Signed, sealed, delivered.

[Carnath-Emory]

There is no argument to this; on the contrary, some chagrin lights her features for an instant, at this mention of errands. The woman is not unsympathetic. But now they come to it, the moment which she has anticipated with more dread than relief, and for this reason she seizes upon it with very little hesitation.

This is how a swordswoman defies her fears.

"There has been Baie for ... at least a decade. I do not think that it has walked Myrken for all of that time; perhaps I am wrong, mn? But it slaughtered families even ten years and more ago, this I am told by a voice that I trust."

Trust. Here in this room, in the company of Calomel alone, she can dare to speak that word.

"There was ... one particular home. I know nothing of the family before Baie came upon them; only that the parents died badly, that -- watching this -- the children were spared. A boy, a younger girlchild.

Years later, they would be the Order's first members."

There is a testing glance turned towards Cinnabar now, for she has set back into motion during this: keeps limping pace with the odd rhythm of her words. He is regarded for a time, and the tall windows as well, the narrow door... Ah. It resumes.

"I do not pretend to understand it. I, who has no gods, mn? Who does not want them. And I am told the story in two ways. In one, the boy is struck by the wonder of being spared: the joy of being the one chosen to survive that massacre. In another, he is seized by hatred, by the determination to end what he has witnessed. Never Again, this boy says, and means it."

A pause. A glance.

"Which is true? I do not know, I may never know. Which I Believe ... is not much necessary to you, I think. But I will ask you to consider the gravity of this: that to speak of what I tell you outside of this room very likely ensures two deaths."

[Cinnabar]

As Ariane speaks he is moving to take a seat at the table over which they had discussed world-as-chess and chess-as-world but a few days previous. He still watches her, glancing down only to ensure he doesn't knock anything over or bump into any furniture. His wine cup is set down, and a book retrieved from an inside pocket of his coat - a small, stout tome, bound in rich leather, embossed with the twining forms of stylised mythical creatures. Dip pen and portable inkwell are retrieved from other pockets - he is prepared, it seems, he either plans ahead or carries such things on his person just in case. Who can say? His movements are matter-of-fact, smooth and methodical as if practised countless times before, and he keeps his attention upon the swordswoman throughout. First a nib is slotted into the pen, the inkwell's position adjusted slightly to place it within easy reach, but safe from being inadvertently spilt. The book is placed before him, ready.

"I understand."

A thought strikes him, and he glances down to the small book, then back to Ariane. A hand is placed upon the tome, fingertips resting on the worked leather of its cover.

"What I write in this book is for me, and me alone. It goes in no files or reports, but serves as my personal record. Some of what you tell me, I hope to make known to others - I have... uses for it. But if there is anything that cannot or must not be shared, only speak it and it will not leave this room.

"Will you trust me in this?"

[Carnath-Emory]

"'Uses'."

This very simple word, this somehow disconcerting suggestion: it pauses her, leaves the uneven body rested shoulderwards against the doorframe, balanced upon its bare heel.

"To teach? Is that what you propose? Then perhaps this is of little use, perhaps I --

"No. What I say of these children is for you alone. I tell you these things so that you will understand how the Order came to be. So that you will understand the things I will speak to you at the end of this. It is not for sharing. It is not for teaching. It is not even for writing.

The rest of it -- that, certainly. That, I allow. It is not for want of trust, that I say this to you. Do you see?"

The colourless gaze which fixes the man allows itself hope, a great deal of it. But in the same moment it yields nothing at all, it concedes no quarter whatsoever, for they have come to the difficult things, now. They have come to the very worst.

[Cinnabar]

Permission asked, and denied. He accepts this mildly, and moves his hand to the tabletop, nodding once. A meeting of cloud-hued gazes, a brief consideration and an agreement.

"Very well."

And no movement beyond that. The book is untouched, the pen resting still upon the table as he regards her evenly, and waits for her to speak on. He concentrates upon her, fixing the scene and her words in his mind with fierce determination. If he cannot write it into his book, he will write it into his memory, inscribed as deeply and indelibly as he can manage. The rest he will be able to write down. This, he must remember for himself.

"Tell me the story."

[Carnath-Emory]

Permission asked.
Permission denied.
This, friend Calomel, is nothing more or less than a matter of discretion.

