View Full Version : Of Saints and Devils
(Solo. Part 1 of 3.)
Puffy charcoal clouds swam softly overhead and cast the world below into quiet darkness. It was an unusual evening. Figures of all shapes and sizes danced, sauntered, and ambled upon the cobbled streets, treating the city of Radasanth as if it were some dark promenade. Not a flicker nor an ember rose in protest, for it was expressly forbidden to light even a candle within the metropolis upon the holiday of Sera di Peccato*, giving the city an opportunity to encourage or goad its citizens to carry out a tradition that had spanned for more than three centuries. Masked in the shadows and in all matters of garb, not a man nor a woman were able to see each other let alone a hand in front of their very face. If that hadn't been strange enough, nobody had dared to make a sound. Not a voice, not a cackle only the sounds of steps were to be heard.
For most other sacred holidays, they had lasted days, weeks, or even months. But, for Sera di Peccato, on that one lonely evening once a year, it would only last a matter of hours. Spanning from the turn of day to first light, the holiday that had once been rich with history and lore would forever dwell within the dark.
Out of the sheer popularity of such a holiday, the ports were closed and the Coronian military was rigorously stationed throughout the city to ensure that if something did cause the city to be thrown into chaos, there was no need to call for reinforcements for they were all there and well prepared for any hooligan or lunatic who decided to spoil the fun.
A cool, crisp breeze of autumn air blew into the night, sending shivers up spines and goose flesh to form. Slowly but surely the ashen clouds that had allowed the night to be plastered in black reminiscent of greasy tar began to disperse. In a matter of moments soft, pale light poked through the clouds and shined into the world below, bathing the city of Radasanth in white.
Men and women who had rushed out their doors in darkness stood amongst one another in all common drab for all eyes to behold. Dressed in mantles of black, the collection of Radasanth, with an exceptional few, each bore a carved ivory mask with the face of a rabbit. For a few stunning seconds to all those that had bared to look about, it seemed as if all of the city's humanity had vanished and had been packed with rabbits.
Almost as if on cue, each citizen flipped up their mask and gazed into the heavens. Upon a cradle of clouds rested the bright, full moon giving it the illusion an eye or a pearl, giving it the name, Occhio di Dio**, which marked the end of the holiday. Together the citizens of Radasanth looked up and into the very message Sera di Peccato which was that in darkness they were blind and different, but only in the eyes of God were they revealed to be equal.
According to legend, at least.
*Evening of Sin
**Eye of God
It didn't take long for the streets to be cleared of the festivities because of the time the holiday had took place and a curfew that had been in place for decades ever since riots had broken out all over the city and threatened to burn Radasanth to the ground. Soldiers walked in small groups, patrolling the city and making sure the streets remained clear until day break and in less than a few days after that, they'd be shipped back to their respective posts.
The only city workers allowed on the streets had already gotten to work, quickly brandishing their metal rods and setting the oil lamps alight as they scurried down every nearby street. It'd be an hour before the city was fully lit, and the lampers rushed about their task to give the soldiers as much light as possible in case the moon had faded again from view.
Drifting slowly down the sidewalk towards his parent's home, one of the few exempt from the curfew tried to wrap his linen cloak around his ivory mask for safekeeping. A tall man with hazel eyes in jeans and his military jacket, he had a face that almost seemed chiseled to fit the stubble on his cheeks and chin and the buzz cut he had almost always had. He walked side-by-side with a tall, long-legged blonde he had met earlier in the evening. Dressed in a matching jean jacket and pants with a faded green tank top bearing the curves on her chest, the girl pulled the holiday cloak tight around her shoulders against the evening chill. Her hair wreathed her thin, pale face making her quite the sight in the moonlight.
Viktor didn't even need to guess why she was attracted to him. Hell, he couldn't even remember her name. All he knew is he was tired, he was shipping out soon and he wasn't going to be sleeping his last week in Corone alone.
"You sure this is all right, Vik?" The woman breathed through chattering teeth.
Putting his arm around her, the man's stony gaze crinkled into a warm, comforting smile, "Sure, sure. They're all supposed to be in different parts of the country anyway. Besides, where else could we possibly go tonight? Unless you're interested in visiting the barracks for awhile.."
"So your army buddies can get a good look at my backside? Please." She turned and gave him a toothy grin, but knew he was right. Anybody who had lived here for a year to witness this holiday knew that every hostel, tavern, inn and place of public residence where they could be alone was closed for this holiday specifically. Regulations and ordinances and all that.
And Viktor wasn't about to go find this woman's house. She had said it was clear across town and it was too far to walk at this time of night. Even if he was exempt from getting hauled off the streets like an unruly teenager, he was technically supposed to be at the barracks he was stationed at and not trying to get into the pants of some woman he barely knew.
So that left only one place.
Gran would have taken the kids all out of town for the holidays. Never liked the reputation Sin's Eve has had with this city. Not one bit. But here's to hoping Mom went to celebrate with her friend like she had said, Vik thought coyly as he and his woman began to make small talk as they made the long walk home.
~*~
". . .So I was there with my carbine in hand and staring down this native as he and his mate slowly skulked towards me, right?" Viktor says while gesturing with his hands, completely drawn into his tale as he walks over the very ground his father ran on to get away from his family the day of his daughter's murder.
"Yeah?" Anne said, her eyes alight with a kind of interest Viktor hadn't seen in a woman for months. She nodded attentively and actually listened to what he was saying. That was rare with the kind of women he got involved with.
"My buddy Al is still on the other side of the rock and I could hear the screaming and muzzle fire already. Trying not to lose my nerve, I raise my gun and point it at the male and he lunges towards me. For whatever reason, and the only reason why I'm still alive to talk about this, the female tries to jump over him to get to me, causing me to fall over. In a one-to-million shot I squeeze the trigger and bam, I catch the male right in the side of the jaw, the bullet rips through the bone and barrels into his brain killing him and then exits him and hits the female square in the forehead."
Tapping his forehead with the hand, Viktor grins from ear to ear as he and the woman stop at the steps, "Luckiest shot I ever made."
Smiling warmly as she touches his shoulder, "Glad you're still kickin'," then Anne leans in close and grins, "Hey, how about you show me inside and put that new lease on life to good use?"
"Gladly," Viktor said before he moved her hair out of her blue eyes and leaned in to kiss her. He was definitely going to miss being on the mainland to go back to Salvar.
One second they had been talking as if they were old friends sharing a private joke and the next they can't keep their hands off each other. Arm around her waist, he and her kissing as if they were long lost lovers being reunited, they lead each other up the steps and he begins to fiddle with the door knob until he pauses to reach for his keys to unlock it. Opening it, they stumble into a world of shadows. The two-story apartment cast in dancing darkness under the pale, glimmering light from above.
Closing the door, he presses a finger to his lips, and holds her hand as he leads her towards the banister and up the steps before he remembers something and whispers, "I'll be right back, I've got to go get something. Meet me up in my room. Third door on your left."
Unable to see her facial expression in the darkness, he can still feel her resonate with excitement as she grabs him, "Don't keep me waiting, soldier. I don't know how long I can wait."
Watching her cat-foot up the steps and disappearing into the darkness like a panther on the prowl, Viktor wondered why he even bothered to stop himself when he moves around the staircase and sees it again. Golden, soft light poured out the bottom of the door to his father's study.
Nobody has been in there for months, Viktor wonders suspiciously, Not even Mom will go in there since he ran.
Suddenly the flood of unpleasant memories of last year comes rushing back. The pain. The confusion. The anger. Viktor had always thought his father was a determined, intelligent man willing to do anything for his family. Why did he run? Why did he need to run? Why Sally?
Furrowing his brow, Viktor slowly stalked towards the door when he saw a shadow move across the threshold and the sound of soft footsteps filling his ears. It can't be. Moving faster to the door, Viktor feels his palms begin to sweat and his mouth dry as he places his hand upon the door knob. Feeling the uncertainty of whether or not he should just go back to Anne and call it a night, the soldier dismisses the idea. Somebody is in the section of the house they had used for storage. It had been the den of a coward. And now somebody had dared to poke around in the trove of his family's secrets.
Could it have been his father? Could Fibonacci really be back?
With his resolve steeled and his mind made up, Viktor shook his head just once and on a silent count to three, he made it to one before he twisted the knob and shoved the door open.
Viktor barreled through the door, his eyes snapping to the intruder who leapt to her feet from his father's desk she had been sitting at and yelped in surprise. He made it five feet before he recognized who it was. Five feet before he ran into one of the many crates that littered the room and was knocked head over heels into a pile of opened boxes with a loud, cantankerous crash. Chest pounding with adrenaline, Viktor could have sworn his heart was going to leap out of his chest. As he tried to pick himself up he heard the woman rush over, the familiar charms and bracelets still jingling upon her wrists. "Vik!" she gasped.
Shaking his head and coughing as a cloud of once dormant dust settled into the air, the young soldier looked up to see that familiar face. Wreathed in curly brown hair, her face was a mask of concern. Kneeling over him, she stared at him with those brilliant green eyes that meant the world to him. "Mom?"
"You all right?" Daliya said with a soft voice as she moved some of the boxes out of the way.
"Yeah, box of pictures of Alan and I broke my fall," Viktor said jokingly as he examined one of the crumpled boxes he pulled out from under him.
Without a beat that mask of concern crumbled into anger as she smacked him and yelled, "Now why'd ya go and do that? You almost scared the fucking life out of me, Vik. I mean really, you go off and fight in all those wars and with all that training you stumble over a few boxes and crush family heirlooms. For what?!"
Rubbing the back of his head as he managed to get to his feet, Viktor grumbled," Sorry, Ma. I thought.." And trailed off, catching himself just in time before he said it.
"You thought what?" Daliya asked and then answered for him, "That your daddy has finally come home so you can jump him?"
There was an uneasy silence between the two as he stood there and tried to figure out what to say. He looked down at the frail form of his mother, noticing that she had lost more weight since he had last been home. Probably more than sixty pounds since his father had ran out. Even before he saw the red circles under her eyes and her sickly sallow complexion under the lamp light he knew she had been drinking again.
Whenever his dad was involved in some kind of trouble, she drank. She wouldn't admit it and hid the evidence in any way she could, but it was all too obvious she was an alcoholic. For some reason his father always brought out the best and worst out of her, but the same could be said for his father. It almost seemed like the both of them began to wither without the companionship of the other. They were probably the closest thing to the phrase soul mates that he had ever seen.
But now?
"Vik?" Anne's voice called from behind him as she gingerly stepped into the room, interrupting his train of thought. "I heard a crash from upstairs and came down to see what had happened.. whose.."
"His mother," Daliya said as she looked at her coolly. Turning to see the woman he had brought over here, he saw that she was wearing only her jacket and tank top, falling under the assumption that they were going to be alone in the house. If Viktor and her had been the only people in the room, there was probably little that could stop him from bedding her right then and there. But turning back to see his mother arch an eyebrow and pursing her lips, he knew that wasn't going to be the case. "So whose this?"
Stepping in front of Anne to help hide her naked lower half from view, Viktor scratched his head and mumbled something before he felt a hard slap across the back of his shoulder and the woman's voice roused with anger, "Anne. My name is Anne. We met over at the Green Thumb before we went out for Sin's Eve and we were going to..."
"Eat. Yeah, we were going to go get a bite to eat." Vik quickly interjected as he looked to his mother pleadingly.
Rolling her eyes and raising her hands to the ceiling she muttered, "Oh, Thayne." Looking back at her son she glared at him. "Look, I'm not an idiot, Vik and you’re not a teenager any more. It doesn't take an apothecary to know what you two were planning to do tonight. I don't really care what you do, outside of this house."
"Er yeah, about that. Sorry, Ma."
Turning back towards the desk, Daliya shook her head as she sat down, "I mean, come on. It's Sin's Eve. Most of the children in this city are conceived on this night. Where do you think your father and I got half of you kids from anyway?"
Swallowing hard, Vik looked back to see Anne flushed pink in embarrassment as she tried to hide more and more of herself behind him. "Uh, right, Ma. Anyway.. Anne, how about you go get dressed and I'll walk you home. All right?"
"Right. I'll be down in a second." Anne said before she ran quickly out of the room and up the stairs.
Following the trail of footsteps with her eyes until she heard the slam of a door and winced, Daliya looked back at her son, "Picked quite the looker there. Seems a mite touch stupid, though."
"Right. Er, never mind. Mom, what are you doing in here anyway? I thought you were over at Mrs. Ruthe's house tonight?" Viktor said, unable to hold his tongue and spare him from another lashing for his intentions.
"No, Belle made up with her husband yesterday and decided to celebrate tonight. Besides, what were we going to do in the dark for a couple hours?" Daliya said before she crinkled her brow. "Aren't you supposed to be back at the base anyway?"
"Uh, yeah. Sort of." Viktor said, knowing he was already losing ground in a situation that couldn't cease in being awkward. "I ship out next Thursday."
"Right, right. We'll have to have a dinner for you then. Gran'll be back in town from Auntie Paula tomorrow evening with the kids." Daliya said, trying to help him dismiss the notion.
And then there was the pink elephant sitting in the middle of the room. Or rather, was the room. "So what are you doing in dad's study anyway, Ma? I thought you said you hated it in here?"
"I-I do," She said quickly before shaking her head in defeat. "I mean, I'm just looking over the journals your father kept. Y'know when I told him to stop talking about that damn eldritch he wrote down everything instead? Most of it is some pretty creepy stuff, Vik."
Out of everybody in the entire family who had contempt for his father about his obsession with the man called Saxon, Daliya was the root of it. She threatened to throw him out once or twice because he wouldn't shut up about it. To see her in a room filled with the very object she hates, Vik knew she had to be drinking or she was really beginning to miss his father and this was the only thing she had left to connect directly with him.
"Dad was a bit of a crackpot.." Viktor managed to say before he saw his mother's face flush with anger, "I mean.. err.. what I meant to say was..."
"Get off it, Vik. It doesn't matter. Your daddy's gone and he ain't never coming back. Ever. All we have left of him are you kids and these crazy stories about a man that doesn't even exist. But whatever your father’s faults were, and there were many, he always could pen a good word." She explained before looking up at him and whispering, "Don't ever fall in love, Vik. All it does is get you hurt."
With nothing left to be said, Viktor turned to leave his mother to her thoughts in a room filled with the words and intentions of her husband. It didn't take long for Anne to get dressed, and they were already out the door well before the first glimmer of dawn began to break the midnight ichor. Sadly, though, before Viktor could walk out the door, he turned and caught his mother sitting at the desk in the study with her back to him as she put a bottle of Corn Blue Whiskey to her lips and drank deeply.
The soft pitter patter of rain clattered upon the rooftop and was enough for Viktor to open his heavy eyelids. Feeling forced into a yawn as he looked about bleary-eyed, the very first thing he had felt was the morning chill and it caused him to shiver. Anne's body was pressed tightly against him, snuggling under the covers for warmth. Her head rested upon his chest, almost if she was listening to his heart beat, but he knew by her slow, patterned breath she was still a victim of slumber. Her face was veiled in hair as gold as Coronian wheat, her entire form a frame of innocence.
He smiled as the memories of last night while under Anne's roof came rushing back. He had managed to walk her home in under an hour, and even though she was still mad that he had forgotten her name, for whatever reason she couldn't tell him to leave. One thing always leads to another, his brother Alan used to always say.
He had been too tired, too wrapped up in her to remember everything at first. Glimpses of things they had done flashed through his mind and he could almost feel last night's excitement reach him again once more. Anne had been different than most girls, and he had liked that. Something about her just seemed to resonate with him. A kind of warmth he had never felt with somebody before. He yearned for it.
Resting there and looking back into the room of his lover that was a clutter and a mess of things, and saw that she was about as organized as he was when it came to personal belongings. He managed to pick out the bits of his clothing that had been torn from his body in last night which seemed just a lifetime away. Soon, Viktor's eyes grew heavy once more and felt the call of slumber again with a smile on his face.
~*~
Viktor ran down the sidewalk towards his home later that day while holding a newspaper over his head as rain came pouring down in sheets. He had planned on meeting Anne again later that evening on another date, but he had something he needed to do first. As he darted past others rushing quickly towards his home, he noticed the remnants of last night's festivities. As per tradition, the streets were gleaming with chunks of ivory as it was considered good luck to smash the rabbit mask before dawn.
Viktor could remember doing that as a kid, but being somebody who now knew how expensive those masks could be, he restrained himself.
The soldier reached and climbed the steps to his home quickly as he tried to get out of the rain. Knowing it'd be a few hours before anybody else had gotten home and his mother was probably still sound asleep from the booze, Viktor pushed the door open. Stepping inside he rolled up the soggy newspaper and tossed it into the nearest bin before closing the heavy oak door behind him and drowning out the noise of the falling rain.
