N3v3rM0r3
Ezekiel
Pizza Box
RPM
Hos
rush99999
tadcfnaf
Syrenrei
Zeus23@Xandrya Ohh a Psychologist, adding serious suppressed PTS to my character...
Penny Member
STATUS: Ethical issues aside, AI prose is just really bad. 7 days ago
Status
Recent Statuses
7 days ago
Current
Ethical issues aside, AI prose is just really bad.
3
likes
15 days ago
She wanted to read, she wanted to write, but the main thing she wanted was something to fight
4
likes
1 yr ago
Make it clear that you don't need him to be reading Dante tomorrow. Also suggest it would be fun if you had a private language that you could use to mock English speakers in secret.
5
likes
2 yrs ago
Luckily history suggests an infinite ability for people to be shit heads ;)
1
like
3 yrs ago
Achmed the Snake
1
like
Bio
Early 30's. I know just enough about everything to be dangerous.
Most Recent Posts
@Lord Shaxx Ill throw my hat in the ring as Marine Commander then. If no one else wants it Id be interested in Engineering Chief as a secondary
@Lord Shaxx Does this mean you are taking the Marine Commander role?
Too many fun roles!
“The future is clouded,” Emmarelda puzzled, her fingers stretching and clawing over the crystal ball. Her two fellow fortune tellers made low hums that harmonized just at the edge of sound. The cloudy mist within the crystal ball swirled as the heat from Emmarelda’s hands warmed the gas within. Both techniques were simple theatrics, but as always the effect on the mark was impressive. The burly merchant drew back, sucking in a lung full of the incense laced air. He immediately reddened fighting back the urge not to sneeze. Emmarelda suppressed her irritation, a coughing fit would hardly improve the mood.
“Do you feel the truth in you, is it choking in your throat?” Emmarelda demanded.
“I feel it!” the merchant wheezed and began to cough and splutter. Zargela clandestinely pulled the incense burner further away from the mark, blushing furiously in admission her mistake.
“The truth! It clarifies!” Emmarelda declared theatrically, drawing her hands back so the gasses cooled and became less opaque.
“Has my wife been unfaithful to me?” he gasped. Only if she is lucky Emmarelda thought disgustedly as she observed the man before her. He was typical of the class of men who were gaining power in the kingdom, men who grew fat on trade and the privileges they had been able to extract from the King and the Government over the past fifty years. He was pudding faced and round, flushed red and drink veined his eyes sunken and piggish. He wore a cologne so awful it actually managed to overpower the decades of incense which permeated the reading room.
“You must cross my palm with silver, to allow me to read the strands of fate!” Emmarelda declared theatrically. The merchant fumbled for his purse, sweat glistening on his skin. He fumbled it and spilled a half dozen silver coins onto the table. Zargela swept her hand over the table and the coins seemed to vanish. At the same time Vadoma touched a valve beneath the table and the luciferite lamps flared.
“I see! I see that her heart is true and her devotion shines like gold!” Emmarelda cried almost hysterically, then sagged back as though faint, throwing her hand up over her brow as the lights returned to normal.
“The Great Emmarelda has exhausted herself peering into the turbulent heart of a woman,” Zargela declared, “you must withdraw so your energy does not harm her!”
“Thank you… thank you!” the merchant babbled as he was quickly ushered out before he could ask for a refund for his spilled coins. Once Zargela coughed to let her know the merchant was gone, Emmarelda miraculously recovered herself and smiled smuggly.
“Not too bad,” she commented as the coins vanished into a pouch.
“Why did you tell him she was faithful?” Vadoma asked curiously.
“Well it will do no harm to the girl for one, and you dont come to a fortune teller if you want bad news,” Emmarelda explained to the younger girl.
“Send in the next…ow!” Emmarelda pulled her hand away from the crystal ball as though stung. Gingerly she extended her hand again and felt an odd prickling in the glass.
“What the..” Before she could investigate further there came a curse from one of the bouncers as a handsome man shoved his way into the room. Emmarelda sat up and made a hand sign for them to back off. People with powerful emotions were always easy to manipulate.
“I see you come here with great need…” Emmarelda declared in her most mysterious voice, accompanied by a slight flare of the lamps for dramatic effect.
“Do you feel the truth in you, is it choking in your throat?” Emmarelda demanded.
“I feel it!” the merchant wheezed and began to cough and splutter. Zargela clandestinely pulled the incense burner further away from the mark, blushing furiously in admission her mistake.
“The truth! It clarifies!” Emmarelda declared theatrically, drawing her hands back so the gasses cooled and became less opaque.
