bird flying off ahead. Keeley was leaning against one of the Bell Tower pillars, keeping the weight off her ruined foot, teeth gritted against the pain and trying not to show it. “Just… just make it quick for him, okay. And don’t let Meiran see – I don’t want him tangled up in any of this.”

“He won’t see a thing,” I replied, and headed out, a busy night’s work now stretching out in front of me. I just had to hope that getting the kid wasn’t going to be too difficult – I hoped that I could keep that promise.

#dressverse #writing #author:benmiff #character:keeley #character:the thorned lady

[benmiff]

The Wedding

This one follows pretty close from The Flame And The Mask.

The Ivory Mask

I don’t think that anyone can imagine their wedding accurately; there’s a list you keep in the back of your head of all the things you want and expect to happen, but life just isn’t like that, and there will always be something out of place, some failure or hidden ugliness you don’t see until it’s too late. I had never really looked for anyone, always was too busy with my career and never coming across anyone in the soirees and balls who didn’t have some glaring flaw that I would have resented should I have decided to try anything more than the occasional brief fling, taking the pleasure I wanted before kicking them out the next morning. I always imagined that at some point I would find someone worth my time and that I had more than enough time left to find them. Then, of course, the wedding would have been something spectacular, something suiting Celine with beautiful dresses (both for me in the traditional white and then a long blue for each of the bridesmaids), the finest cut suits and intricate decorations across every available surface. We would have a butterfly release when we walked back down the aisle after long vows full of love and longing; showers of paper flakes or rice were so very mundane, and the fluttering wings and scintillating colours would have had guests talking for weeks. We would have hired out one of the old halls up on the cliffs a little way down the coast so we’d have the most beautiful view behind us, able to see across the sea to the horizon from the grand and ancient stonework we were getting married in. But those were the dreams of a foolish girl, and my upcoming marriage is what it must be; the Umbral Lord had spoken for House Borado, insisting that I must marry to secure my place and demonstrate my loyalty, and they would be controlling much of the preparation given the importance of the event and the shame a scandal could bring upon them should someone of note be accidentally slightly by some facet of the décor or by seating two subtly feuding rivals at the same table to watch the first dance. Besides, I had to recognise that there are not a lot of willing suitors for a maimed woman, no matter who I was calling myself or what powers I was claiming; a lesser woman might even consider herself lucky that someone was looking out for her interests in that regard, ensuring that she would not be seen as something to be pitied and avoided, a pariah due to the lingering fear that association would result in rumours that they could not hold the attentions of the unmaimed and undamaged thanks to some defect in their character.

The Umbral Lord had moved quickly, and I can only assume that he was already aware of suitable partners who were available and could be persuaded before he had demanded a marriage of me; such knowledge was not common, with much of the nobility keeping such politically sensitive feelings close to their chests to avoid a rival exploiting them, and that he knew such things with apparent ease only further reinforced the impression that his influence reached both far and deep. He’d assured me that he knew of the perfect husband for me, one who would complement my nature and many talents and who would not be repelled by the abhorrence of my condition. We needed to move swiftly given the threat my claims on the Horned Mask posed and there was little time for the usual long courtship that would otherwise be expected, both parties circling one another to assess whether the union would be beneficial and if their interests coincided. The wedding was scheduled for little more than two weeks away from when I had first agreed to join House Borado and there was so much to do in the meantime. Most notable of the many tasks was to get my identifying loyalty mark, the arcane sigil that denoted membership of the House; I had been assured that it would only be visible to other members of the House and would not pose a danger when moving against my enemies in House Almaz, but it was still stressed just how much of a massive decision this was given just how much meaning was woven into the minutiae of your choices. I did not show a lot of exposed flesh much of the time given my need for my gloves and the mask encasing my head, but a hidden loyalty mark suited me fine – with the right enchantments, I could will it to show through clothing when I needed it to, and given that there was an intent for my place in House Borado to have one foot firmly planted in the shadows the subtlety of it also acted as a signifier for those in the know. The favoured loyalty mark for the House was some kind of fabric piercing and it seemed appropriate to me for it to be placed over my heart, woven between the breasts in a cage of ribbon; the ribbon itself was then to be thorn patterned with embroidery enchanted so that each thorny strand slowly shifted to give the impression of a constricting vine, the false shadows they cast moving and flickering underneath them as a nod to who had brought me into the House. The piercings were ivory, of course, another nod this time to the mixing of my Mask and House Borado, and the skill of the jewellers and ribbon weavers resulted in a beautiful loyalty mark that conveyed the intended warnings and declarations of threat perfectly.

Once the loyalty mark had been stabbed into my chest, I was finally able to move on to the matter of our courtship; such things had to be done in the proper order to avoid mutterings of impropriety, and so I met my husband to be for the first time only a week and a half before we were scheduled to marry. Our first meeting was cautious, neither of us wanting to risk oversharing or showing too much of ourselves until we felt we would at least develop a healthy respect for one another once we were spent enough time truly bound together. Lord Keppington was a reserved man and my first impression was that his austere high elven features revealed little of his true feelings; unable to read his feelings and inner nature from his expression, I fell back into older habits despite certainty that they were in part why I had not seen the danger the Lady De Bonville had actually posed to me. His clothes were definitely not modern fashion, but there was a certain ancient flair to them; rather than chasing current trends, he had taken the elements of haute couture that had persisted to the current day from centuries past, with a slim chain patterned brocade silk ruffed shirt and a wide brimmed hat combining to give the look of someone who could have stepped out from one of the historical paintings adorning the gallery room chosen for our first meeting. A traditionalist, then, or so I decided at the time; I did not learn of his more radical talents and interests we were properly married, finding just how deep he had delved into arts that until then he had only showed the surface of. As we talked it became clear he was already aware that my claim to the Ivory Mask was perhaps not as solid as I presented it to be to the public, a matter that seemingly concerned him less than it should until he explained his confidence that between me, him and other associates that we would secure our claim. This left the knowledge that my hands were lost to me, something he revealed he knew already with a disquieting lack of concern or disgust; this second fact seemed to fascinate him, and he insisted on the removal of my gloves so he could see them, revealing the charred remnants of my hands in the process. I was loathe to do so at first and thus refused, even when he explained he was quite familiar all manner of with wounds and injury and would not shy away from it no matter how bad it was. I did not believe him given that I had lived with them and still felt pangs of disgust whenever I saw them, but then he took the first step towards trusting me, pulling his finely pressed shirt open to show bubbling necrosis rotting away at the left side of his lower abdomen, contained only by arcane runes carved from bone and stitched into the skin in a loose ring around it to prevent it spreading any further. Too much time spent around the dead, he explained, revealing his ectomantic talents and telling the ghostly servant in the room to manifest as well; his manner remained calm as he spoke, as though he was merely talking about the weather, but his actions showed a remarkable amount of trust given that the common folk might think him monstrous for such a craft. Underneath the kindness, though, the subtle threat was clear, Lord Keppington showing his power and implying the dangers should his trust be betrayed.

The servant seemed different, more real than my admittedly limited experience of other ghosts would suggest, which he explained was as a result of his work reinforcing the fetter that was keeping them tethered and making them a more useful manservant in the process; his initial trust and openness began to make reassure me there was some hope that this marriage might work, and he patiently answered a number of questions before returning to who I was and what I could do, wanting to hear it from me in my own words rather than third party retellings of my deeds. I explained my talent with animating things first, wanting to present the strongest skill remaining to me to ensure he had the best possible impression I could give of myself, and that piqued his interest in that his craft crossed over with mine in regards to the binding of ghosts. Mentioning my skill with animates returned us to the subject of my gloves, since he had clearly realised there was some kind of magic involved and my revelation of arcane talent had narrowed down the possibilities of what they were significantly; I would have to start trusting him a little if we were to be married if only so I would be close enough to know if it was beginning to turn sour, and there was not a great deal of additional information he would gain from an examination now he was so close to being able to guess exactly what the gloves were. Decision made to cautiously trust him a little, I removed one of the gloves, letting him observe without relinquishing my grip on something so potentially dangerous to me if anyone else was to gain possession of it. To his credit, he did not flinch away from the ruin of my hand, much as he promised he wouldn’t, and even helped me to put the glove back on once he had looked over the enchantment and the craft within despite the risk of coming into contact with the mangled remnants of my fingers while rewrapping the leather padding around them.

The first meeting ended fairly abruptly just as we were starting to feel comfortable around one another, a (living) servant interrupting us to tell us that the allotted two hours had passed and that Lord Keppington was needed elsewhere for other appointments that simply could not be rearranged or delayed without grave consequences. The next week and a half passed in a blur of meetings and fittings and clandestine evening sessions poring over maps and family charts, servants of the Umbral Lord readying me for the upcoming wedding and outlaying plans to formalise my claim to the Ivory Mask once the wedding was complete; with all that was happening and how harried my life had become Lord Keppington and I were fortunate to be able to fit in another two meetings to further familiarise ourselves with one another before the day of the wedding arrived. It came abruptly, the servants having determined my plans for days meaning I had lost track of the calendar; they suddenly announced that the happy day had come before ushering me across the city to wait for the ceremony to begin on one of House Borado’s estates, hidden away in a small waiting room in an adjoining house once I had been properly sewn into my dress and prepared for public appearance ready to be revealed and joined to my supposedly loving husband.

It did seem to be taking far too long for things to get started, and I hoped nothing had gone wrong before we had even started; in our too brief meetings Lord Keppington and I had come to some sort of mutual respect, finding in each other a drive that wouldn’t be stopped and agreeing that we would achieve more together through smiles and acceptance of each other’s desires, though it was more an understanding between us than anything as tawdry as a spoken compact or signed agreement. Servants fussed over me and my dress as we waited, the smooth white fabric contrasting with the burnt black of my mask and of my gloves. Mostly, they seemed to be worrying over the train of the dress, enchanted though it was to stay above the ground with a cushion of air trapped underneath to let it billow with every slight movement; several feet of finest Mezzabareenian silk trailed behind me, and they pored over it to ensure it had not snagged on anything as I paced the room waiting. I had to suppress myriad errant thoughts all crowding into my head imagining the potential handsome loves this marriage was going to keep me from or the various disasters and deep shameful embarrassments about to befall me, my hands tapping fingers or fiddling with the numerous buttons fronting the dress time and again until I noticed and forced them to be still, and finally the knock on the door came.

“Ivory Mask? Are you presentable?” asked the servant from outside, and I strode over to the door to wrench it open in a hurry to get things moving along; the longer I waited the worse the whispering thoughts and lingering dread that I was about to make a terrible mistake became. A small man dressed in full formal clothes stood there with shock on his sweltering face from the force with which the door had been hurled open; like all the servants on the grounds he was clothed in full formality despite the summer heat and the temperature had eroded the traditional calm expected of servants, his surprise not matching the usual passive dry responses to whatever latest disgraceful behaviour the nobles would confront him with. “We are ready to being when you are,” he said as he composed himself back into bland neutrality, motioning towards the gardens; I stepped out, waiting for him to lead me to where everything had been set up out in the gardens, and we threaded our way through well concealed servant corridors and barely used spaces to avoid the traditional misfortune of the bride being seen by strangers in her wedding dress before the groom had laid eyes upon her.

It had been arranged that I would not be on someone’s arm, led up the aisle to be “given away” like some trophy or prize; any allies of any importance were still back in Mezzabareen looking after my interests according to the fiction we had created, and as one of the Horned Masks it did not seem appropriate for a lesser stranger to lay claim to me as theirs to hand over to Lord Keppington. No, I would be alone, give myself away purely of my own volition; this was my choice and I was not going to be passing the blame for it on to anyone else.

The ceremony itself was in an area that was surrounded by thick trees on all sides, a large open grove within the carefully managed copse revealing itself as the hedges dropped away to show the only opening; I lingered by the hedges, being careful to stay out of sight of anyone within while I steeled myself for the vows to come. I didn’t love him, but what did love have to do with marriage? No, this was purely for mutual benefit and so forward I went. Skilfully shaped trees whose trunks and branches were woven together in whirls and knots surrounded the carefully laid stones that made the path leading up to the wooden pavilion, steps leading up to the cleric and my husband waiting there for my approach; a number of lacquered benches had been laid out around the surrounding lawns and they bristled with people all in their summer finest, blues and greens and oranges in all manner of cuts and styles and topped with a wide range of summer hats ranging from dignified lacy fascinators to ludicrous stacks of ribbons and bows and baubles. I recognised a fair few of the guests as fairly important people from across House Borado, memories filtering in from my past life, and a small number of them were even the nobles that I had provided lavish outfits for once upon a time; looking over the crowd, I was struck by a sudden urge to have Elena and Abbellia there, someone close to me, but that was obviously impossible with my new identity as the Ivory Mask, and I focused back on the task at hand. Closer study of the guests showed a smaller grouping that I had no prior knowledge of, and could only assume they were equally important but held responsibilities in a private role within the House which were kept clandestine; they were probably involved in black projects or dirty deeds that demanded perfect deniability should House Borado be forced to reject any knowledge of them at a later date. Lord Keppington was dressed in an old traditionalist style much as I expected, all black with a cut that emphasized his presence with sharp angles and stark lines and a narrow waist held tight by the cummerbund, and as he looked up he saw me enter the grove; a small hint of a smile crossed his face though his normal inscrutability meant it was hard to tell if it was happiness or smugness, and he waved his hand at the band from his hip to begin the music. Thoughts continued to crowd into my mind - too late to run now, far too late, at least he did not seem to be too bad a man, and so on – but I crushed them as I walked up the aisle, bridesmaids chosen from the families those we needed to curry favour with later coming in from the sides to trail me, and soon I was standing there in the pavilion opposite him.

The ceremony was much as you’d expect – flowery words promising a bright future full of hope and trust and eternal companionship, and so on and so forth stacking lies and half-truths as to the perfect wedded life to come, and sooner than I thought it was time to swear myself to him and him to me; everything around me had narrowed, the watching audience being only distant background to the inside of the pavilion and what was about to pass. The cleric nodded at the gentleman waiting nearby, no doubt someone important to Lord Keppington, and he brought the rings over – two ornate silver bands, inscribed with the language of eternity and faithfulness and set with huge black shards of obsidian and ivory, our symbols intertwined to reflect their intended meaning. The cleric turned to Lord Keppington first, and asked him if he took me in marriage, swearing in the eyes of the gods so they may bless our future together, and of course he took the oath with a calm “I do,” and a certain pride swelled in my chest despite knowing how many others were responsible for this union and that there was no true love behind it – Lord Telesforo Keppington, now sworn to me. (I would need to stop calling him Lord Keppington, I supposed – though I would be on first name terms, I had explained in one of our meetings that I was the Ivory Mask, and that my name before was no longer mine – that said, he was quite welcome to call me Ivory, as was the tradition between Horned Masks and those they were close to.) Then, my turn, the same oaths to swear and irrevocably live by – did I take Lord Telesforo Keppington as my husband in the eyes of the gods, to have and to hold for better or for worse, may they bless this compact?

I perhaps paused a little too long, taken by a sudden burst of self-loathing and the certainty that I would ruin this too, but the mask hid any expression and so it was just as easily read as being overwhelmed by happiness, and I soon rallied. “I do,” I replied, taking the ring onto my false hands as Telesforo slid it onto what everyone else considered my index finger.

“I now pronounce you husband and wife. You may kiss the bride,” announced the cleric, closing the thick book he was reading from as he said so with a firm thump and then the gentle clicking of the locking clasps. I detached the bottom section of my mask to reveal my mouth – this had to be flesh to flesh, not lips on ivory, and as I leant in for the kiss I noticed the threat moving to strike as I looked past him and over his shoulder.

“Get down!” I shouted, moving forward to kneel behind the heavy waist high wooden barriers that surrounded the pavilion at the back edges and grabbing Telesforo to guide him behind cover with me. Among the trees I spotted a pair of dark elves seemingly coalesce out of nothingness, flowing into existence as they passed around the tangled branches like liquid, and I can only assume they had some kind of enchantment that made them more fluid than hard flesh; they must have stayed pooled close to the ground until now, oozing along and hidden in the grass until they knew this marriage was certain and they have to return to a more humanoid form to make their attacks. Both looked identical in build and they shared the same face, down to the scarring; it cannot have been merely coincidental as the scars were of various sigils and spells that must have been painfully carved into every inch of their flesh, most likely the magical working causing them to match one another and allowing them to flow like oil. Both seemed to be casting a spell of some kind, one focusing on the audience and the other on our pavilion, and as the audience facing assassin finished a liquid wall of pinkish shimmering energy sprang up to cut us off the from the audience, rippling across the whole grove and extending languid tentacles across its whole surface that lazily reached towards the audience before falling back into the main wall, unable to support their own weight more than a couple of feet out from the main barrier. The second assassin finished their spell shortly afterwards, launching a ball of swirling red crystals towards us; Telesforo had managed to get to cover ahead of me when it exploded into a rain of shards, and while many of the foot long pieces of glass pounded into the wooden barriers and floor around me the cleric has not moved far and was shredded as the needles tore through him ripping chunks of meat and sprays of pooling blood across the decking. I had not quite made it fully behind the thick protection of the pavilion’s slatted sides either, and several shards hammered into my head as I dove down. The mask saved from most of the shards raining down from above, few penetrating the thick ivory and those that did not getting more than a quarter inch deep into my face, not enough for real harm and only enough to bleed; however, I was not lucky enough for the mask to completely protect me as one shard tore into the corner of my lip to rip down to my chin and the other lanced through one of my eye slits burying itself through the eye and only stopping as it hit the bone at the edge of my eye socket behind. My vision went white and pain flooded my head, and I felt myself falter and go to one knee before my survival instincts kicked in.

The next few minutes were much a blur to me, moments passing in a haze of adrenaline and murderous intent. I refused to be a victim again, and wrath flooded in to my heart, white and hot, and all out the pain and the dizziness was pushed away. Telesforo was calling his ghosts to him, but they would take time to come and he did not want to tap into his other ectomantic powers with so many people who could get caught in a misfire of death and necrosis. The assembled guests could make things were difficult if they were caught up in a crossfire, and he was still level headed enough to think in terms of ensuring any blame fell on our assailants rather than our failings to properly secure the event. I had a weapon on me hidden in the mask, one that the Umbral Lord had procured for me as a promise that I would get my revenge and that could be hidden inside the mask when I needed it; I had intended to save it for murders that mattered to me, killing associates of the De Bonville’s with a weapon that they had effectively given me, but blind rage meant that I was intent on destroying my assailants right now and did not really care as to how I achieved that. A short metal pin when drawn out, it was not the most threatening weapon to look at unless one knew what the inscribed runes etched into its length meant, but it was set up to work with my circumstances. The barrier the first assassin had erected meant that the guests would not see what was happening clearly, rippling energies distorting their view, and I yanked the glove off my right hand to stab the pin into the bones; immediately, the hand ignited once more, the pin demanding the old magical poison soaked into the mangled wreckage of my palm trigger, but there was no more pain than was normal now – any nerves had burned away long ago and I had learnt to tolerate the low pure aching that was always with me. Hands wreathed in flame and fuelled by anger, I rose up from behind the barrier and (from what Telesforo has told me) swamped the area in flame, drowning both assassins in a bath of white fire and not stopping until everything was ash, drenching them with all of my hate and holding on to the elation of making them share in my suffering.

I apparently threw out much more fire than I needed to, continuing even after it was certain the assassins must be dead and nothing but unidentifiable char, but eventually I must have calmed down enough to recover my senses and remove the pin to hide it back in my mask; my flaming hand returned back to its normal shattered ruin as the flame flickered down to embers and then to nothing, and I collapsed as the pain from my ruined eye and jaw returned before I could get my glove back on. Telesforo tells me he replaced the glove, knowing that I wanted my injuries kept secret from the majority of the people so they would see the image of strength rather than the maimed shell I actually was, which was a small mercy at least; I would have to get strong enough to keep standing long enough to do everything I needed to next time, as I could not afford any such weaknesses ever.

- - -

I awoke back in the house, Telesforo and the Umbral Lord by the bed exchanging low whispers and concerned looks as to how this was going to alter our plans. They had taken me out of sight in case of any follow up attempts to somewhere more secure, ushering the guests to the planned after party with the promises I would return if I proved well enough to do so; not stated was that they also needed to remove the mask to assess the full extent of the damage and did not want anyone about in case of the slim risk that someone there might recognise me from my past life. A spectral hand drifted over and into my ruined eye and I could feel the fingertips probing at the wound behind the bloody entry point of the shard; clearly amongst the ghosts that Telesforo had bound was one that had some kind of medical skill who he had summoned as a trusted healer who would not leak the true extent of my injuries under pressure to some rival or competitor. The spirit was dressed in a bloody leather apron, and there was a small scalpel jutting from a still spurting neck wound, no doubt their likely cause of death in times past; despite limited time with Telesforo, I was already becoming comfortable around the dead, finding that once you got past the initial ugliness they tended to be fairly straightforward. The pain had gone – clearly the spirit had managed to do some good, applying a chilling anaesthesia to let the wound begin to heal naturally while ensuring that no rot set in. The Umbral Lord noticed my awakening first, and spoke with a knowing assuredness, clearly having already been filled in as to the situation by the ghost; he must have been present already at the wedding amongst the guests in order to have gotten here so fast, but I could not tell you which of the guests he might have actually been.

“Well, you’ll live. But we’ve got a problem. Healing that will take weeks that we don’t have. We can try and hide you away if you insist, but a show of strength might be more appropriate, and there’s the risk that more will get to you in the meantime...”

I laid there, thought over it. Another loss, but this one didn’t sting as much. It just felt empty, and it’s not as though I hadn’t asked for death by donning the Ivory Mask; perhaps that familiarity was enough reason for my growing comfort around the dead as well. It was clear that I had to press on since my decisions had been made long ago, and I couldn’t run from them any longer. Sitting up, I looked at Telesforo first, then the Umbral Lord, addressing them both. “We move on. Unless there’s anything else?”

Telesforo and the Umbral Lord exchanged looks before the Umbral Lord spoke. “Well… there is an animate we’re developing. You could tie what’s left of your eye into it. That wouldn’t take as long, could be done on the move. Again, it’s a risk, but if you’re willing...”

I smiled to cover the turmoil inside; I was beginning to think there was going to be nothing left of me by the time I was done, just a collection of replacement parts. If I wanted my revenge, though… well, all things have a price.

“Let’s do it. And fetch my mask. I’m going to keep it even with the holes. Let’s show them they can’t kill me. When do we leave for Mezzabareen?”

The Umbral Lord smiled, slipped out to make arrangements, leaving just me and Telesforo, and he knelt down so his eyes were level with mine, coming close. “We’re leaving tomorrow. I’m coming with you. We’ve got this part first, need to reassure our allies, and then, Ivory… then your real work begins.”

“Good. We do have so very many people we need to kill, after all.”

“Oh, we’re counting on it. After all, the dead are so much more… compliant.”

We both smiled then as he helped me up, gave me my mask to go to the party. In retrospect, that was the first time we really saw and understood each other, Telesforo and I; it was, as they say, the start of something beautiful and magnificent.

#dressverse #wedding #writing #author:benmiff #character: telesforo keppington #character: the umbral lord #character: the ivory mask (2nd)

[benmiff]

The Fall Of The Ivory Mask

Focusing a bit on Mezzabareen this time, going back quite a way into the past (a good hundred years or so before The Ritual And The Apprentice for perspective.)

The Iron Mask

They run before me as I approach their ancestral home, screaming for their armies to save them. Their previous arrogance means nothing now, their certainty in their mastery of arms and battle proving worthless in the face of carefully engineering betrayal. It was barely three months ago that they broke the Mask’s Compact,; we each have our monopolies and to demand the relinquishment of various areas from each of us was never going to receive any response other than retribution. To claim that their dominion over weaponry gave them rights over the Jade Mask’s gladiators or the Coral Mask’s warships would have offended me on their behalf alone, but to demand my fortifications and metal hardening techniques? Well, such an insult could never go unanswered, even if it did mean that we had to accept their occupation of some of our more prized locations after the initial weeks of fighting were over and we had grown sufficiently certain we could not deal with the problem on our own and so were forced to meet to discuss amongst ourselves a proper response.

I must admit, I wanted to go in as hard as we could and as early as we could, mustering assassins to reach the Ivory Mask’s far flung retainers while hitting his holdings with as many ground forces as we could summon. The Jade Mask agreed with me, though such things are to be expected from her draconic temperament, but the rest of the Horned Masks had different ideas, demanding that we act in a more subtle or surgical manner. Eventually, the Obsidian Mask took the lead in our discussions despite both the Jade Mask’s bloodlust and my desire to respond to the offence quickly so that it remained standing for as little a time as possible; her monopoly on Mezzabareen’s punishment industries let her speak with the voice of experience in matters of breach of prior agreements and she parlayed this expertly into having the dominant right to determine the nature of our response. The Silver Mask had the practical experience of alchemy to ensure that the Ivory Masks’ strength of arms would be meaningless, supplying enough poison that their soldiers would soon be laid low, while the Bone Mask had managed to maintain an image of not being entirely opposed to the current course of events since the Ivory Mask was one of her best customers; there was a constant demand for her flesh-crafting and medical services to prevent the more valuable retainers from being lost to mishaps with the development of their weapons, and so her retainers still had some access to the mercenary camps and could introduce the poison to the water supply.

Of course, such an attack was expected; the first set of retainers sent in with the poison were purely expendable, and were watched and caught in no short order with no more than a few scant casualties to show for the attempt. Still, it allowed the Bone Mask to winnow her staff pool of a few of her more useless people, and softened up the Ivory Mask for the true attack. There are a remarkable range of diseases in this world, and many which are known to only a few specialists, of which the Bone Mask has several; while most can identify a common pox or the bloody tears of a Weeping Disease sufferer, not all diseases are quite as obvious or as easily contained. All she explained was that those who were being sent in would be infected with something she called the Skin Shedding Disease, and that it would be best if no-one we valued was nearby when they went in; she assured us that anyone who breathed the air near a sufferer would likely as not catch the disease with ever y single breath they took, and that within a few days they would soon die as great strips of skin would peel and slough away from the flesh underneath.

True to her word, any place that the retainers were sent to soon ended up resembling a charnel house rather than any place befitting their original purpose. No doubt a few of the afflicted might have fled, struggled into the streets, but such things have a way of resolving themselves; the lesser classes would eventually figure out the nature of the latest tragedy to hit them and isolate the causes along with anyone else foolish enough to get caught up in the hysteria. With that, the Jade Mask and I were granted our wish to go to war at long last. The Jade Mask took her gladiators to the streets, hitting those who operated freelance within Mezzabareen and the surrounding islands subjugated to our purpose; as much as this was about avenging ourselves upon the Ivory Mask, there was a need to ensure that the lesser classes remained appropriately fearful and subjugated and seeing those with any ties to our enemy hunted down by gladiators would certainly be spectacle and warning enough. Less expected was the Jade Mask taking to the streets themselves; clearly being denied immediate vengeance had raised her ire significantly, and anyone unfortunate enough to have her find them were soon demolished with claw and venomous breath as several tons of incredibly angry dragon bore down on them.