The home he had grown up in felt empty, and despite the warmth and comfort he was accustomed to feeling here the farther he walked inside the more of a stranger he felt he had become. Wallpaper painted in lilacs and lilies that he could remember him and his brother help his father put up as young boys was chipped and peeling. The maple floor he walked upon was coated in dust, having not been cleaned in months and the strange, acrid stench of mildew hung in the air.
It almost felt as if his father's departure was causing this house to decay. "I'm going to have to clean some of this shit up, he sure as hell won't," he heard himself mutter as he looked around. Maybe if he could find time this week he could go out and try and put in new wallpaper and fix a few things before he had left.
But, household maintenance came to a close second for what he originally came here to do. Walking to his father's study, he grabbed a bin and stepped inside. Nobody, he thought, Good. It'll make this much easier than if she was awake.
Viktor ignored the clutter and mess he had made yesterday as he walked carefully around the room. He searched every usual place, every hideaway, and every dark nook he could find in the study for the cursed stuff. Bottles, flasks, and longnecks of booze, rum, and whiskey from every walk of life clinked together as he chucked them into the bin. It took him about an hour to turn the entire room over, and even though he knew there must have been more alcohol stashed away somewhere in the house, it would send a clear message to his mother.
Seventeen.
He had filled the bin all the way to the brim before he was satisfied he had uncovered everything. His mother had used alcohol as a crutch to help her forget her pain, and Viktor wanted to make her see what she was doing was a problem and she needed to stop. But it'd have to be one drawn out, terrible battle at a time. She'd get mad, he knew she would, but Viktor guessed that she'd be secretly grateful that she wouldn't have to pretend any more.
Maybe.
Setting the bin aside as he sat at the desk, it had crossed Viktor's mind to take his dad's journals with him too as a way of weaning her off his father. But that was a lost cause, he realized, whatever damage his father had done had already been done, and trying to pull his mother away from her memories of the man she loved as she grieved would probably just make things worse.
Calmly, Viktor looked down at one of the journals his father had kept. He saw the velvet red book mark hanging out the top about halfway into the book where his mother had left off. The young man who found his self-discipline to be his greatest quality felt ashamed that he could remember the meaning of the various numbers and letters that were etched into the side of the leather cover of the book.
60YA
2P
Trimor, CO
3V-04
FL
It was his father's code and way of keeping track of the things he had written down. Viktor had watched his father pour his heart and soul into these books as if it were his life's work, and he had hated him for it because of what it had done to his mother. But both he and Alan had grown accustomed to his father's writing because in some vain attempt to unravel their father's madness they had read most of the things he had written. The stories were fantastic and gripping, and if the obsession hadn't ruined their family, Alan had said he would have tried to get them published.
But now, with a practiced eye Viktor deciphered his father's code. It had taken place sixty years ago somewhere called Trimor in Corone in the fall. He would have two companions, though that never meant much, since most people Saxon had traveled with turned on him anyway. It was part of the third volume of his father's collection and the fourth book. It was the last one his father had finished months before he had ran off.
Feeling his distaste dim as he opened the journal and looked upon the yellowed pages that were dabbled in ink and written by a man that had wasted his life, Viktor felt himself immersed. The title of the entry was splayed in the middle of the cover page and elegantly written.
Of Monsters and Men
Quietly, the rain began to stop and the air grew still. Flipping through the pages as he began to read, Viktor felt himself slowly drawn into the mysterious life of Saxon and the world of yesterday that had all been captured and seen in the mind of his father.
~*~
The weather had been cold and bitter, unforgiving as those who chose to walk outdoors felt the bite of winter come early. Within the small town of Trimor, it had always been this way. Dreary and grim and a terrible place to lay a spread, some outsiders would say. What it had lacked in luster it made up for in other places.
Farmers who had lived there for generations cherished the place for its fertile soil, and the location was ideal as a trading post for those that were going to and from the metropolis of Radasanth as it continued to grow. It was a quiet place that showed the promise of one day becoming a boom town, but if most of those that traveled through saw it as unappealing, Trimor could always rely on its own.
The people of Trimor were full of pride and autonomous determination, and wouldn't hesitate to rise as one to protect what was theirs. It had still been the time of witch-hunts and inquisition, and Trimor's conservative and religious roots had been exposed when the escapades of a mysterious band of vigilantes that roved from town to town claiming to be cleansing the wicked had reached the public ear. The local papers had been following them for two and a half years, and even though officials in cities like Radasanth accused them to be fanatics and nothing more than a lynch mob, the people of Trimor had endorsed them.
Soon after evidence of the Sons of Purity's handiwork had come to light, the inquisition that so many grass-roots towns and villages had supported went underground and hadn't been heard from since. The inquisition then had become nothing more than a bad memory.
That had been eight months ago.
The town of Trimor had grown quiet when papers all over the country began to smear those that had stood up for the Sons and the bloody trail of innocent victims and religious persecution they had left in their wake before they were chased into anonymity. All though it had been short, it had been brutal enough to make those accused of protecting such monsters who had called themselves men outcasts, and turned Trimor and others towns like it into pariahs.
Business had ground to a halt, travelers would avoid the village completely, and even the farmers had trouble selling their crops to other markets because of the reputation their spread had gained with the rest of the country. Trimor may have begun to tighten its belt and withered, but it would endure.
A couple weeks ago the first traveler in months had entered Trimor upon horseback. Dressed in plain clothes and carrying several bags with him, he had checked himself into the local inn. He paid in full, was always prompt, and never used four words when three was enough. Setting himself up in one of the rooms, he had only come out for meals and walks, keeping to himself as much as he could. Naturally people looked upon him with suspicion, but with the money he began to pump back into the town's dried-up veins it was hard to argue him as an undesirable and soon the matter was dropped.
The world had been washed gray that fateful afternoon as a downpour of rain continued to drizzle without pause for the third day in a row. It had been a miserable day to be outside, with the rain as cold as ice and Trimor's dirt streets turned to oozing muck that threatened to suck onto a person's boot and never let go. The village had become a ghost town by midday, as places such as the local inn, The Iron Wing, filled to the brim with drowsy patrons looking to drown their woes in a mug of the bar's darkest brew.
The single window within that lonely corner room upon the inn's second floor was blurred as it shimmered with rain, casting the day's light into a daze. On a good day, the window overlooked both entrances into the town, and with the inn upon the side of the town that was sheltered by the dense woods of Wolf's Run, it made it the perfect perch. A single mattress of straw lay at one end of the room, farthest away from the door. Bags of all sorts of shapes and sizes lay against one of the walls while a single recliner and table sat between the window and bed facing the door.
The room, once vacant for months at a time since the last visitor to have chosen to stay there, had grown with clutter and possessions of its latest tenant. A mosaic rug that looked plain on top was covered in a wide array of archaic symbols upon the bottom. A small wooden clock sat at the edge of the bed while a repeater lay upon hooks on the bedside wall. Books and papers lay stacked upon the table as well as an oil lamp for midnight reading.
The strangest addition, however, had come in the shape of a ham radio. Still far beyond its years of communication, it had become popular within the metropolis of Radasanth and soon the rest of the people of various towns and hamlets struggled to obtain one. Always put on the same station every day, the sound of gentle music akin to classical upon Earth came pouring out of the radio. A diminutive hum came from Saxon's parched lips as he sat upon the recliner whittling away at a piece of wood, his mind drifting slowly away as he at last found peace for the first time in months.
This had not been a vacation for him, far from it in fact, as he had finally found a quiet town to rest in after running for so long. In the back of his mind, the eldritch knew it couldn't last forever, but with those who wished him harm continuing to bite at his heels, he had chosen to keep up the act for as long as he could before he had to move on again.
Saxon had kept up with the local papers every chance he could get, trying to keep a watchful eye upon the world around him. I had promised this, he quietly reminded himself as shades of doubt began to color his opinion of this entire scheme. Dressed in clothes of the local color of the day, he wore knitted pants held up by suspenders and white long shirts that had made him seem more of a religious ascetic than a man that was on the lam. He had shaved his beard and trimmed his hair for the first time in years in an attempt to disguise himself, even going so far as trying to cast it in a different style. He spoke in a drawl in attempt to cover up his curious accent that some might construe him as a foreigner.
Anything Saxon could do to hide himself in plain sight he had tried.
To the town of Trimor, he was a local game hunter and had named himself Fredrick Guyve. So far they had bought his story of tracking a rabid grizzly and it's cub across the country, the infamous Agapaco or so the newspaper he had gotten it from had called it. His cover story and disguise had worked so well, in fact, that he had was growing accustomed to it. More and more he felt like Fredrick Guyve and the identity of an eldritch named Saxon became more distant. More alien.
He knew he couldn't hide forever, but until signs of the Sons of Purity began to rise again, there was no reason for Saxon to not sit back and relax. It was after all harvest season, and although the weather was dismal he had not had such great food that had come straight from the farm grounds in years. In fact, as Saxon leaned to turn off his radio, he felt his stomach begin to stir.
"Time to get some grub," he had said in his learned drawl and rose from the chair, his joints popping like pistons as he walked towards the door. Putting on his brown leather jacket and fedora, the eldritch felt himself slip back into the identity of Fredrick Guyve. Placing his hand upon the door, Saxon hadn't been aware that despite all of his assurances and changes to hide himself from those that hunted him he was not alone and soon things were about to change.
The eatery across the street from the local inn, Truncheon's, bore some of the best cuisine around given its rustic origin. Although navigating through the muddy slop dared to have once been called the village streets was an annoyance, Saxon knew it to be worth it. He had quickly found out that despite The Iron Wing's hospitality and eagerness to keep his business given the growing burden Trimor was beginning to bear, the food had been awful. Saxon wasn't even sure if it had been appropriate to even call what they had served him as 'food'. It was an insult to the money their patrons had paid and their taste buds.
Saxon had eaten there once and had paid for it in more ways than one.
Although they had given him a warm-hearted apology and a full refund, the eldritch had nearly wretched with cholera for the better part of a week and had put his appetite off the dish of rhubarb pie for years to come. Standing in a line that had stretched to the door, Saxon ran his tongue along his slick, yellowed teeth as he remembered the pain of that awful string of days that had been his first week in Trimor. I think I can still taste it, he thought with disgust as his face soured.
But it had all passed.
Looking down the line as he usually had done every time he came to the diner, Saxon saw familiar faces of the same locals who came in day after day to pay their hard earned money to eat a warm, delicious meal that filled their gullet and be back to do it again the very next day. Most seemed to glow with delight and anticipation to be doing it again on such an awful day where full stomachs were going to be the fulcrum to getting them through the day.
The weird noticed an old farmer and his wife chatting amongst themselves about the harvest this season and the work that had needed to be done once they had gotten back. A woman Saxon would come to later know as Tabitha Penns, the only reporter to work for the local editor, scribbled notes into her pad of paper as she looked about and ticked her tongue in impatience. Occasionally she'd pause to fix an unruly blonde curl in her bangs and look about to see if anybody was watching.
The local sheriff and his deputy sat upon the stools at the counter facing the door, talking to each other and occasionally looking directly at the eldritch to see if he was watching. They displayed a sort of xenophobia that many other villagers in Trimor had expressed at first glance of him. Of course most dismissed it and eventually broke the ice with him, the sheriff kept a careful eye on him, and for what the reason was for such paranoia, Saxon would soon learn.
But, for now, Saxon didn't really care.
It took around fifteen minutes until Saxon could be seated at one of the booths near a window glazed in rainwater, but he had thought little of it. Paying a copper for the latest issue of the paper and an order for tea, he sat down and looked up at the old veteran of a waitress everybody had insisted upon calling 'Mom' and smiled. She was friendly and looked like everybody's favorite grandmother, and she was one of the first to have warmed up to the eldritch. "Just some hash, a slab of ham and two eggs sunny side up with your warmest milk, Mom."
"Sure thing, Fred. Enjoy that paper of yours," she said warmly as she touched him on the shoulder before walking to another booth.
"No news is good news," he had muttered to himself in his drawl before sipping his cup of tea and reached for the yellowed collection of parchment papers. Trimor was unique at being one of the towns to have been hit hardest by the scandal of the witch-hunts, but was still willing to treat every day after as business as usual and covered both local news and printed stories straight from The Radasanthian Gazette. It had appeared that even though the townsfolk were in a feud with the big city, reporters and editors from both sides seemed eager to put their bias aside and continue what they had done best.
Skimming through the paper from the daily weather report to stories ranging from a horse that had broken out of its stables and an interview with the mayor, Saxon skipped it all. Trimor's local routine didn't interest him. But again, for the third week he had been here, he saw nothing that indicated the Sons of Purity coming out of hiding. It was unlikely that he would read about them in the papers before he had ran into them again. But that was what newspapers were good for if used correctly. An early warning.
That was all he needed, he realized. But, as Saxon settled with letting his thoughts drift to other places he began to fold his paper before he noticed another story he had been following for the last week came to light again. Opening the paper flat upon the table he read it carefully.
HE KILLS AGAIN!
Radasanthian detectives announce that the infamous killer known as the Rooksaw Butcher has slain again!
By Dwight Warrick, Rptr for the Gazette
Tuesday, October 12th.
IT WAS ON SUNDAY evening that another victim's mangled remains were found within the red light district by local authorities. Upon later review the victim was identified to be a young woman suspected to be one of the ladies of the evening that roam the corners of the red light district known by locals as Saint's Way given the location where she was found. No other details about the victim could be recovered with the extent of her injuries that had ravaged her body which most detectives believe to have been inflicted ante-mortem.
If proven correct, this would make it the seventh in a long line of victims who were known prostitutes to have been claimed by the Rooksaw Butcher at the same corner. Many citizens of Radasanth may ask why this devious killer has been suspected yet again of a brutal slaying, but this reporter would like to remind readers that the authorities have stated that the victim's remains indicate the tell-tale signs of the Rooksaw Butcher's handiwork. Four fingers upon the woman's left hand with the exception of her thumb have been severed; two organs--the heart and kidney--have been extracted as well as strips of her flesh peeled from parts of her body. Suffering from blows to the face to the point where her face was crushed beyond recognition, it makes identification of the individual almost impossible.
Authorities have already ruled out any kind of copy cat killer, for the wounds look to be genuine with the infliction in the same way that could have only been done by the killer given how some of the details weren't divulged to the public. Details of how detectives are able to tell the difference have been with held, and for now we must trust their word that the killer hasn't yet left the city.
"The lunatic is sick and must be full of his share of long pig," One detective, Ronald Karn, had said during the debriefing, "He's doing the work of a ghoul and has become famous for it. We're on the trail of Rooksaw now, and it won't be long before we finally pinch him."
Suspected to be the work of an extremely disturbed individual or a social deviant, the Rooksaw killings have happened off and on for the last seven months and despite optimism by the authorities, most say they are still baffled at the methods the killer has employed without any sort of detection. Rumors have spread that friends and relatives of the victims may be reaching out to the Fulsworth Detectives, a company of detectives highly skilled and with a reputation for closing cases that have been marked unsolved for years at a time.
"It is only a matter of time before he slips up. And when he does, we'll be on him. There is no reason yet why the public should turn away from law enforcement and pay private detectives to do our work." The Police Commisioner had said in a press conference earlier today.
It is strongly encouraged by the authorities and this reporter that any information about the killer or the victims be reported. There is a promise of monetary rewards to anybody who would tip off the authorities with valuable information, but it'd be in the city's best interest not to leave this to greed and chance. It is this reporter's opinion that it won't be time that finally does the Rooksaw Butcher in but the vigilance of the citizens of Radasanth and their full cooperation in order to put this dastardly murderer behind bars before he claims yet another victim.
The waitress had long since brought Saxon's lunch and had left to attend to other patrons. The food had been picked at but was turning cold as he sat and read the cold pleadings upon the page of the newspaper. It had triggered a deep, dark memory in the eldritch and as he continued to read into the papers that molded the world around him on that lonely afternoon. Although he wasn't sure what that memory had implied, he was beginning to think that there was more to Rooksaw than what was being told.
~*~
Footsteps creaked upon the floor above Fibonacci's study which could have only meant that Viktor's mother had finally awoken from her drunken stupor. Staring down at the pages of delirium his father had scribed, Viktor looked at the page number and then closed the book. It'd be hard to explain why he didn't want his mother knowing that he had begun to read his father's pen work again, but he was sure it would be even harder to explain why he had a bin of booze sitting at his feet with the journal. "One surprise at a time," he mumbled as he tucked the journal under his arm and grabbed the bin.
