View Full Version : The Restless Fugitive (Closed)
The Restless Fugitive (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SQz-lG8AZp8)
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References events depicted in: Dead Sun Rising (http://www.althanas.com/world/showthread.php?21566-The-Catacombs-of-Scara-Brae-Dead-Sun-Rising), Stairway to Heaven (http://www.althanas.com/world/showthread.php?23404-Stairway-to-Heaven&highlight=Dead+Sun+Rising), Little Miss Monocle (http://www.althanas.com/world/showthread.php?21779-Little-Miss-Monocle-(Closed)&highlight=Lucian%27s+Call), Lucian's Call (http://www.althanas.com/world/showthread.php?19487-Lucian-s-Call-(Solo)&highlight=Lucian), Night of Debauchery (http://www.althanas.com/world/showthread.php?24066-The-Night-of-Debauchery&highlight=Night+of+debauchery), Across Ocean's Blue (http://www.althanas.com/world/showthread.php?22911-Across-Oceans-Blue-(Closed)&highlight=Across+Ocean%27s+Blue), The Hand That Feeds (http://www.althanas.com/world/showthread.php?25258-The-Hand-That-Feeds-(Solo)&highlight=Little+Miss+Monocle), Two Peas in a Pode (http://www.althanas.com/world/showthread.php?23587-Two-Peas-and-a-Pode&highlight=two+peas+in+a+pode), In The Shadow of Oblivion (http://www.althanas.com/world/showthread.php?23895-In-the-Shadow-of-Oblivion-(Closed)&highlight=two+peas+in+a+pode), and much of the Tantalum Troupe's past history.
Oh hear! You are nothing to me,
Not a scratch on the heart, or torn lung, nought.
I crumble at your presence but I know not why, I am bound, tied, tested.
Collect your belongings and flee, flee from the scene,.
I need you not, foul Damascus blade!
Perfect symmetry? Once, it existed between us, it is now shattered.
Like the kaleidoscope of summer, you must soon fade, spent,
I wish to see no more of you, feel no more of you, cry no more for you, be gone!
I am now my own discovery, spending dreams to trade for lovers, dead.
The Closing Line of Lysander's Flock, by Duffy Brandybuck
Part One
Duffy and Ruby sat in their favourite upmarket bar in Scara Brae. It was literally up market, as it faced north towards the road leading to Market Square. For once in their lives, they had no plans for the day, and nothing much on their minds. They chatted idly, tapped rhythms on the tables, and sipped elaborate cocktails from glasses older than most of the bar’s occupants. Cut crystal shone resplendent whenever they raised them triumphant to their lips.
Eventually, when he became stiff and numb, he turned to Ruby. He lolled his head and grinned from ear to ear. He said precisely what was on his mind. “It’s too nice a day to sit around all the while. What else do you want to do?” He flicked his floppy brown locks from his brow.
“It’s a nice day for a stroll, don’t you think?” Her tone was wistful, and her smile charming. She stretched every inch of her body and nearly fell out of her chair.
“Did you have anywhere in particular in mind?” He leant back into his chair, looked up at the sky blue heavens, and for a moment, regretted suggesting they move. As the gulls flocked inland, the white vespers turned into mythical beasts.
“Not really,” she replied naturally. She set the glass down, now empty, and ran her tongue over her bottom lip. When gin was this expensive, she did not want to waste a single drop. When it was cheap, she took the same philosophy deadly serious.
The bard nodded, but did not rise immediately. He lingered over his bourbon, watched the patrons chat amongst themselves, and cast jealous glances at passers-by. As Ruby readied herself, a motley scattering of sunbeams danced along the road, putting a new perspective on the afternoon flea market in the distance. It was a perfect day for doing nothing.
“You don’t look overly enthusiastic,” she meekly added. She leant closer, to come into his distant, glazed point of view. Her nose glistened with the sun kissed appearance of a slightly sweating homemaker. Her breath smelt like the pigs she kept, but Duffy new to avoid making a comment, at all cost.
“Oh.” He looked into her eyes. “I’m sorry.” He finished his drink, set the glass down boisterously, and slapped his thighs. He pushed himself out of the wrought iron garden chair, which shed lose a cloud of white paint chips, and rocked back and forth on heels with a rush of blood to the head. “I was just thinking how beautiful this city has become.”
Ruby rose after him, considerably more composed, and sober. “It has always been beautiful,” she corrected. It had always been a home worthy of the name. “We’ve just not had the time to just stop, look, and admire it for what it is.”
“True,” he bemoaned. He picked up his cane from against the table, and rested his weight on it. Ruby propped up her parasol and adjusted her neckerchief. Though it was sunny, warm, and bright, the women of Scara Brae had certain standards to uphold. “Shall we?” He held out an arm.
Ruby knew he was offering out of tradition, and not ability. She refused his offer politely. He needed his own strength more than she needed an escort. She walked from the veranda, heels clipping on well-trodden decking, and braved the cobbles of the thoroughfare. She stepped gingerly around a puddle of vomit, and over a sleeping drunk. The bar was upmarket, but its clientele were definitely not.
“Where do you want to go?” he enquired. He followed her with a shuffle of dusty hobnails and stifled grunts. Beneath his black trousers, his white socks were reddening. Though peace had befallen the troupe in a radiant summer, the pain of the past still cursed the bard terribly.
Ruby imagined all the places she had found comforting over the years. She pictured herself in lounging recliners in parks, palaces, and greenhouses. Her memories were vivid, as if newly lived, and each made her beam a smile as they picked up their stride and made their way north. The vine covered walls of faded into dirty, bustling, and well-lived semi-detached rows. They crossed into the commercial district through a small suburb, and hit a wall of sound and life.
“I think we should find ourselves an apple turnover, waltz through the silk market, and end up at the docks for tea.” Ruby nodded in complete agreement with his suggestion.
“As long as we’re in the Old Harbour come sunset for dinner.” There was no questioning tone to her decision. Duffy had foolishly offered her the reigns, and he had no choice but to giddy as she cracked them. “You’re paying, naturally, my dear sir.”
Duffy frowned, but relented. He was just glad to be able to spend the day with a good friend, without having to worry about saving some world or other. The last thing on his mind was the undercooked prawns he had ordered last time they had gone to the seafront.
“I think I have some silver on me somewhere,” he goaded. He pretended to pat his empty pockets down, just to check. Ruby glared at him, and he stopped. She had that power, and he knew to heed it as a warning. He knew better than to test her, especially after three Old Maids. Especially when made as potently as they were in the Corneal Saloon. People travelled from all over the island to taste them, whenever they could afford it, and had to stumble home for their efforts.
“I am sure you’ll think of something,” she clucked. She quickened her pace to spite him. He hobbled after her, his face grimacing, his heart racing, and his injury bleeding feverishly.
They turned a corner.
“This is not strolling!” The bard snapped. He had to stop, stoop, and rub his leg. The pain would become easier to ignore as time went by, but if he pushed it too far, it would ruin his afternoon. “Ruby, can we please go a little slower?”
The spell singer came to abrupt halt. She turned on her heels, rested her hands on her thighs, and shrugged. Her stance said casual, her eyes said serious. The blue leather bodice of her dress caught the sun, and the backdrop of the bustling market gave her a spurious glamour.
“I always did go too quickly for you,” she teased.
“That’s not what Leopold tells me,” Duffy jibed. The innuendo was not lost on him, despite the stabbing pain in his ribs. He caught his breath at last, and stood upright. His cane found itself taking his weight again.
Ruby raised an eyebrow. It spoke a thousand words of contempt.
“You almost sound jealous, Duffy.” Ruby could not help but smirk.
Duffy puckered his lips, mocked a kiss, and broke into a fit of giggles. It was stirring how laughter could heal. When he stopped, he wobbled, as the pain resurged through his leg. He swore under his breath.
“Leopold is welcome to you, Mrs Winchester. He is the only one, after all, that can keep you sane.” By sane, he meant bat shit crazy. “I will have to do as an escort in his absence, though.” He surged forwards, took her by the arm forcibly, and carried her off with a militaristic stride into the sunny crowd.
It had been far too long since Ruby and Duffy had been part of a crowd. They had been ‘in’ plenty of crowds. They had fought, tooth and nail, just to get a few feet across cityscapes and towns. That was different to being a ‘part’ of it. Now, arm in arm, they noticed the faces. They saw smiles, conversations, and stories everywhere they looked.
They felt like they were part of a community.
“Is it just me,” Ruby wheezed. She kindly pushed people out of her way as they joyfully bumped into her. “Or is it busy today?”
Market Square was the busiest place not just in the city, but also on the whole island. People came from the duchies to trade here, sometimes travelling the night before in grand, trundling caravans to make their living. Ruby noticed attire from the mining towns to the north, and sea-sewn cloaks in bright green and sea blue from the eastern coast. It was a tapestry of tradition, laced with the foreign and the wondrous.
Duffy had to agree. “It is a little teeming.” He did not have the same amount of patience she had. He pushed a little harder, and caught more than a few bitter stares for the effort. “Perhaps there is a show on?” he offered.
Ruby stopped mid-stride. She pricked her ears. Something sounded exciting.
“What is it?” the bard asked. He was sweating now.
“That sound…” She parsed her lips, as if she were going to explain, but fell silent. Duffy heard it now too. It was a tinkle of bells and a trundle of lazy feet. They recognised it together, and a surprised look struck them both.
“Ruby…it can’t be…can it?” The bard’s look of incredulity formed jowls and frown lines on his face.
The spell singer did not wait to find out. She slipped her fingers free of Duffy’s embrace, and left him to teeter on his cane to stay upright. She wove through the crowd, dress flowing, hair ablaze in sunlight, and heart racing. Her breath became short, tempered, and hurried. Her eyes sparkled with childlike curiosity. Memories from past lives flooded her, threatening to drag her kicking and screaming back into the past.
“Please let it be true…,” she wheezed under her breath. She cursed having tightened her corset so much. It felt as if her rubs were going to crack under the pressure.
“Come back here Ruby!” she heard from behind. Duffy was shouting after her, but she was not going to sway. She had seen his sparkle, she had felt his aura, and she had heard him practically sing at the prospect. All the sounds told them a troupe was about to perform in Scara Brae.
A troupe that was not called The Tantalum.
“Not on your life Bracken,” she spat, pushing and ducking and weaving through the tightening mass of bodies.
People stopped bartering, talking, and walking the closer she came to the large ornamental fountain at the heart of the square. The cobbles underfoot went from dark red to vegetable, laced with a thousand squashed fruits thrown at naughty schoolchildren and minor thieves that had lingered in the stocks. The gulls overhead called their oceanic cry, heard even over the din of the crowd.
“I don’t know Tanta-whatsit were back?” somebody asked. The plucky dialect was Scara Braen through and through. Ruby stopped dead in her tracks and worked out who the speaker was before she approached.
“Excuse me madam,” she enquired. Her common was perfect, though her accent false to not give the game away. If she spoke with her peculiar broads drawl, she would have been immediately identifiable, even with a new body.
A large, wart-laden homemaker turned away from her lithe, chain-smoking friend. She stared at Ruby’s prim and proper body posture, her dress, and her delicate skin, and instantly put up walls. She folded her well-worked arms over her ample chest and pulled a gruff, man-like expression from nowhere.
“Wots?” she snarled. Her friend nodded behind her, with yellowing teeth on show, as if to repeat the question without having to put any effort into doing so.
“Did you say Tantalum Troupe?” Ruby raised an eyebrow.
Duffy finally caught up, but stopped nervously feet away to watch the tension unfold.
“Rub-” he began to say, before he stopped as she raised a hand to silence him.
“Did you…say…the Tantalum?” she repeated slowly.
Ruby did not move a muscle, in case she gave the woman cause for a fight. She had made the mistake of standing up to ‘Fishtown Widows’ before. They had hardened to the point of being rock like after their husbands had died in the war in Corone. Queen Valeena had renamed the fishmonger district to Widow Springs in their supposed honour.
“Yeah, some artsy types are settin’ summat up.” She jabbed a finger towards the fountain. “We ain’t seen their likes in o’ver a year.”
Ruby made to correct her, but reminded herself of why the former fishmonger district had a new name. The Widows of that part of town sprang people into the air with a well-aimed rolling pin for something as small as sneezing. Ruby had grown to like her current chin.
Duffy walked out from behind Ruby. “My dear sister,” he began. “You gave me quite the fright!” he whelped as he took her by the arm. He looked at the fishwife as he pulled Ruby into his embrace. He flapped his gums for something to say.
“This kind lady was just telling me that there’s a play being staged right here.” She pointed in the same direction. “Just over there in fact!”
“They better be good,” the woman barked, “or I’ll lamp them with a right proper ‘ook.” She turned back to her friend and resumed their small talk before Ruby or Duffy could bother them further.
The pair remained tightly embraced, very tense, and afraid to move for almost a minute. They broke their statuesque vigil to cast one another nervous glances. The wealth of culture around them suddenly found a common spectacle to gawp at, despite their differences in language, needs, and finances.
“Let’s go…,” she whispered, as quietly as she could. Duffy nodded with tiny movements. “Quick, through there,” she gestured. She dragged Duffy through an opening in the pulsating body of people and they stumbled out, with far too much commotion, into the front of the audience.
“Oi, quitcha fuckin’ pushin’!” several people shouted in disgruntled unison.
Duffy righted himself. Ruby had already stood back in the front of the crowd, eyes fixated ahead, and a look of shock plastered over her usually angelic face. What they both saw was not what they expected. Of course, it could not have been the Tantalum Troupe up on the stage. I it had been, Ruby swore she would swipe the smirk off her own face.
The people on the stage were, however, very familiar to the spell singer.
The small stage appeared in a matter of minutes. The workers came out of nowhere, with planks, banners, hammers, and crates. People had not noticed them at first. They were too oblivious and self-involved to give them the light of day. Since the Tantalum had supposedly retired, the love of the theatre had all but faded from the city streets.
“That’s…” Ruby stopped. It did not seem like she needed to state the obvious. Duffy approached slowly.
“A stage…,” he continued. Unlike Ruby, he felt every bit the need to be obvious.
Several people were crawling up and down the supports. It rose up over three levels. Each was increasingly smaller and set back than its predecessor. It clung to the ancient statue of one of Valeena’s ancestors, using the very foundations of Market Square to give it strength and life. Ruby saw several familiar faces. Two were the tailors that had once given the Tantalum troupe’s plays life. Two were the carpenters that had renewed the dome of the Prima Vista before its eventual destruction.
“That is occupied by people we taught,” Ruby added. She tried very hard to stay her tongue.
“Lisa and Minnelli still look good together,” Duffy said. He fell to compliments for old time’s sake. When he saw Ruby’s scowl, he relented. “For old whores…,” he added, a little bitterly.
“Can you believe their cheek?” she protested. She would have rested her hands on her hips and tapped her foot with disapproval if she had been six. “We see neither hide nor hair of them in over a year, and then they come up with this.” She shrugged her shoulders.
“Ruby, we abandoned them to the winds,” Duffy said flatly. He looked at her. “The troupe disbanded. We let them loose. We gave them our blessing to make of their lives what they willed now they were safe from Wainright…”
The spell singer sighed. Duffy was right. It did not mean she was going to let this slide. Ruby Winchester never let it go. He could have highlighted the hypocrisy of having given up her fortune to make sure they got the right start in life free of their nemesis’ terror. It would have shut her up for weeks, but he liked his pride between his legs, and not in his oesophagus.
“I am not standing for it, Duffy,” she snapped. Her tone continued to sour as her lips dried and her tongue parched. She ignored the stares from the crowd and marched up to the foot of the stage. She waited for Lisa to drop down to the bottom level and approach a crate spilling over with dresses and crepe banners. She made to shout very loudly.
“Ruby don’t you dare!” Duffy sniped, hoping to avert disaster.
He was too late.
“What the fuck do you think you’re doing?”
The bard winced as he had never winced before. All the attention on the stage immediately focussed on Ruby. A hundred whispering voices and gossiping gabs fell silent. The gulls were long gone from the sunny sky by the time the silence faded. Slowly but surely, people began to spread rumours about the rude woman. Who was she, what was she, and why was she here bounced around like Akashiman whispers.
Lisa’s eyes widened. She recognised the spell singer when her accent sparked a memory. She frowned. Looked her over from head to toe, and nodded appreciatively. Lisa was one of the handfuls of people that knew the elder members of the troupe were immortal, and could regenerate.
“That’s right, it’s me, you little-” Duffy nudged her in the side to stop her from going one-step too far. He found just enough strength to lurch up to her before she tarnished the innocence of the children in the crowd.
“Well, this is a surprise…,” the tailor sighed.
The rest of Lisa’s troupe appeared behind her in a motley arrangement. From behind trap doors and palisades, eight people gathered in total. Ruby looked to each in turn, named the ones she knew, and made it her business to find out who the remaining three were. Their time would come, in the spell singer’s eyes.
“Is that really you Ruby?” Though the spell singer appeared very different to when they had last met, her dress was the same, and her hair as flaxen, and her eyes as scolding. Minnelli, on the other hand, had not changed a bit. She still wore stilettos, ill-fitting floral gowns, and kitsch headbands that had not been stylish for decades.
“Who else would it be, you tramp!” she snapped. She folded her arms across her not so ample chest. She felt the stares intensify and warm the small of her back. When Duffy appeared by her side, looking snivelling and apologetic, the heat seemed tepid in comparison to her rising temper.
“Listen, girls, we do not need to do this right here, and right now,” Duffy cautioned. It was good advice. It was a shame they paid no attention to it.
“Oh, we do this here and now, not where she can explain her way out of it!”
