His good hand squeezed down, squishing mud between his fingers. He began to shiver, then his brother was there, turning the man’s mouth and nose up to the gray sky. Pau was a ragged wolf, limbs too long for his short neck and small head, lean and thin-skinned from a diet of mushrooms and black grouse with little bread and less wine. He was one of the better woodsmen you knew, and a name of some respect in the northwest amongst those who traded in the land for their living. He was a harsh man with harsh experiences, but even him…even in his eyes, some small, small hope remained.

“We already paid Marcel. Please…there must be something you can do. Someone you can talk to. You knew Mirèlha for a couple years now, she was gonna lay by her mother. You can’t let them take her. Please…”

Your face didn’t move, you kept your eyes fixed on his. Green to brown. A single muscle twitched under your cheek, more than you could allow but it happened nonetheless. You set still every thought, every emotion. It would do them no favors to think they could move you, even if you were all they had.

“You know better than that paire, we negotiate before, not after, and never, ever during. A tithe is called, that’s it. It’s over. Tell your brother to pay more attention to what type of pine he cuts his stock with and he won’t have any dead to lose.”

Said brother was still in the mud, white and turning whiter as the shock set in. Patric was shorter than Pau and if not quite fat, more of him was present around the waist than anywhere else. He was the smiling sort, though not today. Pau looked as though he might say more, but you beat him to it.

“See to your brother, and you’d do well to keep my name out of your mouth until they leave.”

His eyes dropped at that, down to the mud. After a moment he fastened his brother’s unbroken arm around his neck and heaved them both up. You rose to your feet with them. Pau was a harsh man, but he made his sign and spoke your title.

“Dormidor.”

He started walking, his eye fixed on his brother’s wine house in the distance, Patric sloughing his leg through the mud as they made step after ugly step through the tension, underwater, mouths twitching as they refused to look anywhere but forward.

The Sonziz took their positions, two at the side of the palanquin and one at the front, then raised it up to their shoulders, waiting. You watched the brothers until they passed through the crowd, your gaze slipping off the other faces before you could make sense of what was on them. Still, you’d done this enough times that you knew the palette of expressions by heart; the cheeks drawn in anger, the features distorted by the loud sobs, the silent shaking of the quiet ones.

You walked across the thoroughfare up to the palanquin and looked at the Sonziz who had struck Patric. They looked back, the white veil obscuring their face, hanging from their helmet. You could only make out the ghost of their jaw and cheekbones, and of course the glimmer of golden eyes undaunted, uncaring. One last look at the eight dead to be struck from their graves and from the world, to be lost, never to fall deep, never to be below the skin, never to see Mother again. You walked on, you heard the Sonziz behind you.

The thoroughfare carved up and around a hill to the great house looking out across the square. A courtyard faced down on much of the other buildings in the town, a small perch of rock with little comforts other than well-made, crumbling stone railings. Here it was that the Ispariz sat, on a sturdy stone stool with a cushion of plum silk. His eyes were on the sky. Golden skin, golden eyes. You told yourself as you walked over to be practical, to be smart, that anything said in anger or impatience or sheer sullen venom would make it all worse.

Despite everything, you could not chase that small, small hope from the house of your soul. That muscle in your cheek still twitched, your heart still beat too hot, and the first words out of your mouth were still stupid.

“Two tithes in one year is not only foolish, it is incompetent, cruel, unnecessary, and petulant. It mistakes sovereignty for tyranny and will make ten problems for every one that came before.”

You spit the words with rhythmic temper. For his part, the Ispariz stares straight up at the overcast sun, the only proof he heard you is a laconic slash of his hand to the Pangizo in maroon serving robes. She bowed, taking care to hold the carafe in her hands steady, and strode straight-backed into the house, leaving you both alone. Still he stared at the sun, overcast and leaking weak pewter rays from between the clouds. You bit your own tongue to stop the words, but it was too late. You spoke again.

“I would call it childish.”

You braced after that one. Still, he kept his eyes turned upward. Golden skin, golden eyes. His back was straight, left hand idly drumming on his left thigh, right hand unmoving.

There were many stories of malicious and sadistic Ispariz, but they were eclipsed in number by all the stories of the Ispariz who simply did not care about their Mila. Anything for the tithe, and burn any humans who said a word about it. The relationship between them and those Dormidor who had the ill luck to serve with them was contentious, dangerous, and often fatal. At least for the humans.

You had known Zhij for two years and you were not friends. You didn’t like each other, you argued, you fought, he did not care about the Mila’s happiness, about anybody’s feelings, about how hard it was on them, about how they lived, fed themselves, entertained themselves, or thought about themselves. Zhij had a much more important, rare, and precious quality than sympathy, empathy, or decency. Zhij was fair.

Of course…that led to problems too, such as feeling comfortable enough to overstep and insult him to his face. The silence between you paced to and fro, you tried to close your eyes and take a breath, but there was only Mirèlha’s face. She looked a lot like her father. In spite of what you knew, in spite of what you told Pau, you opened your mouth to ask anyway.

Zhij got there first. The Ispariz turned his head to look at you. Golden skin, golden eyes.

“It’s Last Light, Marcel.” His voice was soft and precise. You cocked your head.

“So? We’ve always paid at First Light before.”

“It’s not enough…the Aieganz wanted something serious this year.” The fingers on his left hand drummed faster

“Well they’re going to get it! You can’t just decide on a whim to double the tithe on the last week of Last Light and expect gentle prostrations up and down the Mila.”

“Yes…that’s what I told them. Have you heard about Old Crow?”

Your mouth fell to a frown. You had heard. Their Ispariz had fallen out and burnt half the Mila to cinders. Hundreds murdered, including a dozen Sonziz. A dozen. You had known the Dormidor there.

“I heard Jaume is dead.”

“Was that his name? Yes, burned alive for refusing this new tithe, the fool. Though the Ispariz can hardly be said to have handled the situation well. Overreaction would be a kind judgment, who knows how many tithes lost…twelve Sonziz dead…twelve! That’s over half the garrison! Now a third of the Milièrs in the southeast are clamoring for a three year grace, indigents from the Ring and Rabbit’s Children in the forests inciting violence of every sort. Pah!”

Zhij had built toward a steady incline of exasperation. It was rare to see him this animated. You balled one hand into a fist, felt your nails cut your palm. You’d seen some of those executions before. Burned was not the right word, melted was more appropriate. Jaume had been a kind man.

“House of the Sun?” Your voice came out a whisper.

“What?”

“The Ispariz…”

“House of the River, of course.” Zhij snorted. He ran his hand wearily across his face. He looked back up at the clouds. His eyes trying as best they could to find the sun. He took a breath, a deep one, and spoke without looking at you.

“Marcel…I’m leaving.”
Your eyes came up very slowly.

“The Aieganz asked me. To go to Old Crow, to try and put it in order. We have…worked well together, and I have obtained an official appointment for you to come with me. The Milièrs need a firm hand, and I need a Dormidor I can…trust.”

Zhij looked at the ground, suddenly uncomfortable, and stood in a quick, smooth motion. He turned to face you. He was tall, nineteen hands at a quick guess. All Inimois were tall, at least compared to humans. You stared at him, blank-faced.

“Stay here if you like, I’ll bear you no ill will. I leave in two days, return with an answer then.”
He strode away into the great house, leaving your world ringing and your eyes unfocused. One ray of sunlight dappled the empty courtyard with a brief pale rose, turning the stones to warm skin. You had to sit. The clouds turned and turned again, waving their tufts and feathers across the sky as the sun fled from them down, down into the world. Down to hide. You could see the whole Mila from up here. All of Dancing Deer. It was muddy and peaceful. A great thickness settled upon it, a great shroud. Sadness, but it was strange how much you could liken it to peace. They were both very quiet.

The sun had almost escaped the sky when you got back to your feet. You began to walk down the thoroughfare to the edge of the Mila. You were alone outside, the streets and roads were black and void without the shapes of people. Lights peeked from curtained windows but out in the thoroughfare, the sun was the last, aging sovereign. You passed the chandler’s shop, and the small tanner’s house, and the woodsmen’s copse, and the small creek. The tents of your Pèstal drew up colorful before you. The sounds of life and living rode through your thoughts. The dogs, shouting, children.

Maybe thirty five tents, a hundred and twenty people. The Pèstal was a village all its own. Those who served a Dormidor lived and traveled with him, and their families too. Always at the edge of the Mila. You put one foot in front of the other, dreading the lights and sounds and how they would inevitably crack the patchwork glass in your head. The thoughts and reflections. A slew of large, standing torches marked the road in, but just out from them and just on the border of the Pèstal’s light was a wagon and an all too familiar table.

You walked out to them and found what you knew you’d find; an old woman slumped in a high-backed wooden chair, a carved cane in the crook of her arm, a lit pipe in her mouth, turning over worn cards on the table. You sighed on your approach and her shawled head cocked up to you. Three great black dogs looked up as one from where they lay around her chair before settling back down in the grass. She returned to her cards, but as always, a second, smaller chair was kept empty for you across from her.

You heaved yourself down, tired and irritable, and sat in silence while a boy scurried around the nearby wagon, doing something no doubt. Frederic. That was his name. The middle son of one of the newest men you’d taken into service. Around the same age as Mirèlha…
Your thoughts were interrupted by a deck of cards slammed down in front of you. The old woman speaks, hoarse and rasping, every syllable scraped from her throat.

“Read my fortune, Dormidor.”

You gave her a withering look.

“Don’t call me that.”

Her face peeked up at you. Small wind chimes hung from her shawl, blowing little bells in the evening breeze. She tapped the cards again.

“It’s been a hard day. Read my fortune, boy.”

You idly lifted half the deck and put it back down a few times.

“What’s on the wagon?”

“Corpses from the Ring, twenty I think. From that nice young man with the cleft lip around Comte…Fredon!”

She called for the boy who came running with that special sort of enthusiasm born equal to all those of a certain age. He stopped when the dogs raised their heads to him, then started suddenly when he saw you sitting at the table.

“Oh! Yes! Dormidor! I’m Frederic!”

“I know who you are…” His cheeks are the same way, something about them is the same.

“You do of course! You do? I mean, you do. There’s nineteen! That is..there are. There are nineteen.”

Her face again, not even finished. Not even allowed that small dignity.

“...and the boots because you made a note about that to my father, I remember…”

You made your best imitations of affirmation. Why did Patric try and cut with the wrong resin? Pine Wine wasn’t that difficult, he’d been…

“...and most of it is rusted but there’s some that’s easy salvage…”

He’d been a vintner for twenty years, what a stupid thing to do. What a stupid thing to try. What a stupid thing to…

“...won’t wait, they tried but the lymph wasn’t taken out right, at least that’s what Zita said…”

Two days. Two days. Two days. You had long since stopped replying to him. Two days. Two days. Two days. Two days.

“...won’t wait. Dormidor? I just wanted to make sure you didn’t think it would wait, that is that you knew that it won’t-”

“DID I SAY I THOUGHT THAT!?” Your voice thundered out into the night, baleful fire lit in your eyes, smoke cracked from your mouth and nose, ochre and arid, the black of the night curled away, frightened, like burning paper. As one every corpse in the wagon jerked up with open mouths clawing aimlessly at the air, their eyes alight with that same ochre shine, decayed and rotten strands of vocal cord snapping in an effort to give birth to a singular whine. Much of the sounds from the Pèstal went quiet.

You took a short, sharp intake of breath and closed your eyes. The dead fell back down. Back under the skin, and your eyes next opened to Frederic trembling on the grass, about to cry, face pale, mouth open. The old woman stared at you, taking a long drag on her pipe. She looked at Frederic through the lidded corners of her eye.

“Go back, Fredon. This can be finished in the morning.”

He stumbled up, trying his best not to run. He made his sign toward you once, twice, half a dozen times, backing away at every instance until he broke into a run back to the borders of the Pèstal. The old woman took another puff, tapping the ash out onto the grass.

“Fine manners. You have your mother’s temper, boy…but I know it’s been a hard day.”

She picked up the deck of cards in front of you and began to deal them out onto the uneven surface of the table while she talked.

“To be honest that boy has no place in Service if a few dead unman him so. I expect he’ll drift away as soon as he’s of age.”

“The Ispariz is leaving.”

Her hands froze mid deal, then started up again. You massaged your forehead with your fingertips, annoyed at your lack of self-control. She dealt out three, each card frayed at the edge, but a beautiful illustration of a different type of tree, in the top and bottom corner a drawing of rope with a certain kind of knot.

“Oak, Pine, Olive. The Wormsmith, The Arborist, Two Gallants. Now I’m an old woman, boy, so help me remember.”

“Did you hear me? He’s going to Old Crow, he wants us to go with him.”

“Vièlh Còrb que Pica de Pòchas.”

“They don’t like that kind of talk anymore.”

You could barely see her face now from whatever faint spirits of light ventured this far from the torches ahead. She reached as if to deal again, her hand hovering above the cards. Then she picked up what's on the table, shuffling them into the deck. She faced you head on, another low puff on her pipe.

“I am not a Dormidor.”

You kept her gaze. Your hand motioning for her to continue.

“...and, if you were?”

“You have many responsibilities. You are too old for me to make your decisions for you anymore. If you would like some real advice that always works, Go to bed and think about it in the morning. Now, help an old woman to her tent.”

Your world seemed full of sighs lately. You added one more to the tally as you rose from the chair. You took her arm as she teetered on her cane, and her dogs rose with her. Each one almost imperceptible in the pitch of the night, each one’s back as tall as your chest. They loped ahead, and the two of you walked to the ring of torches around the Pèstal, and to bed.

You need a plan of action. Whatever your future holds, it begins tomorrow.
You could spend the day doing one of the following.

Call a Family Meeting The Family is shorthand for the elders and leaders of the Pèstal. Whatever happens, taking a full and good accounting of what you have and who you have running it will no doubt be beneficial in the long run, and the Family will have to be informed officially of whatever your decision is eventually.

Visit Patric You were harsh today with Pau and his brother, and they weren’t the only ones who lost dead. It may not be a bad idea to visit the Mila and try to help them through it. That is one of your primary responsibilities after all.

Track Down a Corpse Supply This far from the Ring it’s rare to source even moderately fresh corpses in any kind of bulk. They are used for many things, from the mundane to the magical, and are the primary resource of your trade. The man who delivered that last wagon is likely not in a hurry to make his way back, and should be easily catchable. He might well be a lead on a more permanent supply.

>Call a Family Meeting

>Visit Patric

>Track Down a Corpse Supply

F.A.Q

[r]When are the updates?[/r]

Once a day in the evening, I usually start writing around 6:00 PM PST and will probably end up posting the update around 8:30 PM PST

[r]Do you accept Write-Ins?[/r]

Yes, though I don’t tend to put it in the options. This is the public announcement that pretty much anytime I give you a choice you can also write something in instead.

[r]Are you going to flake?[/r]

Who knows, it's a lot of work. What I can say is the one other quest I ran I made sure everyone knew if I was going to skip a day, and I made sure everyone knew that I was canceling the quest, so I won’t just disappear.

[r]Will there be stats?[/r]

Yes, there will eventually be a character sheet and there will be tracked stats, stat gain, and the like. However, it won’t be deep, because I’m shit at game design so I’d rather stick to very basic shit.

[r]Misc.[/r]

I enjoy criticism, please criticize what you don’t like about the quest, it helps me write better, which aside from telling a story for all the fine people who engage with the quest, is the point of all this.

There isn’t going to be Chargen like most other quests, but you will be able to choose significant aspects of the MC’s backstory the first time they come up.

Feel free to ask any other questions and I’ll do my best to answer them.

>>6146530
>Call a Family Meeting

I'm tempted to try and help them through it, one to see how in the world this dude will try to help them get over digging up the recently dead so they can be taken away and turned into...Whatever.

The mundane uses for a bunch of relatively fresh corpses? I suppose if you really wanted to break them down into materials one could usually get from animals. Vellum, bones, weird chinese organ powders. Wigs. Why not just use animal corpses.

>>6146530
>Call a Family Meeting

>>6146531
>Call a Family Meeting
This seems like an interesting premise. So what exactly are we? A necromancer mediator between this race of rulers and humans?

>>6146590
>>6146591
>>6146621
>Call a Family Meeting

>>6146590
>Why not just use animal corpses. It's more that leaving human corpses from certain areas unaccounted for is not a good practice.

>>6146621
>So what exactly are we? A necromancer mediator between this race of rulers and humans? You hit the nail on the head.

File: Pèstal.jpg (417 KB, 1280x853)

417 KB JPG

No matter how many times you closed the box it made the same noise. Open, shut, open, shut. The same squeak of the hinge, the same clack of the lip. You were sure there was something in that fact, something about inescapability. You turned the word over in your mouth. It was a clumsy one.

You sat in the meeting tent at the center of the pèstal. It adjoined your personal tent, but featured significantly more space and a long, solemn table carved in an old-fashioned style. Your mother’s smokebox was the object of your meddling. Open, shut, open shut. The rich, painted brown of the heavy, wool felt walls made you drowsy. The great dark green and gold carpets made you comfortable. The filigree around the edge of the table was chipped and cut and, at least in one place, somewhat burnt, but it was still quite a piece of artistry.

A shuffle outside. The great flap opened and let in the light, still the same cold clouds as the day before. It burnt the deeper earthtones of the tent’s interior gray until the girl responsible let the flap fall closed behind her. She was younger than even you, twenty eight or so, a rarity for any family elder and one well-deserved in your opinion. Zita had a mousey face and small, delicate hands. Her brown hair was cut short, like a man’s, to keep it out of her way so she said. One major responsibility of a Dormidor was medicine, surgery, and dentistry, but fortunately for you Zita handled it all, along with her apprentices. She approached the table and stood behind her chair, doing a double take as she noticed you.

“Cold morning. Good for those corpses from last night…”

She made her sign to you and shuffled in place. She looked behind her at the tent flap, then back at you, something warring on her face. You raised your eyebrows at her. She took a short breath in to speak when the flap opened again.
“...the only real risk in the thing is the distance but it is absolutely navigable from our location you must admit.”

“Mmm.”

“We are also much more trustworthy, you must admit. I told the man that he’s going to go through half a dozen sharpers by the time he gets anywhere near a proper Inimois and from the Ring of all places can you imagine?”

“Mmm.”

“Now I know it isn’t necessarily your purview but you must admit that the opportunity for a real line of goods is only present with some certain expertise that I may or may not possess.”

“Mmm.”

The two men who had wandered in were relatively recent to their positions. Sergi was probably the largest man in the pèstal, tall as the sky and twice as wide, he was responsible for the communal chattel which made him equal parts farmer, forager, botanist, and hunter. The pèstal’s families fed themselves from whatever he and his men grew, gathered, or killed and more turned on his competence than almost any other.

“Sergi…I do not hear you admitting to anything!” Janou shouted as he rapped the pipe in his hand on Sergi’s chest.

“Could draw you a map.”

“Sometimes I forget what a funny man you are! Make another joke about it when someone else is wealthy beyond their wildest dreams, funny man.”

“Janou, enough.” Zita clicked her tongue. “He doesn’t care about whichever of this month’s schemes you’re on, I can’t even remember which it is but I’d wager we are past single digits.”

“You stay quiet, girl! You aren’t him and last I checked that’s not his tongue in your mouth so don’t pretend to speak for him, or Esclara, or anyone else who might have an eye toward doing something other than spending all day and night wheedling their way into places they don’t belong!”

Both men had made their way behind their chairs, making their signs to you as they did so. Janou was about eighteen hands, your own height, but he looked small standing next to Sergi, though his shock of rapidly graying hair seemed to give him just as daunting a presence. He was a mule of a man, quick to every negative emotion and you could count on two hands the amount of times you might have described him as happy in the last two years. All that aside, he was quite talented at the great and ignoble art of making money. The golden Lim was not a native currency, and many a pèstal had been dashed on the rocks of its esoteric interests, exchange rates, and tariffs. So far you considered it fair enough to weather his quirks in exchange for him and his clerks lifting their light over all things mercantile.

Further bloodshed between him and Zina was forestalled by three more bodies entering the tent. Blai, Ludvina, and Sància had been with you since you came out east to the Milièrs, almost five years now. Sància was an elegant woman who, had she been fifteen years younger, you would likely have married. Her gray was less pronounced than Janou’s, but was clearer and clearer every year. Tall, willowy, and impeccably upright, she ran the education of every child in the pèstal and any of those in the Mila who wished to attend. She was brutal with groups, but would repeat a lesson with an individual for ten hours straight with no complaint until they understood.

Ludvina had no friends, and though you were happy to have her, every year she surprised you by staying in service instead of moving on to someplace else. You did not know her well, but she was an exquisite hand with fabrics, dyes, and weaves. Her charge was the artisans, and fine workers of the pèstal which to your brief recollection included two jewelers, two book binders, two clothiers, a scrimshaw, half a dozen weavers, a perfumier, a chandler, and a wig maker. Her plump frame and cheery red hair seemed at odds with how morose she usually was, but your concern for her was an old wound at this point, and more easily forgotten than not.