The main assault, however, fell to me, the price I demanded for going along with the Obsidian Mask’s plan. She did not seem too displeased to hand that responsibility off to another one of the Horned Masks, happy to stay back and organise the appropriate sentence and then let others carry out the execution. Assaulting their main mansion was going to be bloody work, and I did not have the benefit of most of the defences being dead before I arrived like many of the other battles that would be occurring this night. Still, I had my reasons for demanding such an expensive part of the job; a significant part of it was that I wanted to exact the price for besmirching me personally, but there were also appearances to consider and successfully delivering such a prestigious set of deaths would clearly deliver the message to anyone else considering an unwise move against me that they should strongly reconsider such idiocy. Those were the public reasons for taking the task; less obvious (though most already had substantial suspicions) was that a group steeped in so much death and injury would prove a valuable resource for my well cultivated side-line business in blood magic. As many as possible would be exsanguinated, their blood used to imbue trusted retainers with martial prowess and more with potent tattoos at a later date, and their blood would no doubt also lend itself to the creation of some particularly effective homunculi as well; while I had brought the usual mercenaries and cut-throats with me, much of my forces were of my own private stock, soldiers with blades of crystalline blood or hearts replaced with black enchantments so they would never feel fear or pain or mercy. Further back were the homunculi that crawled on spindly proboscises, each jointed to a leathery sac to contain all the blood they would extract as they leapt upon their enemies and drained them to withered husks, ready to harvest all they could.

In true Mezzabareenian fashion, the centre of the Ivory Masks’ various businesses looked from the outside like a perfectly ordinary noble mansion. The surrounds were practically under her control, and the fighting through those streets had been bloody and violent, numerous mercenaries foolish enough to think they could stand against us, cut down as we approached, but now we stood in front of the central estate. Needless to say, anyone who entered the grounds was soon disabused of the notion, with the spiked railings along the main path to the house flying into the air, dozens of spears enchanted to fight by themselves disguised as an ordinary garden decoration for times of peace. Such things were merely an opening move in the battle, and though we lost a few men left groaning and bleeding out on the gravel path from savage gut wounds the spears were soon snapped and shattered and no longer a threat. They had still served their intended purpose, delaying our approach long enough that anyone inside the mansion would have had enough time to retrieve their own weapons and summon any personal bodyguards to them, but they were going to be fighting a battle for survival rather than for time as they had initially planned for; there were going to be no reinforcements coming from other locations they controlled scattered across Mezzabareen as they were much too busy with my fellow Horned Mask’s actions, and we had established a cordon of guards around the grounds so that nobody would be able to flee the upcoming massacre.

I swept into the main entry hall flanked by two of my best retainers; I had bound them together in a particularly long and difficult blood rite, linking them as blood brothers so that they now fought together as one. The hallway was already in disarray, my forces having entered and spread out across the ground floor in search of their victims; the more disreputable amongst them were just as likely motivated by anything small and valuable they could steal as the pay I had promised, but so long as it did not distract them from the main task at hand and any important papers were left untouched they were welcome to strip the place of any wealth. A few had attempted to climb the massive stairs running up through the centre of the room to reach the floor above, but none had succeeded and their corpses had been hurled back down to the hall to dissuade anyone but the bravest from following them; standing on the top flight was a narrow man, gaunt and spindly with the black ivory pin showing his allegiance and trusted position on his white coat which was unstained by any blood despite the signs of violence around him. I had heard tale that the Ivory Mask had on her payroll a blade master that he had furnished with the best sword they had, and this dark elf certainly fit the bill for such descriptions; the sword he held by his side did not look like one which was for show, a simple steel blade with basket hilt that shimmered in the light.

Clearly, the Ivory Mask and anyone of importance had taken refuge upstairs, reliant on the skills of this dark elf to protect them. We could have attempted to reach the first floor another way, sent people up the side of the building to break through the windows, but no doubt there would be contingency plans for such a thing as well. Besides, we were going to kill everyone associated with the Ivory Mask; that included this blade master, and it had been a while since I had a truly satisfying fight. I waved off my paired bodyguards, certain that they would step in if they needed to and certain that they would not need to, and as I strode up the stairs I asked the dark elf his name.

“Ravaul,” was all the response I got. I had heard mutterings about a Ravaul, that he was the fastest swordsman in all of Mezzabareen, but I had advantages of my own that would prove more than sufficient to best him and such rumours always were a little hyperbolic. I approached with my weapon pointed direct at him, a great maul of crystalline blood around my right hand from which three feet of bloody blade jutted, and as soon as I was within three paces he moved, batting my blade away before running his sword straight through my midriff. I had no cause to worry as I had already linked myself to a good number of my workers back in one of my underperforming mines, and one of them would now be splitting in two, taking my death for me; a cheap way to judge my opponent, and now I had the measure of him and his speed. Ravaul moved back into stance quickly, readying for a further attack, but the unexpected nature of my survival had slowed his recovery a little, giving me enough time to assume a defensive posture and prepare to defend against the next strike. He came in fast again, and I barely warded him off, attack after attack at lightning speed; numerous times his blade sank into my flesh, no blow quite as lethal as the first, but none of them would affect me as long as I remained bound to my workers so that every single injury afflicted one of them at random instead. I could see in his eyes he had no real idea what was going on, facing an opponent seemingly immune to harm. Was I immortal, perhaps? Did my flesh heal unnaturally fast? Perhaps he wasn’t actually hitting me when he thought he was, or this was just some kind of demented illusion? I certainly had no intention of filling him in on the real nature of what was happening; if he really wanted to know, he should have been better read and better informed. As it was, he was beginning to tire, his swings and thrusts getting a little slower and easy to dodge each time; clearly he was used to cutting down opponents on his first strike so often that he had never really trained endurance like he should. We continued to duel, his sword clattering against the ruby red edge of my bloody sword, and then he made his mistake; a thrust that had too much force behind it and would overextend his arm. I could have parried and tried to disarm him as part of the same sweep of my blade, but that ran the risk of failure if he managed to keep a solid grip on the blade still; far better to not parry and let him sink the blade straight through and then twist the body, wrenching the handle free at best and snapping the blade off inside me at worst. He saw what I was doing and tried to withdraw his sword, but by then it was too late, and he had little more than a foot of broken blade left in his hand as the steel snapped from my wrenching turn; I continued the motion and swept my crystalline blade though his neck, the remnants of his blade too short to bring up to block me in time.

His head came off clean and bounced down the stairs to join the corpses he had created early. One of the blood collecting homunculi was nearby and so I commanded it to drain as much of Ravaul’s blood as it could get; hopefully his skill with the blade could be harnessed later. By then, my two twinned bodyguards had approached, and with care begun to pull the remains of the sword from me, letting it clatter to the ground once it was out. Once the blade was out, the wound immediately healed, transferring away to another worker and leaving me good as new. The worst of the battle was surely over now, and we swept the upper floor to find every last servant and retainer and put them to death. An old room near the back of the mansion that clearly saw little use held the Ivory Mask, kept safe or so he thought behind an inch of solid metal; while it took a little while to break the door off the hinges, we did not suffer from a shortage of time and the door was breached soon enough. Some small credit must be given to the Ivory Mask in that he did not beg, though how much of that was dignity and how much was that he knew that it would have no effect I do not know; still, he stood and fought (with a particularly devious blade that snaked around as he wielded it) but all to no avail, my blade cutting him down like all the rest I came across.

We had started the attack late in the evening, and it was early morning by the time we were done, having swept the mansion top to bottom three times to ensure there were no survivors hiding anywhere. A job well done, and my honour restored; not too bad for a single night’s work. As the mercenaries and cut-throats filed out of the grounds, collecting their pay as they left, I looked over the building. Traditionally one would burn the place, but for a Horned Mask such an act seemed particularly gauche; his death alone would result in their holdings unravelling and fragmenting as enemies moved in to take their revenge, no longer afraid of the Ivory Mask’s retributions. There was no need to destroy the mansion, and no-one would dare enter the grounds for fear of any remaining defences. Besides, I wanted to leave the place behind to moulder and decay, unloved and unmaintained, a monument to what I had done here; if any of the other Horned Masks complained all I needed do was point out they gave me full discretion to prosecute this part of the plan, and I had most assuredly delivered. No, this job was well done, and now it was complete.

- - -

The word spread around Mezzabareen like wildfire. It was hardly surprising, seeing how many other attempts to retaliate against a Horned Mask or otherwise embarrass us had ended in grievous failure, but even with the consideration that it was the rest of us prosecuting one of our own that resulted in their erasure the people of Mezzabareen could hardly believe it. The loss of one of the eight Horned Masks was a significant shift, sure, but word soon moved to which of us would seize the now unclaimed monopoly on weapons and defences. We had already agreed it would no longer be a monopoly, and each of us would therefore have our own weapons and defences from then on, but even with leaking this information there were still those who insisted this was a move by one of us to seize another monopoly. No matter – fools will be fools, no matter how careful you are to try and convince them otherwise. More worrying for me was the rumour that sprung up and would not be squashed no matter who I had punished for expressing it; while most believed that the Ivory Mask and anyone close enough to him to have a claim on his mask were now dead, some insisted that his youngest daughter managed to escape. The details varied between every telling, with some saying there was a secret tunnel, others teleportation across impossible distances through the wards that specifically counteracted such attempts, and so on and so forth with varying levels of plausibility between improbably and downright impossible. It seemed Mezzabareen’s rumour mill couldn’t just give me a complete victory, even with the newfound respect I was being afforded by those afraid they might otherwise be next. The Mask would go unclaimed, of course – no-one could actually get to it past the defences in the grounds (not to mention the large volume of what were likely very angry ghosts). Still, the rumour demanded an answer to be given by public announcement, and after discussions it was felt I should give it seeing as I was so instrumental to the punishment.

I am not accustomed to public speaking in more rarefied crowds, something many of the Horned Masks knew and were no doubt counting on to diminish my star after the recent victory. A good number of citizens had turned up at news that we would be explaining what had happened to the Ivory Mask, but most had lives and other things to be getting on with, and so it was only a straggly crowd amassed there.

“Mezzabareenians. We have killed the Ivory Mask and his retainers for transgressions against the Mask’s Compact. The Horned Mask itself remains in the grounds which will remain as a memorial of what it means to cross us. As to recent rumours – should there be a legitimate bearer of the Ivory Mask, all they need to do is spend a night in the mansion itself; if they are truly of the Ivory Mask, the defences will not harm them. That is all,” I said, standing on the raised stone in front of the square as was customary despite the thin crowd making the height to see over them unnecessary. Speech done and the seeds planted to quash the tiresome belief in a successor, I returned to my work, this little saga wrapped up.

It took less than a week for the first false claimant to come forward and die by our hands. By the end of the month, there were seven dead false claimants; following that, maybe one or two, sometimes none, month on month on month.

Of course, they never succeeded. Of course, they never could.

#dressverse #mezzabareen #masks #writing #author:benmiff #character: the ivory mask (1st) #character: the iron mask

[benmiff]

The Ritual And The Apprentice

Timejumping again (this time to about twenty-five years before The Dress And The Ball) to a happier time.

Abbellia

I was woken by the knocking of wood on glass, an insistent tapping against the glass of my window pane from the long rod that the knocker waiting in the street below carried through the streets dimly lit by the barely risen sun. I still had not gotten used to being woken in such a manner, and rose to my feet unsteadily, shuffling over to the window to waive the young lad away to continue his rounds. The fog of sleep started to clear, and I recalled that I would need to pay him his weekly fee tomorrow as I heard him tap on the next window down the street. Until recently it would have been my last apprentice who would have been waking me, an energetic young wood elf called Orphel whose optimism was only matched by his unrelenting joy in everything he saw; he had bothered me for two solid weeks before I finally acquiesced to take him on, and it had been a long seventeen years until a month ago when he had finally proven himself to be competent enough to practice independently. After leaving my tutelage he had rapidly been recruited into House Kalis, attracting their attention with a few avant-garde pieces he had made during his apprenticeship and cementing his worth in their eyes with the masterpiece that had earned him his independence; he had made a set of four different outfits, one for each of season, and had woven in plants that only flowered in the relevant season before enchanting the dresses to create their own small climate to further demonstrate the theme. I warned him that while the work was good they would likely prove too aggravating to wear in practice, but word got out and Pelhure gave them such an enthusiastic welcome that even if I wanted to hold him back the general consensus would have forced me to release him; clearly, he had learnt to read the mood of the city and identified a hidden trend I had not yet seen coming up. I had offered him a few contacts and a small amount of coin to establish himself as an independent but the House had offered him fanciful opportunities and silver tongued promises that he would retain creative freedom out at the edges of whatever fanciful new design or idea he wished to explore next. Orphel had always sought to run before he had learnt to walk and sometimes even before he had learnt to crawl, never being satisfied with whatever lesson was at hand and ever pushing for the next technique to learn despite not having fully mastered the previous skill; House Kalis had done their research well and pitched exactly what he had wanted to hear, and the last I had heard he was now being shipped around the various small islands and fashion shops they had strewn all over Uso’s coast in order to fuel his muse into some new style or inspired design.

I suspected I would not see Orphel again except at one of the few mandatory events that occurred each year that any designer who mattered had to be seen at, and perhaps it would not even be that often; the Winter’s Ball and the Flower Show would never go out of fashion, but the Shipping Race in the spring had long been losing importance and was only kept alive by a few vested interests in House Almaz and House Kalis. I assumed that whoever had recruited him would probably arrange to have him hidden away in one of their more remote fashion shops sooner or later, keeping him away from Pelhure and the potential danger posed by the other Houses’ corrupting influence upon him. I was ready to move on as well, having grown tired of living alone once more quite rapidly; I needed a new apprentice, someone to do all the little jobs that needed doing but that would occupy too much of my time to complete and someone to talk to and work with when teasing out one of my more recalcitrant ideas. I had put out the word a week after Orphel had left my care stating that I was looking for a new apprentice, and had already seen two sets of hopeful students since then; none of them were suitable options, all lacking one personal attribute or another whose absence would ultimately fail them and their ambitions. Still, I had another five who had presented themselves to me as possible students and given enough of a passable first impression that I was willing to spend some time to look into them a little further; today was the first test for all of them in order to see whether or not they would fulfil the requirements I had that needed to be met before I was willing to take them on.

I dressed formally, wanting to be certain to impress upon them the gravity of the situation they were in with sheer presence and style. A grey morning coat worn over a light blue silk waistcoat with a brilliant white shirt all conveyed an air of severe authority, and the darker blue tie crackled with patterns of shifting frost to compliment the effect neatly. My trousers were also grey, striped and firmly pressed with perfect creases, and I had polished my dress shoes the night before to a brilliant sheen. The final thing to complete the outfit was a neatly folded pocket square, a little test prepared for the group so that when I first met them I could see if any of them were forward enough to critique a flaw and whether they at least had a grounding in basic acceptable fashion such that I could winnow out any timewasters; my pocket square was the same dark blue fabric as my tie, carrying the same cracking and shifting frost enchantment and projecting the desired sense of contrived overthinking and sartorial uncertainty. I slipped the small iron bound pocket book and recently sharpened pencil I had left on my side table into the inside pocket of the morning coat, ready to fill the pages with my precise and tiny lettered writing. I had already noted down the names of each of the five I was going to meet that morning in my workshop downstairs, each name neatly written at the top of a pair of pages for notes on their appearance and demeanour for later review.

The hopefuls were due in about an hour, and that was enough time for a light breakfast before the days labour would begin. The street hawkers outside had already set up their stalls under cover of the dawning shadows ready for any early street traffic, loudly proffering their goods to any who passed regardless of how little interest they were showing; my workshop was situated in quite the busy district, near to Pelhure’s harbour and so within easy reach of numerous fabric sellers and other wholesalers of material and other necessary items, and the food stands made good business from the various workers that walked past on the way to their jobs as haulers or sailors or other such dock labourers. I purchased a roasted length of fatty pork sandwiched between two toasted chunks of rough seeded bread and slathered in sugared apple sauce from one of the cleaner looking stalls and returned to my workshop; once there, I unwrapped the waxed paper to eat the meal, careful not to dirty the tables with grease or toasted crumbs, and once I was satiated I set about readying the main test I would use to determine the calibre of my applicants.

I had half an hour before the five hopefuls arrived and the time did not pass exceptionally quickly; a few light sketches in the back of the pocket book of possible ideas and embellishments kept me lightly occupied while I waited, but I could not easily sink into design and inspiration when I knew it would be interrupted before I really got immersed in the creative process. Ultimately, the sketches would be discarded as better ideas came along; they were basic and derivative designs and far from the usual quality of work I strive to produce, but the exercise did at least clarify that I had run the course of interesting ideas on what to do with the rest of the bolt of rough denim which had been used in a number of my recent designs to evoke a more earthy tone.

The first potential apprentice arrived about ten minutes early, a young dark elf named Celine. She clearly had arrived in Pelhure with limited resources, and her style had obviously been constrained by what she had available to her; the signs of hope that she would find something before she ran out of funds was not uncommon amongst newcomers, with the rumours that Pelhure could make you a star readily being absorbed by hopefuls. The rumours never mentioned how high the failure rate, was, and if I had to bet I would have said that all she possessed was in the large shoulder bag she had set down just inside the workshop’s entrance as she made her way in. No doubt she would grasp any opportunity that I would give her, though there was an edge of confidence to her that showed she was sure that I would offer something significant. The cloth of her dress was a simple thick cotton stained a plain blue, but she had made cuts along the sleeves to open up a number of long lines that went along the arm, showing the grey skin underneath without drawing undue attention to the long scar running down her right arm; more work had been done on the main skirt to stitch in numerous pleats to bring the dress in closer to the legs while leaving enough freedom that she could move without risking tripping over. She had managed to make something passable out of simple materials, which at the least boded well for her creativity. Her hair was tied up into a neat bun, obviously put up that way in an attempt to appear serious, but the carved wooden butterflies at the end of the long pin keeping the hair up was a nice touch. Ultimately, it was a reasonable first impression, and I invited her in to wait for the others to arrive.

As we waited, Celine sat politely, and I saw her gaze cross my pocket square and tie without comment; the only sign she had even registered anything of note was a briefly raised eyebrow before she dismissed it as not worth bringing up. Disappointing, but not a surprise, given she sat primly and likely did not want to risk offence this early into the interview. She seemed more interested in the contents of my workshop, looking with mostly concealed awe at all the various tools that were around the room that she quite obviously wanted to get to use.

“Look closer if you wish,” I said with a motion of my hand, and Celine went over to the storage racks, fingers running over the tools, and soon the ten minutes had passed. Nobody else had arrived, and I looked out into the street in case one of the others was rushing up the cobbles, but there was no-one. Unusual, given my stature, as most would not willingly pass up an opportunity for apprenticeship from someone of my repute; Pelhure was a city that did not give second chances or many chances at all, and to succeed one had to seize every opportunity one could. It was telling that Celine did not seem all that surprised that the others had failed to turn up when I said we would wait a further five minutes before beginning, only proffering an offhand comment that they perhaps had fallen ill and were unable to attend; later investigations of mine showed that they had all come down with some kind of violent food poisoning that passed within a few days but that had left them unable to move in the meantime, a discovery that only made things more suspect. Celine was either uncannily lucky or had arranged for the illnesses, and either circumstance was a good sign in a potential apprentice; luck never goes amiss, and if she was eager enough remove her competition it meant she would at the very least be invested in her studies and able to handle the social pressure a Pelhurian apprenticeship could bring. First, though, I needed to administer the test, ensure that she had the other traits that she had to have if any of this was to be worthwhile.

“Since you’re the only one here, this test will be a one on one test. I’ll demonstrate, and then you need to replicate my actions as accurately as possible afterwards. Precision is key here; I need to know you can be taught,” I said, indicating the various items I had laid out in front of me. “I picked up this particular ritual on one of my travels. Preparation of coffee, but there’s a lot of detail and a lot of steps, so you’ll need to pay close attention.”

With the warning given, I began. Zilean coffee beans had to be measured precisely and ground to the correct consistency in mortar and pestle while the water was heated over a fire to the correct temperature; while these two things were being prepared, one also had to begin to melt down the sugar slowly without letting it overheat to get a perfect caramel, timing things right so that one could infuse vanilla into cream before adding it to the caramel for the flavouring sauce. Once the beans were of the appropriate consistency and the water was at the right temperature (hot but not quite boiling), they need to be added to the heavy copper brewing pot and left to brew for just the right length of time while the caramel cream was carefully dotted at the bottom of each of the fine china cups ready for pouring. Finally, the coffee itself had to be poured, a precise amount into each cup difficult to achieve with the weight of the brewing pot, and a number of differing levels depending on preference of how milky one wanted the coffee. Finally, an appropriate amount of milk in a small jug for each coffee, and then the tray of cups arranged precisely right and presented to the recipient after waiting exactly the right length of time to let the caramel vanilla sauce infuse into the poured drinks.

Celine’s attempt was not unreasonable for a first attempt. She had been paying close attention, but it was a lot of information to take in on one pass, and many of the fine details had not been achieved to the exacting levels I intended to demand. Of course, that was very much one of the points of the test – nobody ever passed it perfectly, and nobody ever could. There was always some fault, something that I could pick out and use as my pretext for their failure. I emptied the cup with several deep mouthfuls, making her wait; perhaps a little cruel, but I couldn’t dismiss her immediately as that would spoil the real point of test. Once the cup was finally drained, I set it back down upon the tray and brushed down my lapels before nesting my fingers together to address her.

“The cream caramel dots were too large. The water was slightly too cold before being added to the brewing pot. The amount poured was not correct. The ground beans had an uneven consistency. All told, while you made a reasonable effort, your performance was not satisfactory. I won’t be taking you on. You may leave,” I said, freeing a hand to wave her away as I dismissed her, and as I spoke I saw a flash of anger cross Celine’s face before she smiled and recollected herself.

“Thank you for your time,” Celine said, trying to keep from gritted teeth as she spoke, and then she snatched up her bag and left.

- - -

That was not the end of it, of course. This was the true purpose of the test; it was not enough to be precise, or quick to learn, or creatively talented, or any of the various things that so many gossiping amateurs claimed were the foundations of the truly great designers. No – the ability I sought was far more vital; any apprentice of mine needed persistence, the ability to continue after a failure and not just give up. It was a rare asset with many who failed the coffee ritual choosing instead to simply go away and try to gain an apprenticeship with another lesser teacher now that they were unsure that they were as good as they had previously believed. Nevertheless, it was two days later that I learnt that Celine was definitely not going to give up following just a single refusal; she had the right spirit, and likely would not have given up until one of us went too far.

I had spent the two days after Celine’s test coming up with a new design, my previous sketches burnt in favour of a fresh start; I spent the rest of the first day walking through the markets, looking for a new fabric or button or something to inspire a new idea, and the second day experimenting with a batch of things that had caught my eye trying to assemble something special from the disparate elements. By the late evening I had assembled most of a design for an outfit, pinned up against the wooden frame at the back of my workshop, but it needed a little extra vim and vigour; the thick cords that ran along the seams were a pleasant contrast to the lighter grey of the dress but I knew that I had a store of elemental frost in one of my spare warehouses that I could use to add a glowing frost that would flow up and down the cords, giving it the finishing touch it would reach perfection with.

It was dark out in the streets and had been for a good couple of hours, but the warehouse was not far, and it took me all of five minutes to walk across the harbour front to reach the building. The store had been built from rough stone blocks that kept any salt from the sea from ruining the delicate items within, and the door was enchanted to let only me in; the handle responded to my touch to magically unlock itself, and I let myself in. The lights inside the building were already on as I entered, little elemental orbs of ice that glowed blue whenever anyone was inside the building; it was an early warning that someone else was present, something I thought was impossible with the enchanted door and the solid stone walls. Nevertheless, I was quite capable of handling a simple intruder, holding the sapphire ring on my right hand tightly before triggering the spell within to grow a large spike of ice jutting out from the gem and perfect for punching with. Now appropriately armed and ready for any potential confrontation, I moved into the main space, calling out as I did so.

“It would be best if you show yourself. This doesn’t need to end with your death.”

As soon as I spoke, I heard movement deeper in the warehouse, a scuffling of fabric and then leather hitting stone. I rushed forward towards the sound, trying to capture the interloper and so identify their motives, but I was too slow; she was up the wall and out through the hole she had made in the roof, a few tiles pried off carefully to let her gain access. There were defensive spells layered across the roof that meant she should have been frozen up there until morning, but clearly she had found some way to bypass them. Still, I had gotten a good look at her as she fled and it was obvious who she was; there was only one dark elf in Pelhure who would have any reason to be breaking in to my warehouse in particular. I went to where Celine had been to see if I could discover just what she had been doing that made her think she needed to break in, and as I approached I saw it lying there against a bolt of lace. She’d managed to make an outfit in only a couple of hours and with what she had found, and she couldn’t have known in advance what was going to be in here for her to use until she got in; she had taken a gamble with poor odds that she would be able to find enough material to be able to produce something to impress me, and while the work wasn’t finished what she had managed to achieve so far was a decent effort. There had been a bolt of red lace she had found along with a bolt of darker crimson cotton; the dark cotton had been cut to make a tight fitting dress while the lace had been sewn into a cage around that billowed around it. She had already begun the fine detail work when I had interrupted her, and some of the lace had already been animated; she had found a small shipment of minor air elementals she was using to make sure the lace knew how to flow and billow appropriately, a fairly impressive piece of magic for someone so young. I put the dress to one side, ready for it to be completed at a later date, and fetched my elemental frost before leaving, a new task now added to my mental list of things still to do quite near the top of the ordering.

Celine had not managed to leave any written message, and yet what she had done spoke by itself; she’d decided that she would show herself to be a worthwhile apprentice even if I didn’t want her to. She had passed the final test of persistence even if it was in an unexpected manner, and her work hadn’t been all that terrible either. All I had to do now was put out feelers to find where she was resting in Pelhure and get a message to her. I had temporarily forgotten my work, and the elemental frost could always be applied in the morning anyway; I had a letter to write, and so I spent the last hour of the evening writing the letter and getting it into the hands of someone who would get it to Celine.

“Celine,” the letter read. “Your latest demonstration of why you should be my apprentice was fairly rude, but I have reviewed the work and found it satisfactory up to a point. If you are still interested in the apprenticeship position, visit me at the workshop where you failed the coffee ritual test and we shall go from there. The work will be hard, and the hours long, but if you are willing to put in all you can then I can promise you will be a fine couturier by the end of it.”