“Has my wife been unfaithful to me?” he gasped. Only if she is lucky Emmarelda thought disgustedly as she observed the man before her. He was typical of the class of men who were gaining power in the kingdom, men who grew fat on trade and the privileges they had been able to extract from the King and the Government over the past fifty years. He was pudding faced and round, flushed red and drink veined his eyes sunken and piggish. He wore a cologne so awful it actually managed to overpower the decades of incense which permeated the reading room.
“You must cross my palm with silver, to allow me to read the strands of fate!” Emmarelda declared theatrically. The merchant fumbled for his purse, sweat glistening on his skin. He fumbled it and spilled a half dozen silver coins onto the table. Zargela swept her hand over the table and the coins seemed to vanish. At the same time Vadoma touched a valve beneath the table and the luciferite lamps flared.
“I see! I see that her heart is true and her devotion shines like gold!” Emmarelda cried almost hysterically, then sagged back as though faint, throwing her hand up over her brow as the lights returned to normal.
“The Great Emmarelda has exhausted herself peering into the turbulent heart of a woman,” Zargela declared, “you must withdraw so your energy does not harm her!”
“Thank you… thank you!” the merchant babbled as he was quickly ushered out before he could ask for a refund for his spilled coins. Once Zargela coughed to let her know the merchant was gone, Emmarelda miraculously recovered herself and smiled smuggly.
“Not too bad,” she commented as the coins vanished into a pouch.
“Why did you tell him she was faithful?” Vadoma asked curiously.
“Well it will do no harm to the girl for one, and you dont come to a fortune teller if you want bad news,” Emmarelda explained to the younger girl.
“Send in the next…ow!” Emmarelda pulled her hand away from the crystal ball as though stung. Gingerly she extended her hand again and felt an odd prickling in the glass.
“What the..” Before she could investigate further there came a curse from one of the bouncers as a handsome man shoved his way into the room. Emmarelda sat up and made a hand sign for them to back off. People with powerful emotions were always easy to manipulate.
“I see you come here with great need…” Emmarelda declared in her most mysterious voice, accompanied by a slight flare of the lamps for dramatic effect.
Carnival Row blazed with the light of hundreds of lucifierite lamps. Frosted glass gave each lamp a different color, covering the entire spectrum. The result was a shifting auroral glow that seemed to creep up the ancient stone walls, dilapidated tenement buildings, and decaying factories. The riot of color was further enhanced by by thousands of pieces of silk bunting, cheaply dyed, and secured to windows, lamp posts and the improvised cross walks which linked buildings above street level. The silk caught the fey light and reflected it in bright flickering patterns which changed with a breeze that had more to do with the breath and body heat of thousands of humans than with any natural weather pattern.
Nor did the row stint in it’s assault on the other senses. Hawkers cried their wears, offering every trinket and goo-gaw imaginable. Jade beads from Coramandle, brass kaleidoscopes from Pradesh, brightly colored parrots from the jungles of Nankai, great feathered head dresses that were rumored to come from Nova Tirche, beaver fur hats which traders brought back by the hundred for a few metal pots and iron tools from the arctic wastes, the skulls of the beasts of the deep, ranging from the size of a thumb nail to that of a plow horse. Food sizzled in iron or clay pots above barrels that blazed green white with cheap lucifierite, rice, noodles, pasta, fried fish, cuts of venison, pork and less identifiable meats. Flat bread was shoveled from great kilns on Gun Street, where the factories had made cannons back before the New Armory was set up on the Commons. A ha’p’ney a pound, it was the universal wrapping paper and plate for every imaginable dish. Spices and curries from the East twisted the nose, as did the rich savor sources from Tarlia and the cardamon and garlic heavy scents of the east. Newer stores using sugar from the fledgling colonies in Nova Tirche and the Antribian Sea, produced candies and confections that could make the mouth water and rot the teeth right out of your head. Carmel apples hung on huge strings like Holiday Garland, each died a different color depending on its maker or its flavor.
And that was before you even reached the Carnival proper. The dour men who sycophantically served the Tyrant were all but apoplectic at the existence of the Carnival and it formed a regular topic of both fire and brimstone preaching and thunderous polemics in the House of Assembly. It was said that every kind of wickedness imaginable could be found at the Carnival: Bear baiting, bare knuckle boxing, prostitution, gambling, knife fighting, cock fighting, slight of hand, Eastern Fakiry, dancing, profiteering, smuggling, murder, alchemy, and that most abhorrent of institutions, the theatre. There were also quite a few types of wickedness that were unimaginable, if the truth were told, things that might carry off a minister or a parliamentarian in a stroke of apoplexy to even contemplate. All packed into a warren of a dozen streets, squares, and ancient rookeries at the core of the greatest city on earth. A Sodom in the eye of Heaven as one preacher had put it. There had, of course, been attempts to suppress the carnival but the populace of the city, hard pressed by the taxes and upheavals of the civil war, would only tolerate so much. One attempt to close the carnival down had lead to a running battle in which the Rammers had found themselves pummeled with chamberpots, ceiling tiles, and paving stones, in such a storm that they had been forced to retreat, an event immortalized in the public imagination as the Battle of Bean Street. Even attempts to use the army had proven unrewarding, as moving against the outer shell of hawkers, food vendors, and punters gave the more criminal elements plenty of warning to scatter down the back alleys, garrets, and sewers which served the city as unofficial thoroughfares and hide aways. Suppressing the Carnival permanently was impossible and so the great and the good held their noses and more or less left it alone.