Last was Blais, and Blais was dying. The family elder in charge of the foundations of the pèstal. He was a carpenter’s carpenter, a fine man, and the first man you took into service. It was Blais and his apprentices who built and ran the tents, the wagons, the chairs and tables and bowls and cabinets. He handled the base craftsmen, the coopers and cobblers, the wheelwright, the glassblower, the smith.

Zina shared a glance with you.

His breathing was heavy as he stepped into the tent, Ludvina and Sància each under an arm, helping him forward. His face was gaunt, his cheeks were gone, he was thinner than you’d ever seen him. It had started sometime last year and simply gotten worse. You and Zina both made every effort available, but there was simply nothing to be done. A wasting of the stomach. His breath often stank these days, and his pride had led to him chewing slivers of garlic throughout to try and combat it. His sons made fun of it, what else could they do. He made his sign to you, as did the women, and went to stand behind his chair, gripping it to stay upright.

An awkward quiet had settled in the tent. Janou busied himself lighting some candles to place on the table. You had yet to say anything, the chair right next to you was still empty, all of you were waiting for the last to arrive.

The wait was a short one, though it strained you so regardless. You tried not to look at Blais. If you looked, he would see the pity, and you couldn’t do that to him. Soon enough, the scratching of a cane on the ground came into earshot outside. Sergi moved from his chair to hold the tent flap open, and your great-aunt Esclarmondèa walked in, still in the same shawl as last night, lonely bells ringing with each step. Her great, black dogs stood at her heels, waiting for her to enter, then sat down as one, the three of them facing out to the rest of the pèstal.

You rose from your seat as she made her way over and eased herself down into her chair. She was an old woman, but she had still forgotten more than you could ever know about how to sleep, how to fall beneath the skin, how to dream waking dreams, how to take with the empty hand and give with the heartward hand, how to sew, how to crack the smoke from your lips and how to drown down into the nadir. All of that and more she knew, and where the other elders were concerned with many men and women, her purview was with you alone.

She sat, and so did you, then the rest of the elders pulled their chairs from the table, and the meeting began.

You opened your mother’s smokebox and turned it towards your aunt. You heard her choose the fillings for her pipe as you looked at each of the elders in turn, then you spoke.

“The Ispariz Zhij is leaving. In two days he will take his mandate to Old Crow in the Southeast.”

You twist one of your rings around on your finger. They’re all very still, Zina shifts in her seat, the oaken chair creaking under her.

“I know you are all aware of what happened there last month…but he has made it clear to me that he’d like us to go with him.”

“Is he asking or telling?” Janou’s voice is thin and wary.

“No, nothing like that, he asked me.”

Silence reigned again. Some furtive glances around the room. Blais was looking down at the table, breathing heavily. You pitched your voice as strongly as you could.

“This decision is important, and I can see cause for either staying or leaving. I invite others to voice their opinions on the matter, and if there is a quorum, for us to reach it here.”

There were no glances now. Each elder was harpooned inward to their own visions of the future, playing out the whole meter of what triumphs and disasters this news could bring. The silence lasted a long time. Finally, Sergi’s voice rumbled up through the air.

“Lot of Rabbits in the Southeast.”

That seemed to break the spell. Janou bobbed his hair up and down.

“I agree completely, too contentious and too unpredictable. Losing our foothold right at the border would be utterly foolish, utterly.”

“Not what I said.”

“Well it should have been! For all their rhetoric the Inimois have plenty of demand for some specific human craftwork and we have the only scrimshaw of any talent in the Northeast, not to mention Lulú’s carpets have always sold well precisely because they’re corpse-blood dye so close to the border! I cannot believe I have to spell out what should be more than obvious to any of the so-called elders in this room.”

Ludwina raised her head at that.

“Do not speak for me Janou, I for one think we should go. There are no guarantees in commerce and there is simply a better infrastructure for materials closer to the Ring.”

“But the opportunities are smaller don’t you see!?”

“Is nobody going to point out that this part of the Milièrs is pledged to House of the River?” Sància’s voice was incredulous.

“I thought Ispariz Zhij was House of the Mountain?” Zina asked quietly.

“He is.” You and Blais spoke at the same time, voices twinning into each other. You motion for him to continue.

“The Ispariz before him took a ward from the Aieganz, one of the conditions was a temporary handover to Zhij specifically.”

“So whoever his replacement happens to be is a guaranteed fanatic!” Ludwina said sharply.

“Not necessarily.” Sància’s retort was just as sharp. “There are degrees to which the Aieganz allows that sort of thing and there’s already a River Church established in this Mila.”

“It’s always worse closer to the border.” Sergi’s whisper is as loud as it is sobering and the debate ends as suddenly as it began.

Your aunt searches your face for any sign of your thoughts, the dull embers making shapes on her parchment skin. When it becomes clear that nobody is going to speak again, you take your turn.

“Alright, no quorum. Who leans toward going?”

Ludwina, Sergi…and Blais raise a hand.

“And staying?”

Janou, Zina, and Sància.

Your aunt doesn’t vote, not that it's anyone’s decision but yours at the end of it all. Zina has been shaking her head more and more vigorously. She looks down, then up suddenly.

“I cannot believe that you three could be so cruel! There are other circumstances to consider than wanting to dodge some slight chance of inconvenience! There are people for whom it would be hard to travel! I’m happy to know how comfortable you all are thinking about yourselves and only yourselves! There are people who might not make it Southeast!”

“Enough!”

Blais’ hoarse shout was interrupted by a spasm in his throat. He grabbed his stomach with one hand, steadying himself on the long table with the other. Zina leapt up, as did Sergi, but the spell was already over. Blais wiped a small concoction of spittle and blood from the corner of his mouth.

“You. Will not. Make me. A burden.” his lungs fluttered as he caught his breath. He paused until he had steadied himself.

“I’m still in service. I serve.”

Zina set her mouth in a terse, thin line. Then wheeled on her foot and marched out of the tent.

Your arms tensed with a desire to go after her, but your aunt put her spiderwebbed hand on yours. Instead, you turned back to the table.

“Whatever we’re going to do, I can’t wait until First Dark for the usual review. We’ll go around now. Janou.”

“Yes…fine. About a tenth-weight in Lim, not useful for the Mila but useful for any trading with Inimois. There is one large outstanding stake, the one we talked about back in First Light, which should have made it to the Ring by now. If we assume it’s on the way back we should have another tenth-weight in six months. Other than that, we have notes for exchange that will be easy to manage considering how close we are to the border.” He said the last with a great deal of extra emphasis.

“Assuming no major disasters, we have close to a year of safety.”

“Sergi.”

The big man ran his hand across his chin.

“We have our plots, as always. We grow fine here. Hunting is good, but a lot of competition from Dancing Deer, same with foraging. Mostly, good chicken grass. I’ve been trying those new pigs too. They’d do better down south.”

“Southeast you mean?”

“South anywhere. Right now the cold wagon is full, and we can trade for the rest, but of course its getting cold…people don’t share as well. We have enough. Mostly cabbage and celeriac and carrots. The pigs helped with the mushrooms this year too. We’ll be comfortable through winter, but it will still be mostly soup.”

“Blais?”

“There’s no issue. We could always use more nails, same as last year.” He forced every word out with twisted lips and drawn in eyes. You moved on quickly.

“Sància?”

“I need another assistant, one that knows the Inimois script. Once it got around that I knew it, other Milièrs began sending children here, as you well know. I cannot teach a hundred of them myself, and in winter it gets even worse, less work to be done, and every farmer and their hands send their children off to learn for a better life. I’ve prioritized Dancing Deer for now, but no child should have to do without, or worse, be tutored at a River Church school by some smirking Pangizo about how they were born filthy.”

“Ludvina?”

“I will say…we may lose one clothier, even both. We took them on when the plan was to head straight west to Laughing Ram, this is too high and not high enough. The weavers are unhappy too, but they will deal with what they find here, the clothiers either can’t or won’t. Something about the flax being too broad here, which is not true, so maybe they just want to leave. Anyway, since Janou convinced us to put half of last year’s craft onto a wagon back west we have a not so small set of unsold goods. Everyone else is…fine.”

She trailed off, you realized your fingers were pinched on the bridge of your nose.

“All reasonable and above board, as expected, now-”

Your aunt squeezed your wrist with her hand as her head swiveled up and around to the tent flap. You waited a moment, hovering halfway out of your chair, then stood up and walked outside.

The black dogs still sat on their haunches, three abreast, silent and staring at a man who looked in no small distress. He appeared to be thinking how best to get your attention when you opened the flap. You knew him from…somewhere. He was from the Mila, but his name escaped you. His face was pale even in the gloom of the cloudy light, his mouth worked fruitlessly, licking his lips, preparing to speak, then failing. Finally he choked something out.

“Dormidor, the Church!”

You waited in case there was more forthcoming, but the man seemed to have reached the limit of his intelligibility. You walked past the dogs and right up to him.

“Yes…the Church…and what about it?”

He gulped so loud they must have heard it in the tent.

“They burned it down!”

Your eyes widened, a weight splashed down into your stomach, your heart began to race…but he wasn’t finished.

“The Pangizo h-he died in the fire.”

All expression left your face, then you grabbed the man by his collar and shook him once, twice.

“WHO?! WHO DID IT?!”

The man’s mouth worked again, soundlessly.

“I-I. I don- nobody knows!”

You had already let go. You were already striding out of the pèstal, down the path to the Mila, you had to stop yourself from breaking into a run. You needed the time to think. The River Church, a building “gifted” to the Mila by the Inimois to burn out the old, human way and set them on the correct path. Converts were sparse to say the least, but those that rejected their traditions were given the low title of Pangizo and allowed to serve the Inimois in a variety of ways. Of course this would happen, of course. Why wouldn’t it? A second tithe with no warning, stories of Old Crow burning, stories of Rabbits in the forests.

You had to do something, there was no other choice. You needed to find who did this, it had to be you. A Dormidor was many things, law of the Mila being one of the foremost. If you caught who did this you could judge them yourself. If you didn’t get to them, if you couldn’t…well you didn’t want to think about that.

You were almost to the edge of the Mila now, you had seen the smoke in the air from a ways back. As far as you could tell there were three places to begin looking, and time was of the essence.

The Pangizo’s Family There could be any number of things that could give you a lead on what happened. You didn’t know Raimond other than in passing at the Ispariz’s house, but you knew of him, including where he lived. He may have spoken to someone last night, or been in some altercation, or had seen something suspicious. His wife or daughter would probably know if he had. Though a small part of you wonders, what would it look like to the rest of the Mila if your first instinct was to commiserate with a Pangizo’s family.

Track down Pau There are plenty enough people with a hatred for the Inimois, but only eight of them were wronged yesterday and of them, only one has a working knowledge of violence. It isn’t a guarantee, but you feel it’s a safe bet that Pau had something to do with this. The trouble is finding him, as he’s a better woodsman than you on his worst day, and has lived here his entire life. You might just waste the entire rest of the day, and time is of the essence. Of course…maybe he didn’t do it.

Visit the Remains of the Church There may very well be more immediate signs as to who was responsible for this at the scene of the arson. There also may very well be Sonziz, in fact it’s a guarantee. They will have questions, especially for you. Including them in finding the culprit is not ideal to say the least. Though by the letter of things you have final say on the law for humans in the Mila, attempting to stymie them that way could lead down a very bad road indeed.

>The Pangizo’s Family

>Track Down Pau

>Visit the Remains of the Church

>>6147136
Man, being a Dormidor is a shit job. Middle managment hell.

>Track Down Pau
We need to get Sergi and his best huntsman on the job. Lets be honest, this was an answer to the double tithe. A brazen attack on the Pangizo who we know that the Mila already dislike. I don't want to throw Pau under the bus, he seems wiser than to act out like this. But he has been described as a harsh man. Even if he didn't do it, he may help us find the culprit. He's a skilled man after all. The only other option I might consider is going to the site of the burning and dealing with the Sonziz there. Hell, maybe being a middleman between them and the Mila would be a good thing.

But I still think Pau is our best lead.

>>6147136
>Write in
Ah I know exactly what a necromancer might use. Mirelha. In life her father and uncle probably told her where to go in the woods if there was trouble to hide from. That's where we find Paul. We just need to unlock it.

>Track Down Pau
Plenty of stuff we could put the rest of the Gang to. Put Sergi and maybe one of the big hounds on the chase. Zina on the body maybe.

If someone wants to burn something they want something to help it burn, like pine resin. Poor foolish Patric, or someone who bought or knew where he kept his stock. Maybe someone stinks of spilled pine resin.

Did that guy really die in the fire? Or before, and someone might stink of blood. In any case there was enough left to make him identifiable. Let a necromancer necromance and pull something of its last moments from the body. Maybe let the sonziz 'protect the body' because it is the proof, and so they don't just start the killings lol. Or keep them busy protecting the rest of the family, ours and the dead guys. Don't want to lose anymore face in their servants dying?

On the plus side I bet there's a lot of nails they can pull out of the church ruins for Blaise.

Although it would be really funny if this guy just tripped or had a heart attack and died, spilled his resin candles, and the place lit up faster than California in July. But because of recent troubles no one thinks it's an accident. Though I suppose Zina might be the best to determine that.

>>6147136
>The Pangizo’s Family

>>6147174
>>6147194
>Track Down Pau

>>6147302
>The Pangizo's Family

>>6147136
>Track Down Pau

Damn, I'm late to the party. You should advertise in the QTG, OP.

Also, is the Mila the nearby human city?

>>6146531
[red] [/red], not [r] [/r].

You stood before the shallow creek that carved the unofficial western border of the Mila. It could be forded by a single full step from a man, but it was grandiose and full of self-importance, The rare autumn sun-break colored it tawny in what seemed to you a royal fashion. You’d intended to step across for the past twenty minutes, but had instead used the time to shed the greater part of panic in your belly. Alarm, fear, anger, expedience, all useful. Panic? No quicker way into the nightmare than that.

You stared up at the faint white smoke at the center of the Mila, reaching its fingers up into the clouds. The sound of steps behind you. A young girl with a pot for water. You recognized her from the pèstal, but that’s as far as your memory went. She made her sign as she came abreast of the creek and stooped to fill the pot. The water was lovely and clear, preening from the attention. You looked at her out of the corner of your eye, then again toward the smoke, then back at her.

“Girl, leave the pot, take yourself back home and tell Sergi, Zina, and whichever of his sons Blais needs less to come to me in the center of the Mila. Hurry now.”

She fidgeted for a moment, but you were already gone. Not to the River Church, but over the creek and to the row of white pine trees at the southern end of the woodsmen’s copse. You heard the slap of feet behind you as she ran back down the road. Pau was the easy answer, it simply fit too well to ignore. You hoped you would find him and you hoped you wouldn’t. You hoped he would be sitting in front of his house, carving another tiny, wooden goat to add to the growing line outside his window. You hoped he would already be gone up into the northern hills.

You made no effort to hide your approach. His house was a squat, sturdy thing built in the forest a fair distance from the Mila. He was a man of the old way, so the ash and the yew stood to either side of his path. Close to First Dark and the rest of the forest floor was a carpet of dying gold, little rivers of red, some great whirls of green. You went down the path. A lone chair in front of a lone window. Empty.

File: Ochre Smoke.jpg (51 KB, 643x360)

51 KB JPG

Your heart rose up in your breast, then down again. There was no sign of him at all. You approached his door and rapped three times. Nothing. What you’d hoped and what you’d feared. You rapped again. Nothing. You raised a hand to rap again out of sheer indignation, but this time when your hand met the door, you heard a whistling crack. You waited for a minute. Then again, crack. From behind the house. Your heart dropped down below your ribs, then came back up again.

Crack! Again. You walked around the cabin in enough time to see the cause. An axe came down on a log of wood, the report sounding out as it cut straight through. Not Pau, Ponç, his son. Taller than his father and with fairer proportions, he brought another log onto the tree stump. His hand was bleeding, dripping down his wrist, the log split like goose fat under his practiced swing. He reached for another and saw you, jerking up wildly for a half-second before catching his breath.

His bloody hand came up to make his sign and he quickly dropped it down to reach for a cloth bandage. You watched him tie it around the wound and he jerked his head toward the massive pile of firewood next to the stump.

“It helps…a little.”

“I’m sorry, filh. I know you were close. Where’s your father?”

“He’s gone up to map a spot in the hills for a wagoner. I don’t know where.” He ran a hand through sandy hair, getting darker with age just like Pau’s.

“I find it hard to believe he’d leave your uncle like that.”

“I don’t want to talk about it Dormidor, if that’s alright.” He turned away from you, setting the axe against the back of the house.

“I don’t remember him taking any job that far before yesterday.”

“He took it because of yesterday. Said he couldn’t be here.”

“He needs to come see me.”

He looked down at the ground, his clean hand grasping his bandaged one.

“Filh...he needs to come see me.”

“I’m sure I don’t know what you want me to know.”

“Everybody’s lost someone.”

“I don’t want to talk about it please!”
You nodded slowly. Ponç was thin-lipped and staring down at the ground. His face was tight, ready to burst into tears. You turned to leave.

“Remember, there was nothing you could do.”

You slowly made your way back to the front of Pau’s house, back to the path, and back to the two crowns of the ash and the yew. Mirèlha…she was blameless, and yet because of her, her uncle was going to suffer, and because of that her cousin, and because of that even more of the Mila. This tithe…it had already been a disaster, but poor Mirèlha’s face…half finished. But maybe…maybe she could help. On your way past the trees you spied a small branch of ash laying broken in the leaves. You picked it up. Maybe she could.

You made way to the center of the Mila with a new plan. The forest gave way to a small landscape of homes and of course the growling tanner and his daughters, banished to the woody rim. You’d always felt sorry for those girls. The youngest had begged Ludvina to join the pèstal when you’d first arrived and enjoyed the briefest glut of hope before her father dragged her back to the family business.

Past the chandler and you could smell the embers. Past the baker and you could see them, an ugly face of low, pitted flames lumped around the stone foundations of the River Church. You spared a glance for Patric’s wine house off in the distance, but your attention was corralled by Sergi’s bulk hovering above the small crowd.

The graveyard was the center of every Mila, and at the center of every graveyard was a great yew tree planted before the first buildings were constructed. In Dancing Deer, and many other milièrs close to the border, the yew had been cut down and a River Church set next to the graveyard in its place. It was in this graveyard you met with your elders.

Zina stood shifting her weight back and forth. She reached up more than once to curl what used to be her long hair with her fingers, but had to settle for brushing up through the back of her head when she remembered she had cut it. You’d seen her do this many times. Sergi was still as stone, arms folded and watching the crowd around the smoldering ruins of the River Church. Apparently Blais could spare neither of his sons, and instead sent the newest carpenter, a man named Ciprian, whose son Frederic you had rather bullied the night before. You motioned them closer to you.

“I can’t believe this, I can’t believe this…I can’t believe this. So short sighted.” Zina was muttering under her breath as she approached.

“Enough of that, it happened. We’re here to pick up the pieces.”

“Mmm.” Sergi’s grunt was something approaching approval.

“Now Zina, I didn’t get a chance to look, is a Sonziz with the body?”

“Yes, of course!”

“Which?”

“Why would I know that? I’ve never seen any of them without a veil.”

“Well, I suppose it doesn’t matter. The Pangizo’s body is still there, yes?”

“Yes…his wife and daughter are doing some ridiculous Inimois prayer.”

“Well, inform them and the Sonziz that you’re going to take a look at it.”

“Why?”

“Look for anything that may be responsible for his death.”

“Ah, I have an idea about that, there was a fire you see…”

“Excuse me, Dormidor.” Ciprian interrupts. “Blais told me why I’m here, that you’ve done this before, and I’m happy to pick over the scraps but the embers are still too hot to take an account of anything.”

“You are here for that, but you’re also here to make sure Zina gets to take a look. The Sonziz know who she is, but the family might give her trouble.”

Ciprian’s eyes dipped down and back up. He looked quite unsure of himself. Zina let out an exasperated breath.

“Why can’t you simply come with us?”

“Too many questions.” Sergi dipped his head down conspiratorially. You pointed toward him.

“That’s why. I don’t want to talk to anyone until I know what I need to know. You both have your instructions. Zina, one of the things I need to know if he died in the fire, or before.”

You held her gaze for a moment while her eyes searched yours. She nodded, and both she and Ciprian left for the crowded church ruins.

You and Sergi were alone now. You waited for the other two to get out of earshot.

“Pau is gone. I need to find him.”

The big man stood back up to his full height and looked north.

“Not easy.”

“This is important. Find him.”

“He went up?” He motioned to the hills with his head.

“That’s what his son says, though I’m not sure if I believe him.”