“You will have to master the coffee ritual, though.”

- - -

The letter reached Celine three days later, and she turned up to my workshop the very next morning.

I am pleased to say she said yes, and that I have a new apprentice.

#dressverse #apprentice #writing #couture #sneaky #author:benmiff #character: abbellia #character:celine #character: orphel

[benmiff]

The Ghost And The Teacher

Shorter story this time around. Introducing some new characters (one of which will probably be somewhat important going on).

This story takes place between The Dress And The Ball and The Flame And The Worm.

Andreas

You would assume that I would have become jaded and accustomed to the repeated behaviours of those I have encountered across the long years, but it never ceases to astound me how many people elect to place their trust in me just because I happen to match their expectations for the appearance and bearing of an honourable and steadfast individual. Admittedly, their House loyalties run deep and often have not yet been weathered away by time or tragedy; most of them are young and hungry for any advantage no matter how slight to elevate their position above their compatriots, but it would not be all too difficult to realise that I am not the helpful House Opala tutor that I portray. Nor am I the helpful priest who sets other ghosts to eternal rest with the aid of my prayers and divine artefacts, and I am most certainly not the kindly old man that just happened to be passing and witnessed whatever latest tragedy has befallen yet another victim, helpfully explaining just what I heard and saw. A few carefully chosen questions would soon reveal me, but no-one even thinks to ask, considered that since I am present I must clearly belong there since if I did not then I would not be in attendance.

Perhaps I am being unkind. My abilities are admittedly not the most conventional, even amongst those of my kind; we all share some similar advantages apart from mortal folk, not least our not being restricted by corporeal form. So very many spirits are obsessed with their death or their emotions or some other unfinished task, after all, and I do not behave in the traditional manner associated with such haunts. My talents in life proved themselves numerous times before lords and ladies possessed of razor sharp powers of scrutiny and deduction, and even before my death I could appear in the guise of any role I chose thanks to a combination of skilled disguise (achieved through both mundane means and a limited amount of alchemy) and my talents as an actor. I never did achieve a full transformative thanks to insufficient time to truly refine the alchemy required, and that still rankles, but now I have all the time in the world to complete my research even if my death has imposed additional obstructions in my path that I must overcome first.

My greatest obstacle was the lack of a proper body, for holding a form other than the one given me by my death was quite tiresome and could only be done for a few hours before I would be forced to revert. Such limitations were why I had agreed to aid my master with the interminable task I now found myself committed to, and I found myself yet again projected myself in solid form in much a similar manner as many other nights over the past fortnight. (I would not be so idiotic or desperate as to attempt to bind myself inside a body – that way laid only madness and decay, at least with the current understanding of binding.) This time, I had taken the identity (and life) of a kindly dwarven lady who I had named Jorrea, and once again I had discovered another promising young gentleman and animist suitable for the experimentation we wished to carry out; promises that I would teach him secret techniques that would advance his comprehension of animating inert cloth and metal were all it took to bring him under my wing once we explained that we kept such things secret to avoid the risk of any rival stealing them. House Opala’s speciality in animated embroidery meant such individuals were not uncommon or particularly troublesome to find; each of them jostled for position, demanding a display of astonishing brilliance or skilled manipulations if they were to rise above the masses clamouring for respect from their betters. Such an environment was perfect for me and my work; the constant self-promotion made it easy to spot a promising candidate, and I could easily pick between the prospects to find those who were willing to endure a little risk and a little danger if it meant that they could leapfrog their rival apprentices.

My latest “apprentice” went by the name of Tallis, and in the short time I had known him he had showed himself to be in most respects a competent student; he stayed attentive to whatever I told him no matter how dry the material, carrying out any further study I assigned him between our lessons promptly and without complaint. His family was not all that important, some minor name whose only real claim to any significance was a family tradition for the illumination of texts; we had been careful not to choose anyone too important so that we did not have much risk of being noticed by any interests that would prove dangerously powerful. Still, it meant he had a grounding in the magical principles involved thanks to having helped at home as he had grown up with some of the simpler moving calligraphies; it was these skills that he had brought to clothing in an attempt to expand the fields in which the family was known. It was a commendable initiative doomed to failure; he did not have the natural talent and unique creative spark to force such a shift solely by himself, and he certainly did not have the charisma and force of personality to lead others to support his striving towards greatness. I had been given further orders by my master, and we were approaching what was likely going to be the height of his capabilities and the denouement of his study.

“Tallis,” I said, limping into the room as my portrayal of Jorrea always did, a simple carved oak walking stick (for I was not stupid enough to risk iron of unknown manufacture) supporting me as I went. Tallis was busy working as he often was this late into the evening, the room lit only by guttering candles that cast shadows across the cloth figure he had prepared. It was a fine piece of work with carefully stitched edges and skilful fine detail to suggest at musculature, but the lad did not trust himself, and I had little doubt that he had already spent many hours poring over it for signs of failure and corrections he would need to make before he presented it to me. It was too late for any further alterations as soon as I had arrived for we needed to move onto the next stage of the work; Tallis knew it even though his heart still troubled him that there was some error he had overlooked and so with difficulty he stopped fiddling with the figure and turned to me to present the work.

“It’s not quite right, is it?” he asked, concern plain on his face.

“It’s absolutely fine. Cease worrying and come – we’ll need space for this binding,” I replied, leading him out of his cramped study into a nearby workshop, now empty with its workers home for the night. We had more room here and could both get around the table, though I would only be guiding the boy – he would do all the work himself. Reaching down into a “pocket” that was merely part of the guise I was projecting, I plucked the small fetter I had been carefully carrying and placed it on the table in front of Tallis, careful to shake off any lingering ectoplasm before he got a proper look at it.

Tallis knew exactly what the corroded dagger was, but his timidity meant that he still felt compelled to ask, uncertain of his own knowledge. “Is that the fetter? What kind of ghost is it, exactly?” he pried, poking at it with one of the cutting tools still left on the table as if touching it would let the spirit bound within free reign to act against him in some manner. He had no real way of knowing his concern was wasted – my master had previously commanded its ghost to sleep, not wanting a vengeful spirit to cause any unpredictable results that might distort the results of our experimentation. I tapped it with a finger, safe in the knowledge it was only a cheap tin alloy of iron rather than the cold forged iron that would pose a danger to me, and allowed a small smile to creep onto my face before I explained.

“It’s a minor spirit of the vengeful type, not uncommon after a murder in the back alleys. It has sufficient strength for our purposes, and it’s better for your first practical lesson to use as weak a spirit as will achieve the desired effect. Have you got the restrictions prepared?” I asked, and Tallis shuffled a number of his papers in response, pulling out the relevant stack and setting them by the table. Each page was covered in line after line of spidery script, and each needed to be cut in strips and be woven into the binding, preventing the spirit from lashing out and harming him. No-one had yet written a binding that would allow a spirit the right mix of independence and restraint to create a bound animate that could carry out assassinations or other such deeds, for the ability to kill or harm others unprovoked gave the inhabiting spirit too much free reign to assault its owner as part of whatever task they were initially given. Despite that, not all violence was impossible and we intended to skirt the edges of what was feasible; defensive violence was much more achievable even if one had to be very careful in how one worded the various restrictions. It was still worth treating any such animates with the utmost care, however, and one needed to keep in mind various considerations such as not letting any pets near the defending animate; animals were easier to harm within the usual restrictions that were in common use, and several promising researchers in the early days of the spectral sciences had been permanently persuaded to choose a safer discipline when they discovered loved cats and dogs nailed to their workbenches or torn apart and strewn across their libraries.

Despite the pressure that such things were sure to be exerting on him and his nervous disposition, Tallis worked diligently in laying out all the binding materials, and soon had the fetter sympathetically linked across a number of arcane bonds that would be used to draw the spirit into the cloth figure and out of its fetter. I think he was more afraid of disappointing me than of what a failed binding would mean for him, concerned I might leave and he would return to being just another unknown. The restrictions he had written seemed sound, shaped by my advice to get them in the form we wished to test that night; I am by no means a skilled ectomancer but I had been told what to look for by my master, a man who does possess such a distinguishment. One last check, and then we were ready for the dangerous part of the rite – the transfer of the haunting spirit itself.

As soon as Tallis started to activate the bonds, the ghost inside the dagger woke up and flowed into existence above the table we were working on. He had died exceptionally violently, dozens upon dozens of stab wounds all over his manifested form, and he roared in anger and reached to us, his fingers morphing into daggers that were replicas of the one that killed him. Before he could even begin to draw close, the restrictions lit up and glowing script flowed off them and around him to restrain him against the table; he struggled furious against the magic, pushing and wrenching at the text and contorting his shape as he writhed against the magic but all to no avail as the bindings stopped his breaking free. Our spell’s beginning had delivered a shock to his existence that penetrated through any simple magic such as the spell keeping it asleep, and Tallis was now committed to finishing the binding successfully if he did not want the spirit to break free and tear him apart. My apprentice gripped the table, clearly under strain from the ghost’s rage and resistance; my master had deliberately chosen quite a weak spirit to bind, but even weak spirits had impressive willpower and Tallis was struggling to keep all the limits he had woven intact and fulfilling their purpose. Small strips of paper wound around the dagger and the cloth figure each held a single limitation, scribed to be identical and paired across the two items; the arcane lettering chaining the ghost still had one end of each piece of writing in each of the slips of paper, and as Tallis struggled the first pair of paper ribbons disintegrated into dust and drifted away, their associated chains shattering and casting glowing letters that faded as they crossed the room. He was clearly losing his battle, and the rate at which his restrictions were breaking was only accelerating, more pieces of paper becoming nothing but fragments of fibre drifting on the eldritch energies crackling around the table.

It was obvious that Tallis was lost, and with that clearly it was time for me to leave and to return to my master waiting with my fetter a couple of streets away. Such losses meant little, as everyone involved in our venture except for our “apprentices” knew that we operated this way so that any failures would only harm the latest fool we had swindled into taking the fall for us; we could feel safe from any of the wider repercussions as well as any unleashed vengeful ghosts would be a problem for House Opala rather than us given our home was several districts away. Returning was not difficult even with the magic sparking around the room, for my fetter was my home and what kept me from moving on (or so my master had explained to me when he had explained how I did not really have a choice in carrying out his orders now he had woven his commands into it.) I merely blinked out, reappearing next to the fetter, but I did catch sight of Tallis’ shock in the last couple of seconds as I faded away; I think the surprise and the realization of betrayal was the last strike, for all the rest of his restrictions turned to ash at once as I went.

- - -

Lord Keppington

My spirit returned to his fetter a little after midnight, much as expected. Andreas was one of my more useful servants, and had been in my possession for many years; most would have been repulsed by his vile appearance but I could see past such things to the value beneath. In his innate form he was monstrous to behold, manifesting as a poisonous rotting figure that constantly flowed and shifted between all the different people he had pretended to be in life, bubbling flesh and running humours all contributing to the overall effect that proclaimed he was long dead and had died poorly. I turned the glass vial that was his fetter over and over in my hand; he had been obsessed during his life with being able to be anyone he wished to be, and this had led him to drinking poison in the erroneous belief it was an elixir that would let him shape shift freely. That obsessiveness had bound his ghost to the now empty vial he had drunk from, and made his strong without condemning him to a single overwhelming emotion that would have inevitably led to madness. He obeyed me from the magic, of course, but he had retained his intelligence and I liked to think he obeyed me because he wanted to as well; I had promised him that our research would one day result in techniques that would grant him a proper body once more, his need to prove his talent demanding that he show he could also sculpt corporeal form. I had little doubt that day would be unlikely to come, as binding a ghost into something meant that they served only because they had to – the pain of being forced into something that did not fit you right and then being denied any ability to strive towards whatever animating will or desire brought you back meant that all such bound spirits were little more than hateful intelligences consumed with an urge to be free and an urge to punish those responsible for or complicit in their binding or failing that anyone else within their reach.

We had returned to my house exceptionally late, given we had around an hour of walking before we reached it. The house was nestled safely in House Borado territory, and I was deeply tired by the time we arrived; Andreas’ report could easily wait until morning, and I had no other urgently pressing matters to attend to. Still, some decorum was required, and I changed into nightclothes with the aid of one of my spectral servants before I settled into bed, fast falling into a deep restful sleep.

- - -

The news reached me early next morning, a missive from an interested friend prompting a ghost to wake me early and still slightly groggy to thrust the missive into my hand. House Opala had been struck once more by ectomantic treachery, with some young apprentice found in a workshop with a broken dagger and a torn cloth figure giving all the signs the investigators needed in order to declare it was a botched ghost binding that had gotten out of control. The fellow had been stabbed a grand total of one hundred and thirty seven times, and another three unfortunate victims had been found with one hundred and thirty seven stab wounds apiece as well; it was difficult to know which elements of their death the ghost I had chosen would fixate upon without seeing it in action, but the precise count of stabbings was clearly the central element and would be how the investigators would track deaths to this particular haunt. Those in the know said that clearly the ghost had been a lesser spirit to have been stopped after only four murders, no doubt completely immersed in re-enacting its death and unable to comprehend reality; nobody had reported that they had stopped a ghost of such nature, though, and so the House had already called in specialists to deal with it when it re-emerged the next night for further killings, tied as it was to the night hours it had probably died in. There were mutterings about banning the binding of ghosts entirely once more, but I had little faith that it would ever get anywhere – House Opala had too many skilled animists, and those who dabbled in such things would not countenance a reduction in their capabilities just so that a few of their lessers could feel a little safer.

My House were a little disappointed in the results given that we did not develop our particular field any further; the experiment had failed without even a single binding faulty or otherwise to show for it. That said, we had sown some real difficulties for a rival, so talk soon pivoted to how we could take advantage; perhaps we could play on fears that House Opala was unsafe for new recruits as a means of stealing promising candidates away? Such discussions went on for much of the morning, and by the end of them any residual disappointment was mild and defanged of any real teeth. The talk around House Borado was that my position was still seen of value, and that there was no need for it to be downgraded following such a minor upset; my work was still held in respect by those who were permitted to know about it, and they made sure the rest of the House knew what I did was worthwhile even if they couldn’t share any specific details of what it was I actually did.

I retired to my private chambers to gather a more detailed picture of the night’s events before anyone else wanted to question me about my activities; it was a simple act of will to summon Andreas to me by his fetter, and he appeared dutifully as always. “Report,” I commanded.

“The spell failed, obviously. The apprentice was far too weak-willed, couldn’t hold even a minor spirit. The first few restrictions went up, and from there he had no control,” Andreas replied. “No information was discovered – the experiment did not run for a sufficient length of time to learn anything of any use.”

“I see. Unfortunate.”

I tapped his fetter absent-mindedly with a finger as I considered the next move to make; House Opala would no doubt be on their guard in case the dead apprentice was not the only one practising dangerous magic without proper supervision, but I wanted to get some reliable results by the summer and there were precious few weeks left before then.

“Find another apprentice. We’ll retry in a week.”

#dressverse #ectomancy #ghosts #binding #author:benmiff #character: andreas #character: telesforo keppington #character: tallis

[benmiff]

The Flame And The Worm - Part Three

Alright, so the third and final part of this story.

Celine

The room fell silent as I made my decision and announced it, Elena and Abbellia both looking at me with puzzled expressions, quite unsure as to what I was thinking.

“Come now, it is that surprising?” I asked, trying to project false bravado. “I just need something worth working towards, nothing more.” I had to make it sound like it was nothing too extreme, but I don’t think either of them really believed me. I had just been given the name of who to blame, and it had lit a fire in my heart; I was so very certain that she was going to die for what she had done. I had very little left to live for, but knowing the full story had awoken an anger and a deep longing for vengeance. Old feelings from childhood that I thought I had long since packed away and forgotten mixed with the fresh pain of my new wounds to form an all-consuming drive to repay all of debts in blood. Mezzabareen was such a cruel place to have grown up, and the Horned Masks of Mezzabareen were the worst, seven elite Maskbearers who between them held the city in an tyrannical grip and (along with those close to them) abused everyone else who was within their reach; while a few served them willingly (mostly because they were well paid), everyone else was slave to their whims one way or another and when in private spoke of them only in hatred, only kept quiescent by their raw power and willingness to exact horrific punishments should they be crossed.

I was clear to me that I had grown soft from my time in Pelhure; the last few years I had become much too settled and overconfident without any dangers to truly challenge me. I thought back to who I was when I first came here – more cunning, more willing to do what needed to be done to get what I wanted. I would have to reclaim my youth if my plans were to succeed; fortunately, those skills and memories were not gone but only suppressed by what I thought was a lack of necessity for them now I had become successful. I would need help, of course, and would need to get Lady De Bonville to lower her guard at least a little; Until she had confirmed I was dead or defeated she might still be ready for a reprisal and it would be easier to slip through any protections she would have if she did not think she had to remain on high alert. I could rely on her ego, though; she no doubt also thought any such attempt was doomed to fail disgracefully, most nobles having plentiful defences against daggers in the night or untrustworthy servants. Thinking of my past reminded me of a sentimentality for those I grew up alongside now that I was suffering the blows of those in power as we all once did, and I thought of the stories we used to tell one another; an opportunity was there in one of the many tales, and I would seize the way it offered to get close without being identified and denied. As I laid out my plans both Elena and Abbellia followed along, balking at the risk of what I proposed, but they were willing to accept I was going to get my revenge one way or another. They suggested other ideas, of course, many other plans and refinements to plans already proposed, but all their suggestions had central flaws that meant they were too likely to fail; I wanted as much certainty that I would get the revenge I so desperately needed, and so eventually they agreed that my initial plan was our best course of action.

The first thing we needed to do was to make sure that I appeared to be completely and comprehensively defeated, which meant I had to go out in public. I couldn’t risk my gloves being associated with me later, so I would have to go out without them, and once I did that, there would be no going back; any hope of pretending that everything was fine would be vanquished, replaced by shame and disgust (and if people were feeling charitable, pity). I was going to need funds for the plan as well, which gave me the pretext I needed for why I was out and about in public – I would be asking around to sell off a good amount of material and completed outfits that I had not sold or used yet. There were memories in some of those outfits and I would be sad to let the good ones go, but I had to put those days behind me now and focus on my revenge to come in whatever short future I had left.

Elena helped me to take off my gloves and unwound the leather wrapped around my finger bones, and the sight of them in the gloom of the safe house still unsettled my stomach with a deep revulsion; soon this was followed by a deep rage swelling up from behind the disgust that this had been done to me and so much had been taken so cruelly from me. Despite not being worn, the gloves still clenched into fists, reacting to my emotions before I took a deep breath and got them back under control, trying to remain calm for what needed to be done. Elena helped dress me so it would look right; the clothes would hang differently if put on by someone else and Elena would pick a relatively simple outfit to emphasize my newly reduced circumstances, and both of these aspects would need to appear true if my portrayal of complete defeat was to be successful. With these considerations and Elena’s diligence in picking something that would not have been my likely choice yet not one I would have refused outright, I ended up dressed in a simple wrap dress, light black linen that went around me held closed by a thick corded sash. The simplicity looked wrong on me, so used to styling and fanciful details, and the whole image was one of a quiet, subdued loss shadowed by grief and a diminished heart.

As I stepped outside the safe house for the first time in over a month, the bright light made me wince; I had become accustomed to the relative dimness inside the room, and could only assume that I would look even more hideous when properly lit. I kept my hands by my side, not daring to risk raising them into my line of sight where I could see their full grotesquery. I couldn’t see anyone for the first few minutes of our slow walk, as was to be expected for The Spoil, but as we drew closer to the Brightline District the odd beggar hiding from the sun in one of the shadowy alcoves would spot us, reach forward to plead and then immediately recoil back once they got a better look at my hands. After the third such display of horror, I had to know just how bad it was to provoke such a severe reaction, and steeled myself to take a look before drawing my hands up into my vision, and realised they were worse than I thought. In the light, I could see that not only were they burned and charred but also how each little bone had cracked and warped into mangled, misshapen lengths; they had buckled and broken under the intense heat and barely even looked like they had once been hands before. I felt ill once more, beckoned to Elena to stop as I leant against a wall and caught my breath, my gorge heaving. Still, I managed to keep control, and drag myself back to some pretence of order as the familiar anger surged back up inside me. Elena asked whether I wanted to go back, try again another time once I had recovered from the shock, but I was anxious for this to be over, knowing I had to do this but at the same time knowing how humiliating this was going to be. As we crossed from the dishevelled buildings of The Spoil to the finer pale stone and architecture of the Brightline District it seemed as though there had been no changes at all in my absence – people still walked the streets as normal, visited the little shops and boutiques as normal and carried out all manners of trade as normal. I knew I should visit nobody but the traders, old acquaintances and suppliers who I had long history with, but first… I had to see what was left of my shop, one last time for one last goodbye. Elena tried to guide me away towards the traders as soon as she realised where I was heading, and I think she was afraid of how I might react when confronted with yet more clear loss, but I was sure that my anger would carry me through. As we walked, though I could hear the whispers around me – people asking whether it was really me, whether I had really fallen so far, what had happened to my hands, what had I done to earn such a fate, and so many other questions being asked over and over again; if it would not have caused a scene and gone against what we were trying to achieve I could have fought back. I wished I could have grabbed the speculators and told them exactly what happened and what was coming to the perpetrators in all of its gruesome glory, but instead I had to silently bear the stares and the shame of their unfounded accusations.

Eventually, we reached where my shop had once stood, and what greeted me was not the wreckage I was expecting; I had hoped that perhaps I could have at least taken a memento such as some unburned fragment of fabric or chunk of scorched stone. Instead, the whole space had been cleared completely, leaving only an empty plot of land as though I had never even existed there; it felt like another attack, lesser but still painful, the city and the De Bonville’s trying to erase any good things I once had from the collective memory. Perhaps it could work with more time for the city to forget, but all I felt from it was the hardening of my heart to them – they were showing absolutely no remorse, and I intended to ensure that the time they thought they could rely on would be cut brutally short. I could have asked both of my neighbouring premises when and how things were cleared away, but their answers would not have explained much more than was already obvious to see or been much salve to the erasure of my shop, and besides, they had made it clear they had no intent to speak to me, locking their doors and displaying signs proclaiming in beautiful calligraphy that they were closed as soon as they saw me approach.

Elena and I returned to the main street, continuing to move slowly to project as much frailty as we could towards my main supplier; a large dwarf who had taken to the fabrics trade with rapid aplomb and a skilled eye for the quality of his products. Elena had to hold the door open for me as we got there, and I entered to a shop empty except for the frowning proprietor.

“Celine. You’re… well, you’re here.” “I am,” I responded, waiting for him to come back to at least a modicum of professionalism given he seemed to currently be trying to keep distance (and an impressively large heap of medallion patterned rugs) between us and him. “I have some goods I need to sell, you see. A need for funds.”

He shook his head. “Can’t do business with you. Not Elena either while she’s still under your tutelage. Whole district’s going to be like that for you, not just me. There’ve been intimations made that anyone who does will find their businesses underdoing a similar fate, you see. I can’t afford that, so you’ll have to find yourself another buyer.”

Another move by the De Bonville’s, just to make sure it was clear that everything I had was lost to me. I would have to rely on other ways to sell goods, then. Rely on third parties for much of my higher end things; fortunately, the restrictions were unlikely to extend to someone with more clout such as Abbellia and he could no doubt provide access to a wide range of suitable buyers. Still, I had to try one last push for old times’ sake, leaning on the long association we had had to apply a little more pressure without tipping over into complete unreasonableness. “I need to get out of Pelhure. I can’t stay here any longer. Surely you could at least manage a small purchase?” I pleaded.

I could see him calculating for a moment, trying to decide how much he could underpay me and whether that increased profit was worth the risk, but it was apparent that it wasn’t. He knew about Aine’s Dress, much as the whole district did, and might have been tempted to take a chance in order to acquire that, but for all the time I had known him I considered him to be fairly cautious and so his reply came as no great surprise. “Can’t do it, Celine. Too much at risk. I suggest you leave – there’s nothing for you here.”

He was right about that, and Elena held the door open once more to allow me to leave. I still visited some of the other traders, but didn’t actually expect to achieve any sales; rather, it was to make sure the idea that I was desperate to leave Pelhure was firmly planted in the common conversation of the city so that when I “left” no-one would question it. Each visit was a new degradation, forcing myself to plead and beg so to sell the illusion, but no-one would be swayed no matter how low I presented myself, even with the potential for a colossal profit; whatever threats the De Bonville’s had made were clearly very pointed and sufficiently believable that no-one thought the risk was even remotely successful. The only consolation is that a good number of the traders we visited were made massively uncomfortable by my seemingly fallen status, many offering small sympathies for my plight and apologies that they were unable to help, and so at least I inflicted a little guilt for what had befallen me.

Returning to the safe house, we altered our plans to accommodate the new issues in selling my goods. Rather than direct sales, we would have to go through agents – Abbellia was easily able to facilitate this, so those sales proved to not be so difficult. Once we had a little more coin available to us, we reached out to the black markets and secret auctions now we could afford to find and enter them; we had held back the more lucrative items in our possession, namely the completed outfits I had made previous to my mutilation. They would command a high price now – the last pieces made by the downfallen high couturier Celine held a value from their rarity alone, but they also each came with their own interesting story which only drove the interest in them ever higher. The sales took a longer time than I had wanted, my eagerness to push on and grasp my vengeance needling me with impatience, but the waiting meant they brought in a heftier sum of coin than if we had rushed things, almost enough for everything we needed to do.

It still wasn’t enough, though. I had held back one last thing, the last connection to my shop, and I was loathe to sell it unless I absolutely had to. Aine’s dress had been with me for much of my career, but I had little to no use for it where I was headed – keeping it was pure sentimentality, the last remnant of a burned down life, and I had to discard such things if I was to succeed. We put it into auction, and it sold well – extremely well, enough to make us flush with enough funds to comfortably do everything I wanted and more. I responded less well once I learnt who the buyer was, raging at handing her yet more of myself to destroy; the Lady De Bonville had bought the dress, no doubt looking to punish it for its transgressions against her as well. The sale had gone through by the time I had learnt who had bought the dress, too late to instruct the agents selling it to hold back, but after a time I calmed myself; after all, there was a small part of me that was amused that she would be paying for her own assassination. Besides, I was fairly certain that she would not be able to control the dress for long, a conjecture proven just two weeks later when a servant walked out wearing it (or more likely being walked by the dress like a puppet) and vanished, leaving nothing but the other two servants guarding it flayed to death and arranged in a parody of a waltz in the middle of the storage room.