The boards upon the stairway began to sound with protest as Daliya began to descend into the house. Cat-footing to the end of the study and closing the door until there was only a crack of light, Viktor watched his mother as she held the side of her head and moaned with ache. She didn't even glance at the study as she teetered into the living room and into the kitchen. It had always pained the young man to see his mother like this, and although he would need Alan and the rest of his family for help to finally turn her thirst away from the drink, Viktor knew that it'd have to wait.
Hearing her mumble to herself as she walked into the kitchen, Viktor opened the door and tucked the bin under his arm. Creeping slowly down the hallway he stopped to peer around the corner and saw his mother turning to turn on the faucet with a glass in hand. Seeing that she was distracted, Viktor darted quickly past the opening and towards the door. This time pausing to grab one of his father's old umbrellas, he stuffed the journal into the bin and opened the door. Walking out into the rain, Viktor quickly shut the door behind him when he heard his mother call out.
~*~
Night had fallen quickly towards twilight, the rain ceasing long enough to leave the city sparkling at sunset. Viktor and Anne sat together inside a restaurant his brother had been pestering him for years to try. They smiled and talked candidly with each other about things that had been happening for the past month, occasionally drifting into more old war stories Viktor had to share.
Anne had seemed eager to hear more and more about him and the life he had led. She was the daughter of a sea captain and despite her father's wayward profession; she had never been out of the country before. She had no reason to, of course, but it gave Viktor the urge to take her traveling whenever he could get leave again. The sparkle in her eyes and the woman's smile stirred a genuine feeling of satisfaction in the young warrior's heart.
"So what do you do for a living?" Viktor asked as he cut into a slab of steak, the tender meat coming apart easily as if it had been turned over once in his mouth.
"I'm an engineer," she said plainly before adding, "I build ships for a living."
"Huh. That's funny, haven't you ever wanted to travel on one before? I mean, you're father was a captain of a ship and you build ships. Besides, I kinda pegged you as the traveling type, anyway." Viktor said with surprise as he looked up at her and put a chunk of meat in his mouth. The juices of finely marinated and rare steak tantalized his senses as he chewed upon it gratefully.
Laughing lightly, Anne shook her head, "No, not really. I may work with a company that makes ships, but I've never really wanted to travel on one. I think the things, however sturdy they are, still frighten me with all the horror stories I've heard."
"Like what?"
"Well," Anne said as she put her fork down and gave it some pause for thought, "It was a long time ago, but my father had his ship wrecked upon a reef towards the edge of Fallien and was lost at sea with his crew for days before they finally hit land. I don't know why but that always seemed to stick with me. Something about being lost at sea to me makes me feel totally helpless. I don't even like to swim."
Viktor raised an eyebrow and looked at her with curiosity, "If you're afraid to travel by ship and you don't like the water.. why do you build ships? It sounds like you’re in the wrong line of work, I guess is what I'm trying to say."
Anne smiled, "I know it's kind of nuts, but I think it's a way of keeping in touch with my father. He passed a couple years ago at sea and I figured this was the only way to feel like he's still with me. I didn't see a lot of him as a kid, and he was a very hard man to get to know. But he was my dad, and despite all of the things he did to my mother and me, I still love him."
Viktor nodded, "Wish I could say the same thing was true for me." Anne's plight sparked thoughts of his father and what he had put his family through. Viktor was sure he'd see his father again one day, but he was positive that he'd never be able to forgive him.
"What do you mean?" Anne said as she poked at her salad and moved her bangs away from her face.
Viktor swallowed hard and put his hands together as if he were in prayer, "Well, my father sort of had an obsession. He let it get the better of him and ruined our family with it. On top of all that, my little sister was murdered last year and rather than helping to put the pieces back together, my father ran away like a coward."
"That's awful." Anne said with a mixture of sadness and sympathy upon her face.
"Yeah. The worst part is that my little brother, Noah, was there at the time of the murder. He saw it all and was even one of the few people to see my father before he turn and ran. Really fucked him up." Viktor explained before a wave of revulsion hit him.
Anne shook her head in quiet disbelief, unable to find the words to express what she wanted to say to him.
"It's getting better now, though. My brother Alan and I are holding the family together now. He and I send money back whenever we can and I know my mom is trying to make ends meet as a seamstress. Even my grandmother is doing her part by watching over the kids." Viktor said, trying in some way to make his father look less of the monster he really was.
A long moment passed as they ate in silence before Anne spoke up again, "So what was he obsessed with?"
"What?" Viktor replied, his mind clearly elsewhere.
"Your dad. You said he was obsessed with something. What was it?" Anne asked with an air of genuine curiosity. She clearly wanted to help him cope, but really didn't know enough about the situation to say anything of real value.
"It's a long story, and I'm sure you don't want to hear it over dinner.." Viktor began before Anne opened her mouth in protest, "No, trust me. It'd be better if I showed you later rather than try to explain it."
With nothing left to be said on the matter, the two ate in silence once more. Despite her good intentions, Viktor knew Anne probably wouldn't believe him if he told her. His thoughts turned back to the journal he had taken from his father's study and knew the only really way to make her understand was to give her proof of his father's madness.
As Anne and Viktor walked home, the lamplights gave a soft, pallid glow and illuminated the rain slick city streets. A sea of stars hung above the star-crossed lovers and the waning moon glimmered with life as it continued it's slow, cyclical fall into the darkness. The pair would come across the occasional pedestrian or couple trying to make their way home for the night, all seeming to admire the evening's silent, velvet beauty.
They got back to Anne's home later that night, but pleasures of the flesh were the furthest thing from their minds. Viktor had been mulling it over in the back of his mind about how he was going to explain his father. It was complicated, and as they both sat in a small, quaint space filled with furniture and not much more thereof, he figured the best way to make sure she understood was to tell her everything.
It took the better part of two hours to tell the grisly odyssey of Saxon and his impact on Viktor's family. His father's visions of the man had been shared by word of mouth and by book, but there was no actual proof that the two had ever met. Viktor got the impression Anne was trying to listen, but was still a skeptic.
"Alright," He said as he shuffled through some of his possessions and grabbed the journal he had taken from his parent's house. Handing it to her, he explained the symbols on the side of the book and the complexity of his father's work. "My dad could write well, but his true gift was the ability to tell a story by actually talking about it. Because my family and I understands how he thinks, we're used to reading what he wrote and can piece together what he was trying to say easier than somebody like you who has never read it before. Those that have never seen the way he tried to convey his ideas by writing them down probably would get lost fast."
A common misconception about Fibonacci when people mention him seeing Saxon and the things he does is thinking he can see all of it from start to finish. That wasn't true.
Viktor pointed out how his father had told him he could only see bits and flashes of the things that happened, but they would happen for awhile and then stop. It was his only indication that the adventure had ended until his next vision came and showed him something completely different. From there, it was up to Fibonacci to connect the dots.
The man would write the account as if telling a story, leaving notes here and there of vague ideas of what he had thought he saw in his visions in the middle of the text in order to try and convey it the way he had seen it. News clippings were put between the pages that filled the bigger gaps of things he couldn't see with articles about what had happened to a person or a place, or even describe an event that took place during Saxon's adventures, which Fibonacci would annoyingly refer to as 'episodes'. It had taken years of practice, but the storyteller seemed satisfied that he managed to share everything with accuracy. Unfortunately, the only person who would know whether or not Fibonacci's accounts were accurate and true, was of course, Saxon.
"People who have actually listened to my father in person found it easier to believe that what he was saying was true because they could skip the process of trying to understand his work and his methods of piecing it together, because he did that for them when telling them about it."
"His biggest problem," Viktor explained, "Was that everything that was written down all looks circumstantial. There was no way to prove any of this actually happened, and because it was in bits and pieces instead of being written from start to finish, it'd make a skeptic out of anybody. Y'know?"
Flipping through the pages and skimming through the articles and notes, Anne tried to grasp at what he was explaining. Viktor, realizing this was probably too much to absorb at once, tried to make it easier to swallow but knew it was too complex of a subject to break off into pieces. After awhile the couple sat in silence, both trying to think of a way to get on the same wavelength.
After about fifteen minutes, they gave up.
"You mind if I read this?" Anne said, lifting the journal up as Viktor looked at her.
"No, no go ahead." Viktor replied somberly, knowing what was about to come.
About an hour passed before Anne got red in the face and set the book loudly down on the living room table, putting her head in her hands. "It doesn't make any sense!" she whispered, "It's like he's trying to talk about this guy and then in the middle of it all he supplies some finicky article or note that is vaguely about something to do with what he was sharing."
"I know," Viktor nodded, "It's why my family and I had such a hard time trying to believe him. Some of us, me for example, still don't."
"So how am I supposed to believe you about this if I can't even understand what he is trying to say," Anne asked, looking up at him in frustration.
Taking the journal gently from the table he opened it up, "I know it sounds childish, but this is how Alan taught me how to read it. I'll read it to you and then afterwards try and teach you how to do it. It's really weird, but it works."
Sitting back in defeat, Anne shrugged. This was no longer about trying to help her lover cope with what was happening to him. She felt a perverse desire to try and understand why his father had done all this. And the first step in doing all that was to try and understand the man he was writing about. "We've got all night," she said as she sipped her coffee. Feeling herself calm down, she sat her chin on her hand and smiled playfully. "So tell me a story, Vik."
Viktor smiled, feeling the hairs on the back of his neck rise as he began to speak, knowing that his prose and the way he told a story was similar to his father. Being the only son who could tell a story like his father did, he knew he was probably the best person to try and teach Anne the very strange life of Saxon.
Reading to Anne in a way his brother had done so many times for him, Viktor covered the amount he had read of the journal in the space of forty minutes. Slowly but surely, the two both reached uncharted waters. And it was then that they both began to reach back into the mind of the weird over sixty years ago.
~*~
Dusk fell quickly upon the town of Trimor as winter, although still months away, slowly began to roost in the countryside. Farmers and their hands turned in for the evening, going back to their homes to eat heartily with their families, knowing they'd be up and back to work before dawn the next morning. Other villagers slowly emptied the oozing streets of cold, brown mud for the night. A few of the more rambunctious of the village's citizens hung about the Iron Wing and congregated at the local brothel two doors down.
For Trimor, it always winded down early. Ever since the papers killed the influx of travelers and traders, Trimor's night life had suffered a crippling blow. Only the brothel stood open at all hours of the night because its clientele would gladly offer any price for copulation, and with something that was as popular as religion in this town, it was much harder for the business to close its doors rather than stay open.
After a couple hours, the night became as black as a used inkwell and the temperature plummeted. Sitting at his lonely window atop the second floor, Saxon read by dull, sallow lamplight. Books of both historical and arcane value sat before his eyes and each contained pieces to the growing puzzle of those that sought him as quarry. He chose to bide his time while those that hunted him searched high and low by learning more about them. Saxon had collected and borrowed books on various subjects that contained chunks and pieces of his pursuers more morbid practices. All seemed to have their own useful tidbits, but the most valuable of which were the notes he had swiped from their leader.
It was true that the Sons of Purity had sought to capture and kill those of mystic and magickal origin in the name of their obscure, black and white code of divine right, but that didn't stop them from using the tools of those they had despised so much in order to level the playing field.
Hypocrisy and religion always go together so well, Saxon thought with profane irritation. Everything he could remember about the group seemed to fit a pattern he had grown to see over the generations. Their gross intolerance of others, their ability to adapt outside their own moral code, and the hatred that seemed to fester within each and every one of them. He had seen entire groups who adopted the same ideas. But never had he seen them or their perverted obsession fare very well despite who had ever won the savage struggle.
Hate was a far deeper, more volatile motivator than that of anger or greed, and however far it took root, it was always a fight to wrench it free from those that were consumed by it. A group such as the Sons of Purity, as long as they could spread their evil intentions, could reach far into the annals of history and sow the seeds of hatred needed to keep them going for generations.
Only by the introduction of their own mystics, incantations, and charms did Saxon see himself at risk of falling to these monsters who called themselves pure of heart and claimed to be doing the work of their God. He needed to turn the tables, and only then could the eldritch rid himself of the Sons of Purity. To that, he thought, I need to become like them.
Letting the idea ripple into silence, the weird continued to scribble at the fresh, white pages of his own tome with the dark, twisted arcane practices of the witch hunters well into the night. The grimoire contained traps, hexes, conjurations, and spells that all laid beneath his fingertips, but only when he felt there was no other option would the eldritch choose to dabble in the twisted logic of his enemy.
Trudging about in the wilderness the next day in both his furs and his fedora, Saxon felt himself finally isolated from the world. Poplars and long, narrow pines flourished in Wolf's Run, which would normally be easy to traverse, but with the proximity of both the trees and the local fauna, it made it especially treacherous to move through. Villagers had called the place the stomping grounds for predators, and with the woodlands rife with game, it became a brutal struggle between hunters of both man and beast to root them out.
Stepping carefully through the underbrush in an attempt to avoid another briar patch, the weird ducked under a low overhang. The man wasn't one for nature as much as an actual game hunter was bound to be, but after living for so long he had grown to respect it. He had to. Although Saxon might have been many things, a master of nature he was not. And so long as he had lived, he was sure he'd have his run-ins with it time and time again.
As his eyes quietly probed the flourishing thicket for any sign of game, his thoughts turned back towards the town of Trimor and news of the outside world.
A week passed within Trimor with much mediocrity and little importance. News of the Rooksaw Butcher claiming his victims kept pouring out of the papers every day, each article spacing the killings farther and farther out of the rolling metropolis of Radasanth. But, even as his only outside interest, Saxon paid little heed to the idea of the killer being on the move.
The eldritch had kept up his guise and routine as best he could, and had used his time wisely for research and preparation for the fight to come once the sun had fallen beneath Comb Mountain's snowy peaks. However, between the time he had available to do his work and the time he got up in the morning, the weird had to fall into the disguise of Fredrick Guyve a lot more than he had thought he needed to. Although it hadn't been apparent to him at the time, the townspeople had been very interested in his profession as a game hunter and the hunt for Agapaco.
They had inquired about things he had killed, the tools he had used, and any tips he might be able to give them about ridding themselves of pests and wildlife that might do their homestead harm. Saxon had immediately regretted his new identity when he realized that he had few answers of what was being asked of him. The excuse of trade secrets and his slow progress in tracking Agapaco could only work for so long before they grew suspicious of him.
Who could have guessed that assuming a profession that was renowned for being solitary and primal could be so aggravating? In order to keep attention from being drawn to him, Saxon had needed to develop a new way of staying off of the local scope. No longer could he hide in his room for days on end because it would only raise questions about his health and where he could have possibly gotten the money to keep paying for rent without doing a lick of work since he had arrived.
"That's all I need," Saxon grumbled, "For a town on the brink to think I'm lazy and rich--I wouldn't make it out of here alive."
And then there were the papers to consider. A small town like Trimor in the grips of financial turmoil was bad enough, but with a reporter like Tabitha Penns always searching for the next juicy piece of local gossip, it was only a matter of time before she sought him out. Although he could lie and deceive the local townspeople into believing him as a hunter on the prowl, Tabitha was too perceptive and skeptical to buy only a story.
People like her needed proof.
So, at the same time every day Saxon would put on his gear and carry his repeater off into the wilderness while under contract with the local butcher to bring back game in exchange for a few crowns depending on the head of the animal. Hours would stretch aimlessly by, and only once dusk had begun to fall would the eldritch return carrying his kill for the day. The townsfolk never questioned how he might have gotten it, because to them it was obvious, and it seemed to buy him more breathing room with both the town and with the papers who thought of him as just another hunter making his rounds.
Little did they know, however, that Saxon had never hunted for game in his life.
Brandishing his repeater, Saxon knew the weapon to be both very rare and too expensive at the time that it could attract the attention of an entire town. When asked about how he had gotten it, the eldritch had replied he won it in a high-stakes card game. Whether or not those that had asked him had bought it, the weird had no idea. The weapon felt strange and foreign to him, he had never fired a gun before. Had no reason to. But in order to keep people from wondering how he was bringing back so much money back every day, he had to carry it with him.
Stepping past a couple broken branches and a tree that had been scarred by the paws of a bear now long dead, Saxon saw he was approaching his usual spot. With the glint of sunlight poking through the trees and the world around him engulfed in timid shade, the eldritch found himself in a comfortable position to use his gift.
Smelling the air and surveying the surrounding woods for any kind of movement, Saxon bore the shoulder harness of his rifle and raised his hands in what some would surmise to be a defensive position. Moving further through the brush, he used his feet to search for what he had needed, the eldritch realized that despite how plentiful the wild life was in the Run, they were still extraordinarily hard to find. Rabbits and smaller game would turn tail at the sound of his presence. Any lone wolf would simply avoid him for an easier meal, and although bears were curious, Saxon knew all too well that he'd hear them coming long before they could hear him.
