The Spell of Vesperia, Chapter III

See? I wasn’t lying about writing another chapter. This was a tough one to write. Sorry for the delay.

~

“I’ve got people over there,” she said, waving her hand at the purpling sunset. “Way over by the ocean. They’re good people, I guess, but I just had to get away, you know?”

~

The clock ticked unceasingly in the largest room of the Harlock-Glockner household, which served as a dining room, kitchen, and parlour. The circular table had been pushed out from the corner into the centre of it and upon it, five places were set. Not coincidentally, five bodies were seated in chairs before the places.

A plaid shirt and pair of trousers three sizes too large, boots so small they’d pinch Dot’s own feet, and a blue toque with a bobble on it – no one had a wig, or at least no one who’d fess up to it – should have been beneath Erasmus’ dignity, Dot thought. But if Erasmus thought so, or if he had a concept of ‘dignity’, he wasn’t saying and the specs of light in his sockets gave away nothing.

Ah, darkened spectacles, that was what she needed. But the chances of finding any pairs of any such things north of Englin were low to the point of laughable.

Said her father, in between chewing and swallowing forkfuls of his meat pie – the sort of meat being difficult to discern under the sheer amount of salt and spice – with the grim determination of a soldier on the march, “Blindfold it. Simplest way.”

“I don’t much fancy leading him by the hand all the way down to the city,” said Dot. Her pie was picked at and smushed about until it could only be grandfathered in to that category of pastry. “Or should I just put him on the back of a donkey and lead him that way?”

This did not amuse Evert Glockner and the way his fingers warped the cheap metal of his fork gave testimony to that.

“There’s that wide-brimmed hat I’ve got,” offered Agny Harlock, a taller, lankier, fairer, wearier version of her daughter. “You know, like those police on the frontier wear. That should shade its eyes enough that people won’t seem ‘em until they look, won’t it?” Like her husband, she was systematic in her eating, although she had opted to fully sublimate the crust into the filling.

Dot constructed a perfect pyramid the likes of which would meet the approval of any pharaoh should it have been made of stone, then sliced it down the ruthlessness of salvagers. “That’ll have to do, I guess. Though we’ll have to find better clothing for him. Gods’ grave, he looks like he’s wearing a tent.” Out of the corner of her eye, she spied Erasmus and Bill, both onto their second and both…

Bill Glockner muttered with all the rage at the unfairness of the universe he could muster.

~

The Harlock-Glockner family meals were always this happy. This is why they usually dined out at the beer hall.

~

Later – armed with the wide-brimmed hat, which was thankfully of too dark a material to be mistaken for the official model – Dot, Erasmus, and Bill crowded themselves in Bill’s cubby of a room. Dot had to stand on the bed and to her brother’s consternation, she did not remove her boots first. His chest was open, clothes strewn out for it, in preparation for Erasmus becoming a glorified dressing doll. The hat was placed upon his head for comparison’s sake.

“You haven’t told them yet,” said Bill, holding an ugly woollen sweater up to Erasmus’ torso for inspection. It failing to pass muster, he threw it behind him with a harrumph, an action to which his subject responded with tilt of his head. “About Kit.”

“Why would I?” asked Dot, in the manner of the superior elder sibling the world over. Her arms were crossed and her shoulder blades rested against the knotty planks that made up the wall, the effect being spoiled by the way she had to tilt her own head to prevent it from smacking the ceiling. “Think it would be kind to them? Any use? Oh, he saw her three years ago – which I might I remind you, wasn’t that long after we last saw her – does that tell them anything about where she is now and what she’s doing?”

Bill admitted that this did not. “But maybe with a little investigation…” Another sweater was tried, found wanting, and tossed into the incipient heap.

“Which is why we’re going. Both to find out where Erasmus came from and to find Kit’s trail. But I think you know why I didn’t say more than the first part. I mean, they’re fretting about me leaving enough as it is. I suppose I should keep my voice down.”

“Yep.” He continued his work with diligence. “What about you, Erasmus? Haven’t heard you speak much.”

The lights focused on Bill. “I have not much to contribute. My memories are unhelpful right now. They are damaged. By water? Heat? Pressure? I do not know. I wish I could tell you more marvellous things about Kit. She was kind to me. I recall that I had hair then, but they were not black curls like hers and yours.” As he spoke, more and more articles of clothing were held up to him, then thrown back in disgust.

Bill did not have a great deal of clothes, so it was not long at all before he only had one outfit left as an option – an off-white button shirt and a dark coat and slacks the exact same shade as the hat. The younger Glockner seemed to shake as he had his size double put them on to make sure of the fit, which was, of course, perfect.

He swore, with an even greater passion than his muttering at the dinner table. “It has to be my best, doesn’t it! The only thing that’ll work with that damned hat!” But there was nothing for it and in due course, the monstrous trousers and plaid shirt, along with the most whimsical toque, were returned to their owner, who seemed a touch disappointed to see them return.

~

In the morning, they set out – two hours after dawn had paid its call and just as Judge Holt was setting up court in the community of Arms of Gold. There was a matter of a burglary that the man had to sort out, along with an assault up in one of the camps; no murders or rapes or anything of that sort, gods be praised. Thus, in waiting for the correct authorities to call, the community distinguished itself from the Arms of Gold of a decade past, in which a suspected perpetrator would be strung up or elsewise abused, circuit judge or no. Evert and Agny made their gruff farewells to their daughter at the door; Bill followed Dot and Erasmus a mile down the road before he could finally be persuaded to clear off.

“Mind my clothes!” were his last words to them.

“I’ll send you up a new pair once we get to Englin, if I’ve got any money left!” In Dot’s wallet, tied with a multitude of clever knocks to her waist, there rested ten elderly dollars that she had earned with her own labours. Thus, she felt confident in her promise.

When they were left to the silence of the woods, Dot began to speak to Erasmus, in much the same manner as Kit before him. She told him all sorts of things, of the machines and of magic and how she knew a lot about the machines but not much at all about the magic and how she was going to learn it to figure him out yet…

Erasmus was so entranced – how much it was like the speeches of Kit in the times before! – that he forgot to tell her how his limbs were getting stiffer and his mind slower and how much harder it was becoming to keep with her pace.

By Dot’s reckoning, it would take a full day’s stroll to get to Poppertown, given that no one in Arms of Gold had charity that stretched far enough to lend them a steed. This Dot did not mind. She had made the journey before, even when she was much smaller than she was now, and the thought of a day’s walk filled her with not a whit of fear. It meant a change of pace, a chance to see something new, even if it weren’t quite as new as she’d like.

“I’ve only been to Englin once before,” she prattled on. “But I was too small to remember it. I was three I think, ha, and my family was just coming up from Abelia. They heard about gold, you see, but the gold was further north than they were willing to go, especially with me and Kit being as young as we were and Bill being just a baby. Think you come from the same part of the country as the gold?” Dot took in Erasmus’ impressively blank expression. “No, I shouldn’t think so. You said you travelled from the east. But where…?”

“I am sorry. I do not know.”

Her prattling continued anew and the sun made its course overhead, insofar as either of them could tell through the needles and branches and trunks that surrounded them.

As sunset arrived, Dot estimated that they were roughly an hour out from Poppertown. This was in accordance with both past experience and a particularly gnarled tree on the eastern side of the road, scratched and abused with the declarations of dozens of couples. Except, except, except…

That was with the whole family with her. And a cart that needed pulling. It was just her and Erasmus this time; shouldn’t they have gone a touch farther by this point?

She turned to Erasmus, no longer going on about whatever crossed her mind and plumbing him for answers he did not currently possess, and looked at him, really looked at him. She could not tell for certain, but his legs seemed to swing from his knees at a slower and jerkier gait than they had starting out in the morning and it was almost as if his knees were locking up for some moments with each pace…

“Erasmus?” she asked. “We can take a break, if you want.”

He shook his head, in the culturally accepted way of signifying ‘no.’ One pace, two paces, three paces, more.

“I wouldn’t mind. I could use the rest.” This was a lie and went ignored, even as its target ground ever to a halt.

He stood stock still in the middle of the dirt road. A faint sound of gears could be heard, along with a shudder in his hips, as he tried and failed to prod his limbs onwards to their destination. “I cannot, I cannot, I cannot…”

Erasmus slowly, but surely, buckled. First his toes bent over, then his knees, then his legs, his hips, his chest, then his skull, hitting the ground with a thump. His face was planted into the road, dirt shoved up into his eye sockets.

In the distance, birds and insects chirped. Dot breathed in, breathed out, then – hands shaking – slung her overloaded pack off of her back, turned Erasmus onto his own back, undid the buttons of the coat and shirt, and went to work. Around her, the sky reddened, then purpled, then blackened.

~

“You should know that we’re not exactly keen on you going,” said Agny, once night had well and truly fallen and all the meat pie had been placed into stomachs. The weak light of the lantern illuminated her, emphasised the lines of her face until she seemed a decade older than she was.

“I’ll send a letter, whenever I get to a new town.”

“That’s the only reason we’re letting you go.”

“I promise you, all right? But I’ve got to do this. You know I can’t stay here,” said Dot, said Kit.

Evert said nothing, but he never was a big talker.

The Spell of Vesperia, Chapter II

The sun rose over the dark sea and as she did every sunrise, she stood just where the tide met the earth and allowed its swells to wash over her feet. The cold of it shot through her like lightning and she wrapped herself in her overlarge sweater – made overlarge under the old maxim, ‘she’ll grow into it’ – and stared with eyes so open that it almost hurt.

The day would be followed by work, work, work, followed by what little time with the books she could eke out before the light faded again. Breakfast, lunch, and dinner would consist of bread and fish. Everyone would be tired throughout. But always, if she just woke a little earlier than everyone else, she could have this bit of time that was all hers, where she could see the world turn from dead to living.
Then, once the sun was well and thoroughly up, she set immediately from home. They’d be getting up and work, work, work would start anew.