With our funds secured, we could begin preparations in earnest. Elena was “officially” released to continue her apprenticeship with Abbellia, but her help continued in private. With my gloves, I could at least perform the enchanting needed, but I still needed her to do any stitch work or other such tasks, and there was a lot to prepare in that regard. We started to acquire materials carefully, making sure that we did not attract any curiosity in the volumes of cloth and ivory and gilding materials we needed, preparing the various items of clothing that I would need to disappear and reappear in a new form; more funds went into buying rumours, one set of rumours making sure everyone would believe the fiction we were to create that I had fled and the other laying the groundwork for the city to believe that my new identity was real and coming to Pelhure for my own reasons.

It took another few days but finally we were ready, and my new outfit was complete; Elena had outdone herself and it made me glad to see that shifting her apprentice to Abbellia had only enhanced her skills rather than diminishing her. The dress was imposing at first glance, black with golden highlighting in floral patterns of gold thread, and sharp angular pieces of the petticoat that buttoned with a pair of golden studs overlapping from opposing sides, one from the left and one from the right. A black ivory cane aided the impression of dread seriousness that we had aimed for, enchanted with hidden spells from Abbellia so that I would not be going unarmed. The cane doubled as a spear or halberd as desired when the frost magic woven into its core was triggered to form the weapon’s head out of solid blue ice, and once revealed as a weapon it could also throw jets or waves of ice with every thrust or swing that I made; I still favoured fighting at a distance, though it had become clear to me that I needed to be able to fight effectively once enemies drew near so I could ensure nobody would ever get close enough to do me serious harm again. The final piece of the ensemble was the most important, however; a helm of black ivory (the same as the cane) with angular lines of gold and wide blunted horns from each side. This was the centrepiece of our plan, and by far the most dangerous part of what we were doing, for word would reach Mezzabareen sooner or later and they would come as the Maskbearers would know exactly what my wearing it signified.

Once I returned in my new identity, I was going to claim to be one of the children of the lost Maskbearer of Mezzabareen, returning to childish fantasies of my youth but having invested them with purpose. It was a tale known to all the children of Mezzabareen, how the Horned Masks had destroyed the eighth Maskbearer for what the other seven claimed was their presumption and how the intended heir had escaped, fleeing to disappear into the night and never seen again. Parents lost to one of the many dangers of Mezzabareen, we had of course dreamt that we were secretly that lost heir, but such fantasies were indulged only in absolute secrecy; we knew how proud the Horned Masks were of their achievement, especially the Iron Mask who had been the most eager for the assault and done much of the work involved. None of the Maskbearers would not tolerate the insinuation that they did not successfully complete the job or that they had in some way even partially failed. We had heard of previous fools trying to claim the Mask, and dying before they could prove that their claim was true; sometimes their deaths were overt with assassins or black curses striking the killing blow, while others died in unusual and strange accidents or just ceased to exist overnight with no trace of where they may have gone. I did not care about any of that, though, for as long as it bought me the Lady De Bonville’s death I was happy to pay the cost demanded of me; after all, there was going to be little else left for me after all my plans had come to fruition. Much of the rumours we had seeded had been built around this plan, filling the shadows with whispers that the Ivory Mask had been claimed and that whoever had done so was seeking allies outside Mezzabareen; we had spread the word that I was looking to be more open to the world than the other Maskbearers as part of my ascendancy to the position, and it was with these rumours that I would ensure the De Bonville’s invited me close enough to strike.

We had arranged with Mille-Tamlin to transport me away, and to bring me back in my new guise as the Ivory Mask. I could not return to Pelhure publicly, of course; the Maskbearers would surely strike at me if I were on any public vessel, and it was much more fitting for the story we were weaving for me to sneak in under the cover of darkness anyway. The day I was to leave, I visited Elena and Abbellia as Celine for the last time to say goodbye; we all knew that I would not be the same once all this was over, and so we shared memories, talked of happier times, and before we knew it the time for me to go had come and I had to leave, going down towards the harbour waters now alone and the slipping into one of Mille-Tamlin’s secret harbours to wait for her.

The harbour was a small niche in the westerly cliffs, much more developed than many other such hidden docks and much more comfortable to wait at than many of the other smuggling sites around Pelhiure. An old set of raiders who were tacitly accepted by Pelhure to disrupt their rivals’ shipping lanes had once used it as their base of operations, built it up with a jetty of solid blocks of granite that had been only slightly smoothed despite the long years of the sea weathering away at them, and it was not uncomfortable to wait for Mille-Tamlin to come in on the worn stone benches at the water’s edge as I watched the tides lap against the slime coated stone pier. I waved at Mille-Tamlin as I saw her come in, crew rowing steadily on a low bottomed barge laden with crates, and as soon as they drew near she hopped onto the jetty and came over to me.

“Celine. Got your messages. Pricey requests, I must say,” Mille-Tamlin said, looking at my hands, hidden away in their animate gloves, tapping against my hip without my even noticing, no doubt channelling some subconscious flickering of impatience. “I heard something unpleasant went down, but I’m guessing they didn’t succeed all that well, looking over you.”

I smiled, carefully pulled off one of my gloves since she wouldn’t be able to understand the damage without seeing it no matter how many words I put into describing them; she needed to understand just what she was getting into if we were to work together in this regard. “They got to me. Badly, so very badly, Mille-Tamlin. Hence all of this,” I said gesturing at the case containing my new outfit and mask. “I take it you managed to acquire the specialty item as well?”

Mille-Tamlin blanched a little at seeing the charred bones and ravaged hand, but stood firm, long years of the sorts of horrific injuries that life most aboard ships could inflict no doubt having hardened her to the sight of blood and bone. “I’m sorry, Celine – didn’t know the full details at the time, or you would have heard it from me. I’ve got the specialty, sure… I hope you know what you’re doing with it. Anyone else, I wouldn’t carry such things, but you and yours… well, you’ve helped me out with a certain matter of loyalty, and debts like that need to be repaid.” As part of our payment, we had made sure that Mille-Tamlin had known what Pharlan had done for the De Bonville’s, and seeing as he was no longer present by her side I assumed she had disposed of him for the disloyalty. Mille-Tamlin indicated her crew as she spoke to make sure her meaning was absolutely clear, but I had no doubt and nodded to indicate that I had inferred who she was referring to, letting her continue to explain the situation. “It’s back on the main ship; I’ve set aside a little room below the waterline for you, nicely hidden away, so you can disappear for the couple of weeks it takes for us to sail down the coast to Geridea and back up again.”

I had put the glove back on as she finished speaking, tugging it down onto the bony fingers wrapped in leather with the remaining animate glove that I had not removed; Mille-Tamlin’s crew had barely noticed the demonstration, having been long trained to not see things if Mille-Tamlin did not want them to. They worked quickly, unloading the crates and stacking them on the dock where someone else would easily find them once they came to collect, and we were soon ready to row back to her ship, the Misty Stormcleaver. Mille-Tamlin and I sat near the front of the barge as the crew drove us on over the pleasantly calm seas, and we soon drew near the vessel.

The ship was not all that massive, having been built for speed above anything else. It was a small cutter, but the true secret to the ship’s capabilities was in the enchantment laid upon the sails; complicated weather spells ensured that the air always flowed behind them regardless of which way the wind was actually blowing, and it was in this way that the ship went wherever the captain wished it to go. The ship’s name came from the other effect the enchantment had which, though seeing less use, was more significant to the ship’s success; the ship could draw up a deep fog bank to hide itself in should things have grown too risky, and thanks to this ability and a little good fortune the ship had thus far avoided any attempts to intercept her. We drew up to the side and were hauled on board by heavy tarred ropes, and I was shown to my room, tucked deep in the ship as promised; the whole ship was stuffed full of cargo, and I had to squeeze my way through several small gaps with my own case before I could reach the hidden cabin.

I spent much of my journey in that room, emerging only occasionally to obtain food before secreting myself away again. Mille – Tamlin and I talked whenever she visited, of course; we made small talk over a game or two as though nothing strange was going on and we were merely catching up, but shipboard duties drew her away before long each time. My focus was mostly on finishing the work Elena had started on the worm, and the work was complicated enough to fill all the time I had. The worm was masterfully crafted, only a tiny little thing barely larger than the eye of a particularly fine needle, but what Elena had made for me was inert and dead; the specialty item I had requested Mille-Tamlin procure needed to be carefully woven into it with many detailed spells and layers of magic in order to allow it to fulfil its true purpose. The specialty was a little magical flask that was crafted robustly so that it would hold its contents securely, but what really mattered was what was contained within – an animating mind, not much smarter than a dog or cat, but possessed with a vicious streak, revelling in inflicting harm and misery and used most commonly to enchant a sword or cannon or other such weapon in order to give it an increased lethality. My use was to be slightly different, but the intellect was still enough to form the spell so it would not activate until the conditions were right; regardless, I was sure that once it was let loose, it would carry out its intended task perfectly, crafting a wondrous statement of great beauty as it made an masterpiece out of death.

The two weeks passed quickly, in all truth; I was all consumed by the work and my anger, and the rest of the crew did not bother me much as they were busy toiling and many of them were just a little scared of the austere dark elf casting unknown witchery in the shadowy belly of their ship. I did not even pause to see Geridea when we nearby, having dropped anchor in a nearby shallow so the cargo barges could sneak ashore; I could have gazed upon the city across the waters from the Misty Stormcleaver’s deck if I had any desire to, but I did not. I knew some local geography from my time in Pelhure, and so knew it was a fortress town, protecting the Geridean River that led into the continent itself. Its walls had been rebuilt many times with a great many different types of stone over the years, lending the city its informal title as the Patchwork City, but the soldiers stationed within it nevertheless enacted a heavy toll on anyone who would try to get past and further up the river without permission. Soon, the end of my period on board the ship came, and I changed into my full outfit except for the Horned Mask itself, and had one last drink for the young, foolish dreamer I once was with Mille-Tamlin; my beaker was soon empty, and I set it down and donned the Mask, and with that Celine was gone, replaced by my new name and title as the Ivory Mask.

We had hired a retainer to meet me on the shore a little way distant from where we intended to beach the barge, and we had also hired a room in one of the classier hotels in Pelhure for me to stay in. I had arranged for some cases of additional outfits to be commissioned for my arrival, designed and cut in much a similar style as my current ensemble; I did not want to deviate too far from the expectations others would have for my appearance but also needed to not betray my circumstances too much by not having sufficient changes of clothing. These had all been finished while I was away, and so those new clothes were waiting for me in the hotel room to which my retainer led me, remaining outside the room once we arrived until I called him. The room was luxurious; fine paintings by semi-famous artists adorned the walls, each clearly by a master of their art form and favoured styles, and all the furniture was of rare woods with inset panelling of yet further artworks. The bed was finest silk and massive, and the adjoining bathroom was all white marble with fine filigrees. I wanted to move on, start my revenge, but first I had to carry out all of the formalities, and so I summoned my retainer in from outside the door before commanding him to retrieve any messages that may have been awaiting my arrival.

There were, of course, a good number of invites already. A Horned Mask leaving Mezzabareen was something that Pelhure saw exceptionally rarely; even when circumstances suggested there might be an urgent need or danger to be elsewhere, a Maskbearer would usually send trusted servants bound by poisons or magic instead, attending to a problem personally maybe once in a century if that. Such rarity meant I was the talk of the city behind closed doors, and though no-one wanted to look desperate or improperly informed, the sheer number of unanswered questions that were building up had them in somewhat of a bother. The only concrete facts they had were ones I had arranged to be planted, and so it was common knowledge that I had claimed the Ivory Mask and was looking for allies before I finalised my claim; we had also stressed so everyone could be certain that my claim was solid. Many of the invites I had received I immediately discarded as I had no intentions of even considering them; a number of the requests were from limited people who were merely chancing that I might not know they were unimportant and were hoping they could parlay an audience into an increase in stature. The dross removed left me with a number of invites I would accept thanks to the standing of the sender, knowing that to refuse would be seen as a grave insult and preferring to avoid a sour reputation before I had even stepped into any events. More importantly, I had the one invite that this whole affair had been arranged around obtaining – the Commodore De Bonville was hosting a celebration starting early in the evening the next day, still riding high on their victory over Agliton. They had finally obtained the release of Agliton’s governor from his long interrogation; it had been difficult for them to break him and he had held out against their blades and pliers better than many in similar circumstances. Still, his surrender was inevitable, and so they had him submit to confessing his wrongs along with giving up any other useful information such as trade secrets or merchant movements to his captors. Now, all that was left to do with him was to execute him, and that was to be the centrepiece of the evening’s entertainment.

I ordered my retainer to respond to the invites that were worth attending, instructing him in order of importance; after all, proper decorum had to be seen and a good first impression was going to be vital. Nearly a dozen replies were sent, some for larger affairs, some for a more private chat, and all demanding that I narrate a long and personal reply to ensure that the recipient felt they had received sufficient acknowledgement; soon, the rest of the evening was gone, and I retired to bed, exhausted but unable to rest easy thanks to nervous energy. It was a good hour of tossing and turning under the sheets, but eventually fatigue won through, and I fell into a deep sleep anticipating the celebrations of the next day.

- - -

It was not a long wait after I awoke until the celebration began, though my excitement made the length of time I had to wait feel much longer. It was, of course, to be held in one of House Almaz’s many great halls, namely Imalia’s Hall; this was merely more evidence of the De Bonville’s current ascendancy and their somewhat gauche willingness to flaunt it as much as possible. The hall itself was named after the architect who had been commissioned to ensure that the jewels that the house was famous for were given proper pride of place; it had become one of House Almaz’s most valued halls for the skill in which Imalia had used them, sufficiently impressive that House Almaz had even awarded her the honour of naming the building after her rather than some minor noble or other. The floor was tiled with hard agates, creating a vista of colour that grew darker the closer to the centre of the room you went, and the ceiling was studded with numerous opals of every colour that carried the light from behind them to light up the entire room in a swirling aurora of varying hues. The centrepiece of the room was the large carved stone, a single piece of onyx of swirling black and white bands, eight feet across and four feet high; while growing gems magically was extremely difficult, the plinth was clearly not a natural gemstone and House Almaz was known to have occasional successes with such projects. Finally, there was a yellow crystal cage resting upon this central plinth, a shrivelled, dejected looking man trapped within; he was clearly the previous governor of Agliton, and beside the cage, standing there impassively in her duties as his warden, a small woman in the crystal mask.

All of this I could see from the entrance, and I did not notice the servant that approached me as I stood there struck by a burst of fear at the sight of her yellow crystal. My right hand gripped my cane tightly, while the other began to tremble, picking up on the terror that shot through my mind, but I swallowed that fear before swamping it with a mental mantra that I was so very close and that I would have my revenge. Any observers must have taken the instinctive movements of my hands to be a sign of wonder at the sheer splendour of the room instead, for nobody reacted or commented on my movements, and as I regained my bearings and paid attention to my whole surroundings once more I realised that the servant had stopped near me and had been trying to talk to me without success.

“Ma-am, please could you relinquish your cane. Weapons are not permitted within,” the servant asked again, failing to keep a hint of irritation at my arrogance from his voice. He had clearly noticed that it was magical, probably having been trained for such insights, but the Ivory Mask had a good number of protections laid upon it (as all good Horned Masks should) to prevent any scrying or other divination magic from penetrating it, and so he had no idea that a far greater threat (namely the worm) was concealed within. I turned my head to look at him, making it clear that only now was I deigning to acknowledge his presence in the languid manner I had seen so many other conceited noble ladies do; though the Ivory Mask hid all my features, there were two angular eyeholes cut into it to that at least showed others where my gaze had fallen. I scoffed at the idea, having already spotted a number of guests who were much more blatantly armed than I was and assuming that this was only a little test that had been set up to see who would fold under a little light social pressure.

“Whoever you are. I am the Ivory Mask. You clearly don’t know enough about me. Maskbearers do not go unarmed. Ever.” I put as much ice and contempt into my voice as I could, and it seemed to work, as the servant took a small step back before nodding curtly and turning to the room.

“Now announcing the Ivory Mask,” he said, and a number of guests seemed to angle themselves so they could see me in their peripheral vision, clearly having an interest in me as the unknown newcomer but trying to maintain a casual air of mild apathy to my existence. I soon found myself bounced from conversation to conversation, introductions blurring together as innumerable people all wanted to talk to me, to find out why I was here and telling me about how wonderful and powerful they were; more subtly, they also looked to see what I could offer them, and if I posed any threat or danger to them. I remained cagey, playing up my part, but let “slip” small details that made it clear that I considered my claim to be real and that I considered the other Maskbearers to be enemies (in the truest tradition of any good Maskbearer); further conversations reinforced that I intended to reinstate my line, and as we talked I made sure to display all the other little things that emphasized just how very important I thought I was going to be.

The Commodore De Bonville and the Lady De Bonville arrived last, not being ones to break with the traditions associated with their positions as hosts of the night’s events, and their arrival signalled that now the celebration could truly begin. The crowd parted to give them a clear path as they walked to the central plinth, hand in hand, and then stopped in front of their prisoner.

“Friends,” started the Commodore De Bonville, smiling widely and gesturing at all those in attendance. “This is a great day for us and for House Almaz. Today is the day we complete our victory over Agliton, and punish the man who dared to stand against us and our great city. I do hope you enjoy tonight’s entertainment, and remember us fondly whenever you gaze upon the resulting artwork.” He turned, whispered to the woman in the crystal mask, and she nodded before he turned back, both him and his wife walking a little way from the plinth before turning around to watch with the rest of the assembled guests. “We are ready to begin. Captain, if you would?” he said, and then that woman in the yellow crystal mask reached through the bars, fingers glimmering with the rings upon them rather than the crystal gauntlets that I could not forget; the prisoner backed up against the bars on the other side, clearly terrified but unable to escape her reach, and she gently brushed a hand against his cheek before resuming her guard position.

At first, nothing happened, but then one of the assembled guests shouted to look at where he had been caressed as the governor dropped to his knees and clawed at the cheek with bloodied nail-less fingers to no avail. Normally, such a stupidly brash statement would have earned a snide remark or twenty from the surrounding crowd, but everyone was too engrossed with what was about to happen to bother, looking closely in rapt interest to catch a glimpse of what was happening under his fevered scrabbling. The prisoner’s cheek had turned glassy, shiny and a deep ruby tone, and after watching a little longer it was clear that was only the start of the process; the ruby was spreading across his skin down in a trail, moving towards his throat in a graceful curve. He had his teeth firmly clenched, trying not to scream, and looking at him I understood as a fellow victim just what he was thinking; he knew he was going to die, and he was going to die badly, but he had decided that he would not scream, hide his pain as well as he could, and in that way keep a last trace of his dignity to himself.

The celebrations continued on much as they always do after that, bored nobles watching a man die as a light amusement between chats and repartee. Everyone wanted to talk to the Commodore, and a great many wanted to talk to his wife besides, but I remained nearby, waiting for my moment while making more polite conversation as one does at such things. There was the odd insult, the odd bit of wit, all testing me to ensure that I was worth talking to, and I responded in kind to the pleasure of my conversational partners; more time passed, and eventually the Lady De Bonville was satisfied I had shown enough patience and approached me to speak.

“We should find a corner to talk. Somewhere a little more private. Bring a couple of those little cakes with you, dear,” she said, indicating the small cupcakes adorning the small table we were near glazed with glassy sugar and frosted berries. I was wary of how delicate they looked, but glad for the opportunity; out of the Lady De Bonville’s line of sight I slipped the worm (so very small) from my mask and under one of the frosted fruits as I went over to pick them up, concentrating not to crush them with an unwanted twitch from my gloves as I handed it over to her. We found a secluded space, with the servants keeping any attempted intruders at a respectful distance, and I detached a small panel from my mask to show my mouth and let me eat as the Lady De Bonville started to talk.

“So, I’ve heard the rumours, but they can be so unreliable at times. Please, dear, do tell me why you’re here.”

“I have reclaimed my Horned Mask. I intend to formalise such things in the coming days, but meanwhile, I must secure friends. After all, our specialities,” I said, indicating my cane as I did, “are weapons and so on, and such things require those able and willing to use them to be worthwhile.”

“So, this is purely commercial?” A look of concern crossed the Lady De Bonville’s face as she asked, creased with disappointment; she knew that a Maskbearer’s ambitions should climb higher than that and knew I had not told her the full extent of my falsified ambitions.

“Nothing so limited. I have looked at your city in relation to mine, and it would appear a number of your rivals have friendships with some of the other Maskbearers. Not public allegiances, of course, but still, something to consider.”

“Mmm. Well, I’m afraid we have our own specialists when it comes to weaponry, though, so I don’t think we’re going to be able to help each other. Still, wonderful talking to you, dear. Do enjoy the entertainment.” With that, the Lady De Bonville walked back to her friends, eating the small cupcake as she went. I was not surprised that she refused; the offer was not that strong from her perspective, after all, and it was unlikely that House Almaz had no friends amongst the current Maskbearers. I put the panel back on, leaving the cupcake as though the refusal had left me suddenly not hungry; in truth, it was because I had the urge to smile widely and even if I could keep a straight face for a little while I wanted to luxuriate in the spike of elation shooting through me. The Lady De Bonville had just sealed her fate with a few tiny little bites, and now all I needed to do was wait; the worm would nest, form its chrysalis, and then the true entertainment of the night would begin.

I mingled, of course, but now that the De Bonville’s interest in me had waned, a number of guests were much less interested in me, concerned mainly with shadowing the Lady De Bonville’s lead. Nevertheless, there were plenty of pleasant conversations as we waited now that I mostly talked with those who felt at least a little besmirched by the lack of attention that they were receiving; a few of them were little more than excuses to be rude about fellow guest’s poor fashion choices, but a vast majority of the dialogues revolved around critiquing the performance execution now that the poor victim was crisscrossed with curving trails of ruby yet still refusing to scream. The night drew on, and the first sign that anything was wrong was when a servant fetched the Lady De Bonville a chair; mutterings spread through the crowd that she was feeling a little ill, but I had a much better idea what was going on and moved to where I would see the whole thing as closely as possible while remaining a sensible distance from her.

It was another five minutes before the Lady De Bonville suddenly winced and slapped her upper arm as though she had been stung. Her husband, the Commodore, had been staying close to her, and asked what was wrong, and as she raised her hand she revealed was a blue silk butterfly little more than a half inch across that had been crushed under the palm, it’s edges coated in now cracked razor sharp glass. Elena had made hundreds of them for the worm, each detailed with its own unique pattern on the wings, and now they were all coming out. That first one clearly an early bloomer, but then the Lady De Bonville bent over, held her stomach, and as she coughed another blood-stained butterfly fluttered out of her mouth slicing at her inner lip as it went before flying straight at the face of another unfortunate guest to slice their cheek open. It wheeled, curving towards a second guest, but the animating magic ran out of energy shortly enough, and it fell to the floor, returning to the dead piece of silk it originally was.

The next few moments of eager anticipation for me seemed to stretch out. Guests were beginning to turn, beginning to realise they needed to get clear, and all I could feel was glorious, vicious, cruel joy throughout every inch of my body. I forgot the dull pain in my hands and the sharper pain in my heart as utter glee filled me, and then the rest of the butterflies caught up with the early hatchers, and they burst in a great swarm from inside the Lady De Bonville, rupturing from inside the skin before shredding anyone unfortunate enough to be near (including the Commodore De Bonville – a fitting end, dying next to his wife, I suppose). It was truly beautiful, a display befitting the finest of all the lepidopterariums, but sadly it ended far too soon; within half a minute, the butterflies had died as the energy invested in them had drained dry, leaving the floor covered with hundreds of dead blood-stained butterflies. Brief, beautiful and tragic – it seemed like a fitting final send off from Celine, her last great masterpiece for the rich and the entitled.

The crowd burst into panic, of course. A great heaving mass of people, all running for the exits; I let myself be swept along, storming out into the streets, and soon found myself outside. And yet, something felt wrong. Unsatisfying. Hollow. I felt purposeless again, forced myself to smile behind the mask since I should still be happy. I was sure that it would pass, or I told myself that, but I think it was that all my energies, all my focus had gone towards this one goal, and without it what did I have? Regardless, I felt I should go back to the hotel room; there was nowhere else for me now, and I could plan better from there what (if anything) there was left for me in whatever time I had remaining to me before the Maskbearers caught up with me.

- - -

When I reached my room, the first thing of note was the absence of my retainer; he should have been awaiting my arrival at his post outside my door. I gripped the cane in both hands and pushed open the door with my foot, ready to fight if I needed to, and the only thing of note was the sound of a running tap being turned off in the bathroom. As I stalked towards it, a man came out, drying his hands on one of my towels, and I could see a hint of pinkish red on them as he did. The man himself clearly did not want to be identified, that much was clear; from head to toe he was wrapped in an inky shadow that flowed over him, hiding who he was. I could tell he was wearing a particularly fine business suit under the shadows from the outline, but that was about it. Reacting to this intruder, I pointed my cane at him, commanded it to form the ice spear head, and set myself ready to attack.

“Oh, that won’t be necessary,” he said, tucking the towel into a pocket inside the shadow. The pocket was too small for the shadow, but it still disappeared into it just the same without even distorting the outline; I could only assume whatever magic provided the shadow was also responsible for that little trick, and decided it probably meant he had plenty of other unseen tricks and weapons as well. “If I wanted to harm you, I could have a long time ago, and you would have never even seen me. Truth is, what you were planning was useful to us, not to mention a very interesting play for position. Tell me, Celine – have you actually considered your future from here on it?”

He should not have known my name – I was still masked. I was clearly at a disadvantage here, and so moved to try and tip the balance my way at least a little. “Who are you?” I asked.

“Ha. That’s fair, I suppose,” he replied. “I am a representative of House Borado. I’m aware some colleagues have made overtures in the past, back when you were more about fashion than murder, but I’m a different line of work to them. As for identity… well, that I keep secret. You might have heard of me as the Umbral Lord, though.”

I inhaled sharply as soon as he named himself. It was, after all, just a rumour; everyone knew that House Borado had spies and assassins and other unsavoury folk aplenty, but the rumour was that they were all under the command of the Umbral Lord. Rumours of his skills and lethality abounded, and though I suspected most of them were untrue there was probably at least some grain of truth in the general impression that they gave. Still, if he was who he said he was, that only made things murkier, not clearer.

“Why are you here?”

He nodded. “Another fair question. Oddly direct, but I suppose this is the kind of situation where coded conversations would feel a little out of place. We wish to recruit you, Celine. After all, a stylish assassination makes for a wonderful introductory demonstration, and your choices so far have neatly aligned with an upcoming plan of our own; you’ve quite accidentally made yourself the solution to a particular problem we have. You see, Mezzabareen’s Maskbearers have recently been acting in incredibly inconvenient ways – you offer a means for us to make our displeasure very clear, and an opportunity to adjust their behaviour in the future to a more palatable relationship. And having someone who can pass amongst the nobility as one of them… well, that’s rare for a murderer. Another useful trait.”