So, that left only one thing.
Just as his mind began to cast doubt on the plan that had worked so well for the past couple days, a loud crack sounded beneath his feet and a smile reached his face. A couple seconds passed as the noise of the broken branch rippled through the area, but then he heard it. The crackle of brush underfoot and a snort caused his adrenaline to spike and fingers begin to twitch. The sound grew louder and louder and until the weird was sure he knew where it was coming from, he grew still.
Then, as soon as he was positive he knew which direction it was coming from, he took off in a mad dash. Sprinting towards the source of the noise, the weird steeled his jaw as he heard the creature reflexively falter. It took moments before its thick, rarely used brain had registered it as a challenge. Only once he had heard the snort and the sound of hooves tearing up loose, rich dirt did the eldritch begin to slow.
In the blink of an eye the creature burst from the undergrowth and charged towards him. The first thing Saxon had always laid eyes upon was its tusks. The hulking creature stood up to his waist, and with the slavering, fierce look in its beady little eyes he didn't need any textbook explanation to understand what it was aiming to do. Bracing himself with it only a few yards away, the eldritch growled.
"Come on!" He barked, "Come get me!"
Twenty feet. Only a little closer, he thought as he felt his mind quickly reach outside and creep towards the cool, still shade around him.
Fifteen feet. The beast's tusks gleamed in the noontide side, its thick coat of bristles moving in the breeze, giving the illusion that the monster's body was flowing towards the weird. His consciousness had wrapped it's tendrils around the darkness around him, allowing the area to comfortably fall under his control. Unlike most boars he had come across, Saxon had found the ones in Wolf's Run to be very aggressive. They were both territorial and fierce, and although he had no idea why such a creature would try to police the woodlands, the eldritch was satisfied that he could at least lure something out of hiding.
Once it's hooves scraped the imaginary marker of ten feet, however, the eldritch's stomach quivered and his left hand snapped out like that of a striking copperhead. The cool, calm shade that hung beneath the a poplar more than five feet away seemed to darken to sable as it rose eerily from its post and grew into a long, withered arm that ended in a claw that only Saxon seemed to be able to control.
The wild boar made it three more feet until something that rushed towards it caught its eye. The boar didn't have enough time to look from its prey to the new threat that came towards it. Out of nowhere, something that it couldn't feel or hear lashed out and the next second it was airborne. Saxon moved his hands with fluid grace as the profane claw lashed out and slapped the slavish beast into the air. There was enough time for the boar to squeal in fright as its hooves flailed and its body turned end over end before it bounced with a sickening crunch off of a tall, stalwart oak and hit the ground in a heap.
Blood smeared the bottom half of the oak from where the boar fell, but even as the shade's presence receded and the claw silently fell into nothing. Walking over to his kill, Saxon could hear the boar struggle to breathe within its last moments of life. Standing over the creature that had been so confident, so sure of its dominance over him, Saxon wiped his brow and plucked his bowie knife from his sheath before stooping over the dying boar. Dragging the blade across its throat, the weird was unaware of the irony as he stepped back to watch the beast bleed out in the quiet world of both hunters and prey.
Three more travelers passed through the town a day later, each seeking lodging and something to eat before they made their way through the country. Each had had their own share of secrets and quirks, as all people had, and were quickly rooted out by the locals. If it was one thing the weird knew, it was how hard secrets were to keep in a small town, much less to himself.
Only two of the three bore any real interest to Saxon. The first to have arrived was a wandering blacksmith who had been passing through on his way further south to Scara Brae from Radasanth in attempt to start a new business because the city had condemned his building and the slums were becoming more and more dangerous every night. He had assured the townsfolk that he'd only be staying a night, much to their disappointment, but promised to spread the word of their hospitality while he traveled.
The second wayfarer to pass through was a curious man with an odd obsession for hats and a vice for alcohol. The eldritch remembered vividly how loose his lips became once he had a couple fingers of whiskey in him. He told stories of how his house had burnt down a few weeks ago and his wife had left him in the middle of the night with their only child. Aside from his personal plights, he had few tidbits of any real interest. The man lasted two days before the town chased him out after it was found out he had had an open warrant for his arrest with charges of both arson and burglary.
It was towards dusk when the final traveler arrived that fateful day. He rode on horseback and was dressed in the garb of a marshal. His posse had taken another route, and he had only stopped long enough to grab a drink and take a quick rest before he was off again. He had said they were after a man believed to be connected to the Sons of Purity and could be the fish hook to the whole entire organization. The man had been running away from Radasanth and further east towards the national border. When he asked if anybody had seen anything, everyone fell silent and the marshal had been asked politely to leave. Saxon remembered as the lawman sat on his horse towards the edge of the town and surveyed the people of Trimor who all came to see him leave.
He didn't say anything for he knew it was futile, but the look of disgust on the man's face would rest in Saxon's mind for years.
With both the burglar and the marshal gone, it had left the town feeling strangely empty once more. Although the blacksmith had been kind and forthcoming, he was oddly missing when the marshal had left that evening. He had kept his head down when the townspeople came back from seeing the lawman off, and anybody could have seen that he didn't want to be the target of the town's anger after the re-opening of an old wound.
Anybody that believed in coincidences, at least.
The story of the marshal had stuck in the weird's mind that first night, and although the man of hats had not yet been ran out of town, Saxon didn't worry about him. He was a drunk and the weird could still smell the scent of burnt cedar off of his jacket and his demeanor was enough to repulse the weird from having any sort of conversation with him. It didn't take the eldritch long to make up his mind to pursue that nagging feeling that something didn't sit well with the blacksmith when he told the Iron Wing's innkeeper that he'd be staying another night.
Nobody ever stays in a town looking for a scapegoat unless they have something to hide, the weird thought quietly as he stared at the happy-go-lucky blacksmith from across the bar.
Fourteen.
After a trail of victims has been left all over the city of Radasanth for the past seven months, it appears as if the Rooksaw Butcher is moving on.
By Dwight Warrick, Rptr for the Gazette
Thursday, October 20th
EARLIER TODAY it was announced by Commissioner Pete Ramsay that another murder has occurred outside of Radasanth in the nearby village of Imis. It wouldn't normally be something this city is interested in, but the victim appears to have been a prostitute and had all the markings that have been called the Rooksaw Butcher's bloody signature. The victim was a short brunette, identified as Wilma Heins and had worked at the local brothel in town.
"Down to the very last detail," Ramsay said with a sober look on his face, "Everything indicates that Rooksaw has claimed another life outside the city and it looks as if he is moving on."
It's towards the end of October already, and the victims of the infamous killer have more than doubled in a single month. His killings have included all of the hot spots for call-girls in the city, especially in the slums. Only a day after his seventh killing at Saint's Row did the Butcher enter this rampage. On every night this week he has claimed a victim, finally breaking the chain of one murder a month. Authorities are befuddled with why the murderer has decided to abandon his pattern and go on such a violent killing spree, calling him both unpredictable and dangerous.
In less than a week his killings have been enough for the city to impose a strict curfew for all its citizens and patrols have tripled on the streets of Radasanth. The red light district has even been closed down after the city council imposed an emergency ban on all prostitution until the matter has been settled. It was enough for the city's crime rate to fall to an all time low, but has had little effect upon the killer. "We're doing what we can to staunch the blood Rooksaw has shed within the city, but it'll largely be up to the citizens to turn the tide of this battle with any information they can give us. But the important thing is to remain calm." Commissioner Ramsay stated.
It appears as though the more attention that has been brought to the killer the more erratic and unpredictable he becomes. It's almost as if any attempts to slow the Rooksaw Butcher down have only been driving him to work faster. When posed with the question at the press release today, Commissioner Ramsay dismissed the idea calling it both "nonsense and poppycock." Whether or not it has merit though, appears to be in the eye of the beholder. The killings within Radasanth have grown more widespread and have had no particular direction except that they have been further and further outside of the city.
"The police just aren't capable of handling this problem," Local Thayne minister, Father Adam Paine, said on behalf of the grieving families of the victims, "They have had more than seven months to stop this monster but haven't even been able to keep him on a short leash. All of these bans, curfews, and ordinances that have been put into place have only been hurting us, the people of Radasanth. This is why the [families of the victims] have hired the Fulsworth firm to continue this investigation and hopefully, one way or another, this sick man will be brought to justice."
Word has been issued from the Fulsworth Detective Agency that they are more than happy to work in conjunction with the authorities, and have already sent employees to the village of Imis to investigate. The Commissioner declined to comment when asked about whether or not local law enforcement would be working with the private firm. It is well known that there is a deep, mutual dislike felt between the two law enforcement agencies and a deep-seeded rivalry that has been going on for decades. It is the writer of this article's hope that for once, both sides will put aside their differences and to catch this killer because if even they can't coexist to solve this dire problem, what hope do we, the people, have?
Saxon looked up from the newspaper that crinkled at his fingertips and sipped his tea. Sitting in the same booth he always had since he first came to Truncheon's, the weird looked outside as he tried to mull the article over. Imis was less than a town over from Trimor, and he could already tell there would be tension and paranoia mounting in this town long before Rooksaw came to this village.
"If he even does," Saxon quietly corrected himself as he watched an old farmer and his sons unload a wagon full of barrels of barley outside the Iron Wing. As he watched them work, the idea of leaving this town promptly entered and left his mind. Rooksaw was a threat to his cover, that much he knew, but there was no point in leaving his hiding place with the tension mounting. Word spreads fast in the countryside, he realized, there was a good chance that the town of Trimor had a reach of forty miles and there was no way he'd be able to get out of dodge fast enough to avert suspicion.
"So," He whispered as he narrowed his eyes at the plump figure of the blacksmith who called himself Samuel Teller and sat outside with a few of the locals talking over a bottle of sasparilla, "I'm stuck here with you."
Saxon knew he'd have to act quietly, for if he had guessed right about the man sitting less than eight yards away from him he'd bring more attention down upon him than any paper ever could. But that was if the blacksmith was really who the weird thought he was and discovered he was being watched.
Sitting at the eatery and quietly sipping his tea, Saxon watched his very big problem with the Sons of Purity compound itself without him even lifting a finger.
Saxon had always remembered that night as being particularly darker than most. It was only a week from a full moon and the night sky fell silent with only the sea of stars to illuminate the world below. It almost seemed as if a lunar orb was being born in darkness, its form slowly emerging sliver by sliver, night by night. It had a subtle but profound effect on the village's swaying mood. But if it was one thing that the eldritch could have smelled in the frigid dark it was the pitiful, bittersweet stench of fear. It was a feeling he was very familiar with, and deep within his dark spooled past he had even embraced it. Depended on it.
Now, it was time to revel in that kind of alluring power again.
The air upon the second floor of the Iron Wing was both stale with liquor and empty with silence. Not a footstep stirred in the gloom, all of the inn's residents long taken by languor. In the darkness, one foot crept in front of the other as the eldritch took long, elegant steps down the hallway to try and muffle the sound of his presence. He had watched Teller every night for three days before he could finally recognize a routine. The man had loved to drink and gab, and would often do it at all hours of the night in his room. But not tonight. Tonight was different.
As the weird made it to the other end of the hall and stopped at the vagabond's door, he remembered all the subtle twists and turns it took to engineer this very moment. All of it was leading up to his warm, clammy hand grasping the iron door knob and giving it a turn. The knob gave a hair-raising squeak, and if Saxon hadn't known any better he'd have rushed back to his room and locked the door behind him before his prey could even bat an eyelash.
But there was no need for such ill-thought actions when he knew by the evidence of the loud, rancorous snores that the bottle of gin Saxon had drugged had long since taken effect. Slipping through the crack between the door and into the quiet, dark room he remembered not being able to even see his hand in front of his face. Closing the door behind him with an exhilarating and satisfying click, Saxon put his hand upon his breast where his fedora lay tucked beneath his brown jacket.
The Sons of Purity had taken extensive measures in tracking those that they had hunted, and it was only a couple months ago with a close encounter that had almost gotten his throat slit that Saxon found the members of the puritan order had branded themselves with a grisly spell that alerted them to signs of any kind of unnatural presence. It literally forced them back to consciousness if anything had rippled in the twelve yard sensory field, so there was too much at stake to come creeping in here while in the depths of his powerful will or under the influence of one of his mysterious artifacts. It could only lead to disaster.
Floorboards creaked loudly as Saxon stole into the room, abandoning his stealth for a better seat at the show. He knew the effects of the camis root first hand, and both Teller and anybody he had shared the accursed bottle with would be in a veritable coma until dawn. Taking three quick steps towards the source of the cantankerous slumber, Saxon tripped over a large, unyielding lump and fell face first into a squishy, soft exterior that must have been the bed.
Growling as he rubbed his aching knee, the weird stood and made his way around the bed, ignoring the lump that must have been a wayward sack or satchel, and towards the window for safer ground. Only once he stooped over the bed and felt for Samuel's chubby jowls did he relax. Nobody seemed to have given it another thought when the weird had offered to buy them a round.
Nobody ever did.
Looking down into the pitiless black where he could see a mass in the darkness occasionally groan and squirm, Saxon's mind rolled back towards his purpose here as an intruder. The papers were no longer reliable as long as they gave heated coverage of the Rooksaw murders, for at the moment it was the only thing keeping the town in touch with the looming danger that could creep upon their doorstep at any moment. He'd never be able to pick up on the Sons that way, and so he needed to tap into another source.
And what better well for information could he get than with one of their scouts? Leaning against the dresser that rested behind him, Saxon had remembered the methods the Sons employed to keeping themselves present without the need to reveal themselves to the public. Every town in the country could be watched by them with a single plainly dressed vagrant who moseyed into town one day and kept tabs on the locals through letters and then slip out less than a week later. Although it was too random to be able to understand which of Corone's towns had fallen under the Son's careful watch, the eldritch had grown to understand the signs of their subtle presence through trial and error.
They were virtually impossible to keep track of unless you knew what to look for. Most of the scouts stuck to different stories about their arrival in a town. But all of it involved a pattern of words that alerted other sleeper agents to their presence. As far as he could tell, Teller didn't have any other sort of entourage or protection as most scouts did when they stayed in a town. Perhaps this was just a local check-up to make sure everything was still normal.
Unlike what the authorities may have believed, this didn't indicate any sort of foreboding attack or raid. It was merely regular procedure for the tightly knit outfit to check in on the towns and villages it had taken under its twisted wing. Most of the time without the local's knowledge. Only if the scout found there to be a kind of supernatural presence in the city, would he send word for the Son's to mobilize and attack. Until then, the hunters remained dormant and harmless.
Saxon wanted to keep it that way. He had watched too many towns be razed and too many people swinging from the nearest tree just because they had detected him. But now, he needed answers and he couldn't pass up such a lucrative opportunity if his hunch panned out.
Unzipping his jacket to pull out his fedora, Saxon watched kept it at his side as he leaned over and looked into the snoring face of his demise. Hovering one hand gently above the face of his victim until he could feel the rush of warm, fetid breath did the weird move his old, leathery hat towards his scalp. Realizing he might not even be completely sure this was the guy, Saxon hesitated a moment and gazed into the darkness. Pushing through and swallowing his uncertainty, Saxon whispered gently in his ear, "I know who you are."
Tipping his hat confidently upon his scalp, the eldritch held his next breath in anticipation as he lost his vision in a flash of afternoon light and it was then that things went terribly wrong.
Samuel Teller was a caucasian man of two hundred and fifty pounds and stood at the shoulder of most men he had met. His flabby jowls hung on other side of his face, much of the time disguised by a scraggly beard. His emerald eyes had a sort of glow to them that people could easily fall in love with and it was his charisma and charm that got him into places most people could only dream of. But, sometimes that sort of pull and guile could get somebody into places that only their worst nightmares could be made of.
The darkness of the apartment room melted into soft afternoon light in Saxon's narrow gaze as he looked expectantly down at his prey. Too many details ran through the weird's mind as he stooped over the sleeping Teller while his vision changed under the guidance of his fedora, Amalarj. It was the weird who deduced the flash between darkness and light was his mind's way of coping with the rush of new information. To the eldritch, however, the first thing he saw when his vision returned was the sleeping face of Samuel giving him a nag of doubt that he had any association with the Sons of Purity at all.
And then, against all logic and reason, the blacksmith opened his soft, green eyes.
