Ars Moriendi: The Art of Dying.

Ars Moriendi: The Art of Dying.

Postby Carnath-Emory » Sun Mar 26, 2006 9:58 am

Much, much later, this is how they will begin to tell it: "On the first day, a man died with his skull cracked wide. Perhaps he had learned of the truth."


Phinneas Ansgot is grey in the eyes, and at the temples. This last is a feature which he has in common with many Myrken residents, who have known prolonged horror over these last years; the human form can only endure so much. He's a burly fellow with a clumsy name, and a way with the hands that belies both, for they say that no-one whittles a figurine like Ditcher Phinneas, whose nimble grip is surely wasted on the shovel he wields for his trade. Unfortunately, the market for little wooden squirrels and wolves is small, while Myrken is always in need of new foundations to be dug, and vaults to be sunk.

His is a humble life, for this is not the sort of work that earns a person great renown -- or coin. But he carries a pike for the Militia like his father before him, and during last year's searing heatwave, he'd dug ditches against fire by side of its leader, Proxenus One-Eye. They'd worked stripped bare to the waist, knee-deep in Myrken's dry earth and filthy with it as well, and they'd swapped stories as they dug -- although Proxenus had certainly told the better ones. It was tales of long-ago wars, that he'd told; of furious conflicts in far-away lands which Phinneas had never before heard named. It was strategy and cunning that Proxenus had recited, given in exchange for Ansgot's far milder tales of... oh, mundane things. The clay they'd had to dug through to sink new Gaol cells, a few years back; a real bugger of a job, that had been. The slowing of business for a ditcher like himself, now that folks were burning their corpses instead of burying them. For eight days they'd worked like this, and in all that time, canny old Proxenus had never suspected that, where stories were concerned, Ansgot was...well, holding out on him.

Amongst the more interesting anecdotes that the ditcher had failed to mention: that folded at the bottom of his clothes' chest by his bed is a set of white robes, cowled and pristinely clean. That for a year and more, he'd regularly worn these robes when, along with the rest of the Order of the All, he'd gathered for worship in a series of deep caverns not far from Myrkentown. That in those dank caves, Ansgot had bathed in the glory of His love along with the rest of their number, and deeply envied the young aspirants who'd given their lives to Him in selfless sacrifice. That during one of these celebrations, he'd shown his face to a swordswoman of unnatural spite, and thought nothing of it. Brother Prime, after all, had stood at her side; all would be well.

This surely accounts for much of his surprise, when he returns home from his work this evening and finds her seated by his fireplace.

This surprise proves to be short-lived, terror taking its place when she comes at him with the schiavona; like so many other members of the Order, he is murderous not by nature, but necessity. The short-bladed knife he'd brought for his evening's whittling doesn't prove obedient, when it comes to bloodshed; a pass of the woman's blade brushes it aside, and slits open his wrist as well. An ill-planned attempt at defense earns him slashes to the palms as well, and when he finally falls, it's because he's slipped in his own spouting blood. It's over quickly, then: a final twist of the blade opens Ansgot's throat, bleeding the last of the life out of him; the last flail of his dying limbs knocks his table's leg so strongly that the little wooden figurines atop it come showering down to join him on the floor. The red of his blood lends them a certain animalistic sheen.

It's the aftermath of it all that proves the most gruesome, for it's then that the sword is put away, and a dagger employed in its place for more... deliberate work. Is it fury that gives her arm strength enough to plunge that knife clear through Ansgot's skull? Is it grief? But there are no tears here, when she's done with him, no tragic exclamations; just a corpse sprawled on its own bloody floor, with a dagger-hilt protruding obscenely from its broken forehead and white robes draped across its knees -- and three words carved deeply into its naked chest:

Belief Is Death


It is, by Ariane's way of reckoning, a good beginning. There is no slaying Thadius, who has survived swords and flames and a broken heart; it seems she can't kill a legend. But perhaps she can make the cost for following its teachings unbearably high, and rob him of his willing, demented flock. Perhaps she can give them a reason to fear working in His service. Surely, if all else fails, Bromn's horrific murder will at least be avenged. This death is a beginning, then: brutal enough to catch their attention, thorough enough to keep it. It's just a shame that her penmanship is so poor; those dagger-carved letters are a little clumsy.

But with some practice, they'll improve.
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Postby Carnath-Emory » Tue Mar 28, 2006 10:00 am

"On the second day," they will whisper, "a woman died with both legs broken. Perhaps she had tried to flee the truth."


Sasha Rou has fought back with more energy than doomed Ansgot had managed to muster, but that doesn't at all change the fact that she'd brought this on herself. By returning from the Bloated Boar tonight, for instance, without the benefit of her father's accompaniment -- or even dear brother Paschal's. This is, after all, Myrkentown, where drow roam freely in the night; for a woman to wander so is foolish at best, suicidal at worst.

She has a fractured shin to attest to that, and a rapier-blade is thrust for her heart to drive the point home.