“Ruby, please, calm down,” Lisa and Minnelli said in unison. They stood side by side; arm in arm, and shoulder to shoulder. The crowd was already falling passionately in love with their new leading…women.
“You gave us your blessing,” Lisa began.
“Then you both left,” Minnelli finished. They held hands.
“We did, and that is what I told Ruby, but…” Duffy felt knocked to one side by an outstretched hand.
“I am not angry that you started a troupe,” she shouted. Her eyes sparkled with fury. Nervous feet scuffed the newly cut planks on the stage. The paint dried, and wood expanded with a rhythmic crack in the lull between words. “I am angry that people think your rabble is the Tantalum!”
“Oh…Ruby,” Duffy sighed. He had never felt so disappointed in all his life. The crowd whispered so loud they might as well have shouted their surprise.
“Hear me, ladies, gentlemen, and thespians!” Lisa’s voice was clear as crystal and shone like moonlight. She projected better than Ruby had in her hay day. “I have an announcement to make,” she clapped. Smoke sparked from her fingertips. A bolt of sunlight struck the centre of the stage behind the troupe.
“We are the Fugitive Players,” Minnelli continued. This was clearly a well-rehearsed debut for the group. Ruby had forced them to play their hands early, but in a perverse way, it was going to be even more memorable because of it.
“I am Lisa,” Lisa said. “To my left stands my wife Minnelli.”
“Behind us,” Minnelli continued, “we have Peter and Jane.”
Pete and Jane stepped forwards and bowed. They were plain, but charismatic folk. “Behind us fair citizens; we have John, Derrick, and their son, Kyle!” Someone in the audience clapped. Dozens others followed suit. Derrick’s fame in the district appeared to be for reasons other than his gigantic nose.
There was a brief, but immensely awkward silence.
“Last, but by no means least, I give you our leading man.” The troupe spoke together with a choral resonance.
The crowd baited its breath. This, for Scara Brae, was a turning point.
“We present Pettigrew Jones!”
“Well this is awkward,” Duffy moaned. He slouched visibly, as if all the strength drained from his body. Beneath his trousers, though his wound was healing, his bandage continued to redden. He was losing the will both to stand, and to fight.
“Beyond belief,” Ruby said sourly. She started to shake with frustration and anger.
The spell singer looked at the troupe in its entirety. It all started to make sense now. Even though the crowd roared enthusiastically, she remained stone-faced and composed. Her anger at the duo abated, swiftly replaced by contempt for the diminutive boy at the back of the gathering. He was the reason. He was the problem. He was the very root of all her woes.
“Pettigrew…”
He had been a snotty nosed orphan when Ruby had been at the height of her fame. She had instructed him herself, and taught him everything she knew. All the tricks of dramaturgy she had gifted, like trinkets, to the boy she thought of as a younger brother. To see him standing at the head of his own troupe brought feelings of contempt and pride to the spell singer. It felt more than just a betrayal. It felt like he had stolen her trust.
“Pete…,” she said. Nobody heard her. “Pete!” she said louder.
The boy approached the front of the stage.
“Good lord,” he proclaimed with mirth.
The first thing she noticed was just how much he had grown in three years. His snotty nose was now a high, noble feature on a bird-like, royal face. He wore a doublet of gold and silver, laced with red roses and spheres. His trousers were puffed at the waist, and brown and crème. His boots polished to within an inch of their lives, and his hands manicured to perfection, he was every bit the man.
“Hello, Miss Ruby,” he said politely. He bowed just enough to appease her.
“Mrs Winchester now, I’ll have you know.” She glared daggers at him.
“You will always be Miss Ruby to me, like I will always be Pete to you.” He meant no harm by the correction. She pursed her lips. “I had not expected to see you again, if I am honest.” He waved over the stage. “Ladies and gentlemen, joining our debut performance are two very special guests!”
The crowd quickly hushed their whispers and applause. Paranoia began to run riot through the sweating ranks. There were few people in the city deserving of such an honour. It was clearly not the Queen, nor a member of the Royal Household, because nobody had spat at any guards.
“You wouldn't dare?" Ruby warned.
“They are the esteemed Ruby Winchester and Duffy Bracken. The leads of the former Tantalum Troupe have given us their blessing!” He waved his hands wide, and looked to the back of the crowd at a non-descript point on the distant wall. It was the simplest trick, but it worked wonders for his confidence. Ruby had taught him that during their very first lesson. The irony was not lost on her.
The crowd erupted into excited chatter. There had been whispers of their return for months now, ever since Ruby had returned to prominence in the noble circles of the city’s houses. Nobody had questioned how, or why, he or she looked so different. Duffy had supposed their fame played its part. They had spent their lives in masks and costumes. They could have looked like anybody. They could have been staring at thirty different people on stage, and never known which was the genuine article.
“It pleases me no end to announce that our first performance in the city of Scara Brae shall be on this fine afternoon.” He turned, bounced, and lurched into a dramatic surge to the rear of the stage. He clambered up a stairway, and ran out to the far side of the second tier. “We have come to tell you about a strange and curious man,” he bowed.
Lisa and Minnelli sprang up the stairway on the far side, and made their way to the third tier. Side by side, they gestured to the sky.
“He comes from a far off land,” the troupe cried together.
“He is called…,” Pete whispered. Somehow, despite his hushed tone, everyone watching heard it in his or her souls. The meaning of the words rattled in the heads of the crowd with vibrancy.
“Nemo…”
Ruby raised an eyebrow. She had almost fallen in for the spectacle. When she realised just how clichéd their performance was, she found herself pressed to be something other than angry.
“Stranger…man with no name,” she translated. Only Duffy heard her. “Is that all they can come up with?” she asked. She turned to the bard. The bard turned to nobody in particular, before he realised there was no way to avoid replying himself.
“I…err, just listen will you?” he snapped. He ruffled his fringe free of his forehead. His black hair plastered to his skin through fatigue and perspiration. He started to regret having a second cocktail in the bar. All the same, he longed for a third. He abandoned all hopes for an apple turnover and a relaxing afternoon.
“For you, Duffy, I’ll give it one more line…” She pursed her lips. She saw that she was not going to get any sympathetic banter, and let it drop. She gritted her teeth.
The troupe all gathered on the third tier, and before Ruby could declare her doubts justified, the motley crew bowed and erupted into flame.
“Ooooh,” sang the crowd in unison. The echo of their cries rang high into the golden skies. Half of the city heard a sudden cheer, and continued to draw people to the square out of curiosity and a need to be entertained.
When the white smoke cleared, the top tier was empty. The stage fell silent. The crowd became electrified, as if struck by lightning not once, twice, or thrive, but four times in quick succession. They all pulled faces that went well with witnessing the impossible.
Duffy, always one to find humour in the darkest of times, broke into a wry smile. He rested his weight on his cane with a satisfied feeling.
“I don’t remember us ever doing that…,” he clucked. The Tantalum had been good, but for their talent, not their showmanship.
“I…” Ruby gave up. She continued to scan the stage for tells of their secrets in silence.
“You have got to hand it to them, though, don’t you…,” he pressed. “That was sure hellfire a good way to make a dramatic entrance.” He raised an eyebrow. He shuffled his feet.
“Cor blimey, look at that!” Someone with a plucky twang to his voice and an unwashed demeanour pointed up. Suddenly, everyone else was pointing up, and the waft of armpit sweat become shortly intoxicating.
Flyers began to rain down across Market Square. As if confetti formed from nothing and wishes, hands reached up to snatch them from their descent. Eyes scanned delicately penned detail, and made plans to be in the square at four o'clock, without fail.
The show promised to be spectacular.
Duffy and Ruby barely made it out alive. For a few seconds, nobody knew what to do. Eyes turned to the duo, until all of a sudden; there was a feverish scramble to get a flyer. The chaos that followed was a mix of well-placed cane tip, and trusted palms at grubby faces. They had to work together like never before, but somehow they persevered.
“Oh good lord,” she said, veering around a sharp bend into an alleyway.
They slammed together, backs against the wet and slimy wall, and eyes levelled at the entrance into the thoroughfare that ran east from the square to the Novello Slums. They held their breaths. Several hundred people streamed past in a blur of colour, cabbage soup, and screaming. Then there was silence, and peace became restored.
Duffy slumped to the floor. “When I find that little shit…”
Ruby broke into a nervous laugh as dropped to the floor as well. They abandoned hope of looking good in public. Slime, mud, and worse things got on their shoes and buttocks.
“You really don’t need to continue,” she said. He very much thought he did.
“I will tear his face off…”
“The next time you suggest we get a drink, don’t be offended if I tell you to fuck off.”
“Ruby…” Duffy lolled his head to one side. “If I ever suggest we do something normal again, run me through.”
Ruby blinked. “You promise?” she smiled. Duffy nodded. “I will do it gladly.”
They helped each other up. They patted each other down. They stared into one another’s eyes.
“I guess we don’t need to cling to those doubts we have both been having lately.” Ruby said.
“What doubts?” Duffy frowned. He pointed to the far end of the alleyway. “Let’s go that way, through the gardens, and back to the manor.” She set off, too concerned with her own train of thought to suggest a quicker way.
“Doubts about wherever or not retiring were right,” she sighed. “It was the right thing…wasn’t it?” She glanced over her shoulder to check his facial expression.
He curled his lips into a smile, and ran his tongue over his cold steel studs. He was not sure what to say.
“I take that silence as a yes.”
They walked out into the sunlight, and continued east. Arm in arm, they blended into the stream of gentlefolk walking Mrs and mistress through idyllic Scara Brae. They passed ivy trellis and marble arch, walked through aqueduct and temple conclave. The sun streamed through clouds of gnats and butterflies teamed around hanging baskets.
“I thought about it, for so long Ruby…,” he said pensively. He looked up at the roiling clouds. “After a year, it sort of…became unimportant.” He reflected on all the things that had happened to them since: war and peace, love and loss, and death and life.
“Duffy…,” she sighed. Her mind was racing with meeting old friends, and the possibility that her time in the spotlight was over. She was always reflecting on being ‘past it’. She had never expected the moment to arrive.
“Perhaps that is not the right word…,” he mused.
The streets turned into the commercial district. The walls of the gardens rose into three storey department stores. Through peeling frames, Duffy picked out fine silk dresses and expensive hats. They turned a corner into Bakery Boulevard. If he had not been anxious, he would have helped himself to a mountain of cinnamon buns, fancies, and tarts.
“Look at it this way,” he continued, finding the right word at last. “Our time as the Tantalum troupe was always going to run out, however happy. I guess we never thought about the ‘after’.” He pictured Pete, resplendent and cocksure at the top of the makeshift stage. “I never expected it to be Crow…,” he chuckled.
“Not so little a brother now…,” Ruby mused. She taught him dramaturgy as a way to give purpose and direction.
“Well, look at it this way.” Duffy pointed to his favourite baker. “He saw something sweeter, and he worked at it.” He gestured to a flamboyant four-tiered cake laced with so much cream and violet icing Ruby felt sick. All the same, she longed for a slice.
Part Two
“You say it as if it’s the easiest thing in the world.”
Duffy took a few moments to consider his words carefully. His head was starting to spin and the cityscape spun with it. He had reached the point after drinking when a premature hangover loomed, and the euphoria of being drunk started to fade. He was really beginning to feel a need to sit down.
“It will be anything but.” He pushed away from her softly. He started to walk east along the winding road. He got several feet before he turned. Ruby lingered at the foot of the clock tower. “We must make the journey all the same,” he said loudly. There was suggestive tone in his voice that commanded her to action.
She jumped with a start, as though woken from a dream. She rubbed the tears from her eyes with her sleeve, adjusted herself as though she had just tumbled down a hill, and followed with dainty steps.
“This is not what I had planned for the afternoon,” she said softly. Duffy chuckled. “All this torment, not a whiff of apple turnover.”
The bard pictured the infamous sweet treat as they walked. He had been foolish to think any attempt at normality by the troupe could have lasted. He picked at the sugary pastry, let the filling spill out, and then discarded the sticky, cinnamon mess to the back of his mind. He needed something more fulfilling now. He pictured meat, gravy, and a platter of vegetables steaming and buttered.
“Let’s make ourselves a bit more presentable for the play.” He looked at his muddied clothing in despair.
Ruby hissed. “You are really going to make me do this, aren’t you…,” she said. Duffy felt as if she were trying to avoid the topic, but did not give her the chance to distract him.
“We have to, Ruby. We can look upon it as the first of many concessions, apologies, and acceptances. What better way to show the world we’re still here, ready to move on, than to consent to Pete’s début?” He did not like the idea either, but he saw its merit.
Ruby did not reply straight away. They walked for over a mile with noisy abandon; they kept their eyes levelled low to the well-worn path where thousands of people had trodden before them. By early afternoon, Scara Brae entered a strange twilight zone. The market lulled. The streets emptied. The bustling taverns became countryside retreats. They remained open on the charity of a handful of regular patrons too stubborn to be part of everyday life. On hot days, like today, people napped, did laundry, or made the most of the natural calm to get things done.
“I suppose,” she said wistfully. “It’ll be nice to hear laughter in the streets again.”
Duffy rolled his eyes. “It won’t just be nice, Ruby. It will be a godsend for the island.” Scara Brae had started to feel like any other city in recent months. It had lost the spark that made it unique in their absence.
“I guess…,” she erred.
“It will be fantastic to walk down Lowell Lane and see ribbon furled and glitter spread wanton along the board walk.” He waved his arms wide, as if his excitement needed any more emphasis.
There would be fanfare. There would be tumbling. There would be spectacle.
The city pressed on them as they pressed ahead. They felt the tales of grandeur weigh down on their shoulders. They heard snippets through time spoken by their past lives, and all the past lives of the citizens of their home. They dwelt in the deafening silence, broken only by gull cry, distant waves, and the rattle of their feet on stone. The hanging baskets and privet fences gave way to fortress like garden walls and guarded cul-de-sacs. They were approaching the outskirts of the noble district.
“Should we call Arden and Lillith?” she asked, realising they were nearly home. She did not like the idea of returning to an empty household. Her butler had gone on annual leave, and Leopold, ever the busy man, was at some meeting or another with clients from Fallien.
Duffy smiled. He pointed to Winchester Mansion when it loomed around a corner. Its awning and white framed windows caught the sun as it lingered over the rooftops and set it ablaze. It looked incredibly inviting.
“I am not going to call them all this way for this.” The idea was appealing he had to admit. He could have summoned them from Akashima with a click of his finger and a clash of the bangles around his lanky wrists. It would have been so easy for the troupe entire to attend the debut. They crossed the distance between empty, sad streets and the first slate step leading to the doors home with newfound confidence. “You know she would just outshine whatever you chose to wear.” He clenched his teeth, fully expecting a sharp reprise.
She punched him in the arm. They came to a stop at the door, as though they were guests, and stood side by side in awkward silence.
Ruby chuckled. “Yes…she would, wouldn’t she…?” She pressed the bell. The door opened when it recognised her. An ancient enchantment pulled the frame and halves open, mahogany giving way to its oaken mistress. The enticing smell of old, dusty corridors, well cleaned tiles, and antique furniture greeted them in a wave of nostalgia.
“Let us not even begin to talk about Arden’s laugh…,” he added. He recognised opportunity to use self-deprecating humour to lift the spell singer’s spirits. “He’ll drown out any applause and all the tense bits.” He gestured politely for her to advance, and she tucked at the knee to bow in the most lady-like of manners.
“Not to mention,” she said loudly as she disappeared inside. Her voice echoed as it bounced off the wooden panels of the entrance hall. “He would eat all the turnovers!” She laughed again, joy lifting her chest so that she walked with an arched back and a regal pose befitting of a queen. She felt suddenly invigorated beneath the glare of all her past lives. The portraits that lined the walls welcomed her.
“Drink all the wine…,” the bard groaned. He pulled the door to, stopping on the doorsteps to give the city a farewell thought.
“He does seem to possess quite the tendency for drinking you under the table,” Ruby mused. She disappeared around a corner and left Duffy alone, in the hallway, with his thoughts and memories.
He watched the empty hall beyond; rekindling all the times, he had come here over the years. He had been young in some of them, old in others. He had been happy, and sad, and sorrowed alike. The troupe was beginning to see the city of Scara Brae in a different light. There was history in its streets, and not just the passing of time. They touched the city, and it them.
“Ruby?” he heckled, growing impatient after several nostalgic moments passed.
The spell singer popped her head around the corner, smiled, and disappeared again.
“I won’t be long, make yourself at home in the drawing room!” she shouted, her voice trailing off as she apparently vanished into some strange back of beyond in the mansion.
Duffy shrugged. She was clearly going to change. Women had the dispensary nature of a constantly worried egotist. She would be some time deciding what to wear. He had plenty of time to do something about his encroaching hangover. He strolled cocksure over the black and white marble tiles of the grand hallway and approached the gold leaf doors, newly restored, that divided entrance from inner sanctum. He pressed his fingers against the lion-esque doorknob, turned it, and entered.
Pausing for thought, the bard found himself in a dark place. Literally, and metaphorically, he could not see the world for the shadows that clouded his mind. He remembered something he did not want to remember. He quivered his bottom lip.
“Lucian…,” he whimpered.
Four or so years ago, at a dinner party, the dark bard Lucian Lahore had returned to the world in force. He had stolen the Orb of Wainwright, a powerful relic, from its resting place. It was the first of many events in a rising crescendo of war. It was the reason he was crippled. It was one of the reasons he hated himself so much.
“Oh for the love of the Thayne,” he moaned. He flicked his fringe from his brow, and sloth like advanced across the dusty floor. The tiles in the hall became thick, luxurious carpet when he crossed the threshold. In the limelight of early afternoon, it appeared brown, but it had once been hazelnut, ridiculously expensive, and a crime to muddy it.