With his reflexes moving a couple clicks faster than his thoughts could keep up, the weird lunged forward as the scout opened his mouth wide to scream and clamped his hand down upon his chubby face with a loud slap. Any illusion of wavering from this task evaporated as the eldritch felt and heard the blacksmith's muffled scream. Only once the weird remembered that a barrier of darkness separated the informant from ever recognizing him did he calmly gather his thoughts.
Sitting at the side of the bed, Saxon shushed the man as he whimpered in helplessness, his eyes almost bulging out of their sockets. It was this part that he always remembered as the fulcrum for the entire interrogation. The only thing that ever seemed to tip it in the eldritch's direction was with fear. With that thought in mind did Saxon softly begin to speak, his quiet voice booming in the darkness and resonating a kind of terror to his victim that few could ever know, "Hello, Samuel. Right now, I'm sure you are aware that you’re paralyzed from the neck down as your brain tries very hard to wake up the rest of the muscles in your body under the strain of what you were drugged with. It should take about five to seven minutes, which is more than enough time for you and I to have a little chat."
Falling silent as the man's head began to thrash violently in an attempt to scream, Saxon jerked his victim's head aside and touched a tattoo at the base of his neck that would normally be hidden by most conventional clothing. The eldritch knew it was already there, but the gesture spoke volumes. In case he hadn't yet picked up on it, Saxon whispered the words that every scout must have incorporated in their story to identify themselves to local agents. "I condemn Corone from Scara Brae to Radasanth. Let it burn, let it burn."
The agent fell silent as the weird twisted his head back around and stared plainly at those once jolly green eyes that now burned with hatred. "Good, Mister Teller. I'm not here to take your valuables or your life. I'm here for information," Saxon taunted as he rested his other arm comfortably on the ridge of his victim's chest just above the neck. "Now that we understand each other, I'd like to remind you that any rash behavior will be inconvenient for me but very, very unfortunate for you. Nod to me if you understand what I'm telling you."
A steady, but slow nod caused the man's jowls to wobble, but it was more than enough for Saxon to loosen his grip. Ticking the seconds slowly off in his head as he watched the man silently obey his orders, the eldritch knew his time was running out. "Tell me, Samuel, what are you doing here in Trimor? What were you sent here for by that old cretin?"
"The Father shall not be mocke-" The zealot managed to sputter before Saxon backhanded him loudly across the face. Jarring him, the blow caused the agent to hold his tongue, but the weird knew that coercion alone could only take his obedience so far. He needed to try something else and dig deeper.
"Listen to me, brother, for I am not your enemy. Things today are more complicated than you could possibly imagine. It is only natural that you and I should fall upon the same side. Tell me the truth, Samuel. Why in Hromag's name would you dare to tread upon rival grounds?" Saxon said with the rhetoric fit for a traveling preacher.
It was true that the Sons of Purity were a group bleeding with hatred and rage against all things they deemed to be unnatural, but the order had long since split into sects and many of them still didn't fancy each other. Saxon had studied them well enough to have an intimate knowledge of how they ran things, and had taken steps to keep up with whatever rage that was still kept in-house.
"I-I don't believe you!" Samuel quickly whispered as he searched for the voice in the darkness, "How could you dare sully the Father's name? How could anyone who calls themselves pure scoff at our leader?"
"Because," Saxon spat with venom as he leaned in inches away from the man's face, their noses practically touching. "Father Letcher is losing his touch. Surely you know of Merill's rise to power in the west? Or have you been too busy supplicating yourself to that old fool to know that the ways of old should be held in the firm, capable hands of a new young leader?"
"N-Never!" He cried, the sound of the doubt shaking his voice tinkering like bells in the wind.
"Face it," The weird growled, "Times are changing and the world spins on. The unclean continue to walk about this country as if they could call themselves normal. Letcher killed our momentum with the burning of Yoslin, he practically handed the keys to our door over to the law and those liberals over in the big city. We must move forward, and the only way to do that is to follow and embrace the Word. And Merill is it."
The plump, pompous fanatic sighed and shivered at the sound of the holy book they had all followed by. To Saxon, they were nothing but the monsters they claimed to have hunted, and their heedless devotion to their God and leader put them at an even bigger disadvantage than if they had simply chose to kill indiscriminately out of sheer hatred instead of religion, "Please, Brother, d-don't speak like that! Don't let the Father hear you say things like that! He is our lord and master, our guide to divine favor. The one who will-"
"-Sheperd us unto thy enemy. May they die at His feet." Saxon finished the prayer with about as much reverence as he could stomach to muster. "I know, Samuel, I know. We must not speak ill of our leader, but things must change. There needs to be somebody who can speak for us. To tell us the Word and actually follow it to the letter. The gears of war are beginning to turn, Brother, and we're on the same side. Tell me what Letcher has sent you for. Why Trimor?"
"I-I came to speak with our brothers-in-arms about the Awakening. We need weapons, and your flock has the biggest hideaway in the area." Samuel whispered in a quivering voice and then added, "We must prepare."
"For what?" Saxon asked, licking his lips in anticipation as he dug deeper into the trove of secrets of his dire enemy.
"Wait a minute. Hasn't Lucius already told you? About the raid? About the.." Samuel managed to say before his eyes grew wide as saucers and he shouted, "Mora! No!"
Luck hadn't saved Saxon's life that night; it was Amalarj's protection that had kept him from being buried with coppers on his eyes. The sound of the blade was quick as it whistled in the air and without even noticing the woman who must have been in a heap on the floor, Saxon felt his mind lash out and darkness snap into action. He barely turned around when a mass of ichor swatted against the young, petite woman who held the eldritch's Bowie in her fist.
Sitting by the bedside next to his only source of information, Saxon watched in horror as the female fanatic was swept off her feet and her naked body was hurled into the window with the force of a charging bull. Raising his arm on instinct as the window shattered and millions of shards of glass tinkled in the air, the eldritch could hear the fanatic shriek as she fell. Her body bounced off the lower roof of the inn twice before she plummeted into a broken heap at its doorstep.
"Oh, Hromag!" Samuel screamed from his bedside, still under the grips of paralysis. "What have you done?!"
Saxon heard the sound of local dogs beginning to howl and shouts from the rousing tenants as they rushed to see what had happened below. But, what he heard loudest of all was the crumbling of his so called perfect plan and perhaps his cover once and for all.
It took a few jarring seconds before the screams began for Saxon to get a grip on himself. Facing the window, he could feel Samuel begin to squirm as he tried to rip from his tethers of enfeeblement. Unable to think of anything else, the weird sprung up and moved quickly towards the door of the apartment, his mind grabbing for any kind of plan that could get him out of his mess.
"W-where are you going?!" Samuel said, "You c-can't leave me like this!"
"You'll be fine, Samuel. Which is more than I can say for Letcher when I get my hands on him," Saxon said coolly over his shoulder before he swung his foot towards the edge of the door and smashed it open. With a hail of splinters and most of the tenants already downstairs, the eldritch stole away and tried desperately to come up with another plan.
Sunlight bled like a freshly squeezed orange as dawn broke the clouds and spilled over the horizon and into the landscape below. The land seemed to glow as it was bathed in sunshine which melted the frost that covered the grass and withered leaves. For such a beautiful, bone-creaking chilly day it couldn't have come at a worse time. Trimor and its inhabitants had continued to unravel since the ghastly murder of the young, nude woman in front of Iron Wing's doorstep. It had gotten bad enough that half the town still roamed around the streets in a daze, dressed in nightgowns, furs, and jackets while clutching weapons like pitchforks and muskets.
They hadn't even known what had transpired, but it already seemed as if their minds had been poisoned by the grisly scene. They whispered and hinted that this might have been more than a simple killing. Conclusions had already and inevitably been drawn to the idea that Rooksaw had finally stumbled upon their homestead and slain another poor, innocent woman.
Which, by itself, would have been fine. It was the kind of thing that got towns in the papers and shoved them into the public eye. The press would have come and eventually left to follow other stories, and the occasional marshal or detective would have came in to learn what they could about what happened to see if it led them further down the trail to the Butcher's identity. Things would have simmered, but in the end it would have cooled down.
Peering out of Truncheon's and across the street, Saxon knew it'd never be that simple on its own. He had thought long and hard about what had happened, and if Teller's familiarity with this Mora was any indication that she might have been an agent, things were about to boil over and fast. It was one thing for a civilian to die and for the authorities and the press to take a special interest in the case, but it was quite another for a member of the Sons of Purity to have bought the farm.
Once they get whiff of the news, the eldritch thought, they'll be falling from the sky to get here.
If that happened, the life of Trimor and its citizens could be measured in days. The town may have been loyal to the cause, but the Sons weren't the type of people to try and guess who had killed one of their own to get their pound of flesh. The entire village, Saxon included, would have to pay.
"I can't let that happen," Saxon whispered in a drawl as he looked down at strips of fresh, white paper he had been taking notes on and tried to peer between the lines for the answer that must have been staring him in the face.
Leaning over a porcelain basin filled with tepid water at the corner of his room, Saxon caught a glimpse of his rippling reflection early that morning. He ran a hand against his ragged and unkempt beard that he hadn't even bothered to have shaved for about a week, but he still looked to be a man in his thirties and still in his prime. Staring at the soft, pink flesh that made up his face and into his cold, hard blue eyes, the weird knew better. His appearance may have betrayed his age, but his eyes would never lie. He was older and wiser than a man who didn't look a day over thirty, and spoke like somebody who had walked further down the trail than most men his age.
Caught in a moment of inflection, Saxon touched his face again in a vain attempt to make sure it wasn't a mask he was wearing. As his thoughts rolled further back as far as he could remember, the weird had the rare experience in knowing that there were still years upon years that fell short from his memory's reach. The world he had come from, memories of his family, and even those he had grown up with were buried deep enough that he couldn't even remember what they had looked like.
Bending closer to the basin, Saxon spoke to his reflection with a dull, humbled demeanor, "I'm an old man looking into the face of something that shouldn't be." His breath distorted his reflection as it began to ripple, causing the moment of clarity to vanish. Turning his thoughts elsewhere, Saxon scooped his hands into the bowl and splashed his face with warm water.
Opening a tin can of white, puffy cream that smelled faintly of ginger, he took a brush and began to dab the goop all over his face. As he observed himself at work, the weird pulled a slab of mirror from the table and took a straight razor, the kind he often remembered various barbers having, and managed to reach his face before he heard a loud knock over his shoulder. "I'll be right there," the eldritch called as he set the razor and mirror down and threw a towel over his naked shoulder.
Taking three long steps towards the door, Saxon turned the brass knob and pulled the door open wide enough to see the balding head and drooping mustache that belonged to the sheriff, Patrick Hadley. "Yes?" The eldritch said, trying to bottle his apprehension with little success.
"Mornin', Fred. I apologize if I'm catching you at a bad time, but I'd like to have a chance to speak with you about what happened last night." Sheriff Hadley said in his stiff, southern drawl while he sized the weird up.
"Right, well.. uh.. I was getting ready to go out hunting, so if you want to talk now I think I can spare a couple minutes. Come in, Sheriff." Saxon said as he opened the door further and watched the middle-aged lawman stroll into the room and shut the door behind him. "Forgive me, but I think I'm going to continue shaving while we talk."
"By all means," The sheriff said as the eldritch moved past him and back to the basin. The man surveyed the room with a careful eye, and Saxon turned back in time to see the sheriff's gaze fixed upon the repeater that hung above his bed and whistled. "My, oh my. Where'd you manage to get your hands on one of these cold, blue beauties?"
"Like it?" Saxon said as he began to scrape the shaving cream and scraggly hair from his face and proceeded to lie, "Won it in a card game in a saloon in Montville a couple months back. The man I got it off of was a marshal and a big gambler. Was sure that he could get the clothes off my back with a pair, too. My straight flush got me the gun and thrown out of town, accused me of card cheatin' and all that. But, with losing something that expensive, wouldn't you?"
The sheriff chuckled and admired the long, cold blue barrel of the rifle. "You can bet your ass I would, friend."
"So what can I help you with, Sheriff?" Saxon said, angling the mirror enough that he could see the lawman as he walked about the apartment out of the corner of his eye.
"Well," He said as he walked over to the eldritch's desk and turned the chair so that he could sit and lean upon the back of it at the same time, "My deputy and I have been talkin' to everybody who has stayed in the 'Wing the night of poor Mora's passing. I just wanted to ask you a couple questions about it to see if you could shed some more light about what had happened."
The sheriff hadn't been lying about his investigation. As soon as he and his deputy had gotten word of Mora Olf's death, they had begun to look into it. They had gotten statements from witnesses, secured the crime scene, and taken their newest resident, Samuel Teller, into custody for further questioning. The sheriff, as far as the eldritch could observe, hadn't been sloppy as most small town lawmen were in those days. Far from it, in fact. He had taken great care in preserving the crime scene, analyzing the body of the victim and collecting evidence, using new techniques in forensics that as far as the weird had known, had just come into practice in big cities like Radasanth within the last couple years.
The lawman's ability as a sleuth was more than enough to make Saxon uneasy. His firm grasp upon the law and his eye for clues could become a problem, as far as the eldritch was concerned. But, he needed to learn more about how much of the story the sheriff and his deputy had pieced together before he could draw his own conclusions.
"So, where were you friday night, Fred?" The sheriff interrupted.
"Here. Was with a call-girl that evening. Shirley, I think she said her name was." Saxon replied as he fell into the same practiced story he made himself say over and over again until he could memorize it. The curly, black haired woman he was referring to would easily back up his story. For the right price, of course.
"Bit unusual to bring a woman back from the brothel to your apartment, son. In fact we tend to look down on that sort of thing in these parts." The sheriff's voice echoed behind him.
"I had a late night the day before and I didn't want to have to walk back after I was done with her. I'm sorry, though, if I had known you folks liked to keep it in the brothel, I would have honored that." Saxon explained.
"Right. Well, no harm done. If I decided to cuff a man for every time they decided to take the girls back home with em', I wouldn't have enough space in my jail left for the rest of the crooks." He laughed.
He's trying to feel me out, Saxon reminded himself as he finished with the first half of his face, To see if I fit the mold as a suspect.
"So when you and Shirley were having your fun, did you notice anybody doing anything suspicious?"
"To be honest with you, Sheriff. I can't remember a lot of what happened that night, if you know what I mean. But, I think I remember hearing some shouting over in Teller's room when I went downstairs to get more whiskey." The weird answered as he splashed his razor in the basin to clean it off.
"What kind of shouting?" The sheriff said, his mind shifting from the weird to the crime at hand.
"Angry kind, only type there is, Sheriff. I'm guessing it was Teller and some woman fighting. I don't really know what it was all about, but wasn't Mora's body found outside of Teller's broken window?" Saxon said.
"Huh. That's interesting. We found Teller on the floor trying to crawl out of his room with the door broken off its hinges. Know anything about that?" The sheriff said, his focus returning back to the eldritch.
Saxon had known that night that it'd be a hard sell to say that Teller had killed Mora. He was drugged, after all, and if they found him incapacitated with no trace of anybody else, it'd make the idea of there being a third man even more suspicious. "No idea. At that time I was settling up with Shirley when I heard the door crash. But it sounds like Mora put up quite a fight."
"Right." The sheriff said as he tried to conceal the obvious. Mora wouldn't have any marks indicating resistance, and Teller was probably singing like a canary that there had been a third man in that room.
But, the eldritch thought as he wiped off his face with the towel, At least Hadley can't place me there yet.
"Well, I think that's it for now so I'll let you get on doing what you were going to do. But, I'm going to need you to come down to my office some time when you're free to fill out a statement. I'll talk to Shirley later today to see if your alibi checks out, and then we'll see where we can take this." The sheriff explained genuinely as he got up from the chair.
Turning with a smile on his face, Saxon shook the sheriff's hand and said, "Alright, well I hope we can get this all cleared up and this poor woman can finally find some peace."
"Heh. Take it easy, son." Sheriff Hadley said as he looked him square in the eye and turned for the door. Looking for any reason to continue the conversation, the lawman moseyed back to the edge of the small room and stopped. Turning, the sheriff smiled as he put his hand on the brass knob, "Oh, and it goes without saying, Fred, but don't leave town until this all sorted out."
"Wouldn't dream of it, Sheriff."
Tipping his boss of the plains hat towards the eldritch, the sheriff opened the door and left. Feeling his luck beginning to finally pan out for him, the weird realized that there was a good chance the Sheriff's trail was running cold.
Tabitha Penns had woken up early the next day as she always had. The woman with the spun brown hair and spectacles had every reason to have gotten up early on a Sunday. The news of the woman who died at the Iron Wing had given her enough ammo to speed up an already slow news week and an excuse to be late for worship that day. She had dressed herself up fine and nice, ready to present her proposal to her boss and had even skipped breakfast to try and meet him before he left with his wife for church.
