Signed, sealed, delivered.

[Cinnabar]

"A good place to draw it, I'd say." He nods approvingly, and sits back in his chair. His eyes range about the room for a time, from Ariane's list to his own journal, to the empty wine cups, to the spyglass resting by the window, and back to Ariane. He tilts his head slightly, considering something for a time.

"When this thing is done, and we take them: would you be party to it?" Level gaze, evaluating, watching. Another hypothetical question? A puzzle for her consideration? Or an offer?

"Would you trust yourself to be there, when we bring them in to account for what they have done?"

[Carnath-Emory]

Quietness holds them for a time: Cinnabar is free to let his gaze wander as it will, and with the subtle scratch of quill upon paper for its accompaniment. Names, and names, and names yet after those, the list growing at so even a pace, so easy a pace. 'A rot at the heart of Myrken Wood', the Governor has said more than once, and now Calomel has the evidence of it before him. This list, this conspiracy, this...

...woman who pauses in her work, of a sudden. The quill hovers motionless some short stretch above the page; her eyes have no attention for the ink which slowly pools at its nib. A question. A puzzle. Perhaps Calomel differentiates between the two; Ariane, veteran of encounters with the likes of Hajmat and Michael Renne, is no longer capable of that.

"Do you think," she begins slowly, "that I might give over to madness and slaughter them in front of you? Do you imagine that I might give myself to vengeance, and leave your Constabulary blooded?" There is some small measure of amusement involved here: they have spoken of monsters, after all. She has admitted a certain ... capacity. But still, a shake of the head accompanies the quiet chuckle of her breath, and after a time of it the quill is set aside once more.

"Ah. If this was how I wished it, there would be no list at all, mn? But twenty bodies more for the funeral pyres, and not a moment's regret for any of them. Cinnabar, I have held these names for a year: if I meant to hunt them, I'd have done it long ago. If I'd meant to even look upon them again, mn? I do not." That line. That line drawn so gently through Kanaya's name...

"So I give this to you, who I reckon not much given to atrocity. I think that you are careful, that you will use it carefully. Be sure of them, yes? Be sure. The both of us shall be kept from drowning in their blood, mn?"

[Cinnabar]

"It was more a question of whether you would wish to be present when it is ended. Though, yes, there was some of the other as well." A shrug, accepting her own interpretation of the question. Which itself provides every bit as much of an answer as her spoken response does.

"I think you know what is good and what is not. And you know the difference between what is good and what is necessary. And I cannot see you hungering for gratuitous bloodshed, personally. When it is warranted, when no other option remains? Yes. Carnage for its own sake, when it is not absolutely required? No. You are not one for atrocity either, or the list would be a very short one."

Fingertips tap lightly on the cover of his journal, and he thinks for a time. "They will receive better treatment than they granted to their victims, that much is certain. Because we are not like them. They will be judged fairly. But if they are found guilty, they will be ended. Cleanly. Because that is what happens to beasts." His tone is calm, almost conversational, as if detailing plans to dismantle a decrepit outbuilding, or to fell a copse of trees required for firewood. A task that might be strenuous, or messy, or tiresome, but which must be done, and done satisfactorily.

"Soon, I think."

[Carnath-Emory]

"I would wish to be. I do ... wish to be.

But this does not end it. And we both know that."

This tone permits little argument; neither does it allow itself any inch of hostility. It is a thing to be stated as fact: that the sky is blue, the grass is green; that twenty men and women brought to justice does not end this zealotry, not until a god's head is lifted from its shoulders. And then, Hajmat? What then? For it has occured to a woman that perhaps she performs work which serves you...

Hah! But likely not. What need has the likes of Hajmat for mortal favours?

"Mm. No. You will not treat them poorly; you'd not have their names if I reckoned that likely, mn? But with care, ser, and carefully, and -- heed this, if nothing else: that their currency is deceit. That their minds are frequently brilliant. That they do not frighten easily, for -- shall I tell you a terrible thing?" Here a woman seizes the promise of that pardon. Here, a woman relies upon it, as she sets her quill aside, and touches fingertips to the rim of an empty cup. The moment wants for wine, after all.