Emmarelda was at home as she moved through the crowd. To the extent they could the crowd let her pass. Her brightly colored vest and long skirt, as well as the red, white and gold bandana that held the curled mass of her dark hair in place, identified her as a gypsy, one of the semi-nomadic people who had, days passed wandered the forests of Alamani and Western Tirche before migrating to this island. They were a clannish lot, who held themselves to be a different people from the Tirche, Alamanni, and Tarlians, though it was true they had some traits of all three. In their own traditions they hailed from Northern Basalia where their forefathers had lost a great battle to the ancestors of the Basalian Empire. A senator of that proud people had offered them a choice, keep their land and adopt the culture of the Empire or live in permanent exile. The Gypsy had packed what few belongings they could onto wagons, set their great cities to the torch, and vanished into the wilderness. At least that was how the story went. Emmerelda had her doubts, her people were nothing if not liars and embellishers of tales, but as origin stories went it was pretty good. The fact that people made way for her did not mean she did not attract attention. She was a beautiful woman with a soft heart shaped face and large green eyes that were slightly emphasised with kohl. Her figure much fuller than was the custom of women in this land, who seemed to go for a trim waifishness. Her bosom and hips were generous and separated by a narrow but not waspish waist that gave her an hourglass figure, with a slight bias towards the lower glass. Her limbs were thin and graceful despite her fondness for food and drink and her skin was beautifully smooth and clear, free of the pock marks which afflicted so many in this land. She curved her full lips into a smile as she slapped the hand of an urchin who tried to lift her purse. Older thieves knew better than to trouble a gypsy, not because of their rumored ability to lay curses, but because of the fact that they tended to be well supplied with brothers and cousins who would quickly make the life of any would-be thief unpleasant.
The Three Sisters was one of the semi-permenant structures of Carnival. It was an old cannery whose facade had long ago collapsed. A dozen Gypsy wagons had been drawn up in front of it and attached first via cloth, and later by timber and brightly painted canvas. Emmarelda doubted any of those old wagons, elaborately carved and liberally splashed with bright paint, had moved in her lifetime. They formed channels where patrons seeking various services and entertainments could visit. The central one was bright red and heart shaped, its inviting doors leading back through a canvas corridor to a bordello, to its side was a circular one painted like the night sky, which would take a punter to the room of the astrologers. Emmarelda entered an hour glass shaped wagon and moved back, passing a pair of bouncers who sat smoking and playing dice just inside. One of them grunted a greeting, the other reached up to try to grope her, and she slapped his hand away with the same motion, but considerably more force, than she had used on the pick pockets. He drew back with a yelp and sulked. The canvas hallway that lead back to the cannery was painted with arcane symbols. At various points luciferite lanterns had been set behind the fabric to make certain symbols glow as though empowered with mystical energy. The burning fluid smelled dry and astringent, like incense but with a slight sharp report of the deep sea.
“There you are Emma,” Zargela snapped as Emmerelda stepped out of the hallway and into a large room with a central table dominated by a large crystal ball and draped with dark blue silk. Arcane paraphernalia lay scattered around on shelves and on tables, carefully illuminated to deepen the mystery. Books and chests were stacked against the walls, almost all props and mummery. There were genuine items of arcane significance among the Gypsy but the were not fool enough to put them on public display. The dominating item of the room was an immense leviathan skull. It hung above, its jaws yawning a full twenty feet to display hundreds of dagger like teeth. Dozens of candles had been affixed to the top of the jaw and occasionally dripped gobs of hot wax down in a very slow rain, leaving a slightly shiny circle on the old wooden floor.
“Here I am,” Emmerelda agreed as she stepped quickly through the danger zone of falling wax and took her place at the center of the table. Zargela glowered at her. She was older than Emmerelda and less fair, her nose hooked and her eyes slightly sunken. Zargela resented Emmarelda because of her superior mystical talents, and the fact that her family stood higher in the complex social structures that governed Gypsy life. Also Emmarelda had slept with her lover once after a long night of heavy drinking.
“You were almost late,” Zargela scolded, looking peevish.