Collecting her roll of notes, pen, and purse she ticked her tongue as she looked herself in the mirror and fixed a loose strand of hair and adjusted the collar on her red jacket. The reporter gave herself the same practiced smile she always did when she knew she was about to get a big scoop. "Let’s see you shut me down now, Rick," she said between clenched teeth.
Making it to the end of the hall and towards the door of her home, Tabitha hummed quietly to herself and walked into the cold, early morning air. Turning back to shut and lock her door, she stopped and read the ugly, misshapen letters that had been carved into her door. As she stared at the ominous warning, her blood ran cold.
~*~
The press circled Trimor like sharks once it had been discovered that messages had been carved into the doors of the mayor, sheriff, and a local reporter. Alone, the messages wouldn't have spurred much interest at all, and would have probably been discarded as the work of some drunk trying to pull a practical joke. But, with both the untimely death of the bar waitress and its vague connection the Rooksaw killings, it was the bloodied lamb that drew newspaper men all over the country like a pack of hungry wolves. Trimor was shoved back into the spotlight for the first time since their reputation had been torn to shreds over their loyalty with the Sons of Purity.
To some of its citizens, the foreboding portents seemed like a godsend as travelers, reporters, and law enforcement came to the village in droves. Businesses were revived, merchants and farmers prospered, and it seemed as if things were finally going to be restored back to normal. To the more skeptical, however, there was a nagging worry that the sudden shift in the public eye might bring attention to all the wrong places. It was bad enough that Trimor had been exiled by 'high society' for its ties to witch-hunters, it'd be even worse if the press came back to finish the job.
Business had wound down late the following Wednesday evening, almost two days since the surge of activity had hit the town and washed over it like a wave. Saxon didn't get back from the forest until dark as the cold set in and the sky began to darken. He walked about the dirt streets as he made it back into the village, passing couples and throngs of people that all seemed to be a sea of new faces.
The eldritch had never been partial to crowds or entire legions of people that tended to invade the streets until the dead of night. But, as much of a recluse as he was, Saxon knew the influx of people were going to have to be a necessary evil. As long as it lasts, he thought, the wolves will circle.
Saxon had used his time on the streets to spot anything he might have found interesting or suspicious. He occasionally crossed paths with drifters or other strange characters, but rarely did he meet anybody in the last couple of days that he'd be wary of. The thing about people who spied in those days was that they all seemed to run on the same circuit. Black or white. Good or evil. They all seemed to follow the same routine. While a professional would try to attract attention and immerse themselves in the life of the town they were in to hide in plain sight, new guys would often make the mistake of trying to avoid attention and try and watch everything around them.
Saxon had kept it down to a science, his practiced eye surveying the streets that night as he walked to the butcher shop. It was hard to describe what exactly he looked for, because it was easy to mistake somebody who was just naturally reclusive for somebody trying to stay between the lines. They simply had a way about them that made them look like wolves in sheep's clothing. After so many years of doing this because his very life depended on it, the eldritch had turned it from practice into instinct.
As he walked past a store window with big, green stenciled letters that displayed sausages hung by links and salted meats, Saxon found himself at the butcher shop. He glanced inside the window as he made his way towards the door and found the shop to be unusually deserted for this time at night. Only two people remained inside, chatting quietly in the soft lamplight. The short and pudgy owner, Al, who wore an apron almost always covered in grease and dried blood stood from behind the counter filling out papers as he spoke casually to the tall, lean figure that stood in front of him.
As Saxon opened the door and crossed the threshold, a diminutive bell tinkled overhead. Glancing up from his paperwork, the butcher's stern face broke into a smile as he saw the eldritch enter. "'Ey, Fred! Welcome back." Al said in his thick accent he picked up from living in Radasanth.
"Evenin', Al." Saxon said in his drawl as he held up his pack that bulged with his kills for the day, "Got a lot fer you this time, friend."
"Great. If you just hold on one second, I'll be right with ya'." Al said with a smile before looking down to sign one of the papers with a fountain pen that looked too expensive for him. Flipping through the papers one last time as the trio stood there, the butcher handed them to the man who had been waiting silently. "Here. Let me know if you need to know anything else, alright?"
"Gladly," the man said in a voice that was unmistakably from the big city as he folded the papers and stuffed them and his pen into one of his jacket's inner pockets. "I'll be in touch, and thanks a lot for the cooperation."
"No prob." The butcher replied as he watched him begin to walk towards the doorway.
The man stopped in front of the eldritch and smiled and offered his hand, "Name's Garrett, Paul Garrett."
The man had been looking at the weird ever since he had come in, his expression dour and concentrated as if he was looking for something. Saxon could smell the cop on him as if it were bad cologne, his mind already ticking off all the details he had grown accustomed to looking for when trying to read somebody.
Shaking his hand firmly, the weird introduced himself. "Folks around these parts call me Fred. Fred Guyve."
"Ah. Well, Fred, I'll be making my rounds in town trying to collect information, and eventually I'll need to speak with you. So, whenever you’re free, let me know." The man spoke candidly as he began to move past him.
"Oh, and what is it you do again, Mister Garrett?" Saxon replied in his drawl as he watched him begin to leave. The man was dressed to the nines in threads that were considered too slick and usually only seen in cities like Radasanth. As Saxon looked him up and down, he gave him a once over. The man's oval face had a hawk nose and a brow that shadowed his stern, brown eyes. His brown hair was kept short and oiled, giving the illusion that he had just stepped out of the rain. He was a few inches taller than the eldritch but far thinner than he'd ever be, and Saxon would always remember the man's appearance as being synonymous with a hat rack.
Holding his fedora in hand, the city slicker laughed as he walked back towards him. "I'm sorry, I forgot to say. I work with the Fulsworth Detective Agency and I've been assigned to look into Mora Olf's murder."
"Right. Right! I remember reading about you boys in the papers, hired by the victim's families and all that. You guys really looking into that Rooksaw character?" Saxon said casually as he put his arm on the counter.
Raising his eyebrows in disbelief, the private detective put his fedora on his oiled scalp and corrected him, "Catch, Mister Guyve. We're going to catch Rooksaw and bring him to justice. Enough people have died to prove how many lives one man can destroy in less than a year, and now it's up to us to capture him."
"Right," Saxon manage to say with surprise as he watched the detective hop up on his soap box. For a moment the pair peered at each other as if trying to look for something that clearly wasn't there.
"Well, I better get going. I have four more places to hit before I can go eat. Have a good night, gentlemen." The lawman said as he tipped his hat and then turned around. And then he was gone.
Turning back to deal with Al who shook his head after the guy had left, he shrugged, "What?"
"Big city yahoo, am I right?" The butcher said as he took the eldritch's pack from him.
"Yeah, real strange duck." Saxon quietly replied as he turned away and his mind began to wander again.
Later that night, Saxon sat alone in his room by lamplight, confined to his thoughts while he toiled away with his books. The work had become almost second nature for him as he continued to scribe and take note of the twisted powers his pursuers bent to their will, leaving him plenty of room left in his brain to mull things over. At his feet, a stack of tomes and books bound by crisp leather continued to grow as the eldritch fed his hunger for knowledge. He had managed to keep himself hidden and safe, and all it had required him in return was to sit back and scheme.
Although the past month in Trimor had been slow going and largely uneventful, it was practically unheard of for the weird to find this much time to himself with little in the way of danger. For as long as he could remember, Saxon had always been on the move and always had something to do. This moment of peace, even if he had been the architect of it, was beginning to make him grow uneasy.
He'd been staying close to the papers and trying to prolong the village from falling into the hands of his enemies, but he was beginning to believe it was making him weak. He needed to stay active and vigilant. Peace, as far as he knew, could make a man complacent and lazy. And with danger lurking just outside of the city, waiting for the opportune moment to strike, Saxon couldn't let himself run into that pitfall.
He had searched for things to do to keep him occupied. The articles in the papers had become too convoluted since Rooksaw had taken center stage, making it impossible to look for anything else. His grimoire was almost finished, or rather, he was running out of things to take note of with only two books remaining. His hunt for game had remained the only thing in his life so far he had little control over, and the eldritch had managed to hold onto that excitement by doing it in his own way. But, the thrill of the hunt could only last for so long.
Saxon needed something else to bite into.
Dropping his stylus back into its inkwell, the weird sat back and looked into his reflection of the window in front of him. His thoughts turned to the arrival of Detective Garrett and what it would mean. It had been a complete wild card, but there was no reason in Saxon's mind to worry about it. Mora Olf had died at his hand, and only because she was a woman and happened to be murdered that she was being considered as Rooksaw's next victim. Garrett didn't look pigheaded or a man who wasted his time, he'd figure out a way to clear this up as soon as he got a look at the woman's body. And then he'd leave.
And then, Saxon realized, He'd have to officially rule out her murder as a part of Rooksaw's killing spree.
The press would move on, business would dry up, and the authorities would need to go spelunking elsewhere. And that could leave Trimor vulnerable again, Saxon thought. As dull as it had been moments before, the eldritch's mind began to race as he began to think of the possibilities. Of what it would mean for this town and himself if Garrett had called off the dogs of war.
Standing up so suddenly his inkwell tipped over and his stylus clattered to the ground, the eldritch raced to tip it back up and retrieved his utensil. Black, goopy ink began to drip and spread quickly over his desk, threatening to ruin his notes. Yelping, Saxon snapped up his grimoire and pushed the other books and papers to the floor as the ink continued to encroach the varnished maple battlegrounds.
As he reached for a rag to clean up the mess, Saxon's eye caught the ring the ink had left in the path of his journal before he had extracted it. It was then the body of Mora Olf and the office of the undertaker had reached his mind. Soon, an idea struck him.
The town had grown quiet as the dread of night sunk deep within their bones. It had been so cold that evening that even the brothel and bars had closed their doors early. A few drifters and drunkards wandered the streets, trying in vain to keep warm and fight the cool, slithering feeling of sleep back at death's door. Families sat near the warmth of their fireplaces to fight off the howling winds, their hearths bringing a sense of comfort and unity that allowed them to sleep with little to fear.
But, as the night continued to burn its oil, a black shadow slinked just out of the illumination of the dirt road's gas lamps. It slithered and crawled in the frigid dark, keeping ten paces behind anybody sober enough to notice it. It had the cover of night and cunning on its side, and as long as it remained in the shadows, there was no place in Trimor it couldn't touch.
That was the one part of the job Saxon thought he liked. Wrapped in a black, woolen blanket to keep him warm and hidden, the eldritch's teeth still chattered as he lurked about the streets. "If I had known it'd be this cold," he hissed, "I would have waited until tomorrow."
Even if he had wanted to, the eldritch couldn't have waited around for a convenient time to do this. He knew there were probably better ways to go about it, but he was running on the hope that Detective Garrett hadn't seen Mora's body yet. The entire town depended on it.
Look from one side of the street to the other as he turned a corner, Saxon dashed across it and up an incline once he thought the coast was clear. Trimor was a big place for such a small, countryside town. Aside from the center of town where the town hall, Iron Wing, and stores lay the rest of the buildings were spread out. As he walked further up and turned a sharp right to avoid the church and cemetery that sat on top of the hill, Saxon begrudgingly wondered how long it'd take to get there.
He'd already been to his house once before, he reminded himself, there was no reason to get flustered about it. He had all night and could keep himself warm for hours if he needed to. But, that was a big if. He needed to make this pit stop before he went in search of the undertaker's office and he needed to bring a friend to help him.
In short, it had taken Saxon less than twenty minutes to find the place again. The ranch house rested towards the edge of the city limit and next to Wolf's Run. It was the only solitary, diminutive house that hadn't been a farm that was drawn that far away from Trimor. But, given the conversation the eldritch was about to have, perhaps that was for the better.
Crossing the gap in the fences and into the yard that had been scarcely kept by the crackling of leaves underfoot, Saxon was almost there. With Amalarj tucked in his jacket for many of the same reasons he had done it the first time with Teller, the eldritch was blind as a bat. The weird had managed to reach fifteen feet to the porch of the large, eerily quiet ranch house when he heard a sound that caused him to stop dead.
The cocking of a shotgun.
"Hold it right there, you stupid son' bitch," an angry, stern voice called from darkness. The creaking of a rocking chair and the sound of a bitter, deep cough reached the ears of the weird. "I knew the bastard who carved up my door would be back. Pick yer reason, but what better night to do it than when on a cloudy night and in the cover of darkness."
Raising his hands in the air as he waited for the voice to continue, Saxon dared not to give anything away yet. There was too much at stake, and he needed the person holding that shotgun to hang on his every word. A long, awkward moment passed as the eldritch quietly listened to the heavy set man pull himself from the rocking chair and fight with whatever blankets he must have been wearing.
"So what brings ya' here, stranger? You have quite the set on ya' to be hitting the same house twice. Especially with that tin man huntin' for that killer in town." The man lectured as he walked around the porch as if he was searching for something. "Now don't you move a muscle while I find my gas lantern. Need to get a good look at ya' before I blow your brains out."
Saxon gravely hoped he was kidding.
After what seemed like an eternity, there was the sound of several sparks and a grunt before a flash of light caused the weird to hold his hands to his face, the blanket acting like a cowl that hid it from view. After a couple of seconds, the weird felt himself confident enough to look.
A fat, small figure brandishing a shotgun towered above him. The man was dressed in woolen clothes that would normally be used for winter and had a plaid blanket covering his shoulders. His pockmarked face and drooping mustache glowed in the lantern light as if he were staring into the bowels of the underworld itself. Peering at each other, it was Sheriff Patrick Hadley who said it first, "Fred Guyve? Is that you? What the Hell are you doing on my property?"
Much to Saxon's surprise, it hadn't taken nearly as long as he had thought to try to get his foot in the door and explain himself to the sheriff. Of course, he had omitted a few key details in his account of what was going on in town, but somehow he thought he got his point across. He needed help. And it seemed like the sheriff, being the sleuth that he was, could be sharp enough to work with him for the greater good. But, as the weird had discovered through decades of experience with situations like these, he had come across some very bright people who did very stupid things.
The small, stone fireplace that sat between the two men began to crackle and growl with hunger as the plump man turned to stoke the flames. As Saxon managed to finish his carefully weaved tale to the law man, he sat back in a stained, brocaded arm chair and pressed his fingers tips together as he watched the sheriff carefully. After a long while, the weird left Hadley to his thoughts and his eyes began to survey interior of the three room abode he had been invited into.
The entire place looked to have been cobbled together by brick and wood, and as the weird looked up to see the beams and crosscuts in the shadows above, he began to get lost in his own wandering mind. Trophies of the head's of deer, hog, and ram hung proudly about the man's walls as well as shelves of countless books and tomes that testified to his pursuit for balance. The resemblance to any kind of lawman stopped there with the clutter and heaps of clothes and belongings that sat everywhere. It was obvious the good sheriff had lived like a hermit for a very, very long time.
Slowly, Saxon's gaze returned to the paunchy, middle-aged man who had been staring at him the whole time, stroking his drooping mustache. Out of the corner of his eye, the eldritch was keenly aware that the sheriff's shotgun still sat at his side. Still within his reach. It wasn't the weapon that was beginning to make the eldritch uneasy, but time. He needed to get moving. Now.
"Well?" Saxon said, interrupting the uncomfortable silence for the first time in minutes.
"Well what? What do you expect me to say, boy?" The sheriff snapped as he looked at the weird with bubbling anger. Raising his hand and leveling three clubbed fingers in front of his face, the lawman spoke slowly and carefully, as if to make sure he could believe every word that was coming out of his own mouth. "You lied to me when I came to you the first time. And then waited almost three days after that lunatic carved into my door and two other respected members of this community to fill me in on a couple of details."
"I..."
"Shut up!" Hadley roared, silencing the eldritch as he pulled himself from his seat and crossed the fanning flames of his fireplace and bent low enough in front of the eldritch that their eyes were level. Saxon could smell the rank, eye-watering stench of whiskey on the lawman's breath and it was then that he began to pick up on the bleary-eyed sheriff's present condition. "The next words out of your mouth had better be convincing. And if you open your mouth to try and feed me this bullshit again, I'll throw you to the wolves."
Momentarily dumbfounded, Saxon regained his composure and stared at the sheriff with his icy blue eyes and smiled. Dropping his drawl and regaining his curious, elegant prose, the weird spoke. "That's fair, Sheriff. So, I'll put it simply for you. The only reason why you and I are still breathing is because the entire country is watching this town and being led to believe that Rooksaw has ventured here and taken roost. Once detective Garrett has discovered that Mora's killer isn't who everybody thinks it is, what will stop him from leaving and shifting the focus of this investigation elsewhere? What protection will you, I, and Trimor have from the Sons then?"