"So there are these two ways, yes? One is adoration, the other hatred, and for a long time there is not so much difference between them: they both create an Order of worshippers, men and women who follow the Baie's habits. These murders, the taking of their eyes, most of all. They are a brotherhood, and this boy -- grown, now -- is first amongst them: Brother Prime, they name him. His sister's role in it, I do not know, except that she was a part of it.

She is dead, now, and cannot be questioned."

This is thirsty work: the throat grows parched, but so does the spirit, so that a woman must want very much for coarse drink to accompany this recitation. In time. All things in their time, and after a moment's pause longer, her pacing resumes.

"Several years ago, the Baie first showed himself in Myrken Wood. The Order followed after him. You know somewhat of Baie already, yes?" There is pause enough for the man to confirm, deny, protest, and then: "At first, Baie's murders were ... selective, I think. On this matter you best petition Ariel O'Cynen, for her father made a study of the beast, while it still preyed upon his farmers.

"So perhaps the Order, too, was selective; I cannot know for certain, except that their work was not so ... brutal as Baie's. But these things I give you without doubt: that like Baie, they cut the eyes from their victims, their sacrifices. That their numbers gradually grew. That some of these sacrifices gave up their eyes and their lives willingly -- if you can call that madness 'willing', ser, and I do not. After a time, they began to mark these victims -- or the walls by which their bodies were set, or the ground upon which their corpses fell. 'Believe', they wrote each time, or something very like it.

"Believe."

[Cinnabar]

He sits quietly, watching, listening, an attentive audience if ever there was one. At her question of his knowledge of the Baie he nods lightly - he knows as much as she has told him, and a few scraps besides, but enough to have some idea of the beast's capacities. Though he is not permitted to write these details down he endeavours to remember the name given, that he might direct further questions in O'Cynen's direction.

"What made it clear that these were the cultists' actions, rather than the Baie's? What distinguished these killings from those performed by the creature itself?" And at the mention of the word marked on or near the victims, there is a flicker of dawning comprehension - something has clicked into place, perhaps, though more to do with his understanding of Ariane than of the cultists. Hm. Interesting.

"Go on."

[Carnath-Emory]

"Their ... delicacy." For want of a better word, for want of some better turn of phrase, by which to distinguish one atrocity from another.

"The Baie wrought one massacre after another: whole families, or sole victims, but in so ... ugly a fashion, you see? They were... twisted, butchered. The Order was not so kindless: they took the eyes from their victims' heads, they took the life from them, but they did not match Baie's brutality. Not nearly." A pause follows, for she must order this in her mind, must set one thing after another, and then ... ah, her mild smile betrays no evidence of humour, of any pleasure at all.

"There were some months of this; Straka was... insufficient, you see. And then Thadius Dhrin came to us."

Here it is: the name with which Calomel is most familiar. He has a face to set with it, he has some experience of the man himself. And in the light of this, he is observed closely for a time, to see what he will make of what follows...

"Following an assault that seemed causeless, at the time, the Governor had fallen to an illness that even Doctor D'Rael could not remedy. Himself a physician -- visiting, you see -- Dhrin reckoned to recognise the poison's sort, and offered its cure. We journeyed to fetch it in quantity, and met with ambush. White robes, and tiny silver blades: it is the whole of my recollection of the attack, for they must have clubbed us almost immediately. I did not discover until much later that they had not ... wounded my back, but carved words into its skin. Well," and here there comes some wry moue of the lips, "better than that they write it by my corpse, mn? 'We Believe', it said.

When I woke on the road, Dhrin was taken; they returned him days later, flung him from horseback onto the tavern lawn. We never found the finger they'd cut from his hand."

A pause follows now, an utterly necessary one: she must have water for her throat, must sit for a time and allow that leg a moment's rest at last.

[Cinnabar]

A nod at the distinctions between the ways of the Baie and of his cultists, a mental note to add at least that much to his information on the creature. And then a name is mentioned at last, one that has the High Constable's brow furrowing in puzzlement.

"Dhrin? The man who... the man from the Rememdium lawn?" The man whose throat he had seen Ari cut, only for him to be healed and revived by the winged girl. Lamai. He remains silent for her account of the Governor's sickness, the new physician's claims, the attack and aftermath, and that has him scowling in distaste. But also... curious.