When she came back this time, however, they were not awake.

~

No one from the provinces came to Belsworth Factory because they wanted to. Built in the northernmost reaches of the Vesperia Territory, clinging to the cliffs alongside the Termina Sea, it struck the ‘provincials’ as these: cold, dark, remote, and desolate. They did not come for fortune, for there was none to be had. They did not come for glory or adventure – those types were weeded out before they could venture any further west than Rochilda.

They came because they had nowhere else to go, neither friends nor kin to object to their leaving, a professional attitude, and a special talent for killing things. All of this described Trillium Annsdottir. And yet, when the fall of her boots brought her close enough to Belsworth Factory’s stoutly built gate that she could touch it, she could feel her bones go cold.

A poet once said that “the northern lights have seen queer sights” and Trillium could well believe that they saw them while keeping watch over Belsworth Factory.
The marshal, Shipwright, gently shoved her to the side and back before craning her neck and shouting, “Hello, up there!”

Not that the two guards needed to have their attention drawn to seven souls below, having had their bayonets trained on them since the moment they could first hear them blundering out from the forest’s path. “Who’s this, then? State your name and business.”

Shipwright tutted under her breath and, much more loudly, said, “Marshal Elodie Shipwright, bringing in a gaggle of recruits from various and sundry points southeast. We request entrance and an immediate audience with Factor Dale Elshern, or whoever has replaced him in the position if he has departed from it.”

One of the guards – a lad of about a quarter of a century with a face that was a mess of freckles and scars – leaned over and squinted at Shipwright through the shadow cast by his cap. He hmmed. “Well, it’s you all right. I guess we ought to let you in, then. Come on, Tolly, let’s get to it...” After some sounds of scrambling and the grind of metal, the gate was pulled open. The insides weren’t any more promising than the outsides, although admittedly par with what Trillium had grown up with. Chances were she’d be fed better anyway.

They marched two abreast through the gate, as per Shipwright’s prior instructions – as for her, she took the lead, taking them directly to the small central building. Some men and women watched their procession with a sort of bored interest before returning to their tasks at hand, such as tending to the garden or washing or preparing something organic and foul over an open pit.

She exchanged glances with Clay, on her right, who seemed just as enthusiastic as she was. He was about to open his mouth to speak before he remembered himself and shut it again.

Shipwright knocked on the door before letting herself in. Five minutes passed before she returned to motion them all to follow.

~

They lay as if sleeping, though with eyes open with some unseen horror. They did not breathe, nor did their hearts beat. This was true of her mother and father, and of her four sibs.

She thought to herself, why did they not cry out? She would have heard them if they had. She would have come running, feet bleeding with the scratching of rocks, lungs bursting with their effort. It did not occur to her that perhaps that was the reason why they did not do so.

~

Trillium hadn’t known what the factor would be like – Shipwright had responded to every question about him with an infuriating shrug – but she was certain she never thought he’d be like Dale Elshern turned out to be.

He was a middle-aged man, perhaps in his mid-fifties, sad and regal. The closest he came to Trillium’s assorted imaginings was his manner of dress and grooming, which was practical and immaculate. A frontier post suggested someone who kept order with the manner of a martinet or a boisterous sort who didn’t much bother with discipline at all. Elshern was neither, reminding Trillium of nothing so much as her kindly, departed grandfather. Provided her grandfather was of a much higher social class and much better spoken, that is.

Elshern bowed his head towards the newcomers, pushing his spectacles back upon his nose as his head came back up. “I am gladdened that you have all arrived safely,” he said in a classical Spiran accent. “My name is Dale Elshern and I am the factor here. During the length of your stay, which will hopefully be the entire length of your contract, you will be expected to abide by the rules and regulations of the Ultima Thule Company and the special ones specific to Belsworth Factory. Copies of the latter will be made available to you, as will the former provided you have lost your previous copy during the course of your journey.”

Then he did something which astonished Trillium: he shook every one of the recruits by hand, firmly. “I cannot begin to describe my gratitude that you have chosen to carry out this treacherous undertaking. You have done a great service to Norland by this act and I wish the best of luck to you all. Nevertheless, I am honour bound to say this: if you have any hesitation or reluctance to carry out your duties here or desire to break with the previously agreed upon contract, please state so now so that I might release you from it.”

To a soul, the recruits refused to. They had come too far and they were too much like Trillium.

~

Not long later – they had arrived late, the sun was setting down, and the grand tour had to wait for the morrow – the six of them sat in the mess hall, devouring their soup and bread with an unseemly haste. But who could blame them? It was the first time in two months, with some notable exceptions, where their meal did not consist of pemmican with an extra helping of pemmican. Fresh and cooked meat and vegetables! Cooked competently, no less, and not a slapdash job at the end of hours and hours of canoeing or hiking! They made themselves as pigs at the trough.

Conversation was created, when it was recalled the necessity of breathing. “We’re here,” said Jordan with a sort of tone that almost put everyone off their soup.

“Why’d you go and remind us of that, eh?” said Thins, scowling. Jordan shrugged and the others, as one, privately thought to themselves that Shipwright had been too much of an influence on the man.

Genton licked the soup off her lips. “It needs to be said, though. And it’s going to be sooner than later before we see... one of them.” But still, they kept eating, for all of them came from the sort of lives that dictated you ate a meal when you got it.

“Yeah, you’re right enough. I hope it’s a later sort of sooner, though.”

“Hear, hear,” said Clay. He was he only one in their little band that had ever seen them in person before. No one knew the circumstances of it, not even Trillium. Maybe Shipwright did. Sometimes, when he woke with nightmares, she would whisper some unknown something in his ear and he would settle down, enough to regain his wits.

“I heard they eat the ones they grab a hold of. While they’re still alive.” Thins shivered. Clay didn’t contradict him.

Greenmountain said nothing, but then, she never did.

~

They sent her to live with her grandfather afterwards, after the bodies had been cast into the sea and there was no more to be said to them. Like them, grandfather worked, worked, worked and expected her to do so as well, but he smiled at her and played the fiddle for her and told her how strong she was becoming.

But storms happen and they especially happen to fishers and that is when her grandfather was lamed. Oh, she worked all the harder for him then, but still he tried to do so himself and he tried enough to kill himself and so it goes.

There was nowhere else to go then, with no orphanage opening its doors to her or elderly spinsters or bachelors eager to adopt her in exchange for an extra set of hands. Westwards she went, with the one skill she had learned in a life of odd jobs that was wanted anywhere: she could hunt and she could do it well. Even when the fear came.

~

There was a howling from somewhere which was certainly not from any wolf or coyote and a scratching noise. Trillium was up and out of her bunk with a start, as was everyone else.

This included Shipwright, already fully dressed provided she was ever undressed at all. “Yes, that is what you think it is,” she said as a matter-of-factly. “Get yourselves decent; you’re not getting any slack just because it’s your first night here.”

Within the space of a minute, they were all ready – Trillium, Genton, Clay, Thins, Jordan and Greenmountain. They followed Shipwright out again, like so much lambs or chicks.

~

Trillium was told that those things were once human and she couldn’t disagree with them. That’s what made her stomach turn so fiercely. Nevertheless, as she stared down from the palisade at it, she found that she could not turn away, not even to vomit.

It was man-shaped, certainly, travelling on two legs, with two arms clawing, clawing at the gate. Its hair hung in lank, colourless clumps from its scalp; its eyes appeared like nothing more than two pinpoints of light in the dark. Tracks of its papery, corpse pale skin had been torn off – clawed off? – exposing the bone and jerky-like muscle beneath. She’d been told that things increased in size with every feeding, so that they would never again feel their stomach sated – this one was twice the size of a grown man of average height, with genitals shrunk and shrivelled between its legs.

It howled and moaned at them all, thrashing and wailing at the gate with such ferocity and speed. If one listened closely, they could pick out something resembling words from the moans and if they spoke the right language, they could understand what it was saying.

“It’s saying, ‘feed me, feed me, oh, just give me something to eat, please,’” said a native woman standing beside Trillium. She had not noticed her before, and she regarded the scene before her with an almost blasé expression. On the side of her head turned to Trillium, there was a hole where her ear had been, as if it had been chewed off. “’Mercy, please.’”

The choice came to all the recruits then to let their hearts break or harden.

Trillium remembered the bodies of the sunrise and all the hardships of the road – how Clay would wake in cold sweats and the way Shipwright would breathe the beer and wine whenever they passed through a settlement – and her heart decided what to do. She took aim at the wendigo’s head with her bayonet and fired.

The Spell of Vesperia: Chapter I

Thus begins Nanowrimo. 2000 words a chapter, a chapter a day, until it's finished. If you're enjoying it, please consider donating via Paypal to advance the noble cause of groceries.

~

He had travelled so far, could see an ocean to the west through the trees, little faltering, little flagging, but the body was not everlasting and now it had to stop. It did.

~

Dot Harlock didn’t know what the thing was. In such situations, one might take it as an affront or as a challenge and Dot would choose the latter every time.

Here is what it looked like: mostly like a young man, a couple of years older than her own eighteen-year old self. Soft features, skin a uniform brown. Now, if that were the end of it, there wouldn’t be any mystery to it, would there?
But his hair, had he ever any at all, was shorn right off, even the eyebrows, even across the entire expanse of his remaining skin. That skin did not cover the whole of his frame, but left gaping holes on his cheek, on his bicep, on his stomach, through which could be seen mechanisms of such sophistication that was nearly beyond Dot’s grasp. Shining from his otherwise empty eye sockets could be seen two pinpoints of white light that danced and darted with all the fear that the rest of his husk did not show. If he was feeling anything at all, that is.

He neither breathed nor moved, save for those two pinpoints, but there was a sort of thrumming noise from deep within his chest and a certain tension to the exposed gears that seemed to Dot as though they desperately wanted to move.