"These men that were slain upon the tavern lawn, yes? Eight of them in all, and one of them fell to my hand alone. But not quickly, you see? I did not mean for him to die. I meant for him to suffer." Fresh in the aftermath of Dhrin's mutilation, of her own, of Delia May's dying, disembodied eyes.. "And perhaps he did, and perhaps he did not, for he showed me not one moment of fear -- and I meant to carve it from him, ser, make no mistake. I wrought damage upon that man, and he did not once flinch from it.

"That is the quality of what you will seize. That is what you will question, what you will judge."

[Cinnabar]

That revelation... it prompts a subtle reaction, one which might be missed by the casually attentive. A slight shift in expression, a slight sense of distaste. It is not really something he is pleased to hear coming from someone he is generally inclined to like, but nor is it something that it is really possible to ignore. So it's a matter of remembering the circumstances surrounding it, the horrific background that the woman has described for the most part and in some places only hinted at. That she'd stopped when she had - that crossed-out name on the list gets a glance - is itself remarkable for someone so sorely troubled.

"If they are uncooperative, then we have no use for them. If we have no use for them, we have no reason to keep them from the gallows. It's a very simple reasoning that I hope they will come to understand." A few moments' thought, pondering something before he looks to the woman again.

"This emphasis they place upon the eyes. They collect eyes for the creature. The girl you saw sacrificed willingly offered up her eyes for the creature, to 'be one' with it. They... view this as some way to become one with it. That is their hope, their sacrament, their path to salvation." He frowns, as if he does not particularly care for the direction his thoughts are taking.

"What if they were to die without their eyes? If they were denied the ability to make this offering to the creature, to become one with it as they believe? Would they fear that?"

[Carnath-Emory]

There is nothing casual about this woman, not while they remain engaged in this particular conversation. It is nothing of which she is capable of all, for that would require monstrosity of Michael Renne's calibre, and Ariane is not yet gone that far. Perhaps it might occur to the young constable that she is accustomed to such reactions; perhaps he might even discern the slight edge of relief which colours her nod, and reckon that she'd expected far worse.

Hours from now, should he happen upon the reports describing those eight murders, Calomel will understand why she might.

"In my experience, they understand very little at all, excepting for ... mm. Simple things. The ones I found," slaughtered; mutilated; ended, "did not want to die. But neither could they be compelled to speak of what they knew, not even the most obvious things, things that they knew I'd learned already. So. The gallows, is it? I think ... that I am glad you do not mean to hold them. It is trouble, yes? To keep so many. It is like a challenge: 'See what I have taken from you, see that you cannot wrest it back from me again.'"

But he proposes a thing now, and so strange a thing that it compells the woman to silence all over again. This want for wine, this want for something with which to occupy the hands, for their want is ... damage, is hurt, is the rending of some thing into many far smaller things. The memory burns: of slaughtered Delia May, of damaged Altias, sunken to the rocky ground as Baie capered, as Baie performed for his adoring crowd. Except of course that his eyes --

"I ... wonder at this. It is as you say: the eyes were always taken. It was ever this way, they do not deviate from this. Even the corpse they gave to us in Bromn's place, mn? Even that had lost its eyes, although of course he had not for true: when I retrieved him from their caves, his eyes were whole, although his cheeks were painted over with blood. Perhaps...

"Ah. They fear no other thing, yes? They care for no other thing than their god and their murdering, mn? So perhaps it might be so. And even if it is not, well..." Her grin is not quite kind. "It is still satisfying to ask."

[Cinnabar]

"That's one consideration, yes. The longer they are held, the longer their fellows have to consider some sort of rescue or other endeavour. Also, I can't afford to devote manpower to holding them indefinitely. So, the intent is to have the matter completed as quickly and as cleanly as possible." Like pulling a rotten tooth, perhaps; like amputating a limb that has come to fester and putresce. There are... other concerns, of course. But perhaps best not to raise those, lest the whole affair start to seem too fraught with risk.

At her confirmation of his theories he nods, a small, grim smile twisting at the corners of his mouth. "Questions always get you answers, even if the person you're asking refuses to answer. Sometimes their silence is enough to find out what you need to know." A pause, then, and a slight frown.

"You are certain they were his own eyes?"

[Carnath-Emory]

"The longer they are held," Ariane ammends, "the more potent the challenge: you would have a riot to stand against, mn? And Myrkentown ill-affords such a thing. Ah, let it be done, and done quickly, and then ser you have such gratitude from me as -- ah! I haven't the words for such a thing."