“Any help?” He motioned with his head again, this time to the ash branch you still carried in your hand.

“Maybe, send someone, then come find me at the back of the Ispariz’s house.”

“I’ll send the twins.”

“Just Fabi, he might be…hard to bring back.”

“I’ll go too, then.”

“Wait an hour, come find me.”

Sergi made his sign and left for the pèstal. You briefly considered whether you should have asked your aunt for help, but no, who knows what kind of escalation that would cause. Sending even one of those dogs to find and drag back a single man would be like triggering an avalanche to crack a chestnut.

The sun was on its way to rest and the torches were being lit outside each home. You bent down to the wet loam of the graveyard and took it in both hands, rubbing first one, then the other, until they were caked in the stuff. Then the ash branch, burned on one of the house torches. You shepherd the flame until it's only a tiny thing, and turn to make your way up the thoroughfare, back to the Ispariz’s house.

This time, you did not approach the outer courtyard on the side of the house looking down on the graveyard, nor did you approach the tall main doors, set with glass work that put any thought of human skill to flight. Inlaid with precious stones and framed with colored windows. This time, you went all the way around the back courtyard, to the palanquin.

There it sat, curtains drawn, unguarded. Almost unbelievable, but no one would be fool enough to try anything, at least not in this Mila. You stepped up to the curtains and drew them to their corners with the back of a hand. There they were, there she was. Had it only been a day? The cold had been kind to them all, but her face was still falling down like wax. You gathered her in your arms like your own daughter and laid her down on the hard stone. The burning branch bedside her. Now, to work.

The colors at the margin of vision. The breathing, in and out. This was a simple one, but she was almost gone. You brought your hands to your face and smelled the fresh dirt. The branch was burning beside her head. Your shadow fell down, beneath the skin. You bent down to Mirèlha’s corpse, your hands cupping her head. Like your own daughter. Smoke thickened in your lung. The gloam lifted off your back, steaming dark into the air. The drum thundered under the earth. You breathed out, and ochre smoke profused from your mouth, filling Mirèlha’s nostrils and the pores of her eyes. Her back spasmed and arched up, her own mouth flew wide, convulsing with every muscle in her face and throat.

You shut your mouth, trailing wisps escaping the corners of your mouth, from your own nose whenever you breathed out. Her eyes did not see, but yours did. They saw her stand alone on the path with Dormidor to guide her. No one to show her where to go. She was confused, alone, frightened. You could hear Mother calling her down so clearly, all you needed to do was whisper in her ear…but there would be no point. The Inimois had her body, and they would burn her out of the nadir with their sun magic as they had so, so many others. Then she would be gone, forever.

No, you couldn’t help her, but she could help you. You bent down to her ear and asked her to give you something. Some piece of information that would help you find her uncle. You spoke in the soft, dead language that could be only seen and not heard. That only those beneath the skin could speak. The smoke you gave her collected in her mouth and spilled forth into the air above her in one of the words of the dead language. The word was “father”.

Mirèlha’s body fell back down, dead. She had nothing left to give. You picked her up as gingerly as you could and placed her back on the palanquin. You caught yourself shaking. Such a simple thing. You had been a Dormidor half your life now, this was hardly your first tithe. It was simply how it was, how it had been for centuries. But…she was so young, and so frightened. They all were.

You couldn’t think of it, not now. The living were your responsibility too. “Father”, that's what she said. You had intended to talk to Patric eventually if you couldn’t turn anything else up, but he was so despondent you were all but positive he didn’t have it in him to do something like setting fire to a River Church. At least you had a direction, though Mirèlha’s answer was dependent on what she knew. You push yourself to walk back around the front of the house, to the thoroughfare road, her face in your eyes.

You all but bounce off Sergi, Fabi, and Fali coming up to find you, it takes you a moment to realize Zina is with them too. The four of them all start to speak at once, but a glare from Zina sets the order rather clearly.

“They won’t cooperate! They keep screaming about him being polluted before the hecatomb. That isn’t even how it works!”

You blink, a different girl’s face fills your eyes. You shake your head once, twice. Now is not the time.
“Where is Ciprian? This is what he was for, aside from that, where is the Sonziz?”

“Well, I couldn’t tell through the veil whether he was chortling or chuckling but it was one of the two! I can’t get near the body. Ciprian was holding the Pangizo’s wife back by the waist when his daughter found a stick and started smacking him. I left it as a very tenuous truce but I need you.”

Fali waved his hand in front of Zina’s face. She turned to look at him very slowly.

“Finished?” He said, not waiting for a response before turning to you.

“Dormidor, there’s a stranger in the pèstal, I don’t know him, no one does. He wants to speak to you, says it's quite urgent.” He shrugs.

“Only an hour of light left but we can definitely pursue the grizzled woodsman who’s lived in the area for forty four years. We have a vague direction don’t we?”

“North.” Comes Sergi’s rumble.

“What more could we need! We’ll be back!”

Fabi and Fali both looked the same, black curls and wiry arms. Fali talks, Fabi doesn’t. Fabi kills, Fali doesn’t. Both twins waited for you to nod in acknowledgement, then took up their travel packs and headed for the forest. Sergi started to leave with them, then looked back at you.

“Any help?”

“...No.”

The big man put his hand on your shoulder for a moment, then began to catch up with his two hunters, leaving Zina tapping her foot and looking at you.

Well, a stranger you don’t know in the pèstal, two violent, grieving woman requiring your personal attention, and a suicidal vintner who might be a murderer. Why have one problem when you could have three?

Help Zina Knowing what happened to the Pangizo’s body is a priority and sooner is much better than later. If the Pangizo’s family is as hysterical as Zina says you either need to send for more men from the pèstal, which would take time, or go yourself. It’s important, but is it that important?

Go to Patric Mirèlha’s last word, it could mean so many different things, but you asked and she answered. You had guessed that Patric would have drunk half his own stock by now and in no fit state to do anything but weep. Still, only one way to find out.

Meet the Stranger Strangers are not rare, exactly, but one coming into the pèstal and requiring an urgent meeting with its Dormidor is. It should be addressed, but does it have anything to do with the rather serious problem at hand? You can’t afford to waste any time, but there is no way to know for sure.

>Help Zina

>Go to Patric

>Meet the Stranger

>>6147571
>Also, is the Mila the nearby human city? Yes exactly, much more of a town though.

> , not [r] [/r]. Yeah...it's an interesting feeling wanting to kill yourself after you first create the thread.

>>6147621
>Meet the Stranger
M-M-MYSTERY BOX

>>6147621
>>Help Zina

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>>6147621
Nice an update, I make the sign to you. I was wondering if the veiled sonziz are men or women, but I guess him chuckling answers that.

>Help Zina
Short hair tomboy wife? So hot right now.

>>6147621
>Go to Patric
Perhaps he will know something.

>>6147621
>>6147661

I'll change my vote, it would be nice to follow up on the magic
>Go to Patric

>>6147618

>>6147621
>Help Zina

>>6147621
>Go to Patric

>>6147621
>>Go to Patric

>>6147630
>Meet the Stranger

>>6147643
>>6147746
>Help Zina

>>6147673
>>6147725
>>6147863
>>6147882
>Go to Patric

File: Pine Resin.jpg (167 KB, 1257x1390)

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“I know you’ll do the best you can.”

You were already striding past Zina, ignoring her face the best you could as it ran from one incredulous expression to another. You thought she might have said something but it fell flat against your ears, there was one road that concerned you, and it led to Patric’s wine house.

Around the center of the Mila, around the sheltered bellows of the smithy, around the carved fences of and door frames hanging with green cloth, the grocer had made it back to his shop and made his sign as he walked up the three small steps. Patric’s house and business stood before you, a wooden sign in the window of grapes and olives, a carved door showing the ash and the yew.

You didn’t know what to say or where to begin, you briefly considered "Did you set the Church on fire?” before convincing yourself with some effort that it would be a bad idea. How could you even speak to him? You were supposed to help these people, your people…Mirèlha’s face crept into the corners of your world. There you stood outside the wine house door, tracing the slight grooves and grain of the wood up and down, stalling. You ran a hand through your hair and grimaced at the length, then grimaced at yet another attempt to put off the problem at hand. No, there would be time for censure and regrets later on, you had to do this. You opened the door…

…and found Patric passed out on the long bar to the left of the entrance, half a dozen wine bottles in various measures of depletion, with more besides on their bellies near his head. A puddle of drool and fitful breaths were the only clues to his continued vitality. He was all but falling out of his stool, one of a dozen along the length of the bar.

The breath you’d been holding went long and slow from your nostrils. You walked over, to shake him awake or right him on his stool you didn’t know. Yes you did. You pushed his elbow across the bar and brought his other arm up to rest on it, then moved his face the best you could out of his spit. Why had Mirèlha sent you here? Maybe she didn’t understand your question, maybe she didn’t know the answer to it, maybe she just wanted her father. You pry the stool next to Patric loose, fighting his foot crooked around the bottom rung. You sit, shoulder to shoulder.

The wine house was dark and cold and lonely, one candle guttered behind the bar, torn this way and that by errant wafts of air. You remembered when you first came to Dancing Deer, Patric all but led you by the hand to this place. He demanded a toast and defied anyone to prove you weren’t the best Dormidor who had ever lived. He was the smiling sort. Of course, the wine house had its seams creaking that night, at least a hundred people. You turn your neck to look at the opposite corner from the bar. Someone was almost always there, playing the guitar or the flute, Mirèlha had played the flute…she had done her best to avoid looking at you though she did little else but look at you as she helped her father serve, her eyes wide as the moon.

Enough! Useless to think about, you had no time for mawkishness and this was far from your first tithe. You grabbed one of the bottles starting to roll away from Patric’s head. A quarter of it left, you took a sip. Delicious, floral, obviously infused with pine, a very fine and delicate taste deserving of much more time and patience. You drained the rest in a single swig. Well…you couldn’t bring yourself to wake Patric and accuse him of murder and arson, this would have to wait until the morning.

As you rose to leave your knee bumped his and he let out a desperate shout of gibberish, pursued no doubt by some night terror made large by a sick stomach and the realities of the week. You put your hand on the back of his head, face down as it was on the wine-soaked wooden bar, for whatever brief comfort you could muster, and turned to leave.

“Uncle?”

You stopped. A voice you know rang around the open doorway to the cellars, followed by the body belonging to it. Ponç stepped up the stairs, concern contorting his brow. His eyes made safe his uncle at the bar, then flicked up toward you for the second time that day. He opened his mouth and closed it with the same motion.

“Dormidor...I was just, some things needed taking care of here and, well, he’s been like this since yesterday morning.”

He scratched the back of his head with his bandaged hand as his eyes glazed over the rest of the big, empty room.

“What sort of things, filh?” You kept a congenial tone as best you could. It would do no good to scare him, but a thought strikes you all the same.

“Actually, I’m glad you’re here. I was wondering about that barrel of pine resin your uncle was using for the new wine. It’s in the cellar isn’t it?”

“Yes…”

“I’d like to see it.”

He brought his hand up to the back of his head again, looking at your feet, then back to the cellar door, then at your feet.

“I…got rid of it. I threw it out in the woods.”

You kept a level gaze on him.

“I didn’t want it around because, well…you know.” Here his voice dropped to a whisper. “Mirèlha.”

Your stomach began gnawing out into your abdomen. No…

“Where in the woods?”

“I don’t know…s-somewhere close.” He was still looking at your feet.

“Filh, it’s hardly been a day, where is it?” Your voice grew dark and terse, a gathering thunderhead.

“I-I was angry, I don’t remember!”

You stepped close to him, his eyes shot up to meet yours, red. You felt a poison in your heart, withering your veins as your mind raced through every awful possibility. You wouldn’t believe it, not without some other evidence. You drew yourself up to lay out rough words about his competence, intelligence, and general fitness for participation in life, trying to give yourself time to think. You didn’t get a word out before there was a thud outside the front door of the wine house.

You whipped your head around, a small shadow bobbed out in front of the window retreating down the road. You didn’t think, you left Ponç with a stupified stare and flung open the door just in time to see some figure turn behind a nearby house. You had to avoid running, general comings and goings of the Mila meant that the part of the thoroughfare near here was often fraught with activity. People made their sign and moved out of your way and you were tall enough to swim through most of the crowd, but it was all too slow for your purposes. You chased the figure in slow motion until you got past the grocer’s and almost started searching in between the houses until you had a better idea.

You positioned yourself instead the long way up and around the patchwork houses, not in between them but on the other side. It was getting dark, but that helped you hide your route. You found your spot, stayed still, and listened for any sort of clamour. After only a few minutes you were gifted with that same figure spilling out from in between the houses in front of you…and you knew him.

“Bernat! A curious hour for a drink.”

The figure jerked around hard enough to almost fall over, his long hair and sparse mustache hard to make out against the setting sun. You took your time walking over to him, fixed in place as he was by the shine in your eyes.

“Dormidor! It really is not what you think. I-I-I was simply looking to speak with Ponç about something entirely unrelated!” He raised both hands in a warding gesture.

“What do you know of what I think, filh? How far does your sight stretch that you could divine what I was speaking to your friend about with nary an ear in the room? Hmm?”

You were up to an arms length in front of him now, you took in the potter’s son with a critical eye. He was Ponç’s friend, he did often visit Patric, and he always struck you as too thin-blooded to do much of anything. He was dressed in a short cloak with a wooden leaf clasp, a belt with a brass buckle and a knife with silver filigree on the sheath. You took him in, and the dying light of the sun lit a song for you. His hands, sparse with flecks of amber…dried amber.

“Have you been grabbing fire, filh?” You seized one of his hands to turn it over. He flinched back away from you.

“NO! I mean, I know what you must think but I was in the woods today looking for some clay! I dug around and got this on my hands, that’s all! I swear it to Mother and all the rest!”

Bernat’s eyes were wild, sliding all around you and the houses behind. You could taste the sweat pouring off him. You made ready to do…something. To scream or shout or take his soul from his body. To do something…but there was nothing to do. He’d given you his answer as to why he was at Patric’s, why he had resin on his hands, and suspicious as he was, his answers were not illogical.

“Leave me.”

You let go of his hands and he tripped over himself running full haul away from you, making his sign every third step. You stood there for a while. A long while. The sun winked out, people came into their houses, lit their torches and their candles, and still you stood. You had hoped beyond hope that you could solve this today, that you could be decisive, that you could find something, some sort of indisputable evidence that would serve as a shield to the rest of the Mila. You found things, but none of it indisputable. You went back to the thoroughfare, back to the road, back to the pèstal.

You walked until the tents and guttering torches around them came into view. A shadowed shape sat with legs sprawled under a tree. Zina looked as tired as you, her eyes ringed with tiny twitches, desperate to keep themselves open. You met those eyes with the hope they’d tell you something, but she gave you a slow shake of her head.

“The Sonziz took the body not long after I went back. To the Ispariz. I couldn’t do anything else.”

You don’t say a word. She comes to her feet, using a particularly tall root to help herself up. You take her place at the base of the tree, glad to be off your feet.

“Ciprian is going back in the morning, he thinks any metal will be warped by the fire, but Ivon can probably melt it down to make more as long as the iron is good.”

“Alright, Zina.”

She took a step back toward the pèstal, another, and a third. Then she caught herself and turned back.

“Oh…if you see the Pangizo’s family tomorrow, they’ll probably be screaming about you being a thief.”

“Alright, Zina.”

“I didn’t steal anything and neither did Ciprian, but there was some knife they wanted back. Said it had a silver sheath or something valuable like that.” She sighed.

“Anyways. Until tomorrow, Dormidor.”

You didn’t respond, your eyes had opened wide. A silver sheath indeed. Did it prove anything? No, but you needed to act, and you needed to act now. One more day until Zhij left, one more day until you had to make a decision, but that wasn’t what concerned you now. Tomorrow morning, it would be time to make a decision.

Accuse Bernat Aside from the obvious implications of having highly flammable resin stuck to his hands and what could very well be a dead man’s knife in his belt, you were unsure if his story of digging for clay in the forest could possibly be any weaker. Days past you would think him quite unsuited to any kind of violence, but as you recall his grandmother was one of those taken by the second tithe. Suspicious is too lax a word.

Accuse Ponç You would hate it to be him, but he was a young man with a close cousin recently lost. He had access to his uncle’s stock of resin enough anger to do something stupid if he were so inclined. Twice today he had been very uncomfortable in your presence, and twice today you had found his explanations thin. You hoped it wasn't true.

Wait for Pau You had hunters looking for him even now, they might find him, they might not. He might be hiding, he might not. You simply don’t know. He had as much cause as anyone to do this, and more practical skill to see it through than almost anyone else in the Mila. But there was a problem. Zhij would not be happy that you hadn’t talked to him today, not happy at all, but he gave you the benefit of the doubt enough to leave you to it. For a day at least. If you failed to produce a culprit by tomorrow morning, he would most likely step in, and he would be much, much harsher than you.

>Accuse Bernat

>Accuse Ponç

>Wait for Pau

>>6148289


I imagine a barrel full of pine resin is a pretty heavy thing, it would take a strong man to carry it, maybe two, and someone sure of foot to do so in the dark.

The knife couldnt have been taken after the fire started in earnest, it would have been too hot to handle. Pau as an experienced man would never let it be displayed even if he let someone else take it, it could easily be connected to the Pangizo. Ponc being unused to violence might grab it in a fight when the Pangizo spotted him, cut himself to bleeding, and take it in a panic after the Pangizo was dead.

Pau and Ponc take the barrel and knife back out into the woods to dump the mostly empty barrel, perhaps even burn it. When Bernet who was digging for clay noticed Ponc dumping it all, and dug around the barrel getting dried resin over his hands to find the silver filigree knife and take it, even displaying it on his belt. Thats why he was looking to speak with Ponc, and ran.

They brought the pine resin barrel and knife back out to the woods to dispose of it, possibly burning it. Bernat was out in the woods digging for clay like he says, but saw them dispose of it and dug around finding the silver filigree knife and getting dried amber on his hands for it. Bernat came to the wine house to ask him about it all.


Unless Pau did do it, and gave the knife to Bernat to use him as a scapegoat when someone saw he had the knife. Ponc did take out the barrel, probably knows or suspects who took it. Pau roped Bernat into helping him burn the church. They dumped the mostly empty barrel out in the woods, and Pau left after giving Bernat the knife. Bernat probably doesn't even know the knife belonged to the Pangizo otherwise he wouldn't be displaying it.


Though honestly without more I feel like I could stack things several ways so I'll have to think on it

>>6148289
>Accuse Bernat
Well, he is our best lead. I would like to get our hand on him before he escapes, plus, maybe accusing him will force Ponc hand to admit what happened to the barrel. Maybe in the mean time Pau will return. God, what a mess.

>>6148289
>Accuse Bernat

>>6148677
Eh yeah I spose might as well. Seeing if he will just admit how he found the dagger and where he found the barrel, forcing Ponc to speak up rather than let his friend die while being either too retarded to live or innocent. He might not give up his father tho even if Pau did do it.

Zhij is so fair he gives a whole ONE day to figure out murder and arson before he starts cutting down the tall trees.

>>6148681
You did bring up interesting possibilities, but we simply don't have enough proof. Hell, Bernat's appearance was a miracle. Plus, it's clear Ponc and Bernat wanted to meet up at Patric's place. Maybe. Oh well, time to see that Ispariz justice. If anything, we can atleast accuse him of being a thief.

>>6148289
>Accuse Bernat

>>6148677
>>6148681
>>6148775
>Accuse Bernat

File: Knife.jpg (112 KB, 1024x1024)

112 KB JPG

The sun splashed over the morning grass, clearer than it had been for the last two days. Its fingers found you still under the same tree you had sat against last night. You never made it into the pèstal. Instead you spent the night aground, coiling your thoughts in every dimension as to what you should do come morning. Well, morning it was, and you saw no other way now. Not with the time you had left and how little you knew. It had to be Bernat.

A trip back to your tent and a circuit around the pèstal saw you head back to the Mila with six strong men. A Sonziz stood at the bottom of the thoroughfare’s branch up to the great house on the hill. He was staring up at the son, his golden eyes not quite glowing, but uncomfortably visible even through the white veil. You walked over to him and he turned to face you, every kind of contempt written over every movement of his head and limbs. He stared at you, his gaze travelling back to the men behind you. Every human was used to that look, you paid it less heed than most.

“Tell the Ispariz I will come to him shortly.”

You had known a few Sonziz who didn’t mind speaking to a human, but for the most part they all gave you the same laconic stare, and the same clenching of the hands. This one must have been happy to see the sun, as you only had to submit to a curt scoff before he turned on his heel to head up to the house. You began walking away before he finished turning, you could not be denied from your purpose here today.

Soon enough you were at the potter’s house, set as it was to the side of his shop and in front of his workshop. You pounded twice on the door. You set yourself to do it again when it opened to a round face full of alarm. The potter’s wife. Confused, she took you in, and made her sign while her eyes slipped with mounting worry over each of the men behind you.