“And you just found him wandering down the mountain road?” she asked the two respectably burly individuals that sat bolt upright in the remaining chairs in the workshop.

Arla coughed in the manner of one clearing her throat. “Not wandering, per se. Wandering would’ve been less odd. No, y’see, Daffyd and I had gone up it to go meet Judge Holt coming in and the road was clear as you’d expect, but on the way back...”

“We found this creature sprawled across it,” finished Daffyd with a dramatic shiver. “His honour’s horse nearly stepped on it.”

“How much time passed between coming and going? Where’s Judge Holt now?” asked Dot, prodding the thing with a screwdriver. A small shock rushed through her and the screwdriver was withdrawn.

“Maybe about ten minutes, give or take. In the mayor’s house. What do you make of it, Dot?”

What did she make of it? Well, that was the heart of the matter, wasn’t it?

~

She soon hurried Arla and Daffyd off, promising them all the while to tell them the moment some new revelation occurred to her. It took her ten minutes for her to remember why this was a terrible move.

Arms of Gold, New Spira was more of a village than a town and as such, news and gossip travelled across it with a speed that could put shame to the fastest locomotive. Already at that morning hour, anyone who had ventured out of doors or had even opened a door for someone else had heard and put to memory all the reports from the crew and passengers of the daily ferry and, of course, from Judge Holt himself. With Judge Holt’s account of the incident on the road, they already knew of the creature’s existence and hazarded a guess as to where the creature was relocated. With Arla and Daffyd entering the fray, their guesses were confirmed.

And then came the endless knocking on Dot’s workshop door. She locked it tight, jammed a vacated chair underneath its knob, and tried to ignore it. She only wished she could cut the lantern light and pretend she wasn’t there, but no one in Arms of Gold was that stupid. The knocking continued, then stopped, then to be replaced with conversation, shouts for her attention, and what increasingly sounded like a beer hall discussion.

The creature became ever more agitated at the constant interruptions – or at least, the lights in his eye sockets brightened and dimmed and spun about with far more speed than they had been doing. Dot sat down again in the chair in front of him, meeting what passed for his gaze.

“What could you possibly be?” she said, nearly a whisper. She did have a notion now, but it was ridiculous.

Nevertheless, Dot opened her mouth again and began to speak – not at him, but to him.

~

Once the land was cold and covered in ice and he did not know it then but he did know it in a time when it was warm and it was filled with people and every day had a thousand and one marvels for him to take in but that time was so short, wasn’t it, even though for him it was all he had and it filled up his entire world, and it had been replaced with a long, black darkness that only had one marvel for him and it was this, “Why is this?”

The darkness ended, though, as he knew it had to, just like the time in the warm had to, and it was replaced with a woman with black curls and brown eyes and that was the most confusing thing of all, for it was happening again with the same woman and like the first time, his entire self was pain and numbness.

~

“So that’s who I am. Dot Schultz Harlock – okay, Dorothy, but no one call me Dorothy except my dad when he’s cross. She who mucks about with machines and such, even though she doesn’t know a damned thing about chemistry or other matters magical that could probably help with things. And I bet there’s a bit of ether running you, eh? Can’t just be the standard electrical current.”

The lights had stilled and remained bright. Dot could swear that he was making eye contact with her.

“I read stories about things like you when I was knee-high. Creatures that looked like humans and could think sort of like humans, but had circuitry and gears and ether under their skin. Golems or machina. Automata. But those were fairy stories. I think.”

Minutes passed. Not in complete silence – “Yoohoo, Dot! Open up, already!” and the robust sounds of carousing put a stop to that – but not a sound came from inside the house.

Dot sighed. “This is stupid.” She got up, fetched the Widow Olny’s clock down from the shelf and set to fixing it, just as she had pledged to do before the morning’s interruption. The creature’s eyes darted about once again. The door remained locked.

~

The woman with the black curls and brown eyes went away again although he could tell that she did not go far, oh no, he could hear her move and sigh and swear and could hear others, many others, not far at all from here talking about a creature and he wondered if the woman with black curls knew that there was a creature about and whether she was safe and were the others there to protect them from the creature, and he wanted to move and speak so badly and he couldn’t, his body was so useless and pained, and he didn’t know what else he could do but sit and see and smell and oh, how familiar and unfamiliar it was!

He strained to move his jaw but it would not shift. Nothing would shift. He had been told by many people to keep trying, though, so he tried.

~

“You are Kit,” the creature said.

Dot nearly dropped the clock on the floor in the process of putting it back onto the shelf. She turned about on her heels and practically dived across the table in her haste and placed her fingers gingerly on his throat and jaw. “What did you say?”

“You are Kit. Kit Harlock. You found me again. This is marvellous!”

Dot trembled in her excitement, just as the creature’s throat did with every syllable he spoke. “I’m Dot. Not Kit.” Was it just her imagination, or had his voice been tinnier than it ought to be? Like it was coming through a pipe? Of course, everyone’s voice came through a pipe when it came down to it.

“But you look the same as Kit and you are the same age as her, so therefore, you must be her.” He hesitated. “Isn’t that so?” How was the sound being made? She could see enough of him to know that he didn’t have lungs in the proper sense, so how was it being done?

“I have a sister named Kit. She’s or was three years older than me. We haven’t seen her in three years. How do you know her?” His jaw worked like a human’s should, though, and his lips and what she could see of his tongue. Even if there was something mechanical about the motion.

“She woke me up and took me out of the black. You’re not her? You’re her... sister?” He hesitated again and Dot thought she could hear a whirring noise from somewhere within him. Within his skull? “I’ve heard of such things. Girl children with the same makers. No, ‘parents’ is the right word, ‘not makers.’ No wonder I was confused. You look the same as her. You sound the same as her. You smell a bit different, though.”

Dot felt her heartbeats increase in frequency and mind boil over with what he told her. “Where did you meet Kit?”

“East. I’ve walked very far from there. I’ve walked ever since I met her.”

“For three years.”

“Yes, for three years.” He added, with the apparent hope that it would explain, “There was no money for riding on trains and it’s wrong to steal horses.”

“So you walked.”

“I’m good at walking.”

A mechanical man who walked across a country that spanned a continent who knew his sister. Who knew where she’d been. This was... well, marvellous, to use his word. He could speak. Could she get him to move his arms? His legs?

“Do you have a name?” she asked.

“Yes.”

“Well? What is it then?”

“Erasmus March.”

~

The door opened. The crowd quieted – that is, they allowed the volume of their conversations to descend to over-loud stage whispers. Dot stepped out into the warm afternoon air. The sun shone directly into her face and she squinted to avoid it.

“Now, then,” she announced, as loudly as she could in order to make herself heard over the noise. “The creature’s a ‘he’, he’s got a name, he can speak, and I don’t really know what he is yet. I’m going to fix him up and we’re to do some travelling to find out. Any questions?”

The noise exploded. “That’s too bad,” said Dot. “Because I don’t know anything else. If you’re not my mom or dad or Bill, you can scamper off now. Cheers, bye, etc.” She went back inside her workshop and shut the door hard behind her. Not slammed, mind – that would be rude.

Half a minute later, she opened it again. “Oh, and if anyone has a spare wig about their place that’s just taking up room or at least a decent hat, I could put it to use. Thanks!” And again, the door shut.

~

Dot hadn’t the faintest fathoming what his skin was made of yet and therefore couldn’t make anymore for him, but there was one thing she could do about it. It involved needles and thread, of which she had plenty. She found a spindle with brown thread not far off from the shade of Erasmus’ skin, cut a length, boiled it and a needle in boiling water atop the stove – she didn’t know whether the skin was human enough to get infected and didn’t wish to find out – and threaded the needle’s eye.

“I have to warn you,” Dot said. “This is going to hurt.”

Erasmus nodded. “That’s what Kit said.” The needle pierced the skin of his cheek and he whimpered. “Kit is very honest.”

The Goose Girl, Part II

You thought I forgot to finish this one, didn't you? You were wrong. Donate, if you're inclined.

Where was I? Oh yes.

~

The journey to Isolder was peaceable enough. The roads were well-maintained and it was a pretty sort of scenery of the type birds and other forest creatures frolic in and in which the sort of soul who was inclined to such frippery might burst into song. ‘Velda’, so I had dubbed her, sulked in silence, too overcome with this inexplicable turn of events to say anything. Were it anyone else, I would say that she was too smart to attract any attention from me unless it were part of a plan. But had she had any brains at all, she wouldn’t have allowed me to trick her so easily in the first place.

The only trouble came from Falada. I counted myself as respectably skilled at the art of horsemanship, but the beast troubled itself to move roughly with every step and motion of its back. Neither carrot nor stick would cure it; soon I was sore enough as if I had travelled an entire day on the camp trail. Even focusing on the silence of it all did not alleviate my discomfort, for just on the edge of hearing, I could hear those damnable words.

“If your mother only knew, her heart would surely break in two.”

Was it directed to Velda or myself? I wondered.

~

Prince Belder of Isolder was more a boy than man – less coddled than Narthena, but with still many years of growing ahead of him. Given what our relationship was to be, though, I made the effort to discern his better qualities. A pleasant smile, a strong jaw. A frame that was just the right height, for his eyes could meet my own on the same level.

“And your handmaiden? How shall we accommodate her?”

I considered. The continued fact of her meant the possibility that she might find her courage or her pride and tell someone, anyone of the deception. Concocting some flimsy excuse for her execution, however, would arouse suspicion. Keeping her by my side would allow me to keep an eye on her, but increased the number of people of actual importance she might inform.

“She is a peasant that was hired to accompany in my journey; she is no longer needed. Please find a purpose for her elsewhere.” That was promptly agreed to. “But as for my steed... She has been a most unruly beast throughout the journey and I am afraid she is fit for nothing more than to be put down. Please see to it in the most swift and merciful manner possible.”