So that for a time they are alike in expression, or in smiles, at least -- except that Calomel sobers gradually, a fact that the woman doesn't immediately realise. Thoughts of chessboards, after all. Thoughts of pawns and bishops, of masks and executions, of roles most of all, for ... 'Great Killer of All', a cloaked figure had once whispered to her upon the street, and for a time she'd reckoned it accurate enough. All of these things, and others besides, so that at first she doesn't quite realise what the constable has asked.

"Of course: I stood very close to him, mn? As violet as the ink upon Thadius Dhrin's back, and no different at all from -- "

A pause.

"Yes. I am certain. I know the look of them very well: I have stood for years in this man's service, mn? I think that you might trust my reckoni -- "

Another; frowning, now.

"But why would you ask this thing? They do not give the eyes back to their corpses, once they're done with them. They do not repair what they've ruined. Nor was it so with Altias, yes? He murders the man, he makes him to live again, and his --

"One must expect there would be blood, some --

"Some measure of -- "

The words are let to trail, their speaker lapsing into a slow silence. Lips slightly parted, brows drawn into an uncertain set, she watches. Waits.

You've begun this, Cinnabar Calomel. Now you must finish it.

[Cinnabar]

Finish it; things are such a long way from finished, as the woman herself has said. Twenty names, yes. Twenty names that might, if things are played correctly, yield further names. And then, he dares to hope, those further names will yield yet more names, until perhaps it will be ended.

But for now, there is one name that is of main concern. A name that seems somehow central to the affair, almost as much as Michael Renne or Thadius Dhrin. Altias Bromn. Too many questions still swirl about him, about his time wearing another man's name, another man's scars upon his face, another man's memories in his head.

"Blood upon his cheeks. Had the Baie blood upon his hands before he turned on his Okulari? Did Bromn bear wounds afterwards? If not, where did the blood come from?" Gaze unfocused, staring into the middle distance as unseeing as those laid upon the Baie's dark altar.

"They obsess over eyes. They collect them. You said yourself - from every victim they slay, they harvest the eyes. Every victim, even their own willing sacrifices. Bromn was slain, even if he was then restored. If a man can be brought back to life as you say - can be dead, and made to live again, would it not be possible to restore or replace the eyes that were stolen from him?" And that is the crux of it: were his eyes restored, or replaced?

"But what purpose would there be to such a thing?"

[Carnath-Emory]

Finish this: this terrible thing which you have proposed, young Constable; this obscenity which you've imagined into being. You have created this thing, and so it is yours. This woman will have no part in it until it is fully realised, will have no hand in shaping it whatsoever, for there is no aspect of it that does not sicken.

"No," she replies at last, and perhaps a little stiffly. They have spoken of lines, and they have drawn several of them across this table; here Calomel discovers another, and of a slightly different nature. But then, he might have anticipated this. Recalling that chessboard, recalling the march of its pieces...

"No," she repeats again after a time, and only when she is certain of it; only when she has the moment clear in her mind. "Baie wore their robes: his were as white as theirs, and soaked dark with blood when he stood from Okulari afterwards. He bore no wounds save the scars upon his cheeks, from long ago -- but why ought he? I have told you this. You recall? That Baie comes to my room, that night, that he opens his throat, and his own hand makes it to close again. So it was with Okulari, mn? His throat, so that there came such blood, so very much of it -- "

A very mild blink.

"He was no victim," she continues after a time, quietened and almost mechanical. "Altias Bromn might have been, but not Okulari, who they revered. He was no sacrifice. They meant only to -- it was his purpose, to -- to simply die, and..."

A point is reached at which the voice has become so quiet as to be almost inaudible. After a time of this, the lips cease their movement entirely. There is a mild puzzlement in the features which lift to meet Calomel's, now. There is this very slight, very distant frown, as her eyes gaze past and through him.

"... he did. Bloody from eyebrow to gut, he died, and when Baie rose, it was as him. At first, I wasn't sure which was wh -- his face was shiny with it, from his throat, you see, except that, that of course it -- "

Of course it couldn't be that.
Of course it wasn't that.
Of course Ariane had refused to Believe this.

"Explain," the woman finishes at last: with gaze returned to Cinnabar's own, with a mind set upon the Here and the Now. Explain, now that you've set us upon this road.