“Good morning, Dormidor. Can I help you?”

“I need to speak to your son, maire.”

She went pale, all civility washed from her face by a river of fear.

“Why?” She asked, hands clutching at her shawl.

“May I come in?”

“No!” She snapped. She could not stop looking at the men behind you.

“Mother?” Bernat’s voice came from the room behind, concerned and wary.

“No! Go back! No!” She addressed the first to him, the second to you. You ignored her.

“Bernat. Come to me.” You barked a command from the doorway and he sidled into view, already shaking.

“He had nothing to do with anything! He’s a good son! A good boy!” She was angry, but it was already turning desperate, you could hear the peaks of her voice rising too high, her lips trembling to make the words.

“Dormidor?” Bernats’ own voice was very small. A couple passers-by had stopped at the sound.

“Enough, maire.”
You walked past her, through the door. She tried to hold you back. You do your best not to hurt her. One of the men behind you gently pushes her away. Bernat shrank back but you grabbed a wrist and dragged him forward, turning his hand palm up. There. He had washed them, but there were still a few stubborn flecks of that amber pine resin stuck to his nails. Two of the men behind you take up position to either side of him.

“Yesterday, a fire, hot enough to burn through the Church, and a young man with the kindling stuck to his hands. Explain yourself, filh, explain yourself now!”

Bernat’s mouth worked to find a sound, any sound, but none came to him. You pressed on.

“Where is the knife that was in your belt last night? The Pangizo had one just like it, silver-sheathed, well above the means of a potter’s son.”

His mother’s eyes widened in shock, Bernat had stopped trying to pull away from your grip, his eyes flicked toward the room behind him. He saw that you saw, and his face grew somehow even paler. You looked at Ivon the smith, one of the men you’d brought with you.

“His room.”

Ivon walked further back into the house as you heard another door open from the connecting shop.

“What in the name of the trees is going on back he-Dormidor...what is this? Germana, what is this?”

Jaire the potter tried to split his eyes between you and his wife and failed, choosing instead to fix on his son, surrounded on three sides by you and your men. Here, his wife began to cry.

“BOY! BOY WHAT DID YOU DO!?” His roar carried out into the thoroughfare. More people stopped to listen.

Bernat pulled away from you and you let his hand drop.

“NOTHING, I DIDN’T DO ANYTHING I SWEAR IT ALL BY MOTHER’S MERCY!”

Jaire rushed up to you, hands clasped together, tears started to form in his own eyes.

“Please! Dormidor, he’s a good boy he wouldn’t have anything to do with yesterday! He swore it to me! He’s no liar!!”

It was then that Ivon walked back into the entryway holding a knife in one hand, a silvered sheath in the other. His look was sober, his brow was furrowed. Even from here you could see the tinge of dried, dark brown running along the edge. Blood. Stupid boy. You kept your voice straight and shallow.

“Bernat, speak. Now.”

All sound had died from both parents. Bernat brought his head up slowly, he looked sick. His whisper was a broken thing.

“I didn’t do it.”

“Tell me who did.”

His face contorted, his cheeks pushed up and his mouth grew tight. He shook his head slowly.

“I didn’t do it.”

His father ran to him, grabbed him by his collar and shook him, screaming.

“THIS IS NOT A GAME. THIS IS NOT A GAME BOY. TELL HIM!”

Snot ran down over the top of his mouth, he looked much younger than his twenty years. The louder his father yelled, the more he shrunk into himself.

“Papa, I didn’t do it.”

You pushed Jaire back and he let his arms fall to his sides. Silence again. You turned back to Bernat.

“Filh, I can’t help you like this. What do you think is going to happen next? Dont. Lie to me.”

He took a shuddering breath that turned into a sob. His voice came out weak, dead, done.

“I didn’t do it.”

You closed your eyes. You kept them closed for a long time. You opened them.

“Let’s go.”

“NOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!” Germana’s ripped from her throat, both her hands reached out for her son, she tried to run to him but Jaire caught her. He wrapped her up in his arms, his face red and wet as she tried to claw her way out of his embrace. You turned to the door.

“Come with me, Bernat.”

The boy stayed rooted in place. One of the men flanking him put a hand on his shoulder. Romieg the shepherd.

“Come on, filh.” He said gently.

You started walking, out the door and into the peering crowd. Your men followed, Bernat between them. You walked slow, every left step a thought about what to say to Zhij, every right step a thought cast back to Bernat’s parents. The crowd made way for you down the thoroughfare, but one figure walked fast toward you and your men, all too familiar from the past few days.

“Bernat! Bernat! What’s happening, where are they taking you. Bernat! Dormidor, where are you taking him!” Ponç kept pace with your group as he shouted inquisitions. You didn’t respond. You were almost there.

“Bernat! Look at me, you’ll be ok. You’ll be alright. Ok? Look at me, it’ll be ok!”

Bernat did not look at him. His face only had concern for the ground, the cold mud and dirt and sparse, tough grass of the road. Ponç kept yelling until you looked at Romieg, who dropped back to block his way. Up you went, past the graveyard at the center of the Mila, where the thoroughfare bent to the top of the hill, up to the house, up to the sun.

Two Sonziz stood at the sides of the large, fine-worked door that served as the main entrance to the house, but that was not your route. You left your five remaining men behind and went to the side of the house, to the old stone courtyard jutting out like a dagger from the high rock. You could see him there, as you had many times before. The Ispariz sat on a stone stool with a cushion of plum silk, back sword-straight, hands on his knees, staring at your approach.

Bernat had been breathing steadily faster as you came up to the house, now his chest rose and fell so quickly it was almost a single motion. You thought about touching him on the back, or on the arm, some small gesture to let him know he wasn’t alone. Then again, what was the point? You guided the young man in front of the Ispariz and spoke low to him.

“Present yourself as you’ve been taught.”

Bernat went down to his knees, then put his forehead to the gray stones. Zhij had nothing in his eyes. Golden skin, golden eyes. His tunic of white silk flew a thin sash of maroon, bracelets of gold and glass gleamed upon his arms. He looked at Bernat down his nose and down his heavy lidded eyes. Looked at him like a speck upon his boot. He was still looking at the boy when he spoke to you.

“I had expected a more immediate visitation. I suppose that this one is the clamor ringing through my ears. You’ve done well then, and so I give you this judgement…”
“I would discuss it with you!” Your words came despite yourself. Bernat didn’t dare look up, but you could feel him turn his attention backwards.

Zhij’s head did come up then. He blinked once. Waiting.

“Bernat, get up and walk back to the men at the entrance and wait there. Now.” He ran, falling over once before finding enough footing to continue. You walked forward.

“What was done was done because of the second tithe, responding now in the way you intend will simply spiral the entire situation beyond any sort of solving. At least in the short term. There are ways around this if you will listen to me!”

“The way. I. Intend…” Zhij spoke every word only after turning it over in his mouth. “The way I intend, or the way I intended, was to kill one family member of each of the eight dead taken in the second tithe, and take their bodies to the hecatomb as well. You are not a child Marcel, I leave you the care of your people for the most part as long as the tithe is met on demand, but violence against a River Church is violence against the Inimois, violence against my very person. Such violence requires a certain type of action.

Here he took a deep, deep breath, the shine of the sun seemed to run against his skin like dripping colors on an easel. He continued.

“You will notice I said the way I intended to proceed. I have come to the same conclusion as you. Well…almost. I will be lenient as my last gift to this place. Only the boy will die and he will die quickly. He will not suffer in my charge, and after he is dead his body will be taken with the second tithe. This is the judgement I have come to, do you not find it reasonable?

It wasn’t. It was. There was nothing reasonable about it, but you had heard so much worse. How could you be satisfied with the forfeit of a young man’s life. A young man who had evidence as to his complicity, but in all action and manner seemed innocent. How could you condemn him?

“It’s a mistake, You, we, must create an atmosphere of trust if things are to continue peacefully.

“Things have not BEEN peaceful Marcel. An expression of the River set ablaze, and the murder of one sworn to the Inimois. Some low Pangizo perhaps but sworn nevertheless. You would have me sit dispensing kindly warnings instead? ‘Please be thoughtful as to the next fire you set, inform the Sonziz ahead of time so they may retrieve any belongings that might be in its path’?”

You whirled on him with a pointed finger.

“ALL of this is because of that second tithe. I could have made way for that if you had told me, if it hadn’t been so immediate. There is a reason there are two of us here, neither you nor I, nor any Dormidor or Ispariz want another catastrophe like White Rabbit!”

He turned his head to look out over the Mila.

“You are right…of course, if the boy means that much to you, I could scale to another position. As you say, neither of us want another White Rabbit, and that is exactly what Old Crow is poised to become. If you were to promise me now that you will accompany me to bring it to heel, I could bring myself to see recent events more softly.”

He turned back to look at you, shaking one arm out to his side so the bracelets clinked together in fine music.

“Promise me, and I will allow you to handle it your way. It needs to be public, and it needs to be serious. You will need to Stake him, or whatever it is your people call it. There must be no argument brooked as to the consequences of something like this.”

You reeled back as if struck. Most crimes and arguments in a Mila were settled by payment of goods to a bereaved party, or by having the criminal work in indentured servitude until they paid off their crime. Rare, serious crimes resulted in banishment, but there was something else. The truly serious crimes, murder, rape, sometimes theft if it was considerable enough, were all punished by the Stake.

he criminal was tied by short rope to a stake driven into a tree, and blood, skin, or bone was chosen. They were then either bled by cuts, flayed of a small portion of skin, or a particular set of bones were broken. After the Stake, they were considered to have paid for their crime and it was spoken of no longer. To do such a thing to Bernat…to do it in front of the entire Mila, it would be horrible for him, for everyone. But he would live…since the Dormidor was the one who did the act, they were also on hand to make sure the damage didn’t fester and never went beyond what a person could survive.

There were accidents and bad luck of course, but with yourself and Zina present…he would hate you for it. He would hate you and so would his family…but he would live. Was it worth traveling with Zhij to a dangerous, contentious area of the territory? You did not know, you had had too much to worry about in the last few days to think much about Zhij’s offer at all.

Another thought occurred to you. To be more precise, it had occurred to you as soon as you’d woken up this morning, and hadn’t stopped all throughout the day. Was Bernat telling the truth? It would be a brave, foolish thing to go this far lying for someone, but Ponç was his best friend. You couldn’t make Bernat talk to you but…but. If you told Zhij that you weren’t sure. If you told him that you needed to know, and that Bernat wasn’t talking. Well, he would take care of it, and whatever Bernat knew, he would say, and probably some things he didn’t know besides.

You felt disgusted even thinking it, but if Bernat was protecting Ponç, or anyone else, then you know you could convince Zhij to spare his life if his confession led to the true culprit. There was no question, the Ispariz would no longer care about a human boy. All that would be left is for you to live with what you’d done.

Zhij was looking at you, watching the thoughts drift across your face. He was expecting an answer, one way or the other.

Allow Zhij to Kill Bernat

The most straightforward decision and one that would not bind you in any direction. Bernat would die, his body would be tithed, and that would be the story of him. As pathetic and young as he seemed, he did have the resin on his hands, and he did have the bloody knife.

Stake Bernat

You would need to say yes to Zhi’s bargain. He would leave tonight for Old Crow, and you would follow in a week at most as soon as you could make the pèstal ready. You would also need to see the sentence through, and that would be unpleasant, but he would live and carry on living, and the trauma would eventually recede.

Tell Zhij You Doubt Bernat

There’s no pretending here, a Sonziz will torture Bernat until he reveals what he knows. What that is is anyone’s guess, though you think it probably has to do with Ponç. If Bernat knows something, he’ll live, but could you live with yourself? What if he actually did commit the crime? You don’t know, all you know is you’re out of time.
>Allow Zhij to Kill Bernat

>Stake Bernat

>Tell Zhij You Doubt Bernat

>>6148911
>Stake Bernat
So much for a Ponc confession mid procession. Protecting his friend or the father of his friend or some weird mystical mumbojumbo.

But if we felt like being cruel or trying to see if Ponc will confess again, order Ponc be the one to administer the punishment.

>>6148911
>>Stake Bernat

>>6148905
>The way I intend, or the way I intended, was to kill one family member of each of the eight dead taken in the second tithe, and take their bodies to the hecatomb as well.
Good God, it's a good thing we accused someone. This would be a catastrophy. Utter catastrophy.
>>6148911
>Stake Bernat
I'm so sorry Bernat. Hate us all you want, but atleast you will live. Besides, I would've voted to go eitherway. This way, we'll leave with the least damage done to the Mila.

>>6148911
>Stake Bernat

Thanksgiving responsibilities mean no update today, thanks for reading and voting everyone, it means a lot to me.

Next update tomorrow night.

>>6149134
Happy thanksgiving

>>6148911
>Stake Bernat

He isn't guilty, but evidently he knows who's guilty and isn't telling, which is deserving of some kind of punishment. Maybe not this one, but definitely not death, and probably not torture by cruel inhumans.

>>6149134
Happy Thanksgiving, QM.

>>6148914
>>6148927
>>6148934
>>6149103

>Stake Bernat

>>6149209
>>6149371
Happy Thanksgiving
>>6149371

File: Stake.jpg (268 KB, 1920x2300)

268 KB JPG

“Alright.”

You were surprised to hear the words rise from your mouth, interrupting your still spinning thoughts. Zhij said nothing, but you could see the softest, slightest signs of tension release in his jaw, his forehead, the muscles around his eyes. He leaned back slightly on his stool, head up to the sun, then slowly swept his hand out to the side, gesturing to the vantage peering out over the Mila. His eyes came back down to meet yours.

“Go then. My retinue and I leave at nightfall, the next Ispariz joins this place within the week. I will expect you as soon as your ability to make ready permits.”

You gave a curt nod, and walked out from the courtyard and back down the path.

“Marcel.” Zhij’s voice clutched you by the scruff of the neck. “Remember, it must be serious.”

You walked on with no reply. Five of your men milled about near the door to the house of the Ispariz, uncomfortable and unsure how to stand, lean, or squat with the eyes of two Sonziz upon them. Bernat was with them, just as awkward, still anxious, but not at the same cusp of terror he’d been toeing a few minutes previous. All of them were glad at the sight of you, standing attentive as you brushed past the Sonziz. You stopped abreast of Bernat and looked him in the eye. He withered a bit, trying to read what was on your face. You don’t know if he succeeded, but you saw him begin to climb that peak of worry once more.

“Back to the pèstal, bring Zina, a stake, and a rope.” You snap a command to one of the men who doesn’t meet your eyes before making his sign and jogging away.

You continued down the house road to where it met the thoroughfare, your men followed, Bernat walking in the center of the four of them. Romieg the shepherd still stood where you left him, his barrel chest and brawny arms employed in calming gestures toward Ponç. The young man dropped his shoulder in a relieved sigh as he saw you walk down with his friend. He tried to catch your eye, you didn’t let him. You kept on and your men kept with you, Bernat twitched his eyes between the men around him, licking his lips. There was no great yew tree in the center of the Mila, not this close to the border, but there was an old oak that shaded part of the thoroughfare a ways on toward Patric’s wine house. You made your way to it. Much of the crowd that had gathered when you stole Bernat out from his home still stood transfixed at the sudden violence of the day. Voices began to whisper, murmur, spread, people walked off too briskly to pass the word.

Bernat’s father strode out from the press of people, face wary and worried, hand working feverishly down his long, coarse beard. He swallowed as he approached you, his hands finding ever more extravagant ways to keep from reaching toward his son.

“Please Dormidor, let me take him home. Don’t let him die for this. I beg you with all my heart. I beg you by Mother’s mercy.”

Every thought, every emotion, you fought to chain them all in some secret place without air or light or heat. You met his eyes with your own.

“It’s the Stake.”

You said it loud enough for Bernat to hear. Your men grimaced and dropped their heads around him, but Ivon the smith reached a hand to gently circle around the boy’s wrist. Bernat was young, to him this was some other thing that happened in other places, but his father must have seen one. The color washed from his face, one of his hands went to his chest, the other reached for the back of his son’s neck.

“He’s a good boy…” His plea wove through the simple words. Whether it was to you, your men, or Mother herself you could not say.

“He’ll live, paire. Tell that to him, tell it to yourself, tell it to your wife. He’ll live and this time next year he’ll be complaining and laughing and he’ll get too drunk and throw up in your house and you’ll be furious. But you need to help him.”

Two small figures ran toward you in the distance, Zina and the man you sent for her. The crowd was large now, almost a third of the Mila with more swelling the space in between the shops and houses. Zina reached you first, flush, sweat shining on her forehead, a bag of instruments in her hand and a pouch of something else hanging from her belt. You spied a familiar sheen in her eyes, equal parts brash and belligerent, unnerved and dismayed. She wanted to argue. Your stare caught each emotion in turn, remanding them to some other time and some other place until all that remained was defeat and resignation. Romieg passed you the stake.

The thing was the size of your forearm, sharp wood buttressed with iron and wrapped with black cord. It made for a gruesome appearance, dripping memories from its tip of inhuman sounds and the swing of a mallet, the sound of cutting. Ponç had reined himself to silence this past while but as you produced the grim thing he charged for Bernat, only to be caught by two of your men. You ignored him, and spoke loud to the Mila.

“Bernat filh, you have been found to hold murder in your heart. You have burned down the River Church and caused the death of Raimond the Pangizo. You have stolen his knife from his wife and daughter and tried to hide yourself from these things so that others might go in your place. For this I tie you to the Stake.”

All the uncertainty and steps up the mountain of fear, all the nauseous washing to and fro of his imagined horrors and the trembling in his arms bled down into a river wave, crashing through sense, through pride, through thought of harm or any future beyond getting away from the tree. Bernat screamed then, he threw himself backward, he dug his heels in the dirt and flailed his arms backwards. His father tried to speak low to him, to tell him something good or hopeful, but he was too loud and would not listen.

Ivon had hold of his arm and advanced his hands around his waist. He picked the boy up off the ground and carried him to the oak. You placed the stake at what you guessed would be Bernat’s neck, and drove the mallet at its head. A quarter ways in, as the loud crack ripped up above even Bernat’s cries. You drove once more and the tree made way for the intruder, two thirds in now. Ponç raged against the two who’d caught him, so much so that he was almost off his feet. He was screaming something, but you couldn’t hear him, the crack of the oak was all your ears could parse. Once more, the mallet and the stake. In it went and only the head and an inch below were visible, the sound this time was less fierce than the last, but the blood in your own head bubbled with the desperations Bernat made as Ivon dragged him forward.

The rope was in your hand and you tied it the way you learned long ago, a knot specific to the Stake, the flared head making sure it wouldn’t slip off and over. It was short, and the noose you tied was small to restrict movement, Ivon lowered the boy to you and you twisted it over his head, cinching the thing as close as you could and passing the end off to Ivon. The fight was out of him then, and though he still made the odd jerk he could not move his head more than three or four inches from the tree. Bernat’s keening curtailed, you noticed how quiet the Mila had grown and Ponç’s words finally rang clear.

“Please I need to speak with you please! Please!”

He had stopped trying to break through the grips of your men but was held between them nonetheless, not quite off his feet but not quite on them either. You turned from him and spoke instead to Jaire, who had come to stand by the tree with his son.

“He needs to choose, and I’ll tell you this; Blood is the most dangerous and takes the longest, Skin is too much for someone like him, Bone is the quickest.”

The potter looked at you with hopeless eyes.

“How is he supposed to do that? How can he be complicit? He’s just a child!” True anger entered his eyes at that last, at you and everyone around him. You kept stone hewed to your face.

“No paire, no he’s not, but he’s scared and he will do what his father says. Trust me.”

“Please! Please!” Ponç’s entreaties carried over to the both of you.

Jaire turned his head away, then walked over to Bernat and softly rubbed his shoulder while whispering to him. The boy’s eyes widened and his hands shot up to grasp the noose around his neck, trying to find even the smallest purchase against the biting rope. You left them to their privacy as best you could and trudged over to Ponç who coughed, throat hoarse from the yells. You came face to face.

“What?” Your tone was just bridled, about to unhorse your veneer of calm. He stretched as close as he was able, his arms still held by Romieg and another.

“...i-I d…” He trailed off, throat closing, then gathered himself to manage another rasp. “I did it.”

You felt nothing. Of course he did. A great serpent moved in your belly, splashing acid up your gullet, through your veins. It rose up to your heart, into your throat, hot. Hot like the forest on fire. It stretched out of your mouth, ready to make thunder, but you took a chastening breath and managed to continue as before.

“Did your father make you?”

“No…” He could no longer meet your eyes, his voice splashed shallow along the ground where he’d fixed his gaze. You felt the serpent again, slithering through your arms and fingers.

“It was some stranger, some Rabbit from down south. He came, he talked to my father but he didn’t want anything to do with him!”