Velda was placed with a goose herder. I thought it appropriate.

~

Belder and I wed immediately. We enjoyed the wedding night, even though both of us were nervous despite ourselves. I shivered at his touch, he shivered at mine, and I whispered in his ear. After many long hours, he collapsed upon the mattress, exhausted. I followed not long afterwards. I am still human.

~

That night, I dreamed of my mother.

She was a handsome woman, strongly built but with the most beautiful eyes imaginable. (I had not inherited them.) She was a weaver by trade and all through the day and into the night, she would sit at her loom, weaving, weaving.

“I always knew, my daughter, that you would be strong,” she said, weaving a tapestry of fabulous patterns such as that the blessed king of Gamelin would not be ashamed to wear. I, sitting at her feet, nodded eagerly, beaming at her praise.

“That you would be strong enough to challenge princes, nations, gods, whatever your heart might set upon. And you would come out stronger still because you were my daughter and my daughter could do no less.”

Her tapestry grew ever more complex, with fields and forests and battles, moreso than any human could possibly create in reality. But this was a dream and dreams were not beholden to reality. “But this?” she asked.

My heart fell.

“Isn’t this beneath you?”

~

The days passed banally enough, the nights kindly. I allowed my brain to drown out the nonsense of the Isoldian court, it possessing no heart nor interest for me. But the nights? I allowed myself to see more than the strong jaw, but the way his breath pulsed and his lungs breathed in the whole of me. I grew to enjoy my prince’s company. I whispered in his ear every night, as per my duty, about the wicked ways of Cordelon and Tanefor and all the enemies of Gamelin and he dutifully repeated my suspicions to the High Council and to his lord father, the king.

Velda the goose girl did whatever a goose girl did during her days. I kept watch over her, because I refuse to be stupid, but she did nothing but drive the geese out every day with Conrad the herder.

I heard troubling rumours, though.

Of a horse head, hung over the gate where the goose herder and his girl passed through every morning and every night, that constantly spoke these words: “If your mother only knew, her heart would surely break in two.” I went to this gate many times, but the horse’s head was always gone by the time I arrived.

Of a girl who charms the wind so as to blow the loose strands of her hair away, so that the herder may not claim them. But when I went to see in secret, she was attending to her duties as suitable and the wind behaved as normal.

Of a herder who refused to work with the girl any longer and a king who grew suspicious and a girl who overcame her fear enough to tell her troubles to an iron stove. I whispered and whispered into the prince’s ear, but it was not enough.

~

I dreamed of my mother, night after night after night, always fluctuating between shame and pride and fear. I did not know what this constant dream meant, only that it was likely I was never to see her again.

~

Everything had gone wrong.

The prince – technically my husband, although I should not think he was of the same mind any longer – clutched the hilt of his sheathed sword as though it were a neck. The number of guards in the dining hall was just ever so slightly higher than normal and no longer kept to the perimeter. And in front of me was the one person in all the world I least wanted to see. Why did I not find some way of offing her instead of shoving her into honest labour? Ah, hindsight!

She looked very fine and composed, which was such a rare thing for her that I had to stop myself from marvelling at it and giving the game away. Not that, I suspected, that such efforts would last much longer.

“Good day, my lord,” I said, curtsying with my knees bent low and my skirts dressing the floors. “How might I serve you?”

But the king spoke first. “I have a query for you, my daughter. And I require you to answer truthfully.”

I nodded, knees still bent.

He related to me the situation of the Narthena, Velda, whomever, leaving out no detail whatsoever save for that of the name of the personages involved. I listened, nodding. Then he asked me, upon finishing, “What should be the punishment of such a blackguard?”

“Tear the clothes from her back,” I said without hesitation. “Shove her in a barrel lined with nails, and drag her throughout the city until she breathes no more.”
“So shall it be done,” said the king, as the guards rushed forward and seized my arms. I did not fight them. What was the point?

~

And yet, not long afterwards, the clothes stripped from my back – they were of the mind that the nakedness would shame me, little considering that the lack of warmth would pain me more – I was shoved in a windowless cell. Dark and bare. A cot would have been a luxury. Food and water? Ha!

I sat in the black for a long, long time. Doing nothing. Saying nothing.

But I was not Narthena. Torture? Certainly, they would like to drive my secrets and orders from my flesh with all the devices their mind could devise, whether true or false. But I refused to let that happen.

The punishment I described? A shameful thing, not fit for beasts! Certainly it would meet the needs of the bloodthirsty weaklings of Isolder and Cordelon, but they needed to create strength where they could.

But they would try and I was not certain that my strength as a soldier of Gamelin would sustain me. So I slept instead and thought.

~

In the morning – near as I could tell, as the cell had no windows and was lit by a guard’s lantern when there as light at all – they took me by the arms and carried me bodily to another dark chamber. They had many fine instruments there and they introduced me to every one of them, explaining their purpose in great detail. Then, they proceed to use them. I screamed. I refused to yield. And I tried my very level best to...

~

My vision faded. All turned black.

“If your mother only knew, her heart would surely break in two.”

I know not what I told them.

~

In the morning – near as I could tell, as the cell had no windows and was lit by a guard’s lantern when there was light at all – they dragged me out of the cell, pushing and shoving, hungry and thirsty, cold but still strong. They shoved me out into sun’s glare, crowds at my feet with an insatiable hunger ill-disguised.

The king stood before us all, explaining to the peasant and merchant and noble my ‘crimes’ in the name of my own king and country and nation, even though he knew nothing, really, as my once husband and his soon to be bride stood to the side in their grief and satisfaction. Could I detect a hint of grief on Belder’s face? Remembrances of private jests and kisses stolen when we were certain that most of the court had their gazes turned away?

Could that have been the product of my fevered imaginings as I faced my death?

It mattered not. Into the barrel they shoved me, nails all around. My breath shallowed and I am ashamed to say, I cried. But there was still more to be done.

The bottom was not lined with nails, nor the top. I braced myself against either end, allowing my breath to become ever the more shallow, lest they be pierced with the nails all around. I heard them as they tied the top of the barrel to the horses and braced myself against the top and the bottom, as they urged the horses along and the barrel tilted until it was sideways.

Hours passed. I refused to give up. Bled and scratched and pierced though I was, I did not allow myself to be driven through with every bump and turn, with every passing whimsy of an animal. I cried with the pain and I remembered my mother, at her spinning wheel, at her loom, shaking her head with every deviation from what she thought I ought to be.

The pain did not depart. But the minding of the pain! Ah, that did depart.

Hours passed. I kept my strength. I kept it until I was certain the ravenous crowds would become bored and depart and the streets would empty of all but their refuse. My arms felt like jelly, and still I held firm. As did my legs, but still I held firm. As did my will, but as an agent of Gamelin, I held firm.

It stopped. Horses could only go on forever. The good soldiers of Isolder broke the top of the barrel open again and dragged me out. They considered me. Give the public a show and admit defeat with the first go around or dispatch me then and there?

~

Which would you choose? They chose as I would have done.

Things in History You Should Know: Hal Kolger

Along the lines of the Queen Crisantha piece, here's another 'Things in History You Should Know' article set in the same world as 'Strike in the Shining City' and the upcoming Nanowrimo work, 'The Spell of Vesperia.' Incidentally, if you wish to sponsor me for that, please regard the Paypal button on the right of the page.

If there’s one thing anyone has noticed about a map of Norland, it’s that it’s big. Really big. ‘Very nearly the largest country in the whole damned world’ big. The thing one must remember, though, is that the map didn’t get so large by itself, nor did all the fiddly little lines and other bits get in there by themselves either. Someone had to explore about, armed with sophisticated instruments, amenable guides, and stuff to write it all down with. One of these someones was Hal Kolger, gentleman of fortune.

‘Twas the year 1117. The mother country of Spira was off warring the other mother country of Langpald (again; it was kind of their thing.) As such, the colonies were warring with each other too, because as much as they would’ve like to keep their noses out of it, the powers that were wouldn’t let them. Ursalia was no exception, for it was a Shulmanian and Shulmania was allied with Spira, QED. Enter Kolger.

We don’t know much about Kolger’s early years. Tradition has it that he was born in the coastal township of Blauenburg in 1086, the son of mariner parents, although there are some tasty indications that by ‘mariner’, they meant ‘pirates of a most criminal and bloodthirsty bent.’ Young Hal grew up all right, though, and by the time 1117 rolled around, he is not on record as having keelhauled anyone.

Nevertheless, he was disinclined towards soldiering on sea or on land so the man described as a ‘giant with a bonfire for a beard’ sought other opportunities to assist the war effort. Such as filling in those tantalizingly blank portions of the map. Find a place, claim it and its resources for your lords and masters, profit as a proud patriot. So he set out into the wilderness, accompanied by a Dakala woman known to posterity as Benathidt.

He kept a journal throughout the journey, writing in it every day and so well that it is known as one of the classics of Shulmanian literature – odd when you consider that none of his previous writings, if they existed, were considered important enough to preserve. He wrote of canoeing to the very source of the Maximilien River, traversing the Giant’s Spine Mountains, legging it across the seemingly endless prairies of Mesopelagia – all and a thousand more feats before finally setting his eyes on the Eila Ocean, near the site of modern day Arms of Gold. When he did so, he writes, he fell to his knees and wept, overcome by it all.

The Nelurians who had set up shop nearby sheltered and fed him, Benathidt, and their three month old son Willem before allowing them to hitch a ship ride in the general direction of home. They were cool like that.

By the time Hal and Benathidt stepped foot in Blauenburg again, it was four years since their initial departure. The war had ended. Hochelaga was now a Spiran colony, along with their original set of Rochilda and Cabotia, leaving Laurentia the sole remaining Langrish colony in Deralea. Hal was hailed as a hero, his journals immediately published for a most respectable sum and financial awards and medals showered upon him by Governor Brauer. As witnessed by the journals which he continued to maintain, Kolger revelled in it. Another son, Erich, arrived in 1123. He and Benathidt wed in the Shulmanian fashion shortly thereafter.