On the eastern wall of the room, tall bookcases stretched from floor to ceiling. On the southern wall, paintings of all the previous Winchester patriarchs leered down at the innocuously large desk at the centre of the room. Duffy turned to the west, where large bay windows looked out over an immaculately kept greenhouse. It leads out, through tropical heat, to a veranda and herb garden, where Ruby retreated when things got too tough even for her.
“Make yourself at home…,” he whispered. “Well,” he turned to the bar, which Leopold always kept well stocked, “if you insist.”
With lazy feet, he approached the mahogany tallboy and drinks cabinet that stood next to the desk. Whatever Leopold did in here, he apparently needed a drink close to hand. Duffy raised an eyebrow when he folded down the compartment door, and scanned the contents.
“I’ll need to be carried out of here if I’m not careful,” he chuckled.
On instinct alone, he reached for the Salvarian ice wine. It was a strong, curious mix between white wine and vodka. It was whatever it was made of, incredibly clear, crisp, and ridiculously strong. The only time Duffy has to drink such a luxury, was when Ruby and Leopold were away, and he had the misfortunate weakness of saying yes to house sitting. The glass bottle, cut crystal, rattled noisily against some Alerarian rum and a small vial of Fallien fig wine.
“Heck, what do I care, I hate crowds.” He raised the bottle, flicked the top away, and waited for it to come to a stop on the carpet. It rolled under the desk out of sight. “Damned if I’m going to sit through a whole play when I did not write it,” he drank from the bottle without concern for body or mind.
“Ermm,” said a voice.
Duffy dropped the bottle to his side, swirled, and hid it behind his back. His heart raced. His eyes widened. His goose bumps bristled.
“I said make yourself at home in my home, Duffy. I did not say eat me out of it,” Ruby lashed sarcastically.
Duffy sighed with relief. On the one hand, Leopold had not caught him. On the other, he was now reeling from the vapours, and quite taken aback by the sudden appearance of a divinity in red. Ruby over the years had clearly refined the art of a quick costume change.
“I am sorry.” He stumbled with his words. A streak of liquor rolled down his right side. “I…just, really needed a drink.” He looked back at the cabinet, and then back at Ruby. His sheepish grin announced his guilt to the world.
“Do you know what this room is for, Duffy?” she asked sternly. She held her hands firmly in her front, and bounced on immaculately polished heels. They were black, unworn, and teetering dangerously close to inappropriate.
“Something to do with Leopold’s business,” he guessed. In truth, he was not remotely sure. He was not remotely interested, either. He tried to avoid looking like a rabbit in torchlight.
“This room has been the heart of the Winchester family for three centuries. Before I ever met Leopold, his father, and his father’s father, conducted their respective business right here, and right at that desk,” she pointed over his shoulder. “They have all drunken, a little too much, from that cabinet.”
Duffy looked behind, to the cabinet, and felt worse still.
“One thing I never understand was why,” she said sullenly. “You just made me realise…they all drank to forget.”
“I envy them…,” the bard moaned. He looked at the bottle as he lifted it up to the streams of light pouring in through the greenhouse. It danced with colour and eastern promise. It glimmered with obfuscated lies, and sharp, bitter, and painful morning afters.
“To forget all that happened the night before, save for the pleasantries and the highlights,” Ruby mused. She tapped her foot on the last of the tiles of the hall. She leant against the doorframe. “Do you really envy that? Is remembering all our past lives, after fighting so hard for that right, such a curse as to scorn every waking moment?”
Ruby asked herself that question as much as she posed it to Duffy.
“What the fuck happened to you Ruby?” Duffy asked, perhaps a little too bluntly. She blinked. “You have never, once in your lives, questioned fighting for our identity.” He set the bottle down, now half empty, on the green veneer of the desk. He lingered over placing it, but relinquished it after a muttered mantra of momentary abstinence. He looked back at her.
“Not to your face, anyway,” she spat. Duffy glared. “Just because I chose not to voice my concerns for all to hear, does not mean I am impervious to mortal fears.”
“What have we got to be afraid of anymore?”
This was a question the bard had asked himself so many times he had forgotten his own answer. He had turned his lips dry and cracked muttering mantras and metaphors over their misdeeds and forgiving. He had always found an excuse to avoid cutting to the chase. The study teemed with anxiety and nausea. Duffy could not be sure if it was the mood, or his now spinning head. He pressed down on the silver tip of his cane.
“We have everything to fear Duffy, everything and all things.”
He scoffed.
“Please, Ruby, don’t make melodrama out of nothing. Our enemy is dead, our fame secured, and our wars fought.” Duffy made a grand gesture with his right hand. It was a salute to nobody in particular.
“Then perhaps all we have to fear is ourselves.”
“Get real,” he balked. He would have gone on, but an idea struck him. It struck him again, just to make sure he was listening. His lip continued to tremble. His hands began to shake. She was right. “Wait…”
“A few home truths and you’re sincere?” she rolled her eyes. She let her hands drop to her sides. She abandoned all hope of compliments on her stunning choice of leather bodice, flowing red trail, and gold wrought hair bands set with rubies. She would have to fish for compliments elsewhere. “We have to stop doing this.” She pointed to the clock above the mantle. “It is three o’clock. If we do not leave now, we will miss the opening act.” She turned to leave.
“Ruby wait,” he cried. He held out a hand, fingers arced, as though he were trying to claw her back. She stopped. She turned her head back, though revealed only half her all-knowing smile. “I am sorry…” She turned. “Look,” he sighed.
“We have all the time in the world to work this out Duffy.” They had all the time they could ever need to argue dusk until dawn. They had all the whiskey, vodka, and rye from every continent and time line possible and probable to drink them sober.
“Why can’t we do it now?” he pleaded. His pale, milky, and translucent cornea began to weep. They were not coy tears acted to life. They were genuine, admonished, and relenting sorrow. “There is no time-”
“-Like the present,” she continued. She snatched his metaphor from his lips and half wanted to slap him across the face with it. “True enough, on all accounts, but there is also no time like the present to leave to be on time.” She left. Her heels clipped against the tiles, a sound as comforting as it was telling.
“Ruby!” he shouted.
“Duffy, if we do not leave in ten minutes I am going without you.”
The bard teetered on cane stance and gin blossom. He felt the wine hit his stomach proper, as his knots unravelled, and his muscles relaxed. He felt sick. He felt feverish. He felt as if he were about to bring up dry vomit and unfinished business. He ran his last few words over in his mind, and kicked himself each time they made less and less sense.
“You’re a fucking idiot…,” he said, quite flatly. He dropped his gaze to the carpet.
The study loomed around him for several minutes, its walls rising, its ceiling smothering, and its contents rattling on battered, antique shelves. In between rows of books on accounting, geography, and history, little bell jars rattled with butterfly wing beats. Dragonflies pinned to chalk board flicked their long decayed tendrils of silver hairs. The fox head over the fireplace roared on its plaque.
“You do not deserve her…”
Amidst the perfect silence and solitude, Duffy pictured the world coming undone. He saw the books fly off shelves, the flames in the hearth rise a hundred feet tall, and the glass of the green house shatter. He saw clouds roll, thunder rattle, and lightning crack. His world caved in. His heart exploded. His determination grew.
“You never have.” He said flatly. He bit his lip. “You never will.” He clenched his fists around the tip of the cane until their knuckles whitened. It began to hurt, but he paid it no heed. He surged forwards, far too late, but all the more sincere in his action. He emerged into the hall with the air of a duke, looked up through the crystal chandelier, and spoke his heart.
“You look resplendent by the way!”
His words fell flat. Ruby appeared sultry and brooding through the now open front door. She stared at him, white hair catching fire in the sunlight.
“Too late, Duffy…far too late…"
For a long, awkward while, the two bards stared at one another. The intensity of their scowls could have started a fire, or at least, wiped slate clean of chalk and memory with a sweep of contempt. Neither of them backed down, nor would they, so long as they continued to wind one another up.
They had been playing this petty game for nearly a year now.
“Forgive me,” he mumbled.
Ruby crossed her arms over her chest, and resorted once more to tapping her foot on the tiles. “I can try,” she replied.
With a sheepish grin, he walked to the front door. His cane clicked against the tiles in the same manner her heels did, though with half as much enthusiasm. She looked him up and down as he approached. There was a look of incredulity on her face. Duffy became very aware of it.
“You cannot be serious.” Her enquiry was painfully rhetorical. She did not attempt to give him an opportunity to answer. He stopped abrupt, looked himself over, and shrugged. “You are going to get changed this instance.”
“What is wrong with this?” he asked. He knew exactly what was wrong with it. It did not mean he was going to do something about it.
“Your shirt is sweaty, your trousers mud stained, and don’t get me started on your boots.” She said, matter-of-fact, finger pointing to each offending article in turn. “If you’re going to insult me, you can at least come to the play looking like you give a damn.” She began foraging in a large stand of umbrellas.
“I do give a damn.” He said with protestation thick on his tongue. He did not, but he was not going to show it. “Look, this is how much damn I give,” he brought his cane up, and instantly felt the weight press down on his shin. He winced. All the same, he slammed the tip of the cane into the floor.
There was a brief moment of silence. Ruby found her umbrella, pulled it free noisily, and stood to attention. The tinkle of bells caught her by surprise, but no so much as Duffy’s sudden change of form did. She blinked. She shuffled nervously.
“Yes, well…,” she mumbled. Her fire and temperament waned. “That is very good.” She stepped out onto the porch. “That was all you had to do,” she shouted inside, not quite ready to not have the last word.
Duffy walked out into the shade of the awning, eyes fixated on the back of Ruby’s head. He bore into her skull with bitter resentment, his tongue pushing hard against his piercings, his fist still white about his cane. She had caught him off guard appearing so soon. He took a moment to calm himself. His breathing became slow, but heavy, and full of ambition. The air tasted like sweat, hot slate, and sea salt.
“Are you ready to leave, then?” he enquired.
“Now you have changed I think so,” she replied with gumption. Duffy did not need to see her face to recognise that she was smiling.
“Well I’ve hardly made as much effort as you, but if you’re sure this is okay,” he continued, resorting to flattery to double-check she was being sincere. He had forgotten how to deal with Ruby Winchester, but he was a quick learner.
He had not changed, exactly. He had simply called on the latent abilities he possessed to refresh his appearance. His simple white shirt was now pearl white. His collar was starched, pressed, and perfectly angled with an open top button. His black trousers possessed perfect ironing lines, and not a stitch was loose. The mud they had acquired from their escape into the alley was gone, and the sweat, though it still lingered in his nostrils, found itself clean with phantasmal soap and a flourish of white light.
“Is that the sun shining again?” he asked as he stepped forwards. She opened her umbrella, which was a little ambitious, but entirely necessary and they locked arms.
“It is rather-“
“Oh no, sorry,” he cleared his throat, and with a bright grin, he dragged her into the street, “it’s just the light shining out of your arse.”
“Duffy Bracken!” she whelped. Before she realised, she felt dragged away and she was just going along with it. Once, she would have kicked him in the groin, dressed him down, and then dragged him through the streets in a manner befitting of a noblewoman’s desire. She did not think she would get the chance today.
“You said that if we don’t leave in precisely ten minutes we will be late.”
“We are never late,” she said, as if to echo the truth in his statement. She practically felt the air dredged from her lungs when they swing around the corner at the end of the lane, and left the street she called home well and truly in the dust. The sun was seeping back into the city slowly, and when they stepped out of the shade, and into the light of the thorough leading back to the market, she instantly felt warm and hazy again.
“You might not be dear, but I recall you once saying how you would ‘cut me a new orifice’ if I so much as turned up a second beyond schedule again.” He remembered it all too well. When he caught her confused expression, it appeared she did not. His hair bobbed as he flicked it from his eyes, and his eyes sparkled with grey, pallid, but jubilant life. He was firmly back in control.
“Did I really say that? What did you do…?”
Duffy guffawed as they lurched out into the edge of the square. Ahead, the crowd had already gathered, despite them having made very good time to get a good spot. They both stopped in their tracks. Duffy wrinkled his nose.
“I got drunk the night before Lillith’s wedding…”
Ruby’s eyes widened. “Yes!” her inner child half-shouted.
Duffy blinked with disbelief. He so very much wanted to just walk out and leave the conversation dead in the water. Every time he opened his mouth today, he seemed to dig himself a deeper hole. “Did you really forget?”
Ruby nodded. “That’s funny, because I would have made you suffer for weeks if you’d done something like that.” She chuckled nervously. Her mind raced through centuries of recollections, seeking for something to rekindle why she felt guilty.
“You did,” he replied flatly. She had made him suffer excruciatingly, to the point of being on his knees and grovelling for forgiveness. The troupe had pulled their hair out to try to calm Ruby’s wrath.
“Oh,” she mouthed. It was her turn to blink awkwardly.
“I think it’s ironic that despite me being virtually an alcoholic, I still remember all these little titbits of our past. You can extol virtue all you like about men drinking to forget,” he referred back to their flared discussion in the house, “but I remember all the important things in due course.”
Ruby could not argue with that. She saw his point. There were plenty of times she had drunken herself into a stupor the likes of which would have killed lesser women. She took a deep breath, embraced him under her arm once more, and with renewed glamour, advanced.
“Then I am very glad you are still here, Duffy,” she pursed her lips. She took another deep breath. She half wished she had partaken in the ice wine. “Even if we argue until sundown,” and she was sure that they would, “it is comforting to know that we’ll always have each other.” She meant it purely in the manner of friends.
“That is half the problem,” he smiled.
“Oh tosh, we can’t keep bringing that up. We were never meant to be because if we were, it would have happened by now.”
They dove into the rear of the crowd without flinching. They did not break their stride. The crowd, on the other hand, broke apart for them. When angry faces turned to see what rude individual had prodded them aside with the tip of a cane or a well-placed finger, the anger faded with recognition. A wall of warts, wigs, and wags staffs rippled and ruptured away from them.
“Yes, it’s us, now if you wouldn’t mind just,” Ruby ushered a young man to one side, his top hat and tails no match for her wealth and infamy, “that’s it, stepping over there,” they walked on and left even more gormless expression in their wake.
“Come on now people, you’re not here to see the Tantalum,” Duffy slapped his thigh; Ruby flicked her hair serenely behind her ears. “Look ahead, and behold the newest spectacle in the city!” Blood trickled down out of his trousers, his tiring form pushed a little too far to maintain their image.
To avoid subjection to further scrutiny, Duffy raised his hand to the skyline. He pointed to the top of the stage at the centre of the square, where the troupe had vanished an hour or two ago. Everyone turned, as if given royal command. Atop the stage, a young boy stood cocksure and brazen.
“About time it fuckin’ started,” a merchant roared. His unkempt hair dangled in damp locks, and his apron, plastered with tomato seeds and green grass stains, dangled with noodles and kitchen utensils. The crowd was dense everywhere except around him. “I have been waiting-”
“-and will continue to wait,” Duffy said over him. He did not look at the man, but his voice pierced his anger and struck him silent. There were muttered thanks in the wind for several moments afterwards.
The breeze picked up, rolling over the crowd east to west. The sun shone from behind the figure, casting a silhouette of a youth clad in midnight black and donning a tall, needle tipped hat. For a second, Duffy thought he saw Wizard Blueraven, but then a light shone from below and showed the boy’s true colours.
“Who do you think that is?” Duffy enquired calmly. He raised an eyebrow inquisitively.
“Pettigrew,” Ruby whispered, “he looks rather fetching now.” She said quieter still, so only Duffy heard. He rolled his eyes. “Oh I am excited for him so very much!” she squealed.
Duffy sighed. “Given you wanted to rip his face off earlier, you’ll forgive me,” he shut up when he took a finger to the ribs. He had to admit, he had come into his own from the snotty nosed brat who had a penchant for thievery. He used to ruffle his hair before bed, and give him sherbet lemons as a treat for annoying Ruby just enough to get away with it.
“You wanted to have a boring afternoon on the docks, can’t a woman change her mind?” she raised her eyebrow less inquisitively, and more administratively. Duffy felt undone by it, and fell silent. The tension between them abated, just a little, and they called for a temporary ceasefire.
Pettigrew clapped his hands, ruffled his hair with too much vanity, and spread his arms wide.
“Ladies and gentlemen of this fair island!” he roared. His voice somehow shook the atmosphere, and grabbed every person’s attention for a good mile. “Are you ready to be excited?” he beamed a smile that caused jowls to deepen and eyes to sparkle.
“Yeah!” everyone jeered, as if all had been to a thousand plays before.
“Then I shall entice you with the tale of the Restless Fugitive.”
They remained transfixed, proud noses raised to the crowd, and spines righted so not a hair fell out of place or a shoulder slouched. Clad in fine red silk, new white cloth, and matching black shoes, they took their place at the heart of the crowd and, for once in their life, began to a watch a play that would surprise them. They began to watch a play that titillated, cajoled, and carried them away.
Part Three
“This really is not what I was expecting,” said a strange, huffing and puffing as he climbed over the last ridge that surrounded the crater.
If he were to be truly honest with himself, he did not think he could ever have imagined the sight before his eyes. It was not really a crater, now he thought about it; it was more a scar in the surface of the world, a hole into hell. If he had choice to do his own voice over, he would have called it a cosmic ripple with a deep, overly dramatic voice. It looked like someone had dropped a large piece of land onto a quite solid and substantially larger piece of land. Somewhere in all the tectonic movement and the confusion, the land had decided to turn to lava.
When it reset, cooled, and reformed it left…this.
“What do you think, Jana?” he asked his companion, without looking over his shoulder to check she was still behind him. He set his heavy boot onto a rock as if he were the first man to discover this strange land, and set his hands onto his hips to take in the view.