Which, it must be understood, is just what she deserves. For drinking too well and too long, so that she hadn't noticed the small signs of disturbance about her home. For mistaking that faint sound by the woodshed for rats, and reckoning to evict them by means of a boot to the rear. For stepping inside without a thought for her own safety, an error which she'd come to realise when footsteps creaked behind her, and the door swung closed, plunging them both into darkness. For the night thirteen months ago (to the very day!) that she'd gripped the arm of a terrified youth, weak with both Flux and fear, as Brother Prime deftly cut free his eyes. If asked, she would easily (joyfully!) recount their shade -- a honeyed amber -- but not the boy's name. Similarly, she might recall that Prime had once brought a strange woman into their midst, but the actual shape of her features would ellude Sasha's memory.

So really, it's her own fault that the first punch shatters her nose and the second makes mince out of what's left. Really, no-one else can be blamed when the third snaps her head about so hard that she bites the tip of her tongue clear through. Still, she must be applauded for rallying something more than a token defense: she's a healthy young woman, when kept away from the grog, and the length of wood she swings at Ariane's rapier knocks the blade clear out of her hand. It's just a shame about the dagger in the other; a stab from that drops Sasha to her knees. And it's certainly unfortunate that the wood-axe was lying so conveniently close. Healthy or not, a leg will still break if it's hit hard enough, and Ariane has all the force of a year-long grudge behind her swing.

It snaps like a frozen bough.

This is the depth to which Sasha Rou has finally sunken, victim of her own poor judgement and misplaced faith: dust clotting the blood from her nose, splinters tearing at her palms as she drags herself across that woodshed floor. She has discovered that one of the most terrible sounds in the world is that of your own bones grinding together; she hears it with every movement that she makes. She hasn't yet recalled her tormentor's face, but she'd understood its nature when the voice first spoke of caverns, of eyes; of Him. She is enduring its taunting even now, as she inches towards that door, and she is suffering its fury once again when that rapier pierces through her shoulder. It pins her to the wooden floor, pins her, like some struggling bug! But when she spits her curses, when she invokes His name, it's the axe again.

If her father were drinking at home, instead of the tavern, he'd have heard that scream. Even from the fields, he'd have heard it.

"They'll try to run, no matter what I say." When she speaks, the swordswoman's voice is only a whisper, for she's crouched by Sasha's side now like some ghastly vulture, and needn't raise her voice to be heard. "Just like you did." Even the tearing of Sasha's shirt is louder than that. Even her choking cry, when the dagger's point first touches her skin. "But this will show them that there's a cost for that, too." There's no mercy, this time. This time, she doesn't open the girl's throat until after the single word has been drawn across her back.

Recant
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Postby Carnath-Emory » Thu Mar 30, 2006 11:43 am

"On the third day, the tale will go, "a man died with his tongue cut out. Perhaps he had whispered the truth."


The swordswoman can't be faulted for not knowing that both of the brothers Swithin were members of the Order. After all, they'd hidden the fact even from each other. One can only imagine the surprise of elder brother Gorje, then, when he returns from the apothecary to discover his sibling sprawled broken upon their kitchen floor. One can only guess at the shock of realisation, when his spies the platinum robes onto which the body bleeds. Really, it's no surprise at all that so many minutes pass before Gorje realises that his brother is still alive.

How is such ignorance possible? Only a man without kin of his own would ask such a question -- or one who's forgotten the infinite cunning that siblings learn in their youth. Only a man who's never known the exquisite agony of having a secret so dire that it cannot be breathed aloud, not to his wife, not to his father; not to the shop-shelves by day or the bedsheets at night. For two long years, the brothers had lived with just such a weight upon their hearts, swollen and festering and precious. Each morning they'd met behind the counter of their business, an apothecary down south of Haberdash Row. Every noon, they'd eaten a cold lunch together upon its sunlit porch, and shared fears along with the sandwiches. Has he seen the pale robes I hide in the saddlebags?, one might wonder. And Has he heard that I'm sometimes seen about the town, very late at night?, the other might worry. And sometimes -- rarely: O God, O God, is that blood caught under my nails?

On such days as those, it would be a very sober lunch indeed.

But so it goes, for even the most zealous of Brother Prime's congregation had been schooled to secrecy. They are apostles, not evangelists; they go hooded to their nighttime gatherings, and keep their eyes guarded during the day, for fear of what others might glimpse there. It was almost inevitable that eventually, something of this nature would occur -- but under better circumstances, surely! Not this farce of startled revelation, in which Gorje recoils from his brother's body with an almost comical awkwardness. Not this drama of the absurd, his arms windmilling as he slips in his brother's blood -- of which there is a great deal; great, arterial washes of it are already spreading through that platinum robe. This is a grand guignol, a theatre of ludicrous horrors, in which Gorje finally catches his balance -- only to blind himself with burning tears, when he realises the extent of the hurts wrought upon young brother Alwyn. Ordinarily, this could be considered a mercy, for Alwyn's wounds are indeed extensive: blood leaks from a gash across the scalp; leaf-bladed knives are sheathed in the meat of his shoulder and thigh; the ribs across his left side have buckled beneath what must have been furiously heavy blows.