He was happy, wealthy, and honoured. And as everyone with a sense of dramatic narrative knows, that’s when everything went to hell.

First came the death of Erich when he was but two years old. The reason why is uncertain – Kolger’s journals stop at this time. Then Benathidt, the love of his life and without whom his journey west would not have been possible, was found washed up on the shore after a stormy night. Whether her death was an accident or purposeful is, again, uncertain.

The journals never resume, although written accounts of Kolger do. Town records report him stumbling through the streets at all hours of the day, mumbling and sometimes sobbing, drunk to a sickening degree. The situation deteriorated to the extent that Benathidt’s sister was given custody of Willem and leave to spirit him off to her own people, never to see his father again.

Hal Kolger eventually became a ward of the state and he didn’t last long afterwards. He hanged himself in his room (or rather, cell) one morning in 1130, a letter addressed to the long-dead Benathidt the only thing he left behind to explain himself. It didn’t explain much, except how much he wished she would visit him again.

The consequences of his journey outlived the man, the first of these being that the Dakala Tribe became very rich off of his still respectable estate and the sales of his journals. The second of these was tied into the fact that he was Ursalian, or rather, Shulmanian.

Shulmania, after founding Ursalia, had little interest in branching out on the Deralean continent. Nevertheless, by the ‘laws’ of exploration so far as Estelians were concerned, most of it had been claimed by Kolger on their behalf. Neither Langpald nor Nelura were in a position to commandeer this territory and Spira had no desire to piss off a long-standing ally. Thus the hundreds of tribes in between the two coasts went virtually unmolested until Norrish Confederation (with added Ursalia!) in 1245. The individual treaties took decades to hammer out, including those allowing the Great Railway to be built, outlining the conditions for Estelian settlement, and ‘requiring’ assistance in hunting wendigos. This did not stop the occasional armed scuffle, but nothing ever does.

Prime Minister Lark downed several bottles of whiskey and acquired most of her grey hairs because of this Kolger. He likely wouldn’t have felt that much pity, though.

Ogre

Another story set in the same universe as Strike. Please you enjoy. If you do, consider regarding the 'donate' button to the side or telling your likeminded friends about this site.

There was an ogre underneath the bridge.

This wasn't a normal concern for Losa. All the children in the mining village whispered about it, true, but the bridge in question was so out of the way from any place anyone would want to go that she little feared it gnawing on her young bones.

That was how the case remained until she fell in love with a handsome boy of the advanced age of fourteen. All that he required to prove her love was the steal a rock from underneath the bridge, where the ogre dwelled.

She agreed. Infatuation had that effect.

The next morning, during the false dawn while her mother and father still slept, Losa crept out of the cabin. Over her shoulders, she slung her pack, filled with sensible things such as an extra set of clothes, a firestarter, and two days' worth of meals, should matters get chancy for her. Attached to her belt was a sheath and in the sheath was her knife. She did not think it would do much against an ogre, but then she was not at all sure that the ogre even existed.

The children of the village had a rhyme: "Follow the spine up the mountain tall / There the ogre your bones will maul." There were other verses, each progressively nastier, but they were not much use so far as directions were concerned. So Losa cast them from her mind, or at least tried to.

The journey did indeed devour most of the day, with the sun rising – up, up, up, until it was directly overhead, before taking a decided westward direction. A hungry journey, it was too. She ate her ‘rations’ of biscuits and jerky with an unseemly relish and wondered whether she would have enough should her journey was an extended one after all.

The wonderings ceased when the river bended, revealing a bridge so ancient it must have been built by the grandparents of the grandparents of the grandparents of the three tribes that sometimes ventured up the mountain in alternating years. Underneath it, the bank dipped precipitously down to the water, although the bridge must have been flush with the river when the snow melted.

Losa relaxed and smiled. No ogre, no problems. Her scepticism had been proven correct and now the only dilemma that existed for her was whether to tell the truth of the matter to the other youth. So it was that she strode confidently up to the bridge, knelt down to pick out the handsomest and most distinguished of the pebbles she could find, and nearly dropped dead with fear when a leathery hand five times the size of a man’s fell upon her shoulder. That hand lifted her up, turned her about, and tossed her bodily into the weeds. Her feet scrambled for purchase and failed and she fell onto her ass. She ignored the pain from the burrs’ scratches and her bleeding calves and looked up.

The ogre was a hairy, overgrown creature that looked much like the tales she had heard from the more well-travelled adults in the village of 'apes' and 'gorillas' and 'chimpanzees' dwelling on the impossibly far-off continent of Kiloses. Its fur was damp and matted, twigs and leaves and mud generously coating much of it. Perhaps 'it' was the wrong term - the maleness of the creature was much in evidence. He had very large teeth and a smile that looked like a bear's. The knife remained in its sheath. It was unlikely that it could even penetrate his fur.

Losa did not think he could read minds, but he must have been able to tell plainly what was going on in hers by reading every bit of her body’s language. "I do not eat children," said the ogre. "The forest and river provide enough food for me; why should I bother with humans and their spawn and bring down their wrath? Answer me that, child."

Losa confessed that she did not know.

“Now what have you come to steal from my humble home?”

“A pebble… sir. From underneath your bridge. Someone asked for one as a gift.” As calm as she tried to keep herself, she could not keep the tremble from her voice or the increase from her heartbeat. “I won’t ask for your food or anything else. Just a pebble. Then I’ll go. I won’t even come back.”

The ogre put his head back and laughed, a booming, gravelly sort of laugh. “Oh, I haven’t any doubt of that! Ha! Every generation or so, one of your kind comes along to bother me about pebbles or somesuch. Proving yourself for the one you lust! So romantic! So mundane, to brave an ogre over the leavings of the mountain! Don’t you want something more exciting than that? Something more worth wasting your day over?”

Losa considered this. She did not think now that the ogre thought to consume her, unless his character was akin to a cat’s. But even still, even still…

"If you come closer, I can show you your future. And I shall give to you your pebble." He leaned in close to her face and opened his mouth with all its fine, large teeth. Before Losa could even think of backing away, even in instinct, he breathed in. He breathed out. It smelled of rot and she blacked out.

But did she?

Ever slowly, her vision cleared, as though she were waking up after a nap in the noon sun. Spots danced across and coloured her sight; she blinked rapidly to banish them. And then she saw.

Not herself. It quickly became evident that her own body was not in the picture, as she could not see her hands or feet or arms or torso, or even the tops of her cheeks and sides of her nose like she would normally. She could not feel her limbs at all, no matter how much she tried to move them about, and it was not as though they were numb. Rather, it felt like they did not exist, like the only things to her name were her mind and eyes and… ears and nose. She could hear the call of birds in the distance and the buzzing and chirps of summer insects. She could smell the fir and wildgrass and crisp mountain air, so much fresher than that of the town’s and with less of the underlying aroma of horse apples.

She could see the graveyard, but it was wrong. There should only have been five markers, for the stillborn Fonger twins, for her elder sister, for Mr. Ephraim and Ms. Challenger, as it was preferred to lay the dead to rest down in town in almost every circumstance. But here there were three dozen wooden markers, spaced at regular intervals in an overgrown clearing, rectangular patches of grass slightly elevated directly in front of each.

Losa read the names and dates etched on every single marker. All but the original five proclaimed the same year of death. The year was not far. Not far at all. And she knew that they could not have represented all of the dead, for surely the town’s graveyard grew more crowded that same year.

The graveyard faded, to be replaced by ogre. That was enough; Losa wept.

"What becomes of me?" she asked when she grew tired of the ogre’s smug countenance, enough so that it slowed her sobs and brought her back to coherence.

"Sweet child, that has always been up to you." He stalked back to the bridge and bent double over the bank. He hemmed and hawed for half an eternity before picking a lumpy grey pebble of no particular distinction and he forced it into Losa’s shaking hand. “There you are. Off with you. I’ve had enough entertainment for one day.” The ogre did not have to repeat the request. Losa turned and ran in the space of a breath, never looking back in case he had been fibbing about not eating humans.

Night fell over the village before Losa returned. No one was out; the glow of lamps flickered in the cracks of the cabins’ shutters. But before she crossed the threshold of her own home and endured her inevitable punishment, there was another home to which she had to call on first. She went and knocked quietly on one of its shutters, the one above the boy’s bed. Then she stood by it and waited.

He appeared soon afterwards, slipping out through the doorway and tiptoeing over to her. “You’ve come back,” he said. Losa pulled his hand over to her and forced the pebble into it.

He regarded the pebble with a speculative expression, rubbing it between his fingers and catching the available light off of it in all different directions. "This is it?" he said. "You're not kidding me, are you? It'd be a bit of poor play for you to get the whole village up in an uproar over a fake." The boy must have caught her own expression and adjusted his. “It is it, isn’t it?”

He smiled at her and she smiled back and forced herself to blush. The only thing she could think of when he kissed that pebble and placed it with exaggerated care into his leather pouch was the wooden marker in the lonely clearing, with its name clear as the ogre's river. And then she thought, if her own destiny was up to her, surely it was so with others? Surely the vision could not have been set?

"Have you ever thought of going to the coast? To Englin?" she blurted.

The boy looked at her crossways. Not even a word - just a furrowed brow and a corner of a mouth that could not decide whether to go up or down.

“There’s work there,” she continued, even though she knew that her cause became more hopeless by the second. “Moreso than here or in town. We wouldn’t have to be trappers like our mothers and fathers. Wouldn’t that be good?”

But the boy shook his head. “You can do what you want, but I like it here. Thanks for the gift, Losa. I’ve got to go back in now, so goodnight.” He ruffled her hair like her elder sister did and departed back into the cabin, shutting the door behind him.