“And why would I want to be recruited? I’ve always valued my independence, and you would no doubt make unreasonable demands,” I responded, trying to figure out whether there was more to this than I could see.

“Ah, yes. Your independence. That hasn’t gotten you very far, has it? Handless, lost, no purpose in life. We would give you purpose, you know. That’s one thing. Another – well, I do hope you realise that you haven’t really gotten revenge, not really. How many of House Almaz did nothing when they heard what the Lady De Bonville intended to do? How many of them helped in some way for some trifling token of favour? And then there are those closer to your particular tragedy – the woman in the crystal mask has survived the night, after all, and there are others you don’t even know about. Others you’ll never know about without our help. So that’s two things. And then there’s your new position, the Ivory Mask; how long do you think you’ll keep that without support? Your funds are quite low given just how much of them you spent leading up to tonight, and the Maskbearer’s don’t need to conform to their truce until your prove your claim, and so you’ll need help that you can’t afford to just buy anymore for that as well. After all, there were two assassins waiting here for you before I got here that I had to tidy up, and they will definitely be sending more. So, that’s a third thing.”

I thought I would have at least a little longer before the Maskbearers reached with their first assassins, and I knew they would only escalate from here. He made other points, too, and all of his points made sense; I was tempted to agree to his proposal, but still, there was another option to consider that keep me from the bindings and constraints of House fealty.

“I could leave all this. Run. Hide.”

He shook his head sadly at this. “No, you can’t, Celine. You’d be running away from yourself, and your past, and everything that you are now. Besides, we’ve been tidying up your tracks, Celine. It was a small investment in you, but we really can’t keep putting coin and effort into such things without a good reason, and without our support, well. House Almaz are furious, for one, and your running away and faking your death trick won’t hold up if they look closely enough. The Maskbearers are the same, perhaps even a little quicker. Without your joining, well, we couldn’t justify our spending, and they’ll catch up with you. You, and Elena, and Abbellia, and Mille-Tamlin… I have no doubts that it would be quite unpleasant all around. We both know what sorts of things they’re capable of, though I do have to defer to you when it comes to lived experience in that particular regard.”

I tensed up at their names, body and gloves as one; up until now I had thought that the consequences of the plan would fall solely on myself, and I was more than happy to accept them to get what I had wanted, bitter and hollow as the victory felt now. I… I had wanted to kill Celine, be the Ivory Mask, but my love for them hadn’t died with Celine, and I couldn’t just abandon them. I realised my error then, realised that I was trapped, but perhaps… perhaps I could learn to love this new life?

“I’ll submit. But they stay safe, unharmed, right?”

“Of course, though there is the obvious exception if they join a rival House. Should they remain independent we won’t have any trouble, though should they wish to accept any of our invites we would of course be quite happy to have them.”

A reasonable exception, and one I expected. “And the rest of it?” I asked.

“Well, we’ll need to get you married to someone suitable, cement the joining. Teach you some things for your new career; there are some rough edges, after all. And we’ll need to cement your position, help you prove you are the Ivory Mask. There are things you’ll be able to properly claim once your title is official, things that the House wants and has good use for; we all know the title will be mostly meaningless until you get a full power base behind you, and that could take a good three or four generations to achieve. Besides that, well, there will numerous other little details that we’ll have to address as they come up. But we’ll get to that in time.”

I took this in, smiled a tiny smile behind the mask. This was who I was, now. For them. For vengeance. For a reason to continue and a purpose to fill my otherwise cruelly hollow days.

The Umbral Lord gestured to the open window, obviously finished, and crouched on the sill, turning to say his parting words.

“I’ll see you in the morning.”

A pause.

“We have so much work do.”

And then he was gone, and I was left there. The Ivory Mask. Celine no longer. That girl was dead now, after all.

That girl was dead.

#dressverse #part three #writing #execution #revenge #author:benmiff #character: lady de bonville #character: commodore de bonville #character: celine #character: the ivory mask (2nd) #character: elena #character: abbellia #character: the umbral lord #character:mille-tamlin #character: the woman in the crystal mask

[benmiff]

The Flame And The Worm - Part Two

A continuation.

The Flame And The Worm – Part Two

Elena

It was still dark when I came to – how long had I been out? The back of my head was throbbing, a low pounding that reached around my ears and gripped my skull with heavy fingers. I reached out instinctively for the pain, and touched blood in my hair, mostly dried and tacky. My memories were blurry; I was studying late at night as I usually did once Celine went to sleep, and then she was shouting? We had to run? We must have run, because how else did we get outside onto the cobbles? And then… flashes of violence came to me. Thugs. Running to strike them, running to defend Celine, and then a lucky blow and darkness. And as I had fought, Celine…

Celine didn’t run. She had fought. Pushing myself up from the cobbles, I looked around the street, trying to see if she got away, and saw the shop first. It was just ashes now, a few small timbers that hadn’t completely burnt down jutting out of the debris and small pools of now cooled metal from where accessories and jewellery had melted in the heat spattered across the wreckage. (It was not until later that I considered how strange it was that the neighbouring buildings were untouched – whatever they did, it would seem they were very careful to not to harm any other interests.) And there, lying in front of the ruins, just left there like it was nothing, was Celine.

I rushed over, fast as I could despite the protests of my body (just how hard had I gone down?) and knelt over her body. She was still breathing, thankfully, though she was deep into unconsciousness and the breathing was slow and laboured. And then I saw what they had done, the damage they had inflicted on her. The mutilation started at the wrists, burnt and melted flesh, and her hands were little more than blackened charred bones connected only by stringy bits of melted cartilage, little scraps of black clinging to the bones, and as I took this in I had to look away, take a breath, regain my composure, focus. I… I had to get us away from here.

Celine had trusted me where to find some of her boltholes, and I knew we had to get off the streets, get her into a bed where she could rest and recover and I could get a healer to her. I was sure that if she woke up and saw what had been done to her then she would break, would shatter; she always was trying to hide her true feelings but it was clear that she felt the happiest when stitching or sewing or showing me such things. I tore off the sleeves of my dress since at least the insides were still clean; the embroidery was only on the outside layer with no stitching reaching the inner layers where they might disturb the wounds. Celine’s hands would need to be wrapped before I could take her anywhere, and the sleeves were the best cloth available at the time for bandaging Celine’s wounds despite the dirt on the outside.  I wrapped her hands as gently as I could, unsure if any pressure would make things worse, and then with the burns protected I lifted her up as carefully as I could, ignoring the dizziness and the aches caused by the strain as her weight bore down on me, and stumbled away from the ruins of what we once called home.

The streets were almost entirely empty as I carried Celine towards the nearby storehouse district, once called something more pleasant and likely named after some family or other but now only referred to by the people of Pelhure as The Spoil. It was one of the first places Celine had set up a safe house in, converting a large storage bin into a small hideaway that she could sleep and conceal herself in should she ever need to. I was the only one as far as I knew that was even aware that it existed – it was old enough that most everyone else would have forgotten she even owned the place, and it being right in the middle of an area no-one really wanted or cared about made it practically invisible. Perhaps in the younger days of Pelhure when the mountains were more active it was well placed for industry, but now the whole district was too far from the harbour and had pretty much fallen into neglect and disrepair. I continued to struggle onwards, the dizziness worse than I thought but unable to stop, and I started to see the odd straggler, drunks and beggars and those who had nowhere else to go except for the streets and other unseen places. Still, none of them troubled us, no doubt surmising as I dragged myself onwards that this was not something that they wanted to be remotely close to – they had been in Pelhure long enough to recognise when a situation had turned bad, and did not want to risk being ‘cleaned up’ to remove any unwanted evidence.

Eventually, we managed to reach the holdout, little more than four rusty walls and a roof when looked at from the outside but still solid enough to have remained secure. On a normal day it might have been little more than a ten minute walk but on that night it felt like a much longer journey, slipping and straining onwards the whole way. Celine had shown me how to unlock the door once, but my mind was still cloudy, patches of darkness swimming in and out of my vision; I knew the keyhole was merely scenery, simply there to disparage anyone from attempting to break in or trying the door on a chance. The actual lock keeping the door shut was entirely magical, but the key eluded me, slipped out of my memory and long gone, and I laid Celine down next to me before slumping against the door, failing at this last hurdle. I was so tired, and all my body wanted was sleep, but I couldn’t falter, not until Celine was safe, and with what little remaining energy I could muster I slammed my fist against the lock as if that would punch it loose.

I can only assume that my muddled mind had recalled the magic needed on instinct rather than on memory, for as I struck the lock I cut my hand open on its the sharp edges, and the smear of blood that was left on the door vanished, sinking into the metal as the enchantment accepted that I was a valid key. The door swung open suddenly, and I plunged forward across the threshold, bruising my shoulder and face as I slammed into the rough uneven flagstones that lay inside. It was an effort to pick myself up again, the battered shoulder protesting as I put weight upon it as it nearly sent me tumbling back down onto the stone floor once again, but I could not let myself fail Celine at this late a stage. Straining once more to lift her, I staggered across the threshold into the dimly lit room, the door swinging closed behind us and its magic locking itself as it did so, and I hobbled across the room to the back where a small bed was set up. I laid Celine down onto the sheets as gently as I was able, trying not to drop her despite every muscle I had just wanting me to let go of her, and finally collapsed by her side, falling back into unconsciousness.

- - -

There was light creeping into the room when I woke up once more, low and red and streaming in through a small hole in the roof. I still felt wrong, tired, with a head filled with sand, and in any normal situation I would probably be deeply asleep, but I had taken a wakefulness draught before this all began and that spell had not yet run its course, bringing me back to wakefulness as much as it could. I was going to need another one soon, but fortunately I had used this safe room as a hiding place for a small stockpile; there was a small space under a loose flagstone in the corner that I had found a couple of years ago when running an errand and as I pried the stone up I could see that the twelve long narrow bottles I had hidden were still there. I drank one immediately, feeling some of the exhaustion fade as the elixir siphoned it away, and a little more clarity opened up as the fog of fatigue lifted from my mind, sharpened my wit and my senses. Two things came into focus as I began to think more clearly – first, that I would need to change my clothes since mine were bloodied and filthy and torn and in no way appropriate to going back outside. There were changes of clothing in the room packed into some of the crates that had been stacked against the walls, at least; the clothes were at least functional and I soon found a pale grey blouse and matching dark riding breeches along with knee height boots which I changed into gingerly, trying not to aggravate my stinging bruises. A light summer hat finished the ensemble and with my hair put up into a tight bun it let me hide the blood and wound on the back of my head at least.

The second issue… Celine wasn’t waking up. She needed more help than I knew how to provide, but nearly all the healers in Pelhure belonged to one of the Houses, and I couldn’t risk going to one without knowing which of them did this to her. That left those the Houses didn’t want for one reason or another, and most of them were unwanted because they were incompetent – addicts on their own supply, mentally broken or just plain unskilled. There was perhaps one healer of sorts I knew who might be able to help, though. Lauton did not come cheap, but I was already certain that his alchemical skills were true given that he was my supplier for the wakefulness draughts and so was likely to be able to prepare a suitable treatment. One of the crates had a small stockpile of emergency funds in it, numerous coins of different mints and cities, and I could only hope that they were going to be enough.

I really didn’t want to leave Celine’s side, but there was little choice but to leave her alone while I sought help. Before I left, I wrote a small letter to her explaining the situation and that she mustn’t leave and pinned it to her clothes; I had to hope that would be enough should she wake before I could return. As I left the small room the sun was rising low across the harbour and I hurried onwards, not wanting to be in public once things started to get busier. Lauton worked out of an old ore refinery close to the mountains, long abandoned and falling apart with age, but it had enough pomp to impose on visitors and enough old machinery that could be repurposed to his experiments and brews that it suited his purposes. I kept to back roads and side streets as I rushed over, trying to look as though I were merely running an early morning errand, but it must have been obvious to any half competent observer that something was likely wrong. I made good time, though, and I had soon reached Lauton’s refinery and slipped inside.

Lauton was in his laboratory space as per usual, and as I entered he was arranging glassware and bottles of strange liquids and powders; he of course saw me coming over straight away. “Elena? You usually don’t come by this early. Not expecting you for another couple of weeks. Something wrong with the draughts?”

“No. Other problems. Can you heal damaged hands?”

Lauton looked a little puzzled at the unusual request as he glanced towards my hands. “That’s just a scratch and a few bruises there, Elena. Not enough to require a regenerative. Why’d you need to hide such small things anyway?”

Obviously Lauton thought I was asking for me and the scrapes and cuts from when I had opened the door earlier. “Not for me, Lauton. Something more serious. A… well, close enough to family. Her hands… they’re down to bone, Lauton.”

“Ah. Serious regeneratives, then. I might be able to do something, though I’ll of course need to see what I’m fixing first. I take it you have the coin?”

“Of course.” I practically flung the coin pouch at him, which he caught neatly, flicking a hand out and tucking the bag away into a pocket, clearly satisfied with its weight. “Let me pack a satchel, not sure what I’ll need. Give me ten minutes, then we can go and visit.”

Across the next ten minutes, Lauton opened numerous cupboards and compartments hidden in ways that meant I had no idea they were even there until revealed. From each he took things, pulling out all kinds of equipment and fluids and powders and other materials of the trade, and soon he had a large backpack overflowing with different things that he hefted onto his back. Indicating he was done, we left, keeping out of the main thoroughfares once more – I didn’t particularly feel like answering any questions should anyone accost me on the street, given they might already be curious about the burnt shop and what could have happened. Meanwhile, Lauton would not stand out in a crowd (being a fairly average if a bit scraggly looking human), but there were enough people in Pelhure that did not like him or his trade that he preferred to stay out of the way too. We got back to the safe room quickly enough, opening the door with the same small gash on my hand since it seemed the door did not need fresh blood to work, and let ourselves in.

Celine was still in the bed when we got back, lying there comatose just as before. Lauton looked her over, saw her hands, immediately winced and sucked the breath between his teeth. “I can do something, sure… probably best she’s out, to be honest. The regenerative you need for something like this isn’t gentle, and she’ll be out for a few days afterwards most like. You’re able to stay with her?”

“I’m not leaving.”

“Alright. Well, I need to mix some things – over there looks clean enough. Nothing in those crates volatile, right?” He indicated a space where I had pulled the crates around when I was searching for clothes earlier; with those crates no longer stacked to the ceiling, the chest high wooden tops would serve fine as a makeshift table.

“Just some linens. Nothing major.”

“Right.” Lauton started to unpack his bag, setting what he needed to one side as he found them, and soon starting mixing, making a dark sludgy crimson paste as he went. Finally, his work was done, and he took the bowl over to the bed to begin applying it to Celine’s injuries. Both hands were soon coated in a thick layer of foul smelling grease, and the smell of meat and blood begin to fill the room as Lauton stepped back and the mixture began to do its work, growing flesh and blood over the damaged bone.

That smell lasted only a few seconds before Celine’s hands burst into flame once more. Lauton leapt back in confusion as I ripped the top off a nearby crate of flame toughened leathers to get something to smother the burning with. “Lauton! What the hell did you do?”

“I don’t know! It’s not the paste! There must be something else!” He was looking through his bag, frantically searching for something, but I have no idea what he thought could help. I ran to Celine and wrapped her hands in the leather in an attempt to smother the fire, but to no avail; the flames continued to burn without air, and Celine began to convulse on the bed from the fresh trauma.

“Damn it, Elena! What the hell did you get me into?” Lauton pulled a large bottle out from the bottom of the bag, numerous other things from the bag flung and scattered about the room as he had searched, and he ran over the bed, tearing open the remains of Celine’s nightgown to rub the bottled fluid across her chest and throat.

“What is that?” I asked, worrying he was only making it worse before it started to take effect and Celine stopped convulsing, lessening my panic to just that caused by the fire. “Relaxant,” he answered. “Should keep her under and stop her body from breaking under the shock.” What he said made sense to me, but the flames were still roaring under the leather, and now the smell of meat and blood had mixed in with the stench of charcoal, but soon the heat died down to embers and then  went out completely. Taking the leather away, Celine’s hands looked the same as before the paste had been applied, and we were no closer to finding a cure. Lauton was already beginning to pack up, but I put a hand on his as he picked up another bottle to stop him. “What was that?”

“I don’t know. I’ve got a decent guess, but I don’t know for sure.”

“Better than nothing. Tell me.”

“I’ve heard rumours of this sort of thing before. Some kind of thing that sets the wound, makes sure it never heals. No idea if it’s real or not, though what just happened there suggests it is. No idea what it is for sure; I’ve heard of dark magic, of poison, of curses, of divine punishments even, but nothing solid. All you can do is keep her going until she wakes up, and go from there.” Lauton looked over his supplies, picked up a small tin and handed it over. “Put one of these under her tongue each morning and each evening – they’ll stop her from dying of thirst or starving before she wakes up at least. As to the rest of it, there’s nothing more I can do, and I really can’t be involved in this – this is more than just the normal business. Whoever you pissed off is going further than if this was just normal business, and that’s more than I’m able to handle. Best of luck with it all, but leave me out of it all the same.”

With that said, Lauton finished packing and left me alone with Celine once more. He’d guessed (correctly) that I wasn’t going to give up on her, and at least left me something to keep her going long enough to wake up again, but…

I stayed by Celine’s side for the next day and night, drinking the wakefulness draughts whenever I felt tiredness coming on. I had to be there when she woke up, and I spent the time willing her to wake up, hoping she might hear my thoughts and the occasional attempt to talk to her, but to no avail. The only thing that shook me from that singular focus was the knock on the door the next morning, unexpected as no-one knew that we were there. I tried to ignore it, but the hammering on the door got louder, stronger, and a voice I recognised – Abbellia’s – sounded from the other side.

“Anyone there? I’m coming in.” Before I could get up to open the door, it swung open and he stood there, looked me up and down and then at Celine. “I see,” he said, walking over. “How is she?”

“She’s not waking up, not yet, but she should. What are you doing here? How did you find us?” I asked.

“One of my previous students goes missing, her shop burns down, and as far as I can tell a number of her other holdouts go up in flame as well? I wanted to make sure she was still alive, or at least figure out what happened to her if not. As to finding you… this is one of the old holdouts. I was the one who said she should get one, and looks like I was right, at least eventually. Still, she got this when she was still my apprentice, so I helped her secure it, and now we’re here. Anyway, that’s not important here; what happened to her hands?”

“Not sure, but we tried to get them healed. Didn’t take – they just burst back into flame, so I reckon that’s what happened the first time too.”

“Hm. Well, she’s breathing at least – small mercies. And you, Elena. When did you last eat?” I tried to think, unsure, and the pause gave him the answer he needed. “I thought so. And when did you last sleep?” Again, uncertainty from me gave Abbellia his answer. “Well, I can stay for a few hours, watch over Celine. Over there is a trapdoor, hidden – you didn’t know about it. Basic glamour, simple trick but not one you were looking for so you didn’t see past it. There’s another bed down there, food, so on and so forth. Eat. Wash. Rest.” I raised a hand to begin to protest, but saw by his face and folded arms there was little point.

“Wake me if she comes to,” I said, finding the trapdoor under the illusion and climbing down the ladder. Abbellia agreed as the door closed above me, and I ate a meal of dried meat and cheeses; I didn’t eat a lot despite how long it had been since I had last ate, but I had absolutely no appetite. The sink was enough to clean off the grime and blood that had set solid, my hair being short enough already that I could manage to wash it out after a couple of rinses. Having finished eating and washing, I turned to the bed, collapsed into it and immediately plunged into a deep sleep.

- - -

When I woke, my head was filled with the remnants of vivid nightmares of fire and loss. Abbellia was still there, and my wakefulness draughts were laying on one of the crates. “You’re awake. Good. So you know, I’m taking these with me,” he said, indicating the bottles. “Not a good idea, especially not so many. We will be talking about them later, but this is clearly not the right time for that conversation. For now, I will need to get going soon. You will tell me when Celine wakes up, and I will be sending one of my people from now on to watch over Celine while you sleep.”

I couldn’t really argue, and was in no mood to; I just wanted to get back to Celine’s side. There had been no change, and we both sat there for another half hour, not talking and just being there for her, and then he had to leave, and it was just me and Celine again. At least now that I knew there was a sink I could bring up a bowl of water and wash her skin clear of the grime and blood and sweat; he hair was too long, though, and that I had to leave alone. Apart from the washing, all I did was sit there watching, hoping, obsessing… that was the entirety of my next few days, broken only as people arrived each day so I could sleep as Abbellia promised.

Celine slept for eleven days before she woke up, looking around in confusion. “How… how do you feel?” I asked.

“Elena? Elena… where am I?” she asked, looking at the room she was in and then me, clearly confused by the strange surroundings.

“One of your safe houses. I’m… I’m sorry.”

“What have you got to be sorry for?” A look of undeserved concern crossed Celine’s face.

“You don’t… you don’t remember?”

“No, Elena. I don’t. What. Happened?” The familiar tone, Celine commanding, gave me a little hope she was still herself.

“Look down, Celine. Carefully. Your hands…”

“What about…” she began to ask, and then saw them. I had left them open to the air seeing as there was little more to be done - I did not want to risk what binding them might result in now that they were resting on clean linen. Celine stopped as she saw her hands, took it all in, and her face and shoulders fell. “I see. I take it healing has been tried?”

“Yes. It went…”

“It went poorly,” Celine said, cutting me off. “I know. They’re not going to heal, Elena. They made that very clear. No point even trying.”

We just sat there with that, Celine not moving or saying anything. Occasionally she would start a thought, some imagining that her hands might come back in one way or another or that they were never lost at all, but each time she stopped as she came back to the reality of what had happened and the thought was just left hanging in the air between us. I tried to feed her as time passed, but she knocked any food clear, unwilling to be helped or admit that she needed help. Hours passed, and the servant came once more; I got him to fetch Abbellia who arrived shortly afterwards and asked for some privacy. I didn’t want to leave her, of course, but Abbellia made it very clear that staying was not an option as what we needed say would work best without an audience, and so I waited for him outside.

It was a good hour before Abbellia came out to talk to me (and me alone). “Elena,” he said, “She’s worse than I thought she would be. She’s not coming back from this without something to come back for. I know her, so do you. Without her work, she’s… she’s broken.” That was the first time I had ever seen Abbellia pause, any sign of a feeling in him, and all I could think is that if he was giving up, then there really was no hope. “I’ve been looking into this affair ever since I learned that someone had torched the shop, looking for something to let Celine hook onto, give her something else to live for, and I know that I’m getting close. I remember who she was when she first came to Pelhure, see. That’s still there – that drive, that willingness to do things and, well, get what she wants. And I think I know what she’ll want to do once she clears her head. The only obstacle left now needs your help, though.”

“Why me?”

“Pharlan’s involved somehow – whatever it was that’s stopping her healing, he brought it in. And I know you two have your dalliances.”

“Wait, Pharlan did this? He wouldn’t-“

“He might not have known. Either way, if I know who put him up to this, then that’s the last piece.”

I had to pause, think. I knew he was in town next week – we had already planned a tryst the first day he was back as we often did. Long days at sea always left him seeking some more pleasant company when he came ashore. Given the circumstances, I was going to waive it off, stay with Celine, but now…

“I’ll send a servant. Celine won’t be alone while you’re meeting him.” Abbellia had interrupted my thoughts, and I needed to know if Pharlan knew. I had to know.

“Alright. I’ll see what I can find out. He’s not back for another week, though.”

“I know. Well, you should go back in. The servant will stay – you still need to sleep. I’ve got further business to be getting to, other trails that still need maintaining. Celine will be wondering what we’re doing if we stay out here too long as well. Oh, and one last thing. You know she’s not going to be able to teach you any more, right?”

I hadn’t thought of that, had been so focused on Celine getting better, and that thought nestled in the back of my mind as I went back in, shoved out of the way as I couldn’t afford to give it much thought yet. Celine was still there, still the same, and so we just sat in silence as she wallowed in shock and denial for another few minutes before I went to bed.

It took another two days before she spoke to me, seemingly snapping into motion as one of her many swirling thoughts finally coalesced into something more solid. “Elena! Do we still have the evening gloves?”

“Er… yes. In one of the crates, I think.”

“And any enchanting kits?”

“Yes.”

“Then we can do this! Fetch them, fetch them!” The animation after Celine had been so listless for so long was worrying, but I was more worried what would happen if she took it upon herself to get them herself. I laid them out in front of her on one of the crates nearest her bed, and she looked over them. “These will need resizing, but I can do that –“ she started, before realising what she had just said, the energy giving way to a crestfallen expression. “Elena, you’ll need to resize these for me. And get some of my longer hairs – we’ll need those too. And then I’m going to need to show you how to weave the enchantment… if I can.”

The resizing was not difficult, true, though until Celine made it clear I was unsure how to resize down to her finger bones. It turned out she was intended to bind them, bulk them up to normal size with the toughened leather so everything would look normal from the outside of the gloves and no-one would suspect anything was wrong unless they knew or saw they never moved. Finding two decent length hairs of any quality was much more difficult, though; the lack of washing or movement had done Celine no favours and her hair was a matted, tangled mess. Eventually, I was forced to cut it back into a very short bob and salvage what I could from the clippings, but amongst them a few good hairs were found. And then, finally, Celine explained the enchantment and it became clear what her intent was. She had me sew the hairs in to the gloves, one each along each of the main seams, linking the gloves to her (or so she explained) before guiding me step by painstaking step through the most elaborate enchantment she had ever shown me. It was slow and complicated work, but finally it was done, and I helped her put them on, Celine finally accepting some assistance from me.

The gloves twitched, moved, reacted, and Celine immediately picked up loose cloth and the needle and thread left from the earlier resizing work to reclaim her craft, and with one smooth motion, stabbed it straight through the cloth and into the crate below. She looked at it, driven halfway into the wood, and before I could react she hammered the glove in a balled fist into the crate, smashing the wood over and over and over before breaking down in tears, her gloves still tight in fists. “Elena… I can’t… these won’t… I thought they might…”

I embraced her there, held her tight, and she just wept, bawled, clung to me as she howled all the frustration and loss out. And among it, constant apologies for not being good enough, for not being able to teach me anymore, for all of it, and then she went back to bed, still sobbing, defeated.

“You… you can still do some things now, though,” I said, but there was no getting through to her, and we just sat there, me resting a hand on her so she knew I was there as she cried herself to sleep.

- - -

As I went back up to the room the next morning, Celine was already up, focusing on her gloved hands, and it seems like she had decided that even with their failings that she would master them anyway. It was clear that they were still not working as well as she had hoped, and I could only feel that it was my fault in some way – I was the one who made them, and if Celine had have been able to do it they would have no doubt been perfect. The gloves twitched, moved when they were not meant to, and generally seemed to be alive and possessed of a will of their own. Any delicate movement was impossible, as the torn cloth and broken needles scattered across the nearby crates attested to, and yet she continued to try to force the gloves to obey, admonishing herself as she went for every single failure.