If the damage weren't so grievous --
If Gorje's vision weren't so blurred --
If Ariane hadn't already carved the tongue from Alwyn's mouth --

Then Gorje might have realised sooner that his younger brother is alive. More importantly, Alwyn might have been able to warn him of what is approaching his back at this very instant, light upon her toes and eager with the blade. Unfortunately for Gorje, his brother can manage no more than a gory gurgle, a splutter of cooling blood. She's sliced through the gristle of his ear before Alwyn can lift a hand to point; she's battered him into unconsciousness before either of them can begin to shriek.

***


Come morning, there'll be some small disturbance in Myrkentown. For the first time, she's taken the chance of moving the body: the dawns early light will illuminate not only the side of Hugh Fletcher's shop, but the corpse propped against it, as well. Perhaps townsfolk will gather there during the hours to come, to stare and frown and whisper their fears. Perhaps Kazcmareks will be amongst their number, for hadn't they befriended the Swithins some years before? A matter of a sprained wrist; a matter of heatstroke, during that brutal summer. They'll recognise young Alwyn, even battered as he is. They may even wonder as to Gorje's whereabouts, for what good that will do them; the shack where he's been secreted away is quite some ride from here. And perhaps -- surely -- a certain enigma will move within that crowd, a man of masks beneath cowls; perhaps he might approve of the locale, and the message painted upon the wall by Alwyn's side, as red as his clotted blood:

Surrender him
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Postby Hajmat » Thu Mar 30, 2006 12:59 pm

...and so a figure did walk through the crowd, cloaked and hooded. The hood so deep that it shrouded the wearer's face completely, making it impossible for any to see. But, of course, none looked; all eyes were trained upon the gore and message of blood.

The cowled figure paused with the crowd and made no effort to draw back the hood that fell so low that it most certainly hid the images of death from the wearer's eyes.

The lingering was only momentary.

And as the figure walked away, he released a quiet sound. Perhaps a chuckle of sorts...though it sounded more grave and ragged...having the tone of sawteeth biting into soft wood in quick strokes.

She had convinction, this swordswoman. Perhaps it was time for another meeting.
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Postby channe » Fri Mar 31, 2006 8:06 am

At fifteen, Giertruda Braun (formerly Kaczmarek) is already married and four months pregnant with her first child. Her husband is a butcher, so she is already intimate with gore and the way it stains and spatters; she encounters such things each night, hunched over a bucket of pinkish, lukewarm water, waging war against his gut-stained aprons with a handful lye soap and her own considerable grit.

Such things, however, have not prepared her for what she and her sister Agnieszka have pushed through the crowd to see this morning. Her breakfast turns in her stomach, and she grabs for Agnie's arm, managing to mumble something about God! and Mr. Swithin! before nearly collapsing where she stands.

She is far too queasy to notice the sick look in Agnie's own eyes, and far too focused on making sure the contents of her stomach don't make a return appearance to argue when Agnie sits her down by the side of the road, pats her on the cheek and tells her she'll return in a moment.

Trudy has seen death before -- this is Myrken Wood, after all, where life is hard and death the only certainty -- but they've been faces of strangers, men and women she'd only seen in passing. This was a different kind of death. This was the amiable Alwyn Swithin, a friend, who'd always had a joke at the ready when they stopped in on market days --

As Trudy begins to wrap her head around what she sees as mindless, meaningless butchery she looks up at Agnie -- and notices how her sister, every so often, unconsciously lifts her fingers to rest them on the scabbard of that stupid sword.

---

If you ask, Magda will tell you that she first noticed a change in the brothers Swithin a while years ago. They were quieter, she said. Settled. They were like men who had achieved some success after years of constant strife; she often got the feeling that they'd come to the end of a quest, and were cradling an elusive answer nobody else could see. Karol was convinced of quite the opposite -- why, he could hardly carry on a conversation with either Alwyn or Gorje without either of them looking like they wished to crawl out of their very skins!

The patriarch and matriarch of the Kaczmarek clan had long ago agreed to disagree on most things, so the bickering wasn't new to their remaining offspring.

One thing was for certain, they both said: the Swithins just weren't the same.


---

If Agnieszka Kaczmarek is catching on a little faster than most, it is simply because she spent last summer paying attention and doing what she's doing now: being nosy.

Trudy moves back towards Agnieszka, weak on her feet, muscling through the gathered crowd as best she can. Agnie's speaking rapidly with a male stranger about the words on the wall, who nods to her sister and leaves when his eyes flicker over towards the approaching Trudy.

"I -- I think we should go," she says, reaching for Agnie's shirtsleeve again. "I think we should go tell Piotr before he sees it for hisself."

"Yeah, Piotr should know," her sister responded, her tone faraway.

"Who would do such a thing? What'd Mr. Swithin ever do t' anybody?" Trudy asked.