“What a strange way of saying ‘on time’ Zargela,” Emmaline observed, enjoying the way the other woman seethed. Vadoma, another girl slightly younger than Emmerelda, snickered at that but quited quickly at Zargela’s glare. Emmerelda took her seat at the center of the table and her fellow fortune tellers took their flanking positions.
“Shall we meet our first mark? Emmerelda asked with a chuckle.
Nor did the row stint in it’s assault on the other senses. Hawkers cried their wears, offering every trinket and goo-gaw imaginable. Jade beads from Coramandle, brass kaleidoscopes from Pradesh, brightly colored parrots from the jungles of Nankai, great feathered head dresses that were rumored to come from Nova Tirche, beaver fur hats which traders brought back by the hundred for a few metal pots and iron tools from the arctic wastes, the skulls of the beasts of the deep, ranging from the size of a thumb nail to that of a plow horse. Food sizzled in iron or clay pots above barrels that blazed green white with cheap lucifierite, rice, noodles, pasta, fried fish, cuts of venison, pork and less identifiable meats. Flat bread was shoveled from great kilns on Gun Street, where the factories had made cannons back before the New Armory was set up on the Commons. A ha’p’ney a pound, it was the universal wrapping paper and plate for every imaginable dish. Spices and curries from the East twisted the nose, as did the rich savor sources from Tarlia and the cardamon and garlic heavy scents of the east. Newer stores using sugar from the fledgling colonies in Nova Tirche and the Antribian Sea, produced candies and confections that could make the mouth water and rot the teeth right out of your head. Carmel apples hung on huge strings like Holiday Garland, each died a different color depending on its maker or its flavor.
And that was before you even reached the Carnival proper. The dour men who sycophantically served the Tyrant were all but apoplectic at the existence of the Carnival and it formed a regular topic of both fire and brimstone preaching and thunderous polemics in the House of Assembly. It was said that every kind of wickedness imaginable could be found at the Carnival: Bear baiting, bare knuckle boxing, prostitution, gambling, knife fighting, cock fighting, slight of hand, Eastern Fakiry, dancing, profiteering, smuggling, murder, alchemy, and that most abhorrent of institutions, the theatre. There were also quite a few types of wickedness that were unimaginable, if the truth were told, things that might carry off a minister or a parliamentarian in a stroke of apoplexy to even contemplate. All packed into a warren of a dozen streets, squares, and ancient rookeries at the core of the greatest city on earth. A Sodom in the eye of Heaven as one preacher had put it. There had, of course, been attempts to suppress the carnival but the populace of the city, hard pressed by the taxes and upheavals of the civil war, would only tolerate so much. One attempt to close the carnival down had lead to a running battle in which the Rammers had found themselves pummeled with chamberpots, ceiling tiles, and paving stones, in such a storm that they had been forced to retreat, an event immortalized in the public imagination as the Battle of Bean Street. Even attempts to use the army had proven unrewarding, as moving against the outer shell of hawkers, food vendors, and punters gave the more criminal elements plenty of warning to scatter down the back alleys, garrets, and sewers which served the city as unofficial thoroughfares and hide aways. Suppressing the Carnival permanently was impossible and so the great and the good held their noses and more or less left it alone.
Emmarelda was at home as she moved through the crowd. To the extent they could the crowd let her pass. Her brightly colored vest and long skirt, as well as the red, white and gold bandana that held the curled mass of her dark hair in place, identified her as a gypsy, one of the semi-nomadic people who had, days passed wandered the forests of Alamani and Western Tirche before migrating to this island. They were a clannish lot, who held themselves to be a different people from the Tirche, Alamanni, and Tarlians, though it was true they had some traits of all three. In their own traditions they hailed from Northern Basalia where their forefathers had lost a great battle to the ancestors of the Basalian Empire. A senator of that proud people had offered them a choice, keep their land and adopt the culture of the Empire or live in permanent exile. The Gypsy had packed what few belongings they could onto wagons, set their great cities to the torch, and vanished into the wilderness. At least that was how the story went. Emmerelda had her doubts, her people were nothing if not liars and embellishers of tales, but as origin stories went it was pretty good. The fact that people made way for her did not mean she did not attract attention. She was a beautiful woman with a soft heart shaped face and large green eyes that were slightly emphasised with kohl. Her figure much fuller than was the custom of women in this land, who seemed to go for a trim waifishness. Her bosom and hips were generous and separated by a narrow but not waspish waist that gave her an hourglass figure, with a slight bias towards the lower glass. Her limbs were thin and graceful despite her fondness for food and drink and her skin was beautifully smooth and clear, free of the pock marks which afflicted so many in this land. She curved her full lips into a smile as she slapped the hand of an urchin who tried to lift her purse. Older thieves knew better than to trouble a gypsy, not because of their rumored ability to lay curses, but because of the fact that they tended to be well supplied with brothers and cousins who would quickly make the life of any would-be thief unpleasant.