This obsessive practice continued until the day before I was due to meet with Pharlan, and Abbellia once more visited the hideaway in person rather than send a servant. Again, he wanted to talk outside in private, and so we stepped into the street. “How is she?” he asked.

“I can’t tell. She’s not refusing to do anything anymore, but she’s gotten obsessed instead. Seems to be punishing herself. Won’t stop practicing.”

Abbellia raised an eyebrow. “Practicing? Practicing what?”

“The gloves. She had me enchant some, weave her hair into them, bind them to her. She’s been trying to get control of them since.”

“Oh. That’s, well, more of a reaction that I expected. I mean, I did tell her she was the most stubborn person I knew and that if anyone was coming back from this it would be her, but that was just to shock her into not giving up. I didn’t expect her to actually find some kind of solution. And a linked animate – she must be aware of how dangerous those are. I dread to think – I need to talk to her again. But first, you matter as well - have you given any thought to your apprenticeship?”

“No, no – too much else to think about. I will, though. Not until this is over.”

“Hm. Well, tell me when you decide if you want to continue or not. No-one would blame you for getting out of the business after seeing something like this – fashion is not a place for the timid.” Abbellia was as stony faced and hard to read as ever, but there was almost a twitch of the corner of his lips as if he thought that was a joke. “Anyway, I will call in a couple of days, the day after you meet Pharlan. I need to know what he knows – that’s the last piece that will unravel all of this. Anyway, shall we go in?”

“Yes,” I said, leading him in. Abbellia spoke to Celine, and I could see how careful he was not to disparage the new evening gloves while still making sure Celine knew what she was risking, but they seemed to be the only thing giving Celine any hope right now and neither of us were willing to force her to relinquish them. Celine and Abbellia talked, and after a while I went off to sleep, knowing I would need to be ready.

- - -

When I awoke, it seems like Abbellia had perhaps explained a little more about our plans than that we were simply gathering extra information. Celine seemed stunned that Pharlan and I had dated even once, let alone had some particularly long nights every time he was in the city. She wanted to know how I had hid it from her, and seemed unimpressed at how easy it was, muttering to herself that she should have seen this, should have seen so many things. Now that she knew, though, she was insistent on details – was he a gentleman? Did I want a gentleman? Has he-? Does he want to-? So many questions, and I had to pretend that everything between me and him was fine and I wasn’t afraid that he wasn’t the man I thought he was. I had to smile, to play along, and then she started insisting on dresses and hats and that I just had to stop dressing so conservatively (even though I think he liked that about me) and in the end I just went along with it, which is how I ended up walking down to the harbour in the most elaborate outfit I have ever worn and hopefully that I ever will.

The dress was red silk, massively exposed at both the front and back with large oval cut-outs curving down to a couple of inches above the waist and covered in little loose pieces of ribbon and lace looping around one another in dizzying patterns. Underneath that, the corset was cinched uncomfortably tight, bleached whalebone contrasting with yet redder acrylic between the ribs and studded with embossed eyes. I had insisted on wearing the necklace of my choice and had chosen the sequined necklace long familiar to me as I did not know if I would want a weapon by the end of the night, and its ability to become a barbed chain would prove useful if I did. Then there was the hat (large and ostentatious with yet more eyes, this time dyed into the feathers arrayed around the rim) and the shoes (red again, high heels with two inch spikes that forced me to teeter around carefully rather than risk falling) and a dozen other earrings and bracelets and the like. I was only going to a tea shop near the waterfront! Nevertheless, I could tell Celine needed this – she might not have been able to make the dresses and outfits, but she could at least put together an ensemble and retain some capability of style and fashion.

I reached the tea shop (somehow – cobbles and heel spikes do not mix) and went in, sticking out from much of the clientele by how very overdressed I was and how mostly rough they were. Fortunately, Pharlan and I liked this tea shop for the great many shadowy corners one could sit in – while we would usually use the privacy for tender whisperings and held hands and other little sweetness’s, it certainly did not hurt for what I had planned tonight. Pharlan was already seated, looking a bit more suited than I was for the place despite having some of his best clothes on, clearly having made an effort. Still, he was easily identified as a sailor or other such seaman, with his heavy cotton shirt, thick trousers, clean boots and naval jewellery all marking him out. I went into his corner, saw he had already ordered by the wooden table marker and its carved number, and sat down opposite him.

“I wasn’t sure you’d be able to come tonight. I’ve heard mutterings around the docks – is Celine alright?” he said, and I could have sworn I saw a flicker of guilt there. Perhaps this was going to be easier than I thought.

“She’s alive, but beyond that… why, what have you heard?” As I asked, a serving girl came over and set down two cups brimming with lavender tea before setting down a large copper teapot filled with yet more tea. We both smiled, said thanks, and waited until she had left before Pharlan answered, our conversation demanding some amount of privacy.

“Oh, just talk, you know. Said there’d be some fires, some famous fashionista gone missing, and I was worried for you.”

“I’m fine too,” I said, taking his hand and smiling. “We’re close to finding out who’s involved.”

“Oh, that’s… that’s good. Anyone in particular?”

“We know something got smuggled in, so we’ll get who brought it in. Not that they’re that important, you know – just that they can tell us who bought it. Who used it. It would be nice if they could just tell us, since we don’t really care about them, but if not, well…”

Pharlan was shifting in his seat now, uncomfortable, and that was the final proof I needed, enough to show that he was most definitely involved. I sat back, took a delicate sip of tea. “Anyway, how have you been?”

“Oh, you know, business. Carrying various odds and ends, crates and vials. Nothing nasty, though. Definitely no poison or anything like that.”

I saw my chance and took it. “Poison? I didn’t say anything about… wait, do you know something? Pharlan, if you know something, you need to tell me.”

“Er…”

“Pharlan, do you trust me?” Pleading eyes now, leaning forward over the table to take his hands, squeezing them tightly. “I need to know.”

“Okay! Okay… I… I didn’t know what they wanted it for. They couldn’t get it in through the usual smugglers who’d carry the stuff, something about it being too easy to trace that way. They knew Mille-Tamlin wouldn’t take the job, what with her morals and all, but they thought I might be more interested. And they paid well – enough for me to settle here for good after a few more little jobs like that for them, Elena. I… I did it for us. We can be together once it’s all done – I wouldn’t need to be gone all the time, you see.”

I wanted to kill him there and then, heart tearing with betrayal, but I still needed the names and I would never have gotten away with it in such a crowded teashop so I forced myself to keep my composure. “Who, Pharlan? Who wanted it?”

“House Almaz. It was a servant, didn’t say who they were working for beyond that. They had this symbol on a ring they were wearing, though,” he said, passing over a rough sketch on a scrap of paper. The De Bonville family sigil.

“Thank you, Pharlan. I do wish you all the very best,” I said, ice creeping into my voice as I snatched the piece of paper and then got up to leave.

“Wait, where are you going?”

“Well, let’s see. You brought in the poison that they used to mutilate someone I care about. So, I’m going to go away and try to forget you ever existed, and let you crawl back to the dark pit you came from. I do hope for your sake that we never meet again. Goodbye, Pharlan.” And with that said I walked out, ignoring his protests and leaving him standing in the doorway of the teashop looking dejected as I went back to the safe house.

- - -

The next day, Abbellia arrived as promised, and as per usual, he wanted to talk alone first. “I heard you managed to get the information. Either that or someone else decided to crush Pharlan. Well done. He obviously didn’t deserve you,” he said.

“No, he didn’t. The information was good, though,” I said, showing him the piece of paper and unfolding it to reveal the sigil.

“With that, we should have everything. Before we go in and talk to Celine, though, one more personal question. Have you considered your future yet?”

“I think I have. I think I’m going to carry on. Find a new master. I can’t quit now, can’t let them take my life too.”

“Good choice. I told Celine you’d want to carry on. She wasn’t sure. I have an opening, but I should warn you that Celine was more gentle a master than I am. After all, she let you pass the tea ceremony. Well, eventually, anyway,” he said, and again, that hint of a smile.

“I… Yes. Once this is done. If Celine’s okay with it.”

“Celine suggested it. Didn’t want to bring you down with her,” he said.

“Oh. Right. Well, definitely yes then.”

“Good. Correct decision. Well, we should go in.”

As we entered, we could see Celine was still practising – the gloves were still erratic, still incapable of any fine control, but they were no longer reacting to every errant thought she had at least. “Celine. We need to talk,” said Abbellia. “We know who did this.”

And with that, Abbellia and I explained what we had learnt. How the siege of Agliton had been broken by Commodore De Bonville, and how he had returned high on favour and influence and found his wife languishing. How she had explained it not as a night of humiliation thanks to her own hand despite the rumours, but as the result of that damned dress – the only possible explanation. How she had demanded revenge, demanded not death but for Celine’s life to be ruined – she wanted misery, nothing but pain and grief. How she had arranged for the attacks, the war mage in the crystal mask borrowed for a surgical strike, the rare and most certainly illegal poison smuggled in. How very pleased she was with herself. How very content she was. How very confident she was.

And as we explained this, and Celine took it in, her gloves clenched, then trembled, strong emotions still bleeding through, and then she relaxed her hands. Celine smiled then, smiled with too many teeth and her eyes lit by predatory zeal, and venom filled her voice.

“I know what I need to do now.”

#dressverse #part two #writing #betrayal #author:benmiff #character: lauton #character: celine #character:elena #character: abbellia #character: pharlan

[benmiff]

The Flame And The Worm - Part One

This one turned into working out as a three parter as I wrote. (Parts two and three are still being written.)

The Flame And The Worm - Part One

Celine

It had been a particularly warm summer, and the fashion amongst those in the know had shifted to demand lighter fabrics and airy ensembles; weighty furs were only being seen as light trims or bags and hats, much to the chagrin of those families bearing such heavyset animals as their symbols. Other families, though, were making the very most of things; hose bearing light colours wore them proudly, and the others who catered for enchantments of frost and air embraced the new trends and skyrocketing demand. The markets were bustling as usual with traders arguing the quality of their wares and exasperating servants searching in vain for the latest strange item their master or mistress ‘had to have’ as a result of the latest passing trends. Meanwhile, the harbour was busier than it had ever been, an increase of shipments of myriad shapes and sizes passing through now that the recent blockade of Agliton had concluded with the spectacular burning and ransacking of their main harbour in a clandestine night raid of great risk but now provably greater reward. The increase in industry across the entire dock front meant the days were filled with the harried shouting of salt worn sailors and the scraping of wood and stone as crates were levered off of great cargo barges and ships, and a number of the less resilient nobles had found blatantly transparent excuses to travel to their summer homes further inland in private forests or on sweeping ancestral vistas to get away from it all. For those that remained due to business necessities or lack of means, scented necklaces or finely woven coverings for the nose and mouth were effectively mandatory; those that could afford such things or had the good graces to either receive them as gifts or already possess them as heirlooms elected to use permanent enchantments that gave off fragrances such as fields of innumerable flowers of a dizzying variety all in full bloom despite the impossibility of the them ever sharing the same season or exotic  markets piled high with many different pungent spices. Such things were rare and few had them, however, and so most were settling for copious amounts of perfumes despite their steady and ever surging increase in price as supplies repeatedly failed to be fully replenished after sale, the traders and sailors unable to keep up with the constant growth in consumption.

The new trend was certainly a convenient way for me to be able to identify anyone with even the slightest importance (or at least anyone with the slightest wealth, and given how often the two went hand in hand there was not a great difference between the two). I saw many people who seemed familiar enough to my memory that they must have been frequent guests to my neighbourhood each of whom had some scented item or another and who until that point had been another face in the crowd, never revealing they were related to some distant noble family or another. A little light investigation followed as I noted their appearances and names, and in short order (and a few polite chats amongst the tea rooms and boulevards) I had found most were only important enough to be commanding some small token of their station; still, knowing that they existed and had inroads to their families could always prove useful in the future. None of the people of Pelhure could hardly be blamed for the insistent fashion, of course; the harbour stank of tar and decaying produce and a hundred other vile offenses to the nose, and when the wind blew in from the ocean as it did the vast majority of the time the salt it carried with it was not sufficient to mask the stench underneath as it swept over the city and settled into its fabrics and stones.

Despite the new fashion, my business had been relatively quiet for the past couple of weeks. We were not completely without work, of course, but there were no clients demanding that Elena and I work above our usual comfortable capacity in order to fulfil some fabricated emergency or cater to some last minute soiree, and no need to refuse any meetings due to an excessive backlog of far more important people (or those otherwise more dangerous to offend). I had of course had experience of such quiet periods before and was not overly worried as business always picked back up after a month or two and by then I would have a surfeit of new designs and wondrous ensembles to offer; the shifting tides of fashion were always fickle given just how many things they were at the beck and call of, and so one would find your particular specialties out of the current zeitgeist until some event or shift in people’s whimsies sparked them back into vogue. In truth, the calm was proving useful – the surge of interest that I had following the last Winter’s Ball meant that Elena’s apprenticeship had been somewhat neglected in order to satisfy the sheer volume of requests for new dresses and suits and myriad other pretty things (all edged with an appropriate light twist of danger) and so both of us were focused on the work rather than on teaching and the little frequent lessons throughout the day that were our normal style. I had spent the last day guiding Elena as she worked on our latest piece, with the particular difficulty being the sheer amount of translucent and exceptionally delicate lace demanded by the brief; while there were diamond shaped panels of frosted glass edged in silver glitter to blunt the otherwise razor sharp points that were placed strategically to avoid exposing flesh usually reserved for much more private dalliances the dress was still exceptionally scandalous and misjudging the location of any of the panels by even a half inch would take the dress across the line from its current outrageous state into full indecency. (The brief was most certainly one of the more outlandish ones I have had in a while, interesting despite the sheer brazen naivety of it all; the client already has a well-earned reputation for pushing the boundaries of good taste, and her husband has apparently been looking at one of the serving girls in their employ more often and more closely than she would prefer. As such, she was looking to “shock him” back into looking at her and only her that way again without needing to resort to more extreme measures that would no doubt ruin the poor girls’ life if it didn’t end it completely). The dress was almost complete by the time evening had rolled around, there only being the embellishments such as the trim and the light-weaving remaining to do before it would be ready to present. I trusted that Elena could finish it off without me despite only recently learning to enchant things with the light-weaving; I had given her a simple enough personal enchantment kit as a gift recently to commemorate the anniversary of the start of her apprenticeship and she had picked up a good number of the principles with impressive speed. The recent quiet had perhaps set me on edge a little more than I was willing to admit, and I had certain old friends I needed to check in with to settle my fleeting worries who were only readily available during the hours of darkness. (I didn’t have any reason to believe that anything was actually unusual or out of place, but I had been in Pelhure long enough to know that keeping a regular check on current affairs and thus the situation amongst the major houses was wise; no doubt growing up in Mezzabareen had left some lingering influence, some wariness or paranoia that I had brought with me.)

The storehouses lining the harbour were never as busy during the evening; while simple light spells lit up the main streets with a pale blue glare, access alleyways and storage spaces were deep with inky shadow and the various dockworkers, ship hands and sailors were either asleep in whatever berths they rented or were provisioned with or in one of the many pubs and alehouses and brothels  that catered to them and their coin (for such establishments were less choosy about which cities’ coin they accepted, unlike many of the classier establishments further into Pelhure). I chose to wear something a lot less conspicuous than my usual styling given that I was heading for less affluent districts of the city, but I could not entirely forego a certain level of appearance and risk being seen in such a basic ensemble; heavy tan trousers with sections of light iron box chain hanging across the waistline in loops and a thin cream loose knit cotton jumper with a high neckline complemented the leather shoulder bag patterned with elaborate tessellations in thick dark thread without screaming of wealth or being an easy opportunity for more desperate or unsavoury elements (be they criminal or otherwise). I still, of course, attracted a few sideway glances from the odd passer-by or lurker in the shadows (and would have been offended if I hadn’t), but I was confident that if anyone was foolish enough to attempt to accost me the chains on my waist would defend me long enough to allow for a retreat to a better lit area where the assailants would be unlikely to follow; a casual observer would not have known to identify the animating magic within them or the curved inch-long moon blades at each end tucked into the fabric of the waistband. I was looking for Mille-Tamlin, who could usually be found at one of the many hidden ports around Pelhure that mostly remained hidden by the grace of vested parties who favoured having such alternatives to the more well-known supply routes; I believed he was working out of Nyssa’s Tower tonight which was an old stone tower on the western edges of the harbour that nearly everyone fastidiously avoiding thanks to its cursed reputation. People said that things spoiled faster near it and that people fell incurably ill thanks to its influence, and there was some truth to the reputation; a plague had started there a few years back with some poor wretch trapped in a barrel after trying to smuggle himself across an ocean only to fall deathly ill during a long journey tormented by violent storms. The had barrel ended up in the tower for storage thanks to the original buyer no longer wanting the shipment thanks to the delays, and the poor fool died there too weak to prize the lid off and escape; such a long and unpleasant death made for a particularly vengeful ghost who spread death and decay for a good few weeks before an expert in such affairs hired by Mille-Tamlin communed with it, settling it down and forging an alliance to keep people away from one of the exits to one of his smuggling tunnels in the process.

I crossed the harbour to Nyssa’s Tower without any trouble as I knew I would, and slipped in through a rent in the stone near the side.  The ghost’s presence would not attack as I had met Mille-Tamlin here previously and so it did not see me as an intruder, though I would rather avoid getting too close to it still; it exuded a foul miasma that would go straight through my scented mouth veil and would stain all my clothes permanently with a thick oiliness. The whole area was unlit except for the flickering glow coming from the trapdoor in the back of the room, wide open and behind a large rotting wine rack that had gouged tracks in the floor as it had been dragged forward from its usual position. I crept down, keeping to the shadows cast by the torches on the walls, listening intently to ensure the tunnels were in use by Mille-Tamlin and not some other smuggler that night, and had made my way a good few dozen feet down the tunnel before I found a short blade at my throat. The chains at my waist quivered, ready to lash out in reaction to my surprise before I quelled the instinct, and slowly raised by hands in a gesture of supplication, sure that whoever this was would be able to cut me open before the chains managed a disabling blow.

“Celine? What’re you doing creepin’ around?” said a recognisable voice, the characteristic rasp of a habitual merique stick addict followed by the smell of ash and burnt plant oils on his breath. The blade was withdrawn and firm rough hands grasped me by my shoulders and spun me around, the worn face of Pharlan grinning at me. “Nearly ‘ad yer throat-fountainin’; yer really should’ve let us know aforehand.”

I smiled back, clapping him on the shoulder; Pharlan had been Mille-Tamlin’s second for four years now (and was by far the best of the many seconds I had known at it; previous seconds had lasted less than a year most of the time, the longest I knew about previously managing almost three years before being caught by a coralback shark unloading cargo in some poorly chosen shallows off the coast of Carthon and dying horribly to the concoction of poisons in its spines.) At least some of his success was likely a result of his stature – a heavy set orc, he towered over near everyone else and was the equal of two normal sailors in a fight, but the muscles hid a sharp mind that had an almost empathic relationship with the sea and the various beasts that lived within and on it. I was pretty certain that I had seen him when he thought no-one could see him under the waves swimming  with a shoal of bomb fish once and I still wonder just who or what granted him those talents (and what possible price he was paying for them). I knew he had eyes for Elena, but the poor love blind idiot had yet to even speak to her (which I put down to nerves – he could face down smugglers and pirates and sea monsters without fear, sure, but talking to a woman? That really scared him). I couldn’t really see him ever having much of a chance with Elena anyway – she was far too focused on her work and her future right now, and his career dragged him all over the seas and meant they would spend too little time together for there to be much hope of success; nonetheless, he treated me well where he could in the hope I might put in a good word for him and I certainly did not dislike his good graces. “I’m looking for Mille-Tamlin. I take it she’s further in?”

Pharlan nodded, pointing further down the tunnels with his middle finger (the index finger being missing, likely lost during a boarding action or in some brawl or another). “She’s unloadin’ right now – stuff’s right particular volatile, but you and yer lot will drink the mos’ dangerous things.” He rummaged in one of his many pockets with the other hand, pulled out a rough wooden token with a carved glyph of orcish curves and spikes and pinned it to my jumper, mishandling the weave with heavy hands. “That’ll let ‘em know I saw you and yer allowed in. Go on ahead; I need to stay ‘ere, jump any other buggers dumb enough to stick out their ‘eds.”

The carved tunnel soon opened up into more natural cave tunnels, and as I picked my way down the rough stone tunnels (eroded a long time ago where the ocean broke through a weak seam of stone and still flooded in places from where the tide had gone out) I soon found my way into a large coastal cave with a number of heavy set men hauling large crates of brandy out of a shallow boat and onto a gently hovering cart humming gently with the occasional squeal as the levitation glyphs compensated for the sudden changes in weight. Mille-Tamlin was in the middle, directing them to be careful with her cargo with a mixture of small corrections and outright threats to their take of the profits of the venture. Despite being half the size of her men (and twice as wide – the dwarven constitution being what it is), she made it obvious that she was in command and any casual observer could see that her men would obey damn near any order by their immediate reactions to her every word; she no doubt paid them well but such loyalty was more a result of preferring to use and trust the same people whenever she could, cultivating a wide network of such friends and allies wherever she went. We had hit it off a little poorly to begin with, an error with a shipping manifest that she had arranged to be altered causing my fine silks to end up in her possession and her blood wines to end up in mine and the pair of us both accusing the other of theft and ill intents; my proclamations were fancy and did not directly accuse her of skulduggery, but rather just insinuated it heavily, and hers were direct and blunt, but the general message at the heart of our communications were the same in both instances. However, we had resolved the issue over a very long night of drinking that started with each of us trying to outdrink the other to besmirch them in front of their peers; that was the last night we tried and failed to exact revenge on each other after which we found we had both grown tired of the feud as we both sobered up in the same gutter. The night had led to a long and quite beneficial arrangement as we had talked between ourselves as we sobered up, finding a shared fondness for creative mockery that we both bonded over, and her contacts had proved useful in knowing what was going on and occasionally acquiring items that were perhaps not entirely legal. On my part, I looked the other way when there was an extra fastidiously sealed crate of fabric or metals in my shipments (always sensitive to the air or to the light or just to people looking at it so I could demand it arrive unopened); I also occasionally procured or provided speciality items related to my fields of expertise on request (such as the hilt-work on her boarding axe to ensure that it gripped on to her hand and didn’t slip free during a frenetic brine-soaked battle.) My bag held the last thing she had requested when she was last in port but it had taken a while to make, the enchantments needing to be carefully layered on top of each other and demanding its collection wait until the next month; quite why she needed nightclothes with such a well hidden smuggling pouch I did not know (though them being in her size at least gave some suggestions), but as was our custom I did not intend to pry and was instead content that she would surely share should it lead to an amusing tale. She had not seen me enter from the back of the cave, and I was nearly upon her and her men before I spoke thanks to how very engrossed were they were in their labours.

“Darling, we really must stop meeting like this,” I said, causing a small commotion as Mille-Tamlin’s hand went to her axe before realising there was no threat. “Celine,” she said, her expression showing a little wry irritation but mostly relief I was not a Pelhurian guard or rival smuggler; no doubt she would get me back with some small surprise or prank at a later date. “It’s alright, lads – she’s a friend. Of sorts. You can carry on loading while we talk shop.” A grin erupted onto her face as she leapt down from the high rock she was standing on to oversee the work and splashed through the shallows to come over to me, slamming a hand into mine in a firm handshake. “I take it you have the latest item?”

“In the bag. Fine work, though given it’s my own that was always a given,” I said, reaching into the bag and pulling out the nightgown neatly wrapped in waxed paper so that it was protected from the elements and then handing it over. “That should serve nicely for whatever you want it for. Been in the city long?” I asked, knowing full well she had already been around for almost a week (and that she was leaving come the next day, this being one of her last shipments in before heading out with a particularly expensive cargo; I usually would have met her earlier for a night out but had heard the smuggling window was much tighter this time around thanks to more patrols put on to keep the returning Agliton soldiers bust and out of too much trouble.) She nodded, gestured to head further in the tunnel to get some distance between us and her crew before our conversation grew to more sensitive matters outside of their preview, and I followed. “You know, I’ve heard some interesting chatter,” she said as we walked.

“Mmm. I was hoping so.” The amount of things that Mille-Tamlin heard was impressive, but then she had a lot of sailors and servants who she talked to regularly as well as people in the major cities to talk to them when she was not there; noting everything in books filled with nearly organised coded text she was able to find anything she had recorded easily. It was the secret to how she knew so many interesting things. The people she heard so many things about couldn’t help it, of course – the upper classes barely noticed their staff even when they were stood right in front of them, after all, and would talk freely about all manner of ill-chosen subjects without ever considering who else might be listening unless they thought someone of importance might be nearby.

“Thought you might’ve been. Lots of the usual, this lord feuding with that lady and the like, but there’s something much more pertinent to you this time. You’re still based in the Brightline District, right?”

I was, and confirmed as such.

“I’ve heard something’s about to go down, see. Don’t know who – they didn’t say. Don’t know the target either. Very hush hush, but someone in the area’s seriously pissed off House Almaz. We’re talking an instructional, here. They’re looking at doing it sometime in the week following the next. Might want to prepare some fall backs in case you need to get out for a bit.” The Brightline District was officially independent, but it had grown up around the main road that House Almaz had used to ship jewels from their small mines in the Cavelight mountains into the city before the mines dried up and became little more than caves and tunnels kept out of a sense of history. (There had always been rumours that they had been repurposed to some nefarious end thanks to their remote location, of course, but nothing had ever been proven.) As such, there was still an unofficial sense that the district was more theirs than anyone else’s, and so they were able to operate more freely than the other houses there without risking a diplomatic upset, especially with their current status as a result of riding high from their successful campaigns around Agliton.

“I’ve got places, sure. Might double check them and make sure they’re stocked up well, though. Thanks for the heads up. Anything else?”

We passed another good hour and a half discussing all the various scraps of information and whispered rumours she had collected, but nothing else Mille-Tamlin had was as pertinent or useful to me as that first report; that is not to say that it was useless information (as if there is any such a thing), but merely that matters closer to home will always loom larger in one’s attention. With our discussions complete (and myself forewarned there was another trio of crates to come in my next shipment of hessian that would be an unmarked special to keep back until they came to collect when they came into Pelhure next month), we parted ways and I went back to my shop ready for a bath and then sleep, leaving the smugglers (now with their brandy fully unloaded) to their business.