Agnie's eyes flicker towards the body again, and Trudy is surprised -- no, staggered -- to see such alien disgust there, to see such conflict. It's another sign of how far apart the sisters become, Trudy thinks, Agnie with that awful sword and her men's clothes and her terrible ideas that might end up getting people killed --

It's only later, when her husband comes home for a dinner she can't eat for the nausea, that Trudy realizes that Agnie hadn't answered her questions.
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Postby Vanidor » Fri Mar 31, 2006 3:34 pm

The body of Alwyn Swithin would be left out in the open for a short while longer, rotting as it was, there by the side of the building. And to this scene would eventually come men clothed in the accouterments of the Order of Straka. Five men in all, pulling along a a horse drawn wagon. It was led by a youngish sergeant, who constantly fiddled with a dolphin shaped medallion, the entire time the patrol went about documenting the scene and taking some notes. The body would then be reverently placed in the back of the wagon, the guardsmen taking time to cover the body with dark-hued clothes and making sure Alwyn was properly taken care of.

The young sergeant would tuck the silvery medallion back into his tunic-front and wave away really deep and probing questions. Simply saying that the Order would be looking into it as deeply as was possible. And yes, that the death of Master Swithin was a loss to the community. And no, he didn't understand what the words written upon the wall in the man's blood was all about. And yes, just maybe, was this slaughter connected with the other odd disapperances and killings going on around town. But not to fear, Straka was upon it. They would deal with the killings and the killer as soon as they were caught. And yes, if they learned of anything, just send word to the meeting house or the barracks, and they would look into it...

Oh, and as an aside, have a nice day...

One should always be drunk. That's all that matters... But with what? With wine, with poetry, or with virtue, as you chose. But get drunk. - Charles Baudelaire


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Postby Carnath-Emory » Sat Apr 15, 2006 10:55 am

"On the fourth day, a man died with his hands pierced through. Perhaps," they might pray, "he had seized the truth."


With some careful thought and consultation -- not to mention a good examining of the Swithins homestead -- Agnieszka Kaczmarek had drawn the necessary, inevitable comparisons between the murders of Sasha, Phinneas, and even poor Alwyn. Assassin, a cowled figure had once whispered to Ariane, upon accosting her on a town street. Disgusting, Agnieszka had accused -- and no less accurately, having reckoned not just the nature of this murderous spate, but the identity of the woman orchestrating it. Agnieszka is no simple farmer's girl -- the trial that is Myrken Wood has elevated her far beyond her circumstances -- but still, if even she were able to glean the meaning behind this slaughter, then how much more easily might the koltists who are its target? Why, easily enough at least that this time, they are ready to meet her steel -- and with a little of their own, to boot.

Unfortunately. After all, if this hadn't been so, the corpses left at the end of it all might have been a deal more sightly.

Of course, one cannot expect too much from the likes of Cordwainer Beucol and his lifelong friend Dyer Halfplow. One has shod many of Myrken's dignitaries, the other has coloured the fine linens for their breeches; neither is by any means fit even for the Militia. Still, they at least have their family weapons, for all that they're not particularly skilled in their use; Beucol, in addition, is a stouter fellow than his trade rightly requires. Why, he'd once helped five of his Brothers carry a fiercely-struggling woman back to her cell in the Order's caverns -- and, unlike one of the others, he'd survived the ordeal. Oh, but not wholly unmarked, of course. Bill Halfplow had remarked (not altogether admiringly) that those scars were a gift from Him -- a reminder of Beucol's devotion, say. Beucol had differed, deeming them unsightly, and in any case incidental to their worship, Brother Prime's scars being of a particular sort, you see, and surely not given to throbbing so, on colder nights --

It was many an evening that he'd spent like this: seated by his home's small hearth, nursing some buttered rum at his elbow, and rubbing grudgingly at those aching scars. This one differs only in that he's about to be presented with the opportunity to avenge them.

They've readied themselves for this, these koltists. Beucol has his dogs running loose in his small pasture this night, and when he stirs himself to investigate their howls, it's with a lantern in one hand, and a stout poker in the other. It saves his life, for she has laid in wait for him: when he opens that rear door, she shoves it back at him with force enough to send the large man stumbling, and only a flailing swing of that poker can knock her sword away from its path; she strikes the doorframe instead of his ample gut. "He's here!", cries Beucol as he backpedals from the blade, and: "She," on getting a closer look. "She!", and all of that breath wasted for nothing, the swordswoman thinks, until something splinters the doorframe by her head, and she sees Halfplow brandishing his crossbow like a club now, as he storms from the guest room. Two against one can defeat even the most skilled of swordsman, and the larger of the pair is easily twice her size. Anything might have happened, anything; Halfplow has a bolt in his hand as if he means to stab her with it, Ariane has begun a testing lunge towards him -- and then Beucol changes everything, by shrieking in sudden panic, and throwing his lantern at her head.

For a time, her world is fire and flame.