“I think I am knackered,” spat the crimson haired priestess, rising up over the ridge behind the bard like a creature from the swamp. “Wet, hungry, and above all,” she slapped her hands on her knees with relief at finally having climbed the rise, “utterly unimpressed by – whoa” the words fell on deaf ears and into silent syllables as she clocked the crater.
“Pretty, is it not?” the stranger said smarmily.
“Nemo…what…,” she fell silent in admiration.
At the centre of the impact, there was a pool of luminescent blue liquid, which they could clearly see even at such a distance. Set two thousand or so feet away, and four hundred or so feet below their current position, was the last existing mark of the little known cataclysm, which had resulted from the birth, and quick death of a bastard god. The man was still a little sceptical about it all, but from the rising verges and cracked ridges that broke the fallow earth around that little pool, it certainly looked magical enough to have warranted Caden Law’s involvement.
“You would think he would have at least left, I do not know, a business card or something…,” Lill mumbled, appearing with considerably less physical distress than her sister does. The journey had not tired the assassin an inch, and she remained impeccably dressed against the gentle and occasionally howling breeze that swept down from the mountains to the north.
“I am not sure that is how he operates Lill. In fact, I am almost certain he is not the sort of person that likes to go around bragging about it.” Nemo tried to sound like he admired the wizard’s efforts, though history’s ironic sense would place him a thousand miles away or more, bragging quite loudly to every orc, slave and dog he crossed. Without realising it, Caden Law told the world who he was and what he had done with his remarkably short life every time he waved his wand.
“He is a wizard, of course he tells taller tales than the pinnacle of his stupid hat.” Lill spat her contempt before she slipped a dagger from beneath her obi. With non-chalant observation of the routine awe and wonder moment before danger ensured, she went about cleaning the mud from her nails. She was a practical sort of assassin-lady-about-town.
“I guess now is not the time to discuss the man’s moral indignation,” Nemo curled his lips. He was losing the battle to try and sound impressed, Lill, cold as ice, was having none of it.
The trio stood in a little row atop the ridge, arms pressed on hips to display their swagger, hair blown eschew in the breeze. If anyone had happened to look their way at that precise moment, they might have considered the trio to appear heroic. In their drab grey garb, functional and practical attire, they might have given the impression they were going to explore the cavern network rumoured to extend deep below the scar. The only thing they were going to do whilst dressed like this, however, was sing.
Nemo doubted any heroic party in all the long years of Scara Brae’s relatively short life had attempted to put back together an island. He doubted even more that anyone who had attempted to do so had done so with his or her voices, a bit of a dance and a ritual sacrifice.
The one thing they had to do was simple; put tomb back into catacomb.
“Do you think the gods will hear us over the wind, sister?” Lill stepped closer into the inner rings of the crater, dancing over the dangerous ground with nimble footwork. She continued to clean her nails, bringing Nemo to ask exactly how many hidden talents Lill had. She appeared to be concealing a third eye somewhere.
“It will have to do, though I dare say we should perform the ritual closer to that,” she jabbed a finger at the pool. “What do you suppose it is Nemo?” Jana pulled back her hair and tied it into a ponytail with a length of darn she pulled from her eternally well-stocked bandoleer. Many had often wondered, to no avail, how sane a woman that carried a sewing kit next to her sword could be.
“It appears to be moving, so it is likely to be some sort of magical residue.”
If it indeed were Caden Law who did this, it would be fewer residues and more ‘some I left in case of emergencies.’ It would be volatile, extremely harmful to the touch, and best left unhampered. Normally, Nemo would have been comforted by the fact he knew it was dangerous. The accompanying titbit to his thought train, the one that told him to wade about in the pool as he slit a chicken’s throat on the other hand did not.
“Will you…be alright?” The slight hesitation in Jana’s voice came through concern for her companion’s current appearance, and less so for his life.
None of the troupe feared for their mortal coil in dedicating themselves to repairing the wound on the face of their island home. There was no danger to any of them in that respect. Whilst Lill would lament the loss of her porcelain skin, delicately washed in jasmine and lotus oils twice daily, and Jana would have to explain to her wife why she was no longer a red headed bombshell, the troupe would carry on trying to put things right regardless.
“It is certainly going to sting a bit, maybe even render me cockles’ empty shells,” Jana rolled her eyes at the youth’s candour, “but it should not do any lasting damage.”
“You sound woefully uncertain,” Lill mumbled, finally showing some small degree of emotion at the prospect of the coming confrontation. Somehow, she knew that whatever was in the crater would make her skin crawl. It glowed with a deep, vermillion aura, like a shadow of oblivion cupping the world.
Nobody felt comforted by that fact.
They each took that as a sign to advance, slowly and together, down over the ridges. They felt the wind leave them behind as they fell into the crater, which offered a natural shelter against the voice of the Windlacer Peaks. It did not take long for the wind to chatter with whispers of another kind. However, the sky was overcast and on the cusp of turning to dusk and then eventual night, dancing ribbons of light began to spiral up from the pool to accompany the cackles and Fae like giggles.
“Jana…” Nemo stopped, feet tucked together and a spritely bounce coiled in his knees. He looked constipated, “can you see anything down there?” He used his readiness and cleared a small ravine. His boots scrunched the dirt underfoot with a heavy but safe landing. He did his best to avoid thinking about how deep the cracks were, how deadly and dark the abyss could possibly be.
The crimson woman took a moment to cover her eyes against the glare and to focus them, before she scanned the shore of the glowing pool. They had made swift progress and already she could make out the rocks and broken strands of earth that fell into the pool like lapping tree roots into a swamp’s haven. The crater seemed to melt into the pool, and the pool kept pulling in new chunks of rock by the second.
“The crater appears to be flowing into the residue, like sand into an ant lion’s nest.” She was suddenly thankful that she had paid attention to her travels through the desert kingdom of Fallien. “It must be a deep whole for it to be able to consume it so quickly,” she added, a useful fact that brought no comfort to any of them.
The lecture from the il’Jhain guide had proven invaluable when she and Mina, her long-standing wife, had managed to avoid certain death on the precipice of one such pit. When you fell into it, the ant lion would awake, and swallow so much sand you could not possibly outrun its greed. It was a remarkable creature, Jana had thought. She did not think so now.
“What on earth could it is swallowing the sand fo-” Nemo’s jaw remained half-open, sucking in an enlightening cold pang of air. It tasted faintly of almonds.
A little light went off at the back of the trio’s collective mind.
“Oh fuck,” was all they could muster in unison.
Whilst the Fireside Company made their ascent to heaven on the far side of the world, the stranger’s party found himself or herself rather swiftly descending into hell a little closer to home. Their mutual cry of realisation seemingly served as a declaration for proceedings to begin proper, as the second they screamed, the pool at the centre of the crater moved.
It did not move as if you would expect a pool of liquid to move.
“This does not seem like it is going to be an afternoon jaunt through an adventure Nemo,” Jana screamed, accusing the captain of lying, whilst at the same time, expressing her swelling concern for her newly stitched dress.
Instead of rippling, swishing, and rolling waves, the very centre of the pool rose up. Something floated like a ball pressed against a taught sheet or cloth up through the surface of the pool. It continued to rise, monstrous in size until it formed a smooth tipped cone a hundred feet tall.
Whilst the crater’s eventual destruction was slow, the party could feel the earth beneath their feet move quicker, as if the orb unseen in the swirl of magical refuse was willing them closer.
“Should we run?” Lill barked, legs spread and tanto unsheathed. They glinted in the luminescence of the pool’s light, which shifted between all the colours of the rainbow. It made them all feel quite nauseated.
“No point,” sputtered Jana, who had drawn her sword from its sheath with a wilful pull of her shaking fingers. “Save your strength for whatever trials lay ahead of us.”
At that moment, the ridge they teetered on slipped towards the pool in a trio of sudden movements. They rocked on their heels each time the ridge sunk another fifteen feet or so, but remained upright through their own volition. The air, which had smelt vaguely of rock and sulphur and almonds up until then started to resemble Nemo’s armpits, and a fear soaked rag pressed politely against one’s nose.
“If you know a song for ‘just about to be eaten by goo’ Jana, now would be a spiffing time!”
“If I think of something, you will be the first to know!” she replied with equal swathes of sarcasm swaddling her words.
The sky turned black, or at least, something overhead turned black. None of the party could make out wherever or not it was in fact the sky, or just a trick of the light. A powerful radix of energy rolled out from the cone, which tingled up and down their spines and made them each feel intoxicated and suddenly sleepy.
“I have a really. Bad. Feeling. About. This,” Lill fell backwards and disappeared into the furrow of the crater’s ridges. Jana screamed, and Nemo leapt over to where she vanished.
A second blast of energy hit him square between the collarbone and he too vanished.
“Nemo, Nemo!” Jana screamed, sword flashing silver streaks through the air as she flailed her way to attempt a rescue.
A thunderous crack of lightning burnt the air and embedded into the sky a sense of doom and danger. The pathetic fallacy was the sort of dramatic attempt by nature and Fate to bring a heroic confrontation to life, and it was the sort only true heroes have to see. In the cracks in the clouds, the spheres in heaven shone. Jana was too busy looking down into the gutter to notice such ominous stars overhead.
In the shadows, there was movement, but not the sort that was pleasing to the spell singer’s heart. In the cracks of the crater, the shadows lived. Nemo and Lill had seemingly fallen through them, down into the earth, dirt, and mire that had scared the island in the wake of the wizard’s gumption.
“Nemo…Lill…,” she shouted a cry. Between the howling winds, the vibrant eruptions of magic and the beat of her heart in her chest, she did not notice the third blast of energy bolt from the pool at her back. There was a whelp as she too fell into shadow, and was gone from the surface of Scara Brae.
Down.
Down.
Down.
Everything fell into darkness.
“This land be mine now; my child shall reign over the pinnacles and furrows of this cursed realm, and claim its discoveries for its own machinations.” The voice pierced Jana’s mind, and seemingly tore her sanity apart in speaking. She felt a familiar need to vomit, to crawl, and to be free of a thick web.
She cocked her head, though as she moved in the nothingness, she realised she had become nothing more than a metaphorical concept. Her heart bleated without flesh, her limbs flailed without motion, her fear grew without fluxing nerves into jittery knots. Whatever dwelt in the magical refuge had flayed the very reality from the troupe’s souls, and down into hell three sparkling pinnacles of light fell.
They fell into the deep, dark, and sundered catacombs.
Without motion but with plenty of screaming, they fell into the cracked earth and carnal playground of the fallen gods.
"Praise the spawn of N'Jal," it roared.
For what seemed like an age, the three lights swarmed about the pearl white sphere that engulfed all attention and presence in the abyss. Like moths to a candle’s flame, they bounced against the rippling surface, and fell away.
When the bastard god had risen from the wake of the wizardly meddling, and promptly died in the fallow promises of his Company, it was just part of a greater plan.
“Mother…I am ready.”
On the surface, the crater returned to its relatively peaceful state. The orb fell back into the pool, and the ripples swiftly faded from the world. The cracked earth settled, and the ridges and farrows of the crater returned to literal depths without bottomless hearts. The sky returned to its overcast state, devoid of lightning and brimstone.
“I shall awaken and feast on the bodies of weaker gods.”
At the mention of cannibalism, Nemo expressed his disagreement.
“Who are you calling weak?”
The larger of the lights burst into a bright array of ribbons and colour. Nemo appeared a little dishevelled, chipper, and suspended wearily in the oblivion. He was white in the casted glow of the pearl, like an apparition in the night. His arms stretched wide with daggers poised formed from the light itself, an instinctive reaction to defend himself, his friends, and his family.
Nemo had no idea who he was talking to, or, in the case of non-specific entities, what.
“You are Nemo, being of mischief and swords, correct?”
There were only four people in the world who knew Nemo had a more important past than he let on. He was an avatar for heroism. Those four people were the avatars themselves, and they had been most careful with that secret. Nemo raised a glowing eyebrow.
“We are he,” though he did not like the mischief part – that was his own identity, not the providence of the god who gave him life.
Somewhere in the heavens, entombed within a comet somewhat ironically the same size as the shard of earth that had shattered the beautiful countryside of Scara Brae, a dark mistress watched.
“A god dead to the world with worthless prophets is weak.”
“Worthless prophets?” Jana appeared this time, her sassy mouth sparking her body with life. She hung to Nemo’s right, sword still swinging in her right hand as if her sword arm was singing her defiance. Even amidst the glow of the pearl, her hair somehow appeared fiery and sentient crimson. “We are not worthless, who the fuck do you think you are?”
Nemo had heard about the exploits of the Fireside Company through the drunken rants of barbarians in taverns. Though he hated their bravado, uncouth nature, and general masculine excess, it was massively amusing to him that they had taken on their mantle as if they were the new successors to the heroic titles god killers and badasses.
“I am Naris, seed of Sijar Jhar and the mistress N’Jal.”
Even as the creature spoke the titles, Nemo felt himself vomiting in the real world. His spiritual form, which he now realised, was a facsimile of his real self-suspended in another plane. His spirit flickered in rage, containment, and rejection of his bonds. It was always funny to hear about mother’s impregnating their own sons for kicks in plays, but to hear it from the horse’s mouth, so to speak, just made him queasy.
“Did the wizard Blueraven not kill you?”
“Only my father…in the destitution and chaos, I was born and have lain dormant until now.”
“This sounds terribly like the plot to Macbeth,” mused Jana, half expecting a trio of witches to appear in fire and brimstone to proclaim the strange sphere to be Macduff, carefully bred to take revenge.
“Wait a minute,” the bard cocked a smile at the woman, but plastered a serious look across his face with a snap. “All that humdrum and epic heroism from the Fireside Company was a diversion…for a double bastard in white?”
The pearl began to shudder, as if something inside was trying to break free from its opalescent shell.
“I do not think it is interested in our questions Nemo, but I do have a song handy, now that I think about it…” Jana slowed her statement, as if the awakening monstrosity was somehow pressing against her mind, dredging all the will and gumption out of her usually vibrant soul.
Nemo nodded in agreement, and clapped his hands together. An ethereal clap of thunder broke the dense nothingness as non-existent flints sparked in the shadows. The magnesium white flashes dimmed by the glow of their own souls, but they kindled hope in their wake.
“Sing your own obituary, sing your own damnation, and sing the rise of N’Jal’s true progeny.”
Nemo and Jana had heard that claim far too many times in five centuries of fighting vagabonds, gypsies, vampires, and thieves. Everybody it seemed was somehow magically a seed of N’Jal; she had, it seemed, been more around the block than Lill had.
“Show yourself!”
A crack rolled into view about the sphere’s outer shell, widening with every passing second and every swell of energy that rolled out from the orb. Nemo and Jana floated closer together and clasped hands. His right into her left, a pledge that bound their energies and souls into a single, brighter spark. Even without true bodies, the bard felt the wave of air wash over him as the crack broke the outer shell and dropped fragments of eggshell, which is what it now apparently, was into the shadows below.
“Is that…a spider?” Jana asked inquisitively.
Nemo nodded.
“The evil gods are never two legged…,” he grumbled.
It also turned out that evil gods, or evil bastard sons of evil gods, never did anything with an ounce of subtlety. As the writhing mass of darkness continued to break free of its birthing sphere, each long leg stretched out and seemed to fragment the shadow into different shades of impenetrable darkness. There was ominous oblivion, a callous night, a noxious depth to its arrival. Its bones were clad in chitin and abyssal midnight, thick hide of oil and sinew.
“I will devour you piecemeal,” the creature’s voice, which up until now had been hallow and strained, burst into threatening rumbles of words. It half seeped into the trio’s memories, to prey upon them in nightmares.
“Oh please, we have heard this all before,” Jana spat.
This was the truth, though she left out the part about who was telling them. Kālu was a true terror, a primeval foe that sundered the party and gave them something to fear. He was the only being alive who could take their immortality from them, save Nemo himself. Now they feared only for the civilians, for the orphans, vagabonds and nobles of Scara Brae who would suffer in their failures.
They were also, by now, quite good at killing spiders.
“An unending nightmare shall befall your souls, eradicating hope before crushing dreams,” Nemo shook his head as the creature continued in its egotistical delusions.
The creature grew as it freed itself from the pearl, and by the time the shards had disappeared altogether, its eight legs extended. It was no different from any house martin or wall crawler, the likes of which inhabited the troupe’s playhouse in swarms in the summer. Of course, its monstrous size and the glowing lights that passed for its eight piercing eyes told of something greater and more prominent in this particular spider’s destiny. Jana would not be able to swat this one with a well-aimed heel.
“No light, no lie, no remedy,” Jana had enough, and belted out a choral verse which was augmented by the ethereal nature of her being.
Nemo, smiling at the chosen song opened his own cheeky smile and called a response.
“No love, no truth, no elegance,” his own voice wrapped around Jana’s, and their dual nature gifted the words a life of their own.
They shone bright, bright, and brighter still.
“For an eternity we have waited, protected what is true.”
“For an age we will stand on this island fair, and kill creature’s foul and black.”
Jana let go of Nemo’s hand and cut a cross through the air with her sword, which sang its own mystical line in a language neither of them could understand.
“No Fae song can hurt me, I am the darkness!”
“Oh please, spare me from this fucking idiot,” Lill finally flickered into life, unable to stomach the scene any more.
Before the verse could rattle into being proper, the assassin flicked two ghostly tanto at the creature’s eyes. The first hit nothing but fur, but the second struck gold, and slipped into the luminescent sphere of one of its many eyes.
The scream that erupted from the spider’s maw rocked the spell singers stride and tossed them rolling through the gloom. They broke apart, unable to maintain their grip set against the motion. Lill looked over her shoulder and watched them shrink as they continued to spin.