"I don't buy it," The sheriff said as he stepped back and straightened up, looking down at the eldritch with all the composure he could muster. "The Sons-- Father Letcher --They wouldn't topple an entire town. Not one that had supported them for so long. No, no! You’re trying to trick me. That's it."
"No, Hadley," Saxon replied coolly as he shook his head and rose his voice, speaking to the man candidly, "The Sons of Purity have burnt entire villages to the ground for less. Your credit with them will only go so far before they tear this place apart looking for the person who killed one of their agents."
Moving back into his chair, Sheriff Hadley sat down and stared into the crackling fire, trying to fathom the idea. He couldn't discount the possibility that those fanatics wouldn't come roaring into town, carrying torch and pitchfork looking for a scapegoat. And when nobody would stand up, what's to stop them from raiding the town? After awhile, Saxon began to lick his dried lips in anticipation. Pretty soon he'd have to leave, while the cover of night was still on his side.
"Let's say I believe you. That in some shape or fashion the Sons of Purity have kept an eye on this town and poor Mora was one of them. What's stopping me from believing you had a bigger hand in this than your telling me? Why shouldn't I call my deputy to come down here and help me get the truth from you?" The sheriff said as he trailed off into a whisper, the light slowly fading from his eyes in quiet desperation.
"Because, Sheriff." Saxon said as he bent forward and stared at him eye-to-eye, "You'd be wasting time. If Garrett had already seen Mora's body, you wouldn't have even given this another thought. We both know the detective will be there if not today, it'll be tomorrow. And after that, you'll need to give it careful thought what to say when Letcher gets here."
"What are you asking me to do?" The Sheriff retorted as he looked back at the weird for the first time in the past ten minutes, "Convince the detective that the body with no bruises or signs of mutilation is just one of Rooksaw's weekend freebies?"
"No," Saxon answered as he rested his arms upon the chair and eyed the lawman carefully, "You and I are going to lead him astray by making him think exactly what he's already convincing himself of."
It didn't take long for both the sheriff and eldritch to come to some sort of solemn agreement and steal off into the night. Over a hundred souls saved in exchange for a little nudge in the wrong direction. Looking back on it, Saxon realized he probably should have considered a better alternative.
Midnight came and went as Sheriff Hadley escorted Saxon to the undertaker's office. The pair had been walking down the dirt road and away from the town for a good hour before they had spotted the small, dilapidated shack that seemed to glow in the sickly, pale moonlight. The eldritch was vaguely aware that ever since he had and the sheriff had left his house and the town square, they hadn't passed another house or even a tree for over three miles until they had reached the undertaker's home and office. It was only once they drew closer that they entered the small, bubbling bog that the mortician had insisted living right at the edge of.
The sounds of crickets and the groan of firs and poplars in the howling winds gave Saxon gooseflesh as they entered the swamp, walking upon the planked walkways that had been laid out for them. Something about it all just seemed to give the weird the willies.
As they made it to the door, Sheriff Hadley had finally explained why they had traveled so far to reach the undertaker. Given his macabre practice, the town council had instructed the mortician to hang his shingle outside the city limits. Wilmer Falheim was all too happy to oblige. He had loathed Trimor and was very eager to live alone and stay both out of sight and mind if the community at large would share the same courtesy. The sheriff had even gone as far to say that he and his deputy were probably the only living people Falheim had come in contact within the last eight years.
Saxon saw the ghostly, pallid light that peeked from under the ramshackle door that barely hung on its hinges and heard the small muttering sounds of something that dwelled inside. With practiced grace, the sheriff reached out to the door and rapped thrice before backing up a couple steps and looking to his partner in crime, "Falheim doesn't like anybody. Hell, it took him about four years to get used to dealing with me. If you know what's good for you, you'll stay quiet and out of the way--Oh, and do not stare at him. He hates that."
Just as the eldritch was about to reply, the loud clack of a dead bolt being pulled and dropped caused him to quickly fall silent. Wrenching open the door, an ogre of a man, too tall for the door frame bent down to greet them. He looked like that of a Neanderthal. His raised forehead and black, greasy hair that lay pasted to his pate, beady brown eyes, and a long, scraggly beard that seemed to hide much of his face were the first things Saxon had noticed about the stranger. The overalls, bloody apron and the large bone saw that he clutched threateningly in his right hand soon followed.
"I thought I told you I'd have Gregory ready by next tuesday, Patrick. Not before." The hulking mortician boomed as he glared at him. His entire body was hunched just enough so that he could make it halfway out the doorway.
"Wilmer, I'm sorry to bother you, but my associate, Fred, and I need to take a look at Mora's body. There were a couple details we needed to work out before she's handed over to the county." Hadley explained as if he were just talking to an old friend and not a monster holding a saw still caked with blood.
The undertaker looked from the sheriff to the eldritch for a few moments before he turned and rumbled, "If you must. But, I recommend keeping it short, Lavernya is due back from her evening meal and I don't think she'd take as kindly to a stranger as I would."
Watching the giant crab leg across the room and out of sight, Saxon turned around and scowled at the sheriff, "I thought you said he lived alone."
"He does," Hadley whispered hurriedly, his eyes darting from left to right, "Lavernya is his pet. A spider about the size of a milk wagon."
"And you condone that?" Saxon said as the pair passed through the threshold and into the home, shuffling upon the dirt floor as it lowered further and further into the ground.
The lawman merely shrugged, "Do you want to be the one to tell him that he can't have a maneater as a pet? Now if you'd please, I'd like to get this over with before I have to see her again."
After Sheriff Hadley turned to shut the door, the pair shuffled further into the bungalow without another word. The architecture of the shack may have been crude on the outside, it looked completely different from the inside. An ornate, cobble stoned fireplace sat off to one side of the room, the soft glow of embers casting dark shadows on the rest of the house. Amalarj had allowed Saxon to admire the delicately built rotunda that made out the main room. A table that almost stood to his shoulder sat in the middle of the room but not much of anything else except for cupboards and dusty counters. The lack of any kind of human warmth or comfort in the room made was almost as disturbing as the person who resided here.
In a distant part of the dark house, the padding of giant footsteps could be heard with what the weird could have sworn as a saw biting through flesh. The fat lawman took the lead as they moved into a dark corridor branching off to a separate part of the house and away from where the giant must have been. As they trekked further and further into the house, it was only when Saxon felt the incline that he knew they were moving deeper into the house. As soon as the sheriff realized they were alone, he began to talk about the history of the place and the behemoth who resided here. None of it the eldritch was really paying attention to as he retreated deeper and deeper within his wandering mind.
It took several minutes of navigating the twisting corridors before they stumbled upon Mora's final resting place.
Unlike the rest of the house, this room in particular was almost bathed white with soft, subtle lamplight. Upon slabs of stone that stretched on either side of the room in rows lay bodies draped in white linen cloths, each possessing a yellow toe tag that identified them as well as when and how they died. It was a peaceful, quiet place that was laid out with all sorts of tools and jars filled with curious, strange smelling substances.
As the sheriff and weird made their way side-by-side to the end of the row where Mora's body lay, a thought had occurred to him. Hadley had mentioned in passing that only three other people knew the true extent of the bar waitress's injuries, and that was just too many in Saxon's book. The undertaker, the deputy, and an old farmer that had helped load and carry her body on his wagon to the undertaker.
But, it was something he was going to have to worry about later.
Standing over on the other side of the body, the sheriff looked down at her and muttered, "I've never lied on a case before, not in over twenty years. A part of me wishes that I didn't have to, but we need to protect the town."
Fixing his gaze at the lawman as he listened to him, Saxon replied, "We're doing the right thing here, sheriff. All you need to do is stand back and let me work and I'll be able to make it look like Rooksaw did it."
"And how the Hell are you going to go about that, Fred?" Hadley said flatly, putting all the emphasis on the weird's alter ego. It was a fair question, but the eldritch had been preparing to answer it for quite some time.
"I've been reading the papers. They said what exactly he did to the women he killed. It's not going to take a genius to rip her fingers off and pull out some organs. It'll be easy." The eldritch explained as he stared down at the shroud, trying to figure out what he'd try and do first.
"But, what if they were withholding a detail of some kind? Something he did in order to have a way to separate the copy cat killers from the real thing?" The sheriff asked as they both stood there in thought.
"Just pull off the cover while I go try and find a knife, will you? I'll be right back." Saxon said, dismissing the possibility. It wasn't something Saxon had considered, but he had come too far to worry about little details like that to get in his way. He needed to buy a week, maybe two at the most to figure out the lay of the land for another plan. The eldritch had always known this would be temporary, but time was something he was in dire short supply of.
As he turned to wander off and look for some sort of blade to work with, he heard the wisping sound of a sheet being pulled from Mora's cold remains and a gasp that shortly followed. Whirling around, Saxon was about to say something when he followed the sheriff's petrified gaze and looked down at the body of the bar waitress.
Carved deep into her body, almost to the bone, the same word covered her body until it was hard to recognize where the cuts ended and the woman began. It was repeated over and over again in a random, maniacal pattern. Feeling his knees weak as he walked slowly back to the slab, the eldritch stared at the big, bold message that lay sliced from between woman's breasts to her lower abdomen in quiet humility.
Liar.
Cremation had been local custom for burial in those days, mostly in big cities because it was deemed both more sanitary and an adequate way for city planners to maximize the use of land in a city without having to worry about building around cemeteries and mausoleums. Twenty years later, small towns across the country began to adopt the process as a way of fighting off a plague that had long since ran its course. Because of its religious roots, Trimor made the act of cremating remains open ended, and gave the family of the deceased a week to claim the body for burial before the village would intervene and take care of it.
Sometimes, however, people tend to fall through the cracks of the system. Happens all the time, Hadley assured the eldritch as they lugged the body of Mora Olf tangled in her shroud to the furnace in the back of Falheim's bungalow. Carrying his share of the stiff and heavy burden, Saxon had kept his grip tight but had remained silent. His thoughts circled around who it could possibly be that had known. Or if they had known the eldritch was behind it all along.
The cool, brisk air that seeped into the weird's flesh as they made it outside was enough for him to tuck the matter in the back of his mind for later. On the other side of the artificial island in the dark bog was a giant, bricked dome that had been specially created for the sole purpose of burning the dead. It had been bigger than Saxon had imagined as he and the sheriff wrestled the corpse onto a thin, soapstone slab that laid upon a bed of wheels stretching all the way to the big, rust coloured artifice Hadley had kept insisting on calling 'the cooker'.
Stepping over to the levers that had operated the thing, the lawman had pulled with practiced ease upon a red lever, ready to be done with the body once and for all. The ballooned hatch tipped up and open upon squeaky hinges and revealed a bed of kindled, orange hunger. The fire licked and spat embers as it fed greedily upon the cool, night air. Hand upon a second lever, Sheriff Hadley looked down at the body and said, "We're going to have to find out who did this. The murder, the mutilation--everything."
"Later," Saxon ordered as he kept his gaze fixed on the hungry flames. He wasn't about to discuss what would need to be done while they were in the middle of this. Not now. Nodding to the lawman to proceed, the eldritch did everything he could to ignore the ghastly scars upon the woman's body that hid just beneath the soft, white death shroud.
With the whirr and cough of an engine that sounded far too old, the short conveyer belt began to grind as it carried Mora off on the last ferry to oblivion. Only once the pair began to smell the stench of burning flesh and Mora's body was lost to the flames did Hadley raise the lever to close the hatch.
Standing side by side as they peered at the furnace, oranges and yellows danced furiously off the faces of the two unconventional allies. It was Saxon who spoke up first, still entranced by the dancing flames. "What will Wilmer do about this? Could he even be the one who carved her up?"
"Once I talk to him, he'll stay quiet. And no, I don't think Wilmer is behind this. The only thing that he holds more dear than himself or his pet is the dead. Told me one time that he considered what he does to be an art. He'd never do that to a human body. Not in a million years." Hadley explained.
The sheriff and the weird had both been in such a rush to cover up the horrific mutilation that neither of them had stopped to consider the consequences of their actions. It had been a mutual fear that had driven them to this, the eldritch realized. It had fed upon them like a fat, slimy leech. And as the two watched the destruction of damning evidence, they became aware that each of them had more personal demons than the other had first thought.
The next day had veiled last night's revelations in shades of gray, leaving Saxon to await the news with a lot on his mind. Before he and the sheriff had parted ways at that ungodly hour, the eldritch had insisted they would need to meet again the following evening. Hadley had reluctantly agreed, but still argued that there was little need to rush things just so that Saxon could have been brought up to speed with what Garrett would eventually say. To the weird, that was unacceptable. He needed to know what the detective was going to do before he actually did it.
"There's such a thing as foresight," the weird had told the lawman. It was enough that he had dragged Hadley into this because he needed a connection on the inside, but it was going to be a struggle to keep things under control if Hadley was going to fight him every step of the way. So while the sheriff tried to convince the undertaker and come up with an explanation to give the sleuth, Saxon was left to stew over lunch at Truncheon's.
He couldn't take his mind off of Mora's scars and the knowledge that there was somebody out there watching him. The single act had barraged the eldritch with questions he couldn't answer yet. How much did the carver know? How would he know that Saxon had come to make it look like the Rooksaw had killed the wench when the only other person he had told was with him in the room at the time? But, most of all, who was he?
Saxon had immediately suspected that it had been the handiwork of Samuel Teller, but had just as easily dismissed the idea. Ever since the murder, the spy had been put behind bars by Hadley and his deputy until they could straighten things out. And even if Teller had been free, there was no reason for the eldritch to believe he could have pieced so much together. The link between Mora and Rooksaw had been just a rumor, so going to such lengths to prove that it hadn't been Rooksaw's doing would have been out of character for Teller, especially since his innocence depended on it.
No, the weird realized, the carver must have been somebody that had been onto him for some time. It was someone who realized what he was trying to do and was keen enough at the same time to stay a couple steps ahead. As Saxon sat in the booth he had grown to use as a regular, he looked up and surveyed the diner and its patrons. Trimor's finest, both old and young, sat around and ate while they talked, none of them looking particularly out of place or of very much interest. To the eldritch, they all looked like sheep, but he knew he'd have to suspect every one of them.
"Like a wolf in sheep's clothing," Saxon muttered as his gaze dropped back down to the half-eaten corned beef sandwich and hash that sat in front of him. Putting the inquisition to the side for the moment, the weird began to eat his meal that had long since grown cold.
Letting himself enjoy one of the few remaining pleasures in his life, Saxon was mopping up the remaining sauce from his sandwich with a crust of bread when somebody sat down in front of him. Smelling the familiar stingy cologne he had caught a whiff of that fateful evening at the butcher, the eldritch didn't even bother to look up from his lunch to know who it was. "Afternoon, Garrett."
"Very perceptive," the detective said coolly as he took off his gray fedora and sat it off to the side. Watching the eldritch carefully, the sleuth ran a hand across his greased hair and slid his arm across the back of the booth. "I'm sorry to bother you, but I felt it was time to get this meeting between us out of the way."
"What's the hurry?" Saxon replied even though he was sure he already knew the answer. The weird realized that the detective had a way about him that was unusual. A sort of social quirk that everybody but Garrett seemed to pick up on. But, Saxon's gut told him that it shouldn't have any bearing upon his nose for investigation. Things like that rarely did.
Looking down at him, Garrett smiled, "Yes, I know. I'm moving awfully fast after being here for only a day, but I'm sure you and the rest of the folks in Trimor will grow to realize that Fulsworth has taken this case very seriously."
"So how can I help?"
"Yes, I was just getting to that," he said as he pulled a bulging, manila folder from underneath his hat. Rubbing the side of his nose as he immediately began to riffle through his papers, the detective took several minutes before he continued, "It says here in the sheriff's report that you were at the scene of the murder. Before and even afterwards with a miss... Shirley Dawson? Ring any bells?"
"Yeah, she was the call-girl I brought back from the Lauret earlier that evening. We were in my room for most of the night, and with what we were up to I don't think there was much of a chance for me to hear much of what went on that night." The weird said as he tried to tip-toe carefully around the question. He had managed to get to Shirley right after he had been questioned by the Sheriff. It had costed him more than a few bags of crowns, but the prostitute eventually began to see things his way.
"Oh." The sleuth said as he looked back down to turn a couple pages and follow a couple lines with his finger, "Well it says right here that you had gone out a few times to grab some liquor for you two. Now, I don't mean to nit-pick, but you had also mentioned you heard a 'man and a woman yelling very loudly at the other end of the corridor', in Teller's room too, I believe. Now with all this yelling going on, doesn't it seem a bit unlikely that you'd have to go outside to hear all that racket?"