***


They'll be tackling the flames before they find the bodies, for by dawn the fire has consumed the Beucol homestead, and threatened two of its neighbours besides. It will be a long night of voices raised in alarm and bells rung to herald the same; Myrkenfolk will surely work alongside the Brotherhood, slopping buckets from hand to hand and breathing down the same sooty air. Poor bastard Beucol, they'll say, when there's leisure enough for talk, and poor Halfplow as well, to have the bad luck of visiting him on this night, and what a horror such fires are! Only when the corpses are found, in the township proper, will they realise how inadequate their concept of 'horror' had been.

They are not exactly crucified, Beucol and Halfplow; she is not nearly so precise in her work. But pinned, yes, erected against the broad side of Beucol's business like grotesquely overgrown bugs. The crossbow bolts have been put to good use after all, driven through shoulders and thighs and Beucol's fat gut; they impale Halfplow's hands, so that he appears to be lifting them beside his lolling head in a plea for surrender. Another protrudes from Beucol's open mouth like the tongue that poor Alwyn had lost, driven through the back of the neck to hold that upright, as well. And although there hadn't been the time to retrieve their white robes from the wreckage of Beucol's home, still the message may prove clear enough. The words are engraved in large letters upon their chests, one apiece, easily legible even through the mess of cuts that marr the flesh of each man -- and there are many of those. A great many. Still:
FAITH, reads the one. And FEAR, the other.



"This is disgusting!", young Agnieszka had hissed, just nights ago. She could not possibly have anticipated that her teacher would find the indictment so encouraging.
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Postby Isobella » Mon Apr 17, 2006 4:21 am

And where did all these bodies go? With just that one exception Janessa would find the others brought to the Rememdium, where the dead would stay for that short time before their burials. It seemed to her now over these past few weeks that there had been more dead cross their doors than living.

These murders had been brutal, there was no doubt in her mind about that.. but her thoughts would wonder on the why. It would be a lie to say that the bodies didn't haunt her sleep. She had always been a strong of stomach, strong of spirit, but how unusual it was that she would assure the others she worked with that she would take care of preparing the dead.

The strange thing about being an outsider is that one knows not the sins of the others, and so in her own way she would be pleased to be able to give these poor souls as much peace as she could. However, the soul of the curious could not completely be quieted either. Before the bodies were buried she would take notes, describing the dead, their wounds but most significantly the words that had been carved upon their chests. Those notes would be kept secretly, folded and tucked away where the others who worked at the Rememdium would be unlikely to find them. This mystery was one she was keeping to herself.
"I'm tired of all of my characters acting as bait..." "Then maybe you need to stop making them so damn tasty!" - Something Positive
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Postby Vanidor » Mon Apr 17, 2006 2:42 pm

The bodies would rest within the walls of the Remedium for the rest of that night, and then the better part of the next day. Soon enough men in grey-dyed coats would show up and come for the remains left behind. Once again, they were led by the young sergeant with a mischevious sparkle to his eye. The bodies would be collected as quietly as possible, with every assurance that they'd be taken care of as they deserved to be (and it was a good thing he didn't say just what -that- meant).

In any case, the sergeant would leave any assurances that the staff of the Remedium would be needing. Then, as quietly as the patrol had arrived, they would take their leave, the bodies settled within a simple wagon. To the barracks that would travel, and the bodies would... probably never be seen again.

One should always be drunk. That's all that matters... But with what? With wine, with poetry, or with virtue, as you chose. But get drunk. - Charles Baudelaire


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Postby Carnath-Emory » Sun Apr 30, 2006 3:07 pm

"On the fifth day..."

The Floating Dragon is hardly Myrkentown's finest drinkery; it's a commonly-known fact that they water their scotch -- and some of the wines, too. But its renown is for cards, not liquor. Novices are made welcome at any hour, if they've ample coin to waste while they learn the game; sore losers are evicted by means of a boot to the arse, and a fist or two to the face for farewell. In the 'Dragon, they play for real stakes, and the sharpest players sometimes find themselves shunned, no-one much liking those odds -- unless they worked their magic with a particular flair, for like the rest of Myrkentown, the 'Dragon's patrons are hungry for diversion. Be either mediocre or magnificent, its motto might have read, if there'd been one. Be nice or be funny.

Pretty-faced Macha Luain is generally both. He also gathers monthly with the rest of the Order of the All to slaughter children, sever eyes, and otherwise worship. Almost a year ago to this day, he rode with several of them to the Broken Dagger Inn some miles away, there to deliver a broken and bloodied corpse to its lawn.

She'd watched him for almost a fortnight before making her move.

None of Quincy's blood stains its floors, and this pleases Ariane very well, but the 'Dragon's true appeal for her is the tolerance of its patrons. Neither funny nor nice, she has earned acceptance by dint of her capacity for sharp whiskey, and an occasional deft touch with the cards; the sort that requires a great crescendo of recklessness and culminates in a very tall stack of coin. Employed very sparingly, it has gained her a grudging welcome here, enough of a one that she's dared rent a regular room upon the second floor. Employed a little too lavishly the night before, both knacks have left her with stinging eyes and a throbbing head this morning. Even out here on the balcony, her hair smells of smoke and sweat and last night's liquor.