“Mother, give me providence over the shadows!” the spider rushed forwards, its legs moving as if an invisible floor of glass rested beneath its monstrous bulk.
Lill felt the rush of air caress her cold skin and turned to meet her attacker head on. Its cankerous motion instantly sparked warning signals in her mind, a sixth sense that drew her attention to the floor beneath her suddenly solid feet. Whatever nightmare they had fallen into faded, and the assassin took a jab from the leg to the chest.
When she landed on the cracked earth twenty feet behind where she had been, the sky, dark and ominous as ever focussed starkly into view.
It was an illusion.
RUMBLE.
RUMBLE.
CRACK!
A peal of thunder roused Nemo and Jana, who had fallen into a heap on the verge of the crater. In the distance, they rose, slowly and awkwardly, until they could focus enough to peer back to the glowing pool and the great shadow that loomed over their sister.
“I think we angered it…,” Nemo said half-heartedly. He dusted himself down, his physical form battered and bruised from their spiritual harrowing.
“It is pretty good at that psychobabble pseudo duel shit. Let us not fall for that again shall we?” Jana patted Nemo on the shoulder, before she skipped into a run down the slope to re-join the fray.
Nemo half wanted to turn around and stroll down the verge to the safety of his bed. He was getting too old to throw his weight around against evil and far too old to be running around like an idiot.
“No…let us not,” he mumbled, before he broke into a run after the Spell singer, demi-cloak flapping in his wake, fire wand sparking gouts of licking flame against the dusk sky.
The spider’s front legs rose defiant as Jana advance down the slope towards their enemy. She ducked, span, and sliced across chitin the very second they descended. With a grace and speed Nemo never knew the sword slinger had, she stepped out of harm’s way, sliced backwards with her blade, and then side-saddled into a third that pierced the bone and caused the demi-god to scream with rage.
“Look out Jana, up overhead!” Lill screamed.
As the spider retreated with thundering treads, its twitching maw, a festooned mouth of mandibles and slime descended like a hellish dream, hoping to snatch up its prey with a more bestial method. Jana glared up just in time to see two flashes of steel slice through one of the few soft spots on the creature. The snick of tanto into flesh sent a chill of pleasure down her spine. With her hair eschew, her sword hand singing, and her knees bent to embrace the added weight on her shoulders, she prepared a verse to add her strength to her sister’s attack.
“You will know no victory,” it trilled, gibbering and mimicking a thousand voices with one single line. A hundred, if not a thousand protagonists had said similar things in similar circumstances, real and fictional throughout the ages. The troupe had acted out most of them, lived through every aeon of torment witnessed by man. They could only smirk wildly back.
“You will know no peace,” a wad of spider silk, a thick, grey, and perilously toxic liquid fired from the creature’s mouth. A strand of razor sharp silk followed from a quickly tucked thorax and a roar of defiance that caused the creature to rush back and upwards onto its hind legs.
Nemo sprang into Jana just in time to knock her clean sideways to the right. They slammed into the rugged ground, but the bard bounced up in a monkey roll, flames still licking the dusk, eyes still piercing the stars. He ran and leapt over the smouldering slag pile, bounced on thick leather soles, and began to clamber up the nearest leg. His claws flashed into view mid-air, slicking like the creature’s legs, but finding better ground in flesh than in the arid landscape crushed of its life by magical excess.
“Lill, use a hexagram. Jana, the song!” he screamed over his shoulder. Dodging and dancing around the smashing legs, each one sharp to a point and weighing several tons, the two sisters recuperated from their charge, eyes upward, and prepared their next attack. Both kept a half eye on the bard as he climbed, hoping, praying, and dreaming he would succeed.
The lightning began to crackle in that moment, and the floating islands, detritus from the explosion caused by Caden, shook and swayed dramatically in the heavens. The blue pool, a thin, liquimetal coating to conceal the tomb of the creature rippled and bobbed like a pre-tidal wave.
“No light, no lie, and no remedy,” Jana recounted. This time, her song voice was pure and full of conviction. The sweat on her brow, the dust and dirt on her scarred knees, and the smell of iron in the air gave her purpose a sense of urgency. It gave her pitch, power, and potential.
Lill cross-crossed her hands, touched together her wrists, and swayed and chanted ancient Akashiman monograms in between evasive steps. Each one added another layer of mysticism and majesty to the over-arching strength of her spirit warder magic.
“Cease this whittling,” the spider-god roared. Seven voices echoed in its attackers minds.
Seven lines of song returned the call, defiant, hateful, and burning brighter.
“No heart or home or hearth denied, no love or soul or motion tied.”
The lightning cracked overhead, burning the ground in diamonds, coal, and nothingness. A spear-leg rose and fell once more, splitting the earth between Jana and Lill. As the rubble knocked them both flying, Nemo reached the knee joint, drove his claw deep into the chitin, and leant out, as if surveying the view from above a dense and thick canopy. He cackled madly, the smell of burning fuel thick on his nostrils, and unsheathed a dagger with no name from his belt.
The spider god’s death scream pierced the heavens.
Part Four
One Year Ago
In recent months, Duffy Bracken had grown increasingly tired, weary, and destitute. He was tired enough to not just feel the ache in his muscles, bones, and sinew, but in his soul as well. Down in the depths of his being, he felt like sleeping for a thousand years. Fighting took a great deal out of even the hardiest of men, but even the grizzled soldiers of Althanas’ darkest frontiers got an opportunity to rest. There would be no mud-sewn camp for the Tantalum, now that war had come to the land of Raiaera.
“There is nothing to see…,” he whispered. He felt their dithering gaze on his back.
With a puckered, sour expression, he stared out across the darkened plains from behind the sanctuary of the Tor’s ruined battlements. Long ago, the University’s uppermost spire would have been a gleaming needle set against a radiant horizon. After dark elven rebellion, necromantic tyranny, and civil war, all the splendour of Istien had drained away. The glory of the High Elves was lost, and it would be decades, centuries, or perhaps millennia before the Cor Lindra could once again be proud to rule over her homelands.
“What do you see, Lord Defoe?” said the high bard singer, with soft tone and heartfelt intent. Her shimmering spider silk, satin, and golden robes caught the last raiment’s of the sun for a brief moment before darkness washed over the kingdom. Their enchantment only made them more mesmerising than her natural beauty did – she was like a sun in cloth, bound by vestments. In another life, Duffy might have found her attractive.
Duffy turned slowly, as if he were trying to buy himself crucial seconds. He shifted his weight cantankerously on his cane, so that he could right himself without falling. He remained pensive for a few long seconds before he spoke, inertia and weakness causing him to close his eyes to steel himself against the dark. He opened them slowly, and looked to his colleague. He ignored Ruby’s glare from behind the high elf, and remained poised enough to deliver his judgement with conviction.
“Nothing of note,” he said.
“You can see nothing at all?” said the Cor Lindra, her words venomous with surprise. Duffy heard just a hint of disappointment in her tone. He quite understood how she felt. He wanted validation in their endeavour, and more so, he wanted to hear that they were fighting for a cause truly worth the cost.
“I can see nothing except the obvious. We are witnessing the formation of a new, undesired reality. I have expected its arrival for some time now.” The flecks of spit began to whiten on Duffy’s lips. The atmosphere, cold, and the long and tiring hours spent immersed in rhetoric were beginning to get to his stamina.
“If it is expected,” the bard said, bemoaning having to admit defeat, “then what of the rifts we have been encountering?”
“I am afraid to say, Nalith, that the vortexes are becoming more frequent.” By his count, and the multitude of silver skeins on the horizon, they were becoming too frequent for the raiding parties to continue to seal. If they pressed themselves too hard, then they would render Raiaera’s already weakened defences against its encroaching enemies useless. “We can continue as we are and focus our efforts on the disruptions that form near villages, towns, and our borders…,” he curled his lip, “but I am afraid that unless we do something more,” he sighed, “forceful, we will be overwhelmed by their frequency before too long.”
“How long is too long?”
“We have weeks, perhaps months at best.”
The high elf began to reply, but Ruby, with boisterous ignorance, stole the words right out of her mouth. She stepped forwards as she interrupted, clicking out the sound of her advance with a triple flourish of steel tipped heels against ancient granite. Like Duffy, the spell singer was growing tired, weary, and wanderlust with the trials and errors of high elven politics. She wanted action, and as ever, she wanted it quicker than it would come.
“So what do we do about them?”
Duffy rolled his eyes. “I am afraid there is only way we can repair the damage caused to The Aria. You will not like it,” he turned back to gaze out over the rolling copses, maudlin’ swamps, and decadent bogs. “You will not like it one bit.” He left the recipient of his reply deliberately vague, and relished the rising tension, which grew even as the wind began to howl over their shoulders in a stream of violent, ghastly noise. He rested his hand onto the lower battlement to steady himself.
“You mistake me for someone who has not spent five centuries in your delectable company, Duffy.” Ruby sniped. Nalith raised an eyebrow in response, but decided against questioning what she meant. “Just tell us, we are running out of time.”
The bard could not help but agree with her. Ever since the distortions had started to appear all across the elven heartlands, the impending sense of doom had become fever pitch. With each vortex, a tick of the proverbial doom clock had pressed the remnants of Istien University’s Bladesinger garrison into action. With each tick, a patrol came back from the bogs and the borderlands, and the undead thrived on their own in the face of a greater enemy.
“We have to offer each tear an immortal.”
Ruby, Nalith, and Duffy alike all blinked once, hard, and with purpose. The sky clapped with lighting, and the thunder rolled down across the moistened kingdom. Dew, rain, and mist pulsed.
“I am sorry?” Nalith asked, her spider-silk gown shimmering as she flinched. “You want us to offer sacrifices to your mistake?” her lip curled, most unbecoming for an elf of her stature, and she folded her arms tightly across her chest. “I will not condone this, not one bit.”
“You have no choice, Nalith.” Duffy said, forgetting his place, and the etiquette of their host’s long standing tradition. “Now is not the time for titles and trifles to stand in the way of what must be done.” The bard turned a flurry of dusty cloth and heavily frayed war garb, “I daresay that sentiment rings true with you my liege, if the history of the war rings true.” Returning to form, Duffy plied his study of the university’s account of the Corpse War to his cause.
A second peal of thunder sundered the sky. Vermillion, blue, and azure flourishes spiralled out from the impact, until the skies over Raiera returned to their drab, lifeless, and phantasmal normality. The wind strengthened, whipped over the battlements, then died again as it tumbled down onto the shattered raiment’s of Istien University’s crumbling spires. The moan and groan of the tense atmosphere echoed as if spiritual tendrils through the once glorious collegiate of the art of spell song.
“That was different, Brandybuck.” Nalith replied with sour contempt. “We were fighting an enemy we did not understand, and an enemy we had spent many centuries fearing in our nightmares.” Her eyes narrowed and pierced his forehead. Ruby rolled her eyes, tapped the forefront of her right foot onto the cracked stone, and mimicked the elf's closed stance.
“That is no different to now, Nalith. There are fifteen rifts out there, right now, and more will come if we do not act fast. The tears in the fabric of Althanas are due to my mistake, yes, but they are everyone’s burden to bear.”
“Are they, Duffy?” Ruby stepped closer, let her arms drop to her sides, and then clicked her fingers. The air smouldered around her digits, and her voice seemed to take a deeper, stronger, and more prominent tone. Magic clung to the air, despite the rain, and pushed almond scent into the group’s nostrils. It served as a stern and poignant warning to them both against any further incivility.
“You refused to help when we called on you, and because of that, Tantalus was destroyed.” Duffy, for the first time in his life, narrowed his gaze into a glare of contempt that could have exorcized dark souls. Nalith took it well, but realised her mistake.
“Look around, Brandybuck.” Ruby waved her arms, and Duffy flinched at the use of his real name by his matriarch and closest friend. “We are at the heart of Althanas’ death throe. Now is not the time to be pointing the fucking finger!” her arms slapped against her laced thighs, fingers dancing and eyes blazing with literal flame.
“Do you not think I know that?” his voice rose in intensity, but he turned away, rested his hands against the battlements, and stared out into the drab nothingness of the landscape. “I have spe-” he sighed, “we have spent five centuries giving up everything for the betterment of others. We have protected Althanas against its enemies each and every waking moment.”
“A sacrifice that will be remembered, without a doubt,” the elf said, softly, as if to lace the argument with kindness. She pressed her fingers together, and rested her chin on her index digits in contemplation. Her own nostrils flared with heavy breaths, a composing mantra to steel herself against the tension in the air.
“I would not have come here, Nalith, if it were not the only way. When Jensen and Erissa returned, I was just as shocked as you were to hear of what they had found.” What they had found, in the depths of madness, was the final piece of an intricate, deadly, and almost unfathomable puzzle. “If the four Forgotten Ones have been truly bested, then now, in this day and age, will be the time for the Fifth to make himself remembered.” Neither elf nor avatar wished to witness such an event.
“I am yet to pass judgement on the implications of Oblivion’s supposed passing.” She threw away her mantra, and returned to a glare of scorn. “The Fifth, however, will be greeted with the entire wrath our people possess. He is, after all, much to blame for Raiaera’s devastation, and for the passing of the Maya from this world.” The uttering of the Ancient’s name brought a smile to Duffy’s face.
“Then you have not forgotten why it is important for allegiances to be formed, and for allegiances to be upheld in times dire to the survival of the free peoples?” he raised an eyebrow, flicked his mop of a fringe from his eyes, and cast away his cane in a flourish of mercury strands of light and ochre energy. The smell of lemons filled the ornate chamber.
“But who will be wiped from the chronicles this time, might I ask?”
“I will,” he said. His determination, his unflinching nature, and the look of shock on Ruby’s face told Nalith all she needed to know about the truth of the bard’s appearance at her door. He had planned this, perhaps for centuries, and if he had gone to such lengths to offer himself for the good of her people, he deserved to speak.
She rose, ascendant and resplendent, and gestured with a slender arm to the opening in the northern curve of the tower’s wall. “You mean to offer yourself to the tears?” she enquired, moving over the floor without so much as a sound. Her skippered feet seemed to hover above the glimmering surface of the Elvin stone. Her horns, coiled with ivy, elongated as the air hummed with power. “You are but one soul, my Lord,” she used titles to incite pride, “when the tears are many.”
Together, the trio walked to the doorway, and stepped out onto the balcony. Almost immediately, the howling wind broke the silence, and the concentration, and battered them with the iron scented gale that carried with it stories of distant wars. The horizon was by now blood red, swirling with orange, yellow, and purple undertones. Nalith, in a moment of magnificent power, spread her arms and did away with nature’s advance. The air around the balcony froze for a split second. Duffy felt his breath leave him, and Ruby started to swoon.
“Who else do you propose?” her follow up question ended her spell, leaving her audience gasping, and the balcony calm, serene, and sheltered from the elements. A dome of rainbow glass solidified around the northern point of the university, encompassing all the grounds and colleges in its expanse. Nalith, or so it seemed, had called on the inner strength of the Bardic school as a whole, and not merely on her own power.
“I...,” Ruby wheezed.
“I can name only three others who have the power within to seal the cracks we discovered over the ebb and flow of the reforming Tap.” The names floated to the forefront of his mind. The guilt that followed echoed his reservation to speak them.
“The second is Jensen Ambrose.” Nalith nodded. She had heard of the enigmatic immortal through the Tor Melinda, and the swan mounting sky knights of the northern provinces of Raiaera. They had carried words of his deeds far over the Elvin heartlands, and much farther beyond into the Mountains of Twilight, and the lands of Alerar. “The third,” Duffy paused for a moment, to catch Ruby’s gaze. She frowned, “Is of course Ruby Winchester, the Old God once named Phoenix.”
“A fact you will eternally remind me of,” she snapped. Her tongue protruded, for just a split second, to show her contempt with a flourish of immaturity. She had immediately suspected she would be amongst the ‘brave few’.
“I fear Lilith and Arden will be required elsewhere, so whilst they are appropriate, we cannot sacrifice them.” Duffy rested his hands on his hips. “That leaves yourself, Nalith, and the final person that would serve as a conduit...” He hesitated upon seeing the high elf’s reaction. Her serenity fell away from her, and rose back up around her spider silk form like demon’s fire.
“I will do no such thing!” she roared. The dome cracked in places, as if the peace of its wielder was a crucial component to its machination. “Raiaera will not stand to lose its leader in a time of war...”
“In losing its leader, it will gain something else much more potent for its recovery...” Even Ruby was speechless, she began to step from toe to toe, her form dancing with the last dying light of the setting sun.
“The dancing fool, the bard, and the spell singer are sacrifices.” She spat. “The Cor Lindra will not be a tool for your heroism to be gifted with immortality!”
“Everything and everyone is expendable, when the survival of the world is at stake!” Duffy had not intended to lose his composure, but he roared so loud that not even the gathering storm could have drowned him out. His eyes blazed, his jacket became enflamed, and ribbons of blue light danced out from his outstretched palms.
“An honourable position,” Nalith began, stepping back once, “when you give people the opportunity to volunteer.” She sighed. “There has to be another way, we cannot throw ourselves into the abyss and hope, pray, and prattle that somehow, Althanas will carry on in our absence.”
“You speak as if we’re gods, Nalith.” Ruby interjected, stepping up to Duffy’s side to press her hand on his shoulder. She could feel the tension in his muscles, which knotted them into steel, and felt afraid for their success rate. If she did not take a firm grip on his temperament, Duffy could destroy any hope they had of forming an alliance with Istien. If they did not have that, then they would have to fight the final Forgotten One alone. She shuddered at the thought. “We are pawns, and this game of chess has gone on for too long already.”