Please.

[Cinnabar]

Explain, she says. As if there is any explaining this madness. He is silent for a long time, thinking, analysing, turning the facts of it this way and that within his mind, gaze unfocused, distant. A knuckle absently chewed upon as he considers the facts. Eventually he shakes his head slightly, gaze focusing once more, turning briefly to the woman before looking down to the tabletop. The notes, the journal.

"I... cannot. I cannot explain it. I might guess, I might speculate. But I cannot be certain. I can only guess, based on what you have told me." He ticks off points on his fingers.

"The Baie collects eyes, as do its cultists. Every time they kill, they take the eyes. We do not know why.

"Okulari - whose mind Bromn wore, or who wore Bromn's body - was killed on that night. You saw him slain by the Baie, you are confident that he died. Neither the Baie nor Okulari were bloodied beforehand. Afterwards, Okulari was bloodied from brows to gut. The Baie was bloodied down its front - and its hands, I imagine?

"Then the Baie wore Bromn's face as it restored life to this, this corpse. With a touch. Healed its wounds, made it breathe again, Except now it was no longer Okulari - he was Altias Bromn once more, though barely knew it himself. He was restored, by the Baie's own hand for all that your secret deal had been struck with Michael Renne. Perhaps it was only Okulari that was slain, and Bromn was allowed to return to his own flesh once more? I... do not know the workings of such things, of a body holding first one mind, then another. Perhaps one must be truly slain for the other to regain ascendancy." He can only shrug, the point remaining unknown for now.

"And you were allowed to take him from their lair." Not you escaped or they did not discover your deception. You were allowed.

"I cannot see any reason why they should have permitted this - why Bromn was restored to life, and why you were not chased down by a dozen men, rather than just one. Perhaps they had no further need of Bromn, or Okulari, or whoever he was. But if they had no further need of him, why not simply leave him dead? Why trouble to revive him? Perhaps they did not truly mean to catch you. But if so, why bother sending even one man after you? It... does not fit together. Unless."

He looks up to the woman, gaze keen upon her.

"Unless they still have need of him. Unless his part in this is not yet fully played out." He leans forward, animated, following the chain of reasoning as a hunting animal might follow the scent of prey.

"If they still have need of him, where is the safest place they might keep him? The safest place for both Bromn, and for them? The easiest way he might be kept conveniently close? Locked away somewhere? Kept hidden, imprisoned, behind bars and walls and guards? No. Because of you. They know that you would stop at nothing to free him, to bring him out of their grasp; you are resourceful, you are determined, you are proficient, and you would gladly carve your way through their number to reclaim him from them. So where is a safer to keep him?" He can't help but grin, the delight in working out a puzzle clear in his features.

"With you, Ariane. Because they know that you will not permit any harm to befall him while still you draw breath. They know that while you watch over him, he will be safe. So he has been given to you, so you might guard him until they have further need of him."

He is almost exultant as he slots the pieces together, eyes bright, hands ceaselessly moving to illustrate his points.

"Renne hates the Baie. If the Baie knew this, it would use Renne's hatred to its own ends - a creature of deceit and manipulation, no? - it would use this knowledge to get its own way. In this case, by ensuring that Altias Bromn, the beast's Harbinger, is kept somewhere safe in a manner that does not run the risk of Ariane Carnath-Emory butchering its cultists.

"Probably Renne thought he was truly betraying the creature, that he was frustrating its will by granting you a means to rescue Bromn. But he was still being used, still being manipulated. Still useful, even despite his hatred. Still a pawn, you see? For all that he wishes to change sides, to leave behind his old allegiance, it is the black king that is still determining his moves, by moving the pieces around him to leave him no choice. To herd him, direct him." He is quiet for a few breaths, the excitement at having possibly worked it all out fading, giving way to more sombre thoughts as the implications sink in. When he next looks to the swordswoman it is with an intensity that is perhaps unnerving, almost desperate, and he reaches to grip her uninjured hand as if to reinforce his point.

"Ariane. Bromn must be kept safe from them. He must. More than ever."

[Carnath-Emory]

Explain, now that you have it before you. These notes, these journals, this woman who has spared none but the most ludicrous details, the most searingly personal. Explain, because it must surely be clear to you that, having had a full year to reckon some sense from this convoluted puzzle, she is simply not sufficient to the task. Perhaps the intellect is too limited; perhaps the focus is, for it is powered by a single, driving urgency: protect, protect, protect...