It all came out now, faster and faster like a stone down the knoll. He kept on.

“I-I was so angry! Why do they do this to us? Mirèlha…what have we done to deserve it?! He told me we could hurt them! You told us there was nothing! Nothing we could do, that’s what you said! Well we did something! I did something! I hurt them and you didn’t do anything!!”

You caught his jaw in your hand as he grew in volume, stopping the motion of his mouth and forcing the shout back down his throat.

“You did nothing, filh! You killed a man who had not wronged you! You lied about it to me, you lied! Do you have any idea what would happen now if I told the Ispariz? Sedition! This was not only an assault on the Inimois but true sedition! He would kill you, but no not just you, your father, and your uncle, and Bernat, and more besides! You didn’t think, you lied to me! I could have helped you, but you’ve done this to your friend, Ponç! You!”

Your face was drawn up into murder. You threw his chin out of your grasp and turned to walk away. You heard his weak voice behind you.

“Please he had nothing to do with it! He just found me when I was burying it all in the woods. He tried to help, to hide the knife. That’s it!” He took a shuddering breath. “It should be me.”

Still as stone…still as stone. Every muscle, every thought, everything. He turned back to him. Walked back to him. Forced his head up to you.

“Yes. It should be. But it won’t be.” You motioned to Romieg with your head and turned back to Ponç. “You will watch this.”

Romieg put his free arm around Ponç’s neck, forcing his head level with Bernat, the oak, and yourself. He looked at you, forlorn, searching.

“You’re supposed to protect us.”

You looked back at him. Stone-seeming, stone-speaking.

“I am.”

The oak, The Wormsmith’s Tree. Not a comforting thought. Zina came to stand next to you, practical, passionless, not the young woman prone to sunbursts of tenderness and argument but the young woman you kept in Service because of uncommon skill and uncanny poise.

“Where?”

You hoist the mallet, about as long as your arms from shoulder to finger.

“Not above, keep it below. He’s a potter, he needs his hands and arms.”

“Could do the ribs and collar, nothing inhibits motion there.”

“Ribs always have a chance to puncture something, he’s not dying here. I won’t allow it.”

“Legs then, not the thigh bone, marrow in the blood kills most of the time.”

“Kneecaps and shins both heal quickly as the other. Shins are worse for motion if he’s sitting for long periods.”

“Knees that don’t heal right prohibit bending, that’s worse for sitting in the long run.

“And Shins don’t?”

“Shins are easier to set with certain breaks. Horizontal is the best, straight through, mid-length…it has to be both?”

You nodded and she set a box from her larger bag on the ground, mixing something into something else. You left her to it. You couldn’t put it off any longer. The Mila watched your footfalls, you heard some muttering but it was mostly quiet. You didn’t see them, your eyes were on Bernat and his father. The mallet was in hand, all that was left was the sentence.

“Bernat filh, what is it you offer, Blood, Bone, or Skin?”

His father pet his hair and whispered in his ear. Bernat stuttered.

“B-b-” He tried again. “B-b-bone.”

He spoke quietly enough that you were certain nobody else heard him, but it didn’t matter. You were upon them now, a single length away. You spoke to Ivon.

“Give him something for his teeth.”

The pèstal smith ripped a small flat of bark off the oak and put it in Bernat’s mouth. Jaire still whispered to him. You hefted the mallet, tested the weight, eyed the swing, and let loose.

The air split around the hammer, rushing away from the terrible thing as it ran slavering to the lonely bone. Bernat’s shin was cracked in half, the sound more of a dull thud than a snap. The bottom of his leg below the break splayed inward with his foot at an unnatural angle. There was a moment of absolute silence. Just a moment and then a rush of air into the boy’s lungs.

“AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!”

His shriek carried over the rooftops and the heads of everyone assembled, up to the sky and out beyond it split the cold air and the birdsong ceased all around the forest edge. Hands went to mouths, over eyes, and around children in the crowd. The piece of bark fell out of Bernat’s teeth, Ivon hastily picked it from the ground but the boy was spasming on the stake, the rope keeping him pulled taut to the tree and he would not take it again. His father forced their foreheads together, tears streaming down his own face. He kept saying the same thing again and again.
“Look at me. Look at me. Look at me. Don’t look, look at me.”

A distant cry behind the crowd and Jaire whirled around and screamed.

“NO! YOU KEEP HER BACK! YOU KEEP HER BACK, ERALH! KEEP HER AWAY FROM HERE!”

You vaguely recognized Germana’s voice shattering into screams of her own that grew more and more distant. Jaire looked at you, begged you with his eyes. Stone.

“One more, paire.”

“...Marcel.”

Up, high up on the outcropping jutting from the Ispariz’s house, you looked to see a figure flanked by two others, maroon sash gleaming in the sun. You turned back to the potter.

“One more.”

Bernat was shaking his head frantically, trying to move, trying to get away, sobbing, gibbering, urine dribbled from his trouser leg, he kept trying to form words, to speak, but he couldn’t. You raised the mallet again and he let out another scream.

“Ivon, hold the other leg, it has to be clean.”

The smith leaned his bulk down and caught Bernat’s leg doing its best to kick away, to get anywhere else. Ivon was too strong, and he held it fast to the tree as he crouched and angled himself out of the range of your forthcoming blow. The screams cut out abruptly as Bernat pulled himself too hard against the noose, choking and gasping and spluttering for breath, his father pulled the boy’s head back to his own.

“Look at me. Look at me. Look at me.”

You swung again, and the swing was true. This one was worse than the last, shards of bone burst through the skin, blood flew in a mist onto your arm and onto Jaire and the oak and the ground beneath. Bernat screamed again. He screamed and screamed until he reached that special pitch that only true pain could bring, the inhuman pitch, the song of nightmares. He threw up, the bile forced his throat closed and the sound to warp. He threw up again and you dropped the mallet.

“It’s over.”

Zina was there with a cup, she had been right at your elbow, in fact the entire Mila was much closer than you remembered. Your life had narrowed to the tree and the boy, but back out in the world it was all so much smaller. You heard her voice.

“Hold his mouth Ivon! Hold it open!”

You recognized the green in the cup, looking more than a little like the spew that had just left Bernat’s mouth. Man-de-Glòria, a triple strong dose judging by the color. She just had to get it down him…and she did. He choked some more but Ivon held his mouth shut. He swallowed and started the long, slow trip down. It took only a minute for him to stop screaming, and only a minute more to pass into that thing like sleep. Two long minutes, but then they were over.

Jaire fell to his knees, weeping. You looked back up to the top of the hill to see the maroon stand, then turn, then walk out of sight. It was just past noon, that was it. Unbelieving, you kept looking at the sun. Impossible. Out of the corner of your eyes you saw a Sonziz behind the crowd, white veil gleaming, looking over the whole event. Your feet moved without your command, walking over to him. As you got closer the sun was bright enough to show more of his features through the veil. His eyes crinkled slightly, the corners of his mouth turned upward.

You walked until you stood almost chest to chest. He didn’t move, his look bemused. Your nostrils twitched, the stone cracking, a muscle under your cheek, then in your jaw.

“What, exactly, are you doing here?”
His eyes glance to the tree and to Zina setting Bernat’s legs as he sleeps, then back to you. One side of his mouth comes up even higher, fighting to keep from forming a full smile. The stone on your face breaks to pieces and your right hand seizes the collar of his light silk shirt. All expression leaves his face, shock, but something else deep in his eyes. The right hand, the empty hand, even a Sonziz knows what that means. He’s taller than you of course, but that doesn’t deter you. The words you hiss out steam in the air like oil of vitriol.

“If I see you again today down in the Mila I’ll take your soul.”

His eyes harden like chips of golden ice through the veil, hatred pulses on every discernible feature…and yet. And yet, he cannot hide the single, momentary flick down to your hand. The empty hand. You’ve pushed it enough, you let go and your arm falls to your side. The Sonziz gives a very exaggerated and forceful brush of his shirt where you grabbed him and stares at you a moment longer. Then he turns, and walks back up the hill.

You look back to the oak tree to see the crowd has begun to disperse. Germana has made it through to her boy, your men have let go of Ponç and they both sit by Bernat’s unconscious form as Zina does her soothing work. You can’t go back there, you can’t. Instead you keep walking, out of the Mila, back to the pèstal. Everything is quiet outside, you pass to the creek and even it seems anxious to sing low. The forest says nothing, and nothing is just what you need. Halfway home though, the nothing gives way to a musical whistle.

At the tree you slept under last night stands a man, black tunic and dark green trousers. A gray cloak. His hair was short, his beard was short, his eyes were short one too, with no eyepatch to cover it. He whistled a melancholy something that you couldn’t quite name and had a full sword at his hip. He eyed your approach, but didn’t stop whistling until you were close. His voice was bright and thick.

“A shame that. Heard it from here. Which one of the boys was it?”

You didn’t respond, you just stared. He waved a hand in front of your face.

“Sètz viu? Pas d'acuèlh per un lapin afamat?”

“We don’t use that kind of talk here.”
He raised his head in exaggerated acknowledgement.

“Of course…what was I thinking? Except that some people take the trouble to stand when they’re beaten down.”

“I don’t know you.”

“No…so which boy was it? I hope not the stupid one, he was nice enough.”

“It was you then, who killed the Pangizo.”

“And many more! Batistou, a vòstre servici. I’ll require your best, only a few though. Things turn nasty with too many.”

“You killed the Pangizo…”

“Yes? The brave boy helped, he was more than ready to do a little something after two whole tithes. Got a cut and some blood for his trouble.The stupid one we ran into later.”

“His name is Bernat…”

“Is it? Well…Mother’s mercy for him. All that aside, I do require your best, which from what I heard earlier most likely leaves him out of the discussion. The Ispariz is making ready to leave so I’m told.”

Your head hurts, you close your eyes to keep out the sun. It’s very bright today. Batistou puts a hand on the hilt of his sword and one in his pocket. After fishing around for a moment he brings out a small vial worked with brass. Inside is what looks like a black fish egg, the size of the nail on your pinky.

“This beautiful pet is-”

“A Gift from The Tall Sister.” You finish his sentence, he looks displeased that his theatricality was cut short. He gets a second wind and makes a flourish with it, but as he opens his mouth you cut him off again.

“That’s an implantation to make any livestock birth in sets of triplets. You don’t look like a pig farmer.”

Batistou frowned, real annoyance on his face now. He ran a hand through the silver wings of hair at the sides of his head.

“I’m not, and you’re right, but as a Gift from a Patrician it still carries Gloam. All we need to do is mask it in the Ispariz’s meal and it will rot him from the inside out. Ay?”

His smile was a practiced thing and it set his eye like a wolf’s. You didn’t look at the Gift.

“He almost died.” Your voice rang cold. His smile withered as he realized you were talking about Bernat.

“Ah. Well it’s not what I wanted, I said he was nice enough. Come now, we’re both men and innocence is a weapon too in this war of ours.”

“I never said this was my war.”

“It’s everyone’s war!” He snapped, face flashing crimson. “If I had my way nobody would die, nobody would get hurt, but that’s not the situation we’re in, and sometimes if someone can’t be useful in the fight they can be useful in other ways! I didn’t plan on the stupid boy being a scapegoat and I didn’t wish any pain on him but it happened and it is foolish to not take advantage of the fact I’m still hidden here!”

He stopped, closing his mouth abruptly, brushing his hair back again. You felt heat rush into your limbs, up to your eyes.

“You deliberately went to Ponç, deliberately used him for this.”

Batistou put his hands out and tried to speak as slowly and calmly as he was able.

“If Ponç is the brave boy then yes I did, he wanted to hurt them and it is not my right or anyone else’s to deny him his chance after what they did.”

“You deliberately went to him after his father left, you knew how dangerous it was for him and the whole Mila!” You were struggling to contain your temper, and the controlled tone Batistou had adopted only made you more inflamed.

“It isn’t his father’s right to deny him either, I didn’t force him to come with me, I gave him a choice and he took it. Twenty years, he’s a man by our own rights and perhaps he was sick of staying on his knees, perhaps he was sick of some others staying on them too.”

Your bicep clenched, your hand balled into a fist, Batistou saw the look in your eye and adopted one of equal iron. You managed to restrain yourself, and after the combustion between you had gone a while without ignition he was the first to hold out his hands again.

“Listen, this isn’t how I wanted things to go between us. I think we can do a great deal of good here. They think they’re secure so close to the border, but we can do them harm if you would help me.”

“I’m not staying. I leave within the next few days for the Southeast.”

Some not insignificant amount of relief blossomed on his face until he fought to tamp it down.

“Truly? Well perhaps that works out, perhaps the next to take your position will be more inclined to do something. Before you go I’d ask you make my introductions to those in the Mila who wish to fight. I obviously cannot go there, but I’ll return to this pèstal tonight at the high moon. Simply ask them out to meet me there and we can part afterwards with nothing else to do with each other.”

You lowered your shoulders and put your hands on your hips, looking back at the Mila in contemplation. Batistou apparently took the prolonged silence and relative lack of hostility as assent.

“Excellent! I’ll return tonight.” He strode away into the forest, picking his whistling back up, though this time in a much jauntier tune, hand on his sword hilt.

You watched him until he disappeared into the trees, then continued to the outskirts of the pèstal. Four men strode out to meet you as you entered, and you laughed at the sight of them. Sergi, Fabi, Fali, and Pau, all looking rough and weary from travel. You couldn’t help but laugh, of course. Of course. Pau took the lead and all but ran to you with frightened eyes.

“Dormidor! Where is Ponç? Tell me my boy is safe!”

His hands were out in supplication, you realized that you had no emotion left to display. Nothing to show on your face but weariness. You might have been awake for a dozen days.

“He’s alive and unharmed, I can’t say the same about some others.”

Pau closed his eyes and let out an enormous sigh, clutching a hand to his heart.

“Where did you go, paire.” You didn’t have the spark to take him to task as you should’ve. You just wanted answers.”

“A man approached me, he wanted me to…take measures for my niece. I had to leave Dormidor, I had a job already waiting on me and I was so angry I knew if I didn’t, if I stayed, I would have done it. I had to leave.”

He swallows, pain on his face.

“They told me what happened, about the Church. I don’t know what to say.”

“As far as the Ispariz is concerned, it’s all over. Go talk to your son, paire.”

You put a hand on his shoulder and walked away, leaving him to make his sign to your back. You walked away from Sergi and the rest, into the pèstal and into the sounds of giggling children. You followed the noise and found a gaggle of young boys and girls clustered around an old wooden table set up outside. On the table was a deck of cards, some placed down and showing beautiful illustrations of various different trees. Behind the cards was a chair of wood and wicker, and on the chair was your great-aunt, Esclarmondèa. She made a flourish with her wizened hand and produced a card seemingly from nowhere to an appreciative chorus of childish wonder.

Three great black dogs laid in a triangle around her chair, and as one lifted their heads in perfect unison to stare at you as you came closer. Your aunt saw you, shooing the children away with a playful irritation. There was a second chair across the table from her, as always, and you took it in silence. The dogs lowered their heads. The silence lingered, perforated by the telltale flip and scratch of the wood and pasteboard of the cards. She waited for you to speak, she always did.

“We’re leaving. In the next few days.”

She put a variety of the cards on top of each other, then picked her lit pipe up from the table and puffed.

“This place has been good to us, and it was a good thing you did today.”

Despite the lack of feeling in your chest you had to stop yourself from a rude, hollow laugh.

“What could you possibly know of what I did today?”

She sniffed.

“Careful, boy, or I’ll blow smoke in your eyes.” She maneuvered her mouth around the pipe. “I know that no one died today, and that is a good day as far as I’m concerned.”

You felt a small pull from within your center. Perhaps she was right, perhaps that did make it good. Maybe. A little. You put your finger on the edge of some of the cards. Ash. The Sable Sun. Lavender. Aigi’s Doll. Yew…Mother. Your hands linger.

“Years ago, you used to sit in my lap and giggle just like those children when I read your fortune.”

“I never giggled.”

She snorted, choosing to ignore you. She scooped the cards on the table into her hand, put them in the deck and dealt five more.

“I don’t know if I’m making the right decisions. I was forced into leaving, but I’m not sure that wasn’t where my mind was heading anyway. We’re going somewhere dangerous, and I saw some of that today.”
“The Rabbit?” She scoffed, puffing out a particularly viscous plume of smoke.

“He wants an introduction to the Mila. If I don’t give it to him he’ll simply keep on with it, putting random people in danger. If I do give him one, he gets more organized and puts more people in danger. I don’t know who the new Dormidor is going to be either…”

“Leaving is hard, staying is hard, life is hard, the world is hard, times are hard. Everything’s hard.”

“Such council is hard to come by…”

She smiled.

“I suppose you’ve dismissed the idea that the fight is worth fighting? That maybe someone, somewhere should stand back up to it all?”

You thought about that.

“It’s not how you taught me.”

“This is true…but you’re your own man now.”

“I need your advice.”

She puffed for a while, then smiled again. She gestured to the table and the cards upon it. Each one showed a Pine tree. She began to flip them over one by one, showing different trees on the other side of all five.

“You don’t want to leave anything to chance? There’s always the other option.”

“The other option…” Your eyes hardened in understanding.

She flipped the cards back over, this time instead of Pine, the back of each showed a Yew tree.

“Oh my boy…if you don’t want to leave anything to chance. Don’t.”

The sun was setting fast. The day overtaken by your labors. You needed to set the pèstal to moving, it took its fair share of time to make everything ready. You needed to speak with the family elders about your decision. But more than that, night would be here soon, and with it a lone Rabbit, and with it, a decision.


Make the Introductions

It made your blood hot how Batistou used Ponç, but maybe…maybe he was right in a way. Maybe it wasn’t your decision to stop people who wanted to fight from fighting. This wasn’t your Mila anymore, make the introductions and let them do what they would.

Deny Batistou

You can’t guarantee what the next Dormidor would do, or what Batistou would do if he didn’t get his foot in the door. All you could guarantee was one last sliver of protection to the people you’ve been with these last few years. You will not see them as partner to a man who cares for nothing but an endless, unwinnable war.

The Other Option

Don’t leave anything to chance. He’s alone, nobody knows he’s here other than Ponç, Pau, and Bernat, and none of them would say a word. If he stays he causes death and destruction whatever route he takes. Kill him. Kill him and be done with it.

>Make the Introductions

>Deny Batistou

>The Other Option

>>6149906

>The Other Option

Giving this guy and whoever is next a chance to make a mess of things? After all that trouble searching, making an example out of poor Bernat to making Ponc watch, and a deal from Zhij to keep the peace? I don't think so. Thanks aunty.

>>6149906
I have to praise this quest. Every decision feels like we're doing something serious, like something is at stake. Not only that, the setting is brilliant and the position of our character forces us to commit to our choices, be they good or bad. Can't wait to see where this quest goes.

>The Other Option
Leave it to no chance then. My only worry is that we will have problems with the Rabbits at Old Crow if they find out we killed Bautiste. After all, it was said there were plenty of them there. On the other hand, I get the Rabbits. We have luck Zhij is "fair", I can't imagine the opression other people suffer under worse rulers.

>>6149906
I'm not a fan of supporting the powers that be, but I'm not entirely sure what the tithe is for and frankly what is a corpse in payment compared to other goods. it doesn't seem like the tithe kills just takes the dead seems more like a cultural adjustment just needs to be made.

The rabbit seems dangerous though and didn't even bother learning their name and knew there would be retribution. So fuck this guy in particular I suppose.

>The Other Option

>>6149966
>>6149977
>>6150360
>The Other Option

>>6149977
Very kind, thank you for saying that. I'm very happy that you and the other couple of readers find some amount of interest and pleasure in exploring this story with me.

Unforeseen circumstances mean I won't have time to update tonight. We'll continue tomorrow evening. Thank you for bearing with me.

>The Other Option
I mean, he killed somebody... and our job was to bring the guy who killed the other guy to justice... so it just seems like we're doing our jobs.

Also, I suspected it was a Pentiment situation where none of the suspects were the real culprit. At least we got the accomplice, which is pretty close.

>>6149906
>The other option.

It is our job to protect the second class.
His job is to rabble rouse. And it is by the grace of whatever God we care to call that only one person died and another was traumatised instead pf a third unofficial.tithe.

Kill em.

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You jerked yourself upright, breathing heavy. You’d been sure you were falling from the top of some high place, the rush of wet wind in your eyes…but no. No, you were in the same chair at the same table, only now the sky had but a few streaks of light left in it. Your aunt was with you still, her hands moving over a new labor. The cards had gone and been replaced by a piece of paper, lines and letters incised upon it by a gray-feathered quill. An inkpot, cup of steaming liquid, and a candle kept her company. You blinked hard a few times, your vision expanding and collapsing as your eyes found what focus they could. A shuffle of feet on the ground cocked your head to your right.