"You were assailed by the cultists, you were captured and yet your lives were spared save for these injuries inflicted - do you know why that might be, when others had been killed outright?" A question worth asking, a question that begs to be answered. He has his suspicions, he has seen the answer hinted at in the horror and loathing with which Ariane had regarded the man that day in front of the Rememdium. But he would hear it from her lips.

[Carnath-Emory]

"The very one."

Thadius Dhrin, who had described such tales, had presented such choices -- which of course were not really choices at all. Thadius Dhrin, with his hundred paper swans, and a sting of hurt in his gentle eyes, and a manner that was only vicious in its vulnerability.

A generous woman might reckon it that way. A forgiving one. Being neither, Ariane speaks not a word of these things.

"At first, we reckoned it simple enough: I was to be a demonstration of their, their reach, the strength and extent of it. If they might do this thing to the Governor's guard, who mightn't they touch, yes? As for Thadius -- ah, it was not so simple.

"It was never so simple, with him.

"I confess, I have been named naive, and perhaps it is so, for at first I thought it simply torment, what was done to him. Cruelty for its own sake, mn? It seemed like enough to their way, and for a time I was ill enough with those wounds that -- ah, I do not mean to excuse myself, but to ... explain. Explain how it was that this man tended to me during that time, how this man showed me a terrible thing, which I did not recall until -- "

There is some bitterness in this smile. There is bright, malicious anger.

"Ah, it does not matter. This does: that they'd set those words into my skin, and the shape of an eye, as well. That Dhrin wore upon his back a great blanket of such, such ... carvings, such eyes, and that when I looked upon this a second time, it was while I stood in the cavern that was their home.

"They keep cells there, you see. Would you know the measure of their walls?" It is a wry twist of grin then, and a long sip of water from her mug; she is returning to his table at last. "These eyes. You know what it is to tattoo a man, yes? To set ink into his skin? So with Thadius, it was not all wounds, and I did not discover this until the second time; he displayed this thing to me so proudly. That much of it was this ink, black and delicate, and that the largest of them all was the most deeply carved, its iris coloured a dark violet.

"Do you begin to see?"

[Cinnabar]

"I... begin, yes." Brow furrowed in equal parts concentration and disgust, mulling over what has been explained thus far. "He belonged to the Baie, sent forth to mingle and overhear and watch the Governor's actions - " He glances up sharply. "Who was Governor at the time? Helstone? How long ago did Dhrin appear?" He is all questions, all inquiry and intense desire to know, to learn, to discover.

"And the second time you saw these marks, these scars and etchings, in the cultists' cavern: how did you find yourself amongst them? Or is that later in the account?" Keep it straight, keep this tale organised and clear in your mind. He shakes his head, and reaches to retrieve his cup and take a sip of wine.

"I'm sorry; pray continue."

[Carnath-Emory]

Concentration and disgust, so that a woman recognises herself in Calomel's expression, in the quality of his gaze. It vindicates, in some very small measure, satisifies in far lesser a one -- for this is the sort of recitation that she'd rather have spared the man, spared herself. Life after life, this filth touches.

Cinnabar will soon come to realise some of the scope of that reach, for when she has sat down opposite him, it is to retrieve a sheet of heavy paper from the sheaf near her chair-leg. Bromn's paper, Bromn's elegant little quill, and a great deal of Bromn's ink in a dainty glass jar: one is applied to the other, and Thadius Dhrin appears inexpertly near the top of the page.

"He .. belonged to the Baie in a sense, yes. Perhaps Baie did send him; who can know that thing's mind, yes? But I think it doubtful. At that time, the Governor was Altias Bromn; it had been so for some time, by then, and would continue for at least a year longer. As for Thadius, he came to us two years ago, in the month of May." Deep in the heart of Spring. Oh, how he must have liked that.

"Helstone ... his part in this is yet to come; he does have a part in it. But as for these caverns, ah: the fault for that is mine. Had I been more careful, had I paid more mind to myself than my questions -- do you know how it is to be so, so taken by a question that you must know its answer? It was this way, and Thadius ... it was as if the answers to everything were inside him, as if -- " As if you could cut the man, and watch him bleed essential Truths.