The Three Sisters was one of the semi-permenant structures of Carnival. It was an old cannery whose facade had long ago collapsed. A dozen Gypsy wagons had been drawn up in front of it and attached first via cloth, and later by timber and brightly painted canvas. Emmarelda doubted any of those old wagons, elaborately carved and liberally splashed with bright paint, had moved in her lifetime. They formed channels where patrons seeking various services and entertainments could visit. The central one was bright red and heart shaped, its inviting doors leading back through a canvas corridor to a bordello, to its side was a circular one painted like the night sky, which would take a punter to the room of the astrologers. Emmarelda entered an hour glass shaped wagon and moved back, passing a pair of bouncers who sat smoking and playing dice just inside. One of them grunted a greeting, the other reached up to try to grope her, and she slapped his hand away with the same motion, but considerably more force, than she had used on the pick pockets. He drew back with a yelp and sulked. The canvas hallway that lead back to the cannery was painted with arcane symbols. At various points luciferite lanterns had been set behind the fabric to make certain symbols glow as though empowered with mystical energy. The burning fluid smelled dry and astringent, like incense but with a slight sharp report of the deep sea.
“There you are Emma,” Zargela snapped as Emmerelda stepped out of the hallway and into a large room with a central table dominated by a large crystal ball and draped with dark blue silk. Arcane paraphernalia lay scattered around on shelves and on tables, carefully illuminated to deepen the mystery. Books and chests were stacked against the walls, almost all props and mummery. There were genuine items of arcane significance among the Gypsy but the were not fool enough to put them on public display. The dominating item of the room was an immense leviathan skull. It hung above, its jaws yawning a full twenty feet to display hundreds of dagger like teeth. Dozens of candles had been affixed to the top of the jaw and occasionally dripped gobs of hot wax down in a very slow rain, leaving a slightly shiny circle on the old wooden floor.
“Here I am,” Emmerelda agreed as she stepped quickly through the danger zone of falling wax and took her place at the center of the table. Zargela glowered at her. She was older than Emmerelda and less fair, her nose hooked and her eyes slightly sunken. Zargela resented Emmarelda because of her superior mystical talents, and the fact that her family stood higher in the complex social structures that governed Gypsy life. Also Emmarelda had slept with her lover once after a long night of heavy drinking.
“You were almost late,” Zargela scolded, looking peevish.
“What a strange way of saying ‘on time’ Zargela,” Emmaline observed, enjoying the way the other woman seethed. Vadoma, another girl slightly younger than Emmerelda, snickered at that but quited quickly at Zargela’s glare. Emmerelda took her seat at the center of the table and her fellow fortune tellers took their flanking positions.
“Shall we meet our first mark? Emmerelda asked with a chuckle.
Theophanna hurried across the rutted streets attended by two of her ladies in waiting. A pair of priests and an armsman in the blue and cream livery of Mommerae appeared to lead her through the city of tents to a large white pavilion. Several other tents were being erected, splendid things laced with cloth of gold. Jean de Cleson did not have a reputation for ostentation, quite the opposite, he had made his name as a ruthless frontier fighter whose loyalty to the late King had elevated him to the rank of one of the most powerful Peers in the realm. His holdings were not rich, but were vast, and he had been vested with the power of the Constable of Tirche, a position which allowed him to marshall a great number of the King’s forces to his banner.
“My Lady d’Orbai,” a rough voice greeted Theophanna as she stepped through the flap to the tent. She had never met Jean de Cleson but the Constable was instantly recognisable from tale and song. His broken misshapen nose, broken in dozens of brawls and battle, his narrow face, disfigured by pale white burns across the right side, the bright red hair that proclaimed his western ancestry. He was clean shaven and well groomed, and he wore a fine doublet of green silk slashed with white, but there was no disguising him as a court dandy, this man was a killer, a wolf in sheep’s clothing if ever Theophanna had seen one.
“I sent word as soon as I arrived,” Cleson went on smoothly, gesturing to a bed where three nuns in starched white wimples were at work. Their hands were slicked with blood as they worked on a bloodied man. It was Albrecht. He was a ruin. His left arm and leg were badly broken, jagged white bone protruding from the bloody ruins of his leg. His face was a mass of bruises, the left orbit of his skull had been shattered, giving his face a lumpen and unfinished look. His uninjured eye was large and black, its pupil expanded till it all but swallowed the iris. He struggled weakly as the nuns reset his leg with a horrible sound of grinding bone that made Albrecht scream then sag limply, his flesh white and clammy where it wasn’t discolored by bruises.
“You sent word to me? Why not my husband?” Theophanna asked sharply. Cleson shugged his shoulders expressively.