Silently cursing himself for falling into the detective's trap, Saxon's face betrayed his thoughts as he smiled at Garrett who had been giving him a quizzical look. "Look, mister. I don't know how well you know Miss Shirley, but she has some definite talent in some of the more erotic arts of her profession. As many of the locals will agree, I'm sure, I can't believe I managed to get out of bed that night with some of the things she was doing to me, much less hear the spat that seemed to be going on."
"Right, well it does mention that Miss Dawson did back up your story that you two were together that evening, so I suppose that you're right on that account," The detective responded before scratching his head as he shuffled through more of the sheriff's notes, "But something is still bothering me, Fred."
"Like what?"
Clicking his pen to scribble a few of his own observations before closing the folder and folding his hands upon them, Garrett looked confident as he looked to the weird carefully, "Now, when you mentioned that you had heard this screaming, or arguing as you had so aptly put it, there is a bit of snag there. It seems that none of the other patrons heard any indication that there was an argument before that poor woman had been thrown out the window. So, it makes me concerned that it's frankly your word against the statements of over twelve other people, not including Samuel Teller who was in the room at the time. . ."
"So what are you saying, detective?" Saxon interrupted, stressing the man's title with a sense of irritation.
Taking one of the weird's remaining pickle slices without apology, the detective munched on it before he pointed it at him and chuckled, "You're a funny guy, Fred. Which makes what I'm about to say even harder."
"What?" Saxon shrugged, the gears in his mind quickly beginning to turn as he tried to read the detective and the game he was playing. Garrett seemed to be so off the wall and unpredictable that it was hard to try and keep up with him, much less try and stay a step ahead.
Finishing the slice, the detective smiled like a cat that has just caught the canary, "Let's cut to the chase, Fred. I'm convinced that you're lying, though for what reason I'm not entirely sure yet. But, let me just make this absolutely clear for you, Mister Guyve. I'm here to catch a killer, so if you're thinking about keeping anything from me, I'd like to warn you that eventually I'm going to find out. One way or another. However long it takes."
"I've got nothing to say, Garrett." Saxon said as he watched the reins of the investigation quickly slip out of his control.
"Well then," The sleuth said as he slapped his fedora back down upon his head and moved to get out of the booth, "You and I will have a lot more to talk about than I thought. So, while I'm here in town trying to do real police work, I'll give you a day to try and rethink that answer before I take it seriously."
"What makes you think I'm going to change my mind?" Saxon said coldly as he stood to confront the detective, his anger beginning to get the better of him.
"To be honest with you, Fred, I'm doing this out of courtesy. Because, whether you know it or not, you're the only person I can place at the scene whose story differs from everybody else. So that puts you only a couple pegs from becoming prime suspect in this investigation, Guyve." The detective explained his voice a measure of calm and certainty that was as good as a slap in the face to the eldritch. "So, if you'd like to keep your freedom and your privacy, I suggest you start playing ball with me, Fred. I'll talk to you tomorrow to see if you've reconsidered."
As he watched Garrett leave, Saxon felt speechless for the first time in recent memory. All he knew, however, was that the sooner he could quit Trimor for greener pastures, the better.
~*~
It took more than a single night to cover the bulk of the journal Viktor's father had written over a year ago. After the first night, the young soldier managed to teach his girl not only how to decipher the journal but to pick apart the meaning behind much of it, which was really the key to understanding the story his father often tried to write about. Beneath the veneer, Anne became enticed with the dark story that was unfolding before her. It told of a killer that was just beginning to roam the country to claim his victims, of a backwoods cult that was on the cusp of uncovering the tracks of Saxon who in turn was desperately trying to cover up a murder he committed.
All of it was connected.
As the days passed by, Anne became more and more buried in the journal of the ramblings of a man whose family had it on good authority he was probably going mad. She couldn't help it, and eventually felt the allure that all people not of the Fibonacci house felt when uncovering these stories for the first time. It wasn't healthy, but Viktor knew the stages of this dark obsession like a sponsor to an alcoholic. All of his friends or acquaintances that attempted this all fell under the same red flags. All it took to break it was to finish reading the story and the realization of Fibonacci's madness. Nobody ever truly believed him on his word alone. They needed proof. And since his father wasn't here to give it to them, the grim reality caused them to go cold turkey.
At least that's what Viktor believed on Friday, a day after he had given Anne the journal. As the days passed, his beloved fell deeper and deeper into the black heart of this tale and grew more and more reclusive as she attempted to read it all. Eventually Viktor took the journal away from her so that they could have a night on the town and a break from the obsession, but it was never that easy to take an addict off tap.
All she would talk about during dinner was about Saxon. What was he going to do? How was he going to get out of Trimor alive? Who was the Rooksaw butcher and why was he killing so many people? The questions came and went so fast that Viktor couldn't even answer her. For the majority of the dinner his face was deadpan as he refused to accept the sad fact that in an attempt to make someone he loved understand what he was going through and somehow escape the reality that his family was beginning to self-destruct, he had turned Anne into his father.
On Sunday they argued for hours over whether or not Anne could keep the journal with her when he would eventually have to ship out for Salvar the following Thursday. Viktor was completely against having her obsess over this while she wasn't under his careful watch. Though, it wasn't like that had helped matters anyway. He just didn't want to lose somebody he was falling so deeply in love with to his father. Not like Sara. Not like Noah.
Not again.
Finally, Anne conceded. She was over three-quarters of the way through the journal and the spell was beginning to break. All she would have to do is stay up a single night or two and read the rest of it. After she finished and got it out of her system she could move on and put it behind her. Viktor could see the desperation in her eyes that somehow she wanted him to believe her, but the yearning of this spellbound book and how lifelike it was becoming had made her prisoner. Her shackles were the binding, her prison the yellowed parchment, and her torture the dry ink that led her deeper and deeper down the rabbit hole.
It was a half-hearted plan, and on Monday Anne went for it. She read for the entire day and night, only pausing to eat and have a smoke with Viktor outside of her apartment. Eventually the tragedy of what she was reading unfolded and as all of the details were coming together and the climax was reaching its final crescendo the worst happened.
"Viktor!" Anne yelled as she ran looked disbelievingly at the journal she had poured her heart and soul into for over four days, unable to believe what she saw. Sitting on the windowsill halfway up the staircase to the second floor of her apartment, she had been using the full moon as her light in this fool's errand.
As a faithful lover and companion, Viktor came running from downstairs where he had been preparing his gear for his eventual departure. He had taken his full ruck, uniform and rifle from the barracks and kept it with him at Anne's apartment while he tried to cope with her unraveling. He had just finished packing his survival gear and had been field-stripping and oiling his Winchester while in the middle of a cigarette when he heard his girlfriend scream for him.
Thinking she had fallen or was hurt, he knocked over his chair and ran from the other room, cigarette still in his mouth. Dashing to the banister of the staircase, Viktor saw his girlfriend sitting at the windowsill while tears rolled down her cheeks. Walking slowly up the white carpeted stairs to his lover, he sat on the stair beside her and whispered so low he could barely even hear himself as the young soldier found himself fighting the urge to freak out. "What's wrong, Anne?"
Staring at the red cover of the other side of the book as the journal lay open on her lap; Anne's eyes were red with tears. Having tried to fight in vain against journal's curse and Fibonacci's alluring madness, Anne pointed to the gnarled remains that lay within the binding of that malevolent red book.
"The last pages are missing," She whispered as they both looked at each other and saw the hope die in one another's eyes.
Spoils
This is part 1 of 3. Hopefully.
For spoils, I'd like for Saxon to receive the following;
The Warden - A grimoire written by Saxon over sixty years ago during his refuge in the town of Trimor, Corone. It contains every spell, incantation, and ritual practiced by the Sons of Purity during their inquisition or witch-hunts. Containing some of the most vile and dark secrets of black magics used by the backwoods cult, Saxon had intended on recording it for later use against his hated enemy. It also contains notes and detailed descriptions of the Sons of Purity during that time. Some of the members might even still be alive today. It's encoded and can only be read with some sort of key, otherwise it just sounds like gibberish.
It's last known location is that it was buried within the ruins of once was the town of Trimor by Saxon over sixty years ago.
Pinkerton-Wannabe - Something that crossed over from his previous life, Saxon is a sleuth through-and-through. He can pick apart details of a crime and analyze them remarkably fast, making him a very keen investigator when on the hunt for something. What's the hallmark of this ability, however, is Saxon's ability to become a human lie detector. With practice, Saxon is able to read people and tell whether or not they are speaking the truth by judging body movement, sweat, and demeanour. After all, it takes a liar to know a liar, right? This ability works in a range of 1 level below and above him.
Half of the experience awarded to Saxon from this quest goes to the account Fibonacci as per their mutual ability called "The Link".
Taskmienster
02-06-10, 06:09 PM
Of Saints and Devils :: As requested, it’ll be full commentary judging, which has taken a little bit more time than I normally take, though at the same time I have been delayed quite a bit beyond that. Very sorry about that. A further note, this is one of the better written pieces I’ve seen, in terms of mechanics, but in terms of storytelling… it was slow and somewhat lacking.
Continuity 5
:: In the second post you had a chat with the girl about Viktor’s kill… but why does he have a gun? Does he still have it? How does she know what one is? Little questions like that come up quite a bit because outside of Alerar and the military that’s aligned with them in Salvar, the use of guns on Althanas is minimal at best. It’s not necessarily well known knowledge for everyone.
Setting 6
:: [[The strangest addition, however, had come in the shape of a ham radio.]] :: A radio? I understand you have a bit of a difference between what you show on Althanas, and what the world really is… as can be noted in the fact that you nonchalantly comment about guns and such. However, it doesn’t make sense to me. How does the radio even work in a fantasy based world that doesn’t have radio towers, and how would that have even been considered something realistic for the setting? (From post 6)
:: Other than the random stuff that’s noted above, the general setting of the story is well done. Sometimes I feel like you forget to add or continue with the setting at times, but all in all it’s not poorly done. The settings that you create are lively enough, but have no feeling. It’s more like looking at a picture than actually being there.
Pacing 4
:: The transition from Viktor’s story-arch to that of Saxon was done with the little 5th post… however, as I read into the 6th and 7th post I couldn’t help but force myself to go back and try and figure out just what had happened to create the completely different perspective and where Saxon had come from. It was a jolting transition that suddenly put me somewhere else, doing something else, with another person, and yet I didn’t realize that I had transitioned. When writing with only one perspective and one character, that would be PERFECT pacing. However, to flow from one person to the next, so easily, and yet find yourself halfway through a post or into the second post about them and not knowing why you’re reading about someone or knowing what exactly happened that brought you to them… that made it hard to follow and hurt the pacing. It wasn’t terribly done, but it would have been better if you had explained a bit more, perhaps starting with what and who the Son’s of Purity are. They seem to be the focus of Saxon, whereas Viktor is focused on alcoholism of his mother and general info gathering of past father issues. The two different perspectives really should be hashed out a little more detailed, as they both are intricately part of the story, and yet don’t get enough attention through the way the transitions were written in order for the reader to understand.
:: [] :: but even as… and the thought isn’t completed.
Dialogue 6
:: The dialogue is well done, stays relatively consistent at all times, though I’ll make a note in the persona about what I saw that could have also helped the dialogue section. Give the words meaning, you express some emotion through what it said, and that’s always great. But the rest, is outside of the dialogue, which affects the dialogue in its own way. I’m not going to bother taking off for the persona issue that brought about my comment for this though.
Action 5
:: [[Floorboards creaked loudly as Saxon stole into the room, abandoning his stealth for a better seat at the show. He knew the effects of the camis root first hand, and both Teller and anybody he had shared the accursed bottle with would be in a veritable coma until dawn. Taking three quick steps towards the source of the cantankerous slumber, Saxon tripped over a large, unyielding lump and fell face first into a squishy, soft exterior that must have been the bed.]] :: There are a few parts of this passage, which I see as a lot of action text. In this part, the first thing that stands out most is the second part of the first sentence, “abandoning his stealth… the show”. The wording stands out most, which causes a lot of confusion, and makes it seem like you are beginning to mount to something much bigger than it really grows to be. Further, as the reader continues, you say something about a “camis root”, but don’t explain what it is or what it does, nor do you explain what the “Teller” or other people that shared some “bottle” with know about. Post 14
:: Generally, the action in the thread was purposeful, but confusing. It was hard to follow, and harder to understand. At times, I knew what he was doing, but had absolutely no clue why because of the way it was worded… or vice versa, had no clue what he was doing, but could (in a roundabout way) understand why he was doing what he was doing. Clearing up the action by writing in a more concise style, or making sure to make it a bit more understandable sentence to sentence would help with the action a lot.
Persona 4
:: The general dialogue gave off enough persona to keep this from dropping lower, but all in all there was very little in the writing itself that contributed. A lot of what I read was mostly just confusing. When it comes to persona, I had no understanding of where certain aspects of personality were coming from. Giving hints as to what caused a character to say or do certain things would help a lot, even using words other than “said” in place of how a character spoke would add to the personality of the character. When reading, it’s like seeing pictures with words coming from them. Still life pictures, no emotions shown, but dialogue trying to pass the still picture to give the words meaning. Don’t make things static, give it life, and it would be much better for the reader.
Technique 5
:: [[Viktor says while gesturing with his hands, completely drawn into his tale as he walks over the very ground his father ran on to get away from his family the day of his daughter's murder.]] :: This is a quick stint into a different tense, from past to present tense. Later in the same post you have a couple parts that are also the same switch (quoting both below). From post 2
:: [[Closing the door, he presses a finger to his lips, and holds her hand as he leads her towards the banister and up the steps before he remembers something and whispers]] :: post 2
:: [] :: post 2
[u] Mechanics 6
:: [[He managed to pick out the bits of his clothing that had been torn from his body in last night which seemed just a lifetime away.]] :: “in last night” should have been “the night before” and “seemed just” should have been “seemed a lifetime away”.
:: [[He chose to bide his time while those that hunted him searched high and low by learning more about them.]] :: There are too many pronouns in this, and not enough explanations of who each one is attributed to. He chose, his time, hunted him, about them. I’m not sure who “them” is? Is it supposed to be the people that are hunting him? And did you mean to say that Saxon was learning more about them? Or that Saxon was being learned about by them? Just a typo that also confused me a lot with the clarity of the way it was written. Post 10
:: [[The cool, calm shade that hung beneath the a poplar more than five feet away seemed to darken to sable as it rose eerily from its post and grew into a long, withered arm that ended in a claw that only Saxon seemed to be able to control.]] :: typo, from post 11
Clarity 3
:: [[He smiled as the memories of last night while under Anne's roof came rushing back.]] :: This is as much clarity as it is mechanics… when you read this out loud, as I did a couple of times after looking over it the first time, you realize that there are a couple comma’s missing in it. You should have had one between ‘night while’ and ‘roof came’. Otherwise it’s a dependent clause stuck between an independent clause that isn’t set apart enough to be clear. From post 4.
:: [[Villagers had called the place the stomping grounds for predators, and with the woodlands rife with game, it became a brutal struggle between hunters of both man and beast to root them out.]] :: This is another example of “them” being used when what it refers to is unclear. Do you mean “them” as in the predators, which came before the dependent clause in the commas, or them as in the game? The way it reads aloud makes it confusing as to what “them” is referring to. Post 11
:: [[A week passed within Trimor with much mediocrity and little importance.]] :: A week passed from the point of Saxon wandering in the forest? Or did you mean “had” passed leading up to him being in the forest? Post 11.
Wild Card 5
:: Just a personal thing that I’m not too keen on, and not going to take points off of for, but just want to point it out. There are, in the second post, three paragraphs almost every other one at the end, which start with an action noun (gerunds). It’s not bad now and then, but at the same time, there seem to be too many gerunds in a row that make it read awkwardly.
:: [[And now somebody had dared to poke around in the trove of his family's secrets.]] :: Typical grammatical error that can be used, but at the same time it is a typical error that happens with less experienced writers. I didn’t take off for it, but you shouldn’t start sentences with conjunctions. From post 2
[b] Score: 49
Rewards:
Saxon receives :: 1500 exp and 245 gold
[[Spoils approved, though anything in the book that regards spells/incantations/rituals will have to be learned through quests or approved in level ups.]]
Taskmienster
02-06-10, 06:16 PM
Exp and GP added.
Saxon receives half, Fibonacci receives half. Due to a mistake, you were already level 2 by about 800 exp, I changed that to reflect the level you were supposed to have already.
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