"I fell to them a second time." Some wry resignation, now; some very faint edge of disgust. "When I woke, it was in one of their cells, where Thadius visited me with this... parade: these scars, this stump of a finger, for he'd lost it for true, you see. His man Jaque had cut it from his hand, so that we'd not realise the deceit."

A second name upon the page, considerably further down. Jaque Fenway.

"Would you know a curious thing? That they murdered him, as well. Like Thadius, he was flung onto the tavern lawn -- but quite dead; no man would survive what they'd done to him." There'd been nothing to suggest that his robes had once been anything but red... "He wore words as well. His read: Fear Is Not Belief."

A small x is inscribed by Fenway's name. In time, she continues.

"These caverns, mn? This cell. And do you know why? This is how Thadius said it to me: that he wished me to see the, the beauty of what they understand." He is a clever man, this Calomel; he will realise a quote when he hears one. "He wished me to see... with His eyes." His. Baie's. "And this, this is important, for it was bold, that they would attempt such a thing. That he was so certain, this Thadius, that he left me armed, when he led me from that cell.

"Certain, but not stupid. They held my arms, as they took that girl's eyes."

[Cinnabar]

"I well appreciate the appeal of finding answers." A wry smile at that - why else would he have argued with the Governor to extract three pardons on Ariane's request? Heh.

"Do you know why they might have killed Jaque? Had he betrayed them, been negligent in his... devotions? The words would imply such. Or was it simply that a body was needed to send the message, and his sufficed?" He watches the scratching of that quill, the movement between inkwell and paper, names scribed one by one, their significance explained along with them. Then she is speaking again, and disgust is mingled with anger as she describes what Dhrin had her witness; he shakes his head sharply.

"Madmen and zealots. First the Baie commits murder, then the cultists; they grow bolder, no longer gathering... victims for their master, but sending a message to the citizenry. And then... you, as a message to the Governor himself? As a demonstration of their power, of their immunity to the rule of law? Was it thus, do you think?" It must be so - why else capture someone, someone so close to the governor, and turn them not into a victim of murder, but a witness to it? Bold indeed. No, wait, that is assumption.

"The girl was killed once she was blinded? Or does she yet live?"

As the tale unfolds in all its horrific intricacy, the young man begins to comprehend the swordswoman's actions against Dhrin upon the Rememdium lawn. However, one point of confusion is replaced by another: namely that she had seemed so hesitant to carve the man to bloody ribbons that time. That there had been any doubt in her mind that it was something that must be done, after having suffered so at his hands. Hm.

"Describe to me the taking of her eyes. I must know every detail. Every word that was spoken, every step taken." There is some purpose in this demand, some motive that has him make it for all that he knows such recollection will not be at all pleasant for the woman. "Please." Grey gaze fixed upon her, willing her strength to recount the event.

[Carnath-Emory]

"Jaque's fate -- ah, you have all that I know of that matter. Perhaps -- " Ah, but here there comes some slight tilt of smile, some small nod. "Perhaps you might question him on this, yes? I would like to hear it answered." And had not, until now, realised that it ought to be. "I wonder, for his corpse was ... twisted so; it was not common, that they would abuse a body so thoroughly. So perhaps it is this treachery, as you say."

Delia May. Another for the list, and set far further down it. In answer to Calomel's question, a small x is set beside her name, as well; when Ariane lifts her head from this work, it is to reveal a faint, aching smile

"But I was to be no message, ser -- "

A pause. A moment's frowning thought.

"Perhaps. Perhaps that was a part of it, too. But what Thadius intended was to add me to their number. To 'ease', to -- to ease me into the 'beauty they understand', or so he said; to this day, I have not had reason to doubt it."

Oh, but they come to the meat of it now, to the first real flesh of the matter, and here she turns a chuckling glance towards the man's wine, sets another sheet of paper before her, beside the first. The quill is put to different work, now: it defines stretches of land upon that new page, describes the path via which a woman was led from cells to --

"Here, the largest hall that I saw: I could not count them, but I guessed ... a hundred and more, easily that. Each wore the white robes, long and hooded. Some showed their faces to me. The ones who held me could not hide theirs. Their altar stood... here, and it was there that the woman joined him; Delia May, not much younger than I. She had reached the age of a -- a -- " Some slight tension at the lips, some slight frustration as the mind hunts that unfamiliar word. "Ascension," Ariane finally supplies, with some thin snort of breath. "She had chosen to go to Him, Thadius said to that crowd, to be one with Him, to please him with her, her 'selfless sacrifice'.