That Luain had also kept a room here was chance in its kindest form. That they'd shared a table and a deck of cards the night before was its crueler aspect. It had certainly helped to inspire the night's excesses, although in that matter, Macha wasn't wholly to blame; waylaid by Hajmat for a second time, condemned by her own student for a third, the wonder wasn't that she'd turned to Kerrak's counsel and the 'Dragon's liquor, but that she'd done so in that order! Five simple statements, she'd scrawled upon paper for the Councilor's perusal, and he'd ignored them all in favour of his own agenda; some matter of confidence, of need. And Hajmat before him, who'd inspired that later exchange; Hajmat with his masked face and a hood to cover it; Hajmat with his throatful of powdered glass and molten coal, who'd suggested the most terrible thing of all --

And so she'd shared that table with pretty Macha Luain, who could be her brother with his fine black hair, his pale-hued eyes. Had shared a bottle as well, and another after that, and ultimately enough that they'd needed help to keep track of the scoring -- but by then, the stakes were vast as only two drunks could make them, and there'd been plenty of offers from the crowd. Had toppled her chair when she'd stood near the end, and very nearly herself, the commons having adopted a decided tilt by then; had begged her escape with precisely that drunkenness for an excuse, and gathered up the coins that were still hers. Had pretended blindness to the occasional leer that lit an onlooker's eye, Macha's face being what it was; it wasn't unusual for him to meet a girl in his room at a night's end, but she'd leave first, if she had any sense of discretion.

She did. And he --

He might actually have nursed a spark of disappointment, on reaching his empty bed. Mundane in every aspect but the symmetry of his features, Luain could not have read her footprints from the corridor floor; could not possibly have realised how she'd paced to and fro before his door. Being no mentalist, he could not have guessed at the agony of indecision in her mind, the abrupt negating of all her plans -- which would have left that bed very bloodied indeed. Having never paid visit to the Broken Dagger Inn, he naturally could not know of Hajmat's suggestion the night before -- nor that he surely owed the cowled man his life. It had driven Ariane from his door, that rasped phrase; it had sent her fleeing to her own room, there to curl upon its bed and drink from her own stock of wine until her vision swam and blackened.

"It is your Belief," Hajmat had suggested, "that the information that you receive about cultists is true and real."

His inference had been very clear ... and completely intolerable.
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Postby Carnath-Emory » Tue May 02, 2006 7:40 am

Not all of Myrkentown's residents were born to the territory. Consider Bea Kanaya, for instance -- who was born Beatriz Ramón many years ago, in the far western reaches of Amasynia. Who, as some immigrants do, adopted the more conventional Beatrice for her name, Ramón giving way to Prestcote on the eve of her first marriage, and Godefroy upon the second, for she'd buried two husbands before she was much more than thirty. Drue Kanaya was the third, who fell two years ago at the hands of the Baie, one of many savaged as the beast tore through an angry mob on its way towards Alexander Kanashia. That had been quite enough for Bea Kanaya, who kept the dead man's name for her own, and cursed the Captain's with each day's dawn.

On the topic of names, it's noteworthy that hers doesn't appear on either of the lists supplied to Ariane Emory. But this has troubled the swowdswoman very little, for Roschen has good reason to make such an omission, and perhaps even drow Jirai can be misled by a kindhearted exterior. For Bea Kanaya is a pious adherent to the One Faith, although she doesn't much care for St. Iona's chapel, not since the Fletcher's boy flung himself from its roof. She is a well-respected member of Myrkentown's burgeoning middle class. Her ginger biscuits are a matter of legend amongst its children.

None of these facts have kept Ariane from her doorstep, this morning.

Beatrice works alone in the mornings; there's help that comes to clean the small bakery later in the day, but that girl's busy in other businesses at this early hour. Unlike those who've fallen before her, Kanaya is not so engrossed in her work or her company that she doesn't hear the swordswoman's approach; perhaps the bell that jangles when the forward door opens is some help. Or perhaps Ariane has paid very little attention to stealth. But whatever the case, it's a pleasantly plump face which is turned to greet the dead Governor's guard, one with considerable surprise in its blue eyes.

"Have you ever seen its like?", the swordswoman asks without preamble, an item of some delicacy presented for Kanaya's inspection. A porcelain mask, this is, daintily feminine in its contours. A man might have found its ruddy lips ripe, inviting; Beatrice, however, is nothing but bewildered. "Why, I never -- ", she begins. A swing of the mask slaps the rest of the words from her lips, and breaks one of them open, too.

"Lies," hisses the swordswoman, advancing to match Bea's stumbling retreat. "I saw you standing beside the rest of them. What do you know of its maker?" A shake of the head earns the woman a sweep of the mask that splits the skin over her cheekbone, and the pain stings so that Beatrice scarcely hears the question that follows it. "What do you know of Truth? Of Belief?" And Beatrice, deafened by her own fear, simply holds out a trembling hand.