Her destiny was up to her and so it was with others, but she could never force their minds.

And then she left.

It does not matter how or when she did so, just that happened before that year came bearing down upon her. She kissed her mother and father goodbye, invited them to come and see her once she was settled, and set her feet down and down the mountain. Whether she would see them again, she did not know yet. With any luck, they would take her hint.

Things in History You Should Know: Queen Crisantha

This is an attempt at writing one of my history articles about the world in which Strike takes place. It was fun times.

Once upon a time, in a land far, far away – okay, Spira – us peasantry got it in the teeth a plenitude of times. And it wasn’t all that long ago, being more like a century and a half, give our take. Yet now we live in a happy fun world where the colonies are their own nations, parliaments reign supreme, and the nobility don’t have a whole mess of privileges with which to lord it over us lesser folk. And who do we have to thank for this?

That’s right. Crisantha fuckin’ Landrell. Queen Crisantha, that is.

Nevertheless, democratic reformer types don’t just magically spring fully-formed from the foreheads of the nobility. Sure, there had been revolutions, both peaceful and violent, springing up pretty much all over the Estelian continent and a suitably idealistic young noble might possibly, without further provocation, take up the cause of the downtrodden. Might, but not likely.

The key element here is the Shulmanian Revolution, in which that country, its last emperor having got himself killed through act of horse and his remaining relatives being so distant they might as well be on another hemisphere, decided that elections might be worth a try. Thus so did Abelard von Aschenheim became their first president, a couple of generations before Crisantha got started. Why is this relevant, you may ask? Well, it just so happens that Crisantha’s mother was a cousin of his. And that Crisantha was sent over to Shulmania in her youth to go get educated. And who was in charge of her education? Come on, now. You can figure this out.

So you have this young noblewoman, who’s next in line to inherit her father’s duchy of Belsworth and who also, incidentally and through the most technically correct interpretations, has more of a right to the throne than the then-queen Lucina did. And she’s off in foreign parts, getting her head stuffed full of ideas.

Now, if you’re a sensibly minded monarch, you’ll leave that branch of the family well enough alone and find some nice little cause they can distract themselves with. Queen Lucina was hardly sensible. In fact, most historians say, she was downright crazy. She had the Duke of Belsworth arrested, along with Crisantha’s younger brother Tiberian, and told the whippersnapper to stay out of the country, lest she have the two executed.

Too bad the prison conditions were so lousy that the duke died. Also too bad that rumours of torture, involving said duke and her brother reached the newly-fledged Lady Crisantha’s ears in not-far-enough-off Shulmania. (These later turned out to be true.) And you better believe that she declared it on. Or the 13th century equivalent thereof.

She got herself an army. This was easy enough, considering the Shulmanian Congress had already voted to support her and oh, incidentally, there were a lot of people down south in Spira that thought she might possibly make a better queen than Lucina. Wholesale oppression of the lower – and middle classes, who had quite the percentage of the nation’s wealth in their ample pockets – had that effect. Rebellion had begun.

It lasted an entire year, fracturing the country like a mirror that got a rock tossed at it. Brother against sister! Parent against child! Pristinian against Nelurian! (Although as those last two were foreign, no one was really paying attention to what they had to say about it.) Long story short, the ‘Belsworths’, as they were called, were victorious, despite more than their fare share of near finishes.

Crisantha celebrated her nineteenth birthday on February 29, 1211, the very day she was crowned. And your parents thought you were precocious. The former Queen Lucina was executed just afterwards and she was lucky enough to watch the whole, wonderfully choreographed coronation. Her last words were recorded for posterity; alas, they’re but a string of expletives.

Then the nobles who supported her got a nasty shock: she really meant her grand speeches of reform and democracy and egalitarianism. She stripped her former fellow dukes and duchesses of most of their privileges, particularly those of tax avoidance and their hogging of almost all of the seats in the House of Commons, not to mention all of the laws that gave them a free pass for almost any offense committed against someone of a ‘lesser’ class. Good thing the middle class supported her, then – the uppers wouldn’t lend her money anymore.

She carried along those lines for the rest of her days, fitting in a couple of scandalous affairs to spice up the quiet times. Counter-rebellions were quashed, including that headed by the late Lucina’s brother, Asher. (We don’t know what happened to him – if he died in battle or was captured, it was never reported.) Then she died in 1291, so peacefully as to annoy all of her enemies and having already declared that the monarchy was to be a strictly ceremonial position from that point onwards.

In interest of full disclosure, one of her grandchildren did have the unmitigated gall to attempt a coup, as did some other scions of the royal line over the years. And for some of the colonies, most famously Abelia, the transition towards self-government didn’t come fast enough for them, leading to their own rebellions to gain their independence. (This hasn’t prevented them from wanting to snatch independence from others for the sake of some sweet, sweet land.) And, yes, she didn’t do it alone – many of her prime ministers, including Evelyn Godsmark, did much of the grunt work in getting her reforms passed through Parliament in the first place.

It couldn’t have happened at all, though, if it wasn’t for one young woman on a revenge kick. Now that’s a moral for the ages.

It Must Be Bunnies

Another 500-word, written in an hour story. Prompt provided by Isaac.

In the hall of the High Emperor, a debate of the gravest importance was underway.

Courtiers, clad in their house colours, swarmed about the throne. They shouted and seethed. Those with an arm free were using it to either raise their fist in the air or point at others in a most unseemly fashion. Every one of them held a small, furry mammal – one of a dizzying array of species then represented in the hall.
The High Emperor held his hand aloft for silence. Immediately, the courtiers ceased their bickering, aside from the occasional dagger-like glares.

“Gentlemen and gentleladies,” said the High Emperor in his ancient, highly-enunciated way. “This matter is too great to be wasted on such common prattling. We shall go through the candidates one by one and by those means, judge their qualities. Present the first candidate!”

Nobles being nobles, they had the order of precedence sorted out centuries ago. Thus it was that the Duke of Delia stepped forward, pot-bellied piglet in hand. He bowed as he presented it to the High Emperor, who picked it up gingerly. Soon, the piglet was squirming with glee as the High Emperor scratched it behind the ears.

“Yes, yes,” said the High Emperor. “Not as fluffy as we would like, but a charming and agreeable animal all the same. Given its species, we think it would grow into an intelligent beast, but how clean would it be?” After five minutes of petting the piglet and cooing at it, he returned it to the Duke of Delia. “Present the second candidate!”

The Duchess of Arshane was next, clasping in her arms a tiger cub. She handed it over to the High Emperor, whereupon it proceeded to gnaw and slobber upon his silken robes.

“Certainly adorable,” declared the High Emperor. “And fluffy. But we are concerned about its potential for destruction as it ages into maturity and also feel that it might be happiest frolicking on a reserve. Also, we believe that it would terrify the servants.” He shook his head, almost mournfully. “We are sorry, Arshane. But it cannot be. Present the third candidate!”

The Duchess of Arshane took this rejection with the stoicism for which her line was known. She reclaimed her beast and backed away into the crowd, the cub chewing on her brocade sleeves.

On it went. The monkey, the puppy, the kitten – all were examined and found wanting. Until Sir Lockley presented to him a most floppy-eared creature.

The bunny cast a most disapproving look upon him – black, beady, and unyielding.

“Bunnies!” declared the High Emperor. “It must be bunnies!”

He let the astonished murmurs of the courtiers carry on for some time before holding his hand aloft again. “It appears we must explain our decision. Look upon the bunny. See its disapproval! Clearly, it is the most honest and forthright creature in this land! Therefore!”

The High Emperor stood, bearing the bunny on high. “The bunny shall forevermore be the symbol of this royal house!”

Shiyam and the Genie

Another 500 words, written in an hour. The prompt, 'a girl finds a magic lamp and the genie is contrary', is provided by Ashley C, one of the many excellent Ashleys I know.

You rub the lamp, a genie wafts out, and he grants you three wishes. That’s how it was supposed to go, as everyone agreed. Shiyam, however, was faced with the distinct possibility that ‘everyone’ was talking out of their asses.

The genie – huge, hirsute, so blue he was nigh black, and smelling faintly of something later generations would know as ‘coffee’ – bent double so that he could glare at Shiyam in her eyes. Each of his own golden eyes was larger than her head. “I do so apologise,” he said, the bass of his words so pronounced that they made Shiyam’s bones vibrate. “Perhaps my hearing is diminishing. What do you want me to do?”

Shiyam did not turn and flee, partly on account of the cave wall at her back and partly because she was as stubborn as a goat. She crossed her arms and leaned her head forward until her nose and the genie’s nose were nigh touching. “It’s the rules. Now that I’ve summoned you out of there, you’ve got to grant me the three wishes or you’re just making a mockery of the whole of tradition.”

“No soul informed myself about this so-called ‘tradition’ of yours.”

“Nevertheless, I shall humour you for a spell.” He brought himself up to his full height, which the cave somehow managed to accommodate. Or perhaps he embiggened the cave with his magic to do so? “Mortal! What is your command! I shall grant you three wishes, only the three, and you damn your soul forever if you cannot face their consequences!”

The girl took her time and considered this thoughtfully. She was a peasant, descended from a long line of goat herders, and therefore was exceptionally practical in certain respects. It got to the point where the genie would be tapping his foot on the ground if he had feet and instead settled with tapping his fingers.

Nevertheless, Shiyam came to a decision. “I wish for my sisters to all find kindly, wealthy and intelligent husbands by the time the year is out. They can’t be younger than twenty or older than thirty-five, nor can they drop dead of any injury or malady before my sisters are provided with all the children that my sisters hope for.”

The genie frowned at her. “That hardly gives me much in the way of creative interpretation, does it? Shiyam said nothing, but frowned right back. A sigh, like the voice of an earthquake, rumbled out. “Granted. Next?”