Frederic shifted his weight between his right and left legs, hands not quite wringing but trying to keep from washing each other, opening and closing. You grunted, neck sore from falling asleep with your head between your shoulders. You did your best to soften your face for his benefit, remembering how easily cowed he’d been just two nights before. Had it really been only two days? You felt like abandoning the world to sleep again out of spite, but instead you took your tongue around your dry mouth and massaged your eyelids with a thumb and finger.

“Find your voice, Fredon. Does it flee from you when it gets dark or just when you have something important to say?” Your aunt’s voice drifted between you and the boy. “You had plenty to tell me about that girl before the Dormidor awoke.”

Even in the dim light you could make out the blush on Frederic’s cheeks. To the boy’s credit he gathered himself and raised his head high, though he looked slightly above you rather than at you, and gave you his message.

“Zina would like you to remind you to look at the bodies brought in from the Ring. They weren’t drained properly and the cold has helped but they…” He trailed off, still keeping his eyes in the air slightly above you.
“D-did you really do what they said? To the potter’s son?”

You don’t answer him, you don’t say anything at all. Your aunt’s voice was gentle, but tempered with finality.

“Goodbye, Fredon.”

He came to himself, making his sign and walking away as fast he could. You caught him looking back only the once. The quill stopped, the pause in the scratching made you aware of two things. First, that the area of the pèstal around you was uncommonly quiet and empty. Second, there was plenty of activity and commotion just beyond in every direction. The various hymns of work went on in shouts and the sounds of things moving. Wood and glass and rope being tied and angry instructions and laughing and the unmistakable giddiness of wine.

“I thought I’d tell the elders to make us ready and I thought I’d do it without waking you.”

She stood from her chair as well, though in her case it was more of an effort. You walked around the table and grabbed a forearm, she took her cane from her lap in the other hand and pushed up. As she stood, her dogs stood as well, each rising to their haunches at once in a mirror of the other. Silent. When she was secure, she patted your hand and took it off her arm.

“I need to see Sància about something. About more than one something. Mind yourself, boy and look at those bodies, you need something to work on. Don’t let your skill wither, we’ll talk more about it when we reach Vièlh Còrb.”

With that she took her steps away from you and toward Sància’s tent, her dogs following behind. You found your own feet moving without your say as you kept yourself in thought. About the pèstal, about Old Crow, about what would be expected of you there, about the journey, about Bernat, and about the Rabbit. What would you do? What should you do? You’d known men like Batistou before and they did not leave the womb wishing murder on every Inimois in the territory and out. Everyone had their reasons…

Your mind bowed under flashes of sudden memory. Young, too young, your hair very long and dirty. Rain and thunder struck their fist down on the moor but for a single center beyond their grasp. One hundred men and women, all dead except for you and your shivering, soaking, spindly body. Light erupted from the center of the hecatomb, a terrible light that speared the side of the evening and the blood of the River Radiant mixed with the rain down from the sky. The Ispariz sparked a flame of gold that burned and burned and burned despite the storm. Ten, twenty Sonziz passing their hands over the human corpses in gestures you did not recognize.

The memories were angular joints and chaos, the fear rode over it all leaving you with sparse and meager pictures. The Ispariz with his golden eyes, your aunt standing in the rain. She was younger then, gray stripes only lining her hair. She’d used a cane since she was young, but long ago it had been thin, and her back had still been straight. It was straight while she looked on from the distance. It was straight as the Ispariz tried to scream at her over the storm. The rest of the memories were black, great black dogs ripping through them all, black Gloam rising off their backs like steam, the screams of the Inimois changing timbre as their guts were strewn across the moor. Nothing they could do…nothing. Their spirits ripped from their remains by the same black jaws that gently bit through the ropes tying you down.

“Dormidor?”

There was someone in front of you. Ciprian the carpenter. Why had you wandered over to this part of the pèstal? You recognized Blais’ tent in front of you. Ah…

“Yes, We’re leaving as I’m sure you know, I want you to take someone with you and pull out everything you can from the River Church in the Mila. The Ispariz is leaving tonight and nobody will care to stop you. Any iron is a priority but fastenings, hinges, nails…all of it, well you know your trade I won’t tell you what’s useful. Just take a cart and see it done.”

Ciprian made his sign and set off, then turned to look at you.

“Are you sure you’re alright Dormidor?”

“Fine.” You even managed a small smile. At least, your mouth moved a little.

Ciprian went on his way and you entered Blais’ tent just in time to hear the sound of vomit hitting a copper bowl. He lay in his bed, tamped down by half a dozen blankets, twisted over the side as his son Ives held a cloth to his head, using its more stained and ragged partner to wipe the throw up from the edges of his father’s mouth. Blais heaved coarse, winded breaths over the pot before rolling onto his back once again. His eyes were closed, his mouth stayed open. Ives tried to move the cloth from his father’s forehead down to his throat but Blais pushed it away.

“We’re moving to a lattice for the swine pens, did you look at them?”
“Yeah…” Ives’ eyes and mouth were tight at the corners.

“And the frames for Romieg’s family tent need to be replaced. And remember how we marked the good pine, don’t use it, it's still curing.” A wet sound came out with each word he spoke, he closed his eyes. “Remember…use the…another year on the pine. Alright?”

“Yeah…” Ives put the cloth in his hand and cupped his father’s cheek, holding it there.

You announced yourself by clearing your throat. Blais opened his eyes, they fluttered before focusing on you. He sat himself up on the bed, holding his stomach and ignoring Ives’ attempts to keep him on his back. Blais waves his son away.

“Go on, go find…your brother, and help…get everything put up.”

After a moment’s pause, Ives walked next to you and whispered in your ear.

“Not long Dormidor, please.”

He took another look at his father and strode out of the tent. You strode in, over to Blai’s bedside and took the chair Ives had been using. His eyes were watery, they couldn’t hold your gaze, his breath stank. You took a cup of brown and green medicine from the stand next to him and began to hold it to his mouth.

“No not…that one, the, the water.”

You set the cup back down and found another. This one was empty, and you filled it with the pitcher of water on the carpeted ground beside the stand.

“You need your medicine, young man.” You held the cup to his lips. He took a pathetic sip, shaking his head after.

“Soup, nothing but…stringy soup. That and…water.” He closed his eyes again, chin shivering. “I stink. No medicine for that…kind of stink. Not good.”

You put your tongue to the roof of your mouth.

“No…it’s not good. But I’ve seen you like this before and you made it through.”

“Don’t let them…don’t let them take me, Marcel. Don’t…”

His breathing grew regular, his body worn out by the battle to speak. He was asleep, mercifully asleep. You stayed there by his bed for a few minutes. He wouldn’t make it. It was a month to Old Crow, a month of jostling, endless rolling and walking, no rest during the day and at night when it got cold nothing but temporary tents and wagons, and there was only so much warmth those could hold. No, he wouldn’t make it, but he might make it here. He might have another year or two, maybe even more if he could rest, uninterrupted.

Blais was the first you took into Service when you came out to the Milièrs and he’d been the one to rely on, the one to build on. How many problems had he solved, oftentimes with half the men and materials others might swear was needed. How many times had you been able to come to him and simply speak about what had been bothering you. He was much older than you, but he’d been a friend nonetheless., and now you were going to lose him.

It was night when you left his tent, the moon stretched its wings over the forest as you made your way to the wagon of corpses left at the edge of the pèstal. Someone had left a lantern by the wagon, either for you or for themselves you didn’t know but you lit it regardless and surveyed the dead.

It had been cold the past few days which had worked in your favor, but Zina was right, these hadn’t been prepared properly. Bloat had been avoided, more or less, by sewing shut the orifices, though you had forced the mouths open yourself two nights ago in anger. Drainage had been more or less properly attained but edema under the arms of more than one of the corpses made it clear that not all lymph had been extracted. Whoever delivered them was supposed to stretch and bend the limbs daily to prevent stiffness setting in and wash the skin daily with soap and lye to prevent rot from settling into the muscle as long as possible.


You pushed either side of a corpse’s jaw with your fingers and clicked your tongue. The ligaments were much softer than you would’ve liked which meant there was almost certainly an excess of rot. You ran your hand over a kneecap. Too loose, the tendons were on their way to liquefying. You bent the leg at the hip. Alright…not as smooth a motion as you’d have liked. Same with the shoulder.

Your eyes gleamed in the dark of the night, a trail of ochre smoke left your nose and the color shone in the face of one of the corpses. You made those movements no one could see with that part of you that was somewhere else. Your shadow fell under the skin, and the corpse rose. You stepped back to give it room as it edged off the wagon. It was…fine. It stumbled a bit as it tried to keep its balance. You walked it back and forth, its gait was failing, but serviceable. It picked up a rock, but couldn’t throw it, the shoulders too far gone to support a full circle. You walked it back to the wagon, and laid it down, the shine wiping out of its eyes and the smoke in your lungs emptying out into the air.

Not terrible, you could work with some of this, but it wasn’t exceptional either. You could keep the lot, choose one or two to make an effort with, or thresh them all and make a variety of different things. Any of these would put them to fine enough use if done properly. This far from the Ring, dead were hard to come by. You stare at one of the smaller corpses. The shadows from the lantern transfigure the silhouette, first a girl’s face from two days ago, then a boy’s face from this morning. You’d been out here a while, and the moon was almost at its height, it was time.

Travelling back to the center of the pèstal, you found it untouched by the commotion. It had all died down, people setting off to sleep and passed out from the inevitable drink that accompanied the anxiety of moving. Such was life in Service; here, then there, then somewhere else.

You walked into your tent, which was really two tents. One held your bed, your cupboard and trunks, shelves and a table with various fetishes and materials of your craft. Adjoining this private tent was a receiving tent of similar size, with a finely lacquered wooden chair for yourself and a few others for whoever you saw. You sat in your chair, running your fingers over the small full moon table next to it. He didn’t even have the courtesy to remember their names. Your fingers bumped into something, your mother’s smokebox. Not even their names. You rose from the chair and went outside. A few fires were still going, men gathered around them talking in low voices. You walked over to one of the fires.

“Fabi, Uc, Andriu.”

You walked back to your tent, the three men rising in silence to follow you. You said nothing as they entered, simply sat in your chair and opened the smokebox. Your pipe was there, but other than that your great-aunt had the run of it. She was more of an expert than yourself, and the high quality leaf she kept in the box made its various disappearances more than tolerable. You packed it, lit it, and waited.

Your eyes gleamed in the dark of the night, a trail of ochre smoke left your nose and the color shone in the face of one of the corpses. You made those movements no one could see with that part of you that was somewhere else. Your shadow fell under the skin, and the corpse rose. You stepped back to give it room as it edged off the wagon. It was…fine. It stumbled a bit as it tried to keep its balance. You walked it back and forth, its gait was failing, but serviceable. It picked up a rock, but couldn’t throw it, the shoulders too far gone to support a full circle. You walked it back to the wagon, and laid it down, the shine wiping out of its eyes and the smoke in your lungs emptying out into the air.

Not terrible, you could work with some of this, but it wasn’t exceptional either. You could keep the lot, choose one or two to make an effort with, or thresh them all and make a variety of different things. Any of these would put them to fine enough use if done properly. This far from the Ring, dead were hard to come by. You stare at one of the smaller corpses. The shadows from the lantern transfigure the silhouette, first a girl’s face from two days ago, then a boy’s face from this morning. You’d been out here a while, and the moon was almost at its height, it was time.

Travelling back to the center of the pèstal, you found it untouched by the commotion. It had all died down, people setting off to sleep and passed out from the inevitable drink that accompanied the anxiety of moving. Such was life in Service; here, then there, then somewhere else.

You walked into your tent, which was really two tents. One held your bed, your cupboard and trunks, shelves and a table with various fetishes and materials of your craft. Adjoining this private tent was a receiving tent of similar size, with a finely lacquered wooden chair for yourself and a few others for whoever you saw. You sat in your chair, running your fingers over the small full moon table next to it. He didn’t even have the courtesy to remember their names. Your fingers bumped into something, your mother’s smokebox. Not even their names. You rose from the chair and went outside. A few fires were still going, men gathered around them talking in low voices. You walked over to one of the fires.

“Fabi, Uc, Andriu.”

You walked back to your tent, the three men rising in silence to follow you. You said nothing as they entered, simply sat in your chair and opened the smokebox. Your pipe was there, but other than that your great-aunt had the run of it. She was more of an expert than yourself, and the high quality leaf she kept in the box made its various disappearances more than tolerable. You packed it, lit it, and waited.

A sheepish hand pushed aside the tent flap, tonight’s watchman.

“Dormidor, there’s a man…”

A sheepish hand pushed aside the tent flap, tonight’s watchman.

“Dormidor, there’s a man…”

You gave him a short nod before he said anything more and he left. A minute later, Batistou walked in, his step light and relaxed. His one eye lit on your two and he smiled. You gestured to the chair you had set across from you. He sat with a sigh, adjusting the sword on his belt so it went off to the side. He smiled again.

“Something about the dead of night…I find it invigorating! Will your friends not sit?”

The three remained standing. The ember in your pipe danced up through the leaves. You stared at it. Batistou looked around.

“I will be honest, I’d hoped for more. Three men are hardly the Cavalièrs del Nòu, but we are all beggars here and I’ll be the first to admit it.”

“They aren’t from the Mila.” You stare at the ember still.

“Well if there are another hundred men behind the tent wall who require a secret word then permetètz-me de lo parlar!”

His smile hadn’t left his face since he sat, but now it turned cold. He turned to look at Uc, his eye less friendly.

“Where are they?”

“They’re not here.”

The smile stayed, still. He turned to his other side, to Andriu, then back to you.

“Do you remember his name? The boy from this morning?”

There it went. Gone. His mouth a slash of neutral. Fabi had taken three small steps behind his chair without anyone in the room noticing.

“No, I don’t, because many people suffer in this war and it must be fought regardless. You have spent however many years in this Mila refusing to do anything! Do not sit there and try to teach me something about how to fight it!”

His mouth had completed its downturn, his eyes too. His hands were on his thighs but his fingers were restless, stretching.

“No…I wouldn’t try and do that. Everyone has his reasons.”

The anger in his eyes vanished, his mouth and cheeks relaxed into a wax mask. He blinked slowly, every muscle coiled. He tried not to look to his side but his neck moved slightly to the left and right, his shoulders moving lockstep with it. His tone drew back into a still beige. He spoke very carefully.

“Well, perhaps it's time I moved on. After all, there are many Milièrs and this new Ispariz might react badly to things…I certainly wouldn’t want to be responsible for anyone being caught by the Inimois. I couldn’t imagine how it would feel, to face your death like that.”

You finally put the pipe in your mouth and drew on it. You placed your hand on the table near you.

“On that, at least, I am in a position to teach you something.”

His hand raced for his sword. Uc and Andriu each rushed to grab an arm. He kicked a leg out to the side but they held fast. His head bashed into the chair. Fabi whipped a garotte around his neck in a single motion from behind. He ripped it back, pulling taut. You saw Batistou’s neck bulge out, obscene, ghoulish, the hard cord biting down, cracking the cartilage like dry clay. He jerked every limb he could in every direction available to him. Fabi pulled and the other two men followed him. They dragged Batistou up, out, and over the back of his chair, sprays of spit tinged red fountained from his mouth. They dragged him along the ground of the tent, his heels stamping, trying to find purchase in something, anything. They dragged him out back of the tent, out of the second entrance.

You sat in your chair, legs crossed, one hand resting on the table, the other holding your pipe to your mouth, and listened to him die outside. The gurgles became whines, then whistles, ever higher pitched as the structure of his throat collapsed under the force of Fabi’s pull. After three minutes there was no more sound, after five you came to your feet and walked out. His eyes had ballooned from the pressure, all but out of their sockets. A hideous welt of blood struck through right under his chin. Wet, red snot dribbled from his nose.

“Take the sword and the clothes. Leave everything else you find on my table, then bury him.”

You walked back into your tent, sat back down in your chair, put your pipe back up to your lips, and thought about what you were going to do tomorrow.

Choice One:The Dead

Keep Them For Labor They aren’t high quality, but corpses are hard to get this far from the Ring. They could do manual labor alright, and from what you’ve heard half of Old Crow was all but burned down. They might serve as a significant resource to rebuild.

Choose a Few to Work On Controlling simple corpses is the entry point to a Dormidor’s craft, but many processes, implantations, and adjustments can be made to make a corpse much more formidable in its chosen field. These are expensive, time consuming, and require great skill and resources, but are more than worth it. The greater part of resources would unfortunately need to come from the other corpses.

Thresh Them For Parts Many useful parts can be gotten from a dead human body, and you will definitely give over what you don’t use to the artisans. The focus here however, is on the various ointments, potions, unguents, inks, and powders a Dormidor can make from various aspects of a corpse. These hold special properties that are not only helpful in the everyday to members of a Mila, but due to their rarity can be sold and bartered quite easily.

>Keep Them For Labor

>Choose a Few to Work On

>Thresh Them For Parts
Choice Two:Blais

Take Blais He’s been with you since you came out, he’ll be with you at his end. He won’t survive this, but it’s what he wants. His sons will probably stay with you, which makes things much easier for you. A small corner of your mind still asks if you aren’t being selfish.

Leave Blais He’ll be furious, and there’s no guarantee he’ll pull out of this particularly bad spell he’s in, but he might. You owe him that at least, a chance to live a little longer. Of course his sons will stay with him, and you’ll have to find a new Elder to take his position once you get to Old Crow.

>Take Blais

>Leave Blais

>>6151129
>Thresh Them For Parts
Seems like the best one, really. Best stock up on all these materials!
>Take Blais
I don't think he wants 1-2 years of sickness and rotting away in the bed. Who are we to deny him?

Also, absolutely brutal smoking of Bautiste. He had no quarrel to send two young boys to torture, death or a possible tithe.

>>6151129
>Thresh Them For Parts
>Take Blais

>>6151129
>Thresh them
Come offering gifts, eh?

>Take him.
A celebration in his honour, as best we can spare.

>>6151129

I'm really enjoying the way this is written OP feels like you are doing an excellent job of show don't tell.


so what is the tithe then? we as Dormador get the bodies to what do what we please with? do we have to send some coreward? the Inimois don't appear to be necromancers themselves so it seems odd for them to enforce a corpse tithe that only Dormadors get to use when their benefit of it requires them to control the Dormadors. what are the powers the Inimois have. it appears to be something related to fire or light? perhaps they are strong against the dead and that's why they use necromancers as middlemen?

>choose a few to work on
seems like the better plan if they last longer? fewer more effective undead slaves seems to be the plan. not exactly sure what we want them to do, though I suppose any manual labor. I imagine Aunties dogs are these as well given their apparent very old age and effectiveness. having somthing like that would very useful.

>Take Blais
lets let him pick his place of burial and death. someplace nice near a lake. the more in the middle of nowhere it is the less likely they will ever get reanimated.

>>6151129
>Choose a Few to Work On
I want to see the peak and potential of his art. Maybe we can keep Mirelha as an occasional reminder of duty rather than turn her into parts. Her one word did end up getting us Bernat who we needed for the best outcome we could hope for. Maybe some day we could bury her after all.

Some kind of undead assistant/bodyguard/maid to show off his skill. It will probably be dangerous in Old Crow so she might be handy. Can he give her hidden weapons or some other tricks of surprising strength and speed. Can She have extra arms to General Grievous it out or would that be a tad too much etc.

>Take Blais
Its what he wants. Though if we do end threshing perhaps something could go to a medicine he will need.

>>6151129
>Keep Them For Labor
>Take Blais

>>6151235
>>6151262
>>6151271
>Thresh Them For Parts

>>6151300
>>6151348
>Choose a Few to Work On

>>6151486
>Keep Them For Labor

And every last person chose to take Blais with us.

Alright, Thanksgiving Break is over so the updates will have to be shorter in length for the next few weeks until Christmas Break. Sorry for the inconvenience, and thank you for any continued interest in our story.

>>6151300
Thank you for your compliments, they really do make my day. Your questions are all valid and interesting and I'm trying to get to the things I know are probably confusing people at a natural pace, but I plan on getting there.

>>6151348
>Maybe we can keep Mirelha as an occasional reminder of duty rather than turn her into parts

Mirèlha is gone by now. the dead taken by the Inimois are not the same dead in the corpse wagon. They came from somewhere else. I know there are a lot of bodies mentioned so far, I'll try and make things clearer.

>Can he give her hidden weapons or some other tricks of surprising strength and speed. Can She have extra arms to General Grievous it out or would that be a tad too much etc.

I'll answer this publicly in case anyone else had a similar thought. Everything you mentioned is possible with enough resources, time, and effort. Trick weapons, extra limbs, generally heightened strength, speed, and toughness, and many other things besides. I don't like to lore dump but as a small exception I'll just say that the only caveat is they have to all be made of human body parts or human tools. Inhuman things exist and can be controlled but only as Gifts from a Patrician and for a number of reasons very, very few people are willing to go down to the Nadir and ask.