As if to halt the inevitable. As if to comfort her murderer, for Bea Kanaya knows children very well. "Oh, child," she weeps, as much sorrow as fear filling her voice, and that's when the sword comes out to pierce the old woman's lungs. And the fist, to silence her monstrous lies for true, and the other to beat her until she'll stay silenced, and when Bea's desperate, clutching hands finally find purchase on Ariane's shoulders, the two women collapse against the bakery shelves with such force that hessian bags burst and flour explodes into the air.

The swordswoman is straddling her prey then, as they choke on the powdery clouds, knees pinning Kanaya's arms to the cold floor beneath her back. The knife she brandishes hasn't the cruel curve of the dagger Dhrin prefers for his sacrifices, but she has it pressed to the edge of Bea's left eye all the same. First, though, she must brandish that mask one last time; must raise it beside her own face in a brief demonstration. Ruddy at the lips, the delicate thing, lustrous in its contours; eyeless, mere indents in the porcelain marking their place beneath the delicate arch of its black-inked brows. It stares blindly down at the bloodied woman, mute and implacable, and: "Don't you see the resemblance?" whispers the swordswoman at last, pressing the mask onto her own features, as the last breaths bubble from between Kanaya's lips. The knife finds its home in the older woman's flesh, but Bea by this time is far beyond pain; her heart beats its last when the knife falls for the second time, and Ariane's world of a sudden riots about her. It hits her like a pickaxe to the brain:

She is murderer and murdered. She is carving the eyes from Kanaya's face, and lying helpless beneath the knife.

Here is Beatriz Ramón, born to deprivation and slaving away her childhood by a baker's oven; by the age of fourteen she's aquired a hatred for the stink of yeast, and coin enough to make the journey to Myrken Wood. You can build a life there, they say. People don't ask questions there, they say. Here is Beatrice Prestcote, wed four years shy of her twentieth birthday, to a man who's never known poverty and can't imagine why his wife shies from his family's excess. Here is Beatrice Godefroy, wrapped in a husband's arms, back in the days when she'd worn her hair long, and as dark as Ariane's own. It is the most precious time of her life. They'd smiled together, she and Godefroy; oh, how they'd
laughed, how she'd wept at his grave. When it comes time to bury Kanaya by him, there are no more tears left, and that lovely hair's gone to grey now, and she bakes biscuits for children because she prefers them to adults now; unlike their elders, they have whole lives ahead of them. Bea Kanay, this is, who weekly makes the long trek to Myrkentown's less popular chapel, who'd wept for Hugh Fletcher's son, and the children who'd been his friends. Canny Bea, who'd seen the word scrawled upon Iona's side that day, and hated it ever since; 'BELIEVE', it had said, and she Believes, alright. Believes that the boy died for a reason she cannot understand, but which would surely prove as foul as the Baie which had murdered her husband.

Bea Kanay, who'd loathed those cultists as much as any other sane woman, and more than most.


It's a reeling woman who pushes herself away from Beatrice's body as the flood of memory comes to its end, the sight of her own masked face burned into her vision; it had been the last thing that dying Bea had seen, and thus the last to be communicated to her murderer. It is a horror; so is what follows when she tries to lower the mask from her face, for the attempt is doomed and even the most desperate clawing of her fingers can't tear the porcelain from her skin. Silver floods about the edges of the mask, as she finds her feet and staggers for the bakery's rear doors; it riots like bile in the back of her throat, trapped between her lips, as she blindly carves at the back wall. And when she finally flees, it's with a sobbing gasp for her voice, and a single word left behind her -- for this time she speaks to a man who is no cultist at all:

BELIEF?



"On the fifth day," they will murmur, "a woman died with her eyes gouged out. Perhaps she'd seen the face of God."
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Postby Isobella » Wed May 03, 2006 12:37 pm

A body she would recognize this time.. though barely with the mutilation that had been caused. It unnerved her somewhat keeping this body until it would be removed, it was strange seeing someone that she had seen about Myrkentown, if she remembered properly she may have even made some purchases at that bakery. Nothing could be more unsettling than this rash of grotesque murders. More notes would be made, more time spent in curious delibration which would likely lead her to nowhere. She seemed to be collecting little bits of information here and there, none of which seemed to be making sense in connection with each other anyhow.
"I'm tired of all of my characters acting as bait..." "Then maybe you need to stop making them so damn tasty!" - Something Positive
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Postby Carnath-Emory » Wed May 10, 2006 8:33 am

The days following Trilby's madness had passed in a haze of hurt and confusion: she had slept for several of them, and might have remained trapped in that dreaming world for many more, if not for the arcane aid that Jirai and Roschen had supplied. It was a fine example of the irony for which Myrkentown has become known, really, that Jirai had soon joined her in that cripple's room, victim of her own wicked dagger.

She was not to be the last such visitor.

