Oh, the brandy! Inevitably it has come to that, and it is just as certain that she would eye that bottle so disparagingly, that she would part lips as if to protest -- and pause then, reconsidering. A forefinger is lifted: they will reckon with this matter of brandy and caustic
jenever at a later time, and it will not be forgotten. But for now:
"Ah, who can say? None much speak of these things, you see? Oh, none would! But you will understand that soon. I know this for certain: that at least one of those who shared the window dream suffered through this one, as well, and that Thadius Dhrin did
not. So. This is how it begin, mn?
"So gently. It is a pleasant place, it is some wilderness, filled with life but no sound at all, save for what we make ourselves. And a little strange, as if the eyes did not see it so well; all the world slightly
shone, and at first it felt so strange to me, because I had no weapon to me at all. Except that you see, when I looked down there was some knife upon the ground before me, and do you know what was wrote upon its pommel?" She pauses here, with some brief lift of the brow; takes up one of those abandoned pages, sets charcoal to work, and when she turns the paper about for Calomel's inspection, it reads:
Use Me
"Strange, mn? Almost like some jest, like a thing for a child, so simply written -- but you must remember that I was not alone in this dream. I did not yet know that, of course. I did not know that each person had just such a weapon at hand. I
learned this, though. Very quickly.
"The first I found were Jirai -- who'd shared in that window dream as well. She had just such a blade, and were murdering a wolf-thing with it. With her was Suede Roschen, or so I thought by his cries, but when I come upon him, the wolf is rich with blood, and there is no ser Roschen at all. After Jirai is done with it, there is neither no
wolf, but at that time I thought I must make some mistake: I wore my mask, mn? So perhaps I had not seen it rightly. Perhaps it had just fled.
"I learn better very quickly, because then it begin to..
happen so very quickly. I move away; Jirai is a fury, this is nothing I wish to be near to. I mean to turn
back when I hear others -- Kerrak al'Nerun, Agnieszka, but it comes that there are, there are so
many -- "
Drink becomes absolutely necessary here. Three successive swallows of the stuff have her shuddering, but loosen her tongue sufficiently.
"Ah. You do not need the whole of this, and it is so simple a tale: we each of us have these knives, we each of us make such use of them -- like mad things, mn? Upon old enemies, upon friends as well; hah, in the end it is A -- "
Even to Cinnabar Calomel, it appears, there are some things that the woman does not speak aloud. A hand dismisses this one with some impatient twitch of a wave; the features are briefly, terribly haunted. It passes, as these things invariably do.
"You do not need it, for that there is a thing more important: that again, we carry this dream with us into the waking world. We each of us with our knives, mn? So that we each of us wake with the names of those we've murdered, written upon us in ... some place. With our murderers, as well, I think, so that I wear a name -- "
her fingertip traces a straight, long line across the center of her own throat
"-- here. Others as well, of course, as if they were inked into my flesh and cannot be cleaned, but only hidden. It is summer yet, and warm with it, but I tell you: the next day, there are many, many in Myrkentown who wear scarves, and wear gloves to the elbows, as well."