“I sent messengers to find him too, my lady, he has not yet arrived,” Cleson said. “We recognized your crest on the wrecked carriage.”
“Will he live?” she demanded. Cleson shrugged again, his face sympathetic but his eyes unconcerned.
“Who can say, I have known men who have died from bee stings, and men who have survived falling from the Orlean Tower,” Cleson said. “The sisters tell me that his spirit is strong, if that is of any comfort to you.” It was of little comfort to Theophanna who had never much liked Albrecht very much.
“I am pleased that you arrived first Lady d’Orbai,” Cleson added unexpectedly.
“Why is that my lord?” she asked, taken aback by the Constable’s apparent chatty mood.
“Your confessor seems to be a man of particular devotion, the only word he has spoken since we pulled him from the wreck was your name.” Was it Theophanna’s imagination or was there a slight emphasis on the word ‘spoken’ there. A shiver tried to run up her spine but she repressed it with the ruthless discipline instilled by seven years in the Convent.
“Priests are often fanciful when it comes to their mistresses I fear, particularly when they are foreign. You would not believe the things I have heard bandied about as facts regarding the Eastern Nobility. I often share such foolish tales with my Aunt who finds them most amusing,” she replied. Cleson tipped his head slightly in salute of a well played hand, but one that didn’t conceded the game. Dimologia, or the Words of Creation, was a legend, stained with the dark pagan ways which prefigured the coming of Il-Who-Brought-Order-To-The-Cosmos. Even in the east the use of The Words was a blasphemy which in theory was punishable by death. In the West, witchcraft of any kind, was against the express law of the Church and could bring the Inquisition with their fire and instruments of torture. As a foreigner Theophanna was more vulnerable to such accusations, although by referring to her Aunt, the Emperess Apolystyia, she had reminded Cleson that she was not completely without patronage. Her husband was a powerful man too, which was why Cleson was interested at all, King Quent the younger was a grasping and ambitious man, and with the Western Provinces largely pacified, his gaze turned to the riches of the Duchy of the Five Sisters. Any excuse to intrude would be welcomed by the King, and a boon to Cleson, who needed to prove his utility to the Son of his great Patron.
“They can be foolish I agree, always with their talking and their secrets,” Cleson seemed to agree.
“We shall of course….”
“Brother Albrect! By Il-Who-Trampled-Leviathan!” The Count d’Orbai gasped as he pushed through the tent flap, followed by two armsmen of his own. He squeezed Theophanna fondly and bustled past her to the Cleric’s side. Albrect moaned without content and his head lolled sideways in exhaustion as the Count began to fuss over him. Cleson’s gaze had not left Theophanna.
“If you were about to say take charge of our friend, I am afraid the Sisters of the Hospital have told us that it is too dangerous to move him again so soon. There is talk of a miracle that he survived this long, after being abandoned in that carriage,” Cleson said. Theophanna didn’t grind her teeth but instead forced herself to make a make a graceful nod.
“Perhaps we may repay your kindness when next you visit Orbai My Lord,” Theophanna told him.
“I should be delighted to visit you lovely home my lady, just as soon as my Lord the King grants me leave to do so.”
“My Lady d’Orbai,” a rough voice greeted Theophanna as she stepped through the flap to the tent. She had never met Jean de Cleson but the Constable was instantly recognisable from tale and song. His broken misshapen nose, broken in dozens of brawls and battle, his narrow face, disfigured by pale white burns across the right side, the bright red hair that proclaimed his western ancestry. He was clean shaven and well groomed, and he wore a fine doublet of green silk slashed with white, but there was no disguising him as a court dandy, this man was a killer, a wolf in sheep’s clothing if ever Theophanna had seen one.
“I sent word as soon as I arrived,” Cleson went on smoothly, gesturing to a bed where three nuns in starched white wimples were at work. Their hands were slicked with blood as they worked on a bloodied man. It was Albrecht. He was a ruin. His left arm and leg were badly broken, jagged white bone protruding from the bloody ruins of his leg. His face was a mass of bruises, the left orbit of his skull had been shattered, giving his face a lumpen and unfinished look. His uninjured eye was large and black, its pupil expanded till it all but swallowed the iris. He struggled weakly as the nuns reset his leg with a horrible sound of grinding bone that made Albrecht scream then sag limply, his flesh white and clammy where it wasn’t discolored by bruises.
“You sent word to me? Why not my husband?” Theophanna asked sharply. Cleson shugged his shoulders expressively.
“I sent messengers to find him too, my lady, he has not yet arrived,” Cleson said. “We recognized your crest on the wrecked carriage.”
“Will he live?” she demanded. Cleson shrugged again, his face sympathetic but his eyes unconcerned.