"Will you pour me some of that? There's a cup -- thank you.

"What does your heart wish? he asks of her, who answers that her wish is to 'be one' with Him. Do you go to Him joyously? he asks, and she says that she does this for Him, and Let it be so, Thadius says, and cuts out her eyes so fast, so fast and she drops as if he'd slit her throat as well, and only a little later I realise that he has, for it goes so quickly, and the corpse still smiles -- "

A woman remembers to breathe.

"He held her eyes in his hand, at the end: I think he set them upon the altar, but my memory is not -- this did not have my attention, mn? He spoke further, and the crowd with him, they shouted these things -- of gifts, of sacrifices; that they were remade, completed by His love." This is a remarkably ugly sneer. "We Believe, they said, twice over. We Believe, and by then they were holding me quite tightly; Thadius conceded that I must be taken back to the cell, and -- "

Colin Dunne. A small x aside it.

"Within, he spoke a threat upon the Governor's life: I dared not assume he lied. He bade me drink a thing, and I did, and -- " There is an omission here. A very hateful one, if the line of the woman's lips is something to judge by; Calomel will do well not to press her on this. "It was for forgetting, what that vial held. For a long time, I was made to forget what I had seen, and even Thadius' part in it.

"Done with me, they did as they had with Jaque: upon horseback, to the tavern, to set me upon its lawn."

[Cinnabar]

"It seems... an awkward way of doing so - perhaps, to make you witness these events they thought would make you party to them. Perhaps they thought to... to break your will with such horror." He shakes his head. "Madness, all of it."

A generous measure of wine poured as asked, and at her description of the... ceremony, he is reaching for that journal again.

"This, I must record. It must be correct." Not the tale of the child who might grow to embrace or revile the monster, no; that is still left to memory alone, as demanded by the swordswoman. But the ritual he dare not trust to memory, as it is already filtered through hers and to attempt to entrust it to his in turn risks corruption, misremembrance and error. And that will not do.

But he waits nonetheless, a silent request for permission in his eyes before he will set nib to paper. He will not violate this trust she places in him, lest he lose what is so far his only witness. Too much hinges upon it.

[Carnath-Emory]

"Awkward," she agrees, unhesitating. "Foolish. My friend suggests that this is somewhat the way of the zealot: to be so flush with his own certainty that he does not realise such simple things as this. They showed me their faces, some of them; madness for true, mn? They returned me to my friends."

Her assent is unhesitating as well, when Calomel takes to that journal a second time: a nod, withholding nothing, for discretion does not restrain her on this matter. There follows a stretch of silence, that he might pen the beginnings of that account, and it likely doesn't surprise, that Ariane drinks deeply of her wine throughout it. After a time of this, however, she must continue -- because to hesitate is to lose her nerve, because the story is like a sickly bile that must be emptied onto a page, because it will buy three lives --

"It was an error. Their horses made such noise, drew the tavern's attention: eight men died that night, and a ninth was given into Straka's custody, for they came upon us at the end of it. You asked me of Ser Helstone, yes? Here we reach his part in this, for Straka saw eight corpses, and would have them accounted for. We were all of us charged with this: myself, several others; Governor Bromn was implicated, for that he stood by and did not restrain us. My friend -- " ahh, Mikhail... "-- insisted to be responsible for the seven we murdered, for the eighth that I -- "

Ah. Imagine for a moment what a woman had been capable of at that point, Cinnabar Calomel. It's not really necessary that she detail that man's suffering. A tilt her cup acknowledges this point, dismisses it as almost irrelevant; after a moment, she concludes:

"It would be the noose for we three, mn? So that I bought the finest mind I'd yet known: m'Ser Coriolanus Helstone, 'barrister at law'. He heard... most of what I have told you this far, ser. He advised us, when we spoke before Straka and Council. We were uh ... aquitted, yes? Freed, for it being self-defence and, and circumstances.

"Does it seem to you that we do not much care for such sort as Straka? That we distrust men who wear ... uniforms and colours and insignia, mn? Now you know a part of it."