- - -

I spent much of the next week checking over my fail safes and fall backs, leaving much of the day to day stitch work and purchasing to Elena and her more than capable hands. She, of course, did not disappoint, even managing to secure several bolts of Arbareth tree cotton despite the recent blight it had been suffering; I was going to have to promote her to some more challenging tasks soon before the threat of boredom set in. The stockpiles I checked were a little lower than I would have liked, but it was an error that was soon rectified. I made sure to move anything that could reasonably be moved out of the shop without disrupting business to other locations as well rather than risk them being caught in a potential crossfire given that mages carrying out instructionals tended to be poor at limiting collateral damage; mostly these were spare pieces of tailoring equipment not currently in use and excess stockpiles of fabric and other such supplies, but I made sure that Aine’s dress was moved as well despite its value on the shop floor as an advertisement – it would just have to tolerate being out of the limelight for a couple of weeks. (It did flex its ribbons at me as I carried it out to one of the storehouses, but I knew there was a passing student of outsider craftwork due to visit Pelhure in a couple of weeks’ time who would leap at the chance to study such a dress and would fawn over it to such an extent that any lingering malign intent would be soothed away by the attention and adulation, and I knew that it would not do anything too cruel until then.) I briefly entertained the idea of moving out of the shop for a short while myself as well, but quashed this idea without needing to give it too much thought; if I was seen to be fleeing a threat that was likely not even pointed at me would only encourage opportunists to strike at me. I did not feel I had much to worry about anyway, as should they move to harm me I am more than capable of self-defence and would extract my own pound of flesh in return; anyway, I had slept in that bed for a good many years and did not feel much like being driven from it. I did briefly suggest Elena might want to be off on some educational trip or supply run for that week, but I suspect that by remaining it told her the threat was not one to be considered all that seriously, and so she remained as well, clearly preferring the benefits of the more hands on teaching she was currently receiving from me.

Mille-Tamlin’s information was good, I have to give her that, though in retrospect I really do wish that it would have been a bit more specific or at the very least had more accurately conveyed the urgent danger that it represented. It was twelve days after her warning and the dead of night, and I received very little warning before it was abundantly clear that we were under attack. A small metallic sphere smashed through the window into my bedroom, sending small fragments of glass scattering across the floor as it rolled to a stop on the deep rug at the end of my bed, and I rose blearily from my sleep to see what it was. It ignited suddenly in a burst of white glare, and as the rug began to burn I leapt out of bed in my nightclothes (light and fortunately not in any way restrictive of movement), grabbed the dagger I had kept on my bedside table just in case and fled towards the back of the shop and Elena’s small bedroom; as I threw open the door out of my room the flaming sphere flashed again and sprayed fluorescent burning streamers around the room in all directions, igniting the curtains and bed and walls and any other soft furnishings they reached as they landed.

“Elena! We’re under attack! Get up!”

As I burst into Elena’s bedroom (a small, narrow space in the back of the house barely big enough for her bed and clothes) I could see that she was much more prepared for an attack than I had been. Open books of myriad sizes and age were strewn around the room, filled with text explaining various principles of fashion or historic trends of famous icons, and there were great reams of paper covered in her own designs that I had never seen before; meanwhile, Elena was dressed and armed and had already opened the small window out to the back so that we could escape. I can only assume she had not yet slept and had been carrying out additional studies of her own during the night when I slept; a row of empty vials on a small shelf above the headboard suggested she had been indulging in some form of elixir or enchantment to remove her need for sleep as she did so despite knowing full well that I would have never condoned such an action – long term use of such things destroyed one’s mind and a couturier needs her creativity, after all. Still, I had no time to be angry or to admonish her – that would have to come later once we were safe and clear from present dangers. Elena went out of the window first, landing gracefully with only a light clattering of her shoes on the cobbles below despite leaping from the upper floor of our shop. I was not as graceful, dropping down to hang from the window sill from my hands before letting go so as to reduce the distance I needed to fall rather than risk a twisted ankle, but I reached the cobbles without injury and turned, thinking which way was best to retreat from the unknown assailants.

It was a split second decision, and as I decided to flee to the east (taking us directly away from the front of the shop as fast as was possible). We had gotten barely two paces away before we pulled up short, however, as eight shadowy figures melted out from wherever they were hiding, each armed with a short wooden club. They were rough, possibly part of the Usoen navy but most certainly off duty at the current time if they were, and dressed in hideous boiled leather armours that while likely functional enough had no grace or presence. Elena went for them first, launching herself with surprising quickness at the nearest figure as her brass knuckles sparked with lightning; swept under the swing of his club, and drove her fist deep into his chest launching him back as the storm bound within the weapon boomed with a mighty thunderclap. I hung back as the edges of my dagger splintered into a many feathered spike, the blade splitting into numerous tiny steel shards as it released a cloud of needles that rushed forth to pincushion the first figure to run towards me; while they were unable to pierce the leather armour, his face was uncovered and he went to the ground screaming as the needles filled his eyes and blinded him. The rest of them did not hold back as one would hope when seeing their compatriots go down at such speed and in such a painful manner, however, and rushed us in unison, three going for each of us. Elena was closer to them and went down first, one of the three catching her from behind on the back of her head with a heavy crunching blow as she focused a driving punch through the other man in front of her and shattered his arm at the shoulder; as she slumped to the ground, unconscious, the other two turned their attention to me and joined my side of the fray. I had just about been managing to keep the others away from me when there were only three of them, maintaining distance with bursts of needles from the dagger and forcing them to dodge and evade and leap behind cover rather than advancing on me, but the additional two assailants tipped the odds and were too much for me to keep away. I of course continued the fight, trying to manoeuvre over to Elena to check on her more closely (though even at a distance I could see she was still breathing which at least brought me some small relief), but they soon grabbed me and threw the dagger away; the only small grace before I was overwhelmed was that I at least got another one of them up close, punching the dagger through a seam in the armour between his legs and filling his groin with hundreds of sliver-thin razors.)

Disarmed, and held roughly by the arms by two men behind me, the leader of the shadowy figures looked me over sternly. “Nothing personal, lass, though I suspect my fellows might be a bit more sour about how this all went. You just pissed off the wrong people. Don’t worry about your friend, there; she’s not part of the contract. Need her sleeping, though I reckon she’ll be fine following a bit of rest; as for you, though, we can’t have anyone interfering with what’s coming. Just need to hold tight – the boss will be round in a minute.”

I struggled, of course, but without any of my enchantments to hand I did not have the strength or offensive firepower to break free from them. For their part, they just looked supremely bored – they had clearly done this before, and this was nothing out of the ordinary for them. A much smaller figure flanked by another two thugs came to us from the front of my shop fairly soon, the growing fire behind her lighting up both her and the alley; my shop was now fully ablaze and scraps of half burnt fabric and paper floated off into the moonless sky on currents of warm air as it consumed everything of value. She was small – halfling or gnome I couldn’t be sure – and bedecked with the regalia of a potent war mage, the sword at her side clearly well-oiled and glimmering with poison and her frame adorned with well-cut leather armour that was fitted together perfectly and studded with yellow cat’s eye gems that glimmered in the light. Unlike the nameless thugs holding me, she wore intricate crystalline gauntlets that glimmered with trapped power and a crystal mask that hid her features and yet moved with her lips as she spoke; there were no holes in the crystal for breathing or for the eyes to peer out of and yet she seemed to know exactly where she was going and what she was doing as if the mask were no hindrance at all.

“Apologies for the somewhat uncouth way we are doing this, my dear Celine, but I don’t believe you would have responded to a formal request. I’m afraid you have very much brought this upon yourself, though; an appropriate punishment must be levied for your deeds.”

My mind searched for any possible escape, a way to persuade this lady to release me, but nothing came to me – I had enough enemies that I could not even hazard a reasonable guess which of them was the one going to such extremes. I needed more information – and only this strange crystal woman could likely give me the answer, and so I asked, unable to keep the anger out of my voice.

“What deeds? What could possibly justify all of this?”

The crystal mask seemed saddened. “If you don’t know, then I’m not at liberty to tell you. You really should know already – it’s obvious if you consider what you’ve done. Nevertheless, I need to carry this particular process out either way. There are others who need to know about this too, need to see what happens when you harm my Lord and Lady. In truth, it’s more for them than it is for you – you’re not going to matter to anyone once we finish here. First, though…” She reached into a side pouch on her belt, pulled out a small black diamond studded hairclip, and slipped it into my hair; pulled out another, and slipped that on to, and continued to adorn my head with jewels in a pattern known only to her.

“Wait… what are you doing?” I struggled more as she slipped the hairclips onto my head; I could sense they were enchanted, but I couldn’t place the spell that was on them; regardless, even without knowing I knew that their effect was not going to be a positive one for me. The not really knowing meant that my imagination went into overdrive, and I thought of mind wipes and grotesquery’s that might be inflicted; for her part, the woman in the crystal mask just ignored me, continuing her work, and only spoke once she was done. “There we are. I apologise for the poor fit with the rest of your ensemble – that particular indignity is not intended as part of the punishment. Nevertheless, those clips are necessary; we can’t have you passing out as we work, now. You do need to know exactly what we are doing, after all.”

The woman in the crystal mask paused, waiting for these words to sink in, and my mind spiralled as to why they would want such a thing; clearly she saw some comprehension in my expression as she indicated to the men holding me that they should hold my hands out in front of me. I resisted, of course, but could not really stop them. The woman in the crystal mask reached into yet another pocket, pulled out a pair of thin wire bracelets studded with more tiny gems (sapphire this time) and slipped them over my hands, one apiece. “To prevent unwanted spread,” she explained without really revealing anything, and then she pulled out a small vial of some foul smelling oil and painted my fingers and the back and front of my hands evenly before pausing once more. “Celine… are you ready to begin?”

“What?! No!” She seemed to think that I would accept what was about to happen! That I would go along with it! The very nerve! The very-

“Shame. It’s always easier when the condemned accepts their punishment. Well, we need to begin anyway,” the woman in the crystal mask said, cutting off my train of thought as she conjured a spark of flame on the finger tip of each of her crystal gauntlets before touching them to the back of my hands at the same time.

Even though it only took a moment, that fragment of time seemed to hang in the air, my mind trapped in it staring in disbelief that this was truly happening. There was almost a dreamlike sense to it, as if none of this was actually real, just a bizarrely awful nightmare, and then the moment ended. Those tiny fires that were so small on her finger tips became a blaze, rushing across the oil on my hands before halting at the sapphire bracelets, and my hands were a conflagration. The pain came rushing in after the fire, excruciating, and I felt myself fall into unconsciousness, or I would have, for as soon as I was going to pass out the hairclips sparked in my mind and brought me all the way back to freshly reawakened torment. I stared at my hands; I couldn’t look away despite desperately not wanting to see this. Fat melted, dripping to the ground, and all I could think was that it needed to stop, that the agony needed to stop, that I would do anything to make it stop, and yet none of my mental pleading was to any avail. The burning plunged deep into flesh, charred it black, fragments burning away and drifting off and curling in the flames, and it still did not stop. And then the flames reached bone, began to char them black as well, the sound of finger bones cracking in the intense heat drowned out by nothing but the screaming I had not even realised was coming from me. And then – and then – the woman in the crystal mask spoke further.

“Celine? Celine? Can you hear me?” I could, only barely in the background, but there was no way for me to tell her – all my attention, all my focus, was on my hands, on the pure white convulsions in the ashen remnants of my nerves, and I could not express anything but raw torment erupting from my throat, but she didn’t care, and continued regardless. “Celine. You need to listen. This,” she said, holding up another vial, “will put out the flames. But it will also conclude our business here. This fluid is very rare, you understand, very illegal, but we got it just for you. Your hands will never heal, Celine. Never. This poison ensures it. This only needs to happen once, you understand. It will stop any normal healing, but if you seek any magical healing, this will happen again, Celine. Your hands will ignite again, Celine. They’ll burn again, Celine. So don’t do that to yourself. I’m going to apply this now, Celine.” Her voice sounded almost concerned, as if what had happened was an unhappy circumstance she had no control over, but I do not believe she got no satisfaction from this, for why else would she do this? Regardless, she had said what she wanted, and so took out the stopper, poured the thick contents of the vial onto my hands, and it glowed as the flames died down, setting into what charred scraps of flesh were left along with the burnt bone and cartilage, and the pain lessened, a little, only a little, still agonizing, but less now.

“We’re done here, Celine.” The woman in the crystal mask looked up, clearly at the men who no longer needed to hold me back now I had fallen to my knees. “Take the clips out.” Rough hands on my hair pulled the clips out with little care not to rip out strands of hair with them, and the enchantment in my mind still sparking constantly to keep me tethered there left with them, and finally, at last, I slumped to the cobbles in darkness as blessed unconsciousness came.

#dressverse #part one #fire #writing #author:benmiff #character: the woman in the crystal mask #character:mille-tamlin #character:celine #character:elena #character:pharlan

[benmiff]

The Dress And The Ball

This one got kind of long. In a good way.

The gown is commonly known as Aine’s Dress, as she was the first to stitch it and the last to wear it before she granted it to the woman who stole her love away in an act of gracious defeat; the true maliciousness of what she had done was only revealed later once the dress showed her to be the lesser suitor compared to Aine’s grandeur and so ensured a ruinous failure of a wedding. They say that it is haunted, that it is cursed; they say the dress wants to be beautiful and it demands that it be the centre of attention, but that it has found no-one to wear it that can fulfil these desires and match it in their own grace and splendour. (Rumour has it that not even Aine could wear it now, the dress having grown in conceit over the many years.) It conveys these demands regardless of where one looks upon it; to look at the bottom of the dress reveals a long sweeping hemline that floats above the ground, small gems in ribbon wrapped pockets enchanted to levitate above the ground sewn into the edges that keep it from picking up any dirt or dust and let the dress swirl around the body as one turns and twirls in the dizzying waltzes that are the custom of a great many balls. Raise your gaze higher and the dress cinches tight around the waist, wrapped in a sash formed of a great many interwoven ribbons that snake around the body individually and yet locked together into a patterned whole. Each ribbon seems independently animate, reacting to the wearer’s emotions to wave happily as they greet a friend they haven’t seen for a long while or shaping the forked ends into fangs as they trade barbed compliments and barely veiled insults with one or another of their social rivals. Higher still, and one’s gaze rests upon the shoulders, a single strap lying across the right shoulder to leave the other bare, and yet more gems sewn into the neckline, enchanted to cast a warm gentle glow to accent the wearer’s best features and ensure that their face is always cast in the best possible light. Perhaps, though, one looks at the dress across the room, and takes it in as a whole rather than picking out individual elements? Why, then, the most striking feature is surely the fabric itself; a sleek black silk at first appearance, it ripples into different colours as the light catches it, shimmering in blues and greens and purples while managing to avoid any inopportune clashes with the rest of one’s jewellery and accoutrements regardless of how lurid they may be.

The dress takes up pride of place in my little shop, sealed away behind a glass case to prevent anything from possibly spoiling its appearance. It rests in front of a backdrop wall painting of some sleepy garden from one or another of the islands across the waters; I do not know which island, but the white roses woven into the manicured hedges compliment the dress nicely. Most of my patrons know not to dare attempt to wear the dress; it can only be worn by a few select individuals who can successfully pull off such a look and none of them are brave or foolish enough to imagine that they are one of them. Despite that, owning such a dress is a distinguishing mark in and of itself; at the very least it speaks to my taste and my good eye. I am a particularly skilled arcane couturier, specialising in animates, and the nobles and other men and women of distinction will have heard this is true from their good friends even if they have not had the privilege of experiencing my work first hand. I have no need to worry about whether or not my skills shall be in demand, for they always are, and the rarity in which I reveal new masterpieces means there is an extensive waiting list at all times. (Each new full outfit takes me around a month, after all – haute couture takes time and my patrons and I both demand perfection in my work, and they have little interest in commissioning only a hat or pair of gloves or other such small frippery). I have little worry about anyone who might attempt to steal or sabotage the dress; only a very select clientele even know where the shop is, after all, and it is tucked away in a back street not amongst the main markets (though that is not to say that it is poorly placed; the shop is at the crest of a hill near many a fine estate, and the balcony overlooks much of the city and down into the harbour bay.) In fact, since I acquired the dress some eight years ago there has only been one incident of note – a young man blinded by love demanded the dress for his bride and after being refused returned later that night to smash the glass case and steal it; I found him in the morning nearly naked, hogtied with fine ornamental cord and covered in shallow cuts on every patch of exposed skin. He was screaming that the dress was possessed by some evil force which the local guard dismissed as the ravings of a lunatic, and that put an end to that unsavoury episode, though I did notice an increase in interest in my designs for a while afterwards.

I was resting when Lady De Bonville visited, arriving a good hour later than our scheduled appointment time as was the growing custom amongst those nobles who thought themselves important enough that all others should have to wait for them. I saw her approaching from a great distance away from my vantage point on the balcony, walking up the hill with several servants bustling around her, carrying umbrellas (despite there being no sign of a single cloud in the sky) and bags and all manner of other fripperies. I could only assume the lateness was in part due to the extravagance of her load and her current attire; the dress looked like it would take two strong men to lace up the back tight enough, and the hair had so many curls and layers that bounced with every step that it must have been enchanted lest it otherwise obey the laws of gravity and collapse into a tangled heap. Despite the display and her projection of self-importance, it was well known that her own reputation was not that strong; she belonged to a minor family whose main significance was that a great deal of particularly high quality iron had been found on one of their estates. Rather, she traded on the reputation of her husband, who was known for his exemplary naval service, the most recent of which was Battle of the Vydium Strait in which he personally commanded a fleet of six shallow-bottomed boats in an ambush against a force twice his number, achieving victory with the loss of only one vessel. If one listened to the rumours and the gossip around the city, word was that to move against the Lady De Bonville was to go against her husband, for though the marriage was initially only one of convenience for his family (in order to secure the high quality iron, her family having successfully traded on the discovery well), it had developed into a strong marriage with the Commodore De Bonville doting deeply on his beloved wife. Needless to say, she certainly did not lack for funds or status now, backed up as she was by his rising star and the power vested in her to run the De Bonville household during his many frequent and long absences, and so it was that it was worthwhile ensuring that she made her way to the top of my waiting list as rapidly as could be achieved smoothly.

I made sure that I was on the shop floor before the Lady De Bonville arrived; while I could rely on my apprentice, Elena, to welcome any guests and come fetch me it was always best to greet a new client personally in case they took my absence to be a slight against them. (Elena was good at her work, don’t get me wrong; her fine needlepoint, the bargello in particular, surpassed even mine, but it was my name that people desired, not hers. Perhaps in another decade or so she would be close to being able to operate independently, but to date I had found no need to tell her that and inflate her ego.) One of the Lady De Bonville’s servants opened the door brusquely, announcing the name followed by a half dozen of her granted titles; most were meaningful and would have illuminated the nature of her station should the listener not have known of her, though ‘She of the Hand Of Iron And Sabres’ was getting a bit petty and only really existed to demand further time from the listener. After the recitation, the Lady herself finally stepped over the threshold and swept into the room, gazing around and filling the place with her presence as though she were on stage and needed to command attention from the entire auditorium.

“Darling!” I greeted her, smiling and throwing my arms wide across my desk where I was seated. “I am so utterly pleased that you would entertain my fine establishment as your preferred choice for preparations regarding the Winter Ball. Would you like anything to drink? Tea, coffee? We have white, red, and rose if you’d prefer a glass of wine?”

The Lady looked me up and down with a furrowed brow and a look that suggested I should consider myself blessed to command even a momentary fragment of her attention. She was clearly judging me; I could see her gaze rest upon my sleeves, delicate lace framing silk worm butterflies amongst a dense forest to proclaim both my skill and my craft, and after lingering for a couple of seconds the smallest hint of a smile crept onto her face as she sat in the velvet chair opposite my table, clearly satisfied with my clothing at least. “A little early for wine, I feel, though I suppose there are those vulgar enough for such things. Coffee will suit me nicely – black, no sugar, and not any of those vile Zilean beans.”

I waved a hand at Elena for her to go to the back and prepare the drinks; I was aware that the Lady was currently feuding with the Algar family whose first fortune was made on the Zilean plantations and so had made sure we had a stock of the pricier Maneco bean as a precaution. Such hospitality was one of the first things that I had taught Elena and she had taken to it well, only scalding herself with the heavy brewing pot once before mastering the whole ritual, and I was sure that she would be back with bone china and the smoky aroma of freshly crushed beans soon. As she left, I pulled out the book of sketches and fabrics for drafts of outfits still under development from the locked drawer under my side of the table and opened it up to begin discussions as to the design brief. “So, what impressions are we looking to be giving? Any subtleties to the design that you would like included in the design? Would you prefer your usual Usoen naval embellishments, or are you looking for a different styling?” I asked, flipping through the book to point out possibilities and elements that were particularly fitting to the suggestions as I went.

“Nonononono,” the Lady said, placing a delicate hand on top of the book to cut me off. “Nothing quite so complicated as that. All I need from you is a gown to make me the centrepiece of everyone’s attention, nothing less. Lady Algar has already contracted Tilburn for her outfit, and to let such a degenerate dominate the night’s affairs – well, it simply won’t do.” An obvious ploy – my antipathy for Tilburn was well known ever since he stated that one of my early works looked as though it had been dredged from the sea floor and I had slandered him back by pointing out his name was only known thanks to funding from the Ilbrien fishing empire and so it was unsurprising that he would be so familiar with such muculent matters. I simply let myself smile a little, accepting the implied compliment, and let her continue to speak. “I’m already practically there myself, so I just need something to give me the extra little push, nothing too difficult I’m sure. Something sleek, something that would stand out from all of others and their outfits barely better than the stitch farm lines. Something like… something like,” and she gestured, trying to find the exact words before her gaze alighted upon Aine’s Dress hanging in its glass case, gently shimmering to accentuate its sleek finish. “Something like that.”

I had to conceal my expressions behind an impassive front in order to not offend – was this woman truly as foolish as what she had just said? I couldn’t help but slip a little spite into my words as I responded – she had shown such pride earlier and yet just revealed that she knew little more than the most common of the lowborn. “That is a very special dress, darling, with particular enchantments; I can promise that you will certainly be the centre of the entire Ball’s attention, but it will demand of you. I can be sure no-one else at the ball will be wearing anything like it, and that no-one will have memory of anyone having worn anything like it, but you will need to be as magnificent as it to pull the look off successfully, though I of course have no doubt that you will be spectacular.”

The warning hung in the air as Elena came returned, a wide tray laden with a large teapot and a number of dainty cups each adorned with waves and sea birds in the richest of blue and red dyes. Elena poured two cups, passing one to the Lady and then the other to me, and then stood to attention behind me awaiting the next command. The Lady and I both sat back and smiled falsely at each other, taking small sips as to prevent our tongues being burnt and waiting for the other to break the silence first, a tiny battle of wills to determine who would reveal their position first and thus whether or not the warning was to be considered offensive or merely a pleasantry to embellish the dresses’ importance; after a few such dainty sips, the Lady set her cup down and stood up from her chair, walked over the case to observe the dress up close and spoke.

“It seems like the jewel in your shop, this dress. The more I look, the better it is; by the end of the night I expect I would have the whole room enthralled. Still, I would look at it without this glass in the way before making a decision; I trust that the case can be opened?”

I smiled, nodded. “Elena, unlock the case,” I said, passing her the filigreed keys, six in all, to unlock the glass frame so it could be taken off. Elena moved quickly, all six locks spaced evenly around the dark wood surrounds of the glass opened in turn and the heavy piece of curved glass lifted away. Lady De Bonville reached out to the dress, fingers coming close before halting in hesitation that such a dress might not bear touching, and for a second I thought that what small fragments of sense she had managed to keep well hidden had come to the fore. Sadly (for her) there was no such lurking intelligence, and her fingers closed the final inch to brush against the silken surface. She was trying to look unimpressed so as to not weaken her hand come negotiations for the price, but it was too late for that and she could not conceal her growing desire for the dress, and as her hand ran down from the shoulder strap to the waist the ribbons of the dress sash glided to her and caressed her hand back. With that caress I knew that the deal was certain despite any warnings I had given or could have stressed further as the dress now wanted her, and it would not let go of its bounty easily. (Of course, at this point in time I had no way of knowing if Aine’s Dress was accepting her as worthy or merely choosing her as she would make an entertaining victim, but given its past behaviour I suspected the latter; still, she had been warned and so my responsibilities were met, and her on-going rudeness had soured me enough to her that I anticipated the Ball’s events with a certain amount of malicious glee.)

The rest of the negotiations passed quickly and with much more ease; I secured a generous price for the hiring out of the dress (for I could not sell it permanently – a small sticking point, but one that was resolved once I explained that there were certain delicate enchantments that only I knew how to maintain (a lie) and the dresses’ splendour and style was too precious and wondrous a thing to let fall into ruin through neglect (most certainly true), and that I would happily swear an oath on my hands that it would not be worn by anyone else in any city where she had standing at the time; such an oath seemed to satisfy the Lady, given the gravity of such an oath when made by a couturier.) Following the payment, I took numerous measurements with the aid of Elena such that we could adjust the dress to suit, ignoring the Lady’s initial protects that she would provide the numbers herself; a final small test of our quality, no doubt, given that even the most simple of stitch-mages would not trust measurements taken by barely skilled servants. Half an hour of tape and myriad penned numbers later we were done, and we promised delivery in three weeks’ time as the Lady and her entourage headed back down the hill, seemingly satisfied.

- - -

The Winter Ball was a highlight of the social calendar, and hotly anticipated every year by everyone bar those who opposed the event simply because it was popular along with the odd noble bitter because they had been excluded for some temporary inconvenience or lack of suitably connected friends; whispers in shadowy corners and polite afternoon teas ramped up in both frequency and salaciousness, and the atmosphere across the city was charged with barely contained tension. It was the same as every year (perhaps even more severe this year than last) for so many nobles and people of influence all congregating in the same place meant that many a friendship was ruined and many a low level conflict ignited into unseemly fighting or vicious exchanges of insults (or even better, a raucous mixture of both.) The scale of it all meant that every major house was involved, jostling for influence and slight advantages over one another, and rather than finding a grand hall to host it in that would favour one house or another the Ball was instead hosted across the open cobbles of the harbour (cleared for the event.) Great pyres enchanted so their light and warmth would be carried over the whole Ball on gentle currents ensured that there was no need to worry about the chill or darkness until the earliest hours, while weather weavings ensured there was no chance that any of the proceedings would be ruined by rain or snow; whether or not the sky would be clouded was less certain, that generally being dependent on whether or not house Opala’s preference for a completely unmasked starscape was respected or not. Either way, the harbour would be conspicuously clear of the usual merchant barges and fishing vessels, no-one wanting such unsightly boats scarring the otherwise beautiful night; that is not to say the harbour would be completely empty, however, as a number of private yachts and pleasure craft were always moored, invitations to the parties on board strictly limited to the closest friends and compatriots of the owner.