“Who can say, I have known men who have died from bee stings, and men who have survived falling from the Orlean Tower,” Cleson said. “The sisters tell me that his spirit is strong, if that is of any comfort to you.” It was of little comfort to Theophanna who had never much liked Albrecht very much.
“I am pleased that you arrived first Lady d’Orbai,” Cleson added unexpectedly.
“Why is that my lord?” she asked, taken aback by the Constable’s apparent chatty mood.
“Your confessor seems to be a man of particular devotion, the only word he has spoken since we pulled him from the wreck was your name.” Was it Theophanna’s imagination or was there a slight emphasis on the word ‘spoken’ there. A shiver tried to run up her spine but she repressed it with the ruthless discipline instilled by seven years in the Convent.
“Priests are often fanciful when it comes to their mistresses I fear, particularly when they are foreign. You would not believe the things I have heard bandied about as facts regarding the Eastern Nobility. I often share such foolish tales with my Aunt who finds them most amusing,” she replied. Cleson tipped his head slightly in salute of a well played hand, but one that didn’t conceded the game. Dimologia, or the Words of Creation, was a legend, stained with the dark pagan ways which prefigured the coming of Il-Who-Brought-Order-To-The-Cosmos. Even in the east the use of The Words was a blasphemy which in theory was punishable by death. In the West, witchcraft of any kind, was against the express law of the Church and could bring the Inquisition with their fire and instruments of torture. As a foreigner Theophanna was more vulnerable to such accusations, although by referring to her Aunt, the Emperess Apolystyia, she had reminded Cleson that she was not completely without patronage. Her husband was a powerful man too, which was why Cleson was interested at all, King Quent the younger was a grasping and ambitious man, and with the Western Provinces largely pacified, his gaze turned to the riches of the Duchy of the Five Sisters. Any excuse to intrude would be welcomed by the King, and a boon to Cleson, who needed to prove his utility to the Son of his great Patron.
“They can be foolish I agree, always with their talking and their secrets,” Cleson seemed to agree.
“We shall of course….”
“Brother Albrect! By Il-Who-Trampled-Leviathan!” The Count d’Orbai gasped as he pushed through the tent flap, followed by two armsmen of his own. He squeezed Theophanna fondly and bustled past her to the Cleric’s side. Albrect moaned without content and his head lolled sideways in exhaustion as the Count began to fuss over him. Cleson’s gaze had not left Theophanna.
“If you were about to say take charge of our friend, I am afraid the Sisters of the Hospital have told us that it is too dangerous to move him again so soon. There is talk of a miracle that he survived this long, after being abandoned in that carriage,” Cleson said. Theophanna didn’t grind her teeth but instead forced herself to make a make a graceful nod.
“Perhaps we may repay your kindness when next you visit Orbai My Lord,” Theophanna told him.
“I should be delighted to visit you lovely home my lady, just as soon as my Lord the King grants me leave to do so.”
There were five hundred and twelve men and ninety seven dwarves when the Silver Swords mustered on the northern bank of the Wadi Ira the next morning. They drew up in four infantry companies, joined by Torm’s cavalry and the dwarven engineers under Cadger. Since the fall of Palona they had lost over three hundred men, almost all in the continual rearguard between Botan and the Wadi Ira. The Captain read their names out without emotion, giving them the simple five word epitaph: they died in the south. With the names of the dead recorded, he pronounced their contract with the League at an end, citing lack of reasonable support, and declared the Silver Swords a free company once again. Throughout the entire ceremony the soldiers of the enemy were visible on the other bank, furious but impotent to cross. The Captain turned to face them and spat a glob of spit into the water. As it hit, the dimpling seemed to magnify, and within seconds the skies had opened, rain pouring down hard enough to sting. The monsoon had come.
“Bianca, Torm,” the captain called, raising his voice to be heard over the rain. Some of the men were already raising the sections of timber they had used as rafts into make shift rain shelters. Bianca trotted over, carefully wrapping her pistols in oil cloth to keep them and their powder dry. Water streamed down the old man’s face in rivulets, though if it bothered him he didnt acknowledge it.
“I want you and half of Torm’s knights to go on ahead. We shouldn’t be more than two weeks march from the Fan Cities, but scout the land and see if you can find any preliminary leads on contracts. The rest of us will march to high ground tomorrow and lick our wounds for a few days, then follow along.”
“Sir maybe we should take a wizard, what if we…” Bianca began but the Captain cut her off with a curt shake of his head.
“I can’t spare Black Ryann in case we run into trouble, and we have wounded enough to keep Naambi busy, you will have to manage without magic, at least until we can recruit another wizard,” the captain declared.
“Yes sir,” Bianca acknowledged.
“You had better get moving, a few hours of this and the whole world will be mud,” the Captain said.