Ariane surely realises this, for she dismisses Calomel's first attempt to demure with an impatient wave of the hand; answers this talk of speculation with a sharp, willing nod. It is her turn for listening now, her turn to play the student to his explanations, with only the briefest of interjections.

"His hands," she confirms of Baie. "To the wrists, they shone with his blood." A moment after it: "Renne did not renege upon what was promised, mn? He said it would be so; he did not say it would be by his hand. So he must have -- perhaps he --

"Perhaps he knew what was to come."

It chills, this realisation. But this is only a single splinter of cold amidst a storm of revelations. 'Permitted' to leave, says Calomel, to which she mutely nods: having expected to fight her way free of that place; having known shock at the ease of their escape.

"I had reckoned Michael dead," she adds into the heart of this: a very quiet murmur, a very distant gaze. "That he had spared us their worst by his own hands, that he'd died when they realised his deceit. But he yet lives. Baie knows of his treachery, and he yet lives -- "

And then Calomel leans forward a fraction, seized by his narrative; suggests a thing to which she nods at first, not quite realising the direction the Constable has them turned. These familiar threats, with which a woman does not hesitate to agree. This determination, which is not a compliment but a matter of fact. This conclusion, which is neither. Which in fact has struck voice back into this silent shell of a creature; has sparked a wildness in its eyes, so that she is shot upwards from her seat almost immediately. The body cannot rest while it hears such words. The mind surely can't. Cinnabar is spared the first protest, because a hand claps over her mouth to restrain it; likely for the best, if one's to judge by the eyes that stare furiously above it. She is back from that table in a long, jerky step, is spun about the moment after as he continues, relentless in his conclusions. One piece fits into the next.

That is the horror of it.

"You think I am so easily used!" With a backwards glance flung his way, for she has turned in the midst of it: the body demands motion, and she will not leave it unsatisfied. The hand demands to be occupied, and so it is: clenching at her side, crushing empty air in its furious grasp.

"He is not so easily used! Do you even realise what you say? Do you know what you suggest? It is obscene! That we would be used so, that we would do the pidar gnoinyj chyort's work for it! That he would be made to bow to this thing, even unawares, even never knowing-- "

Oh, Michael...

"He does not -- we -- ah, ty'pizdoi nakryt'sja! Pizdei, pizdei," and some damage is done the wall when the heel of her hand finds it; some real harm, for there's no gentleness left in her, and she must strike again, and again, which is surely better than moving upon Calomel himself, and surely more possible than setting herself against Baie. And still it continues, this dreadful conclusion. So it continues, and each word is damnation anew, until there is a hand raking through her own tumbled hair, and clasping across her eyes a moment afterwards, and then it's back behind those screens all over again.

Water from a pitcher, if Calomel's ears are keen. A great splash of it in a basin. And some real time spent there, so that it is far quieter a thing which returns: damp about the brow and hair, tense in the corners of its mouth. Stiffly to her seat again, and the hand which he grips now coarses with a moment's molten silver, in nothing but furious reflex. It is quick to recede, and it's quite likely that Ariane hadn't in any case noticed, for the grey eyes are fixed upon his own, intent. Controlled.

"He will not hear this from me. He will not suffer a guard at his side."

[Cinnabar]

Her hand is released after a few moments, in order that he might take up his pen once more, journal opened and words pouring forth onto the page. It must be recorded, that he might check it over later, test each link in the chain to see if this theory holds firm. There follows a time of silence from him, brow furrowed in concentration, the nib scratching its way across the page.

Eventually he sits up again, the pertinent details noted, outlined, summarised. To her protests, he offers only a look that is perhaps part pity, but for the most part stern evaluation.

"Not easily used? Who gave you Bea Kanaya's name?" A harsh point, he will freely admit. But not an unfair one.

"This creature is deceitful to the core. It is a thing of lies. It seems to me that this... this manipulation is exactly the sort of thing that would most appeal to it. Even if it were not to conceive such a plot itself, would you put such a thing past its followers? Past Dhrin? As for Renne, do you not think that his hatred for the beast would blind him? That he would not seize upon a chance to foil its schemes, if such a thing were presented?"