Stephanos had not offered the woman his name, and nor had she asked it; it had seemed as viable an effort as questioning Hajmat on his. That was not where the similarity between the two ended, of course, for Stephanos too had proven knowledgeable in ways that a stranger ought not to be; Stephanos, too, had named her Assassin.

But that was the end of such comparisons for, while not particularly forthcoming, neither was Stephanos the enigmatic figure that Hajmat had become; she sensed no chilling secrets behind his eyes. And where the old man had preferred his cowled robes, his pauper's integrity, Stephanos displayed a particular showmanship: a liking for thrones of his own making, for glittering chalices at which to moisten his lips. More than once, he'd put her in mind of Jorn Lundstroem, a man of... long-ago; he who'd fallen victim of his own vast ambitions. Stephanos, too, would be such a self-made prince -- or so it had seemed to her as they spoke. Stephanos, too, would prefer that she cower from luminous beauty, that she kneel --

"It is maddening, is it not?", he'd gloated. "When your body fails your will?


So that instead, perverse to the core, she had bristled with a cripple's pitiful indignation. Had lifted her chin and summoned her courage, so that when his request came, she had an offer with which to counter it. A matter of a sibling, he'd explained -- sparsely. A matter of a throat in need of slitting. And he, devilish creature, being so willing, so able, to supply the vengeance for which she'd longed.

There rested a feather upon the nighstand by her bed, the pretty platinum of its contours glittering with scorn. There hid a porcelain mask beneath her thin blankets, nestled against her bare leg. They were reminders, these trinkets: You have faced worse than this, they silently spoke. And still you live. So that at last she gave a name to this vengeance of which the two spoke, and Stephanos was made to understand his sibling's corpse would be freely exchanged -- for the living flesh of Thadius Dhrin.


And on this day... God rested.
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Postby Carnath-Emory » Sun May 14, 2006 10:31 am

"On the sixth day, a man died with his ears cut away. Perhaps he'd heard God weep."


Gorje Swithin is forty-five days dying, and not yet dead -- although this is not by anyone's design but his own. Seized brutally from his home, traumatised by the murder of his brother, he has lately known nothing but brutal hardship, and has clung only precariously to his life. The wound where his ear had once been has festered and grown infected; the flesh has gone green and pulpy, and oozes something that he's certain is not blood. His new home is a small cabin, sparsely furnished and remote, set into the woods some distance back from any main road. It also reeks of death, as Ariane hadn't troubled to clean after Vargan Chernevog had died here, several years before; it had grown bitterly cold that month, after all, and there he'd trembled in his shirt and his shackles as she watched --

It had been a slow, quiet death. So would Swithin's have been, if not for a spark of desperation that had lingered in him all this long while. Perhaps he wished somehow to avenge his brother's death. Perhaps, although he yet retained his eyes, he feared somehow escaping His glory, when the time came.

Perhaps his Belief had grown weak.

But whatever the case, the swordswoman had usually been a nightly visitor, supplying bowls of water or thin gruel for his use. Twice, there'd been bread. But when three nights had passed without sign of her, that desperation had inspired his limbs to new strength. To and fro he'd rocked, in the wooden chair to which he was chained, violently enough at last to topple it to its side. His had been a worm's squirming progress across the filthy floorboards, for his lips were parched dry as paper, his lungs ached with each tormented breath that he took -- and it had lately rained so heavily that some of the water had penetrated even the sole window's shutters. He moistened his tongue at those trickles, over those next few days. When the hunger grew unbearable, he lapped like an animal at the wooden floor.

Forty-five days dying, and she'd come back to a man in such distress that he'd begun to beg for true -- not for freedom, but for life. Had come bearing water for his throat, and wine for hers. Had brought with her hammer and nails, to set down upon the table that is the only other furnishing, and some rope from her saddlebags, and a dagger that glinted dully in the candlelight, when she lit one. And tears in her eyes, but he was understandably too distracted to notice this.

They talk for a time, then. She has many questions for Gorje Swithin: 'Where hides Fawn?', for instance. And 'What has befallen him?', for another. Occasionally even 'What signifies these masks?'. He keeps up his side of things, answering every question she puts to him -- but mostly just with sobs, because she'd begun the conversation by nailing his wrists to the tabletop.

It's a long night that they spend together, this time. Near the end of it, she seizes him by the hair, tugs his head back so sharply he thinks she's about to slit his throat, thinks it might be a mercy -- But instead, she cuts the eyelids from his eyes, so that he will see every moment of what's to come.

It's amazing, what pain can do to a man.
It's amazing what pain can make a man do.

Come morning, they'll find the elder Swithin abandoned upon a popular road not far from Myrkentown main... in a sense. By this time, there is very little left of him, and it is reasonable that they'd have mistaken his carcass for an animal's -- except that she's left the face almost flawlessly intact, although the platinum robe forced down his throat does distort things a little. On the subject of distortion, there is also a clean space upon what remains of his chest, and if a person were to look away from the framework of ribs for a moment, they'd see that the word written there reads:

Fawn
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