“Even if,” she side-tracked, “and this is a small if,” she folded her arms across her chest, “we manage to seal the rights, what guarantee is there they will not simply reform?”
“The Tap is reforming because of our stupidity,” Ruby replied. By our, she of course meant her husband’s, but as they had pledged to be and do as one until death did them part, it was her burden to carry too, “we have made certain we will correct that mistake.” The research had carried them everywhere, to ancient citadels and giant homesteads and they had conversed with the gods themselves in their endeavour.
“It has only been able to break through the seals placed upon it by your ancestors because the Forgotten Ones remained on Althanas. Now that, slowly but surely, they have all but been defeated, the power of the Tap is dwindling. It will be too weak to return, once we destroy the vials and eradicate the final skeins of power of its wielders.” Xem’Zund, Pode, and Denebriel had been defeated. Each was demolished, undone, contained. The Fourth and Fifth remained, and remained the only obstacle.
“A world without the Tap...,” Nalith whispered. Her eyes glazed over, as if the pleasure of such a realm had consumed her. It was a distant dream of the elves, to be free of their ancient enemy. To think that it was a possibility began to gnaw away at her reluctance to offer herself to the cause.
“Before we can seal the rifts, though, there remains one other task we must tend to...” Speaking perhaps too soon of his graver news, Duffy clenched his teeth. The oppression that rose up from the pit of his stomach roiled his acid, dissolved his lunch, and gave him a shake that he could not hope to sweat out. “We must find, and kill, the last of the Forgotten Ones.”
The storm broke through the sphere on the eastern side of the university. The sound of the wind piercing through the crack seemed almost calamitous over the backdrop of silence. They all turned to gaze into the distance, and watched fragments of soul glass break away, crumble, and rain down onto the School of Healing below.
“We have not been able to discern his resting place, even with the might of our remaining armies...even with the clarity of foresight of The Starlight Wanderers.” Nalith’s tone seemed hopeless, ill thought out, and without hope of recovery. She had spent months spending every waking moment in pursuit of their Final enemy. When Jensen and Erissa Caedron had reported the death of Pode, and when they did battle with another adversary, each new victory gave her life. “He is beyond reach, and out of reach, he is immortal truly.”
Duffy broke into a maddened smile, as if his work to guide their conversation had finally come to fruition.
“You’re looking at him,” he said, pointing at Ruby. In turn, realising her cue, she pointed back.
“You’re looking at us.”
“What?” Nalith said.
The legacy of Lucian Lahore had scarred Duffy Bracken for life. The Dark Bard’s campaign to destroy the heart and soul of Scara Brae had consumed the troupe’s attentions for nearly a century. Each turn and twist in the story had killed, severed, and devastated the bard’s emotions, personality, and his resolve to remain focussed and concentrated on the task. When he had finally bested Lucian, he had thought, perhaps naively, that their troubles would end.
“We are fragments of the Fifth Forgotten One.” From his snake like lips, and with too great a smile, it seemed as if he were making a threat. Ruby nodded in agreement with his statement. “Five shards in all, we are toys and puppets of his power.”
“Explain yourselves, now, before I cast you to the depths!” she pursed her lips, bent her knees, and spread her arms into a defensive stance. Duffy and Ruby both recognised it as belonging to the Turlin School – the only song in the School of Healing that could hurt them was Althorn – the song of piercing light.
“Stop, stop, and stop!” the spell singer pleaded, the hem of her dress rippled as she made a cautious step back. She held up hands in defence, a feeble wall that would afford no protection against Nalith’s pure and unhindered voice.
“Stop to let you destroy me?” she spat.
“Listen to us; do not make the same mistake others have done.”
“When his siblings were defeated in the first War of the Tap, Nalith, the Fifth Forgotten one wove spells of forgetting into the skeins of history. People, quite simply, forgot his name. No matter how hard they tried, they could not find a way to remember it, and even if they did, the magic would re-write history and do away with that small hope of victory once more.” He had garnered the nickname Oblivion, amongst the Immortals, for that small feat alone.
“Oblivion...,” she said. “The one the immortal seeks?” she raised an eyebrow, which was un-elf like, but showed interest. “That seems...implausible.”
“Truth in plain sight has always been his way.” Ruby nodded remorsefully. “In his exile, he took on the mantle of Wainwright Jones, using his still potent abilities and charisma to gather pawns and peons to his side.” That charisma had formed the Tantalum troupe, five hundred years ago or more, and solidified the sage of Duffy, Ruby, Lilith, and Arden. “He stole the power of the Thayne Tantalus, shattered the gods’ corpse, and used the vessels that contained his essence to form five beings that would be immortal props to his sycophantic need to control, to dominate, and to tyrannise.”
Nalith, piecing together the facts, stood down. “You...,” she said.
Duffy nodded, “he made us, and divided the art of creation amongst the troupe. He made us immortal, so that we would never be lost or used against him. He used the magic he had learnt from the Tap to erase our memories whenever we gained the prescience to remember the truth, and he reformed us in his image when we died...” Each resurrection had been rebirth into another character from his endless creativity. They had lived out the lives the Forgotten One had been denied.
“Then if he is to be defeated, you must perish, no?” the question was posed seemed cruel. Duffy could not deny her the right to ask it, though.
“Yes, or at least, that’s what we always believed.” Ruby stepped closer. “When I came to the university, it was to unseal a book that he had written, a precognitive glimmer of the future as we live it now. In it, he revealed that once we remember, and learn to hold on to the memory and the truth of our creation, his power over us is forever broken.”
A crack of thunder struck the dome, just as the last of the sunset faded from view. As darkness overwhelmed the kingdom, revelation overwhelmed its people.
“We know where he is, and we know that has begun to act in the light of his brother’s death.” Duffy had seen Wainwright only a year prior, when the Forgotten One had delivered the fatal blow, crippled him, and destroyed the Prima Vista, the troupe’s home. “He will surely seek to reclaim the vials, before we can destroy them for good. I do not, I hope, have to tell you what would happen if any of the Forgotten Ones consume the power and spirit of another?” the warning in his question was clear enough.
If Oblivion drank from the vials, if he consumed Xem’Zund’s necromantic essence or the red forest witches’ heart...then the Tap would be the least of their worries.
It took a great deal of time before Nalith calmed down, composed her thoughts, and replied. Her face was whiter, as if the life had drained from her cheeks, and though the storm was growing within the dome, the sound of her heart beating was almost audible over the increasing roar. She ran her hands along the curvature of her horns, clicked her neck, and spoke.
“No, you do not. That does not mean to say that I entrust you with my life.” The sincerity of her words humbled Duffy. The anger he felt subsided, and he folded his arms behind his back, subtlety appreciative of her authority. “You still have not told me much about what you intend to do…” The accusation undid his resolve. She gestured, with flowing trails shining in her motion’s wake, back towards the archway that lead into the audience chamber. “So I expect you to be more…,” she began to walk, “forthright, Duffy.”
“What do you wish to know?” he asked, following her as she took the lead. With stoic steps, he set his battle-worn boots harshly onto the stone. It, like her dress, danced in the light of twilight. “What would appease you?”
“You say he made you in his image Duffy, so who is the fifth ‘Forgotten One’?”
Duffy immediately sighed. She had gone straight for the jugular, a ripping of the only thing Duffy held truly dear. Ruby caught his glance, but he chose to ignore her fiery concern. They had, centuries ago, made a promise to protect the final member of the Tantalum troupe. For some strange reason, Oblivion’s magic had erased the concern’s memory so thoroughly, that there was no hope of ever being able to awaken him to the truth. They had guarded him, kept him close, and kept him secret. The irony of forgetting him was a constant source of guilt for Ruby, who was like a mother to him.
“Is that crucial to the task at hand?”
“Forthright, Duffy, forthright…,” she said as she glared at him. They entered the chamber, and the sudden rise in temperature was comforting to them all. The wind fell away into nothingness, and the twilight of dusk turned with the flickering illumination of the chamber’s glow stones. “No bars held, no honours broken.”
“I am sorry, Ruby,” he said, “but I guess Nalith is right…we have protected him for this long, he will remain protected as a matter of,” she looked back at Nalith, who had already made it to her throne, sat, and arranged herself regally, “priority.”
“Whoever it is, they will be treated equally, and brought into the silver wing’s governance.”
“Then spread their wings around Pettigrew Orison.”
The High Bard narrowed her gaze into a piercing, speculative analysis. Once, and only once, she had witnessed a play put on by the Tantalum Troupe. It had been during the high summer, she had travelled to Scara Brae on a diplomatic mission to ascertain wherever or not an allegiance was plausible between the Council and Queen Valeena’s isolationist principality. It had ended without fruit, but she remembered the name, and the face that went with it from the performance.
“The scamp with the tree costume?” she raised an eyebrow. There was more than ample mirth curling her lips into a wry smile. “I find that hard to stomach.” The Fifth of the Forgotten One’s simulacrum was no more than thirteen, and fond of swearing. She guessed there was little certainty when tyrants and gods were concerned.
“It is true enough,” she sighed. There was a hint of a tear in the corner of her right eye. She felt suddenly exonerated, but at the same time, she felt guiltier than ever. “The power he possesses is dormant, sealed away by the same magic that erased our memories. It is…,” she teetered on uneasy feet, “difficult to conceive a way to unleash it.”
“Without hurting him, I assume you mean?” she reached into her robes, produced a small vial, and filled It with silver liquid from the small divining bowl that rested on the right arm of her throne. The skeins of magic within formed its own seal, and a brief flash of light surrounded the elf. “I can see how you would be reluctant to even try.” She understood something about loyalty, family, and protecting them with one’s life. “There are ways and means to undo the magic Oblivion is purported to wield.” Nalith held out the vial, and Duffy, reading the signs, approached her to take it.
“What is this, might I ask?” he said, weighing the vial in his palm. It was warm to the touch, though mercury was oft cold and kept frozen. The glass was roughshod, and the stopper, liquid wax pressed together with melodic potency swirled with colour as he held it up to a glow stone’s light. It was a strange creation, which made Duffy’s mind wander as to how strange the contents would be.
“My next question,” she said, ignoring the bard’s counter enquiry, “is would you be willing to use the very thing that threatens our world to save it?” the soft tone of her voice belied the severity of her question. Duffy took it to mean The Tap, and instantly balked at the idea. His hand dropped to his side, his inspection of the vial insignificant now.
“Never, the Tap would destroy us long before we ever got the chance to use it against him.” He practically scintillated rebellion. Ruby, without having to say anything, folded her arms across her chest, betrayed by her sudden exegesis of form. “How could you even suggest such a thing?” he continued, with obvious shock and disgust.
“You hold in your hand a draught of The Tap.” She pointed an elongated digit at the vial. “A draught of the Tap that is bound, chained, and tempered by a Bardic school outlawed in Raiaera, forbidden in practise except by those trusted few who have proven themselves to be cleansed, pure, and honourable.” Duffy had a hard time picturing anyone capable of such things, even Nalith, whose form shone with the heavens, though whose heart, clearly, showed only black.
“Are you telling me that the Cor Lindra, light of Raiera, would not lay down her sword and life to save the world…but she would, without hesitation, wield the ancient enemy in a bid to safe herself?” he threw the vial back at her. In a moment of weakness and emotion, he undid all his work thus far to garner an alliance. The vial arced upwards, until its weight overpowered Duffy’s long arm. It fell and clattered against the marble mosaic before the High Bard. Duffy watched it roll, unharmed, and over the faces of the heroes called the Dawnbringers.
“We can destroy the Tap, and the Forgotten Ones, and gain levity against Alerar all in one fell swoop,” she snarled. “Raiaera would be great once again!”
“Is this what this is about?” Ruby’s eyebrow rose, slowly, but with the sort of potency that undid even the strongest man’s reserve. “You are viewing this as some sort of political opportunity?”
“You’re more despicable than he is,” Duffy spat.
“Can you not see how important it is, to gain whatever leverage we can from every opportunity?” the disbelief in Ruby and Duffy’s tone did not mirror the bard. She seemed entirely at home with the notion. “The Tap is merely a tool, one that was misused by the abhorrent people of the First Age.” She sighed. “We have, I daresay, learnt from the long series of mistakes that lead to the war, the suffering, and the solitude of our people through the darker days of civilisation.” Duffy knew she referred to the Daemon Wars, but would not speak that realm’s name.
“Do you truly believe that we have learnt from our mistakes?” his tone suggested incredulity. His arms, waving with emphasis, suggested irate frustration. “Have you looked out beyond the walls of your domain, Nalith?” he pointed through the archway, beyond which the sky was turning to fire. The dome erected to protect the university against the encroaching storm continued to falter, shatter, and tumble to the ground. Nalith remained entirely unpaved by the collapse of her sanctuary. “Have you seen your people suffer, your kingdom crumble, and your last remnants of power dwindle?”
In the recent months, as more and more rifts had opened across Raiaera, more and more cadres of soldiers, blade singers, and civilians had left the ego of their Cor Lindra. The fiercely independent, and until now rare isolationist groups within the hierarchy of the high elves had swelled in number and with good cause. People were whispering of madness in the university, whispers of decay in the once pure and noble colleges. Nalith, at its head, spoke in terms not even Duffy would repeat. Not since Devin’s sword had scoured the realm of the undead, leaving a mountain of corpses, rotten and bitter in its wake had death lingered in the air as strongly as it did now.
“My kingdom is tolerating its hardships,” she held out her palm, and with a radix of power, pulled the vial back into her fingertips with a telekinetic swell. The embrace of her fingers around the glass comforted her, though with lies and subterfuge, not truth and honesty. “They will offer their lives, if I ask it of them.” A menacing aura grew about the elf; one Duffy immediately felt nauseas at, and one, which fettered Ruby’s compassion in chains of anger. She clenched her fists to contain herself. Whatever vision of perfection she had formulated of the Cor Lindra in her study in the university, she was destroying it now, piece by piece, brick by brick.
“If you put…” Duffy swallowed the lump in his throat. Sweat was beading down his brow. “If you put your people in harm’s way, Nalith…” He mimicked Ruby’s clenched fists, used them as a symbol of defiance, and spread his feet wider. Nalith noticed his shift in stance. “Then I will do all in my power to stop you…”
“Again you threaten me, bard.”
“Yet again you assume I am jesting…,” he replied, with equal sternness. “I will not allow you to abuse the people we are offering ourselves to protect. We will give our lives to save.” A final please slipped from his lips. This was the pinprick before the cannon shot. If Nalith ignored it, then not even Duffy’s sense of self could protect him from his coming course of action.
“You will give them now, and at my behest,” she rose, sharply, and with the solidifying sense of wisps and aeons becoming steel and dehlar. A blade appeared from this air, encompassed by blue light, white smoke, and a flourish of sound that pierced the membrane of Duffy’s soul.
Ruby approached Duffy’s side, her heels stringently marking out her pace with sharp clips against cold stone. The temperature continued to drop as the flame about Nalith’s blade turned to ice, and then to glacial crystal, and then to nothingness. The sparkling dust fell away, leaving only the blade itself. She began to smoke, scintillate, and grow in stature. Fire danced in her greying hair, which, for just a brief moment in the wake of each lick, shone bright red and buoyant orange.
“This has gone too far, Cor Lindra!” she screamed, her vocal chords strained by the emotion coursing through her veins. “Stand down, or we will fight with our very being for the greater good.”
Nalith shook her head.
“Then we shall fight…,” Duffy said, plainly, flatly, and without hesitation. He held out his hand, and conjured to his side through a shadow portal the blade that had slain Oblivion the first time. He took it into his left palm, and felt completely again with its power coursing into his fragile body. With Wainwrights’ Edge firmly in his grip and Wainwrights’ Riposte conjured to his right, the Great Bard charged.
Present Day
“What do you propose to do about it?” Duffy asked. He watched Ruby dribble, literally, over lace and lavender icing and dressing. He foresaw broken glass and a crime spree, and reached out to take her by the shoulder. He pressed his fingers gently onto her dress. “I ask because we cannot just help ourselves in this civilised age.” He ushered her along the street.
She could not help but look back over her shoulder for one last visual taste. When they turned a corner, and the bakery street vanished, her heart sank. She looked ahead, slowed her pace, and began to walk with all the gumption of a broken-hearted minstrel.
“I am not sure if there is anything we can do.” Her moan dragged Duffy’s mood down with it.
“Oh come now,” he pursed his lips, “we can follow through on our blessing at the very least.” When he ran back over what he had said, he mouthed his surprise.
“You seriously expect me to turn up to that opening performance and…,” she half-gasped, and half-coughed, “applause?” She stopped dead in her tracks.
Duffy, given no choice in the matter, and not lacking the strength to run, stopped with her. He looked around desperately, and then realised where they were. His route was quick, by all means, but he did not expect to arrive at their destination so soon.
“I think it is the only course of action to take,” he said stoically. He was not going to let her emotional outburst ruin his day. “Look behind you, before you start spewing flames about the place,” he jabbed a finger over her shoulder. She turned with a snap, and then felt the anger drain away.
What Ruby was looking at was older than the troupe was. It rose up from a corner of an old apartment rise like an abominable snowman. It was terrifying to children. It told of life, death, and tomorrow. It had a small slate roof arching over an ancient clock mechanism. Its three faces, all yellow with age, told three different times. The north face told the time in Corone. The East face told the time in Raiaera. The south face told the time in Scara Brae.
Ruby almost felt like crying. She wheeled about.
“You brought me here on purpose, you oaf!” she roared.
Duffy smiled. He had not meant to come this way. In his urgent need to flee the cake before she had jumped through the glass, he had taken whatever street was near. Beyond, they would join up with the road that lead them home all the same, but he could not help but find it ironic.