>>6151571
>the updates will have to be shorter in length for the next few weeks until Christmas Break.
You're writing whole novels over here, so this is zero issue. If anything, I'd imagine shorter updates would make you less likely to flame out (every player's #1 priority). Thank you for the heads up, though.

>I know there are a lot of bodies mentioned so far, I'll try and make things clearer.
Not bodies per se, but I'd appreciate if there were some kind of cast list / who's who typed up at some point. Lots of names to keep track of.

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The chisel dug across the plain, steep quakes of pale, flabby country rippling underneath. The cliffs and depths twisted every way round, sometimes bunching in creased formation, sometimes some grisly vent disgorged sticky red fruits and left little lakes of jelly. This was rare, though, and most every tap found its way to buckle and chastise its terrain by the steady beat of him holding the hammer.

You raised your head from down level with the body, satisfied. The better part of an hour spent here with hammer and blunt chisel, pounding muscle beneath the skin, encouraging it to lose shape and form so it would be easier to extract, to manipulate, to work. The noise of the pèstal swirled around you, though you sat at the eye of the pitch and yaw. Last night had been the beginning, but today the greater share was being done. Frames broken down, chests sorted, wagons accounted for, tarpaulins, carpets, blankets, silverware, tables, toys, tools, clothing, and drapery all packed and organized in a format at least mildly recognizable in case of emergency. The food, the meat, the feed and livestock, the chickens, the leeks and onions, the carrots and beans and the great earthen jars of stock and soup and the butter and treacle and fat. Each family’s tent and their belongings, their money if they had it, their treasures and heirlooms and things that were worth nothing but for the memories engraved there on.

All of this and more saw men and women cross to and fro around and in front and to either side of your lone table and simple wooden bench, your throne in the wilderness. You’d given up your tent early to be put away, along with almost everything in it. You kept your tools and your table and the corpses and their wagon. Ludvina, two of her weavers, and the scrimshaw sat with you picking over parts of the bodies you’d determined unnecessary for your purposes. In the case of the scrimshaw he sliced whorls and dives in the bones of dead men in the dead language that could only be seen and never spoken. Not having fallen beneath the skin, not being a Dormidor or a dead man, the words ran out of his eyes with regularity. And with regularity you had to stop and write them again in the dirt where they turned black and blew away like ash. He was quite the talent however, and they held well in the femur he had chosen to etch. That one would only require you to cut yourself and trace his engravings with your own blood to finish the thing, then when snapped in half whoever held it would move without sound and eyes would fail to focus on their person for the hour.

Ludvina was occupied more by the mundane. The gray-blue oils she washed the dead corpse hair in had taken significant experimentation, but they restored enough luster to them that they could be set in a weave. Her girls had wrinkled, pruned hands that smelled sick of lavender from soaking the hair.

You caught yourself staring at the round-bottom flask at the end of the table. Success or not, it was almost time to tell. You gave your face a soft slap, your attention needed to be on the last corpse in front of you. The upper body had been flayed by saw, the consistency of the skin took to that better the longer it had been dead. Two incisions underneath the armpits where you had put burning hot stones to heat the lymph from its congealed state and drain it out properly. The muscle had all but relaxed to blubber under your ministrations and you had flensed half of it already. The heart and lungs had rotted out of this one, which was a serious disappointment, the liver too, but the stomach stayed intact. One of the hands had been removed and the hand and finger bones pounded by mallet into a mash currently in a tin cup heating over a fire.

Your hands reach to fondle a small vial in your belt with something small at the center that looked like a black fish egg. A Gift from The Tall Sister that Batistou had gotten hold of. A small thing…no, three cows, pigs, or goats born for every one over a season was no small thing, though it required the death of one to start. The implantation was fed to one of the livestock, which was then butchered and fed to the others, who then stayed healthy and fertile for the better part of a spring or summer.

It would be a very useful thing to have for a devastated Mila, though you wondered if you shouldn’t leave it with the new Dormidor coming to replace you instead.

It was always difficult coming to a new Mila, and something that could warm them to you immediately was pretty present indeed. You might make a friend…oh well, a decision for tomorrow.

It was a miracle indeed to uproot a pèstal in two and a half days, but Janou and his efficiencies were sometimes terrible to behold, though not as terrible as Sància’s calm and well-structured bullying as to why anyone who complained could easily do what was asked of them in the time it took them to drag their feet all the way to interrupt her reading. Tomorrow was the day there was no question.

You found yourself at peace for the first time since Zhij had called that second tithe, the rhythm and hum of familiar work, things that were in your control. You oft had cause to work with Ludvina, as the elder of the artisans she used the cast offs from your corpses to make many things, as did those she represented. Black sheep though she was, you loved working with her. She was quiet. She said little and when she spoke it was related to the cup of wine she was pouring and whether or not you’d like one. Zina…now Zina did not stop talking. She would talk about anything from the bodies you were both dissecting, to the benefits of bathing in ice cold water, to her favorite breeds of dog, and of course the infamous story of how she had once seen a man eat two whole chickens in the same evening. Two!

An acrid breach of air broke your thoughts. You spun off the bench and made for the fire in a reasonably stately manner. You took the heavy leather glove off its holder and moved the tin cup off the fire. You had accompanied the bone dust with animal scat, along with water and petals from the lis flower. It had mixed well and despite your mistiming did not look burnt. You took it over to the table and sat back down. One thing left to do. You breathed in and there was smoke in your lungs, the luminous ochre shedding colors like a snake. You bent down and pushed it out your nostrils in a fume, swirling in the cup, spiraling to the bottom and up to the top. It was the work of a moment, but when you looked down the bone meal was a different color, closer to the twilight. Blow this dust over the ground, speak a name, and it would settle into deep tracks pointing the way, mud or stone, rain or snow.

Satisfied, you tipped it into a pouch tied with umber string and set it with nine others at the far side of the table. The round-bottom flask you’d been waiting on had cleared to an iron gray. You sighed heavily. No surprise, but there had been some hope in your heart for that one. The only liver intact enough to use you had tried to fashion into a draught for Blais. You doubt it would have saved him, but it would have made him more comfortable. He couldn’t take more of Zina’s Man-de-Glòria, he just threw it up.

If the liver had failed then the only major organs that were usable were the stomachs. There were a few options with those, not all of them savory. The straight route was medicinal. Nothing as powerful as the liver or the heart, but with the lining taken out and properly treated, it could be used to sieve mundane liquid medicines, enhancing their potency. Another major use would be to cut the gut into strips and take them down beneath the skin. Done well, they were sought by luthiers of all sorts, for strings of a fiddle or guitar made from the guts of dead men brought out the talent of the player in wondrous and unnatural ways. The last option was…dangerous, in more ways than one.

Cut whole and intact out of the body, the stomach could be dried out by a Dormidor’s smoke over the course of many days. If luck persisted, salt of a strange color would collect inside as it withered, the Sal de Pintre. This salt, mixed with ash, could be rubbed into the ring around the bottom of the eyes. One who did so experienced the world in true beauty, eternal, lovely beyond any form of description, everything its greatest self. The problem of course, was that the effects were temporary. Few enough were able to avoid using it again, and then again, and again after that. The devastation and melancholy from going back to seeing the world as it was could be ugly indeed. The more it was used, the uglier it got. Eventual insanity was always at heel. In the Ring, it was not a rarity to see beggars wandering the street having ripped out their own eyes in an effort to avoid seeing mundane shapes and colors. They still traded for the salt with whatever they could, for the salt showed them its visions with eyes or without.

That was a rough road to tread, but it was far and away the highest and most consistent source of money. Not only that, Sal de Pintre was a delicate thing, and something Inimois had a habit of coveting. Food for thought…at the very least. You didn’t have enough intact stomachs to dabble in half-measures. You suppose you could follow each idea, but you’d have a negligible amount of everything instead of a significant amount of something. What was it to be…

Medicinal Uses

You were going to place half in ruins, this one is an easy decision. The stomach is not strong in healing craft, but it will do much better than nothing.

Strip the Gut

This use is a gamble. A Mila did not necessarily have its own luthier. Some did, but it was no guarantee. If you managed to find one however, he would pay through the nose for well-prepared gut string. It was somewhat prestigious as well, to have a skilled guitarist singing the praises of your work throughout the Milièrs.

The Sal de Pintre
More than a little dangerous, but effective and beautiful. Yes…quite beautiful. There were more uses to this one than met the eye. Utmost care would be required, but there never was a devotee of the salt that would refuse to pay for more.

>Medicinal Uses

>Strip the Gut

>The Sal de Pintre


>>6151585
I'll always give a heads up when possible, thanks for being understanding. Also a cast list is a good idea, I'll try and do it tomorrow.

>>6151687
>The Sal de Pintre

>>6151687
>Strip the Gut

The last one feels ethically squicky. I'd rather gamble.

>>6151687
>Medicinal Uses

You know who DOES have a fresh heart, liver and lungs right now? That dead rabbit the boys buried last night.

>>6151687
>Strip the Gut
Lets take our chances.

>>6151738
Intriguing...

>>6151698
>The Sal de Pintre

>>6151708
>>6151764
>Strip the Gut

>>6151738
>Medicinal Uses


Sorry everyone, had to stay late at work so I'll have to do this tomorrow. This won't be the norm.

>>6151687
>Strip the Gut

File: Gut String.jpg (94 KB, 797x790)

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Many concessions had been made in the last few days, and many more doubtless would be in those to come. But not this one. You would not stoop to abusing those under your charge, you would not “sow the salt” as they called it. Things were not desperate enough for that. As for using the stomachs medicinally, you had other things on hand for that, and you’d rather play to the strengths of the organ as your aunt had taught you. The most helpful thing you could think of, then, was to make gut strings and hold out hope for an aspiring musician with more money than skill, or a luthier with a deep purse.

You thought about it, and you were satisfied. This walked a fine enough middle road between sentiment and practicality. But the more you thought, the more your mind burrowed around and around Blais, the failed draught of his medicine, and an increasingly clear solution. Batistou’s corpse was all but still warm, sleeping under some secret place. You were…uncomfortable with threshing his body last night. Whatever he was, whatever the unpleasantness of his manner and activity, his ultimate goal was still to deliver your race from their wardens. Well, nothing as grandiose as all that, but at the very least he wanted to hurt them like they’d hurt you, like they’d hurt everyone. It had seemed ill-mannered to use him in the way you were thinking now.

So be it. Whatever echo of admiration sounded in the chambers of your heart were only vague. He had a fresh set of organs, and you would make use of them. You called Uc over to your work table and told him what the Rabbit’s true rest would be. The man made his sign and trudged off to whichever corner of the forest to bring him hence. Instructions dispatched, your hands fell to your major task. You cut the stomach out completely and went at it with the hard brush. The bristles were treated boar hair, coarse and unyielding, tuned to scraping. Every possible excess needed to be removed. Every trickle of fat and congealed blood and bile and all varieties of scum. You took care not to brush too hard, great care. The more usable surface the better. Your hands dipped again and again into the hot water bucket, sour, red, and white with gore.

Another was brought to you, another was soiled. A third was brought, and by this time you were satisfied. The stomach tissue was sleek and shining, an angry red from irritation. To the soft brush now, this one of kinked goat hair. Slow with this one, long motions like sanding wood. Your aunt had taught you to imagine petting a frightened dog. Two hours passed under the cold sun. Ludvina poured a cup of mulled wine and the scent set your nose to twitching. Only a few minutes later she came to the rescue with a second, quiet cup. You surveyed your work, satisfied, as you took the cup to your mouth, hands smelling of copper. An oval bladder lay before you, pristine, handsome, and uninterred, ready to meet the world. Alas, the world was not to be its destination. A small bucket of water with a single river rock would have to do. You submerged the stomach, put a heavy cloth over the bucket, and tied a rope around the top. That was it for now, three days of soaking, fresh water every day, and then the real work would start.

Dismayed as you were by the waiting, distraction proved close at hand. It was always mildly amusing to watch Sergi move through a crowd. He stood shoulders above anyone else with the slow, careful pace all big men adopted as children to avoid harming others their age. He waited for people to move, he took sure, even steps, he gently pushed aside anything in front of him. It was like seeing a boulder rolling downhill in slow motion. When he finally came within speaking distance you’d finished your cup of wine and spent to exhaustion every available expectation of what he had to say to you. He took in the corpse on your table with a wary eye.

“Last night…”

You nodded to him slowly. He waited. You waited. He cleared his throat loudly.

“Story for a story?”

“He was not a patient man, and could not be counted on to make wise decisions. Of any sort. Regarding anything.”

“A lot of Rabbits in the South…”

“He was alone, and even if he wasn’t I decided, and it was done, and that’s the story of him, and now you tell me yours.”

Sergi accepted a cup of mulled wine from Ludvina who gave you your second, and sat down on his heels. Even like that he was almost as tall as you sitting on the bench. He expelled a great deal of air from his nose. Annoyance began to show in your face.

“Sergi, laconic I can handle, mute, I cannot. You want to tell me something?” You put both palms out to the side, your tone terse. “What?”

“I might…know people. Down South.”

“So?”

“They won’t be happy…”

You took a steady sip of wine. The raisin was strong, like you preferred.

“Sergi, if there ever comes a time when I do not agree with how you conduct yourself I will tell you. Until then you may rest assured that as long as you are in my Service I will bind any past acquaintance, murderous or otherwise, to a pine tree and drown them in turpentine. Now, was that the story you had to tell me?”

His face did not change, but something in the air around him grew lighter.

“No…Dgibril found bodies.”

Dgibril was one of Sergi’s shepherds, usually sent ahead with his flock whenever you decided to leave somewhere. This served the dual purpose of relieving some pressure on the rest of the livestock’s grazing grounds, and scouting ahead for the pèstal. A shepherd and some goats raised far less alarm than silent huntsmen with knives and bows. You had sent him out in the direction of Old Crow on the day Zhij had told you he was leaving.

“Bodies?” Your voice was low, your face measured.

“Not human. Animals. Strung up by rope in the trees. Pools made in the earth…to catch their blood.”

“How many?” Your face was quizzical.

“Six. mouse, squirrel, badger, grouse, fox, deer.” Sergi listed them off on his fingers, one by one.

Your brow furrowed further. You knew something of those things. A ritual and sacrifice done in the old style. Some contained themselves to animals, some of them did not…no way to know who was doing it or why.

“Did Dgibril come back or did you send someone to him?”

“Came back.”

“He stays with the pèstal then. He’ll travel with us, not ahead.”

Sergi nodded, made his sign, then looked through and behind you to the other side of the table. You turned your head to see your aunt in looking at the table and the items upon, poking something here and there, muttering sentiments under her breath to nobody in particular. Her dogs sat in a triangle around her, staring at you and Sergi with blinking eyes, all three heads slowly turning to keep you in vision.

“Goodbye, Sergi.”

You and your aunt spoke in unison. She smiled at you as the big man made good his escape. You turned back around on the bench to face her over the remains of the corpse. She opened one of the bags of bone dust you’d fashioned and peered inside.

“Hmm…”

She closed it. That was as good as it got. If there was something to say she would not be shy, and if she had nothing to say, well…you’d learned long ago that not all compliments were spoken.

“What are you making there?” She prodded the bucket that held the stomach with her cane.

“Some gut string for a luthier, or some very thin,unreliable, and time consuming rope depending on our luck.”

She brightened at your words.

“My vote is you keep it and start playing again. I do miss it so.”

“Many in the pèstal play something or other.”

“Humility is a lazy thing, boy. You know you were the best.”

You shrugged. You had stopped years ago.

“I need to speak to you about something not unrelated…it’s time.”

“I’m not having this conversation again.”

“It appears you are, and it appears you have little choice in the matter, bereft as you are of tents to flee to.”

She raised herself as high as she could in a formal fashion and held her cane in front of her, her eyes on yours. Green to green.

“It’s time you took someone on. You are young for it, but there are limits to learning which may only be surpassed by teaching. You are at the point where I can no longer help you and where you may only truly better your understanding of the craft in one way.”

She wasn’t wrong, necessarily. You great-aunt’s advice was invaluable, but she no longer taught you things as she had when you were younger. Not really. You were also not that young to take someone on, you’d known Dormidor who did so younger than you, though it was rare. But though your aunt was right, you knew what she really wanted was a legacy, a sort of grandchild of her own. It was paired with genuine advice, but no small part of her concern stemmed from this fact. You had had this conversation with her several times.

You had not bothered to examine your own feelings about the matter anytime recently, but if she was going to press you again then apparently you needed to. The weight in your head was not concerned with teaching, leading, feeding, or clothing an adolescent boy or girl in a hard, terrible discipline for them to live a hard, terrible life. The weight in your head was concerned with the fact that you were about to walk into a dangerous, unstable situation where you knew nobody, had no allies, no lay of the land, and only a basic understanding of the situation. Protecting someone in that scenario would be difficult.

But maybe she wasn’t completely wrong. Maybe it would serve you well to have someone to share the load, even a tiny sliver of it. Over time, they might prove to be a person you could rely on. Your aunt was formidable, but she was an old woman, and you loved her too much to involve her in the truly dangerous decisions that were part and parcel of a Dormidor’s life. She had stepped away from that mantle years ago…


She would keep bringing it up until she got the answer she wanted, no doubt. But what would you say to her this time?

Take Someone On From the Pèstal

There are children here, some of the proper age, and they all have a much more complete idea of what it means to be a Dormidor than any other children from a Mila might. Uninterested as you were, you had not kept up with any possible talents, but your aunt no doubt had a list of names ready.

Take Someone On at Old Crow

You could promise her you would take someone on once you got to Old Crow. She would be pleased, and there would be a much wider selection of possible talents to choose from. There were downsides too…whoever it was would take to the craft badly at first. They always did. You wouldn’t know them at all, and though as per tradition their parents could not make this decision for them, it might still damage your standing with the Mila.

Refuse Her

You’ve refused her before and you’ll do it now. This is not the time to add another name to the list of those you need to protect. This is not the time to have your attention diverted by someone who can do nothing but be a liability for a long while. She will no doubt bring it up again but for now, it is out of the question.


>Take Someone On From the Pèstal

>Take Someone On at Old Crow

>Refuse Her

>>6152755
>Take Someone On at Old Crow
Can we keep some Pestal kids in the running, though? Might as well cast as wide of a net we can.

>>6152755
>>Take Someone On at Old Crow
Makes sense to me. We won't know anyone at Old Crow, but a young new apprentice might. Having someone who knows the people will probably come in handy at some point.

That said...What about TWO apprentices? A bit of healthy competition. Could always send them back with a few things to help them make the journey if it doesnt work out.

>Take Someone On From the Pèstal

>>6152755
>Take Someone On From the Pèstal

>>6152755
>>Take Someone On From the Pèstal

>>6152755
>Take Someone On From the Pèstal

>>6152766
>>6152797
>Take Someone On at Old Crow

>>6152797
>>6152871
>>6152978
>>6153097
>Take Someone On From the Pèstal

>>6152797
Interesting, in world that would be very rare if not unheard of, but I'll see about writing an out for that a little later on.

File: Knots.jpg (1.76 MB, 1920x2704)

1.76 MB JPG

She was right after all, damn her. She saw it in your eyes before you said the words.

“...Maybe I’ll think about it. In the future.”

Her face flashed in a brief conflagration of triumph. Only the barest instant before she settled back into sober and vague disinterest. She turned to go with her back straighter than it had been in years. Dignified little steps.
“You fool no one, and I made this decision because I wanted to.” You half-shouted after her.

Her head went up and she cackled into the tall trees around the pèstal as she walked away. You hoped it was due to the first thing you said and not the second. The sound of a sled ripping through the dirt brought your head round. Uc had two hands on a rope, his forearms straining as he pulled the low platform next to your table. The body you’d been working on lost pride of place to the grave-dusted Rabbit on the sled. You helped Uc switch their positions, and he trundled off to feed what poor scraps remained to the half-wild dogs that followed and at times lived in the pèstal.


His one eye was recessed and turning away from your face, back into his skull. His throat was a black ruin, purge fluid seeping out the mouth of it. You had been doing this since you were a boy and you no longer noticed the smell other than a brief acknowledgement of its presence. You had a fresh bucket of hot water brought to you, and began.

The blood, half for you and half for the book-binder’s inks. The lymph, to make a pan-digestive, to allow a man to live on pine needles and mud and live for a month, the skin, also for the book-binders, fat for the chandler, the soap maker, and the wheelwright to turn to grease, the tendons and ligaments to tie into knots and burn in a fire, the staccato crackles beat a drum to the Patricians, a drum to go beneath the skin in your dreams, then the muscles in all their shapes and cuts for movement and malleability, for the mind, the soul, and the body, then, finally, what you had come for. The brain…the one organ that had no purpose in death, but the heart, the kidneys, the stomach, the lungs, the bladder, and the liver.