A shrug, then, and a shake of silver-haired head as he casts an eye over his notes. "It fits. The pieces fit together. Perhaps they would fit together a different way if we knew another reason why Bromn was only spared but restored, and released into your hands. But I cannot readily see another reason. It makes no sense, save that it was deliberately permitted."

He looks up to the swordswoman at last, thoughtful.

"I am not sure he needs to hear it from anyone. His protection is not reliant upon his knowledge of it. Indeed, if he will not knowingly suffer being guarded, he needn't know it. Such can be arranged."

[Carnath-Emory]

It must be recorded, and while she cannot bear to witness the sight of it taking form upon a page, neither can she ignore the necessity of this. Perhaps she might have reached such conclusions herself, had she thought to make the reasoning so visible, so permanent. Perhaps it might seem less of an outrage, if she is to read it upon the pages of another person's ledger. Perhaps -- oh, imagine how a woman's come to loathe that word! And to dislike, already, what she glimpses in Cinnabar's pale eyes: sterness is not abrasive, not to a woman who's endured the black, vicious rages of Thadius Dhrin, but pity ... oh, pity is a scourge. Perhaps this is what will explain the lift of her chin which follows his questions: it is defiant, it is not without some measure of arrogance, of smug pride. Oh, Cinnabar, there are things that you don't yet realise, not quite, not quite...

"Nobody." There is no measure of kindness in this smile: for the briefest of moments, it is a monster which sits at your table, young Calomel. "You assume too much; what, and would I take the word of that beast? Hah! Reckon with this: that there are worse things in Myrken Wood, ser, than fools who take eyes." It is a terrible thing, to quote the likes of Hajmat so freely. It is also quite necessarily. "One such thing led me to --

"Ah. You do not need that. But that I was certain of that woman's malice, yes. That I was certain she'd held the knife." As I died, you see. As I gave my eyes to them upon that slab...

"I do not reckon Renne so easily blinded. I quite imagine that -- "

A moment's abrupt pause, troubled gaze lowered; a tilt of the head sends dark hair to curtain it away quite neatly. Thought is required here. Sharp, angry thought, the whole of it culminating in a jerky lift of the head, a gaze which yields nothing.

"Another piece: assume that Renne's hatred for Baie is rivaled by his loathing for Bromn. How likely that he might see the means to two ends in a single murder? For Altias' death would take him beyond Baie's grasp, would leave him quite useless to the chyort, and it would satisfy Michael's desires as well.

"This arranging. How quickly can it be managed?

[Cinnabar]

A frown at her statement of having slain Kanaya on her own reasoning, on her own suspicions. "You were certain, and yet you were wrong."

As she makes some reasoning of her own, he frowns, realising this overlooked dynamic, this missed link in the chain. Hm. At her question, though, his response is almost off-hand.

"How quickly? Within the day, if necessary." A trivial matter. A few words to the right people, and it could be done. And Bromn need not know. He nods, confirming that it will be so.

There is a pause before his next question. Time to think over what has been said - and not said. Grey eyes rove across the notes on the table; his own neat, flowing script on the pages of his journal; Ariane's less confident hand, on paper spread across the desk.

Fools who take eyes, she says, and the word seems subtly wrong coming from her, she who would be far more likely to call them monsters, or beasts, or zealots, or madmen, or a host of fouler names; too scornful, too patronising, too arrogant. He knew to expect her hatred towards the cultists, loathing and even fear. But condescension? No.

He has the words that form the pattern of the narrative the swordswoman has given to him, as horrific and harrowing a tale as could be imagined; but there are also the spaces between those words, the topics carefully skirted, the subjects diverted, the things left unsaid.

It reckons them fools, she'd said before; they are as children, by its reckoning.

Certain words carefully fitting together, matching up, like an optical illusion in which the space between a tree's branches forms the image of a figure, or an animal... or a face. And at that he's leaning forward to pull one particular sheet of paper from the untidy strew in front of the swordswoman. He sets it before her, carefully, keen grey gaze steady upon her features as he does so. Fingertips lightly tapping at the crudely-rendered image, with its blank ink-dark holes for eyes and delicate line of a mouth; drawing her attention.

A third element, she'd said. Worse things in Myrken Wood, she'd said.

"Who is this?"