My invitation to the Winter Ball had come in a week ago, my talents having been recognised a long time ago and thus old friends making sure that I had the opportunity to keep my name and work fresh in the minds of those that matter in such affairs. Usually, this would pose a particular difficulty unique to my trade – I would need to wear something of my own, something that would entice the observer and advertise all my skills, but at the same time I would need to not outshine any guests wearing one of my other designs to avoid giving offence for daring to consider myself greater than them and denying them the best of my wares. (Lesser designers who had made such a mistake had been stripped to their underclothes for such rudeness in previous Balls, and found themselves subsequently blackballed and with near insurmountable difficulties should they wish to try to come back to the trade from such public disgrace.) However, Aine’s Dress was the pinnacle of my collection and so any of my designs would inevitably be lesser, and so I decided to go with a light blue to match the nearby harbour, with a wide hoop skirt and giant puffy shoulders and puffier bands around the wrists, and with dozens of embroidered fish of vibrant colours that swam around, darting in and out of the folds and pleats of the dress. The hat continued with the theme, piling up streamers and bubbles up to almost two feet above the rim, with further embroidered fish leaping from the dress into the hat and back again. With the extravagance of my clothes and hat I did not need to worry too much about makeup, and so went for a minimal look – light eye shadow and mascara, a little blusher, and a dark blue lipstick to compliment the rest of what I wore. The shop was closed for the night (as was everywhere else, no-one expecting any custom when anyone that mattered was at the harbour), and so I brought Elena as my plus one; with a little prompting she chose a neat pinstripe grey that complimented her well. I noticed the subtle embellishment in the ensemble she had put together first – she wore a sequined necklace to catch the light and add a splash of detail, though I was aware the necklace also doubled as a weapon from previous experience when she had unfurled it into a vicious length of barbed chain that she wielded with graceful finesse. The only other distinguishing feature was that the dress had a slit along the side that when open revealed her legs in dark stockings; Elena’s stance was such that they would only be seen when she wanted them to be seen, and she only revealed them when she wished to threaten away anyone who got to close through such boldness. In contrast to her outfit, her makeup had gone all out; dark smoky eye shadow, black lipstick, extensive eyelash extensions, perfectly plucked eyebrows, and a foundation that positively glowed accented her natural looks without smothering them (unlike a few unfortunates who would not have stood out in a circus line-up). All in all, her outfit suggested that she would no doubt remain by my side, serious in stature and focused on learning all she could rather than fully embracing the usual mingling and light chatter, much as I expected she would.

We waited a good half hour past the invitation time before heading out as was customary (as arriving first was social anathema, but arriving after the more important people would be putting on false airs), and after arriving Elena and I soon found Abbellia, my previous master (recognisable from a distance as expected thanks to his customary frost rime styling, this time patterned over slim fit trousers and a double breasted suit jacket). It had been a while since last we had time for a decently long conversation as he had left for a tour of the Scyrrean Mountains six months ago and he had only recently returned; we began to catch up and after initial niceties the conversation soon turned to our recent work as it always did when we spoke.

“I saw your work for the Lord Berilius – when did you go to the Carthon Islands?” he asked, unable to mask the amusement in his voice from me thanks to long experience of learning his otherwise inscrutable moods. (The amusement was not unfair; in his defence, I can remember when he tried to introduce me to the Carthon styling – I said that their fashion was all sharp edges and blocky shapes and was astoundingly ugly ‘like a dress designed for the slag heap’, and after he admonished me for being uncultured and told me I should try to see past the end of my own nose sometime. We didn’t speak for three days after that, our relationship only continuing as master and apprentice once I relented and apologised for my rudeness and stopped sulking.)

“I didn’t, actually, but there was a piece of work that had to be delivered there safely, so my darling Elena here went along with it and picked up a number of ideas from the trip. I guess I’ve softened a bit since my youth given I didn’t find them all entirely awful,” I replied, reaching out a hand to Elena’s shoulder to bring her forward. For Elena’s part, she just smiled tersely – Abbellia had a fearsome reputation for the demands that he put on anyone who worked for him, and she clearly didn’t want to risk his famously explosive temper. Nevertheless, she needed to get her name out there, so I pushed her forward more so, giving her nobody to hide behind. “Tell him what you told me when you came back – the thing about the sequential edges.”

Elena blushed as I put her on the spot, but I had made sure she didn’t really have anywhere to go. “Well… well, some of what I saw was kind of rough, uneven. There wasn’t any flow; the clothes didn’t follow the wearer’s motion. But I thought if you shrunk down the shapes, fitted them together right, it might work. Might be smoother, I mean.” Abbellia smiled (he did have a soft spot for creative innocence provided it wasn’t coupled with blinding naivety or stupidity) as she explained. “Well, it worked,” he said. “Shame that it was seen as him signalling a move on the Tambrey zirconium mines, but I suppose reading the climate is a later lesson, no?” And there it was – my master never could pass up an opportunity for a little correction, a barely concealed lesson in every letter and conversation; at least in the years since my initial apprenticeship I had gotten much better at taking criticism from him and so knew that the comment wasn’t going to spoil the rest of my night. We chatted a little more, Elena talking more freely now that Abbellia had given her some small token of approval, and soon the polite asides and shared gossip passed enough to time to make it worthwhile moving on to the rest of the Ball now that it was much more busy with the arrival of most of the guests.

It wasn’t long until we came across the Lady De Bonville in the midst of a group of friends and hangers-on (though her husband was conspicuously absent, overseas on a naval blockade of the latest port to offend Uso), and Aine’s Dress was definitely doing its thing; your eye couldn’t help but be drawn to it across the harbour despite the panoply of fine fabrics, ludicrous hats and elaborate jewellery on the dozens of guests between me and her. It had caught the attention of others as well, and despite that no-one had caught on to the true nature of the dress (else there would likely be more amusement at such short-sighted daring); instead, people were merely admiring it as one of the best outfits there amongst the many exemplary examples. I had of course heard of similar oversights when the dress had been worn before, some among much more qualified fashionistas, and can only assume that it was some trick of the dresses’ glamour to prevent its amusement from being spoiled by well-wishers and other such spoilsports. As the Lady she spotted me she beckoned me over, waving a hand in a come hither motion while clearing a path through the throng surrounding her. “Friends! This here is Celine – my couturier. She’s the one responsible for this dress – a true talent. I do wish you’d consider becoming my personal tailor, though you do know these sorts – creative types must have their freedoms, I suppose.” I smiled back, aware that this was a new approach – I had already been denying her requests when she sent personal letters as I could not imagine binding myself to such a dull fate (though I of course couched my denials with much more polite phrasing), so she hoped that by asking it public I would feel compelled to accept so as to not risk a scene with so many close to her that would surely take her side in any conflict.

“I cannot, darling – why, I have so much more to learn and I need a wide range of practice if I am to excel.”

“Oh, you are already perfect, dear – but I understand,” she said, clearly conveying the opposite with the pursed lips and tight frown on her face. She paused, considering whether it was worth pushing the matter, but clearly decided that I was not worth expending the political capital on. “If you do ever decide to settle down in a few years’ time, do call me first, though.” With that, she swept away into her throng, and I spent the next hour talking to a great number of her lesser friends and sycophants, many asking for the same kind of dress (which I declined – reproducing one’s previous work is terribly gauche) and a few with more interesting requests (which I noted down and promised to respond to once I could check my more detailed planners even though I was fairly certain that I would not have time for them.) With my attention engaged, I’m pretty certain that Elena managed to pick up one or two jobs of her own as well, with some of the lower ranking people around knowing they had no hope of getting my attention and so settling for my apprentice; no doubt I would have to vet them after the Ball, if only to make sure there would be no stain on my reputation from unwanted association with unsavoury fellows and unfashionable buffoons and to save my apprentice from becoming entangled in a tiresome affair she would later regret.

Once I had disentangled myself from Lady De Bonville’s circle, it was time for the first round of waltzes. Generally a quiet time for business (and more a time for grandstanding and showing off), I danced with a fair few associates, Abbellia amongst them, and saw a few admiring glances head my way as I twirled past, the embroidered fishes darting across my dress in time with the music and my motions. The Ball had a full orchestra, some of the finest musicians brought in from all over the Usoen coast, all playing and harmonizing together as their image was projected above the harbour waters by some grand illusory working. Much more attention was on the Lady De Bonville, but she clearly had not danced such a fast waltz in a long time and I could see Aine’s Dress was beginning to show its displeasure, the ribbon sashes growing forked and sharp edged and the gems on the hemline striking partners on the ankle during each of the fast turns; I was located a good way across the harbour when I heard a loud crash and only later learned that the cause was the Lady De Bonville had turning too fast and spinning into an old family friend, sending both of them tumbling through one of the side tables (fortunately not yet laden with anything) and down to the ground. Murmurings behind cupped hands soon started up and spread throughout the Ball’s attendees that perhaps she had had too much to drink and was getting over familiar with her ‘friend’ – a scandalous rumour at the best of times and even worse for her given her status as a married woman. Still, the night would not end for anyone on only a single such occurrence and the Lady De Bonville was unable to leave lest she stoke the fires under even more lurid and extensive rumours of oversensitivity or sneaking off for private trysts, and so the festivities continued much as they had been proceeding before..

Following the first round of waltzes, food was served, vol-au-vents and tiny tarts, and other fabulous niblets gracing all the tables placed at the edges of the harbour. Each of the major houses had brought in entire tables laden with rare and expensive fare; there was the meat of animals bred only in distant lands and spices where only a few pounds were harvested across the entire world each year. There were ancient cheeses aged for well over a century marbled with blue mould only cultivated by the most secretive of monastic orders, and fruit tarts filled with sugared berries plucked from the deepest oceans by skilled divers. All the food had been prepared by the finest chefs that money and prestige could buy, and the houses had made sure everyone knew whose services they had retained, each piece of food bearing a trademark pattern in the jus on the tiny plates they were placed upon or in the scoring across the meat or indented in the impressions left by the stamps of quality. It wasn’t a full meal, of course, but then no-one at the Ball expected it to be – overindulgence was a quick way to get a nasty slur against your name for gluttony or hedonistic excess, and all right-minded folk would avoid you from that moment on just in case others thought you indulged together (and thought that you might indulge in other ways together when you were in less public spaces as well). The Lady De Bonville seemed to have recovered from her spill, though her crowd had noticeably shrunk a little, and she seemed to be putting on a brave face now, her previous demeanour being much more forthcoming and confident. I could also see her dress was now quite displeased, the fall not having inspired the Lady De Bonville to up her game sufficiently, and I saw it slip an ornate silver and gold watch from the pocket of another gentleman before wrapping it around its sash to hang in full display.

It didn’t take long until there was a low muttering and a rumour that spread fast through the crowd – Sir Melmine had lost a pocket watch, a family heirloom given to him by his father on his deathbed, and I realised just what Aine’s Dress was up to. Sir Melmine was the brother of Lady De Bonville, and we had all heard the rumours that they had barely spoken to each other over the last few years. Apparently, she felt that she had been slighted by her father despite bringing them into alliance with a more powerful family, and he felt she should have been present more in the family mansion as their father passed away. I couldn’t help but feel a peculiar joy building - a sense of schadenfreude - as I knew what was coming; what was once just bad blood when the feelings were first inculcated would likely have built to a powerful resentment by now, and any confrontation was likely to be explosive. It didn’t take long until a new set of whispered rumours spread back through the crowd that the Lady De Bonville seemed to be wearing a pocket watch that she was not when she had initially arrived to the Ball, and as soon as this news reached Sir Melmine he stormed through the crowd towards her.

“Sister. That pocket watch. Where did you get it?”

“What watch?”

“That watch there, on your sash.”

“Why, brother, I don’t know.”

“I do. Give it back, now.”

“Alright, no need to get angry.” An eye roll from the Lady, clearly treating her brother like he was an irritating child. “I’m sure there’s an explanation for this that we can discover later once you stop over-reacting.”

A hardening of the expression on Sir Melmine, clearly not appreciating the dismissive attitude. “An explanation? An explanation? Oh, you just can’t stand that father chose me, can you?”

“What? Only because you whispered in his ear when he was addled on his deathbed!”

“That’s a hideous slander and you know it! It’s because you were never there for him!”

A slap from the Lady De Bonville, her face contorted into rage. “Because I was securing our place for the future!”

“Oh, that tired excuse again. Give it a rest.” Weariness from Sir Melmine. Signs they have had this argument a great many times before in private, the same words being exchanged, no further progress ever being achieved.

“You can’t stand that I’m the one who got us off that backwater spit of land, can you? Well, fine! Take the damned watch! See if I care.” The watch ripped from the sash by the Lady De Bonville and hurled at Sir Melmine, clattering to the ground as it bounces off his shoulder.

“That’s our home you’re talking about! You know what, no. I’m done. Stay the fuck away from me. Go on, just go.”

And with that, Sir Melmine snatched the pocket watch from where it had fallen and stormed off it, and the crowd around them slunk away, thinning and moving on now the entertainment appeared to be finished. And yet, I could tell the dress was not done with its sport yet; it looked less malevolent in its motions than before which I suppose could be taken as a saving grace, but that was only because I had the sense it was getting ready for one final spectacle for the night, its every fibre suffused with a sense of mischievous glee. The Lady De Bonville looked around her with a face like thunder, wondering what her next move should be, and as her gaze alighted on me further down the water’s edge something in her sparked as she seemed to focus entirely on me. “You!” she shouted, storming towards me. “You did this somehow! By god, I’m going to ruin you!” The Lady’s hand pulled a bracelet from her wrist, held it in a sword grip as it moulded around her hand and a large blade sprung from the top into a razor edged sabre. I readied myself for a potential fight, gripping the silver and sapphire ring on my index finger ready to call it to launch great spears of ice on command (a gift from Abbellia on completing my first commission as an independent, my never having mastered ice magic as he had initially hoped when he took me on as apprentice). Elena was close by my side, getting ready for a fight as well, her bracelet gripped in both hands as it grew in length and wicked curved thorns sprung from the edges wherever it was not held. There was a sizable distance to cross, and everyone between her and us cleared the path not wanting to get entangled in such an unseemly affair as actual violence, and as she drew closer I saw Aine’s dress twitch before it twisted around her ankles; she had strayed too close to the harbour’s edge and gave the dress the chance to pitch her over into the water, a final indignity to complete her total social disgrace. Coughing and spluttering as she surfaced, all running makeup and bedraggled hair as she dragged herself out of the water now that everyone was pointedly ignoring her to avoid the risk of being tarred with the same brush and being seen as pariahs by association. Any anger she had towards me had boiled off in the water and she looked utterly defeated; a few half-hearted attempts to force people she once considered her closest allies to pay attention to her only reinforced her fall and humiliation as they continued to ignore her, talking over her about small pleasantries or minor affairs of business, and then she slunk off, accepting she had no hope of recovery that night.

The rest of the night passed reasonably uneventfully. I talked to a few people, thinking I might have to do a little damage control, but no-one had recognised my ring as a weapon and they considered Elena’s bracelet chain to be intended more as a threat than a serious weapon; it was fortunate she did not have to use it or they may have realised that it was quite lethal in her hands. The other more pressing matter was that I was associated with the Lady and potentially at risk of contamination from her unsightly breakdown, but it seemed people were putting the whole blame on her given just how many others also had associations that they sought to protect. Too much wine, they said. Previous rumours soon grew into established truths – a dizzy spell becoming an alcoholic collapse, an unexplained absence being too drunk to leave the house, and so on. I may have stoked the rumour mill a little myself; while I could justify it as being much better for everyone to blame her in case she decided to try and fling some accusations my way I was mostly doing it as I had most assuredly settled on the opinion that I just didn’t like the woman and was quite happy to indulge in her misery. Anyway, who would believe her – blaming one’s own dress sounds much like a drunken hallucination, after all, and the dresses’ glamour made sure no-one thought it was anything more than just an exceptionally fine fabrication. Elena seemed a little discomfited by such talk, but I made it into another lesson in managing one’s reputation, and all in all I think the Ball turned out to be a successful night for me and mine.

- - -

It was the next morning when I opened up my shop, and found Aine’s Dress flung up against the door in a soggy crumpled heap. I had Elena wash, dry and iron it properly before putting it back in its glass case, feeling that it was unwise to mistreat such a dress and that it deserved a little pampering for last night’s affairs. As I had picked up the dress, brushing off a loose piece of litter that had blown onto it during the night, two envelopes had dropped from it to the ground. Both were addressed to me, but one had the name Celine nearly carved into it in hasty and angry lettering; inside was an extensive tirade from the Lady De Bonville, accusing me and the dress of ruining her night, conspiring against her, and all kinds of fanciful accusations interspersed with coarse language and some truly creative (if often anatomically impossible) insults. If only she had shown such wit earlier! I may have taken some pity on her, but too little, too late. The other letter, though, was much more interesting, being addressed Celine in a fanciful swirling calligraphy and smelling faintly of a full bouquet of innumerable flowers and fragrant blooms; inside the letter was written in the same handwriting, and read as follows:-

“Celine,

Thank you for the most entertaining night. It has certainly been a long while since I have had the opportunity for so much fun. I do adore bringing down a conceited strumpet, and the Lady De Bonville certainly did not disappoint in that regard. I have enclosed some tokens of my gratitude within, and I do so hope we can do this again sometime soon. I do so love it when someone is willing to play along with me.  Finally, should you ever be in my neighbourhood , please do visit; I trust I do not need to be so obvious as to spell out where it is – anyone with any wit should already know my story and where they may find me.

Yours Sincerely,

                - Aine”

And once I had finishing reading, the letter crumbled into sparkles of blue and green and purple and black and whirled away on the wind, leaving nothing but the plain envelope and thirty leaves, each cast out of solid silver with fine detail far beyond that of a mortal smith; they rested light in my hand and warm to my touch, and I felt blessed (if only for a moment), in the good graces of someone or something beyond me.

#dressverse #dress #balls #noble #couture #writing #author:benmiff #character: aine's dress #character:celine #character:elena #character: lady de bonville

[benmiff]

Queendom Of The Drowned

Getting back into creative writing, and had creepy on the brain recently, so here goes. (Trigger warnings for suicide, drowning and mermaids.)

It was the winter of ’98, and it had been a particularly cold January when I received the call. An old little house – number eleven – had burst a pipe and flooded the cellar, and a plumber was needed in order to survey the rest of the pipes and carry out any necessary repairs before the house could go back onto the market.

The house itself was tucked away at the end of a cul-de-sac, nestled among not much more than twenty properties all at the bottom of a large hill stretching up towards the town centre. Whispers had already started amongst the neighbours, for the previous owner had no close family and had never married, and had not been seen for a few weeks before she was discovered; apparently, she had been found dead in the cold water storage tank, though no-one could agree on whether she was murdered or if it was suicide. Regardless, the authorities had eventually found an estranged sister living halfway across the country, and she had quickly sold the property to a managing agent to sell on rather than deal with the hassle of travelling down to take care of things personally, and since then the house had sat on the open market, being much harder to sell than anyone initially expected.

I touched the picture of my wife, Julia, that I kept in my work van before getting out and going to the front door. The keys were damp with the remains of the last night’s frost, and as I let myself in it was immediately clear why the pipes had burst. A low gurgle from within the walls confirmed it – no-one had drained the plumbing while the property was unoccupied, and the cold winter had frozen the water within. I had been told that the leak was in the cellar, and found the cellar door by the kitchen; the door had swollen in the frame from the moisture in the air, and it took a good hard pull to open. Within, the cellar was unlit, the only light coming from the hallway and glinting off the rippling water flooding the room. Loose debris floated on the water, and as I waded in I had turned on a pocket torch to light up the room and search for the leak. It was not difficult to find, as there was still water pouring from the burst and exposed piping, but this was easily fixed as I found a stopcock lever near close to it, twisting it shut to prevent any further leaking.

It was at this point that the door leading down to the cellar slammed shut, leaving me with only the narrow beam of light from my torch; I could hear wet footprints on the stairs, but only saw a deep ripple on the water by the stairs much like something had just dived in as I swung the torch around to see what it was.  Wading over to see what had closed off the only exit, I could have sworn I felt a wet, slimy hand brush gently against my legs under the water as I made my way across, though at the time I chose to dismiss it as merely debris. The door was shut firmly, with the frame tight against the damp door, and as I struggled to push it open I could hear a woman speak.

“There’s no need to be afraid. You’re welcome here,” that voice said, coming from the darkness in the cellar, filled with kindness and warmth.

Strange voices in the dark gave me the extra push of motivation that I needed to free the door, slamming my shoulder against the door and spilling out into the hall before composing myself. At this point I was unsure if I had actually heard what I thought I had heard, and convinced myself to believe it was just fanciful imagination, the creaking of an old house and the sloshing of water. Besides, I was clearly going to need more equipment that I had initially brought to properly survey the house’s plumbing; I could come back the next morning rested and with a full complement of tools in order to do the job properly. With that plan in my head, I left the property and headed to my next job.

- - -

I found myself busy for the next few days (or, to be more accurate, I found ways to be busy for the next few days); as such, nearly a week had passed before I returned to number eleven. The first thing that I noticed as I entered the house once more was the low gurgle in the pipes; with the stopcock closed, there should have been no water flowing in the house and so they should have been silent. Setting my toolbox against the cellar door in case it swung closed once more, I switched on my torch (now one with a much wider beam that clipped to my shirt pocket in order to keep my hands free) and descended into the cellar. Water was once more pouring out from the burst pipe, splashing into the three or so feet of water filling the cellar, and across the room the stopcock lever had been pulled back up into the open position.

Wading into the water, I crossed the room and pulled the stopcock down, stopping the flow; as I did, I heard more splashing from behind me and a wet thump on the staircase, followed by the same woman’s voice as before.

“You came back,” she said, once again gentle and warm, and as I span around to face where the voice came from my torch lit up the staircase, giving me a good look at whoever just spoke. She was dressed simply, wearing heavy clothes that were soaking wet; she was tall and thin, and had wet scales along her arms and across her throat. Her hair was long, and a genuine smile crossed her face, and yet what stood out above all else was that from the waist down she had no legs; instead, a large, long, green-scaled tail rested below the water, ending in a wide fin that fluttered as the currents in water caught it one way or another.

Obviously, I must have been staring, or at the very least struck dumb in my surprise, for she spoke again, not waiting for a reply. “Did you want to join us?” she asked, leaning forwards to trace a hand through the water. “You’re welcome here if you want.”

“Who are you?” I found myself asking, having gotten over the initial shock but still searching to understand what it was I was seeing. “What are you?”

Her smile dropped a little as I asked, replaced with a look of concern. “I am Maira, of the Torlap Waters here, and I am the keeper of these waters. I already know what you are, but if we are sharing names, then who are you?”

“Thomas,” I told her, followed by yet another question as I kept my back to the wall, hand on the pipe wrench on my belt in case I needed to defend myself. “What are you doing here?”

Maira’s look of concern shifted briefly to a more forlorn look as she spoke. “I am protecting my waters, and my queendom here. Your kind moved here long ago, drained my lake, and poured stone upon it, but I only laid dormant until the previous one to live here brought a large vessel of water with her; it was not much, but it was enough for me to speak to her, learn how lonely she was… it was enough that she joined us happily. She can tell you herself if you’d like,” she said, leaning back and returning to her warm smile as she made the offer.

“She’s here?” I asked.

“They all are,” replied Maira, indicating towards the water, and as I no doubt looked puzzled at what I was being told she reached down into the water, and a form appeared under the surface, coming to the surface as Maira helped her to stand up from under the waves. She looked young, much like some of the photos I’d seen around the house, though there were many more recent ones of her as an old woman; her clothes were fancy formal, probably her Sunday best, but her skin was tinged blue and pallid, and as she opened her mouth to speak brackish water poured out.

“Are you another to join us?” she asked, also smiling. “It’s nice down here, and new guests are always welcome. We all would love a new neighbour.”

“I can’t. I should go,” I said, beginning to move towards the stairs (but also closer to Maira) as the thought that I may be in danger entered my mind. Both Maira and the now drowned resident both frowned softly and sadly as I said this, and reached into the water to pull up more of the long dead, all blue, all drowned, and soon I found myself surrounded by voices, all beseeching me to remain, all talking over one another.

“Why can’t you join us? You’d be happy here.”

“We’d all love for you to stay.”

“There’s nothing out there better than what we have here.”

“Aren’t you lonely? You’ll never be lonely here.” “We want you to stay.” “There’s only loneliness out there.” “No-one will love you like we do.”

Before I knew it, Maira had made her way over to the centre of the room, gliding through the water to reach me, and placed a hand against my chest. “Just lean back, go under, that’s all it takes.” Their words were persuasive, I will give them that; I had no doubt that any of their promises were untrue, but I kept coming back to the one thing that I could not leave.

“But my wife will miss me.”

“Call for her; she can join us too.”

“She’s not here.”

“Go get her then,” Maira said, coming in close. “Promise me you’ll come back with her, though. You’ll both be happier here.”

“I will,” I said, agreeing earnestly, and it seemed Maira believed me, for the dead sank back into the water, clearing the path, and as soon as I had walked up the stairs and closed the cellar door a fog cleared in my mind as I realised what I had nearly agreed to. Not wanting to be anywhere near the cellar in case those thoughts and impulses came back, I sprinted out of the house to the van outside, and took several deep breaths before calling the managing agent.

“Number eleven? Yeah, I’ve taken a look. Job’s too much for me. You’ll need to get someone else in.”

- - -

It’s been a bit over twenty years since that job, and I’ve stayed a good distance away from the place ever since. I’d retired shortly afterwards, now feeling uneasy around large amounts of water, and settled down into my twilight years. The first few years were good, Julia and I doing all the things we’d previously wanted to but that we never had found the time for. After that, the cancer came, and we didn’t go out any more; a hard three years as Julia slowly withered away, fighting the whole way until eventually she couldn’t fight any more. Following that, the funeral – a small affair (we never wanted or had kids), and then I was busy with all the things large and small that she used to do.

And now? The weeks since the funeral have helped, not a lot, but some. Things have settled a little. The finances have all been sorted out. And number eleven is still there, long since abandoned. I had stayed away from the place, but I still had needed to know what was happening there if only for some kind of peace of mind. It turned out the repairs had proved too expensive, one problem after another with every plumber that they sent in, and the demolition was going to cost more than whatever they could build there would make them. And in the weeks since she passed it has been lonely without Julia, too quiet each morning without anyone to talk to, but I know somewhere where I won’t be lonely any more. A queendom of the drowned. I just hope my invitation is still open.

#creepy #horror #mermaids #suicide #writing #author:benmiff