“I really didn’t,” he said flatly. It sounded truthful, but Ruby reddened to boiling point. She pointed her finger accusingly. “I was not looking where I was going when I wrenched you free of the whipped cream tyrant.” He furrowed his brow. He did not like her expression. He stepped back, just to make sure. He had taken a boot to the groin enough times to recognise the signs.
“Do you know what this clock represents?” she asked, as if she were talking to an idiot. Sometimes, Duffy was, but not today. He nodded. “So you will understand why I am on edge…”
The defaced clock once told a fourth time, that of the Tantalum troupe’s next performance. The ornate golden hands had chimed the inner bell an hour before, and an hour after the troupe intended to put on a show. It broke the time Lucian Lahore, their nemesis, had appeared on the day of Lillith Kazumi’s wedding.
“This is where Lillith’s husband was killed,” he said.
“Not to mention where you, three centuries ago, asked me on a date.” She glared. Apparently, her love life was more important than the eternal misery of her sister. “You did it again a hundred years ago. If I recall,” she wrinkled her brow, “you did it another time thirty or so years back…”
Duffy thought to himself for a moment. By now, the sun was starting to cusp the Windlacer Mountains. For an hour or two, it would get cooler. In his current state, sodden with sweat, tired, and half-cut, he did not want to linger in the open for much longer. “
“I guess love, life, and dreams all died here.”
The poignancy of his words cut Ruby’s temper atwain.
“This is not the relaxing afternoon we had planned, is it…,” she sighed.
Duffy shook his head. “I am sorry.”
“Sorry?” she whelped. “What on earth for?”
“I should have been a better leader.” He thought louder, harder, and stronger. He fought to find the words she needed to hear, not the words he wanted to say. He stepped forwards with the click of his cane on cobbles, and stretched his free hand around her, wing-like, to hug. “I should have been more of a brother, and not a love-struck puppy.”
Ruby took his kindness, and smothered herself in it. She buried her face in his sweaty shirt, and took a deep breath of the coarse, woollen fabric smell that lingered in the bard’s wake. He smelt faintly of bourbon, wood smoke, and aftershave.
“You were everything you were meant to be,” she mumbled. Duffy patted her, and stroked her hair, as if a brother should.
“We tried to run from all these memories, Ruby.” They had run for so long he had forgotten what the city looked like. “It was only a matter of time before grief overwhelmed our stoic, cold hearts.” Now, it seemed, was that time. Everywhere they looked; memories came flooding back like a forceful blow that knocked them to their knees.
“What if I don’t want to remember?” she cried. She looked up into his eyes. Hers sparkled with tears. His eyes sparkled with charisma and a sudden need to be strong for others.
“We need to move on, Ruby. To do that, we need to acknowledge our mistakes.”
Part Five
Duffy had been a fool that day. He did not know how to put it any other way. He had acted honourably, but brashly. His deeds severed all ties between the organisations working in the shadows to undo all the many years of ruin and toil the Forgotten Ones had carved into history.
Nalith was dead.
Pete was alive.
Oblivion…was lingering in the shadows clad in a veil of souls and screams.
“I think we made a mistake,” Ruby said. “Not the mistake you’re thinking of.” She shook her head. “We did the right thing saving Peter. What we didn’t do, though, is make sure he was protected.” Ruby looked up at the stage longingly.
Time had frozen as the pair had remembered their struggles atop the blade singer’s tower. The sheer weight of their sorrow had caused life to come to a standstill. She admired the youth’s attractiveness, his smile, and his charisma. She looked at the others with equal admiration. Already, on their debut performance, that had everything she and Duffy had, and so much more.
“What do you think he is going to do, when he founds out?” she looked at Duffy expectantly.
“The same thing he did last time,” he said flatly. “Run away, hide, and disappear.”
She frowned. Peter had left the troupe a century ago, in another life, when they had tried to fight Wainwright’s corruption and break free of his chains. He had rebelled. He had vanished. He had died hungry, alone, and without his friends. It took the duo two decades to find his reincarnation. They had vowed never to let him come to harm again. They had defied all that was good in the world, and all that was good in them, to fulfil that promise.
“I don’t think we’ll find him again…if he does that.” She hung her head. “This is hopeless…” It was not just hopeless. For Ruby, it was her fault, as well as irredeemable.
“It seems that way.” Duffy looked up at Peter. He saw his youth and vigour smile back at him; He curled his lip and ran his tongue over his snakebites. “But…now, forgive me for sounding deranged,” he chuckled. It was the first time he had ever apologised for his outbursts, “but what happens if we don’t tell him?”
“Duffy…we have to let him make up his own mind. To let him go on thinking it’s all over is cruel.” Her eyes sparkled with realisation as much as tears. “What if we let this one last secret wither and die with us? Let us take it to the grave, let us bury it, and let us live our lives knowing that Pettigrew Orison is free to live his through our sacrifice.”
Duffy began to spiral on the spot. He took in the faces of the crowd slowly. There were contorted smiles, anguished belly laughs, and worried expressions. Plaid, leather, and cotton formed a patchwork of poverty and pomp, blending the culture and wealth of the populace into one living, breathing, and united wall of life. He sighed. He sighed too much.
“I cannot even begin to think what that pressure will do to me.”
“Oh, please, we’ve carried darker deeds and devilry for far longer!” she whelped. She was right. Duffy, turning around to smile at her slowly, knew it all too well.
“Some secrets would do more damage in than out…,” he leered.
Ruby puckered her lips. “What's your favourite memory of Pete...and the early days of the troupe, for that matter?" she asked.
Six Years Ago
The dusty upper floor of the Golden Carmi used to be a grand ballroom. It had once been a resplendent mansion, the finest in the district. Whatever glory and splendour it once had was long gone now. As the district about it faded, and its occupants became bankrupt, or worse, the Golden Carmi slowly became the proving grounds of a group of bards and minstrels. Over the years, rooms changed, functions altered, and construction transformed it into the Tantalum’s hideout. They called it the Prima Vista.
The floors inside were ripped out to make a roughshod stage, balcony, and costume workshop. The great glass circular roof let the sun shine bright onto the stage, and cast an eerie glow into the room. There was no need for lightning in the day, even in the balcony or under croft. At night, when there were rehearsals, candles and cantrips cast a light icy glow across the dry wood and brittle floorboards. It creaked with an ‘undeniable charm’ as one of the senior thespians described it.
At noon, a young lad tinkering with a saw frame looked up at the clock. He sighed. He had woken long before dawn, and the time had flown by as he had busied himself with last minute preparations. Today was Lucian’s Call, the celebration of the founding of the troupe centuries ago. On this day, every year, for the last five hundred years the troupe put on a grand performance of their most famous play. The citizens of Scara Brae knew it like the back of their hand. I Want to Be Your Canary was a cult hit as far abroad as Raiaera, the elven heartlands, and Dheathain, the Fae kingdom.
In between rehearsing, he scribbled thoughts down on a piece of paper that was on the table next to his tools. Because of his constant inability to concentrate, the repair was far from perfect. Every time he stopped to whittle away a moment, the time he had left dwindled, and the tin of varnish on the table became more forgotten. He put down the saw and fleshed out the opening paragraph of a solo piece he was working on. He read it aloud when he finished.
“It is hard to hear yourself think sometimes but you get by. Although silence is something you wish might for, you rarely get it. You must learn to cherish those moments like gold, myrrh, and love. There is no greater moment of silence than the split second before you walk out onto the stage. Many of the greatest actors have said the anticipation of the performance is much greater than the deed itself.”
“Duffy?” A voice drifted into the stage room. The air reverberated and resonated with life. “Are you in here?” Duffy recognised the voice as belonging to Pete. He was a young, well-informed, and plucky scamp.
“Hey Pete, I’m up on the balcony fixin’ the screens, hop yoursen’ up here!” Duffy returned briefly to his thoughts. “Now where was I…,” he mumbled. “Ah yes the stage. Those few moments as you breathe in and out and try and remember your lines are worth all the trials and tribulations leading to the debut.”
A youthful smile popped into view over the ladder. His hair was dirty, his nose ran, and his clothes were grubby. “Hey, I’ve,” he grunted. He stopped to clamber onto the balcony. He was not quite able to step up off the last rung due to his diminutive stature.
Duffy made to help him, but dropped to his knees when Pete finally stood.
“I have got this letter for ya.” He held out the piece of paper, triumphant. “It is from Miss Ruby.”
“This can’t be good,” he sighed. He returned his quill to the inkpot and reached or the note. “Thank you kindly,” he smiled. He noticed the boy’s bloody knuckles. He had obviously been fighting with the other orphans again. “Now tell me, are you all set for this afternoon?”
“Sure is Duffy!” He grinned from ear to ear. “Everyone’s downstairs finishin’ off. The props are already over at the square. Can I have a cookie?” He prodded his nostrils and wiped it away on his sleeve.
“Sure you can, but only one mind.” He pursed his lips, pictured Ruby’s sour, motherly expression, and added an addendum. “But remember to wash yourself after. We can’t be ‘avin you looking’ like the tramp on Bakery Street now!” He stood upright, pressed his hands onto his hips, and looked the boy over head to toe.
Pete smiled excitedly. “By the stage’s honour!” he saluted.
Duffy nodded. “Now off you trot. I’ll read this and be straight down. There isn’t long before we start our performance.” Duffy sighed and ranted to himself. It would be nice, for once, if I could get to actually finish writing a scene to a play in one quick swoop. He watched Pete scuttle back down the ladder hastily. It was surprising how quick he was when cookies were involved.
“Right then!” he clucked. He slapped his knees and stretched, to limber up. He left the closing lines behind, and recited the opening line of I Want to Be Your Canary.
“Princess...wilt thou be happy, married to a lowly peasant such as I?”
The stage room fell silent in reverence.
“So much consideration thou hast given it! But worry not!” He paused to mock embrace an unseen lover. He clearly remembered the stage direction that was very important for timing, if nothing else.
“Cast away thy trappings of royalty, and I shall swaddle thou in a gown of pure love! Never again will I part from thee! Pray, my love, make me thy canary to keep forever in the cage of thy bosom! Let us embark on the first ship tomorrow, before dawn can tell of our elopement!”
The lines that stuck into the minds of the populace belonged to Duffy. He had played the part of Marcus for centuries. Ruby as ever would play the Princess Cornelia. She was flawless with a memory as great as any of the city’s finest mages or scholars. It would be a true loss to the troupe when she retired to her ‘normal’ life. Satisfied with his preparation, he tore open the hastily scribbled note.
Dear Duffy,
I hope Pete gets this to you.
The little scamp stole a cookie so don’t let him have another!
I’ll be at the square at two.
Let’s give Lucian a send-off once again,
Ruby.
Duffy deposited the letter neatly into his pocket, leapt off the balcony with agile grace, and landed on the floor below in a plume of dust. It did not take long for him to traverse the flight of stairs that lead down into the lounge. It served as the meeting room and an entryway to the streets beyond.
“When I catch him, I’ll show him what for,” he grumbled. He could not believe he had fallen for the cookie swipe again.
The lounge was bustling with the sound and movement of fifteen members of the troupe. The big double doors on one wall, which lead out onto the main street remained closed. Two partitions erected in front of the street-facing windows, in which two mocked rooms lingered. Nobody could see what truly went on from the garden. The noise wall that hit Duffy was like the noise of a riotous crowd.
“Right then.” His words disappeared into the noise. “Can I have ever-.” He sighed, and then brought his hands together with a heavy clap. The bang got everyone’s attention. “Sorry to startle you all.” He glanced up at the old dusty clock above the front doors. “It’s midday, so, we’ve got ‘bout an hour before we start. Everyone is to be ready for then. All of you should have tattooed, painted or chalked on our troupe’s symbol.”
There was a chorus of stifled yes and sirs.
“I’m going over to the square to make sure the props on the roof of the inn are ready.”
Satisfied that he had gotten his point across, Duffy grabbed his belts from the cloak table, buckled up, and scooted out of the side door in full oratory swing.
“Not if I can help it! Now is my moment of vengeance! For my parents, and for my love, Cornelia…” He pulled a dagger from his belt and waved it with a zed shape through the air. As he danced out into the sunny street, he bellowed his favourite line from the play. “I shall cut thee down!”
The square that connected Bakery, Lombard, and Holmsgrove Street was an understated venue for a play on the edges of the docklands. With the exception of once weekly markets, where stalls of all varieties would congregate here from the poorer trade districts to share their wares, only a fountain occupied it. If you departed the square via Lombard, the Olde Harbour Inn stood on the left, and a rickety apartment building on the right. From atop the apartment block, Duffy could see into the top floor of the Inn. He could make out distinct shadows rushing past the open windows.
Every year they adapted I Want To Be Your Canary to suit the modern day themes, and fit in recent events and trends. This year, the lunatics on the streets were portending a comet. There was more than likely absolutely no truth in it whatsoever, but a good troupe knew how to milk controversy. The front of the apartment building housed a great clock front. A hundred concentric gears turned, ticked, and chimed away day and night. He could feel the movements of the pendulum reverberating through the roof beneath him. He started to count the beats, waiting for the sign for the show to begin.
“Oh where are though, Cornelia, my Canary Grande, and my sweet riposte!” He recited a random line to break the monotony. He was most impatient, desperate to do anything other than stand about. A gentle breeze whipped up dust, and birds scattered from the sporadic trees on the edges of the square. The beating wings drowned out by the torrent of footfalls, conversations, and haggling.
Eventually, a little face appeared in the distant window. It waved a small blue flag with a faint white symbol on it. Duffy beamed a broad smile and stoop upright. He tensed his legs, stretched out his arms, and bounced once or twice for good measure.
“Well then Duffy!” he clucked. He broke into a run towards the drop. He brought his right foot up onto the ledge with too much force, and he leapt into the air with too much momentum. He landed with both feet on the end of the flagpole and, somewhat comically found himself sprawling through the air. He careened haphazard towards the opposite tavern higher, quicker, and more recklessly than he had planned.
The plan was to use the Tinder Gear to trail lingering flame in the air behind him. It was supposed to look like a comet’s tail. As soon as he brought his arms up, he felt awkward. He was descending far too quick, weighed down with the heavy flint gloves and fuel pipes. He ejected the liquid in a light spray, and just as he crash-landed onto the balcony, he let loose an almighty clap. With thunderous results, a single spark caught the vapour trail and flame licked up into the sky. If Duffy was upright at that point and not in the middle of a tumble across the floor, he would have heard the crowd scream with delight.
The troupe burst into a hive activity. They flung bags of flour off the balcony and out of the windows. They tossed bits of wood and cloth carefully, to avoid hitting anyone. It was all to give the impression that something had fallen and crashed into the inn. There was a lot of coughing and mock screaming and crashing from inside as the younger performers slammed chairs down onto the floorboards and ran riot.
Duffy finally came to his senses. He removed himself from a pile of dresses, scarves, and umbrella with a sheepish grin.
“That dint goes so well,” he chuckled. Only Ruby heard him, and she tried very hard to stifle her laughter. Her face was as bright red as her hair.
The silence outside drew them both very cautiously to the window. People all over the square had dropped whatever it was they were doing. They discarded fish, apple, book, and child (literally, from the faint crying at the back of the crowd). They slowly approached the dusty inn. The paranoia and curiosity was almost tangible in the air. They had waited months for this singular moment.
He twirled on one foot and pointed at a group to his left and to his right with dramatic flair. He waved them to the window. With some sort of wooden contraption they let loose two long blue tapestries, each equidistant of the inn’s entrance three floors down. A group on the roof tossed bucket after bucket of paper and cloth clippings, which came down like a rainbow’s glow, and the doors of the inn burst open in unison. Pete and his young friends came skipping, jumping, and speeding out into the sun.
“Ready guvnor!” the youth clucked. He flailed his arms around, commanding his motley crew with gusto.
They pulled the tables of the inn together by the steps, and a great cloth hanging dropped down behind them. In seconds, the inn was now a castle front, adorned with the banner of the Tantalum. When the orphans finished moving the tables into a makeshift stage, they produced fake bushes, trees, and props from nowhere to set the scene.
The crowd stood, stunned to silence, and unable to look away.
Duffy turned to Ruby and smiled at her with his cheeky little smile. “So, my Lady Cornelia, shall we?” He held out his hand. With a hefty tug, she pulled him out of the window into a combined slide down a rope ladder. It was as good as a yes as he was going to get.
Nobody seemed to recognise them as they landed with their backs to the crowd. As she put on a crown of a dubious nature, and he withdrew a dagger and held it aloft, they began whispering. Then two trumpets appeared in the windows of the ‘castle,’ and began to play the Scara Brae waltz. Duffy turned, dropped on one knee, and muttered the immortal line that opened their greatest work….
“I want to be your canary!”
The wave of cheers and applause drowned out the hubbub of the docklands. The news quickly spread across the city that the Tantalum where afoot.
Back in the sanctuary of the Prima Vista, Duffy considered all that had transpired. After every performance, he was ecstatically happy, but it always came with equal sadness that it ended. The smiles and cheers on the faces of the audience square had lasted for almost an hour; right up until the guards came to break it all up. The cries of ‘stop, thief!’ had been accurate, given that the younger troupe members had been cutting purses during the second act.
The noise of celebration and laughter rose through the floorboards from below. Duffy had slipped upstairs to sit on the edge of the stage, to be on his own, and to get filthy drunk in peace. He kicked his heels against the backboard with his back flat on the dusty stage edge. He looked up and out through the great glass dome that resembled the sun at midday - the zenith of nature. As far as he was concerned, it looked like a very badly designed pentagon, with crooked edges, and a serious need for refurbishment.
“One day we’ll be able to fix it,” he sighed. He played with his locks, continued to kick a rhythm on the wood, and drank awkwardly from a simple wine goblet. He barely tasted the claret after a fifth glass.