“I wish to know the languages of every land, to the point where I can speak, write, listen and read in any of them with fluency.”

“Granted…”

Shiyam felt her mind fill up with so many strange words and concepts that she felt tingly. She began to speak of her third and final wish.

“I am tired from all this wish granting,” said the genie. “I need a rest.” He retreated back into his lamp.

Shiyam waited. She eventually had to get him out with tweezers.

Audio: Strike chapter I

Of the first chapter, naturally. The others will come.

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Strike in the Shining City: Chapter V

In which our heroine sees much of her fair city.

Harkley had the good sense not to go back to my flat, I found. This qualified as ‘good’ not only as it decreased the chances of further incriminating his incarcerated host, but because it separated his body from my wifely wrath for at least a little while longer. But not as much as he likely hoped. You don’t become sort of buddies with a detective without learning a few tricks. Thus, the second place I stopped at was Frederick’s favoured drinking establishment, the Glorious ’49.

As could be expected of a pub that catered to teachers unwinding after a day or week of educating ruffians and future criminals, the Glorious ’49 was an immaculately kept, orderly place. No tracks of dirt, no sticky floors. The serving staff refrained from bothering the patrons, as it was understood that the pub was in spirit the extension of the staff rooms in all of the schools of the city. To interrupt them in their rantings and ravings would be considered to be sacrilege akin to using the chalice of Eila to spit in after gargling mouthwash.

The pub was in an uproar today. Quelle surprise. Packed to the brim, not only with what seemed to be the entire educational force of Lafontaine that wasn’t currently arrested and behind bars, but with a few fellow members of the watch who stuck out like bent nails. I could barely hear for all the shouting and singing – songs that were of the undiplomatic sort, being about the struggles of the workers and the lack of sexual prowess to be found amongst members of the ‘man’. Sergeant Mauser had joined in, which was good, because he had such a wonderful, hearty singing voice. Bad, because he was getting quite familiar with Arshada Dune, i.e., just the woman I needed to see.

I stole a chair from someone who had just stood up to go relieve themselves and shoved it right next to Dune. I then sat on it and said, “Mauser, that’s very nice and if you go away for five minutes, I’ll buy you another pint.” Normally, this would work all but immediately, but both Dune and Mauser were regular humans with the regular sort of urges. They gave me foul looks and kept singing. Very uncalled for. So I picked up their existing pints and took long, passionate swigs of each, at the same time.

“What the hell, Calvin?” spluttered Mauser, ruining the chorus. The singing ceased entirely, to be replaced by shouting. And staring. At me. How awkward.

This included quite a lot of stares from the watch in the vicinity. Now, was it common knowledge that my husband had been arrested or not? Impossible to say. If it was, would they be sympathetic or suspicious? Again, impossible to say, in those times. So I took a quick peek inside my wallet, took stock of its contents, and cried a little inside. I ordered a round for the table, at which were crowded twenty bodies. “Huzzah!” went the cheers and everyone got back to their business.

Except for Mauser and Dune, despite their efforts. This was because I had jammed both of my elbows in between the two. “Five minutes,” I said. “That’s all I ask. Please.”

To my relief, Dune groaned. “All right, but that’s all you get. Start talking.”

“Mauser?” I said. “Start singing.” It may have been the greatest rendition of ‘The Giant’s Fiddle’ ever to pass from earthly lips, but I wasn’t paying attention. I leaned in close and whispered into Dune’s ear. “I need to find Ilon Harkley.”

So much for the direct approach. The conversation nearly ended right there and then, Dune putting her back to me with unseemly haste. “Now hold up.” I jerked her back around. “Frederick’s been harbouring him in our flat. Frederick’s been arrested and guess what? Harkley’s not anywhere near the flat, so far as I can see. Now, as far as I’m concerned, seeing as he’s slept under my roof and ate my food, he damned well has a duty to tell me what the hell happened today and to help me get my husband out of prison. Capiche?”

“How do I even know Frederick’s been arrested?” she asked, not unreasonably.

But it still ticked me off. “Because I am very angry right now and very much inclined to make a scene, which would not be the case if he were out of the cells. For gods’ sake, if he isn’t here and he’s not at home, where the hell else would he be?”

Dune seemed to consider this. I doubt it was the reasonableness of my arguments which eventually swayed her, so much as the way my facial muscles and fists kept twitching. Entirely involuntary, I swear, but it did bring her around, without any tiring questions along the lines of, “How do I even know he’s not at your flat?”

“I can’t tell you where Harkley’s at,” she began. “That’s because I don’t know for sure. Go talk to the metalworkers. Last I saw him, he was being dragged along by one of their lot.” And that was all I got out of her, unless you count the second verse of ‘The Giant’s Fiddle.’

Drinks paid for, pint drained, I went on my merry way.

~

As it turned out, Mauser’s name turned out to be a bad omen.

Harkley was not with the metalworkers. Oh, he’d been with them all right – for half an hour max, until such a point in time arrived that he decided that he was placing them in too much risk by having them harbour him. I wished he’d thought of that before he decided to camp out on my chesterfield, but fair’s fair, no one knew he was in town then. Anyway, they gave me the name of an a surgeon whom he had apparently absconded with.

The surgeon lived clean on the other side of the city, in nicer outskirts than poor, pitiable Toynbee had to make do with. She let me in readily enough – Harkley had told her that I might come by, she said, and that she was to help me insofar as was reasonable. “I need to find him and speak with him,” I explained. “My husband’s been arrested and he needs to help me get him out.”

But she shook her head and smiled, a little apologetically, at me. “You shan’t find him here. I had a look at his arm and he wouldn’t stick around. He told me that he’d be heading to the South Wind Brewery.” The surgeon gave me the option of searching her house – oh yes, she was one of those happy few that claimed an entire house for her and her kin – but I gave her a pass for the time being. Off to the brewery I went.

And of course, the South Wind Brewery was back on the other side of the city, attached to my familiar tavern. Their product had improved substantially since it first caused Prime Minister Lark’s lip to curl in distaste, I’m pleased to report. Nevertheless, their secretary stopped me at the door.

“Please tell me Harkley is here,” I said. “Or at the very least, get me something to drink. It’s hot and I’ve done a lot of walking.” The secretary, either foolishly or wisely depending on your perspective, fetched me some water. This, I downed in some short seconds. “Well?” I asked, when I’d finished.

The secretary failed me as well. “Jane Calvin, right? He told us about you. But he’s already gone, you see. Left not twenty minutes ago.”

A pause. “Did he say where he was going to be?” I asked, more than a little exasperated.

“Not… exactly. Not as such. ‘Someplace to get out of the heat’, he said, and he seemed to think that you’d understand exactly what he meant by that, but do you? It all sounds a bit vague. I’m sorry.”

I grinned then – an action which, judging by the secretary’s face, must have spooked her some – and shook her hand too hard. It was so wonderfully obvious. Why hadn’t I checked it first off? “Many thanks, you’ve been a wonderful help,” I told her, sticking around for just one more glass of water before I tore off. Lark and Hammersmith, where we first met. Of course! How ‘sweet’.

~

Now the question of the hour was, once I made it over there, how would I uncover a manhole in the middle of a somewhat busy intersection without being incredibly obvious? More to the point, how did Harkley manage it? Did he? Simply standing around and thinking hard about it didn’t net me any helpful ideas, so I did the sensible thing and just asked some random youth who had shoved as much of his body as possible into a small patch of shade. “Did you see anyone go into that manhole over there?”

The youth shrugged, or rather, shrugged more. His entire frame was engaged in a permanent act of shrugging and slouching. “Rightly, I did. Caused a ruckus, but then they all went on and forgot about it. Spare some change so I could get a cheap bit of ice, miz?” An expensive day this was proving to be, but if I didn’t oblige him, it wouldn’t be long before no one of his age in that city would tell me anything out of sheer peevishness. A five penny piece was his and he sauntered off slowly, still slouching.

I did what the youth said. It was either that or wait until ten after ten. I won’t claim that it wasn’t nerve-wracking dodging the carts and horses and whatnot while I heaved the cover off, but I did manage it and hurried down the ladder as quick as could be. Someone replaced that cover before I was even halfway down, without a word shouted down about what the hell I was doing there.

The chamber was still circular and still had the four locked doors and still was lit with a sourceless blue light. It no longer smelt of nothing, though. It smelt of roast chicken.

Harkley had set up a sort of picnic about five feet away from the foot of the ladder. There was the aforementioned roast chicken, of course, which made me salivate to an animalistic degree, but there was also fresh baked bread and cheese and cherries from the Joleda Valley and two big bottles of South Wind brand beer. All laid out nicely on the grey stone, all served in an environment in which it was not too damned hot to eat anything warm. With napkins.

I sat crosslegged in front of him, the food between us. One of my hands took a bottle, the other took a chicken leg. Liquid and meat both took their turns in my mouth, sometimes jostled to the wayside by speech. “I’m a bit cross with you,” I said.
“Frederick was an accident,” he responded. “Had I my druthers, the man would be with you right now.”

“Then what happened, exactly, that got him arrested? What did ‘he’ do?”

He got my meaning sure enough and he was quick to shoot it down. “I didn’t make him do anything he didn’t want to do, if that’s what you’re wondering. He saw that some of your lot were zeroing in on me and he decided to be a distraction. If I hadn’t taken advantage of it, what good would that have done? Frederick would still be in the clink, I’d be right there alongside him, and he’d be looking around for something to beat me with.”

My silence indicated to him that I might have found that set of circumstances preferable to the one we had all found ourselves in.

“Then what exactly should we do about it?” he demanded. “I can’t let myself be caught yet; there’s still work to be done!”

Silence, silence, chew, swallow, silence, sip, silence, and so on.

“Oh, be reasonable.”

Burp, silence.