It didn’t take a few hours. By the time they were on the trail there was mud everywhere. Bianca’s six scouts spread out in a fan ahead of them and picked their way through the jungle, winding their way up the low laterite escarpment that formed the northern bank of the Wadi Ira. Although he had been right about the mud, copious amounts of red brown sludge that seemed to be sliding down on them from every direction, his assertion about their being a trail was a bit optimistic. The best Bianca could find was what seemed to be a game path through the jungle and that was rapidly being converted into a stream. All around them broad leaved plants hammered with the sound of rain slapping foliage. It was like being surrounded by drummers in a constant drum roll.
“How do people fight in this?” Torm demanded as he forced his great warhorse to leap another fallen log, then coseted it as the breast’s hooves struggled to find purchase.
“Normally people don’t fight in the monsoon,” Bianca told him as she finally reached the top of a low ridge. Visibility was poor but she could make out the shape of a curving valley ahead of them. She shook what seemed like a gallon of water from her broad brimmed leather hat, succeeding mostly in dumping it down the back of her poncho.
“Are there any cities between here and the Fan River?” Torm asked as they started down the far slope into the valley. Bianca shook her head then called for one of her scouts to mark the crossing point for the company.
“We don’t have good maps for this far east, not beyond the coast anyway. We might have marched along the river to Onarang, but I hear the Priestess controls it. If she were feeling spiteful we might have met a column on the way up.”
“Yes well thank goodness she isn’t spiteful or anything,” Torm said as he coseted his nervous steed down over some mudslick rocks.
“The way we are going…” Bianca began but bit off the sentence without continuing. Torm arched an eyebrow and immediately cursed and wiped monsoon rain from his eyes.
“Well the locals dont go far from the river, they say a curse lies on the land between here and the Fan,” she admitted reluctantly, looking out over the rain drenched valley ahead.
“Bianca, Torm,” the captain called, raising his voice to be heard over the rain. Some of the men were already raising the sections of timber they had used as rafts into make shift rain shelters. Bianca trotted over, carefully wrapping her pistols in oil cloth to keep them and their powder dry. Water streamed down the old man’s face in rivulets, though if it bothered him he didnt acknowledge it.
“I want you and half of Torm’s knights to go on ahead. We shouldn’t be more than two weeks march from the Fan Cities, but scout the land and see if you can find any preliminary leads on contracts. The rest of us will march to high ground tomorrow and lick our wounds for a few days, then follow along.”
“Sir maybe we should take a wizard, what if we…” Bianca began but the Captain cut her off with a curt shake of his head.
“I can’t spare Black Ryann in case we run into trouble, and we have wounded enough to keep Naambi busy, you will have to manage without magic, at least until we can recruit another wizard,” the captain declared.
“Yes sir,” Bianca acknowledged.
“You had better get moving, a few hours of this and the whole world will be mud,” the Captain said.
It didn’t take a few hours. By the time they were on the trail there was mud everywhere. Bianca’s six scouts spread out in a fan ahead of them and picked their way through the jungle, winding their way up the low laterite escarpment that formed the northern bank of the Wadi Ira. Although he had been right about the mud, copious amounts of red brown sludge that seemed to be sliding down on them from every direction, his assertion about their being a trail was a bit optimistic. The best Bianca could find was what seemed to be a game path through the jungle and that was rapidly being converted into a stream. All around them broad leaved plants hammered with the sound of rain slapping foliage. It was like being surrounded by drummers in a constant drum roll.
“How do people fight in this?” Torm demanded as he forced his great warhorse to leap another fallen log, then coseted it as the breast’s hooves struggled to find purchase.
“Normally people don’t fight in the monsoon,” Bianca told him as she finally reached the top of a low ridge. Visibility was poor but she could make out the shape of a curving valley ahead of them. She shook what seemed like a gallon of water from her broad brimmed leather hat, succeeding mostly in dumping it down the back of her poncho.
“Are there any cities between here and the Fan River?” Torm asked as they started down the far slope into the valley. Bianca shook her head then called for one of her scouts to mark the crossing point for the company.
“We don’t have good maps for this far east, not beyond the coast anyway. We might have marched along the river to Onarang, but I hear the Priestess controls it. If she were feeling spiteful we might have met a column on the way up.”
“Yes well thank goodness she isn’t spiteful or anything,” Torm said as he coseted his nervous steed down over some mudslick rocks.
“The way we are going…” Bianca began but bit off the sentence without continuing. Torm arched an eyebrow and immediately cursed and wiped monsoon rain from his eyes.
“Well the locals dont go far from the river, they say a curse lies on the land between here and the Fan,” she admitted reluctantly, looking out over the rain drenched valley ahead.
© 2007-2026