They had obtained about five gold worth of coppers and coins in donations from the crowd during the performance, and another couple of pieces from the purses they had snipped. The crowd was not particularly wealthy, and Duffy was strict they only took from those that looked like they would not miss it. It was very hard to be cross at such cute little things, snotty noses and all.
The spoils would feed the troupe for a day or two. Whatever food the money brought, the troupe earnestly made do. That sort of communal ethic that a troupe needed to survive became part of the Tantalum from the very first day. Lucian had seen to that.
“Oh Lucian…,” Duffy said aloud. He gazed upwards, as though asking the stars for answers. “What am I doing wrong? Why can’t we be as great now as you were then…?”
Ruby listened to Duffy’s dreams unveil themselves. She heard of the streets, the doubts, and the insecurities. She heard of the laughter and joy caring for the troupe gave him. She heard him speak of how he would do anything to keep them together in love, art and romance. She the same passions, as had the Tantalum’s entire list of masters over the centuries.
“His flawless lines, perfect recollection, and charm inspire me. He was the very example of a modern gentleman…” With a long drawn out sigh his feet rose one last time and dropped with a bang before falling still.
“Oh now, Duffy…” Her voice whispered softly into the room from the darkness. She chuckled as he jumped, rolled off the stage, and crashed in a defeated heap. “Everything you and the Tantalum stand for comes to life on the stage. Everything you dream about comes alive in the words you weave, and the songs you sing. You must keep those dreams alive…one day; you will be as great as Lucian, if not greater.”
“What codswallop!” he snapped, perhaps a little prematurely. He said it a little louder than he intended. The playhouse became deathly silence. The bard rose perplexed, but quickly realised to whom the voice belonged.
“Ruby, is that you?” He mustered his pride with a meek question, scratched his head, and began to dust himself down.
“What the fuck does codswallop mean?” She stepped out from behind the changing screen. She was wearing a short white ruffled skirt, a taught brown brassiere, and a plethora of beads. Bangles and ribbons wrapped together the strands of her crimson hair into neat plaits.
He stared at her wistfully, trying to place what play she was supposed to be dressed as. From what Duffy could remember, she appeared to be Esmeralda, from the comic play Love, Drugs, and Dancing. It was a gypsy love story set in the early days of the island’s capital.
“I…,” he began, but trailed off without a defence. He shot her a glare in contempt.
“A fantasy is only in your imagination Monkey Man.” She never called him that unless she was very disappointed with him. “A fantasy is something you make happen, a dream that might seem far too unrealistic.” Her quick feet carried her towards the stage with rhythmic, fluid motion. She rotated and blew a heated kiss.
The fiery gesture struck him square on the forehead, and sent pain across his body.
The Next Day
“Oh my days,” grumbled a slumbering drunk.
The ripe bard woke with a start to find he had fallen asleep on the end of the stage. His feet hung over the edge, and a spilt goblet of cheap market wine dripped through the cracks of the upstairs floor next to him. He felt bad. He felt very bad. Not the guilty sort of bad you got when you dirtied your Sunday best a moment before going to temple. Not the bad you got when you did something you knew you should not. It was the bad the morning after a very heavy night’s celebrations type of bad.
“I am never again drinking, never!”
He flashbacked to the day before, and remembered that it had been Lucian’s Call. The performance, the boisterous crowd’s cheers, and everything else merged into one very painful throb. He snapped out of it when he heard the immestakible sound of stiletto footsteps.
“Well, good morning sleepy head!”
It was Lissa, the troupe’s Mistress of Piano. She was a talented, all-round musician, and far better than anyone with a needle and thread. Costume designer, conductor, and this morning, from the contents of her outstretched hand, she was now a matron to fools.
“Urgh…,” he grumbled. He snatched the fizzing tonic from her and downed it thirstily. It tasted foul, but it would set him right in no time at all. She chuckled at his groans. “What…what’d do?”
“Well, according to the rumours you, Ruby, and Jack…” She paused to count. “I think the Conley Brothers were there too. You stayed up much later than everyone else did. You took it upon yourselves to drink the week’s supply of wine, beer, and Cordon Rum!” She hopped onto the side of the stage and began to hit the wood with her halls enthusiastically loud. “Miss Ruby said you were singing Lucian’s Aria…can you remember?”
Duffy could not. Duffy could not remember that he was Duffy, never mind complicated Tradespeak verses. Now that she had filled him in, the blanks between the end of the play and the morning after were starting to reform. He did not feel too bad, but guilt did terrible things to your bowels.
“Thank god tis only once a yer,” he mumbled.
He propped himself upright and slid besides Lissa. Of the entire troupe, she was the closest to him besides Ruby. They had a mutual and bittersweet rivalry. It suited her fine, and him.
“Drink this.” She picked up the glass with a delicate hand and held it out. It refilled magically.
“More?” he sighed. He took it from her and continued his medication. It tasted worse the second time.
As he slowly glugged down the contents she recounted further tales of the night’s revelries. Ruby had done a fire dance, right over in the corner in the shadows as Esmeralda. It had gone well until a lick of flame caught the red ‘sunset’ curtain and the entire semi-inebriated troupe sprang into action to douse it with water, petty cantrips, and desperate cries. Now that she mentioned it, his nostrils did smell of smoke.
It tasted foul, but it made him feel better very quickly, “I’m not even g’na ask what’s in it…” She took the glass back and shook her head. “B’what time is it?”
“About eleven o’clock...it’s also Saturday…”
Duffy’s eyes grew to the size of dinner plates.
“Is it really Saturday?”
“Yes…,” Laverne said very sincerely, with just the right tone Duffy needed to realise he was in trouble.
“Saturday…”
Saturday was matinee day. It was also the first Saturday after Lucian’s Call. Which meant it was the day the troupe performed a new creation for the first time. A creation Duffy had not had the time to finish…
He began to recite the lines he had been scribbling the day before, on the balcony, before Pete had interrupted his train of thought.
“It’s hard to hear yourself think sometimes, but you get by. Although silence is something you wish for, you rarely get it, so learn to cherish those moments like gold, myrrh, miracles and love. There is no such greater moment of silence than the split second before you walk out onto the stage, the anticipation of performing, the greatest playwrights of the age have all universally said, is much greater than the deed itself.”
He ran out of the room to find his books, not sure where his feet were going, but going there anyway. No matter how bad he felt, the show must go on! He had never improvised two whole acts before…
The bard finished reading his soliloquy with a cough. Duffy looked over his shoulder at the buxom lass who was adjusting her breeches and raised an eyebrow. “Did that sound okay to you? Or should I give you a minute…”
Ruby smiled and stomped her foot, satisfied that she was ready to brave the outside world. “It’s fine, blunt and feisty, your usual mode of address - but do you think leaving Luther with the reigns is better? I mean...there’s, you know…me?”
With a succinct hint of irony, Duffy bowed as if to obey her thinly veiled command. “Sorry m’lady Rube, but you’ve given up the title and you’ve a loving husband and,” he jabbed a finger at her still remarkably toned stomach.
“Well I’m pleased you decided to waylay your plans to go abroad until after the first performance of your play. Lysander’s Flock will be a flourishing success and you can leave in a flurry of excitement not seen since Petra lost her knickers during the chorus of how’s Your Father. I don’t think she could top it if she tried!”
The dusty sun kissed atmosphere of the Prima Vista’s upper floor set an idyllic scene. They looked around in silence for a moment, wistful and remembering the yesterday.
“Yeah…those were the good old times. I hope that she will decide to bury her shame and take up her own handle. Saying that, she is not exactly disappeared considering she said and I quote. ‘I ain’t never any coming near you lot ‘gain!’” He chuckled and tossed a scarf at Ruby, who quickly knotted it around her wrist and let it dangle. Her dress was torn, smattered with dust, and held up by braces. Her corset was a good deal too small for her.
“The whalebone princess was an inspired idea Duffy but I can’t help but feel you’re dressing me up like a lamb for slaughter. There might be children in the audience!”
He raised his eyebrow up with a puzzled look. “Ruby, since when did that matter? You are dressed for battle, not for a night out on Salas Avenue. In fact, you are underdressed for the role. Now do me a favour.” He made a mock spinning top in the air. “Twirl thine spirited backside about so I can have a gander. I don’t want any safety pins giving you grief mid-way through a line!”
When she stopped spinning, Duffy nodded in appreciation at the quality of their costumes. Lissa had outdone herself again.
“Will though now come with me to the battle field, to behold and hold dearly the angels of the gods and their entire ghostly ilk?” The bombastic increment and posh accent he put on made Ruby giggle. “Halt, have I offended thee mistress of beauty?
“Duffy! Stoppit, we aren’t on stage now. If you ‘aren’t to your lines this close to curtain’s rise I suggest you take up fishery.” She rested her hands on her hips and sighed. She shook her head, a gesture to which Duffy stuck his tongue out in response.
“Oh alrigh’,” he goaded.
“Come’n, let’s get downstairs and help load up the wagon.” She bowed and skipped out of the room. Her clogs clapped a mock applause as she went.
The troupe was his charge, and he had to do anything to ensure its name, players, and honour were kept alive in the songs they sung, the plays they wrote, and through their many sacrifices.
He liked how things were turning out, how things were happening. He drew the sword from the stone at the centre of the stage and sheathed it under his belt. It would serve in an epic battle between Lysander and Lyons, his brother at arms and treacherous devil.
“No going back now, as they say,” he said. He left the sun kissed borderline between stage and living quarters, and took to singing Lucian’s Aria loud enough to calm his nerves as he ran down the stairs.
Pettigrew
06-19-13, 04:50 AM
Epilogue
Five hundred and thirty six year ago, the Forgotten One Oblivion began to grow paranoid. Seeing himself vulnerable to the power hungry advances of his siblings, he swaddled himself in the secrets of the Tap, and devised a method of overcoming his mortal weaknesses, and his rival’s desire to become more and more powerful.
He wrote of five siblings.
He wrote of a bard, so jubilant and enthusiastic about the stage that he embodied the arts themselves.
He wrote of a singer, whose voice could quell rebellion and inspire euphoria.
He wrote of a young brother, whose sense of fun always brought a smile to the darkest of times.
He wrote of a tailor, who could stitch life into fabric and make simple cloth arm, armour, and art all at once.
Finally, he wrote of a swordsman, who pledged to defend the rights of the populous to enjoy the arts, and the life of the thespian, until the end of days.
They were given names, which have been lost to time, resurrection, and war.
Now, they are Duffy Bracken, Ruby Winchester, Arden Janelle, Lillith Kazumi, and Pettigrew Jones.
“Hang on a minute,” Pettigrew mumbled. He closed the book with a thud. Its dusty pages shed a cloud of dust, which smelt of old cellars and decay. “You’re trying to tell me I’m like you?”
Duffy watched the boy’s eyebrow rise, and smiled. He saw the same curious spark in Pettigrew that he once had.
“That is precisely what I am saying. You are the fifth member of the troupe, and in turn, the fifth shard of the Forgotten One called Oblivion.” Duffy would have gone into detail about the Forgotten Ones, but he did not wish to overwhelm his friend with the menagerie of tales, legends, and nightmarish stories that went with the history.
“So why didn’t you tell me before now?”
It was a genuine enough question. Pettigrew had every right to ask it.
Duffy hung his head. Ruby pressed her hand onto his shoulder, and got his attention with a warm smile. They had struggled for days about wherever or not they should tell him about his true nature. At first, they had agreed to stay silent. They thought it best to seal away one of their last weaknesses, in case Oblivion ever showed his face and tried to regain his strength.
“We tried to, we really did.” They really had. “But it was not until Lillith told us about what she saw that night, three years ago, that made us think you’re ready for the responsibility.”
There was an awkward silence, which swallowed all their pride and confidence, and left the chamber dark, tense, and humid. They had withdrawn into the depths of Castle Brandybuck, to the old Rectory, to impart the news. The roaring fireplace roared triumphant, and the dancing lights, red, yellow, and gold, reflected across their elaborate garb and dinner accruements.
“Three years ago,” Pettigrew mused. He set his knife and fork down onto his plate, and pressed his palms together to keen his thoughts. “You’ll have to remind me.”
The youth watched the duo look at one another, and seemingly communicate in hushed tones and whispers. He curled his lips. He hated it when they did that. He had never had any sort of bond as strong as they had, not with anyone.
“Three years ago…” Duffy turned back to the boy as he spoke. “You fought with us against the fragment of N’Jal. It was the very same episode that you used in your play.” He nodded with his own personal line of thought. “When I saw Nemo, and what he was doing, it made me realise how much of an impact that had on your life.”
“That’s because I enjoyed being with you, with the troupe, and everything we went through just to survive.” Pettigrew’s voice fell flat, bitter, and resentful.
Ruby sighed. “Look,” she snapped. “Whatever the reason, we did not tell you before now because we thought it best. Obviously we were wrong.” She cut through a boiled potato with etitquite abandoned, and slipped it between her lips before the cheese and parsley sauce dripped down her bodice.
Pettigrew chuckled. He shook his head. He picked up his cutlery and resumed his carnal dismantling of the three tiered steak and mushroom risotto he had chosen from the elaborate menu on offer in the castle. He had no idea Duffy and Ruby had cooked it themselves. He never would.
“What’s so funny?” Duffy asked politely. He picked up his goblet and drained it. The cheap Riesling rinsed the peppercorns from his teeth.
Pettigrew glanced up from his meal, flashed a smile, and then dropped his head again. With a noisy slurp, he retorted. “Oh, it’s nothing. I just don’t often hear the great Lady Winchester admit she was wrong.”
Duffy scoffed, but stopped short of laughter when Ruby jabbed him with a fork.
“That said,” Ruby snapped, eager to get to the desert course, “I think it is high time we all moved on.” She picked up her glass, and downed its contents. She set the crystal onto the tablecloth, and cleared her throat. “It’s time we stopped being fugitives to our past, and we wish you and your troupe all success in the future.”
In the humid dining room, in toast of dead elves, gods, and possibilities, the trio raised their fists to the candlelight.
“To Tantalus,” Duffy pledged.
“To Leopold,” Ruby offered.
Pettigrew shook his first when it was his turn, and said the first thing that came to mind that meant the most to him in the world.
“To the Fugitive,” he said meekly, and somehow, all the drama of the last week felt like nothing, compared to what now lay ahead for the brackish youth. He did not have to run anymore.
Enigmatic Immortal
09-17-13, 05:18 PM
Plot ~ 24/30
Story ~ 9/10 – I have found this story to be an excellent way of wrapping up a well done arc of stories. It answers some questions, leaves more behind, and ties a nice knot in the characters that gives end to one play, but opens the curtains to a new performance. The characters have shown their age well in the first part of the story, and the recalling of events to the present was nicely done through the lenses of a play.
Setting ~ 8/10 – You have never left me wanting for Scenery in a story sir, but this is also a judgment to improve your scores as a whole. I could go over the same things I say daily, but in the end, the new shall prevail: It’s time to change it up. More evocative use of the scene is needed to make it come alive. I give this to you as a challenge, so fear not, I know you will rise to the occasion.
Pacing ~ 7/10 – The scene changes in the play were well done, but the pacing at the beginning was the masterfully shown art of it all. Part one is your polished work Duffy, and the remaining parts didn’t have as bright an opportunity as they did before. Perhaps it was when you went back into the past that through the wrench in this, but it’s a simple matter to fix. More practice sir.
Character ~ 26/30
Communication ~ 9/10 – Expertly done! Expertly sir! The witty banter, the serious monologues, the soul searching thoughts, all of this lent well to the stories strengths, and none of it’s falls. You brought each character their own, private voice and for once, sir Duffy, their was no one’s voice I heard twice. Every character, npc or otherwise, was heard in their own distinct fashion. Bravo
Action ~ 8/10 – This is a masterful piece of working action, with the heavy handed, but entirely fitting chat between hero and foil, and the battles height and lulls. Nothing was left to chance and the only reason I didn’t give this a 9 is because…well frankly sometimes it did get a bit confusing. This goes into your pacing, and while your scenes transitions are important, so is the flow of battle.
Persona ~ 9/10 – As I said earlier, every character has their own voice, and every character used it. There was no mixing of who was who, and each one did a magnificent job coming through to shine.
Prose ~ 23/30
Mechanics ~ 8/10 – There were errors, of course, but so far and few between that it shows you put the energy into fixing this up.
Clarity~ 7/10 – The issue here is the fact that sometimes you get so wrapped up in your plot and action that the reader has a tendency to stop and say, “Duffy what the hell.” It’s a sickness I am afflicted with as well. The stream of thoughts pour forth from our fingers and we think it makes perfect sense. Why not? We’re the authors after all. We even go back and read it after writing it, seeing it in our eyes and still not finding the problems inherit with it. You need to return to your scenes days later, come back, look, and see it all in a fresh light. It may help. Otherwise, disassociate yourself with your story, come back later and read it, and find those nasty errors.
Technique ~ 8/10 – Your use of many different writing techniques show that you’re grasping more and more of them, and using them correctly. While Dirks may always disagree that anything that isn’t law abiding correct is crap, I find your personal twist on old favorites keeps it fresh and exciting. Well done.
Wildcard – You have grown, Duffy. Your writing is reflecting an older, more mature group of immature jack-offs. They have become whole, and it’s illusions do not hide any of the joy you have with these characters. You’re getting better with every story I read, and the only way you’ll be going down is if you forget to check yourself for ego and proof-read. Otherwise, you’re doing just fine.
8/10
Total ~ 81/100
This thread will be nominated for a Judges Choice. In the meantime, EXP will be distributed once an official answer is given.
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125 EXP for Pettigrew!
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