All went in clay jars with diluted tars of cedar and cypress except the liver. The others could wait, but this is what you wanted. Pounded flat and separated into a mash, you put it in a pot over the fire with red wine. You downed a wash of snake venom and spit it back into the mixture, numbing the tongue and soft palette. After a short time to boil, it was carefully poured into the same round-bottom flask its stillborn cousin had been emptied from earlier. Now was just the wait.

As the flask clouded over with an uncertain vapor you thought back to when you had learned this. Your hands moved so naturally now but it was the whip of your aunt’s cane that had made it so. That and the proud way her eyes lit on fire when after a hundred failures she eventually had nothing to say. It had been hard, but you were glad and maybe you could do the same for someone else. Maybe you hadn’t spoken off-hand to her today, maybe…no not maybe, you did want to take someone on. As your aunt often said, life was hard, everything was hard, you couldn’t wait until the perfect moment because there was no perfect moment. It was time. You fell asleep in the cold air, head on the table, the fire at your back, waiting for the draught to finish, dreaming about a mysterious child, and of your own eyes on fire with pride someday.

You woke to bread and bacon. Cheese too, soft and white, delicious on the oft burned edges of the rolls. You woke to the flask settled in color. Not to a dull gray as before, but to strong silver. You smiled. You would need to wait until Blais was at his worst, but there was a chance of keeping him above the skin for a little while longer.

The rest of the pèstal were gathered around their own fires or crowded in packed wagons. Your table and implements were the only things left of the two year settlement. You took your breakfast slowly, chewing over the idea your aunt put in your head. If you were to take someone on, it was going to be from the pèstal, there were too many advantages to a child already knowing the life and what it brought. The concerns of the day at large had stolen your attention from many of those in your Service. First to go were the children. You didn’t know them, their temperaments, or their abilities, but your aunt would have a list ready, you were sure.

In a way this month of travel might be a blessing, some quiet time to look and see what might be made of your materials here. It was time to take someone on…and it was time to leave. No one had said anything of course, but your table and implements had been loaded after you sat for breakfast, and though everyone busied themselves with something or other, they all waited on you to sound the words. You did not relish spending the major hours of every day sitting in a wagon, the cold would conspire with the position to worm fingers into your bones. But you rose, you found Janou, and you told him.

“Let’s go.”

The Camargue bellowed what must have been obscenities as they were struck with sticks but one by one, starting with your own wagon, they pulled the wheels to moving, and you set off for Old Crow.

One thing buzzed in your mind as the pèstal rolled its way through the forest paths. The Gift. You still had it, taken from Batistou’s body. You could keep it of course, but you were also close enough to Dancing Deer to run it back to them. They’d give it to their new Dormidor and the Mila would be much improved this spring. You felt like you’d done so much for them, yet still doubted whether you’d done anything at all. Perhaps this sentiment was unbecoming, but the Mila was fast out of sight, and your guilty conscience threatened to stay within hailing distance the entire journey.

Give the Gift to Dancing Deer One last thing, this time truly the last. It wasn’t all altruism and assuagement. You knew some Dormidor, but you were on the younger side of things and so far had only sat at only one of the larger gatherings. It might pay and pay well to have another in your debt.

Keep the Gift for Old Crow The place you go to is in ruins, and this is not the time to be stingy with the essentials. Food and, more importantly, the morale that could ensue from a bumper livestock season is worth more than favors.

>Give the Gift to Dancing Deer

>Keep the Gift for Old Crow

>>6153191
>Keep the Gift for Old Crow

If we're going to be taking a kid from here, might as well come bearing gifts

>>6153191
>Keep the Gift for Old Crow

It would be good for getting Old Crow on our side at least. Or maybe it'll be good for Marcel's reputation if he can find a luthier, who can then sing about giving this gift too lol.

>>6153264
Looks like taking one from the Pestal won, not Old Crow. Unless the two apprentices idea does get brought up later.

>>6153191
>Keep the Gift for Old Crow

Taking Friday off, We'll continue tomorrow, hope everyone brings in the weekend with suitable excess.

>>6153191
>Keep the Gift for Old Crow

>>6153191
>Keep the Gift for Old Crow
They will need it way more

>>6153191
>>Keep the Gift for Old Crow

File: Forest at Last Light.jpg (314 KB, 1300x867)

314 KB JPG

Drip. Drip. Drip. The wind blew, all around, except here. Drip. Each was overloud. Drip. Filling the space entire.

“Solely to ward others from embarrassment, I’ll ask the stupid question. How did it get up there?”

Fali’s back was crescent-like as he looked upward. The bear was strung into a spread eagle, a rope to each limb, and each rope tied around a tree, ninety hands up, the height of five men. Branches creaked in the forest around it as the wind howled wide, but every time it threatened the circumference of the bear, it steered away, chastened. A long cut had made its passage through the belly, from throat to groin. The puddle of blood beneath it caught another drop, its homecoming sound slapped your ears, slapped your stomach where you kept the low-slung worry, the unsurety.

You had left Dancing Deer four days ago, and four days ago Sergi had told you of bodies. Animal bodies hung in the trees, a mouse, a squirrel, a badger, a grouse, a fox, a deer. You had hoped whoever this was would have gone another way, but you had found more. A wild goat, a snake, a kestrel, a wolf, and now a bear. This was a ritual in the old style, a layperson’s ritual. Twelve was Mother’s number and so twelve living things were to be killed, to cover oneself in death, to open the way.

A Dormidor had no need of such tricks, as they could go to the Nadir at will. The road was dark and deadly of course, but it was open to them at any time. Only one not of the craft would do this, but there were many reasons to go to the Nadir, some relatively benign, and such a ritual could be performed for any number of them. In time with the drip, drip, drip into the bloody mud, one fact kept falling through your head. The last of the twelve was always a human.

“Cap, adiu? I could start climbing but I must admit to you in confidence that I have a great fear of bears.”

“The bear is dead, Fali”

“Yes, yes…well I didn’t want to reveal this but I have an even greater fear of dead bears.”

“And if I said it was a man in an uncommonly convincing bear pelt could I suppose an even greater fear.”

“Alas…of an inconceivable margin, Dormidor”

He smiled, his teeth bright white and matching the brief rime on the afternoon ground. You could not help but smile back. It fell off your face quickly enough. The final days of Last Light were here. The cold baked the ground into shining faces, translucent, smiling. The world would become more dangerous. This was an inauspicious start. You turned from the small clearing and the bear above to look back at the smaller figure standing in the wind.

“Fali, bring your nephew.”

The hunter knit his brow together and waited an unusual half second before making his sign and picking his way through the dead brown leaves. A motion of his hand and a shout lost in the wind saw him return with a young man of about fourteen years behind.

Pey looked a great deal like his uncles. You hadn’t known Fabi and Fali’s sister and they did not talk about her. Well, Fabi did not talk about anything. You knew that she was dead and you knew it wasn’t by natural causes, the information obvious by the change that came over their eyes when she was mentioned. Murderous.

Pey shared their curly black hair, their lean, wiry shape. A little taller than his uncles, a little rounder of shoulder. He would blink rapidly sometimes while speaking, seemingly overwhelmed by his desire to converse. Pey didn’t have a trade yet, having only arrived last year, and spent his time helping weave baskets, driving the camarguaise, and tending to the sparse farming. He was also one of the adolescents your aunt had recommended.

He was old for it, already in puberty. Awkward and gangly, stubborn, distracted. You were on the older side of normal when you yourself started, and that was at eleven. Still, much could be forgiven with the right mind and the right temperament. You were in luck that Fali had been with him when he’d found the bear. Your hands were clasped behind your back as they came to you through the leaves. The forest floor had been all tinted sunset just a few days previous. Now the only color showed in drips, drips, drips from the high trees.

Pey was unsteady on his feet, not quite tripping but uncomfortable picking through the hidden roots and divots in the dirt. When he came to the clearing he kept his eyes on you. Not your face though, level with your chest. Fali stood behind him, trying to capture your attention with an arched eyebrow over his shoulder. You ignored him.

“Your uncle and I wondered how the bear managed to get so high up. Any thoughts?”

Pey kept his eyes straight ahead.

“Umm…someone put him up there?”

“That’s very high up to drag a bear, don’t you think?”

He drew inward. You could see the recoil, not physical, but emotional. He was shy.

“So…how did he get there?”

“That’s what I’m asking you.”

“I don’t know…”

“Guess.”

He slumped his shoulders, made to grab his own arm. His eyes cast down to your feet now, but a quick and subtle knuckle in his back from Fali brought them back up.

“Difficult to make a guess if you don’t look, isn’t it? Go ahead.” You swept your finger up to the bear.

Pey kept staring at your chest. Fali’s face was void of expression as he looked at you, but he took his nephew’s shoulder and forcibly turned it around and up. The drip was ever steady, some of the larger, heavier entrails hung like streams of festival paper out of its belly. Its neck was broken and flopped over in an unnatural fashion, something like drool came out of its mouth, somehow visible from this far below.

You kept your eyes on his face as he looked up. The boy shook, you watched his mouth fight to keep closed, wobbling into shapes and characters, his nose twitched. He drew breath to speak. His eyes looked at the bear, and looked away, looked, and looked away.

“Idontknowmaybemorethanoneperson-”

That was as far as he got before he threw up. He dropped to one knee and let it out, splashing into the pool of bear blood on the ground and scrabbling back as though burned. Drops and a smear of vomit streaked his heavy shirt as he made for safety from the red. After a moment he gathered himself, Fali pulled him to his feet, and he hurriedly made his sign to you without looking as he walked out of the clearing.

“That was cruel.” Fali’s face wore a rare frown.

“Yes…”

When it became clear you would say nothing else, he left you with the dead bear, and went to speak to his nephew. You looked at the throw up on the leaves, it wasn’t definitive, you had done worse and more when you had started, but Pey was older, and didn’t have as much time. You weren’t sure what your aunt saw in him specifically, she didn’t say, nor did she say what she saw in the rest of the children on her list. Usually there would be an awakening in some small way. By itself this meant little enough, a surprising amount of children experienced it, and you had heard that some could tell better than others who would have a talent for the craft bu-

“E-excuse me, Dormidor.”

You raised your head. Pey stood, looking at your chest.

“I’ve never seen that type of knot before so maybe it's good for heavy stuff. Maybe that’s how they got the bear in the tree.”

He all but ran off back to his uncle before you could respond. You looked up. Interesting. Around all four of the bear’s paws the rope was tied into a specific knot. How did you miss that? This knot was familiar and, unlike what Pey had thought, hadn’t been used for practical purposes. This knot was the sign of a Patrician. Those who had first sunk beneath the skin, the first humans to have died at the beginning of the world, though little enough humanity could be found in them these days. So much time amidst the Gloam had long, long ago made them into greater things. They were not insane…but they were not quite sane or conscious in a way anyone living could truly understand.

This knot was the sign of Aigi’s Beast, pledged to for a savage and dark ferocity, for black, rending hands, but also the unleashing of misfortune on the evil and promises of vengeance. By Mother’s Mercy you had never had occasion to visit Aigi’s Beast and Ask, and by the ash and the yew that would never change.

One last look at the lolling head of the brown bear, and one last sound of the drip hitting the pool. You walked out of the clearing and into the wind, past Fali and Pey, and back to the pèstal.

The line of wagons stretched out of sight, half a league was Janou’s last suggestion. As you emerged from the treeline to the dirt road you motioned forward with a hand. The word was passed, men and women leaning on their wagons or squatting alongside hurried to reclaim their seats. They gathered the children, checked the wheels and the shoes on the camarguaise, and readied their switches. All along the line, up and down the same movements played out. You marched up to the lead wagon and made another motion.

Romieg was your driver today, his goat flock watched in another two wagons by younger boys. He cracked the switch on a camargues back and jolted the wagon into motion. Thus the slow line went, one at a time, starting like sparks struck out a flint. Janou was writing in a book in the wagon behind you as the telltale jerk of the wagon caught his pen, turning what was no doubt a neat sum of figures into an illegible slash across the page. He turned his eyes up to the sky in unbridled fury, mouthing curses and maladies into the air. His poor driver…

The wagons weren’t steady enough to do much of your work, but you had the ability to at least check the progress of the gut strings. As you untied the rope binding the top-cloth to their bucket you were joined by an auburn-gray braid and a sandstone shawl. Sància must have been walking quickly to keep pace with your wagon, but she was the picture of grace as she held out her hand. You took it, and she put a foot on the hitch as you anchored her up with you. Her hawkish nose and blue-gray eyes were cool as they watched you move back to the gut string.

Last night’s fresh water seemed to have done it. They were soaked through and as clean as you could ask for, you took a pouch of campfire ash from the jostling shelf beside you and poured the contents in the bucket, then retied the cloth back on top. A day or two soaking in that and you could begin in earnest. You turned back to see the mild amusement peeking through Sància’s mask of poise.

“Are you ignoring me?” Her tone turned brittle when she was trying not to smile.

“I am focusing…on my responsibilities.” You moor the bucket in place at the corner of the wagon.

“It is unbecoming to be put below a piece of innard, if I may say so.”

“Such is life in Service. Though rest assured only the most particular and significant dismemberments could keep me from my favorite elder.”

“I’m sure your aunt will be thrilled to hear. Now I have brought mulled wine and cheese and will exchange it for one rendition of ‘Celina at the Orchard’. And a real effort only, Marcel.”

You held out your hand, she placed a wedge of cheese into it and set the bottle she held in her bag between the two of you. As she placed a cup in front of each of you, your thoughts returned to earlier.

“What do you think of Pey?”

Sància traced her collarbone with a finger, looking down the corner of her eye.

“He is an unsure boy. Unsure of everything he does. There’s some cleverness there, and passion drives him to great heights when it catches, but without it he doesn’t have the discipline. At least, I don’t think so.”

She poured wine into your cups, only halfway so as to not spill from the rolling of the wagon.

“He has an eye for detail. That is hard to teach. What about the others on the list?”

She took her cup in hand and drained it in a somehow dignified gulp.

“A la santat.”

“You’re supposed to say that before you drink.”

“And you’re supposed to be playing for me, Dormidor.”

You rub your hands together.

“What do you think of the other children?”

She pours herself another half-cup.

“You would know yourself if you ever came to see them, or spared a moment for them at all.”

“Everything I do is for all of us, including them, Sància.”

She shook her head, braid shaking, the large green and black beads clacking together.

“I don’t want to argue, I’m bitter about something else and I’m taking it out on you. Having said that, I stand by what I said. Spare a moment to come talk to them.”

She drained her second cup.

“Pey you know, the others are Jausèp, Blais’ youngest son, Raimonda, a weaver girl, and Ugueta, a book-binder’s girl.”

She paused and fixed her posture, straight and lovely like a Comte daffodil. You took the stillness to drink your own wine. Warm. Cloves and peppercorn. Cinnamon. The cold is banished to an outer place far from you and all you know. You’ve forgotten what it felt like already. It creeps back by degrees, nervous of your weapon. She pours you another.

“Your aunt has another name…Frederic. Ciprian’s son, you know? He’s old, a year older than Pey…but she insisted. I said this to her and I’ll say it to you Marcel, she isn’t infallible. She likes the boy and I believe that’s all there is to it. He is industrious, but unsuitable in most other ways. I thought I’d include him regardless…”

She made as though to press on when the wagon slowly began rolling to a stop. You both looked at each other and stepped down and out of the wagon.

Sergi stood a ways ahead, instructing various other men of the pèstal to an immediately apparent problem. The road you’d been travelling was on the narrower side and mostly dirt. More of a wide path than anything else. It served just fine, but in order to continue in its capacity as a road it required free space to be abundant upon it. This was no longer the case.

A glut of trees had fallen over, at least ten, rendering the way ahead impassable for a caravan the size of the pèstal. Sergi and some men had been sent a ways ahead to make sure there were no dangers on the road. They had clearly been stymied here, and were busy surveying the extent of the blockage and possible ways around it when you walked out to meet them.

“Got it handled.” Sergi rumbled by way of greeting. “Be on the way tomorrow”

Simple enough. This type of thing happened sometimes when the air grew cold. Sap froze, then burst, sometimes a great deal at once, sometimes at points in the tree that brought it down. It wasn’t that cold, really. But it wasn’t unheard of for it to happen this early in the year, just unusual. Though…that wasn’t what bothered you. What bothered you was that this was the road to the southeast and you were only a day out from Jealous Cat. What bothered you was that you could feel something further on from that direction. Feel it, hear it, smell it. Something of the Gloam. Something that stretched all the way to Jealous Cat, five leagues away. You could smell something heft its mien, testing its grip, onyx muscles stretching out in front of black-lacquered eyes. A spine slowly unfurling, you could smell something far away past the blocked road. In a place with a thousand souls reaching their hands to each other's shoulders.

The men of the pèstal walked past you, axes in hand, wheeling to formations on the trees by Sergi’s deep-throated instruction. Stop. The thought flew through your mind, in and out each ear. Something in you wanted to stop them. What else was there? You were expected in Old Crow in a timely manner but there was more than one way to get there. This road was the quickest, but there were two other reliable roads. You’d have to double back a day or two, and it would take longer overall. Even so, the smell of the sky down the southeast road made your nose drop black blood. Drip. Drip. Drip.

Choice One: The Way


North

Double back and go North, then east past the hills to the other southeastern road. This way is the longest and the least populated, at least until you pass the hills. Small Mouse is on this road…a Mila served by Emili, a Dormidor and one of the few friends you have out in the Milièrs. From your letters you know Emili is in a state of almost warfare with his hard and uncaring Ispariz. Who knows what you might be drawn into…

Southwest

Your path will have to cut down to the moors for this, then almost out of the territory as you go around the southern mountains. Then back in, going northeast to Old Crow. Last Light is almost over and if you don’t make it out of the moors by First Dark you will have to brave the storms. Strange and terrible things that reek of the Gloam. That is only an if, however.

Straight Through

There is no time to waste and the other routes are too long and dangerous. Have Sergi break up the trees and continue on. You will need to spend the night at the blockage, there isn’t enough sun left, but you’ll face whatever it is you sense head on.

Choice Two:The Instrument

Your aunt’s education included some refinements, including a particular instrument you’ve grown quite adept at over the years.. You’ve fallen out of the habit in the past year or two but making these strings for your eventual luthier has made you think of picking it back up. What is it?

The Guitar

If there was a traditional instrument for a Dormidor, this would be it. Well suited to wear and travel and able to reproduce most any sound. So jealous are the Inimois of this human invention they’ve started building smaller, more ‘refined’ versions for their own mansions and gatherings. Predictably, their repertoire is stale, lifeless, and lacking flavor.

The Violin

A choice more suited to Comte and the Ring. Lo Comte Corbeyran himself is the foremost talent on the violin, though this of course endears it to no one. Haunting, gorgeous, and elegant, it is nevertheless incapable of the range of the guitar and though it can be played by pluck does not excel therein. A fine choice, if hard to keep up well during travel.

The Harp

A smaller, more portable version of the great harps that grace the alcoves of the Aieganz’s mansions. An Inimois instrument through and through, travel is murderous on the fine strings, but the sound is a beautiful one, and is capable of a surprising range of expression and texture. All Inimois of a certain age play the harp somewhat, and you happen to know that Zhij himself is quite the fine player, though you haven’t had the courage to offer a duet just yet.


Choice One

>North

>Southwest

>Straight Through

Choice Two

>The Guitar

>The Violin

>The Harp

>>6154214
Hmmm I'm tempted between southwest and straight through. Meeting this strange onxy deathcat or whatever it is, and meeting a Patrician.

>The Guitar
Guitar seems like the way to go.

>>6154214
>Straight Through
It may be dangerous, but going the long way around may be even worse, as it'll bleed us dry...
>The Harp
Duet with Zhijj? Naturally.

>>6154214
>Guitar, Straight through.
>Be on extra guard tonight.

>>6154214
>Southwest

>The Violin

>>6154381
>>6154547
Looks like Straight Through but

>>6154355
The ball is in your court my friend. If you don't get around to the thread by tomorrow afternoon I'll write Straight Through but the vote is still technically open.

>>6154708
I go ahead and say Straight Through my good man.

Straight Through it is then.

>Straight Through
>The Violin

A lot of work yesterday and today, sorry I didn't get around to keeping everyone informed. I'll have to wait until tomorrow to update, unfortunately. Thank you all for bearing with me here.

We do now have a tie between Guitar and Violin so if there's another person who want's to break the tie feel free.

>>6155689
I'll pick Guitar.

For anyone still with me this is going to continue. I'm a teacher so this time of year is the busiest by far and etc, etc.

This is the last week before break where things will calm down significantly but regardless I've got an update written that I'll put out tomorrow.

I'll reiterate that if I ever decide not to run this quest anymore I'll announce it here instead of just leaving.

>>6158854
You do you man, we can wait.

>>6158854
Righto no problem

>>6158854
Thanks for the heads up OP. Good luck with the rest of work.