“Have it your way, then,” he growled. “I’m assuming you at least have the seeds of a plan, because I’m not doing all the work for you.”

That, I did. Conjugal visits, remembers? So we sat, drinking, eating, and planning, preparing for the coming day. Many interesting diagrams were drawn. Many arguments were had. Many fingers were pointed.

At ten past ten, we packed up and emerged into the dark, warm air.

Audio: The Taxman

I kept a promise, for a change!

Behold, the audio version of 'The Taxman'!

Tell me what you think and if you know of any better place to host this. Now to soothe my throat with tea.

The Goose Girl, Part I

Everything had gone wrong.

The prince – technically my husband, although I should not think he was of the same mind any longer – clutched the hilt of his sheathed sword as though it were a neck. The number of guards in the dining hall was just ever so slightly higher than normal and no longer kept to the perimeter. And in front of me was the one person in all the world I least wanted to see. Why did I not find some way of offing her instead of shoving her into honest labour? Ah, hindsight!

She looked very fine and composed, which was such a rare thing for her that I had to stop myself from marvelling at it and giving the game away. Not that, I suspected, that such efforts would last much longer.

But let me stop and go back to a beginning. That is how stories properly begin.

~

Let me be clear: I did not like her from the first.

She was the sort of layabout nobility that is despised in my country. An idle prince or princess insults the peasant who sweats for them and defames the name of their house. Such a one as Princess Narthena Eshlin would have had armour clapped on her back and her buttocks thrown onto a saddle the first time she sniffled prettily over a less than fawning remark. But I had my orders and I honour my king.

Said king ordered me to become her handmaiden. Let it not be said that Gamelin agents do not suffer in the course of carrying out their duties.
The posting was easy enough to arrange and it would be tedious to go into the details. Those ultimately responsible had no idea of their six degrees removed relationship with the kingdom of Gamelin, which is, of course, the way it should be when arranging these delicate operations. As it was, I met my charge the week before she was to set out to wed the crown prince of the neighbouring Isolder.

I bowed first thing, keeping my eyes pointing to the floor until I was spoken to. This took a bit. I could hear whispering.

“Rise,” said Narthena, in the quietest and daintiest of voices. I did as ordered and in doing so was met with a fairly standard example of the quintessential young noblewoman – chestnut curls framing a heart-shaped face, large and guileless blue eyes, small, slim figure with not a hint of muscle tone to it. Her skin was so pale that I doubted that the sun had ever faced it. “My mother informed me that I was to have a new handmaiden for my journey.” The previous incumbent of the position had met with a convenient marriage. “You must be she. Theon Bywell would be your name, is it not?”

I nodded mutely.

Those eyes of mine took in the details of her highness’ bed chamber – an easy enough feat when maintaining eye contact with one so far above one’s position is considered to be one of the defining marks of boorishness. Lace and light and flowers were the themes, which was what I expected. A decanter of water with crystal glasses arranged alongside lay on the side table. There was a bookcase, but the number of volumes resting upon it did not exceed the counting of my fingers and toes. A fat and thoroughly spoiled long-haired cat sprawled itself across the wide expanse of the princess’ bed. A quarter-finished embroidery had been cast onto another table and by the looks of it, it had not been touched in some time.

Flowers festooned the room, but I doubted she had grown them herself or could even name them. A large and robust wardrobe filled a not insignificant chunk of the sizeable chamber, but that was to be expected. There was not a sign of any true passion she might have held and it summoned up in me such a visceral hatred in me that I struggled to keep it from showing. Call it an ancestral thing. Or a quirk of national pride.

“Might you fetch me a glass of water?” she asked. The decanter was perhaps four feet away from her. From me, it was fifteen feet. “I am ever so thirsty.”

I did as I was bid, as per always. If I let a bit of water splash on her pretty satin dress in my haste, well! We all have our burdens to bear.

~

Over the course of the week, I played the part of an exemplary handmaiden to the most spoiled, naïve, and useless of princesses. I fetched her water, her cat, whatever flower happened to catch her eye as she strolled through the gardens under her umbrella. I cut her food – cutting a steak was ever so much effort, you see, and she was so afraid of getting sauce on her smooth, pale hands – dressed her in the most needlessly byzantine of garments, beat out her mattress when she thought she might have detected a lump, killed whatever spider or other insect happened to cross her path and throw her into a panic. Useless, useless, useless, and all throughout, I smiled, smiled, smiled. Nowhere did she go without me by her side.

Well… that is not entirely true.

The day we were to leave, she was called into the presence of her mother, Queen Aphelia. The sky was dark yet. Isolder’s capital was not far from Cordelon’s – perhaps a day’s ride, on a route so safe that we were foregoing guards for most of it – but one had to set out early. Narthena had put up such a fuss over this small hardship that only the reminder of the beauteous prince at the end of the journey diminished the whining in any discernable sense.

I attempted to eavesdrop, but could not. Guards milled about the halls so that avoiding detection was impossible. As it was, the audience took half an hour and when Narthena quit it, she was dabbing her eyes with the blue cotton of her gown. Something white poked out of the top of her bodice.

“Oh, Theon, how I shall miss this place!” she cried and I took her hand as she did so.

Just faintly, I may have heard the words, "If your mother only knew, her heart would surely break in two." But so faint it was that I dismissed it as a quirk of my imagination.

~

Narthena, to my surprise, did not receive her own mare to ride upon, but the queen’s own – Falada, strong, large, and beautiful, yet with the gentlest of temperaments. Necessities, including the princess’ dowry, were loaded up on the horse’s rump, although my beast received the larger share. The majority of the princess’ worldly possessions were to follow in another day or two.

We set out. Soon, it would be time to act.

The first four times she asked me to fetch her water from the stream that ran alongside the road, I acquiesced promptly and courteously, as a good servant should. Her goblet was filled, her hands received the goblet, her mouth received the water from the goblet in turn. Too close it was to the capital to turn my coat quite yet. And something else stopped me, something force, expressed in that faint sentence I caught in the air of the castle.

Ah, but the fifth time…

Charms and tricks though the queen of Cordelon uses, they shall not stop me from committing that which I set out to do. And they did not.

“Theon, pray fetch me some more water. I thirst terribly.” She did not perspire or appear to be in any discomfort and I suspected, not for the first time, that sometimes she had me do things simply because enough time had passed since the last time.

We reigned our horses in. Well along the path now – halfway there, if I were any judge, and well past the point where any citizenry could hope to hear us. “To be honest,” I declared. “I would really rather not.”

Narthena and, I could swear, Falada, stared at me as if I had grown an unruly appendage between my eyes. The thought of anyone refusing her royal highness, beyond, say, her equally royal mother, may never have occurred to her in her short, sweet life. “What is the meaning of this?” she asked. Incredulity dripped from every syllable.

I shrugged. Oh, it felt good to do that! “In our acquaintance with one another, I remained unaware of any deficiencies with your ears. To put it bluntly: you can fetch your own water.”

Her mouth opened and shut a few times, with nothing so noble as a word escaping it. Eventually, the shock of the situation compelling her to commit improbable deeds, she slid off of Falada onto the dirt of the trail. Her hands grasped onto the goblet for dear life as she did so, and as she bent down by the stream to fill it up. She drank, slowly. I thought I could see a glimmer in the corner of her eye.

“Quickly, now. We do not have all day.” She gulped down the remainder and as she stopped and heaved for breath, a white linen handkerchief fell out of her bodice. She scooped it up quickly, but not quickly enough for me not to see the three red dots marring its surface. Falada felt the weight of her once more and again, we moved. I swear that the cob glowered at me.

I heard the words: "If your mother only knew, her heart would surely break in two."

~

It was another three hours before Narthena asked for water again and I could believe that she actually thirsted this time. But what kind of person would I be if I did not encourage independence in my charges? I said unto her, “Your last efforts hardly broke you. You can do it again.”

Here she really did cry, rather than merely threaten it, but I paid it no heed. Instead, I watched carefully as she sat her feet onto the dirt, made her way over to the stream with her precious, impractical goblet, and knelt down by the water’s edge. The handkerchief was once again poking out of her bodice. In my hand was a bun, meant to be a snack for the road. I took aim.

Now there was a compulsion in place against throwing even such a paltry missile at her royal skull, but there were certainly ways of circumventing it for my purposes. I threw it at the water beside her instead.

She startled. The handkerchief was freed once more, but this time there was no way of recovering it – it had floated well out of reach by the time Narthena recovered from her shock. And that was enough time for the compulsion to flicker out and die, allowing me to get down from my horse myself, find a handy rock, and knock it upon her head.

The princess of Cordelon went out like a light.

~

When she awoke, I had swapped our clothes and cleaned her scalp. Her face and hair I had drubbed up a bit, but not too much. It would not do for a princess to pack around such a slovenly handmaiden. As for myself, I looked a picture – a fact I confirmed with a silver mirror from my new luggage.

Bewilderment had taken over ‘Theon’s’ face and I must admit it galled me a little bit that such a creature would be walking about with my name. Or, for that matter, that I would be saddled with hers. I placed a finger on her lips as they parted to question me.

“Now, Theon, you know what this is about,” I said. “But others will not. You will not tell anyone about this, for if you do, you will die. Are we clear?”

She nodded, mutely.

“Get on the horse.”

As though by reflex, she made towards Falada, but I jerked her back roughly. “You know very well that she is the princess’ steed. Onto the other and quickly, now. I am eager to meet my husband.” It was not long before we were underway once more, almost as if nothing had ever happened. My handmaiden was so docile about her new circumstances that it sickened me to think on it. Surely even she could not let this stand idly? Surely even now she was concocted any sort of plan, no matter how sad?
These words cut through my reverie: "If your mother only knew, her heart would surely break in two."

But the handkerchief was gone. Why did I still hear it?

Falada stepped roughly on the dirt of the trail. I could feel my teeth rattle.